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

[Kel-vin]

So what you guys are saying is that if Sith's can shoot purple hearts instead of lighting, Force hug instead of force choke, and BH would look like a egg, that we would have more republic players? Your saying that human factors like age, personal interest and a players free will had nothing to do with it? Cmon.

 

Bioware didnt favor anyone. Have you seen a Jedi shoot lightning in the movies? The cartoons? No.

 

Evil / friendly

Bad / good

 

thats the only things that matter. Some like playing as the good guys, more people like playing as bad guys. How can you blame the game devs for this?

 

If there was any option that would allow me to transfer my marauder to my mirror class I would. But NOT becuase Jedi's can use blue lightsabers, and its not becuase of their cool outfits. Its becuase I would like to play friendly instead of being seen as the bad guy.

 

 

Stop this nonsense about appearence and looks. The in-game vocations are EXACTLY like you've seen them in the movies.

 

jesus christ...

 

I agree with this.

 

Yea, I think it comes down to where everyone's friends are going. Over time the population will balance itself out somewhat, but it does have a bit to do with just over all free will and free choice. I doubt bioware gave the imps natural buffs against the lighside with out a counter to it.

 

BTW, I like your signature.

[RwNemo]

I agree with this.

 

Yea, I think it comes down to where everyone's friends are going. Over time the population will balance itself out somewhat, but it does have a bit to do with just over all free will and free choice. I doubt bioware gave the imps natural buffs against the lighside with out a counter to it.

 

BTW, I like your signature.

 

 

Thank you!

[Erudain]

Actually what many said before me...a good solution? ...no imps vs imps Huttball and qeues to enter Illum until factions are even... let the zergy side players sit in a qeue for 30mins/01hour waiting for 8 rep. players to qeue.

 

Lots will endure the wait, but lots will not.

Lets try just with my own life as example... I can prolly play 3hs on weekdays at night due to my job and family.....will I sit 1hour waiting for a WZ qeue to pop or outside a forcefield in Illum that let's me get in?....most likely won't so I'll go to the side with insta enter.

[ProfessorWalsh]

Yeah people blaming the imbalance on in game armor or mechanics are way off. Most people's choice was based on knowing what wussies rebels are. No way for the devs to fix that

 

Sure you can.

 

Here is how you fix it...

 

Expend significant time and effort on showing the Republic as not wussies and show significant scenes of the Empire being wussies.

[Daxramas]

Although the skins and mechanics wouldn't determine the majority of peoples' decision on what faction to play. They sure make a big effort to make the Empire far more appealing and then make their classes better. No appeal towards the Republic at all.

[nilssen]

Giving bonuses to lesser played factions is the dumbest thing that can be suggest...

 

 

"yes we know you like playing thi side but this side is 50% more powerful"

 

yeah.. smart decision...

 

DAoC gave some minor bonuses to the underpopulated realm, mostly affecting XP gain and such. It was cool.

[Thoreaux]

OP.

Let me first say that your ego is grotesquely swollen and pus-filled, like an awful infected zit on your personality. It puts me off my cookies, just looking at it. I'd believe you have been giving Bioware advice for a long time, but what makes you certain that they've read a word of it or that, even assuming they have, you've made any impression on them?

 

Secondly my eyebrows are knit by your indulgent/simplistic ideas about psychology. You honestly believe that a major percentage of empire players were influenced to that choice by the cinematic trailers? As if they were unsure until they saw some sweetly-rendered red-sabers winning in fights against republic characters and decided that "these rendered fights probably represent game mechanics that I want on my side!" Which, without acknowledging its implausibility, doesn't regard the pile of non-cinematic trailers and press given the classes and factions which represent comprehensive analysis of the pros and cons of both sides. Other posters here have guessed more convincingly with their alliance/horde analogies. Even the "sasuke generation" guy was probably closer to the mark than you.

 

Other posters have effectively insulted your proposed fix, Iain'evengonna. But you must think so poorly of the "common player" if you visualize these mobs of mindless lemmings who will choose what a cinematic (through "subliminal" direct demonstration) tells them is powerful and who will reroll a repub if pvp becomes more difficult for them. Tryin'a tell Bioware "I warned you about this!" and THIS is your solution? You really visualize yourself as the Holmes to Bioware's Lestrade, don't you?

 

And I am a softcore primarily-pve scoundrel who loses in pvp every single time, so call me biased. I don't try to blame the immaturity of my opponents or try to passive-aggressively psychologi-burn them by making some **** up about mob mentality. You can't "herd" these "sheep," these are other intelligent players (who have the same imaginary degree in psychology you have) and you can't "correct" the choices they've made with some blunt-*** crooked mechanics.

Edited January 23, 2012 by Thoreaux

[Kelticfury]

I suggest we all get together and ask the 1 person in the world how to resolve this problem.

 

Ill start and you guys fill in the rest :

 

"Dear Mcgyver..."

 

I have a toothpick, a gumwrapper and a rubber band...

[Mailek]

Honestly well said and well done man, right to the point.

[Aurich]

I love the universal mentality here that players who roll imps have like, made their choice, and now we need to decide how to bully them into our way of thought. You guys are some real *********** champs.

 

Here, lemme increase my font size, implying louder, slower speech:

 

Bioware will never implement anything that negatively, categorically impacts a portion of their customer base in consequence of ordinary play.

 

Many of Bioware's customers want to play imps, for whatever *********** reason. It is literally Bioware's job to make sure they're having fun. Any system that penalizes them for choosing to play [x] is never going to happen.

[Kelticfury]

I love the universal mentality here that players who roll imps have like, made their choice, and now we need to decide how to bully them into our way of thought. You guys are some real *********** champs.

 

Here, lemme increase my font size, implying louder, slower speech:

 

Bioware will never implement anything that negatively, categorically impacts a portion of their customer base in consequence of ordinary play.

 

Many of Bioware's customers want to play imps, for whatever *********** reason. It is literally Bioware's job to make sure they're having fun. Any system that penalizes them for choosing to play [x] is never going to happen.

 

I play both. I have been playing my Vanguard almost exclusively lately though. Very fun class.

[Hurkk]

Or just offer faction transfers / copies

 

OR give a 50% XP/Valor boost to the underrepresented side. I know I would definitely switch to repub if it didn't take as long to grind to 50 all over again (and yes, I am working on a Repub alt after I do my dailies on my main.........too bad 1/2 of the time my *********** wins don't count towards the daily)

 

Um no, if your side has a 3 or 4 to 1 advantage and you still find pvp fun then you are probably 14 or younger. Adults crave competition, not a stomping.

[rzrknight]

LoL OP bad idea is bad , buff the reps with the power of 5 player and i will go make an smuggler or a shadow so i can hunt lone player win in 5 secs go back stealth and hunt the next one.

 

Why would i fight a 5x1 battle on such a big planet lol.

[RobNightfall]

Um, I'm sorry to poke holes in your analysis, but it seems to me in actuality it's because the Empire classes, especially the Sith, just look so much cooler than the Republic does. Stormtrooper armor vs. Mandalorian armor, black robes and menacing lightning vs. rocks and pebbles and brown robes that look even worse than they do in the movies, it's pretty simple when you think about it. The only Republic class that looks good is the smuggler, and that's only if you find the High Plains Drifter look to be awesome (I do, so to me it looks good, but I know people who don't and hate the Lando Calrissian capes and breeches look). There are lots of posts scattered across the forums that have imperial players stating that they chose to play imperials because they found their appearance to be so much better.

 

All you really need for more Republic players is better skins and changes to ability appearances. The TK options of the sage don't look half bad, and if they simply expanded those and offered similar options for base consular abilities instead of throwing a rock you would have more consulars. Troopers and their ridiculously over-sized cannons also look awful. Streamline their armor to make it sleeker, have them ALL use rifles and have the rifles have over/under launchers for the commandos, and you will have more troopers. This is a video game, and appearance really matters in how people choose their classes. I would honestly rather be playing a sith inquisitor, but my friends went republic for the challenge (which is fun, tbh, but we look awful lol).

[ProfessorWalsh]

LoL OP bad idea is bad , buff the reps with the power of 5 player and i will go make an smuggler or a shadow so i can hunt lone player win in 5 secs go back stealth and hunt the next one.

 

Why would i fight a 5x1 battle on such a big planet lol.

 

...

 

You do realize Rzrknight, that your post only serves to prove that the idea would work right?

 

See, you, and a lot of others, would make a Smuggler or a Shadow so you can hunt lone players and win in 5 seconds. This would cause the population to balance out as many Imperials would jump ship to the other faction. This would in turn cause the bonus to be reduced as the population would more normalize. This would in turn cause the focus of power to shift.

 

This would ALSO cause the player (as you can have Rep and Imp chars on the same server and account) to engage in PVP on the side getting the bonus more often.

 

This would cause relative numbers at almost all times and would provide extra bodies when the under populated side needed them the most.

[ProfessorWalsh]

I love the universal mentality here that players who roll imps have like, made their choice, and now we need to decide how to bully them into our way of thought. You guys are some real *********** champs.

 

Here, lemme increase my font size, implying louder, slower speech:

 

Bioware will never implement anything that negatively, categorically impacts a portion of their customer base in consequence of ordinary play.

 

Many of Bioware's customers want to play imps, for whatever *********** reason. It is literally Bioware's job to make sure they're having fun. Any system that penalizes them for choosing to play [x] is never going to happen.

 

So instead your solution to the issue is for BioWare to ensure that those who didn't play Imps aren't having fun. I gotcha.

[Thoreaux]

So instead your solution to the issue is for BioWare to ensure that those who didn't play Imps aren't having fun. I gotcha.

 

It's not a solution, it's an observation about your solution. His point is that you guys are barking up completely the wrong tree. You can't fix something for some by breaking it for others, and fixing it for the minority by breaking it for the majority? That's so not the answer it's offensive. Go ahead and try that silly "don't shoot down my solution if you don't have your own" crap, it won't make your idea less dumb.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Thoreaux

[Aurich]

So instead your solution to the issue is for BioWare to ensure that those who didn't play Imps aren't having fun. I gotcha.

 

Are you bein' willfully ignorant? I guess that's mean; what's your reading level?

I have obviously said nothing like that. Just like it's obvious that no profit-based company would ever satisfy the minority by deliberately screwing with the majority of their customers.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Aurich

[hoantran]

aion actually implemented this and i thought it worked...

 

there was grumbling from the much larger faction, but it was a good plug to a sinking ship

[hoantran]

Um, I'm sorry to poke holes in your analysis, but it seems to me in actuality it's because the Empire classes, especially the Sith, just look so much cooler than the Republic does. Stormtrooper armor vs. Mandalorian armor, black robes and menacing lightning vs. rocks and pebbles and brown robes that look even worse than they do in the movies, it's pretty simple when you think about it. The only Republic class that looks good is the smuggler, and that's only if you find the High Plains Drifter look to be awesome (I do, so to me it looks good, but I know people who don't and hate the Lando Calrissian capes and breeches look). There are lots of posts scattered across the forums that have imperial players stating that they chose to play imperials because they found their appearance to be so much better.

 

All you really need for more Republic players is better skins and changes to ability appearances. The TK options of the sage don't look half bad, and if they simply expanded those and offered similar options for base consular abilities instead of throwing a rock you would have more consulars. Troopers and their ridiculously over-sized cannons also look awful. Streamline their armor to make it sleeker, have them ALL use rifles and have the rifles have over/under launchers for the commandos, and you will have more troopers. This is a video game, and appearance really matters in how people choose their classes. I would honestly rather be playing a sith inquisitor, but my friends went republic for the challenge (which is fun, tbh, but we look awful lol).

 

he is right too.... jedi wear looks grossly laughable. many sentinels are *** about their PVP gear look. why is sentinel champion gear not more robes, instead of something that george lucas wouldnt really approve..

[ProfessorWalsh]

Are you bein' willfully ignorant? I guess that's mean; what's your reading level?

I have obviously said nothing like that. Just like it's obvious that no profit-based company would ever satisfy the minority by deliberately screwing with the majority of their customers.

 

No, you did say something like that, you simply didn't comprehend the issue.

 

Right now, as in, at the moment. One faction is at a severe disadvantage and in many cases one faction specifically is being camped and ganked unable to make any headway. Having to organize full blown ops groups to even have a chance against the unorganized open PVP Sith mob.

 

Needless to say one faction, namely the Republic faction, isn't having fun trying to open world PVP.

 

So, unless BioWare does something that puts them on an even footing, which you claim would punish the Sith players, then you are saying that they should suffer.

 

So, yeah, until you can grasp that the Republic faction players aren't happy and are upset over this by a fair amount it isn't right to try to belittle another person's comprehension of the situation.

[Aurich]

No, you did say something like that, you simply didn't comprehend the issue.

 

Right now, as in, at the moment. One faction is at a severe disadvantage and in many cases one faction specifically is being camped and ganked unable to make any headway. Having to organize full blown ops groups to even have a chance against the unorganized open PVP Sith mob.

 

Needless to say one faction, namely the Republic faction, isn't having fun trying to open world PVP.

 

So, unless BioWare does something that puts them on an even footing, which you claim would punish the Sith players, then you are saying that they should suffer.

 

So, yeah, until you can grasp that the Republic faction players aren't happy and are upset over this by a fair amount it isn't right to try to belittle another person's comprehension of the situation.

 

You really think that your OP is the only way to address this discrepancy, don't you? I get the feeling that you often reply to things you don't understand in this way.

 

Simply, you don't know what you're talking about. You needn't even read that as a diss; you are not an expert. They can, and must, address this issue in a way that does not penalize a player for choosing to play Sith.

 

I hesitate to even explain it further, 'cause if you think the only way to fix this is to **** with gameplay balance, then I've got to be wasting my breath.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Aurich

[Ryotknife]

Very well written I agree with the fact that in every MMO the company favours the "bad guy" faction. Look at Chris Metzen and his open favouritism for the Horde. A bloody company needs to be neutral. They can't pick sides. It's like a non-neutral court. Implausable.

 

 

someone seems to forget about ally favoritism in vanilla and BC. In vanilla if you wanted to pve you HAD to be ally. Also the top pvp guilds were usually ally.

 

why?

 

paladins. in vanilla they made all content easy mode. Horde guilds couldnt come close to the ally progression at large, and it wasnt because of a huge population imbalance.

 

in BC, there was an entire arena season where EVERY ARENA TOURNAMENT TEAM WAS ALLY.

 

there have certainly been times were horde has had an advantage in pvp, but no where even in the same solar system as the advantage allies had.

 

 

as to the original topic at hand. the suggestion has many pitfalls. WoW did something similiar in wintergrasp. in the end, it was either not enough of a buff and the underpopulated were chain stunned into oblivion, or the buff was too great allowing a single person to aoe down 20 people. granted, the suggestion doesnt seem to imply something like that would happen. while i loathe rng failure of CC, CC is not as make or break as wow.

Edited January 24, 2012 by Ryotknife

[ProfessorWalsh]

You really think that your OP is the only way to address this discrepancy, don't you? I get the feeling that you often reply to things you don't understand this way.

 

Simply, you don't know what you're talking about. You needn't even read that as a diss; you are not an expert. They can, and must, address this issue in a way that does not penalize a player for choosing to play Sith.

 

I hesitate to even explain it further, 'cause if you think the only way to fix this is to **** with gameplay balance, then I've got to be wasting my breath.

 

When you have a degree in computer game design and experience in the field of game design then maybe you can tell me what to do.

 

I actually am an expert.

 

I teach game design for a living.

 

Also, for comprehension, maybe you should read the original post a bit more.

 

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.

 

What part of that portion of the OP said that there was only one way?

 

Now that I got the obvious retort out of the way...

 

Buffing the undermanned faction so that they can compete against the higher population faction in a manner similar to the way I outlined isn't penalizing the Sith. Not doing something like that is actually penalizing the Republic players though.

 

If Open PVP is going to grant better gear (which it does) that impacts gameplay and if this gear is based on how many of the other faction is killed then it makes it very hard for the under-populated faction to close the gap.

 

There are other options of course.

 

Reducing the number of kills needed to complete daily and weekly quests could help. Increasing the amount of valor and/or commendations the under populated faction receives could help as well. The result however has to even out the gameplay advantage that the over populated faction has.

Edited January 24, 2012 by ProfessorWalsh

[SuperGrunt]

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.

 

-----

 

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.

 

-----

 

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

 

-----

 

 

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.

 

-----

 

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 200 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.

 

Edit:

Had to fix a typo. Sorry, I wrote the post early in the morning / late at night.

 

Please go back to whatever hole that you have crawled out of. We don't need nor do we want your game breaking idiotic ideas. You would have Bioware make people overpowered to compensate for being outnumbered? Great thinking that would cause mass exodus on both sides. The outnumbered people would feel like there was no challenge and the rest of us would feel like there was no point to playing the game because now we are getting screwed blue and tatooed too. Great way to balance the factions, make everyone quit the game, then both factions will be at 0 people. Are you a big fan of another MMO or just on their payroll?