What can SOE do to help fix population balance issues?

Almost every server I've looked at has some massive population imbalance. This isn't a short term effect either. For example Waterson the VS population hasn't been about 28% in over a month from my monitoring. Often the population floats between 20 and 22 and lately it has been diving down into the teens very frequently.

This isn't empire specific but more a general problem that on any given server one empire starts suffering from population loss and the problem slowly spirals out of control. I know for myself I play MUCH less these days and I'm thinking about cancelling my 2 accounts because it is no fun playing where you are constantly out numbered at about 4:1.

XP bonuses are supposed to help but honestly 15% more xp is a bit pointless at this point when it becomes near impossible to keep a reasonable kill rate going.

Please discuss general, non empire specific, methods that might help address the population imbalances.

Free vehicles w/no cooldowns if you have <20% continent population.

From what i see on Miller the VS have most of the total population lately. Can't comment on other servers since i only play there.

XP boost to underpopulated factions on the map. That's all they can really do to up numbers without taking away peoples' freedom of faction choice.

This is not an easy problem to fix. Offering free character transfers to the lower pop factions on the server where all cert purchases would carry over to the new faction's equivalent equipment would probably entice a few people to switch, but it wouldn't have a large enough impact to truly fix the problem.

****** as it is, the best most effective move would be to lock out character creation for over-pop factions on each given server. It'd cause a LOT of heartache and QQing, but I can't see any other way to do it.

The players can do something about.

Well actually we can't put a solution to a problem which we actually don't know why it happens .. so i would either ask to the players , why not joining VS ? What makes it the worst population base of the game ? what is so unattractive in that faction and then when we know what players don't like about vanu , we can actually see a solution.

I Joined VS in PS2 because i played VS in PS1 since its release in 2003, i joined them because i do think in my real life that technology will bring humanity to a higher level ( if correctly used of course) and because i love Alien like weapons and lasers, beam and energy weapons ( hell we all do or at least anyone who actually like Starwars and/or Startrek)

But i have to say that TR colors and style is more appealing and NC idea of fighting for freedom is appealing more the people since it is a more common goal for us real life humains then having some alien non-sense ideology ?

I'd say it's how we are either introduced or just how we look actually ,nobodies like to be called either Barnies or Purple Spandex dudes !

In PS2 , they introduced VS as the only way to get enlightment , the hell with that , where is my Technology equals might ?
Enlightment won't smash a Vanguard to the ground , Hell my Lancer will ! Sorry had my crazy moments right there.

TLDR:

Population can't be fixed if we don't know what's broking it

its not 15% but 50% BTW, and if you have membership or boost (or both), that adds up really quick

i have boost + the 50% + defense bonus 20% = 120% with membership it would be 170%

--------------
with that said , i think the main issue is making people LEAVE and not just come to servers and maps... i know its not popular idea, but i think the only solution is a population PENALTY , if there is a 15% difference between factions there should be a -10% XP penalty and penalty growing with bigger imbalance to up to -50%, under 15% = no penalty ... the only challenge is to figure out how to do this with 3 factions... with that also keep the current bonus

BTW the idea do not have to be popular, it just has to work, screw the crying community, and just solve the issue SOE !

I would say from experience of gaming and running game servers for countless years that the players are the issue.
Doesn't matter what game you play you will always get certain types low life scum switching to the team that is doing better at the time just to be on a winning side.
What is happening is that each server at some point has had a faction that has done well and the flock of scum have stayed with it instead of helping out the faction that needs it most.
The reality is that there are a lot of players that are low life scum and they don't care about balance or wanting a challenge it is all about the win.

I personally think you should only be allowed to have one character per server and be done with it.

I got a suggestion: Stop giving VS totally useless weapons and NC cool funny to use kickass weapons... (of VS 1/3 as many use Lancer as uses the other ESRL wonder why?) All VS use the AV-turret instead beacause glancer suck so bad... Genius response to this is! "Lets give VS Glancers for MAX to but since Glancer suck so bad that nobody use them lets give NC dual mobile AV turrets this time VS cant even use NS-empire weapons to make up for the total suckage...) GG

The Lancer is good now. It was trash when it was launched. All I could ask for is infinite charge-hold time and certable scopes.

I agree that giving the VS MAX lancers was a poor choice.

Make a "random faction" option when creating a character, with a slight bias to the underpopulated faction.

I wouldn't go as far as saying these people are "scum" but this is pretty common in most online games. The hundreds of "my faction is UP" threads would have you believe otherwise, but most gamers don't even look on forums. Most of the players in PS2 probably don't even know that they are "UP". They can see ingame that they are outnumbered and appear to be losing everywhere they go.

Say you just got home from work/school and login after a long day. Do you want to be farmed everywhere you go or do you want to be in the dominating zerg?

Offer one-time, permanent faction switch to more dedicated (>20lvl) players with re-certification and some 2000 bonus certs being the reward. Oh, and don't forget the "traitor" decal.

I made a post about this yesterday. Mt idea? Damage modifiers based on pop.

Funnily enough I seem to be one of the few that likes a challenge. I am TR regardless of what happens, on Woodman I seem to be an endangered species but I am ok with that.
I would also rather not play than compound the issue any further by joining the "winning" side.

30% vs 38% tr 32% nc right now, the tr pop will go up and the vs pop will go down at prime time.

Dont give me no **** about "the Glancer owns used by 10 ppl in groups" Dont wanna hear it, even from the few retar ded VS that uses it... heres why: Glancers big "instahit" = when you charged full charge with Glancer my first AV turret missile already hit the target and the second is enroute so when the first glancer hits an enemy heavy tank in the front doing 20% damage my AV turret already got it at 40% health... then Glancer charges again 3s, when it fires getting the tank to 60% (after about 7 seconds) my AV turret already killed the tank... (then Glancer needs a 5+3+3s reload and another 5+3 second to finish said tank off) in that time i easily killed 2 tanks and almost finished my 3d with AV turret... (and i got UNLIMITED ammo +cover +can 1 shotkill infantery) so if you ever use a glancer you are a total ******...

I wasn't saying it's a good thing. Just an observation from too many years of playing online games.

I do mess around with all the factions for a change in playstyle, but 95% of the time I'll play the same character regardless of how we're doing. Personally, I like being outnumbered more than being in some dominating zerg. Rather have more targets than feeling like I'm ghostcapping because there aren't enough enemies to even fight back.

Stop giving one facton all the OP toys and ******** on the other two?

Just off the top of my head here...