Going to try to be as terse as possible to get to the point, but it would be nice if we got some dev feedback on the issue: This isn't about 4th factioners, this is simply the population distributions not being uniform at different times in the day. Why is having uneven populations a problem? It trivializes alerts, WDS and other events that rely on roughly equal numbers. Since those events reward according to binary objectives and not contribution through killing, repairing, etc., you get nothing for trying to win them as the underdog. Trying to win as the overpopulated faction can be extremely boring, even if it does yield adequate xp/rewards per alert/WDS. It makes gameplay boring for both the faction(s) in excess and the underpopulated faction(s). In the case of being in the excess population, it means that you simply have nobody to shoot at and have to rely on standing around, doing nothing to get any sort of reward. In the case of the underdog, it means you essentially shoot people out of a spawn room, or gun down a few as an infiltrator. It is objective-less game-play that feels futile in an alert. Those are just the two obvious issues that are in my opinion the most relevant in the general case. It might seem impossible to solve without imposing additional restrictions, but without allowing conditional caps on populations you will inevitably, at some point in the day run into at least one of the above issues. It also means that the game is more reliant on servers being filled to at least medium capacity, which as we've all seen has led to many a server being merged. Not to mention that over the course of a day there will be times where this is just an unavoidable part of the gameplay, so that people who play at odd hours are at odds. So how could you go about solving this? Impose a cap on populations for continents so that at no point in time the population of a particular faction can exceed that of the others by some % without there being a queue for that faction. Reduce the resource generation available to the population in excess. Further incentivize undepopulated play. I'm not going to pretend like those are the only possible/correct solutions, but I think something ought to be done, since this is the last hurdle that this game has yet to make since its release.
You reach population balance. Your XP bonus is now 0%. Something is wrong here. The boosts don't incentivize balance, they "compensate" underpopulation (you still lose the game). Promoting balance would be more along the lines of joining a faction and getting a +50% boost for a good week on this character. Or just flat out giving a boost to EVERYONE provided the pop is fairly balanced Maybe the real solution can be found in the 4th faction itself.
I'd prefer the cap on populations for continents but I can already imagine the complaints for people trying to play their main characters yet can't get into a continent with their Outfit.
The need to make the fourth faction WANT to play on the under populated side. So the population just balance out
Imposing continent pop caps based on the underpopped faction would just kill the game in about a day. One faction deciding to have a sit at home and eat ice cream day would mean hundreds of other players locked from playing together. The resource thing actually is happening (slowly and not in first phase of resource change). And agreed on the better incentive of playing underpop, but that's a hard one to swing, people who are losing want to be winning, not getting an extra back pat for losing (woo I can make %50 more xp from a kill, and all it took was dying 3x as much). I think the easiest, and potentially least destructive short term solution would be underpopped factions (by more than 5%) should have extra access to vehicles. Shorter timers and less resources required to field force multipliers. Everybody who likes vehicles and their relatively much better survival rates to infantry loves having better uptime in them.
No. No artificial limitations. Use teamwork, Use coordination, Use your brain. This is my opinion and Cobalt VS has allways been the underdog, NC has +7-10% on us during primetime. Still it would ruin the idea of the game to impose artificial boundaries to population numbers. It is much more enjoyable and satisfying when you hold your ground as the underdog. Having bonus XP modifier is just fine for the underpopped, it is By nature something to cheer you up and not to punish you just because you happen to be in a faction with more people. How about giving a special title to the properly underpopped factions based on the server situation , "Spartan" , "Unyielding" or "Unrelenting" ? Hell why not a special decal for people who have endured such situation for 6 months for example ? Not like it would cost alot for SOE to do but it would still be something nice. Give the underpopped guys abit of recognition for being the unwavering hard guys they are. SOE community reps get on it !
Again you completely miss the point. I am talking about degenerate situations throughout the course of the day when it's 70:20:10, or other distributions where the above conditions hold.
In terms of something like WDS it's not something you can fix entirely , but it is something SOE can try to not reward as much .. IE: If X faction has 50% or more Continent pop then the WDS points gain on that cont are cut by half ..
