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

[Moosimoo]

OP: TLDR I gave up after a few lines. Utter trash.

 

I rolled Empire because I wanted to be a BH. I don't like lightsabers. Your arguments don't apply to me.

[Aethyrprime]

Sorry but this will not fix the issue. It will only exasperate the problems further and piss off players. If you really want a look at a suggestion that will fix it check out my signature. It's a long post I'll warn you but it would actually serve to fix the problems.

[Dinawen]

Only bonus should be a 20% or more increase to valour/experience given to the low population side. Much like Aion does with the low populated Asmo sides.

[RealAeiouy]

Walsh is still as smug as ever I see.

 

And now we are blaming an imbalance on game trailers? Seriously? Stop reaching, you are going to pull something Walsh.

 

Here is a theory, maybe alot of players rolled on the Imperial side because noone enjoys being around the smug goody goody that preaches on top of a soapbox about what a *good* jedi should do all the time?

 

Just a thought.

 

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

[va_wanderer]

the only solution is cross server pvp. Theres no negative aspect to it. Im sure ill hear oh it will ruin the server communities and all this. Well we still dont have server forums (yes i know there coming) but at this point thats the only real concern. Its going to happen sooner or later. You cant make same faction open world pvp and bolstering and buffs will not solve the issue either.

 

You can, actually- but there really are some tactics here that Bioware could get a clue from.

 

The PvP action done by the largest portion of the WoW community is...quasi-PvE. It's city raiding, for the mount reward gotten from taking down all enemy city leaders. There's plenty of PvE-style obstacles (like guards), but the main goal at the end is often won or lost owing to having to deal with the influence of other players attacking the raid group. It takes focused effort, not merely zerging everyone in sight. Get in, punch through, take down the target, get out.

 

That's the kind of thing TOR needs. Deep strike raids, where players go into an area normally controlled and populated by the other faction (and autoflag PvP in the process) to hit a powerful PvE target for great reward (and quite possibly some kind of temporary faction-wide buff). Likewise, gunning down said attackers is worth it for the defenders- loss of said PvE target will cause a negative debuff of some sort, so protecting their resources via PvP is important.

 

Otherwise, world PvP zones like the Ilum turn into carebear kill-sharing, point-sharing hugfests with blaster fire. Which there's already ample video to show.

[FriarChuggs]

Your theory on the "cause" of overpopulation could not be more wrong. People joined Empire because they wanted to be Darth Malgus and because Jedi heroes weren't promoted? That's ridiculous. 99%+ of the players in this game (even hardcore players like myself) had no idea who any of those people were, or paid any attention to the pre-game fluff hype. We were interested in mechanics and quality, not in tying our story to some character we didnt' even know existed. Empire is overpopulated bc it is "cool" and "bad-aXX" and because so few other Star Wars games allowed people to truly play a full Sith storyline. Simple as that.

 

Also, your self-important preening to lead your post isn't very helpful.

 

 

That should not detract from your extremely good points on solution. The only real area where pop imba is a problem is pvp. I like your pop-based buff idea, although in practice I think there could be some problems. The fact that zone-wide population is imba doesn't mean any given encounter would be. If there are 60 Sith and 30 Republic in the zone, it's still very likely that any given encounter could still be fairly even with a group of 4 of each side encountering each other, or a full 24 man ops group from each side clashing.

 

Some other ideas would be a floating population cap -- IE no side can ever outnumber the other side by > 10-20%, anyone who tries to join after that gets queued just like a WZ. The only problem would be what to do if the low-pop side starts leaving: do you start booting empire who are over the pop cap or do you just hope things stabilize and lock any more empire from joining? Similar to the buff, this method might entice empire players sick of being locked out to move over.

 

Then there's the possibility of valor-enticement to lure republic players into the zone, though I think that by itself isn't enough. It would have to be combined with another system to get the numbers moving in the right direction.

 

Finally... why are there cross-faction alts allowed? This makes no sense to me. If you have a system where it is possible to farm valor/controlpoints/etc with cross-faction alts, of COURSE people are going to do that if you let them. I don't see what "good" purpose it serves, all I see is downside. Get cross-faction alts on mandatory server transfers.

[va_wanderer]

They could implement a kind of tenacity buff for ilum depending of how big the difference of number of players is, like in the wintergrasp in wow; that means they are 200 imperial and 50 rep in ilum, republics gain a 300% buff increasing hitpoints, heals and damage (for instance)

 

That failed horribly in Wintergrasp, you realize.

 

Take me, I played WG from day 1 and was a huge WG fan in it's original form, we were lucky enough to have reasonable balance on population for some time. Occasionally, it wouldn't be.

 

The problem with Tenacity was that I don't care how high your HP/damage is. When there's three of my side able to hit you with crowd control effects, you just go down faster regardless, especially since we can rotate them in. You're a meleer? Oops, I Frost Nova'd you. Then my buddy stunned you. Then his buddy snared you. While they're recovering, I'll just snare you again myself and we'll all be slapping you silly in the process till you faceplant.

 

Numbers beat stat boosts. The solution is actually not simple, but can be stated.

 

1) Track kill ratios, track population. Zergs are the bane of any PvP, and kill ratios usually point towards who's dominating world PvP in a given area.

 

2) Disrupt zergs. You want to break up big clots of players anyway- it kills game performance and it pretty much eliminates all strategy save "more AoE!" (itself a lag-maker). I've even suggested PvE effects to do so, like artillery strikes/orbital strikes to areas with the largest population of enemies, forcing people to split up and move or respawning at the medcenter. You give players PvP weapons that have increased effects on larger groups- the better to rip up zergs. More punch the more people are in the AoE, or weapons that "chain-lightning" jump to each target in range, meaning they're worth it to fire into large groups to break them up quickly.

 

3) Combine PvE with PvP- areas like Ilum and even warzones should have an active and hostile environment, beyond instant-kill effects. Vehicles, droids, soldiers, whatever- moving through the areas constantly and attacking any enemy they find, player or not. City raids in WoW were excellent examples, with guards being a regular threat to enemy factions, PvP targets that were powerful PvE opponents that encouraged players to assault the raid group and make it deal with both at the same time. Note that in PvE servers, the raiders are auto-PvP but the normal faction has a choice to participate or not...which works rather well.

 

4) Reward the daring. The best PvP rewards should never come from simply farming kills, sandbox dueling or exchanging points in a zone but for doing efforts that involve as much of 3) as possible. I'd like to be the Republic group that assaults Imperial Fleet Command, blasts their way to an elevator to their command center, and wrecks the place while gunning down an Imperial general and his elite guards, all the while holding off Imperial players trying to bring us down before we succeed. Think about the Essene Flashpoint.

 

Now imagine something similar on a larger scale, while having to fight the Empire's players at the same time, chasing you through as you try to disable defenses, cut power, and kill VIP's.

 

You make PvP more than simply shooting each other in the face. You make it unique and you make it feel good to accomplish an objective that takes PvP and gets rewards, not camp a point or simply seeing how many people you can gun down for that next piece of gear. You make Empire raids and Republic raids that are different and fun, so that PvPers want to be on both sides, and you discourage the zerg and gank squadding that mark lousy PvP situations.

 

Ilum was Not Prepared.

[Valleyfoe]

I think the fact that the OP believes the imbalance has no effect on Warzones ruins the rest of his argument. I guess I have to ask, is getting Huttball 9 out of 10 queues intended? If it is not intended, the faction imbalance affects Warzones.

 

Lets not mention that most implementations of his solution bring more problems to a game than they solve. Even when balanced well, they never lead to population balance.

[CidTrip]

Giving the under represented side a "buff" isn't a good idea because it doesn't address the imbalance problem at it's core.

 

That said, one solution would be to let players trade their Empire character for the equivalent on the Republic side.

 

I would have no problem trading my Sorcerer for a Consular if it means I don't have to play Huttball over and over again.

Edited January 20, 2012 by CidTrip

[jackhallin]

*facepalm*

[Mackuss]

OP is wrong and I didn't even bother reading more than 3 sentences.

 

The reason there is a faction imbalance is because everyone has already played Jedi and the good guys in all the other games.

 

Empire was simply something new.

 

Literally, /thread.

 

On another note, you can't blame developers for being very creative heavy on one faction. It's understandable to let one's creativity go on the side that's never been played, thought of, or the side with the more fantastical lore and creatures/races. It's compeltely understandable. We saw it on Horde in WoW, in Defiant in Rift, and the Empire in Allods online. Countless others too. All the quests, lore, races, armor, cities, zones - everything was better on those factions.

 

Anyway, those are the reasons why. And there's nothing Bioware, or any company, can do about it.

[Jessedw]

Giving the under represented side a "buff" isn't a good idea because it doesn't address the imbalance problem at it's core.

 

That said, one solution would be to let players trade their Empire character for the equivalent on the Republic side.

 

I would have no problem trading my Sorcerer for a Consular if it means I don't have to play Huttball over and over again.

 

Or they could just include a mini quest line to "defect" at level 50. Everquest 2 let you switch sides...and with classes like bounty hunter and smuggler I don't see why the couldn't have done that from the start...I didn't choose a side because I wanted to be "the bad guys" I wanted to a bounty hunter...plain and simple. I liked the feel and animations of the BH over the trooper so that's why.

[iLLaDeLpHLife]

I just rolled a smuggler

[Zelion]

I remember in Aion, when there was huge faction imbalance (only 2 factions) on many servers, they just blocked people from being able to create a character on the high population faction on that server, and enabled free transfers which went through about once a week, seemed to help after a while...

[MikhailTrotsky]

Firstly while I find your point semi-intellectually stimulating, I still find it missing some huge details.

 

Firstly your point is only valid if the population different on each server approaches a 2:1 Empire to Republic Ratio (1.75:1 is the threshold)

 

 

A) On a server with more Sith than Republic you will notice Sith players playing against a lot more Sith in Huttball resulting in their own Faction screwing themselves out PvP gear progression. Abstractly you can assume (if you think that you have a 2:1 Empire to Rep Ratio) that for every 3 games the Empire Plays, 2 of which will be against Empire and 1 against Republic by pure normal statistic. This will result into a large portion of the Empire player base to have a slower experience in attaining PvP progression.

 

B) A subsequent effect is that while this Empire Pool is not delimited, it will intermingle within its own mirror match ups and against the Republic, resulting in at least a sizeable portion of each Warzone for Empire to consist of undergeared PvP players, overall dragging down the effectiveness of the Faction in limited player matches.

 

C) The Republic on such servers will enjoy higher rate of gear progression overall than their Empire Counterpart in Warzones and suffer on Ilum where numbers are not being capped. Where numbers outweigh the overall effectiveness of the match.

 

While you can bemoan Faction imbalances in numbers, I can statistically bemoan the overall effectiveness reduction of the larger Faction. Remember those posted Statistic BW did of which Faction was winning more WZ? Well don't forget to the OP original point, that at least 1/3rd of those Empire Wins were against ... well their own Faction.

[srbingham]

To be fair, if you want to blame anyone for a pro-sith pre-game hype, you should be blaming George Lucas.

 

There, I said it.

 

You know why?

 

Because ONE Sith Lord, and Three disposable Sith Apprentices, brought down the entire Jedi Order AND the Republic, and then replaced it with their own Empire.

 

And when the Jedi finally "came back," all they did was assassinate the Emperor and marginate the Empire from owning all the galaxy to half of it.

Edited January 20, 2012 by srbingham

[spacemonkey]

Reason why people roll Empire

 

1. No ability delays. I've benched my JK, Consular and Troop because of this.

 

2. No forced hoods if you roll a Sith Warrior.

 

3. More diverse gear.

 

4. Better looking gear.

 

5. Better animations, have you compared BH to Trooper? enough said.

 

6. Better looking ships. My JK ship has throws and fluffy cushions! not cool

 

 

I rolled Sith because I'm fed up with my JK who's bald and has a fat arse!

Edited January 20, 2012 by spacemonkey

[Vlacke]

Reason why people roll Empire

 

1. No ability delays. I've benched my JK, Consular and Troop because of this.

 

2. No forced hoods if you roll a Sith Warrior.

 

3. More diverse gear.

 

4. Better looking gear.

 

5. Better animations, have you compared BH to Trooper? enough said.

 

6. Better looking ships. My JK ship has throws and fluffy cushions! not cool

 

 

I rolled Sith because I'm fed up with my JK who's bald and has a fat arse!

 

 

You should have made a better looking Jedi Knight then instead of a bald and fat one?

 

I agree with you with almost all points though, except the ships, Jedi' s ship is great in my opinion, also Smuggler's ship is just awesome, on the other side i think Imperial agent has an excellent ship, it's like a luxury stealth bomber, Fury is also very good, Mantis on the other hand is a pile of rust and junk

[Veala]

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The real reason is a lot more simple.

 

Force Lightning

Force Choke

Bounty Hunters

 

Take the average, casual Star Wars fan (who probably doesn't even know a Clone Wars cartoon exists), and ask him if throwing pebbles or shooting lightning is cooler. Ask him if force choke or force handcuffs are cooler. Ask him if Boba Fett or Stormtroopers are cooler. See what his answer is.

 

I started playing this game with about 10 real life friends. Of the ten of us, only two of us had even seen the CGI trailers prior to loading the game for the first time. Five of them decided they wanted to roll Sith upon being told they could Force Choke and Force Lightning their enemies. We're not teenagers either, we're late 20s working professionals.

 

The pre-hype may have swayed a small segment of the hardcore following that was on the fence. The appeal of the Sith classes to the casual fan is what really caused the imbalance though.

[Kel-vin]

Let me just say..., but I'm going to rant now. A lot of the republic side players I've seen (I'm republic side ONLY) cry and cry about the balance issue when before patch 1.1 they never did anything about it to begin with. You never saw anyone rallying a bunch of people to go be thorns in the imps side. The process was; WZ, cry, WZ, complain, WZ, rage quit.

 

The game is still new people! Not everyone is going to have lvl 50's yet and If you've sub'd onto a PVP server, then why the **** are you not PvPing? The "good side" in most MMO's I've played has a lot of good hearted people on it, but no one wants to step up and fight back. Isn't that the way it's always been where there's any kind of battle with Good vs. Evil?

 

The balance is out of hand on my server by a ratio of what seems to be 3.5:1. Sure that's sad, but I can honestly say this much, that if rebels actually got off their butts and stopped complaining we could easily steamroll the imps because it seems that most of them hide in numbers.

 

I just got done creating a guild yesterday solely devoted to finding Stone-cold (Rep. side) killers. Name is Millennium Fulcrum (Anchorhead). PST me or Starraker

 

/rage end.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Kel-vin

[Vlacke]

I'm sorry, but you're wrong. The real reason is a lot more simple.

 

Force Lightning

Force Choke

Bounty Hunters

 

Take the average, casual Star Wars fan (who probably doesn't even know a Clone Wars cartoon exists), and ask him if throwing pebbles or shooting lightning is cooler. Ask him if force choke or force handcuffs are cooler. Ask him if Boba Fett or Stormtroopers are cooler. See what his answer is.

 

I started playing this game with about 10 real life friends. Of the ten of us, only two of us had even seen the CGI trailers prior to loading the game for the first time. Five of them decided they wanted to roll Sith upon being told they could Force Choke and Force Lightning their enemies. We're not teenagers either, we're late 20s working professionals.

 

The pre-hype may have swayed a small segment of the hardcore following that was on the fence. The appeal of the Sith classes to the casual fan is what really caused the imbalance though.

 

 

This !!

 

In my opinion also FORCE LIGHTNING made a huge difference, that is why Inquisitor is BY FAR the most popular class, they have vast numbers and even on the Empire side they outnumber every other class by a large margin.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Vlacke

[Kelhemvor]

You guys are overthinking this...

 

We have more imps because everyone wants to be a bada$s, and also because PvPers love to be evil. As one of my Game Designer friend told me (not working for BW btw) "You want to balance the faction? easy, make a sexy looking class on Rep side, problem solved"

 

Population imbalance has nothing to do about game mechanics, animations or anything like that, it's pure psychology 101. bada$s looking = cool and Sex sells.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Kelhemvor

[Vlacke]

You guys are overthinking this...

 

We have more imps because everyone wants to be a bada$s, and also because PvPers love to be evil. As one of my Game Designer friend told me (not working for BW btw) "You want to balance the faction? easy, make a sexy looking class on Rep side, problem solved"

 

Population imbalance has nothing to do about game mechanics, animations or anything like that, it's pure psychology 101. bada$s looking = cool and Sex sells.

 

I agree with this as well, i have suggested before that Bioware need to give more cool classes to choose from,Togruta, Kel'Dor and Nautolan would all be good choices but maybe Togruta would be the best choice if it were made Republic exclusive because of it's looks.

Also it wouldn't hurt the lore much if it were done.

 

Togruta - http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Togruta

 

It would definitely increase the popularity of the faction, and lets be honest, as things are now the Empire has 3 exclusive races to choose from while the Republic has only two, with Miraluka and Mirialan don't quite cut it.

 

I think that adding Togruta to the Republic would made an instant impact, not the impact Blood Elves made for Horde in WoW of course, but it would benefit the Republic side nevertheless.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Vlacke

[SarimRune]

Re: the OP:

 

The Cause: Absolute nonsense. The Bad guys being unstoppable and awesome and the good guys are underdogs are tropes that SW (and like all of sci-fi/fantasy) has done for a good long time.

 

The Solution: Excellent idea. A buffing based on the numbers could certainly do the trick.

[RwNemo]

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...