[Suggestion] You want a fix to population imbalance? Here it is, but it's unpopular:

Consider the following.

A player, new to the game or to the server, is attempting to create a character on Connery to play for the New Conglomerate. The player sees the following message:

"Hello J0hnD0e, the faction you are attempting to join is full! The Terran Republic is also full. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please create a character for the Vanu Sovereignty, attempt to create a character for the New Conglomerate when that faction is no longer full, or switch to a different server. Thanks for considering the New Conglomerate! Have a nice day."

Of course there would be all sorts of nay-saying on this idea, but unless there are population caps applied to the faction over-all, players will always have the choice of maintaining imbalance in their favor.

It's called "forced control" and is the highest degree of control in any situation. It's seen every day in the application of electrical appliances. Why are electrical plugs designed the way they are? So that you are forced to use it in the way it is designed. Some things in life are best suited to be under a forced control. Population in Planetside 2 is one of these things.

Imagine if, for however long necessary, all players of a server joined one faction and only that one faction just to prove this point? How long would it take before SOE developers say, "This is out of hand. If we don't force players to be on the other side, there will be no game at all!"

Forced control of population needs to be regulated based on number of players enlisted to that faction with a recent play time no later than a month ago. If you created before then, and you come back, then fine; welcome back! But anything more recent and you get regulated or you quit.

Population will be forced into an even state, which will *without a doubt* create the playing environment the majority of players truly desire, even if they don't think so now.

Would only work if they deleted inactive toon's or else you have dead weight unbalancing the numbers

would cause players to quit the game / stymie new players coming since they can't hop on and join their friends because of this limitation. This will never happen.

The better alternative is incentives for joining the outnumbered sides. New players should be getting offers. As in a message popping up saying "The Terran Republic needs reinforcements on XXXXX server, and if offering you a kit of bonus weapons if you come to their aid".

That way people can still join to play with their friends. But randoms looking to join any faction will be swayed over by the promise of free stuff.

- Make a TR alt

- Never use him

- Minus 1 TR

- SCORE!

Or, you know, add dynamic population caps. SOE just needs to use the queue system already in place and add a system that offers over populated empires incentives to go to a less populated continent.

*No empire is allowed to grow over 5% of the other 2 empires. People trying to join an over-popped cont will be placed in queue.

*Empires that become over populated because another faction's population bails is offered incentives to leave for a less populated continent. For example- XP, complete resource recharge, vehicle timer reset and/or certs.

*If people refuse to leave a cont and the problem gets worse "lone wolf" players are moved automatically. (These players would be given the deal above)

*If problem persists small squads are moved.

*If all conts are full a server queue starts until all 3 factions reach the 5% above or below limit.

On servers where Esamir and Amerish are very quiet, those continents would be completely ruined by this idea.

It's unpopular because it's a terrible idea for many reasons.

How?

there are a couple of ideas on how to fix this that would probably work. I don't think its a bad idea but I also think SOE could try to provide more incentives for joining the lowest pop faction before they go down this route which is more or less a final solution type of deal. I would even put server mergers before this idea I'm sorry to say.

So John can't play with his friends? I don't think so.

Not a good idea. For one reason, what if said player wanted to play with friends on that server and that faction. Another reason is by doing this you will ultimately force players to change servers, and if the other servers in that region are also full the player will have to join a server in another region. Which will contribute to player possibly having high fps. And we already have enough problems with fps in this game.

Population imbalances are an inevitability in a large-scale, 24/7 persistent, multi-map, multi-factility game like PS2. Even if you did manage to keep server pops even, different populations play at different times of the day. So what are you going to do? Force different pop caps at different times? So I can't create/play a TR character at 5pm when the Terrans have higher pops, but hey, if it's 3AM, go ahead? At any given time players also play on different conts, and they fight at different facilities. Should these pops also be capped, and to hell with multi-cont or multi-facility strategies/metagame?

There's way more to pop imbalances than just the total number of characters created and played in the last month, and forcing server pops in this manner will do nothing to curb the imbalanced fights that the OP seems to be trying to eliminate. PS2 is not some instanced CTF game with laboratory conditions that keep strict controls in place in order to keep things "balanced," like match start/stop times, balanced terrain features on each side of the map, and yes, even pops. Nor should it be.

The PS2 experience is an organic, ever-changing, freeform battle that seeks to capture the flow and chaos of large-scale warfare, and pop imbalances are a big part of that.

The only thing that should be done IMO is to include actual useful population incentives beyond a tiny XP bonus, that give the illusion of more even pops, but still keeps the choice of which empire to fight for in the players hands. Things like reduced spawn and vehicle timers, reduced resource cost for consumbale, reduced capture times, etc. All of these will give an advantage in the overall fight to the underpopped empire without affecting individual combat during the actual exchange of fire.

Love that idea, no sense discouraging choices in a game when encouraging something can have a more positive effect. Merges would still help greatly though looking at the western servers putting genudine with Connery would mean bolstering an already strong NC population. A merge with event benefits to rolling for the VS would be good all around.

Old VS players would get new blood
TR/NC would get a more viable third faction competition
New VS players would get a leg up in game playing for a faction that is initially short on pop.

If I had recieved such a message I wouldn't be playing PS2. I signed up as the faction and server I did because my friends playing PS2 were all on that faction and that server.

Now, maybe if you were to combine it with an invite system which ignored the "full" popultions, or replaced it with an incentive system to "suggest" people pick something else then I'd be fine, but a straight lock-out is not going to work.

We don't want to burden new players with any restrictions. What if their friend finally convinced them to join, only to find out they couldn't play with their friend because the faction on that server was full? No, new players should not be inconvenienced - we need the best gameplay possible to convince them to keep playing the game. (This is also why you should not incentivize new players to go to low population servers.... if a new player rolls on genudine, you've lost him)

There is a kind of person that wants to control everything. I hate these people.

I would be thrilled if we moved them all to the same faction so I can bbq them and drink their tears.

bah, Ive always wondered why the 4th empire isn't used to balance out populations. I.E. let people move their character freely between servers, while offering a greater xp bonus to lower pops with the xp bonus updating hourly (only for people already in, those who are just getting on get the going rate)
Also it doesnt feel like empire allegiance means much right now Id love to see a single main and a temp alt account to try out being another empire as well as the ability to buy empire transfer tokens. The important one is the top idea though.

The OP's suggestion would choke new players from playing at all.
A better idea for resolving balance issues (which is very very hard to solve) can be this;
Overpopulated empire based on continent gets
- Greater armor/air resource costs by %
- Higher vehicle timers by %
- Higher infantry spawn timers based on %
- Negative EXP bonus (such as -5%)

Underpopulated empire based on continent gets
+ Smaller resource costs based on %
+ Shorter timer on armor by %
+ Shorter infantry respawn timers by %

Again these are just ideas as there is no punishment for joining an overpopulated empire, and very little reward for joining the underdogs. I think the greater resource and timer costs are a more realistic idea since, well, supply and demand gets quite limited. Your popular empire will have to ration their tanks

Not gonna happen. SOE isn't going to pay people to stop being jerks. You would have to offer people a LOT. The promise of E-Z kills and the feeling of victory is a hard emotion to bargain with. Oddly the people who fight only in these 70% to 20% battles actually think they EARNED their victory. Their skill swayed them to victory. Thats why you see so many people of people posting screenshots about how X faction capped X cont and the first thing people notice is the winning side had 70% pop.

I also have a theory this is why people actually voice out against balancing pops. They either play at their empire's most populated time and/or roll with a huge 1-2k+ member zerg outfit. Pop balancing would mean no more E-Z wins and zerg outfits would be held is strict check. People like the feeling of victory even if the victory was freely given.