Tiaa Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 (edited) 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? Yes, OP is correct. We as players have destroyed the faction system that at one time was always perfectly balanced and made sense in every other MMO until SWTOR. OP is asking people to take responsibility for other people's decisions. Woh! Don't start making too much sense here. Faction Balance was our fault as players as we clearly designed the game. Edited January 25, 2012 by Tiaa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptwonline Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Players are mostly to blame for faction imbalance. Bioware is partially to blame since the two sides are not seen as equal in terms of abilities (Empire have advantage) and aesthestics (Empire is seen as having better looking gear). However, Bioware is fully to blame for allowing the faction imbalances to so seriously affect gameplay whether it be PvP, not being able to find players for multiplayer PvE, or not having enough items and people for a solid world economy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePirateMD Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 isnt bioware to blame for two completely uninteresting storylines (consular + jedi knight), plus a HUGE ARRAY of ugly hideous armor and gear (everyone but soldiers), on the republic side? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shmn Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 If they made Batman Online and you could choose to be either Batman or Robin, which do you think 99% of people would choose? Anyway, it's funny (and interesting, too) how some people seem infatuated with the idea that all systems are self-correcting and left to themselves everything gravitates toward balance. It's a kind of blind faith, one quite unjustified unfortunately. In the real world, however, there are various processes at work, some more obvious and others more subtle. It is only the result of those processes that we call balance, or lack thereof. It is of course true that many systems have self-correcting mechanisms which is to say that there are processes at work within them that work to counteract one another. The market economy is one example of such a system: competition, supply and demand help to regulate a kind of balance; however even in such a system there are often processes detrimental to balance that require intervention (for instance monopolies, competition laws etc.) If one wants to create a system that is self-correcting, even partly, one has to design into it mechanisms that work toward that end. For faction balance, these are primarily incentives and disincentives. They can vary in nature as do, indeed, the motivations of players. It is easy to identify some of these processes that are causing the imbalance we experience (as many have done). Aesthetic appeal is certainly one, as is immersive appeal. And the small disadvantages in skill mirroring which do most damage not in the actual differences but in the negative perception they create of the faction; however inconsequential they may be in practice, they work to make the faction less appealing. Then there are some processes that are perhaps easier to miss. Having people to play and group with is rather important to most (finding groups for flashpoints, encountering others while questing, having active and healthy size guilds etc.) This is an obvious and serious disincentive but what is perhaps easier to miss is how it affects population development: those who are not finding groups, who are not enjoying the game, who are not bound to a guild or other community are of course more likely to stop playing as well. And I suspect it's somewhat of an accelerated process as well, sadly: you are more likely to quit if people in your guild are quitting and the more people quit the worse it becomes for everyone in your faction. And people who wait longer to form groups or attempt to form them to no avail are less likely to try again, leading to a situation where even if there would be few willing to group they're not likely to even try. There are, of course, some processes that work the other way -- it's just that sadly their impact is far too underwhelming. For instance some pvp oriented players prefer to play the underdog -- especially rogue players that enjoy a target rich world pvp environment. However their numbers are just quite small in a typical MMO demographic. And even they have to reconcile their desire with all the downsides (many prioritized rolling with their guild, others like pvp but also want to be able to find pve groups). Not to mention how little consideration world pvp has been given in this game in general. Better warzone queues was another factor for some; however due to the existence of huttball and the knowledge of likely upcoming more same faction warzones, that benefit is quite debatable. I, for instance, have noticed that I actually like huttball more than voidstar despite rolling republic partly due to the queue benefit at first. Anyway, this is surely enough of a wall of text already so I'll say one last thing which is that the biggest issue in my view right now isn't identifying possible solutions (which many have done and which are not all that hard to come up with, really), it's getting them to care. Or failing that, we need to start thinking this as a one faction game. To be fair it's not too bad as such, assuming you rolled empire. It kinda reminds me of that Friends episode where they have Monica' s boring party on one side of the hallway and Joey's party on the other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
glenbruton Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I would have been a trooper but the guild went Empire. Booo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inarai Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 isnt bioware to blame for two completely uninteresting storylines (consular + jedi knight), plus a HUGE ARRAY of ugly hideous armor and gear (everyone but soldiers), on the republic side? Considering that those only exist in your subjective viewpoint? Other people like those storylines, and some of the gear. There's also dull moments to the Imperial storylines, and ugly gear on the Imperial side. You perceive things the way you do because you want to see your chosen faction as better. Frankly, the Smuggler has some of the best armour choices in the game so far as I'm concerned, and most of the high-level Inquisitor/Warrior designs look freaking terrible. There's good designs on both sides, and bad designs on both sides (and roughly equal amounts of each). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePirateMD Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Considering that those only exist in your subjective viewpoint? Other people like those storylines, and some of the gear. There's also dull moments to the Imperial storylines, and ugly gear on the Imperial side. You perceive things the way you do because you want to see your chosen faction as better. Frankly, the Smuggler has some of the best armour choices in the game so far as I'm concerned, and most of the high-level Inquisitor/Warrior designs look freaking terrible. There's good designs on both sides, and bad designs on both sides (and roughly equal amounts of each). yup, just my opinion. But I think it's held by many players. Maybe not though, but the numbers we're seeing are certainly due to something... anyway, peace Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ippollite Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Of course individual player choices define server imbalance. There are no restrictions in place, so people will choose the faction that appeals to them the most. Now their reasons might be positive: they like sadists in space, or they enjoy the color scheme, or they want a purple pvp crystal, or LIGHTNING!!!, or theyre straight dudes who want to flirt with their companions (as if being straight is some kind of barrier to virtual romance?), or they secretly yearn to have unlimited power and crush all the people who make their real life tedious dull or miserable (im not judging!), or i want to be james bond. They can also be negative: i hate the republic story lines, theyre vanilla, the robes! omg! and the hats! the robes and hats, pebbles?, i hate mark hammil, i hate ewoks, brown, brown, brown... okay im getting carried away with aesthetics here a little... The point is that there are incentives that are INTRINSIC to the factions and these will lean a player one way or another. The problem is that this is just the starting point. Now in biowares defence, obviously they realise more hardcore players will be drawn to a certain faction. They will have a TONNE of market research at their disposal to know who their core audience are and what they will likely choose to play. People on forums going empire was probably part of their game plan. Likely the aim was to balance this out by mums and dads picking the game up for their kid (and maybe getting hooked themselves). Now these people havent been following the GAME, but they are familiar with teh story itself, and in the story the good guys are a bit more awesome, ragtag, and heroic. So they probably figured that the standard forum goer would be balanced by the newer players who would naturally gravitate towards republic. It could well be that this is a long term plan, and then in 6-12 months youll start to see more new players who werent here at release start playing the game and bring, er, balance to teh force. It could also be a problem that ive yet to delve into or even mention. This problem is that the more people choose to go empire... the more threads created by people on forums about republic ghost towns, the more likely it is that the new player, armed with the most cursory of background info from these forums and elsewhere, is going to pick empire instead of republic because no one wants to be stomped. And for those brave souls thinking about going republic despite everything, they might change their tune when theyre sat in fleet waiting for people to run flashpoints. However we came to this point, and however it plays out, its all beside the point. What isnt beside the point is that faction imbalance is BAD for the long term future of this game. Everyone who wants this game to be a success realises this, but individually hope other people take responsibility and do something about it. They wont. They never do. Ask every faction imbalanced server on warcraft. The only solution is to change the material incentives to roll one faction or the other. Unfortunately, in an act of absolute suicide, one of the few actuyally effective balancing mechanisms (pvp queues - or in this case endless huttball), is being drastically softened with teh introduction of a second non faction specific warzone. Indeed, i anticipate that the next step will be to cater to the lack of republic in open pvp like ilum by focusing on more non faction world pvp zones... Its this kind of thing that hurts the game and its deliberate choices on behalf of the developers. So yes, players are responsible but they make choices base don their own interests (why would they do otherwise?), but so too are developers in considering how their design decisions impact overall balance between the factions. The question why do players pick empire over republic is a big one, and it cant be addressed by telling everyone they should roll republic if they want faction balance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mannic Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 If the Republic stood for something worth fighting for more people would care. As it stand its bland good guys versus an interesting Empire. Which side do you choose? Not only are they the bland good guys, they really aren't all that "good." Just as many species in the galaxy seem to hate them as hate the Empire. And Bioware really does have to take the blame for making them SO plain-jane and boring. They had a lot of time in beta to see how things were trending... they just chose to do nothing about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slightlycampana Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 We are here to be manipulated. Easier said than done, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tsavis Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 If you played both sides, you'd notice, that empire has superior artwork and the overall better storyline. And that's entirely Bioware's fault. Even the level fifteen Jedi ship just looks like a dented up peice of junk, I mean really you are saving the world and in your grandpas 25yr old used car. It would have been nice if the storage units and bed in my Jedi's room didn't look like they had been picked up in a junk yard. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agemnon Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 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? It IS your fault! It is all twileks' fault! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cormey Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I'm guessing this is a purely PvP problem. I rolled on a pvE server and really don't give a rats about faction imbalance, about the only potential issue i could see is finding it difficult to get group stuff going, but i have friends and could easily join a guild so that's also not much of an issue. Yep i'm responsible for faction imbalance since i mainly play empire, but i also don't care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morthaur Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Its all about the accents, players clearly prefer the english accent to the american. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asuka Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Seriously, you really cannot blame BioWare when they base various things off lore. You can't expect a Jedi's robe to be all epic and spectacular looking being they are basically monks while Sith are all about instilling fear and intimidating their enemies so their outfits geared towards representing that. Vader wouldn't have nearly been as feared had he not been pwned on Mustafar and turned into a machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skoll Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do! We do. Who leaves the Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do! We do. Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do! We do. Who robs cave fish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night? We do! We do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
silkforcalde Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Bioware made Sith more attractive. That is the root of the issue. The abilities are pulled off quicker (compare Death From Above to Mortar Volley), the animations are flashier, the gear is shinier and cooler looking (black armor >> brown sackcloth), hell even the classes are cooler (Sage vs Sorceror? throw pebbles or shoot lightning, your choice). Bioware made this mess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostryder Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Ah the good ole USA mentality... Its someone elses fault I made a poor choice. lol wish I could argue that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostryder Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 (edited) Uh no. George Lucas is to blame. He made 6 movies about the republic getting pwnd. Most people want the vader/ maul fantasy with no moral limits. If there had been a real Jedi that kicked *** and didn't eventually get punked, you might have one or two more folks that want to be one. Edited January 25, 2012 by Ghostryder Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ippollite Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Seriously, you really cannot blame BioWare when they base various things off lore. You can't expect a Jedi's robe to be all epic and spectacular looking being they are basically monks while Sith are all about instilling fear and intimidating their enemies so their outfits geared towards representing that. Vader wouldn't have nearly been as feared had he not been pwned on Mustafar and turned into a machine. But heres one of the key things: They will have "metrics" (their favorite buzzword at the moment) telling them exactly this and telling them just what kind of proportion of their playerbase likes this. So if its a majority, then they can either mirror it exactly and throw away the idea of jedi in robes (which might annoy some people), or they can look for a different sphere where the republic might look a little better and a little more heroic. Incentives/disincentives need not mirror one another to create an overall balanced picture. Of course, we dont know everything they know and they may have 'metrics' telling them to just hold out a few months because by then newer players who werent part of teh build up and dont read the forums will arrive in game. Still, many of us have played on imbalanced servers before so we also know more than they likely know about unintended consequences of certain actions such as the deterrence of pvp queue times for example and the possibility that they might be taking a massive miss-step in softening that disincentive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sqyre Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I'll bite... Say I create a house with two rooms, but you can only enter one. In one room is a boring dude with a brown robe who will offer to teach you to meditate. In the other room is a bad***** with a sweet black robe who offers to teach you the secret of power. Which room do you choose? In a 2 faction game, if one side is way more attractive to players than the other...guess where they will go? I actually prefer the republic outfits to the sith in everyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dezziedc Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 (edited) I, and most of my guildies chose the Imperials because we like being the bad guys. It had nothing to do with the way we looked, gear, story lines or anything like that at all. It was based on our experience with the movies and who we wanted to play. I wanted to be a BH straight away so it was an easy choice. Same as in wow - we chose horde. Because they were perceived as bads. Even when the population balance was lop-sided in favour of the alliance, we stuck with it. Made us hate the alliance even more. But as the Belfs became available, it was the horde that gained numbers. I think it adds to the experience. I also am of the opinion that this is more player choice than anything else. Some influenced by the game design itself, but I would hazard a guess that that is not the majority. Many factors add to this situation and I am not expecting BW to do anything to change it. Edited January 25, 2012 by Dezziedc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiravus Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Someone said it in another thread and I totally agree. Give the republic Wookies. There's very little coolness factor republic side. Imps have better companions, stories, animations, armor. There needs to be something that draws people to the republic besides being the "good guys". XP bonuses and crap like that are bad ways of doing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canuck_TwnTNN Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 I have two Republic chars and one Empire. I play my Republic chars predominantly because I like the storyline and the classes. I also enjoy my Empire char but I only have that char because all my BF3 clanmates are on the Empire side and if I want to play with them, I play Empire. That said, I find the faction imbalance from a player number perspective to be a non-issue for me. I don't have to queue long for PvP, I do well enough in PvP games to be happy with my role and contribution and I find all the people I need to do PvE content on the server. So for me, the imbalance is not an issue. THAT SAID, I am on a PvE server with standard/heavy pop. I can see how this faction imbalance must be a concern for those on the PvP servers because, coming from WAR and AOC, I can see that a majority of players who like to PvP mostly, would be drawn to the Empire classes. I will be making a PvP server char soon and seeing how I like that. Republic side of course. Cheers! Republic_Canuck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lexster Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do! We do. Who leaves the Atlantis off the maps? Who keeps the Martians under wraps? We do! We do. Who holds back the electric car? Who makes Steve Guttenberg a star? We do! We do. Who robs cave fish of their sight? Who rigs every Oscar night? We do! We do. Who loves Trident? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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