Start fixing the faction imbalance on Ilum now instead of waiting 6 months

[Urghert]

I enjoy PvP. I enjoy world PvP. I play Sith currently. I know, having done World PvP in many games, that playing as the faction with a huge population advantage is 1) great because you almost always win 2) boring and terrible because you watch your 20 buddies tear into 2 poor roaming souls.

 

There has to be a ±10% different in populations for these things to be fun. 9 guys can take on 10. 25 guys can take on 28. Even 50 guys can take on 55 or 60. 4 guys can't take on 14 though.

 

The way I see it, there are two solutions, and you need both for this to work.

 

1) Ilum has to reward players with better than average rewards. No one is going to come out if there arent purples somewhere down the line. Make sure and reward players effectively for World PvP. Worldwide buffs 8 hour buffs, purple loot, pets, speeders etc... Make it worth everyone's while.

 

2) There REALLY needs to be a system to encourage faction balance!!! This should take place in two forms:

 

a) use the instance based system to control populations per instance of Ilum. i.e. max 40 on 40.

 

b) This critical incentivize playing the underpopulated faction. What if a server is 6:1 Empire to Republic? Its going to be no fun for either group. Now what if the underpopulated group got a scaling exp bonus to the underpopulated side. Bioware benefits because you get people reinterested in a new character which means re-ups. Players benefit because they see the other story, and they balance the ranks.

 

Wouldn't you be more inclined to reroll a Republic character if you knew you were getting a 25 or even 40% exp bonus to do it? You get to see the whole class quest, hit level 50 and you only spend 40 hours doing it! And it benefits everyone!!

 

TLDR:

 

Ilum won't be fun or successful until populations are reasonable. Incentivize both showing up to Ilum, and playing underpopulated classes. Reward players with multiple kinds of loot, buffs and fun.

[Aghar]

Every game that has given an underpopulated side some form of xp buff, to fix the balance, failed miserably at fixing the balance. Balance issues are not in the hands of bioware, they are in the hands of the playerbase, and well it seems most of the player base wants to be empire. Not much bioware can do about it.

[dexvx]

b) This critical incentivize playing the underpopulated faction. What if a server is 6:1 Empire to Republic? Its going to be no fun for either group. Now what if the underpopulated group got a scaling exp bonus to the underpopulated side. Bioware benefits because you get people reinterested in a new character which means re-ups. Players benefit because they see the other story, and they balance the ranks.

 

Wouldn't you be more inclined to reroll a Republic character if you knew you were getting a 25 or even 40% exp bonus to do it? You get to see the whole class quest, hit level 50 and you only spend 40 hours doing it! And it benefits everyone!!

 

You're right about faction imbalance.

 

However, you're totally wrong about the incentives. Who cares about how much time you spent leveling? That time is a pittance compared to the time you actually spend at 50. If you want to make incentives, you need to make incentives that count at end-game.

 

Give all republic players on imbalanced servers double valor / warzone and mercenary commendation gains until the ratio is about 3:2. That will get people to hop over ASAP.

Edited January 17, 2012 by dexvx

[Darth_Nox]

There not being any republic guys on ilum really doesn't have anything to do with rewards.

 

How do you address population imbalance?

[dexvx]

There not being any republic guys on ilum really doesn't have anything to do with rewards.

 

How do you address population imbalance?

 

You create incentives for people to roll/reroll Republic and STAY there. You have to ask yourselves, as Empire people, what would it take for you and your friends to reroll Republic? For a minority of RP'ers, they would never go Republic. For the majority of players, if you create PvP and PvE strong enough (even if it is temporary - like 2 to 3 months), they will start switching over.

 

The flaw with the OP's incentive was that increased exp gain doesn't create incentive for people to stay Republic nor does it do anything to help end-game.

[Urghert]

Dexvx provides a pretty good point actually

 

How do you get people to move?

 

How do you get people to stay?

 

You have to do both things: You have incentivize players to leave their faction (with xp gains, bonuses to getting back to 50 quickly, increased rewards once you get there) and incentivize players to stay (rewards for winning, etc...)

 

Players need a reason to leave their faction and their character and leveling time is an issue for a substantial portion of the player base - so make it easier to level

 

Players need a reason to show up to Ilum - so provide exclusive rewards

 

Players need a reason to be enticed to Ilum as the underpopulated faction and continue to fight there - I think adding increased rewards at 50 to the underpopulated factions is a good idea

 

The point here is that you can't band-aid a fix on 6 months from now. There won't be anything left to fix. Real issues exist already, and unless BW makes an effort to fix them, they will be bragging about how great their World PvP is in their F2P Star Wars MMO a year from now.

Edited January 17, 2012 by Urghert

[Vauleen]

Bring in Warhammer's AAO system and than add some real meaning to the open worldd PVP. Then watch world PVP flourish.

[Yogurt]

They should of added a race people would of wanted to select on the Rebel side. Seems races help population issues. Believe it or not Blood Elves helped WoW draw women and children to the Horde side on some servers. Should of made Wookies playable.

 

Also, for going light side you should receive a character graphic as well. I dunno what to do about population. I play on Vulkar Highway and imps out number the rebels 3 to 1 if not more. Illum is even worst. I am lucky to see 3 to 8 people out there with me some days. The Imperials have 28+ out there constantly.

[Zatanic]

IF you instance Illum tp 40v40 it wont be open world pvp you know? Then its just another WZ.

[Auxili]

Agreed. There are discussions going on (the two in my sig are good examples) about how this is going to result in the republic side dying down and rerolling the side that can take part in pve, trading, and new content (The Empire).

[Sotomatic]

Why not just make a quest line that allows players to defect.

[jHats]

You're right about faction imbalance.

 

However, you're totally wrong about the incentives. Who cares about how much time you spent leveling? That time is a pittance compared to the time you actually spend at 50. If you want to make incentives, you need to make incentives that count at end-game.

 

Give all republic players on imbalanced servers double valor / warzone and mercenary commendation gains until the ratio is about 3:2. That will get people to hop over ASAP.

 

Negative. They dont need bonus valor / mercenary coms. What would happen when they hopped over and stuff balanced? Take it away? Then people would just go back to their first toon and still have the 50 alt.

 

What they need to do is allow the imbalanced side to have companions. Sure, they arent real players, but it would at least give people a fighting chance on the imbalanced side.

[jHats]

Why not just make a quest line that allows players to defect.

 

No. No. No. No. No.

[catchdeathwalker]

You're right about faction imbalance.

 

However, you're totally wrong about the incentives. Who cares about how much time you spent leveling? That time is a pittance compared to the time you actually spend at 50. If you want to make incentives, you need to make incentives that count at end-game.

 

Give all republic players on imbalanced servers double valor / warzone and mercenary commendation gains until the ratio is about 3:2. That will get people to hop over ASAP.

 

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! I can't stop laughing. I really hope you were joking about this. It's called, DEALING WITH IT.

 

So when the server becomes balanced, all those Republic players now have the upper hand? Is that what you are trying to get at? Think before making requests like that.

[Darth_Nox]

unless you mean incentivize one side and not the other, you'll still have the same population imbalance.

 

For some reason, most people are Empire.

 

This is going to lead to a few things :

 

1) Republic players getting crushed in open world pvp

2) Zerg tactics from empire players

3) The few republic players who remain will become more skilled than the average empire player, because they'll see more action and have more difficult circumstances

 

Seen it before.

 

If you really want challenging pvp, go republic. eventually this will evolve into something interesting. we don't need someone to change the rules, we just as players need to step up to the challenge.

[Auxili]

unless you mean incentivize one side and not the other, you'll still have the same population imbalance.

 

For some reason, most people are Empire.

 

This is going to lead to a few things :

 

1) Republic players getting crushed in open world pvp

2) Zerg tactics from empire players

3) The few republic players who remain will become more skilled than the average empire player, because they'll see more action and have more difficult circumstances

 

Seen it before.

 

If you really want challenging pvp, go republic. eventually this will evolve into something interesting. we don't need someone to change the rules, we just as players need to step up to the challenge.

 

And what about the piss-poor republic economy on those servers? What about finding groups to do heroics on planets, or flashpoints during non-peak hours? 50 players in the fleet isn't an MMO, that's a smaller population than Phantasy Star Online and Phantasy Star Universe hubs had.

[DizzD]

IF you instance Illum tp 40v40 it wont be open world pvp you know? Then its just another WZ.

 

At least it would be populated.

[revial]

They could just tell their art department to stop making Jedi look like they shop at the local Goodwill, and that'd help a lot more in balancing the factions. This is just one of many aesthetic examples that I believe have initially driven people to not play Republic.

 

Anyone who doesn't think aesthetics is a big factor in why so many people play Empire needs to get their heads examined.

 

For all the derision that Blood Elves get in WoW, it worked. So many people forget that Horde were initially heavily underplayed in the first two years of the elephant in the room's lifespan.

 

I am slowly leveling all the classes, and I just want to /facepalm at how my Republic characters look, outside of the Trooper. Yes, there is a subset of the population that are extreme lore nerds that would rather sell their mothers to the Russian mob than give up their poop-colored robes, but most players who play MMOs are driven by the 'Barbie Doll' effect, and there's absolutely nothing alluring for the greater majority who couldn't care less about lore, and only knows they don't want to wear a poop-colored robe for thousands of hours.

 

The mod system was supposed to be a poor man's substitute for an appearance tab, but it's not even that. It's completely meaningless at level 50, since purple gear has inherent stats, making the insinuated idea that you could choose your look and swap your mods a bald faced lie.

 

Now, give us an appearance tab so those who don't fall into the lore-nerd minority don't have to look like a hobo at level 50, and you might see more people playing Republic as mains, and not just alts you play during your off-hours.

 

Offering overt rewards simply doesn't work. You get someone to re-roll, but what happens when you manage to 'fix' the population balance and remove them? Is that person going to stay Republic when he's also already got an Empire character or two? The underlying reason for people wanting to go Empire wasn't resolved in any way. It's just a band-aid.

 

I can sit here and offer my general ideas of why everyone wants to play Empire and only a select few want to play Republic, but I have to assume Bioware has at least one competent analyst who can figure this out far more empirically than any of us can, considering the sheer amount of data they must have at their fingertips.

 

Find the underlying issues, and resolve them. Then watch the population slowly even out. It took Blizzard two years, but you figure they probably were working on it for at least a year, so let's say it took them a year to figure out when they first started out. You have the benefit of hindsight, so let's hope it doesn't take a year for you to identify the main reasons everyone plays Empire and no one plays Republic. Also, be careful not to buy into hype when looking at your numbers, as total characters between factions does not equal actual number of characters/character hours played between factions. I mean, I technically have four Empire/four Republic, so I'd make it look like the two factions are even, but I probably play my Republic characters 2-3 times a week, if that.

 

The point being, don't fall into the trap of believing your stats you trumpet in your press releases, because they insinuate that there isn't much faction population difference, and while I'm sure the stats you are reporting aren't a lie, as any college freshman in their 100 level stats class can parrot, it's very easy to misrepresent data. I can guarantee the faction balance on my own server isn't even remotely as close as the numbers you released concerning Jedi Knights and Sith Warriors that make it seem like the factions are relatively closely played. Number of characters created simply can't be the metric you're using to determine faction balance.

Edited January 17, 2012 by revial

[dexvx]

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHA! I can't stop laughing. I really hope you were joking about this. It's called, DEALING WITH IT.

 

So when the server becomes balanced, all those Republic players now have the upper hand? Is that what you are trying to get at? Think before making requests like that.

 

Why don't you think before commenting? I said give that bonus until the Republic is only outnumbered about 3:2. Then take the bonus away. I'm Empire side and if it wasn't for my friends, I'd be Republic side. It will take a LOT of incentives to make us reroll and stay Republic.

 

The problem with all the whiny Empire folks claiming to fix faction imbalance is that they try to make band-aid solutions for the Republic to try and convince the other Empire guys to reroll instead of thinking "I'm a reasonable person; what kind of incentives would it take for my friends and I to reroll?"

 

Now lets think of the possibilities:

1) Make Republic "cooler". Everyone says that. No one has any concrete ideas of what to do. Will Wookies solve the problem (no wait, PANDAS!)? What does it take to make Jedi "cool"? Revamping the storyline or adding new races isn't a fix that'll take less than a few months.

2) Increased EXP for Republic side. Yea cool. I can level to 50 faster... and then what? If you want a cohesive guild to stick around you have to make incentives go into end-game.

3) Currently there are 2 viable end-games: (eg the stuff we do at 50 besides running around in a circle at Fleet) Operations and PvP. Operations are not a real issue due to them being entirely face-rollable (at normal and hard settings). The real issue is PvP and the need to create incentives for Warzones.

 

But then again you're probably an ADD Modern Warfare playing kiddie who thinks you're so b4d455 for killing opponents 10v1, so you'd never understand this. Like it or not, if BioWare doesn't fix the faction imbalance, the game will die. Republic players will quit (or reroll Empire), leaving the whole other faction vacant. On the Empire side, we'll just be bored to death and quit.

 

So let me ask you this:

As outrageous as double (or even +50%) valor/commendations seem, does it make you stop and think... ***? I'm going reroll and get my friends to reroll because it's stupid OP. If it does, then undoubtedly, that's the solution.

Edited January 17, 2012 by dexvx

[Auxili]

But then again you're probably an ADD Modern Warfare playing kiddie who thinks you're so b4d455 for killing opponents 10v1, so you'd never understand this. Like it or not, if BioWare doesn't fix the faction imbalance, the game will die. Republic players will quit (or reroll Empire), leaving the whole other faction vacant. On the Empire side, we'll just be bored to death and quit.

 

The republic will literally be forced to reroll or quit, as even now the economy/GTN is incredibly sparse on high-pop pvp and rp-pvp servers compared to the Empire economy/GTN.

and it IS a huge deal, as you said. We've been speaking about this a ton on the general forum (thread in my sig) and it's clear how universally agreed upon this issue is.

 

Bioware doesn't seem to agree or give a crap, though. I wouldn't say this, but they keep convincing me with how much pro-Empire updates they are releasing. They continually ignore republic bugs, and I just cannot ignore it.

[Rafaelan]

So the answer to fixing Open World PvP population imbalance is to instance it and cap it?

 

Really?

 

So just make it like the other 3 PvP warzones? that isn't the answer.

 

They need to make the rewards worth fighting for....

 

- unique faction only Flashpoint that opens up for a limited time ONLY for the faction that wins that has unique rewards in it (Ilum? Crystals?)

- unique vendors that are available to the winning faction for that limited time only

- a faction wide buff for the time period that the faction has control of the area, again this could be something like a temporary buff to credits gained? xp gain, temporary endurance buff? etc etc

- temporary\honorary titles rewarded to those who participated in the event (until the next event starts up again)

- The faction that does win\control the area gains these exclusive benefits for a few days (2-3) time.

 

As for population imbalance they need to....

 

- Incorporate NPC's to the side with fewer numbers to help level the playing field and give the side with fewer players a chance. Be it NPC troops, droids, champion silver\gold star elite mobs or turrets.

- As each successive control point is gained by a faction the other side gains some additional defensive help therefore capping each control point becomes progressively MORE challenging

- You could also incorporate a buff to the side that is losing control points, call the buff Valor\Resolve\Fortitude\whatever but it provides a temporary stat buff to those on the side that is falling behind

- You could use other mechanics to help the side that is behind, bombardment runs, artillery shelling (NPC or player controlled), stim drops, whatever, many possibilities here

- The losing side should also get some type of reward, be it in the form of a valor boost for being outnumbered while they are participating, a temporary title etc....

 

And when one side does eventually win\control the area and the arbitrary time is up, don't just wipe\reset the area\instance...Incorporate\spawn an NPC led offensive by the faction that lost to take back the area, where players from that faction can participate and gain a slight bonus to help give them an edge to take it back.

 

 

Look if the rewards are worth fighting for and each side feels they have a chance regardless of the player imbalance to defeat\hold off the other faction then the whole area becomes infinitely more appealing...

Edited January 17, 2012 by Rafaelan

[dexvx]

The republic will literally be forced to reroll or quit, as even now the economy/GTN is incredibly sparse on high-pop pvp and rp-pvp servers compared to the Empire economy/GTN.

and it IS a huge deal, as you said. We've been speaking about this a ton on the general forum (thread in my sig) and it's clear how universally agreed upon this issue is.

 

Bioware doesn't seem to agree or give a crap, though. I wouldn't say this, but they keep convincing me with how much pro-Empire updates they are releasing. They continually ignore republic bugs, and I just cannot ignore it.

 

I'm not going to whine on some forums or make a lengthy good-bye post on why this game sucks. I will offer what I think (and people can disagree all they want) should be done. I subscribed for 3 months and took a wait and see approach. Obviously they've got their hands full with an AAA MMO release. They're heading in the right steps for some issues, being clueless on others, but I don't think they've done anything that I think is a55-backwards (unlike Blizzard in WoTLK/Cata).

 

Ultimately people vote with their wallets, one subscription at a time. I'm just hopeful that BioWare realizes the severity of the faction imbalance problem and will take the necessary steps to resolve the situation. The first step is to acknowledge it. And they aren't there yet.

[Auxili]

I'm not going to whine on some forums or make a lengthy good-bye post on why this game sucks. I will offer what I think (and people can disagree all they want) should be done. I subscribed for 3 months and took a wait and see approach. Obviously they've got their hands full with an AAA MMO release. They're heading in the right steps for some issues, being clueless on others, but I don't think they've done anything that I think is a55-backwards (unlike Blizzard in WoTLK/Cata).

 

Ultimately people vote with their wallets, one subscription at a time. I'm just hopeful that BioWare realizes the severity of the faction imbalance problem and will take the necessary steps to resolve the situation. The first step is to acknowledge it. And they aren't there yet.

 

You don't find more same-faction warzones, to promote the growth of the Empire even more and prevent people from feeling the desire to reroll Republic, is as you say "a55-backwards"?

 

edit: but yes, well said

Edited January 18, 2012 by Auxili

[rhakoth]

They could just tell their art department to stop making Jedi look like they shop at the local Goodwill, and that'd help a lot more in balancing the factions. This is just one of many aesthetic examples that I believe have initially driven people to not play Republic.

 

Anyone who doesn't think aesthetics is a big factor in why so many people play Empire needs to get their heads examined.

 

For all the derision that Blood Elves get in WoW, it worked. So many people forget that Horde were initially heavily underplayed in the first two years of the elephant in the room's lifespan.

 

I am slowly leveling all the classes, and I just want to /facepalm at how my Republic characters look, outside of the Trooper. Yes, there is a subset of the population that are extreme lore nerds that would rather sell their mothers to the Russian mob than give up their poop-colored robes, but most players who play MMOs are driven by the 'Barbie Doll' effect, and there's absolutely nothing alluring for the greater majority who couldn't care less about lore, and only knows they don't want to wear a poop-colored robe for thousands of hours.

 

The mod system was supposed to be a poor man's substitute for an appearance tab, but it's not even that. It's completely meaningless at level 50, since purple gear has inherent stats, making the insinuated idea that you could choose your look and swap your mods a bald faced lie.

 

Now, give us an appearance tab so those who don't fall into the lore-nerd minority don't have to look like a hobo at level 50, and you might see more people playing Republic as mains, and not just alts you play during your off-hours.

 

Offering overt rewards simply doesn't work. You get someone to re-roll, but what happens when you manage to 'fix' the population balance and remove them? Is that person going to stay Republic when he's also already got an Empire character or two? The underlying reason for people wanting to go Empire wasn't resolved in any way. It's just a band-aid.

 

I can sit here and offer my general ideas of why everyone wants to play Empire and only a select few want to play Republic, but I have to assume Bioware has at least one competent analyst who can figure this out far more empirically than any of us can, considering the sheer amount of data they must have at their fingertips.

 

Find the underlying issues, and resolve them. Then watch the population slowly even out. It took Blizzard two years, but you figure they probably were working on it for at least a year, so let's say it took them a year to figure out when they first started out. You have the benefit of hindsight, so let's hope it doesn't take a year for you to identify the main reasons everyone plays Empire and no one plays Republic. Also, be careful not to buy into hype when looking at your numbers, as total characters between factions does not equal actual number of characters/character hours played between factions. I mean, I technically have four Empire/four Republic, so I'd make it look like the two factions are even, but I probably play my Republic characters 2-3 times a week, if that.

 

The point being, don't fall into the trap of believing your stats you trumpet in your press releases, because they insinuate that there isn't much faction population difference, and while I'm sure the stats you are reporting aren't a lie, as any college freshman in their 100 level stats class can parrot, it's very easy to misrepresent data. I can guarantee the faction balance on my own server isn't even remotely as close as the numbers you released concerning Jedi Knights and Sith Warriors that make it seem like the factions are relatively closely played. Number of characters created simply can't be the metric you're using to determine faction balance.

 

This exactly. My guilds entire decision to go mepire was the armour sets. Jedi Knights look like power rangers, sages have rediculous helms (then again the inq's look like they are reps from the kay kay kay) all the colour schemes are white or brown and every force user wears a robe.

 

Furthermore, locking races was just stupid. In a galaxy with billions upon trillions on citizens it's impossible that you wouldn't find at least 1 ratatakki jedi, or a red zabrak trooper. Having 1 locked such as Miriluka and Sith is acceptable, but lets face it; The empire races have FAR greater diversification, especially for a dictatorship that is extremely xenophobic! This simply doesn't make sense.

 

These were the reason my ENTIRE GUILD chose to not roll republic. Diversify the artwork a bit more, have realistic, modern looking gear (Jedi's have entirely too much of a fantasy feel about them) and stop giving the republic the embodiment of all that is fine and good in the galaxy. Where are the anti hero's on republic? You're either a priest or a lion dressed as a lamb. There seemns to be no middle ground in this game, espcially as you have locked certain items regarding allignement. Where are the grey characters you promised???

 

I could go on but honestly, what is the point. As stated someone is compiling metrics and coming up with answer that the devs are in turn using to design the game. I just hope that they come to their senses and start realising that faction imballances are extremely important and require immediate attention now, not in the future when people have already settled into their mains and don't want to reroll.

Edited January 18, 2012 by rhakoth

[Auxili]

This exactly. My guilds entire decision to go mepire was the armour sets. Jedi Knights look like power rangers, sages have rediculous helms (then again the inq's look like they are reps from ***) all the colour schemes are white or brown and every force user wears a robe.

 

This is the only decision of my ENTIRE GUILD to not roll republic. Diversify the artwork a bit more, have realistic, modern looking gear (Jedi's have entirely too much of a fantasy feel about them) and stop giving the republic the embodiment of all that is fine and good in the galaxy. Let them have a few stains on their souls and poeple will be more inclined to feel like they are playing a real character, rather the Huma!!

 

Yup. People think 'EVIL!' is why the empire is so big, but it's not true. Through research and discussions, I've found it's primarily the armor design and animation imbalance.