BioWare: Here is what caused the faction imabalance and here is how you fix it.

[Stratoforce]

If you played Empire to 50, and Republic to 50 you can see all the love went into the Empire stories, zones, class animations.

[SithtobeJedi]

Hello BioWare.

 

You, by now, know exactly who I am and have for some time. During the build up to launch I warned you, time and time again, about the faction imbalance. I was told, by the devs no less, that there absolutely no chance of a gross faction imbalance.

 

I was correct, the devs were wrong.

 

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With that out of the way I still want to help.

 

So I am going to explain exactly what caused this imbalance and exactly how to fix it.

 

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I give this information freely with only the hopes that it fixes this game before it does reach a catastrophic point of no return.

 

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The Cause:

 

The cause of the faction imbalance was the pre-game hype. The Sith had a poster boy who was powerful, nearly unstoppable, and seemingly unassailable. The Sith were touted as unbeatable, unstoppable, and victorious conquerors. The Sith were never decried or vilified in any way for their actions during the course of the pre-game hype and in fact were treated like paragons.

 

One of the largest contributors to the faction imbalance was the character by the name of Darth Malgus. He was, at first, a nameless Sith that players could project their own self onto. Many players psychologically considered "themselves" this character when they were visualizing the Old Republic. This set down preconceptions which BioWare only inadvertently continued to fuel.

 

Players identified with individual characters in the trailers. Fans of the Sith identified themselves as Malgus, fans of the Jedi identified themselves as Satele, and fans of the Trooper identified themselves as the Trooper from Hope for example. It was because of this that Hope was the leading cause of the faction imbalance that came from the three cinematic trailers.

 

In "Hope" the message to the players inadvertently was as follows: "The Sith are awesome, and in a one on one fight will beat any Trooper and any Jedi. Two on one they can (barely) defeat a Sith."

 

This was actually fueled by Gnost Dural's timeline histories where he stated (regarding the events of the GHW) that the only way a Sith ever lost was when another Sith turned on them.

 

BioWare went out of their way to list off every important Sith they could, but all Republic heroes were either dead (Master Ven or Master Allusus) which sent a psychological message out: "If you want to be a hero to the Republic, you are going to die."

 

The Sith were never soundly defeated. The few times they were "defeated" it was either because of overwhelming firepower or because of extreme sacrifices. The Republic on the other hand was soundly defeated, time and again, in the pre-game hype without any similar sacrifices on the part of the Sith Empire. In fact it looked easy.

 

This sent another psychological message to the player base that was in some ways nearly subliminal.

 

The Sith were also highly defended by the devs in the pre-game build up. They were touted as "not being evil" and even Gnost Dural never used strong negative language when speaking about them. There were no real downsides to the Empire ever shown, while the flaws of the Republic were often pointed out by BioWare devs.

 

The flaws of the Republic included such things as "Poor leadership" (the senate) and "Massive dissension" within the faction at its core. The Jedi being painted as being disliked by their own faction only added to this dissension and caused many people to rally against the Jedi classes in their own faction while no such phenomena was occurring on the Sith side.

 

This was readily apparent by the massive rivalry and "sniping" going on between the Trooper forums and the Jedi Knight forums.

 

There was time to fix this with counter-hype pre-game, but BioWare chose not to, and thus we have now a massive faction imbalance.

 

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How to fix it:

 

At one time counter-hype was a viable answer to the issues. That, unfortunately, won't work now. There is only one way to fix the issue now and normalize population numbers and it, unfortunately, is now a gameplay issue.

 

The gameplay issue, however, only rears its head in one situation: "Open World PVP" and thus efforts should be concentrated there.

 

The population imbalance does impact PVE but to a far lesser extent and in Warzones, aside from gear issues caused by the recent exploits, the impact is non-existent.

 

If the Republic (or the Sith) are outnumbered by 100% or more in server population, or at least population on that world, they need to receive a buff that lets them compete. If there are 90 people on Ilum and 60 of them are Sith then the Republic classes need to be able to handle themselves literally in 2:1 encounters.

 

This can be done with a buff that is adjusted based on population numbers for that planet (and instance of that planet):

 

The majority of players won't pay attention to the mechanics of such a buff and if the population gets out of hand, as it has on many servers, where the Republic is outnumbered 5:1 or more and Imperial players start seeing Republic players who are jumped 3:1 and then see the Republic player win they will re-evaluate their faction choice.

 

This could cause an auto-correcting population shift.

 

This has to be a buff that adjusts itself constantly based on population though. If it is not then it would cause a catastrophic swing as we saw in Warhammer.

 

My suggestion would be a buff that increases damage and damage mitigation as well as grants a limited resistance to CC based on the population numbers.

 

Something like (the following is an example only):

 

If one side outnumbers the other side by 50% (IE 50 Sith and 75 Reps) then the lower population side gets a buff that increases their HP and Damage by 20% while also giving a 20% chance to ignore/break a CC.

 

If one side outnumbers the other side by 100% (IE 100 Reps and 150 Sith) then the lower population side gets a buff that increases their HP and Damage by 40% while also giving a 40% chance to ignore/break a CC.

 

And so on, and so forth.

 

This has to become a priority and implemented within 45 days if the game is to have a chance at stabilizing.

 

If you don't do this BioWare, then do something else, but whatever you do the clock is ticking. You have probably less than two months before this becomes a catastrophic issue.

 

Bastilla's daughter Hadouken'd him through a mountain, and her master fought an Inquis and him 2v1 holding a double bladed lightsaber in one hand and a normal lightsaber in the other while showing off the Republic allies and they made a getaway.

 

Sith were only dominant in one cinematic and that was the very first one.

 

You're overstating

[thejingle]

I think a ton of people would happily faction transfer if they had free ones from empire to republic only, I know i would. Re-rolling is just not an attractive idea for me because gear makes such a huge difference at 50 for PvP and as random as it is (and how overpriced centurion gear is if you don't luck out on champ gear) it's not something I want to deal with again just to get to a "respectable" level of gear.

[snaplemouton]

WoW tried that and it failed miserably.

 

What they need to do is go with an iron fist.

 

Do not allow anyone to enter the PvP zone if the faction of this said person has 10% more players in the actual zone.

 

You chose your faction knowing there was an immense imbalance. And don't tell me : I just followed my friends. Because yes you did so live with it.

5 hours Q to enter ilum? You can roll republic then.

 

Unfair that empire have to wait 5 hours?

How do you think it feels to play republic right now? When more and more people leave republic to join the empire because it is clearly impossible to fight against a 1:5 ratio.

[Erudain]

so do 10 lvl 50 reps that leveled up normally against 10 lvl 50 imps with full battlemaster do OK? I wouldn't think so. I know what you meant by that, but you have to start somewhere. Should the incentives be that on underpopulated factions, when they hit lvl 50 they get a bag with full champion PVP gear. Maybe...don't now, but there needs to be incentives for the under populated faction, don't know what that would be exactly. Once the factions start to even up, then the incentive goes bye bye.

 

Yes is hard to set the balance....my point was that lv rushing usually ends with ppl badly geared, specially for first timers on their first toons (usually worst than the guy in the same faction that lvled the "slow way").

 

About the item solution, it has to be monitored very closely from BW to decide what is balance and what is a "lucky-day" (or other side being dou**es).

 

Story from Aion:

 

All server were(are still?) heavy elyos dominated, so to balance things NC first tryed the inc. exp solution....result? the one I said before, lots of lv50s Asmodians with green, blues items destroyed by Elyos in pvp gear.

 

Abyss was a wasteland, you could fly non-stop for hours without seeing anyone. Fort sieges were NPC camping because no Asmodian wanted to siege and get ***** (you lose "valor" each time you are killed)

 

So NC says "ok let's help Asmo gear by giving them medals just for attending to fort sieges". Asmodians start to siege but elyos say "me wantz free medals too or no one haz 'em!!!!"....so they start to lose ON POURPOSE for a couple days and NC happily says "see? servers are balanced.....goodbye incentives"....of course 2 days later server went back to how they used to be with Elyos dominating 24/7.

 

That is an example of what happens if you start giving freebies but you don't actually keep a hard control on the server (and also shows how lame Aion community is)

Edited January 19, 2012 by Erudain

[Kuari]

Why would anyone want to play a trooper, who anyone who knows Star Wars at all knows is just cannon fodder to make Jedi or Sith look cooler, over a bounty hunter?

 

The Smuggler is the only Republic class that really has an appeal factor even remotely comparable to their Imperial equivalent.

 

 

It wasn't overdone though. Even with that absurdity the person you're replying to mentioned, the outnumbered side almost always would lose simply because you couldn't defend as many places as the other side could attack (or vice versa) and empowered characters were still fully vulnerable to CC

 

 

 

It's not garbage though. The classes are designed as mirrors... but it doesn't work out that way. Specifically for the most part we're talking about laggy animations on a lot of moves that make them worse for certain classes. I.E. A trooper's mortar volley has a significantly longer startup animation than a bounty hunter's death from above, making the former harder to land properly. There's a smuggler skill with a casting animation that roots them while the IA equivalent is instant, though I don't remember the name of it.

 

Hardly game breaking stuff, but still frustrating

 

I kind of call bull on the mortar and I REALLY doubt that about the smuggler ability, but if that is the case, then yeah, its something that needs to be fixed, but half the crap people describe is so full of it its ridiculous... I heard mention of some sage and inquisitor abilities, but the examples they give basically show no knowledge in how the game works, in that damage and such is calculated before the animation hits.

[Adnyl]

THis post wreaks of smugness and is completely wrong. Debs couldn't predict this sort of thing. Its how our society is these days. It was the same with dcuo. Villains there had it easy with queue times because all the noobs feel they wanted to be heroes instead of villains. If you want to blame someone blame Lucas for making the sith more appealing by making movies that made darth vader the hero with an interesting character arc.

 

Erm... I get your point and I agree that there's more appeal to the bad guys, like some have said. I'd even blame rock and roll. After all Johnny Cash wasn't the Man In White.

 

Seriously, though, Lucas making the Sith side more appealing? Luke's story is way more interesting than his father's. Of course, I blame it on the prelogy being utter movie garbage, but still, who wants to be Anakin after they've seen the prelogy? Ugh...

[Kuari]

Erm... I get your point and I agree that there's more appeal to the bad guys, like some have said. I'd even blame rock and roll. After all Johnny Cash wasn't the Man In White.

 

Seriously, though, Lucas making the Sith side more appealing? Luke's story is way more interesting than his father's. Of course, I blame it on the prelogy being utter movie garbage, but still, who wants to be Anakin after they've seen the prelogy? Ugh...

 

I wanted to be Palpatine after those movies He was the only smart one. He just seemed a little derpy because he was taking advantage of someone derpy.

[AngelicFrosty]

not sure if this got mentioned or not since i only got to about page 5 before getting annoyed seeing the same thing pop up but it shows that you guys never played early WoW......

 

Horde was outnumbered by almost a 2:1 ratio till around late BC/Wrath....

 

I completely agree with the original post, need to do something to help out the Rep in the numbers area in pvp areas and also warzones now. There is a great post in the consular forums which i would think would also help the Rep, which was redo some of the skill animations to better looking/more exciting animations.

[fungihoujo]

WoW tried that and it failed miserably.

 

What they need to do is go with an iron fist.

 

Do not allow anyone to enter the PvP zone if the faction of this said person has 10% more players in the actual zone.

 

You chose your faction knowing there was an immense imbalance. And don't tell me : I just followed my friends. Because yes you did so live with it.

5 hours Q to enter ilum? You can roll republic then.

 

Unfair that empire have to wait 5 hours?

How do you think it feels to play republic right now? When more and more people leave republic to join the empire because it is clearly impossible to fight against a 1:5 ratio.

 

So, basically you're saying- the best way to fix it is to purposefully piss off players and hope they leave their gear, friends and guilds behind to join a side that wants them to suffer wait times and has spent the last month calling them bads, cheap for playing Empire, unskilled and only able to win off numbers/imbalance, idiots for being tricked into playing the faction only due to advertising....

 

Yup, makes sense to me. I really wanna join the side that's spent the whole time insulting me and blaming everything on Bioware.

[RoadtoArkham]

The reason I chose Imperial was simply for the Agent.

I can't stand the Sith, who are, by and large, self-destructive and needlessly evil. And I'm tired of the same Emperor Palpatine/Vader archetypes, and the incredible prevalence of Bounty Hunters in every work

I can't stand any of the good guys because almost every freaking story involves the same old Jedi, Smuggler, cute droid, humanoid droid, fuzzy friend, chick line-up. Even Kotor suffers from this. Only HK-47, Jolee, and Kreia made sure this wasn't too stale.

 

The Agent is the only character with a new story to tell, besides, possibly, the Trooper. (I have yet to try one)

[fungihoujo]

not sure if this got mentioned or not since i only got to about page 5 before getting annoyed seeing the same thing pop up but it shows that you guys never played early WoW......

 

Horde was outnumbered by almost a 2:1 ratio till around late BC/Wrath....

 

I completely agree with the original post, need to do something to help out the Rep in the numbers area in pvp areas and also warzones now. There is a great post in the consular forums which i would think would also help the Rep, which was redo some of the skill animations to better looking/more exciting animations.

 

Horde was outnumbered- yes, that is true. On my server it was true. HOWEVER, Alliance was less likely to pvp on most servers, such as mine. So while we had more numbers, our side was so disinterested that the Horde still had longer queues, still had more games where there was fewer Alliance players- all the geared guilds were Hordeside.

 

Frankly, server number balance isn't really an issue unless it's extreme- the real issue is number of players willing to pvp.

 

From the stats themselves on WZ last time they were released- Empire only had a 53% win ratio in Alderaan/Voidstar, and only 39% of WZ were huttball- considering huttball also procs on the other faction, if each WZ had an even chance- it should be 33% for each- that extra 6% does show imbalance, but, not overwhelmingly so for servers.

 

 

 

The Ilum imbalance only actually proves one thing- there are more Imperial 50s that want to do world pvp on the servers that this occurred. Could mean many things- could mean numbers imbalance, could mean more imps want to do pvp, could mean imps levelled faster, could mean imps simply got to Ilum faster and set up camp not letting Republic do the same.

[omniara]

From my experience playing other mmos I have seen imbalances but none as large as this. One other mmo I played was AION.

I will not defend that game at all it was ok at best but they focused on open world PvP in the Abyss and through rifting. There was still an imbalance but if you go to their site you can still see the relative balance of the factions on all servers. They maintained this by forbidding the creation of the opposing faction if the ratio was bigger than 40% to 60% through this it has managed to keep most populations with in a 10% difference.

I don't know if this can work now but as someone on a server where the fleet populations are 300 to 100 and Ilum was 100 to 20 something needs to be fixed. I unfortunately am no longer going to Ilum as I do not feel like wasting 5 hrs for 15 kills or item and I was one of the people begging for them to get rid of trading. It is unfortunate that the valor bug occurred but it is just gear, and makes war zones more of a fight.

The damage and defense buff fix is dangerous and although it has potential the community would most likely object and I can see it not having the desired effect. Valor and xp gain would be helpful in encouraging people to play the less balanced side and it would help a little especially if combined with resticting new characters.

I do see issues with restricting characters as well especially if someone wants to make an alt on their faction so things like this need to be discussed before implementing this style of balancing.

I love PvP and it was one of the things that drew me to this game. I really want to see it thrive so please try and balance out populations some how.

[Gunzwei]

Would rather see faction transfers before a bolster/tenacity buff in Open World PVP.

[brutnus]

Worst thread of the month.

[alphasquid]

I kind of call bull on the mortar and I REALLY doubt that about the smuggler ability, but if that is the case, then yeah, its something that needs to be fixed, but half the crap people describe is so full of it its ridiculous... I heard mention of some sage and inquisitor abilities, but the examples they give basically show no knowledge in how the game works, in that damage and such is calculated before the animation hits.

 

In regards to the Consular/Inquisitor abilities. I have played both the JC and the SI and the SI ability Shock is better than the JC ability Project. Even if the damage is calculated instantly (and I believe it is) the stun is not. On Shock the stun is instant and on Project the stun is implemented after the animation completes. This is a full second delay for the stun to take effect on Project in comparison to Shock.

[Kuari]

In regards to the Consular/Inquisitor abilities. I have played both the JC and the SI and the SI ability Shock is better than the JC ability Project. Even if the damage is calculated instantly (and I believe it is) the stun is not. On Shock the stun is instant and on Project the stun is implemented after the animation completes. This is a full second delay for the stun to take effect on Project in comparison to Shock.

 

Just noticed that now... its actually almost an advantage though. It means you can actually do more during that stun since the global cooldown is almost over when the stun takes effect. Seems to interrupt abilities on cast just the same though. Not exactly a conversation for a PvP thread though since its purely a PvE thing.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Kuari

[SWImara]

The solution to all of is for Republic PvPers to get more Republic players to PvP. Nothing is broken that can't be fixed with organized PvP raids. Empire outnumbers Republic on Ilum, so that's just the way it is until more Republics level and join PvP. The problem will fix itself. Players will adapt, the seriously offended will depart, and everyone (the majority) will still have a fun, vibrant game to play.

 

Get good, Repubs.

This.

 

The only issue here is spawn camping which was (supposedly, I'm not home yet) addressed in the hotfix by turrets one shotting people in the spawn area.

[Esrac]

Would rather see faction transfers before a bolster/tenacity buff in Open World PVP.

 

I don't like the idea of faction transfers because then you'll just get Republic players, who're bitter about being the underdogs, going to the Empire. And thus the problem would get worse.

 

Now, I do like the idea of offering a Defector quest on servers for the overpopulated faction. Say the Republic outnumber the Empire on a server 2:1. A quest chain opens on that server for Republic players to defect to the Empire. Or vice versa.

 

For example, a Jedi Sage finds himself falling to the Dark Side, leaving the Jedi Order to become Sith. Though out stages of the quest chain, he's throwing fewer boulders and more lightning bolts as his Consular abilities are replaced with their Inquisitor counterparts.

 

Comparatively, a Sith Warrior could have a quest that involves him meeting a Jedi Master. Perhaps losing a duel to the Jedi Master in the story line. Questioning his Dark methods, perhaps abandoning his anger and hatred. Becoming a Padawan to the Master as he joins the Jedi Order.

 

They could even go so far as to cause the switch to impact your companions. Some companions might abandon you after your change of heart, others might come along with you. Certainly introduce new companions to replace the ones that leave you.

 

It could be used as a means of adding creativity to the game. Come to think of it, I'm not aware of an MMO that lets you defect to the opposing faction in such a way.

[va_wanderer]

I kind of call bull on the mortar and I REALLY doubt that about the smuggler ability, but if that is the case, then yeah, its something that needs to be fixed, but half the crap people describe is so full of it its ridiculous... I heard mention of some sage and inquisitor abilities, but the examples they give basically show no knowledge in how the game works, in that damage and such is calculated before the animation hits.

 

Actually, check the topic on the Trooper board. Mortar Volley actually has a longer "set" time before it actually delivers damage to the AOE circle, meaning it's harder to deliver the full three tics of damage. Full Auto has similar issues, often skipping a tic of damage entirely due to pushback. Data and examples here:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=48516

 

Sage vs. Inquisitor is all a matter of damage type- Elemental damage bypasses armor, kinetic damage (what Sages deliver) does not. Taugrim's guide for Trooper PvP isn't a bad reference for that sorta thing, describing how damage gets delivered, what armor/shielding stops and what it doesn't.

 

http://taugrim.com/2012/01/04/guide-to-bounty-hunter-powertech-trooper-vanguard-mechanics-and-pvp/

[va_wanderer]

It could be used as a means of adding creativity to the game. Come to think of it, I'm not aware of an MMO that lets you defect to the opposing faction in such a way.

 

City of Heroes.

[Kuari]

Actually the consular abilites that are kinetic are energy, not elemental on inquisitor side. Those that are elemental are internal for consular, so that bit is so full of it that its ridiculous. You just ASSUME its elemental because its lightning. So no, just, no.

 

OK... I see the issue with Full Auto... but I don't with mortar strike. Yeah, I'm seeing it work different, but I'm also seeing advantages to it. Still, yeah, I could understand matching it up better.

 

Seriously though, if there are sages who believe their kinetic damage attacks are elemental for sorcs, they are wrong, pure and simple.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Kuari

[Frankaficky]

It's just like Tenacity that they had in wintergrasp in wow. Buff up the lesser played factions stats while they are in a certain zone. It's not hard but they need to make some major fixes or I won't ever be back. It's a shame too I like the game but it's just way to broken to enjoy.

[TipsyDrow]

Ilum needs to be instanced like a WZ with equal numbers per side 20 v 20

 

With the faction imbalance and how it currently is, the current version of Ilum will not work no matter what changes they make to it.

 

Make it fair, make the numbers even and then it becomes more enjoyable.

 

This idea makes the most sense of any I have seen. It's simple and completely fair to both sides. Both sides would then be able to enjoy pvp.

[Masturomenos]

I think the best solution at this point is copies. No one wants to reroll a new toon or transfer servers when they have friends who they play with evryday. Plus this would allow guilds to stay intact if they decided to all swap factions. Whatever it is it needs done sooner then later. The longer people have to get attched to a faction or toon the less they will want to switch.