Waterson 4th faction absurdity

So i log on and see an alert for Amerish and decide to head on over. This is at 10:25 on a Saturday, there needs to be some sort of timer on switching empire back in play or a lockout when an alert starts.

My reaction to the 4th Faction.

world pop/ pop of other continents? It's not uncommon for vs and nc to not even try to compete in alerts. I'm not going to say that Waterson doesn't have a 4th faction problem, it certainly does, but this wouldn't be the first time that NC and VS didn't even try. Only showing the pop of one continent doesn't tell the whole story either.

There was a player-run event on Waterson Esamir that JUST ended. Many outfits competed and Esamir was nearly even. Some areas got like 800 people in them alone.
Here it is: https://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/event-waterson-siberian-showdown.148454/
NOT Denying any fourth faction problem. Just giving an alternative explanation.

The problem with the game is also it's biggest challenge - faction balance. There needs to be some buff given to those factions who are not represented well on a map at any given time. Factions that are well represented above a certain variance need to lose any bonus and buffs they get for completing things like alerts if their numbers are so skewed that they had no real chance of losing. What is the point in rewarding a faction that is almost guaranteed to win based on just pure numbers.

They need to put in a buff to factions that have lower representation on the map until such time as they draw closer across the board and then lose that buff so that the battles are based on tactics and skill, and not on just pure zerg numbers. Right now the only option is to play a character on the dominate faction, which on waterson is TR, and just not have anyone play the other factions. I don't mind a challenge but when you typically see TR at 45/5% and NC or Van at 25/30% (rarely those to at the same time as NC or Van usually drop lower) then why bother, you will just get rolled by the pure numbers.

Need to find some way to even it out so that perhaps the faction with the lowest representation get's an extra health / damage / speed buff to atleast give them a chance as mentioned above. Otherwise your going to end up having servers that have only 1 faction...

Either that, or merge all the servers together and have a "Virtual Server" for alerts for the factions so that factions from all servers hit this virtual server (similar to the VR) to do the alerts which would balance out the teams a bit. Also I don't think alerts should be constrained to one map...have factions have to spread out their forces to capture alert objectives across 3 maps per alert, that way it's harder to zerg just one map.

If there is a fourth faction problem on Waterson, I haven't noticed it. Just be glad you don't play on Mattherson.

If you're VS and want to overpop, go to Mattherson; TR to Waterson; NC are probably hosed...maybe try Connery?

there is a bit. After the Waterson event TR had 40% world pop and highest pop on all continents.

Wow, exaggerate much?

There is a 4th faction problem on Waterson, often seen about an hour into alerts, for the benefit of the TR. With that said, populations have been pretty even lately. VS is still the underdog, but not by great amounts. And we've even seen NC eek out the dominant position by a percent or two within the past week or so.

All in all, it's a minor problem.

They need to put a Faction timer like you have on you Vehicles ! Make it so when you start a game, you cant change factions for 2 hours. Maybe change servers and play diff faction whenever. But not change faction on same server for at least 2 maybe more hours. Or maybe just make so you cant change factions during a alert !!

From an alert on Thursday.

Shut it, NC/VS. You guys end up fourth factioning just as much. The TR just end up winning more alerts.

Yeah, has nothing to do that 9/10 TR is out populating and then normally NC and then Vanu in last. Great job on catching a abnormal occurence. Get this at like 2-3am? lol.

Keep thinking it's just being "good" and has nothing to do with the 2-4x amount of people.

Actually that is a smaller % gap than normal on the map that the alert is primarily on, when it's a single map alert.

Yes some kind of buff to counter balance the population differences would be nice (would have to be per region not just map so that if it were 12v12 for example in a certain area nobody would have a buff but 12v48 in another the 12 could have a buff). With this type of MMOFPS the numbers will be fluctuating at all times, not just alerts.

Something needs to be done to "even the score" instead of just watching zergs happen over and over again and just losing to the masses over skill.

we dont go to ravenholm amerish anymore

Actually he was ******** about how TR dominates and that they are the only faction people want to play in general, not just alerts. Fourth faction is not just a TR problem, and population unbalance is not just a Waterson issue.

The complete incompetence of the NC leadership on Waterson is as much to blame about people not wanting to play their faction.

I named one of my MAX loadouts Ravenholm.

I was on that alert and when it ended in Eli the Terrans moaned about the terrible NC overpop. I guess their medicine tastes awful even to them.

Oh I agree. It just tends to be TR on Waterson primarily that has the higher population and jumping is all. I just had told my friend actually that I'm sure on other servers it may be Vanu or NC that is the problem. Why trying to balance populations or "fix" other factions won't work. We need some type of buff or something across the board for population differences.