Faction Imbalance - Fact or Myth?

[Evangelist]

I see a lot people complaining about the population imbalance and am not sure what to think. First, where are people getting their information? How accurate is it? Are they just spouting someone else's claims that they read in some forum somewhere? All the server statistic sites don't contain information on faction numbers, just raw data on total population. So people report their experiences, personal testimonials, but again how accurate are they? Do they really know how many Imperials/Republic there are in that zone? Are they in a low population shard of that zone? That might be true for their server, but what about others?

 

Now I'm not saying it doesn't exist, it very likely does, but I have yet to see actual numbers to support anyone's claims.

 

In factional MMOs there always seems to be an imbalance. For example, and one that quite a few will be familiar with, WoW at the start saw Alliance as the dominant population faction but now its Horde. So imbalances can shift from one faction to another. Is this something that BioWare should actually take action on, or is it something they should let work out on its own? Shorter PVP queues are a big incentive, once it was Horde with the insta-pop PVP queues, now its the Alliance.

 

Next, if you believe BioWare is obligated to resove the issue of server population balance how exactly do you propose they go about it?

 

Most of the suggestions I've seen involve removing customer choice or grossly rewarding people who roll/play Republic characters. Restricting people from choosing Imperial on a server until Republic numbers match impedes their choice of where and with whom they want to play. Additionally this approach may or may not work, Imperials may experience better player retention than Republic, they cannot force people to re-sub, so you still can end up on a Imperial dominated server.

 

Rewarding/buffing Republic players to give them an advantage over Imperials also doesn't work. Why does your $15 a month entitle you to recieve more than an Imperial do because of the faction you play? WoW also tried the "buff one side in PVP" with Wintergrasp & Tol Barad, didn't work very well, the more populous (or occasionally the more motivated) faction still almost always owned both 24/7.

 

So how about some constructive, equatable, and non-whiney suggestions on how to approach faction population balance? A lot to ask on these forums I know, but let's give it a shot.

[Squeets]

Grand Master Zym - US East - PVE - Normal

 

8pm Thursday January 19, 2012

 

Republic Fleet: 89

Imperial Fleet: 255

 

Fact on my server bro. And we aren't even a PvP server.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Squeets

[Xizidor]

I see a lot people complaining about the population imbalance and am not sure what to think. First, where are people getting their information? How accurate is it? Are they just spouting someone else's claims that they read in some forum somewhere? All the server statistic sites don't contain information on faction numbers, just raw data on total population. So people report their experiences, personal testimonials, but again how accurate are they? Do they really know how many Imperials/Republic there are in that zone? Are they in a low population shard of that zone? That might be true for their server, but what about others?

 

Now I'm not saying it doesn't exist, it very likely does, but I have yet to see actual numbers to support anyone's claims.

 

In factional MMOs there always seems to be an imbalance. For example, and one that quite a few will be familiar with, WoW at the start saw Alliance as the dominant population faction but now its Horde. So imbalances can shift from one faction to another. Is this something that BioWare should actually take action on, or is it something they should let work out on its own? Shorter PVP queues are a big incentive, once it was Horde with the insta-pop PVP queues, now its the Alliance.

 

Next, if you believe BioWare is obligated to resove the issue of server population balance how exactly do you propose they go about it?

 

Most of the suggestions I've seen involve removing customer choice or grossly rewarding people who roll/play Republic characters. Restricting people from choosing Imperial on a server until Republic numbers match impedes their choice of where and with whom they want to play. Additionally this approach may or may not work, Imperials may experience better player retention than Republic, they cannot force people to re-sub, so you still can end up on a Imperial dominated server.

 

Rewarding/buffing Republic players to give them an advantage over Imperials also doesn't work. Why does your $15 a month entitle you to recieve more than an Imperial do because of the faction you play? WoW also tried the "buff one side in PVP" with Wintergrasp & Tol Barad, didn't work very well, the more populous (or occasionally the more motivated) faction still almost always owned both 24/7.

 

So how about some constructive, equatable, and non-whiney suggestions on how to approach faction population balance? A lot to ask on these forums I know, but let's give it a shot.

 

I posted exact numbers in another post which I'll link. Granted, this is from one specific time on one specific day on one specific server.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=202836&goto=newpost

 

It's a 3 to 1 faction imbalance at peak time on a pvp server. It's pretty inline with what people are saying. If you ask me, faction imbalance is pretty bad.

 

Look to my second post in the thread for numbers from both factions.

[Mertissielle]

Not going to reply because I'm about to go home from work and it warrants more than a sentence. But I'm posting this to say that it's a great, well-written post that I will give five stars to and respond to once I get home (if it survives the onslaught of entitled man babies making threads, of course).

 

So, um, bump? I guess.

[LordRelyks]

There is definitely faction imbalance, but there is nothing BioWare/EA can do about it without restrictions to gameplay.

[gtmach]

There is definitely faction imbalance, but there is nothing BioWare/EA can do about it without restrictions to gameplay.

 

Ya I seriously don't get what people want. You want Bioware to restrict your new character to only Republic because of the server you're on?

[Squeets]

There is definitely faction imbalance, but there is nothing BioWare/EA can do about it without restrictions to gameplay.

 

Make being Republic cooler.

 

ie: Take our giant circle capital ships that look stupid and give us cooler capital ships.

 

Result: Instantly Republic outnumbers Sith.

[LordRelyks]

Ya I seriously don't get what people want. You want Bioware to restrict your new character to only Republic because of the server you're on?

 

Yea. BioWare cant help it if a bunch of angry kids want to kill innocents on Empire.

[Yfelsung]

Until Bioware releases the hard data of server populations, it is neither fact nor myth.

 

It is undefined and should be treated as such.

 

It is, as of now, neither false or true, it is simply X.

[Xizidor]

There is definitely faction imbalance, but there is nothing BioWare/EA can do about it without restrictions to gameplay.

 

They can give incentives to the smaller faction like increased valor rewards etc.

 

P.S.

 

Nice to see another SWG Flurrian

[gangbot]

May be a faction imbalance, but the PVP in ilum on my server (the swiftsure) republic are doing ok. On my jedi guardian i formed a full group and there were another group with us doing pretty well while being out numbered. We were able to zerg the map and cap points, there was no spawn camping with either of the sides being able to.

[QDMcGraw]

Yeah, so the Empire won the war, and it seems we now know why: They outnumbered the Republic.

 

Any attempts to equalize the numbers will change history, so it has to stay unbalanced.

[Xizidor]

Until Bioware releases the hard data of server populations, it is neither fact nor myth.

 

It is undefined and should be treated as such.

 

It is, as of now, neither false or true, it is simply X.

 

The /who command can give you hard data for a specific moment. You can get your servers entire population by /who [class][level range]. Do this for all classes and level ranges and you have an exact amount of players at that moment.

[RadehX]

I'm really not sure why people blame BW for the faction imbalance. What do you expect them to do? Force people to pick a class they don't want to play?

[Enginer]

Grand Master Zym - US East - PVE - Normal

 

8pm Thursday January 19, 2012

 

Republic Fleet: 89

Imperial Fleet: 255

 

Fact on my server bro. And we aren't even a PvP server.

 

I have also check "Wound in the force"

 

And the numbers are simliar about 2 to 1 or 2.5 to 1.

[gtmach]

It's just the 2 sides of the spectrum that people ALWAYS forget exists.

 

People keep claiming they want World PvP, but that always falls prey to faction imbalance. It's virtually impossible to give people freedom to choose between 2 factions and expect a 50/50 split. And most often the numbers are fairly one-sided.

 

The only real solution - is to make all PvP instanced and dumb it down to a queue with a max capacity set. But that restricts the "World" aspect of World PvP. The openness, the exploration, the freedon of World PvP is screwed over.

 

Just like WoW eventually Bioware will realize that the only way to guarantee balance is to set a max limit to a queued instance and have people "join" the event.

 

Ilum will turn into another Alderaan Warzone then.

[xTranceone]

My name is Flaunt, and I play on Darth Malak - Last Rites Is looking for people to even the odds on our server, and in general, begging people to even the odds on every server.

 

In order for this game to truely thrive and make it past the initial first few months without them having to close servers or merge servers, we need people to step up to the plate and reroll Republic. The severe population imbalance on most servers is not something that will yield a fruitful game environment.

 

There are servers such as the one I come from - Darth Malak - Where the Imp to Repub ratio is seemingly, and not exagerated, around 7:1

 

I understand what this entails, leaving a high level imperial character and rerolling and starting over from scratch, but this game desperately needs balance in order to somewhat succeed. There are no gamebreaking racials, and no benefit to playing imperial other than the asthetics, which you can achieve the same asthetics if you go darkside on your repub character.

 

We need people to step up and make the switch, because as more and more people begin to play this game, people who are newer will always flock to the side who is more represented on a server due to easier questing, instancing, ops.

 

Please step up and make the switch, the game needs it.

[Yfelsung]

The /who command can give you hard data for a specific moment. You can get your servers entire population by /who [class][level range]. Do this for all classes and level ranges and you have an exact amount of players at that moment.

 

There are flaws with that methodology because you cannot check every zone at every time of the day for every server.

 

Hence the data you gained is not accurate enough.

 

Only when Bioware gives us the absolute data from their own servers can we confirm anything.

 

I am unconcerned with any data not directly parsed from Bioware's servers by Bioware.

[Evangelist]

Grand Master Zym - US East - PVE - Normal

 

8pm Thursday January 19, 2012

 

Republic Fleet: 89

Imperial Fleet: 255

 

Fact on my server bro. And we aren't even a PvP server.

 

Those numbers don't prove anything about your server population except that at the time you did your /who that 89 people were on the Republic Fleet and 255 were on the Imperial Fleet.

 

For example, there could be 1589 Republic players on your server and 1500 Imperial players. At that momment in time 89 Republic players are hanging out on the Fleet, while the other 1500 are out in other zones leveling, running FPs or OPs, playing an alt on Coruscant, and some just decided to do something else that night. Yet at the same moment 255 Imperials are hanging out in thier fleet while the other 1245 are out leveling, running FPs or Ops, etc.

 

I'll say it again, your numbers don't prove anything. It is like claiming all people own jetpacks and can fly because you once saw that guy with the jetpack fly into a sporting event or on TV.

 

What is needed for an accurate census is an actual running audit of all zones for both factions over a minimum 2 week period.

[Enginer]

Those numbers don't prove anything about your server population except that at the time you did your /who that 89 people were on the Republic Fleet and 255 were on the Imperial Fleet.

 

For example, there could be 1589 Republic players on your server and 1500 Imperial players. At that momment in time 89 Republic players are hanging out on the Fleet, while the other 1500 are out in other zones leveling, running FPs or OPs, playing an alt on Coruscant, and some just decided to do something else that night. Yet at the same moment 255 Imperials are hanging out in thier fleet while the other 1245 are out leveling, running FPs or Ops, etc.

 

I'll say it again, your numbers don't prove anything. It is like claiming all people own jetpacks and can fly because you once saw that guy with the jetpack fly into a sporting event or on TV.

 

What is needed for an accurate census is an actual running audit of all zones for both factions over a minimum 2 week period.

 

So your saying doing a /who of an area that is the main hang out for a faction does NOT give you some sort of feel on server pop?

[harlekwin]

Yea. BioWare cant help it if a bunch of angry kids want to kill innocents on Empire.

 

QFT....

 

The "I kill because I am dark in my soul" players are the modern version of the emo goths from my youth.

[LionRampant]

There are servers such as the one I come from - Darth Malak - Where the Imp to Repub ratio is seemingly, and not exagerated, around 7:1

.

 

Actually naming a server "Darth Malak" with the expectation of it not being utterly dominated by Sith is proof enough of BW's cluelessness.

[djsmileey]

I see a lot people complaining about the population imbalance and am not sure what to think. First, where are people getting their information? How accurate is it? Are they just spouting someone else's claims that they read in some forum somewhere? All the server statistic sites don't contain information on faction numbers, just raw data on total population. So people report their experiences, personal testimonials, but again how accurate are they? Do they really know how many Imperials/Republic there are in that zone? Are they in a low population shard of that zone? That might be true for their server, but what about others?

 

Now I'm not saying it doesn't exist, it very likely does, but I have yet to see actual numbers to support anyone's claims.

 

In factional MMOs there always seems to be an imbalance. For example, and one that quite a few will be familiar with, WoW at the start saw Alliance as the dominant population faction but now its Horde. So imbalances can shift from one faction to another. Is this something that BioWare should actually take action on, or is it something they should let work out on its own? Shorter PVP queues are a big incentive, once it was Horde with the insta-pop PVP queues, now its the Alliance.

 

Next, if you believe BioWare is obligated to resove the issue of server population balance how exactly do you propose they go about it?

 

Most of the suggestions I've seen involve removing customer choice or grossly rewarding people who roll/play Republic characters. Restricting people from choosing Imperial on a server until Republic numbers match impedes their choice of where and with whom they want to play. Additionally this approach may or may not work, Imperials may experience better player retention than Republic, they cannot force people to re-sub, so you still can end up on a Imperial dominated server.

 

Rewarding/buffing Republic players to give them an advantage over Imperials also doesn't work. Why does your $15 a month entitle you to recieve more than an Imperial do because of the faction you play? WoW also tried the "buff one side in PVP" with Wintergrasp & Tol Barad, didn't work very well, the more populous (or occasionally the more motivated) faction still almost always owned both 24/7.

 

So how about some constructive, equatable, and non-whiney suggestions on how to approach faction population balance? A lot to ask on these forums I know, but let's give it a shot.

 

I can see what you mean, however I do believe that things may have yet to change. I believe that the majority of casual players are still working their way to 50. The world pvp and imbalance may not be as bad in the future.

 

Horde and Alliance was pretty badly balanced on WoW for a long time too. Had to find the right server if you wanted any chance.

 

Empire can play vs empire, and they are adding more same-faction warzones. I think everything will be ok.

 

This is not to say that I wouldn't mind more people to move on over, but faction transfers are not realistic.

[Yfelsung]

QFT....

 

The "I kill because I am dark in my soul" players are the modern version of the emo goths from my youth.

 

You'll find your average emo kid plays a character who is "Dark, but with a heart"

 

Those of us who play evil characters because we want to slaughter innocents are generally death metal heads.

 

And it's not 'because I am dark in my soul', it's more that it's really, really funny to gib helpless NPCs.

 

It's like driving down the sidewalk in GTA... it's just a good time.

[NDiggy]

Yea. BioWare cant help it if a bunch of angry kids want to kill innocents on Empire.

 

I rerolled Empire because I didn't want to be part of a low pop faction. I had to deal with that in WoW, the dead economy, no groups, no guilds, no raids. It sucks. I refuse to do that again, and I really wanted to play Republic. I could care less about asthetics.