Are we seriously going to get absolutely no word on faction imbalance or low pops?

[Zocat]

Honestly, this "loot and incentive for rolling the underpop faction" BS is exactly that, BS. People want to play the faction THEY CHOOSE TO PLAY. If they don't like the republic's story, and are more in line with the Empire, than guess what faction they are going to play? The empire.

 

But there's 3rd group of people:

"I dont know" "I cannot decide" "I dont care".

And giving incentives to those people will nudge them towards the side which is underpopulated.

[Facex]

Merge servers?

 

Ok.

 

2 servers have 500 republic players and 1000 empire players. They merge.

 

Now you have one server with 1000 republic players and 2000 empire players. Well done!

 

That is well done... The republic have more people to play with...

[Derbefrier]

faction imbalance is inherent in all MMOs not much you can do. as much as players hate faction imbalance hardly any of these players will be willing to swap sides and just continue to ***** at the developer.

 

empty servers will eventually get merged or they will offer free transfers with but dont expect it to happen to quickly. there are alot of things to consider when doing something like that.

[Bigbozo]

Ok, realy? Is there a MMO that this doesn't come up in?

 

You can't make me play a pub toon any more than you can make me play an imp toon.

 

There is no way to fix faction imbalance in any game, and there is no way to fix it in this one.

 

If the game says I have to play a imp on said server because there are to many pub toons on it, I will roll on another server. If I can't roll a imp toon on any servers because everyone else rolled imp and I have no option but roll pub, do you think I'll just suck it up?

 

Edit: also to answer the question in the title, no, there will be no word, because there is no word to give.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Bigbozo

[ippollite]

A few simple questions to help those fairly slow at catching on:

 

1. Does bioware WANT a good balance (not exact, but good), between the factions?

 

- Of course they do. A good healthy balance between the factions means healthy queue times, a healthy economy, an easy time to organise groups and raids, lots of happy guilds, and popular world pvp.

An unblanced server means poor queue times, a poor economy for one faction, a very difficult time in organising with other players for the most basic aspects of the game, and of course deeply unbalanced open world PVP zones.

 

2. Is this a PVP server only issue?

 

- Arguably yes. But world pvp is a BIG feature of end game. It will seep into faction balance even on pve servers (people did after all faction transfer in wow in Wrath due to wintergrasp commendations). World PVP zones require an incentive worthy of making people go there; ergo the gear or rewards will be top end. They arent just pvp rewards. They are rewards that will both help crafters, raiders and bragging rights players. They will have to choose between incentivising world pvp zones or leaving them to languish. Since they want as MUCH content for you as possible, you can bet your *** theyll be doing everything to get you to go there. And the knock on is that these places will define many PVErs faction choices.

As one of the factions loses favor (it might not always be republic after all), you will see this knock on to guild progression through poaching and the invariable destruction of many small casual guilds, forced speccing for in demand roles, and endless regearing to replace players that drop out due to a lack of guild raid depth. This will also place strain on resources in teh GTN with ridiculously high prices on raid necessary gear as well as poor access to resources since the other faction will usually dominate those areas. These are just some of the problems. There are many many more.

 

3. Isnt this the fault of the players?

 

- Yes since players are restriction free and clearly voted with their feet. But also certainly no. Market research (of which they have a great deal) should have indicated exactly this probability (if it didn't, they need to seriously look at the people delivering their research - its long been known that empire would outnumber republic). There is a reason that many people chose empire over republic. The reasons are obviously important but the more significant issue is simply that they do so in serious numbers. Opportunities to balance this out have been sadly squandered. Even with this information they failed to act. "Players are attracted to the dark side" or "darth vader is way sexier than luke skywalker" or "brown robes!" are all by the by. The most important question is what is to be done about it?

 

The true mirroring act isn't in equality, but in balance. If one faction is more likable then its up the designers to remedy this even if it means giving something unique to that faction to balance this out. Mirroring for its own sake isn't the end goal. The end goal is balancing. If players are drawn to one side for whatever reason, then the aim is to balance that lure. You can do this by providing temporary advantages (which is nothing more than a band aid solution since once the advantage disappears people will still be drawn away), or you can look for aesthetic decisions and assess those.

 

4. Reroll then?

 

- And here is the crux of this and every other thread on the matter. We will. Once the initial balance issues came to the surface it was only a matter of time before the threads began, and from this only a matter of time before people start panicking and switching factions. Think of this like a run on a bank. You might have been one of the people laughing at how silly people are for panicking... only now youre looking at your money and thinking "but what if their panic actually does create the very thing theyre panicking about?" So not only do you have the servers where there is a faction imbalance and people fleeing them. You also have people on relatively stable servers who might be slightly outnumbered or might take a little while to organise a group, now very twitchy and watching very closely other republic players to decide when they should jump ship.

 

The reason these threads exist is because we DONT WANT to reroll. We dont want to add to the problem. We chose the underdog server precisely because for some of us, rolling teh dominant faction lacks a certain challenge. But we will. And this is bad for the game.

 

5. How so?

 

- Because it means LESS DIVERSITY AND LESS THINGS FOR EVERYONE TO DO. The first thing that will die is obviously world pvp. The next thing to die will be pvp servers. This now cuts off a significant number of players who dont just want to grind warzones. (And those warzones will be huttball and whatever else the non faction warzone is in 1.2). These players will leave, as will everyone else who thinks that a one faction game in the star wars universe is kinda silly. The only solution will be to produce more non faction lakes and more non faction warzones (treating the symptom). It means less hype in the game and less people wanting to talk about the game. Raid or die will be pretty much all thats left. That or hunting datacrons...

 

Less diversity is BAD. Its bad for the players, and its terrible for the developers who will find themselves straight jacketed within a year on ways to keep the game moving along. Heres some more gear! go down this boss! go craft this epic! yay! Oh, youve cleared the content? Well we used to have some self manufacturing content in open world pvp areas, and we had this awesome plan to tie them into longer more strategic objectives, but well sorry, we decided its a pve only game now.

 

The theme park MMO objective where you get a bit of all the fun stuff under one title will die, and with it, so too will the game. Why on earth would bioware want this?

Edited January 26, 2012 by ippollite

[CharagonIGN]

Ok, realy? Is there a MMO that this doesn't come up in?

 

You can't make me play a pub toon any more than you can make me play an imp toon.

 

There is no way to fix faction imbalance in any game, and there is no way to fix it in this one.

 

If the game says I have to play a imp on said server because there are to many pub toons on it, I will roll on another server. If I can't roll a imp toon on any servers because everyone else rolled imp and I have no option but roll pub, do you think I'll just suck it up?

 

Edit: also to answer the question in the title, no, there will be no word, because there is no word to give.

 

Fine, but don't complain when Huttball is the only warzone you see and you'll never step foot inside Ilum once they figure out how to cap populations to zones.

[Taurusaud]

This is something that has been highlighted on major media outlets like IGN, Massively and Game Breaker TV. It is an enormous issue that is probably bleeding subscribers every single day. Why are not getting any word whatsoever on what is going to happen?

 

Because nothing's going to be done about it.

[CelestrialFox]

Ok, realy? Is there a MMO that this doesn't come up in?

 

You can't make me play a pub toon any more than you can make me play an imp toon.

 

There is no way to fix faction imbalance in any game, and there is no way to fix it in this one.

 

If the game says I have to play a imp on said server because there are to many pub toons on it, I will roll on another server. If I can't roll a imp toon on any servers because everyone else rolled imp and I have no option but roll pub, do you think I'll just suck it up?

 

Edit: also to answer the question in the title, no, there will be no word, because there is no word to give.

 

Everquest 2, You could play with whoever you wished and fight whoever youwish. Lineage 2 FFA no factions besides player guilds, Eve? Same as Lineage. There's probably more MMORPG's that don't have this problem ^^

[grupurt]

Low pop solution - Roll on a busier server - or - server merges

 

Faction balance solution - Tell players they MUST roll republic or they cant play.

 

1st one might work, the second.... i doubt it.

 

 

Second could, IIRC, Aion had this. Had no problem with this.

[Zazlow]

Give republic player better racials?

 

Make bg's cross server. longer wait times on empire side will encourage them to reroll or xfer.

 

just 2 ideas

[Benfynyn]

One possible solution would be to make faction specific special events and/or content that's only rolled out for the faction that is underpopulated on that particular server. It would need to be temporary but have it last for at least a week or two. That would encourage people to roll new characters and level them up to participate in as much of it as possible.

[Draksen]

What they can add, is an exp bonus % (maybe 20~30% for example) to the underdog side of every server.

So if you want to play/level a toon faster, to test or to play somehting else for a change you'll be able to do so but you'll have to chose the "underdog faction" (in most cases, the Republic)

[Solreal]

No one wants to be a level 50 Hayden Christensen.

[GarbonzotheDude]

Wait so people are complaining about population imbalance, and instead of toughing it out you are just joining the imperial side?

 

/smacks forehead

 

Is this a joke? Tough it out? This isn't a job or some life changing experience. It is a video game meant for entertainment. Why should anyone have to "tough it out"?

 

If the imbalance is affecting their gaming experience to the point they aren't able to enjoy it anymore why should they have to keep going at it?

 

Most are going to either try find a better balanced server, reroll to the other faction, or simply quit.

[bassfu]

Give republic player better racials?

 

Make bg's cross server. longer wait times on empire side will encourage them to reroll or xfer.

 

just 2 ideas

 

You mean species? I don't think the exclusive social abilities are that big a factor when people choose their faction. If Legacy does let us choose any race from any faction like it seemed to hint at in the preview video, things might change a bit.

 

I don't see how x-server WZ's would increase the Imps queue time. If anything Huttball would only show up 7/10 times instead of 9/10.

[GeLopez]

Well, I'm done with gear outside of weeklies and dailies, so I decided I'd go to Ilum and try to have some fun.

 

It's impossible. I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible while roaming around — sometimes alone, sometimes with a group, sometimes with an operation — but it's not fun. Every single time I think I have a good fight the Empire zerg arrives and my group and/or I get completely run over.

 

I just don't know what to do anymore. If warzones are the only PVP content I'm going to have I don't see myself being entertained for very long. The entire reason I chose this game's PVP over Rift and WOW is because it has a persistent world PVP zone.

[Goreson]

Originally Posted by Jswizzle

Wait so people are complaining about population imbalance, and instead of toughing it out you are just joining the imperial side?

 

/smacks forehead

Is this a joke? Tough it out? This isn't a job or some life changing experience. It is a video game meant for entertainment. Why should anyone have to "tough it out"?

 

If the imbalance is affecting their gaming experience to the point they aren't able to enjoy it anymore why should they have to keep going at it?

 

Most are going to either try find a better balanced server, reroll to the other faction, or simply quit.

 

What he meant (I assume) and I agree 100% is that any gamer who feels like there aren't enough gamers of his faction on that server and in turn switches over to the other faction is actually causing the problem.

 

If on a server of 1000 Imps and 1 Rep a gamer starts a Rep, sees just 1 Rep and then switches over to Imp, well, you do the math:

 

Ratio could have been 500 : 1 now it's 1001 : 1...

 

questions?

 

On another note: why should BW do something about the imbalance of the factions?

 

a) this is not DAoC so you don't go 'oooh, Albion (or Imp) is now attacking our Midgard (or Rep) border with hundreds of players... and we are just 50 defenders...

 

Chances are that some player may gang up on you, but hey, don't like that, only want fair PvP? Don't pick a PvP server... because even on a balanced PvP server you might be out of luck and have a good many Reps on a different planet while a gang of Imps is just waiting out there.

 

b) why should anybody want to play as one faction or the other? Somebody said something about 'market research'... sorry, wrong department, you need to address this with Sales!

 

Because it falls upon the gamer to try and sell his/her faction to another gamer if he wants him/her to switch.

 

If you can't do that, well, you sure you really like playing on that side?

 

I can give you dozens of reasons why you should play Rep... and yes, I am playing only Rep right now...

 

but I will add Imp shortly... not because I don't like Rep anymore as such, just because I have drained the gaming options BW has provided on that side.

 

See, that may already be a way to sell Rep to an Imp: 'Played all the classes on Imp? Done all the quests? Why not try Rep to see what you get there?'

[SarethX]

Here is the fix:

 

Let's Play Huttball!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[KittyPrawn]

There isn't much to be done about faction imbalance. They can't force people to play something they don't want to play. They can offer incentives to the underdog, but that still isn't a guarantee that people will switch.

 

I think a server merger would be helpful with low pop servers. It would still offer an imbalance, but at least the lower numbered faction would have MORE of the lower number to form groups with.

[Rahl_Windsong]

Why would they comment on an issue that is 100% player made? It isn't their fault that people like Empire more than Republic (though some of it is certainly due to the crappy looking gear). It isn't their fault that you rolled on a low pop server when many of us were urging people to roll on servers that HAD queues at launch to avoid this issue.

 

Not really true, if you play the empire and republic sides you can see that the talent was definetly on the Empire side because the Republic side is not done up nearly as nice.

 

The horrible light towers that caused green lines...not on empire side and not sure if they are fixed yet...think they might be.

 

Taxi pathing...way better done on empire side then republic side.

 

locations of quick travel points much better done on empire side.

 

the list goes on and on...

[AJMTL]

I'm, getting Warhammer flashbacks.

 

To think the game started off with 70+ servers...

[Gohlar]

Reroll on a busier server. No it isn't ideal, I've done it myself. If you want to play this is what to do. Again, I know it stinks. I do. Edited January 26, 2012 by Gohlar

[GeLopez]

There isn't much to be done about faction imbalance. They can't force people to play something they don't want to play. They can offer incentives to the underdog, but that still isn't a guarantee that people will switch.

 

Faction caps on specific PVP zones (Ilum) and incentives for playing the underpopulated faction would help a lot. The former worked for WOW and the latter worked for WAR.

 

Reroll on a busier server. No it isn't ideal, I've done it myself. If you want to play this is what to do. Again, I know it stinks. I do.

 

I'm speaking for other people. I am on the biggest PVP server in the game.

 

And, as someone speaking for other people, that is an awful solution. Most people would rather quit, and that is not healthy for the game.

Edited January 26, 2012 by GeLopez

[ztee]

During the JK storyline i converted sith all over the shop ...

 

it would be awesome if you could do some in game backstabbing / story arc to change factions!! This could even be tied to dark side / light side ...

Edited January 26, 2012 by ztee

[Nattskugga]

How about instead of killing the messenger you all get back to the actual issue at hand.

Are there population issues on a lot of servers? YES.

Is BW doing something to address this? They haven't said.

Has BW stated that they recognize there's a problem? No.

 

Now how about a discussion about that? Which is what I think the original post was about.