The State of Emerald

This was a known fact BEFORE Watterson and Matherson merged, basically you are complaining for something we already knew was gonna happen, and you guys were even OK with it, why complain now? for the sake of complaining?

While there will always be balance changes needed, the overall balance is quite close currently. So most of the "tidal" changes needed are a change in attitude of Emerald's TR/NC players, who are just completely failing.

Most continents I join are 33/33/33% population, so that's usually not an issue.

If we pretend it is an issue and that the OP's "15% less population" example is accurate, then that still means VS don't have more than 50% pop, which means that if the TR/NC stopped being terrible and fought the VS, they would enjoy pop advantage over the VS. In case you need to see the math:

• If VS had 45% global pop (I never see this during mid-day or primetime), the other factions might have 27.5% each. (VS have 17.5% more pop than them, individually.)
• If NC/TR fought only the VS, that's 55% pop the VS have to fight with only 45% pop.
• If the VS split evenly then TR/NC would consistently see a 55 vs. 45 pop advantage at individual bases.

Basically, a 3-faction system self-balances but only if players aren't terrible cowards. Unless the VS literally have 50%+ pop, they can easily be beaten.

It is not self balancing, it is self snowballing, people flow to the path of least resistance...

Hypothetically lets say in some fantasy world TR and NC command make a pact to only attack VS..
Then AOD would still attack an empty lane on the NC, and PHX will still attack an empty lane on the TR.

Both command will be forced to pull troops off the VS front, to counter the 96+ guys pushing an empty lanes.
And the VS will push both Command armies back as they will no longer have the man power.

When you have such a large chunk of your faction that outright refuses, or worse yet works against command, you are humped.

If you are running a half squad and spamming /orders, you aren't in "command" of anything. You are just annoying everyone. The mature outfits have other ways to communicate.

And if you are in command of a platoon, and all you do is put out a platoon waypoint, you are not commanding anything either...
You are just wasting troops that would be better off not in your outfit..
So they could learn to do more than watch a timer count down while they stare at a spawn room.

You wouldn't know what I do.

"Hypothetically, let's say the TR/NC don't play bad. Except that in this hypothetical situation they're still playing bad." Thanks for that, that was helpful!

The fact stands that if TR/NC played smarter they could literally prevent VS from ever winning an alert or maintaining high territory. But instead, they play bad and get absolutely mauled by the VS.

Actually, there is this site that tells me exactly what you do..
http://stats.dasanfall.com/ps2/player/Pirbi

For those without accounts there, here is a quick sample...


My work here is done, onto the next thread.

Stats show how you SL or PL? Platoon leading actually tends to hurt stats plus dealing with trolls limits the number of people willing to do it. It's far easier to be a lone wolf and complain about what everyone else is doing.

I like that stat site though. BR125 on that char.

You can justify anything with that mind set. Brb while I make an alt character to team kill on.

I'm not cheating or anything wrong I'm "infiltrating the enemy".

382 rarely has more than 25 members online anymore. We usually have small platoons, at least when I play in the evenings. We're nowhere near as big as AOD.

Then tell your outfit owner to clean up his outfit, because right now he is almost 3500 members??
Same goes for AOD..

I know that like 9,000 of these 10,500 people are no longer playing, clean it up please, it makes TR on emerald look really bad..

It should be cleaned up, I agree. I browsed through some of the members and a lot have not been on in 6 months or more. A member cap would be cool with more strict rules about what it takes to continue to be a member.

Last night was one of the best most fun nights I've had in awhile, we had two small squads, 8 or so each and all the fights were less than 24v24 and it was great. I have so much more fun when it actually takes some brainpower and tactics rather than zerg-fighting everywhere. The smaller fights are way better.

Gave this a thumbs up.
I play on Miller but also see too much of this sort of thing.
It realy confuses me as to how these people have any fun, being gifted wins on a silver plate is no fun for me. Guess im a part of the small minority 'too few to do anything on a server-size scale'.

Don't let them get you down, I was shadow playing with 382 a few days,
quite impressive, went through the enemy like crap through a goose.
DOA? I don't how they manage to lose with 3 to 1 advantage over and over again, quite impressive all in itself I guess.
(just kidding AOD, we love ya, we all have bad days)

That is called metagaming, "any strategy, action or method used in a game which transcends a prescribed ruleset, uses external factors to affect the game, or goes beyond the supposed limits or environment set by the game". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metagaming

Don't you always here people on the forums talkin about how there isn't enough metagame in this??
You should get right on that. Don't forget to dual box..
(this entire post is sarcasm, I don't normally tell when I sarcasm, but I don't want any of your panties getting in a bunch..)

They should have a 12hr cool down the prevents people from faction hopping.

The main advantage the VS has going for it; it has more organized outfits and command and control.
The NC is just a scatterbasket, outside of a half dozen small outfits, there's no structure or organization.
The TR has some organized outfits, but not to a large enough effect to change battle flow.

The VS, generally speaking, are just more efficient and care more about taking territory. But with that said, you can zerg with numbers all you want, but on a defence, if you're taking out the enemy's support structure the number of infantry they have will not matter because you can respawn faster. Through many, many, many battles, just myself and a couple other people have literally dropped the weight that put zergs to a halt. It's not that we're super skilled players; we're casual players; we'd get shot to pieces encountering some of PS2's best. But what we are good at is working together as a team and taking out their support structures. Destroying Sunderers, Galaxies, and every other spawn mechanic from outside the zerg's attention of the base. Sometimes, I feel like I kill more vehicles than people these days; and sometimes it feels like a pointless endeavour because we're watching KD cowards from the spawn room hiding behind shields constantly. Protip: You're playing a video game, you won't really die if you actually try to kill the enemy.

The problem with people who allow zergs to roll over them is that they're allowing the zerg to exist in the first place. It isn't a game mechanic problem, it's a player squad mechanic problem. Did a Zerg take your point? Ignore the point, fall back, grab a few tanks, start engaging the support vehicles. Send an infiltrator to the previous enemy territory, have a squad flank them with Lightnings; you'll take out a good portion of the zerg before they know what hit them.

You honestly can't blame a zerg for rolling over you with superior population when everyone just sits in the spawn room hoping to get a kill until the last 30 seconds; and that's when they finally decide to do a MAX crash from spawn room to point. That's inept leadership at its finest. You want to MAX crash properly? You do it from the next base over, you load up Sunderers or Galaxies with MAXes and drop them on their support structures... take those out first, then you wipe up the infantry last; and you do it from the moment they capture the point, not at the last 30 seconds when the base is already long lost.

Numbers matter little, tactics do, and that's why groups like DA and AC are so much better than most other outfits; they're good players using good tactics. (and no, I'm not a member or associated with either, but I've played against them and along side them, and I know when I encounter either group I'm in for a good battle and not a mindless zergsmash).

I play VS, but I would like to point out that every faction has its fair share of smug self-obsessed jerks. Just like every faction has diehard patriots who only play that faction and limit themselves to one third of the entire game. Personally, I intend to play all three factions, I just started with VS for arbitrary lasers. Also, every faction says the other factions weapons are OP. I know this is true for VS, NC, and TR. All factions complain about it in chat. I will judge whether they are all actually op when I play through the other two factions.
Sincerely,
- One of the intelligent individuals of the Emerald VS

This thread is full of fun.