Dealing with faction balance issues: Make it not matter.

[Perram]

Faction balance wasn't a problem until Ilum made it a problem. Sure the Sith played more Huttball than they wanted, but over all the impact was minimal.

 

But we all know that Ilum changed all that. The big reason this is a problem is that Ilum gives too good of a reward to be ignored. Half of your weekly PvP rewards hinges on participating in Ilum, and as time in Ilum moves on its obvious that playing the Empire is a lot easier in Ilum.

 

To the point that many republic players are just outright avoiding the zone right now.

 

 

 

So if we want to avoid faction balance problems... we simply need to make the balance not matter. This means:

 

1) No more truly open faction based PvP zones that offer PvP rewards as strong as Ilum. This makes them required to stay competitive in PvP and provide one faction a clear advantage over the others.

 

2) Nerf Ilum's rewards, or make it into a Pseudo War Zone... etc...

 

3) Basically do not add anything to the game that gives the Empire (or republic on servers where it is reversed, if any) an advantage simply for having many more members.

 

 

 

Simply making these changes will mean that even if factions remain unbalanced, it will no longer adversely affect the lower populated faction. This means faction transfers will not be needed. Incentives wont be needed. And the dread faction 'lock out' will not be needed.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Perram

[Shivus]

After last night I've come to a startling realization.

 

The empire is terrible at PVP.

 

Not only were republic premades flattening the empire with no contest, but on Illum the empire was just camping the republic base even AFTER the republic biked out to another point. The ops group was entirely clueless and just continued to camp an empty base while the republic roamed around capping points and getting free kills. I even had to congratulate the republic, this is exactly how they'll beat the empire when outnumbered on Ilum.

 

But I disagree on your overall point. Ilum needs to provide a massive boost to the rewards the underdogs get such that they actually want to communicate and outmaneuver the imperial zerg to get those rewards. It also needs to give merc commendations on kills in a number comparable to warzone commendations from warzones to make people WANT to remain there and pvp after the daily/weekly is done.