Who Is To Blame For Server Imbalance: We Are

[DS_Romer]

Extremely good point. I never thought about this. The sheer number of LS Imps should tell you that it isn't merely the fact that "being evil is always cooler" that drives the imbalance, as there are a heck of a lot of "good guys" playing Imps. It is design, story, mechanics, and overall appeal difference that Bioware built into the game.

 

Or a large number of the Imperial players realise there is a difference between being the bad guys and being a sociopath?

 

My Bounty Hunters light to dark points is about 3:1. Targets are taken alive where possible. Dead if not. Anybody not directly involved doesn't have to die. I often get light sided points for taking the logical approach, for example turning something against the Republic or recruiting someone on defeat rather than just destroying it/them.

 

A good percentage of available DS points are awareded for being a complete maniac. For example shooting down a Republic shuttle full of civillians just for the sake of it. Not everybody in the Empire or who works for the Empire is as heartless as a Sith.

 

(And lets not forget when trying to keep companions happy, a lot of them would require a whole bunch of gifts if you went full on sociopath).

 

Anyway. They really shouldn't have tied gear in with LS/DS points, it produces bland characters. Most people are more variable than either the complete paragon of virtue or the crazed killer.

 

And on imbalance.. If they gave the BH the option to work for the Republic as well as the Empire, I certainly would. But they don't.. and I wanna play a hunter.

 

Stuff

 

Nope. That's all just subjective. Your personal opinion.

 

I happen to think Jedi Shadow sounds pretty damn cool. Whilst Jedi Knight is one of the defining Star Wars images. I'd also match the BH and Trooper names fairly evenly.

 

The only one who I'd say 'out cools' the other is the Agent. Agents are cool.

Edited January 25, 2012 by DS_Romer

[Proto]

Or a large number of the Imperial players realise there is a difference between being the bad guys and being a sociopath?

 

My Bounty Hunters light to dark points is about 3:1. Targets are taken alive where possible. Dead if not. Anybody not directly involved doesn't have to die. I often get light sided points for taking the logical approach, for example turning something against the Republic or recruiting someone on defeat rather than just destroying it/them.

 

A good percentage of available DS points are awareded for being a complete maniac. For example shooting down a Republic shuttle full of civillians just for the sake of it. Not everybody in the Empire or who works for the Empire is as heartless as a Sith.

 

(And lets not forget when trying to keep companions happy, a lot of them would require a whole bunch of gifts if you went full on sociopath).

 

Anyway. They really shouldn't have tied gear in with LS/DS points, it produces bland characters. Most people are more variable than either the complete paragon of virtue or the crazed killer.

 

And on imbalance.. If they gave the BH the option to work for the Republic as well as the Empire, I certainly would. But they don't.. and I wanna play a hunter.

 

 

 

Nope. That's all just subjective. Your personal opinion.

 

I happen to think Jedi Shadow sounds pretty damn cool. Whilst Jedi Knight is one of the defining Star Wars images. I'd also match the BH and Trooper names fairly evenly.

 

The only one who I'd say 'out cools' the other is the Agent. Agents are cool.

 

Ya, and the only problem with what you're doing with your Bounty Hunter is you have to wait 3x as long to get a relic you can use since they all require light/dark alignment. If you're not high enough in light or dark by later levels you'll be using a crap relic in your slot for a long while until you earn points. One of the worse thought-out systems I've seen. This forces players to "be sociopaths" as you call it simply because if they aren't it will hurt their progression! Totally stupid.

[profaneascension]

Here are my two cents on the matter. As someone who hardly bothered to look at any previews of the game and dismissed the possibility of subscribing until the very last moment, I had no preconceived notions of playing on either side. It wasn't until I decided to buy the game and join my cousin, who is far more of a Star Wars fan than I am, that I decided to play on the Republic side, as I figured that the population on the Empire side would be, shall we say, less mature.

 

However, as I had the whole of the holiday season off and had some spare time to try the Empire side, I found myself relishing the freedom and the opportunity to be a sociopath. It wasn't that I didn't have the chance to do so as a member of the Republic, but it certainly feels more natural to behave in that manner as a Bounty Hunter or a Sith Warrior.

 

Bottom line is, I chose to play primarily on the Empire side as a personal preference. In contrast, my cousin enjoys being a boy scout and is steadfast in staying on the Republic side. It isn't often that you get to cow a powerful but preachy "good guy" and teach him that his ironclad morality isn't going to save him all the time, and I think the freshness of it is what makes the Empire side appealing. That's not something Bioware can help; it's just the nature of the IP.

[Amenian]

Nope, Bioware is to blame and I'll give you examples as to why:

 

NOTE: I'm going to draw comparisons from the MOST-BASIC-LEVEL of new player decisions that are probably made when starting new characters and making long-term choices.

 

1) Pre-release character progression videos on their site. This showed class progression in terms of gear / style before the game released. Everyone, and I mean damn near everyone can agree that the artwork looked way better for Empire with that 'bad-a s s feel.

 

2) Starter zones are much better on Empire. Look at Hutta, Korriban, and compare it to the Republic zones. There is no comparison.

 

3) Class name choices by Bioware gave Empire the advantage.

'Sith Sorcerer or Jedi Sage' aka Consular? Some people don't even know what the hell a Sage or Consular is.

'Commando Trooper or Mercenary Bounty Hunter'? Tough choice, not.

'Vanguard or a Powertech'? I mean really, these are no brainers.

'Jedi Guardian' or 'Sith Juggernaut'? Again, easy pick.

'Jedi Shadow' or 'Sith Assassin'? Yet again, who would want to be a shadow of anything when you can be an assassin?

 

Or even without the advanced class name comparison the sith sound better:

 

Jedi Knight or Sith Warrior

Jedi Consular or Sith Inquisitor

Smuggler or Imperial Agent

Trooper or Bounty Hunter

 

The names they chose swayed people's decisions on where to play.

 

4) The stories. Hands-down the Empire storylines are epic, fun, filled with excitement, deceit, betrayal, and suspense. The Republic storylines are way, way too goody-goody with hardly any excitement. Play a consular class and see what I mean (cure the old hag that trained you that now has Alzheimer's, w t f srsly?). The only exception is the Smuggler that has great moments.

 

 

So you wonder why there is such an imbalance? I don't. Its clear to me that whoever was in charge of everything over at Jedi Central really fouled it up.

 

1) I don't particular think Imperial design is bad*** as you claim. That's a subjective point. Maybe a majority agree with you, so I'll give you this point. However, it's still pure opinion.

 

2) I actually disagree with you here. I've played through all the starting zones and my favorite is Tython while I loathe Hutta. Korriban is too drab and Ord Mantell feels like it drags on. So I view this one as advantage Jedi.

 

3) Uh, no. I'd rather be a Knight than a Warrior. Knight sounds way cooler. Inquisitor beats Consular, I'll give you that. Sorcerer beats Sage, but Shadow sounds way cooler than Assassin to me. Trooper vs. Bounty Hunter? As former military, give me trooper! Smuggler also sounds cooler than Agent to me. Advantage - Jedi.

 

4) I've got a Consular and a Smuggler on Alderaan. Consular story was pretty repetitive for a bit, but its picking up now and is pretty cool. Smuggler story is just flat out awesome. I also have a Trooper on Taris that I'm enjoying the story of. I haven't played Sith past the first time I got each class to the fleet yet, so jury is still out there. But I refute your point on story being "goody goody." If your relying on the Consular story for that opinion, well duh, it's the Consular story, probably the most goody-goody class to begin with. What did you expect?

 

So basically, your post is nothing short of blatant opinion, and your own opinion at that. Just as much as mine is my blatant opinion. And you know what they say about opinions and everyone having them.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Amenian

[Inarai]

The Revanite position is ambiguous at best and they aren't suficiently 'different' from Sith.

 

The Imperial Revanites seen on Kaas aren't really a good reflection of Revan overall. Keeping in mind that when Revan left, he left people behind making the Republic stronger, he wasn't pushing for the benefit of the Empire.

 

While the Sith/Imperials may want to lay claim to Revan, they don't have justification to.

[Seriasx]

Republic is already getting more players as more and more empire are getting sick of playing Huttball 9 out of 10 flashpoints.

 

Actually more people are going Republic > Empire than the other way

[vindianajones]

Bioware can't fix server imbalance, not ever, because we as players decided as a majority to go sith instead of republic, so please stop complaining about a problem Bioware did not create.

 

Anyone care to prove me wrong?

 

No, you're absolutely right, but there is clearly a bigger draw - so to speak - from the Imperial side. This couldn't really be addressed by Bioware once they had the finished product ready to release because, well, what exactly are they gonna do? Imperial classes were and are simply more appealing to the majority of players.

 

At this point though, they should do something to help start to fix the problem. I don't know what and I don't know how, because I'm not a game designer. But even if it is our fault (I played republic from the start, so I like to exclude myself from that ), the problem is serious, especially on PvP servers. Their entire open world PvP game (even though there isn't much of it at 50 since we're restricted to Ilum) has been rendered useless due to the imbalance.

[Khyler]

Sad to say but unique, easy to get, crystal colors would attract people to one faction over the other. I don't get it, but it would work. Start giving out purple to Repub and watch out.

 

OMG, YES!!! I paid 150,000 creds to get a colored crystal close to purple....give it me free and i'm ready to reroll.

[Magnouss]

by that logic, Bioware is not responsible for the success of the game either - we, the players are.

 

Because the players will just keep playing the game anyway, doing what they do. Design doesn't matter, nobody can affect what the players do after all, right? Right?

 

 

welcome to the world of social engineering

 

 

Nobody is claiming faction balance in a 2-faction game is easily accomplished. Nobody can affect that though, other than the devs.

 

The logical fallacy you fall victim to is not realizing players are more than just a consumer in this case, we are an inherent part of the game, the key component actually.

 

 

one example of where Bioware's fault lies is in not counteracting the very clear and obvious - and documented, not the least by the guild deployment program - choices players would make in terms of faction.

 

one way they could have done this would have been giving Rep characters a bonus XP/Valor/credit boost right when the servers went online, it would not have been the most elegant solution but it would have helped. That ship has sailed now. Not my fault though.

 

Exactly. Why am I not playing Aion or some other MMO or any other game instead of Star Wars? It must not be the fault of the creators of those games, it's the fault of the consumer that chose to pick Star Wars because something about that game was more appealing to them than the other games.

 

There is not one simple thing that you can point to as to why there is a faction imbalance. It is a collection of things and this differs from player to player, but those collection of things has more players playing Empire.

[salvadorellama]

Bioware can't fix server imbalance, not ever, because we as players decided as a majority to go sith instead of republic, so please stop complaining about a problem Bioware did not create.

 

Anyone care to prove me wrong?

 

All they have to do is provide nice bonuses to faction servers that are way out of balance (e.g. crafting bonuses to help poor economies).

 

When a server hits a more balanced state, the bonuses go away, if it gets skewed again they come back.

 

Not that hard really. Few days of programming at the most.

[Wollemi]

Well, I've been reading this thread for awhile and finally feel the need to say my piece.

 

I play Republic. I tried Empire, but I just didn't really like it. I liked the Sith Inq. lightning, of course, but that alone would not keep me playing the class. For everything that I liked about all the Empire side classes, I still ran into the one thing that kept me coming back to the Republic. While the Republic is not perfectly, angelically good, they're trying. For the most part, they all want everyone to have an okay life. I just feel pretty yucky trying to root for the side who wants to kill off entire species, just cause they look different or something.

 

As for the whole "one side looks better than the other" thing... I love some of the Jedi looks, as I also love some Sith looks. Some of the outfits from both sides I would never put on because I just don't like them. I also know that some of the appearance options that I absolutely hate, others love. Everyone has different opinions about things, and that's the way it should be. Also, my favorite looks in the entire game, for either faction, are for smuggler.

 

Anyway, if you really want to fix faction imbalances, then complaining on a forum won't do much. Make a character on the less populated side and play the game that way. The only way for more people to populate a faction, are for individual people to go to that faction.

 

But if you're like most people I know, you didn't pick the faction you're on because you wanted even population distribution. You picked it because you really liked one of the stories, or your friends were all going to the Republic, or one of many untold reasons.

 

TL;DR - Stop thinking everyone thinks just like you. Holy cow, this is a game to have fun, not complain about!

 

(I need to stop reading the forums sometimes. So much, at least to me, needless complaining.)

[Rhazesx]

Bugs testers fault, Server Imbalance players fault, I know there is plenty of other things that is Biowares fault that the BDF likes to blame others on.

[JediMasterShake]

Bioware can't fix server imbalance, not ever, because we as players decided as a majority to go sith instead of republic, so please stop complaining about a problem Bioware did not create.

 

Anyone care to prove me wrong?

 

I could easily prove you wrong. However, it would provide literally no satisfaction to me, and considering the content of your OP, you likely lack the faculties to understand the explanation.

 

This post gets a whopping 1. Let it die. They have said they care about it and are fixing it. Stop being idiots and listen to Gabe Amantangelo talk about it:

 

[Magnouss]

Well, I've been reading this thread for awhile and finally feel the need to say my piece.

 

I play Republic. I tried Empire, but I just didn't really like it. I liked the Sith Inq. lightning, of course, but that alone would not keep me playing the class. For everything that I liked about all the Empire side classes, I still ran into the one thing that kept me coming back to the Republic. While the Republic is not perfectly, angelically good, they're trying. For the most part, they all want everyone to have an okay life. I just feel pretty yucky trying to root for the side who wants to kill off entire species, just cause they look different or something.

 

As for the whole "one side looks better than the other" thing... I love some of the Jedi looks, as I also love some Sith looks. Some of the outfits from both sides I would never put on because I just don't like them. I also know that some of the appearance options that I absolutely hate, others love. Everyone has different opinions about things, and that's the way it should be. Also, my favorite looks in the entire game, for either faction, are for smuggler.

 

Anyway, if you really want to fix faction imbalances, then complaining on a forum won't do much. Make a character on the less populated side and play the game that way. The only way for more people to populate a faction, are for individual people to go to that faction.

 

But if you're like most people I know, you didn't pick the faction you're on because you wanted even population distribution. You picked it because you really liked one of the stories, or your friends were all going to the Republic, or one of many untold reasons.

 

TL;DR - Stop thinking everyone thinks just like you. Holy cow, this is a game to have fun, not complain about!

 

(I need to stop reading the forums sometimes. So much, at least to me, needless complaining.)

 

Our only outlet to try to fix the balance is to complain on the forums. Complaining isn't bad if you are trying to be constructive as to why you think the problem exists and how you think it can be addressed. That is one purpose of having these forums.

 

More players have gravitated to the Empire side because they have more fun playing them. It's not fair to ask them to have less fun so they can fix the population imbalance. That is up to Bioware making design changes that make the Republic more appealing to a wider group of players. If they made the Republic side more appealing, than players would switch.

[Inarai]

Our only outlet to try to fix the balance is to complain on the forums.

 

Imperial players can be part of the solution by switching over; if you truly think this is a problem you shouldn't need to be bribed to switch. For bonus points, see if you can pull any friends over.

 

If you're Imperial and won't switch, you are in fact a part of the problem - one which is generated by the collective choices of individuals, and can be fixed by the choices of some of those individuals. You don't have to be able to solve or cause the whole problem to be able to contribute to either.

[Enako]

Bioware can't fix server imbalance, not ever, because we as players decided as a majority to go sith instead of republic, so please stop complaining about a problem Bioware did not create.

 

Anyone care to prove me wrong?

 

all the 30 year-long, pent-up 'hey vader is cool - hey i want to be darth maul' ****** angst has found a medium of expression in this game. prior to that, there has been no game in which they could express it in a multiplayer online setting in such a fashion.

 

i told way before launch that the 'zith vadder' population would be sky high. especially in pvp servers.

 

there is no fixing that, other than waiting for all those decades of pent-up angst let out and get satiated.

Edited January 25, 2012 by Enako

[Jxspyder]

Hmmm. So let me get this straight.

 

Regardless of faction, you can gain lightside or darkside.

 

So effectively I can be a sith (empire) and yet be heavy on lightside....right ??

 

Same as if I were a Jedi knight but heavy on darkside....

 

So.....why not.....just get rid of factions ? If everyone can be good/bad/neutral regardless of the faction you choose then why not just do away with it all together which will fix your faction imbalance....

 

Because faction and alignment aren't the same thing. You can be a "good guy" in the Empire, and serve the Empire before yourself. You can be a "bad guy" in the Republic, and serve yourself before the Empire. You're still a member of the Empire, or the Republic.

[Arcadiian]

I will admit that I have not read all the replies so if I am repeating something that someone already I am sorry. This game is based on movies, and as a huge Star Wars fan for probably longer then some of you complaining have been alive I am happy with the republic. They have stayed true to form. I would be highly disappointed if they changed things to make people happy. It would not be Star Wars. For those of you complaining that the Republic needs change, I say watch the movies. If you have not watched the movies, or don't like them then you should not be here.

[Khemizt]

Bioware can't fix server imbalance, not ever, because we as players decided as a majority to go sith instead of republic, so please stop complaining about a problem Bioware did not create.

 

Anyone care to prove me wrong?

 

Game design made one side more appealing than the other be it the lore, equipment, or other, it's the not the players fault the servers are this imbalanced it was a development oversight.

[Richelieux]

Game design made one side more appealing than the other be it the lore, equipment, or other, it's the not the players fault the servers are this imbalanced it was a development oversight.

 

Sorry, wrong.

 

Both sides have greater and weaker story telling.

 

And dont tell me that people go Bounty Hunter over Trooper because of 1-2 skills that are not perfectly mirrored and slightly favor empire? Please... (sure its an issue and needs fixing, but thats not the point here)

 

The problem is, that this is the first online game where all people can play a true villain... be Vader! be Sidious! be Boba Fett! be Darth Maul! etc.

 

Espacially PVP crowd likes that.

 

So even with 100% boring empire story and 100% perfect republic story... majority would still have gone to empire.

 

So dont blame Bioware for that!

 

If anything... blame them for not creating 3 factions instead of 2... that could be balanced with flexible alliances between the 2 weaker factions if 1 faction gets too powerfull.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Richelieux

[rzrknight]

People complain far to much even when they know there is only one possible solution , lock the char creation.

 

But we ALL KNOW that BW wont do that since it would cause many players to simple leave the game.

 

So , reroll empire if ya cant take the fire, cause it wont simple change , MMOs are not balanced , people flock to one side and that side is the empire on this game.

 

Unless BW wants to give free lvl 50 full equipped rep side chars , maybe then i would even agree to change.

[neezey]

Now I know why we are missing players on the republic fraction... you guys are all QQing the forums.

 

You all made your decision, now stop crying and play the game because I need a healer in my flashpoint right now!

[Dextroverse]

At the moment the unbalance is because the Empire classes are all more responsive and better than their mirror counterparts. They are more fluid and more enjoyable to play. Alongside Empire having a great engaging storyline makes things even more unbalanced.

[sleightly]

I like the ideas about the third faction. In my storyline I chose to join the mandalorians, I'd like to actually be one. I even chose to betray the Darth I was working for, and had my crimes forgiven by the republic.

 

I'm a mercenary (RP wise not AC wise) Why am I stuck with an inflexible alignment?

You know what keeps games fresh? Options, and mystery. We're ~40 days in and everything is already a known quantity. This game isn't making me want to ragequit, it's making me say meh. It gets less and less frequent I even care to open it. I don't really think about it much any more.

 

 

TL;DR - We have two factions because wow has two factions.

[CG_Osirhis]

I'm getting really tired of Republic players whine about how no one wants to play with them over on the Care Bear side. You know what? It just makes me want to play Empire even more (as well as everyone else who is Empire) because 1.) I want to own in PvP and 2.) I just want to do it out of spite just because of your smugness and sense of entitlement.

 

See? Bioware is brilliant...they have some have cause a meta-conflict between Republic players and Empire players. And I bet they weren't even trying to do that.