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

[Dreadspectre]

"You know who I am by now and I warned you for months" wow, the arrogance alone is astounding.

 

You know why I and many other people picked Sith? Because we liked the bad guys from the original movies when we watched them as kids. I watched practically zero trailers and didn't read hype for crap, I just knew I wanted to be on Empire side.

 

You thought about this way too hard, and you're "masterstroke" fix is to just copy the exp/valor gains for underdog side from Warhammer? Are you serious?

 

Someone get this guy a Nobel award for gaming development problem solving...

Edited January 19, 2012 by Dreadspectre

[Xzenorath]

I don't remember what MMO is was, I think DAoC, but their solution to help with imbalance was to give a XP boost to the under populated faction. That way that faction would level faster and it would be an incentive for new players to join that faction.

 

Unfortunately that kind of buff works in an MMO made by Mythic where there's not enough content to get you to max level. Making you level faster is GOOD for them...

 

This doesn't hold true for SWTOR. We're already outpacing the content, I had to constantly skip planets, I didn't even touch Corellia, wasn't even done with Voss when I hit 50... making you level even faster means people will skim through content, mostly doing their class story and maxing out pretty quickly.

 

I don't think this is the answer... I truly believe the answer is to entice people to roll Republic by giving them new cool races, cooler armor, anything that would make people consider going away from the lightning and jet packs and over to the Republic.

 

It needs to happen on it's own... by providing incentives that wouldn't affect gameplay. That's the best way to do it, honestly the larger guilds should reroll Republic on their servers until the population evens out... that's ultimately the best solution but most of them wouldn't consider doing so.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Xzenorath

[Westinftw]

I've logged into the game and have checked out just about all the end game armors for the both sides and all proffessions and just from looking at that, i asked myself (with the ONE exception being the endgame Jedi warrior armor where you look like a space age samurai ) why the hell would anyone play Rep with such ugly looking armors?! Really, the Sith's lvl 20 pvp armor looks like a condom suit, but at lvl 40 you get that nice sleek looking black robe and can get a black facial mask to go with it! What do the Jedi's get? Something that look like a napkin wrapped around plastic (and the counselar looks like it is wearing beggars clothing)

 

[snip]

 

I completely agree here. I wanted to join the Empire, but I realized there were far too many outnumbering the Pubs. So, I thought it would be cool to roll a Shadow. Then after seeing their endgame gear -- which is basically a dead animal draped over a nasty robe -- it left me with a knot in my stomach.

 

I was about to reroll as an Imperial until I saw the smuggler's cowboy hat. I swear to God, that was the only reason keeping me Republic alongside friends.

[Crujido]

Orrr maybe the reason there is faction inbalance is because you get to play a Sith...and if you watched the movies or even saw the videos or hell just know they are the bad guy look cooler, sound cooler and have ten fold better stories/animations than the republic?

[magnuskn]

I wish that the pre-launch forum posts were still archived... people could go and see that Prof Walsh really was pointing out the marketing problem for years. Oh, well.

[LovarBoy]

working as intended? http://dl.dropbox.com/u/19030604/patch11.png

 

 

Insider-Facebook-Fail-of-the-day!

 

 

The missing balance between the factions is dramatically disturbing, but they can never fix this.

Edited January 19, 2012 by LovarBoy

[Jestunhi]

I prefered the way it was handled in Warhammer.

 

Instead of bolstering the player (so that if you chose to roam instead of fight the zerg no one who you face will have a chance due to your massively boosted stats) they bolstered the rewards.

 

Still encourages not fighting the zerg (and in this case, surely that's a good thing? On my server the pub base is usually under assault but we don't get in far enough for the spawn point - therefore therse pubs keep coming back because they *choose* to fight the zerg instead of taking a taxi and roaming) but the fighs are normal but the rewards better.

 

Even fighting the zerg the few kills your side does get will be very rewarding.

[Erudain]

I don't remember what MMO is was, I think DAoC, but their solution to help with imbalance was to give a XP boost to the under populated faction. That way that faction would level faster and it would be an incentive for new players to join that faction.

 

Inc exp doesn't solve the problem....put 10 rep guys who got from lv40 to 50 in 2days because of that buff against 10 lv50 imps with full battlemaster.....and it will get ugly...soon.

 

Lots of MMO tryed the inc exp to balance server and in most of them, the result is just having more cannon fodder to kill...that's all.

Remember endgame gear > lv....and in lot of cases gear > skill > lv

Edited January 19, 2012 by Erudain

[BlackSpin]

What do you guys think? http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=202867

[Nikushim]

Inc exp doesn't solve the problem....put 10 rep guys who got from lv40 to 50 in 2days because of that buff against 10 lv50 imps with full battlemaster.....and it will get ugly...soon.

 

Lots of MMO tryed the inc exp to balance server and in most of them, the result is having more cannon fodder...that's all.

Remember endgame gear > lv....and in lot of cases gear > skill > lv

 

Agree on this one completely! Been soo many times i had the skill and even the level advantage in pvp, only to have the persons gear be the tiny peble that tilted the favor his way! Having jumped from rep to imp due to ALWAYS loosing PvP (which gets depressing after a PvP night with more than 50 losses and only 5 wins... ) i can see that many of the higher levels on Imp. have far superior gear than the Rep. Just about any lvl 50 i've seen in PvP have at least on or two battlemaster items, while on the Rep side, i rarely see any lvl 50s in pvp anymore :/

[fest]

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.

 

They tried this with Wintergrasp back in WotLK. It was HORRIBLE. On Doomhammer, 1 Horde was able to survive and kill half a raid of Alliance. And the Horde vehicles had more HP was hardmode raid bosses.

 

Sorry, but this is NOT the answer and there are a million better ways to solve the population imbalance dilemma.

[magnuskn]

They tried this with Wintergrasp back in WotLK. It was HORRIBLE. On Doomhammer, 1 Horde was able to survive and kill half a raid of Alliance. And the Horde vehicles had more HP was hardmode raid bosses.

 

Sorry, but this is NOT the answer and there are a million better ways to solve the population imbalance dilemma.

 

I guess you forgot to mention how that one guy was then constantly CC'ed and didn't get off too many abilities before being overwhelmed.

[Kuari]

They tried this with Wintergrasp back in WotLK. It was HORRIBLE. On Doomhammer, 1 Horde was able to survive and kill half a raid of Alliance. And the Horde vehicles had more HP was hardmode raid bosses.

 

Sorry, but this is NOT the answer and there are a million better ways to solve the population imbalance dilemma.

 

Well if they made sure not to overpower it to that extent it'd help. You can't assume a solution isn't viable when they overdo it like that. Also what's all this garbage about imperial classes being stronger than Republic, and why the hell are people believing it? They're mirrors for crying out loud.

[Esrac]

Bioware did have blatant favoritism for the Empire and the Sith. Evidence? Darth Malgus statuette in the CE. Great, if you're an Imperial. Not so great if you're into the Republic.

 

Good thing Republic players had the option to get a Shatele Shan statuette...oh, wait, they didn't get that option because Bioware was too busy pushing Darth Malgus down our throats.

[Fetor]

Inc exp doesn't solve the problem....put 10 rep guys who got from lv40 to 50 in 2days because of that buff against 10 lv50 imps with full battlemaster.....and it will get ugly...soon.

 

Lots of MMO tryed the inc exp to balance server and in most of them, the result is just having more cannon fodder to kill...that's all.

Remember endgame gear > lv....and in lot of cases gear > skill > lv

 

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.

[fungihoujo]

Although correct in that something should be done to fix this... the OP's post is utterly wrong.

 

I find it ironic that you talk about Trooper/Jedi sniping of each other from early forum days, considering you were often at the center of such same side bickering with your regular preaching of how the jedi are indeed better than troopers in every single way. You fanned the flames extremely well yourself, so don't blame BW for that one.

 

As for Darth Malgus being the poster boy for the Empire and us identifying with him... are you serious? Malgus is a Sith Warrior- I've seen threads complaining about BH, IA and SI having 7/8 of the classes in a WZ and how OP they are and how Empire plays only them to be cheap, etc...

 

I have never seen a thread complaining about too many SW. Now, if you were correct, and Malgus was supposedly the main reason we all rolled this side- why did nobody roll a SW? Don't we 'identify' with him?

 

 

Simply put, the only thing you are correct on is that there is, on some servers- a faction imbalance- though there are screenies of Republic groups stomping Ilum too so it clearly swings both ways. Regardless- you are incorrect the moment you start listing reasons why and blaming BW for it.

 

 

 

Let's look for a moment though at classes in the cinematics and what they have under their belt.

 

Malgus- defeats a jedi knight who is already exhausted from fighting off two sith at a time. Defeats a jedi master in Decieved in a fairly fair fight. Quite ugly, but has a somewhat BA voice and appearance.

 

BH- is attractive to males, shoots a bit of fire and seems good at taking out nobodies.

 

SI- Malgus' master, does zero things effectively, gets beaten by a jedi who's currently taking on two sith at the same time, likely the most pathetic character in the cinematics- however, despite this, SI is supposedly the most played class even with such a weak showing.

 

No IA

 

JK Satele's master- fends off two sith, gives a heroic last stand to let his pupil escape not unlike Obi Wan's, defeats one of the sith he's fighting. Dual wields a double saber and single saber at the same time and looks utterly BA doing so.

 

JC Satele- stops a lightsaber with her hands, looks very acrobatic. Is attractive and thus appealing to the male players. Has attitude and absolutely isn't a humble jedi in old man's robes- she looks pretty cool. Blows Malgus through a mountain and put him in a breathing mask, sustains no damages herself during their fight.

 

Trooper- rough looking, has that charge forward blindly thing that CoD has taught the pvpers to absolutely love, flips sith over his back like they were jokes. Tries to take on Malgus with a knife, so maybe not the brightest though he's got courage. Later on, grenades him and his enemy point blank and survives- he has guts that's for sure.

 

Smuggler- only character with some charm and amusing lines in the cinematics, only womanizer too. Awesome outfit- one which is available in game- looks great with his double pistols and flies everyone's favourite Falcon rip off.

 

 

Really, doesn't take a genius to see who the cinematics favoured- and the one class that were favoured for sith, the SW- is the ONE CLASS NOBODY PLAYS!!!!

 

How exactly are you supporting this idea that the cinematics made everyone play sith due to Malgus when NOBODY wants to be Malgus!?!?!

 

Utterly flawed reasoning.

 

 

Better reasoning is that- pvpers always play the darker side in mmorpgs.

 

As for BW favourtism- some of the devs have said the Republic side is better too, so what? I don't find it strange at all that the devs in charge of Republic story and gameplay and design favour it, and those in charge of Sith story and gameplay and design favour it- I mean, they had a whole marketting campaign of devs squaring off against each other and talking about the benefits of their side- not the sith side- their side, so both sides.

 

Course, I have no doubt someone's going to say 'Well no, before forums went down there was a 200 page thread where all the devs said how they love Sith and made it better and how Republic story writers purposefully did garbage work cuz they wanted perhaps the most important bit of writing they'd do to suck so that their mark on mmo history would be a failure- but now it's gone cuz of server wipe, which BW did just to hide things like that as part of their evil conspiracy'.

 

Yup, BW is out to sabotage their own game- brilliant theory some people have.

[Dyvim]

You can write all the walls of text you want. The reason Empire outnumber Jedi is because they can shoot lightning or they have a Boba Fettish.

 

period.

 

Yep, the consular class, both animation and gear wise, is a joke. THe pvp gear is an UTTER embarrasment to wear. It was either modeled after fred flinstone or salvation army rag bag apparel. The animations are about as cool as something you'd expect out of lego star wars. It is utterly ridiculous. It is like they designed the consular class to be inferior and fail. Obviously whoever is responsible for making jedi look and feel lame either did so on purpose or their heart just wasnt in it.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Dyvim

[Kuari]

Yep, the consular class, both animation and gear wise, is a joke. THe pvp gear is an UTTER embarrasment to wear. It was either modeled after fred flinstone or salvation army rag bag apparel. The animations are about as cool as something you'd expect out of lego star wars. It is utterly ridiculous. It is like they designed the consular class to be inferior and fail. Obviously whoever is responsible for making jedi look and feel lame either did so on purpose or their heart just wasnt in it.

 

...pretty much ALL the PvP gear is terrible looking. Consular isn't special in that regard. Agents are pretty much the only really passable ones on Imperial side in terms of PvP gear appearence. Also, what were you expecting from the animations? Its telekinesis. Jedi don't use force lightning.

[neves_meid]

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.

[Merex]

There needs to be content where the Sith get their teeth kicked in by the Republic, big time. Possibly an entire expansion with pre-hype dedicated to show how awesome the Republic are, and make the Empire vulnerable. Something needs to happen. More appealing class design for the Republic side would be nice too. Edited January 19, 2012 by Merex

[Ameenachan]

...pretty much ALL the PvP gear is terrible looking. Consular isn't special in that regard. Agents are pretty much the only really passable ones on Imperial side in terms of PvP gear appearence. Also, what were you expecting from the animations? Its telekinesis. Jedi don't use force lightning.

 

Jedi Sage: nice, clean looking gear,

thier mirror:

Sith Scorcerer: Angry gnomes.

[Kuari]

There needs to be content where the Sith get their teeth kicked in by the Republic, big time. Possibly an entire expansion with pre-hype dedicated to show how awesome the Republic are, and make the Empire vulnerable. Something needs to happen.

 

Lots of that already happens in the game story...

[fungihoujo]

I completely agree here. I wanted to join the Empire, but I realized there were far too many outnumbering the Pubs. So, I thought it would be cool to roll a Shadow. Then after seeing their endgame gear -- which is basically a dead animal draped over a nasty robe -- it left me with a knot in my stomach.

 

I was about to reroll as an Imperial until I saw the smuggler's cowboy hat. I swear to God, that was the only reason keeping me Republic alongside friends.

 

If only we still had the old forums... there were so many threads poking fun at the SI peacock outfit- the one which ended up being our endgame set btw, as well as the conehead- whcih is what we wear before it. Nobody seemed to think that set was fantastic back then- in fact, mostly Republic players were making fun of it... yet, now that the game's out, suddenly it's so freaking awesome everyone is playing SI?

 

Yeah, I don't think that's how it works there bub.

[Sylriana]

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.

 

Well if they made sure not to overpower it to that extent it'd help. You can't assume a solution isn't viable when they overdo it like that.

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

 

Also what's all this garbage about imperial classes being stronger than Republic, and why the hell are people believing it? They're mirrors for crying out loud.

 

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

Edited January 19, 2012 by Sylriana

[Merex]

Lots of that already happens in the game story...

I'm talking about pre-hype stuff similar to what Bioware did leading up to the TOR launch. There was a serious Empire bias going on there. I realize this happens in game for the Republic, but that isn't enough. People make the decision on what they play BEFORE they go ingame. I play Republic, btw. I'm not easily fooled by flashy cinematic trailers. But Bioware di a great job of making the Empire look strong, and the Republic look weak.

Edited January 19, 2012 by Merex