Forums » Suggestions
YA player bug
I know, I'm Gold, and "We're Better Than You (tm)," but I wonder if the final version will have some way of balancing the nations in terms of players.
I didn't know where to post this - Bugs, Suggestions or off topic, because it's a bit of each.
On a per player basis, Gold leads every single category: the highest average money, score and caps per individual player. Even the nation as a whole leads every categry except in terms of gross membership.
As much patriotic pride as I may feel, this is also in a way a bug: equality isn't really possible or even really desired, but there should be more balance.
Perhaps a weighted system based on some combination of total nation characters, total active players per nation, score of active players, etc?
Say there are 12 Gold on, 3 blue and 4 red. The blue players would get a 20% price discount on all items sold and red would get a 15% discount. And I mean ALL items, including ships, weapons, cargo, even repairs. This could tie in with the variable economy that has been discussed.
I suggest a price discount because a bonus of armor points or weapons damage, while easier to control on a temporary basis in-game (sliding scale based on current active populations) is a) not very realistic and b) gives elite players unfair combat advantages.
Even if players "stock up" while prices are cheap, this balances out because it a) encourages players of underdog nations to be online, b) those underdogs, via the discounts, are encouraged to participate more actively.
I really don't know if this would work, would be feasible, whatever. I just know how much it sucks to be stuck on a losing team, and while I do enjoy very much being on the -winning- team, balance is the goal, not domination. If one nation remains too powerful for too long, no matter what nation that is, players will either switch teams or leave entirely, which only makes the problem worse.
You know, perhaps the solution isn't in balancing the players, but in balancing the nations at any given point in time in game. That could be achieved through NPCs.
I know CTF won't be in the final version, but here's a simplified example of what could be done to balance the playing field using NPCs in the current scenario.
We still have 12 Neutrals, 3 Itani and 4 Serco players in game. To balance, one flag defense and one station defense bot in sector 3 go offline. One additional Flag defense bot goes online in sectors 1 and 2. A 350 (yes, 350, not 250) bounty player killer bot goes online in sector 12 - it is Serco-aligned, and its job is to search and destory all non serco players in that sector, especially to attack any enemy carrying a flag, even to the exclusion of attacking other enemies. Two Itani PK bots go online in sector 4.
In this scenario, I suppose, you could exploit by simply logging on as Gold if Gold is capping - if enough Itani and/or Serco come on as gold, a slew of PK/flag/station defense bots would spawn.
Another scenario would be to alter the chances that any normal bot will attack a player of a particular nation.
I'm just tossing ideas out - rather than necessarily telling me what's wrong with my ideas, how about you share some of your own?
I didn't know where to post this - Bugs, Suggestions or off topic, because it's a bit of each.
On a per player basis, Gold leads every single category: the highest average money, score and caps per individual player. Even the nation as a whole leads every categry except in terms of gross membership.
As much patriotic pride as I may feel, this is also in a way a bug: equality isn't really possible or even really desired, but there should be more balance.
Perhaps a weighted system based on some combination of total nation characters, total active players per nation, score of active players, etc?
Say there are 12 Gold on, 3 blue and 4 red. The blue players would get a 20% price discount on all items sold and red would get a 15% discount. And I mean ALL items, including ships, weapons, cargo, even repairs. This could tie in with the variable economy that has been discussed.
I suggest a price discount because a bonus of armor points or weapons damage, while easier to control on a temporary basis in-game (sliding scale based on current active populations) is a) not very realistic and b) gives elite players unfair combat advantages.
Even if players "stock up" while prices are cheap, this balances out because it a) encourages players of underdog nations to be online, b) those underdogs, via the discounts, are encouraged to participate more actively.
I really don't know if this would work, would be feasible, whatever. I just know how much it sucks to be stuck on a losing team, and while I do enjoy very much being on the -winning- team, balance is the goal, not domination. If one nation remains too powerful for too long, no matter what nation that is, players will either switch teams or leave entirely, which only makes the problem worse.
You know, perhaps the solution isn't in balancing the players, but in balancing the nations at any given point in time in game. That could be achieved through NPCs.
I know CTF won't be in the final version, but here's a simplified example of what could be done to balance the playing field using NPCs in the current scenario.
We still have 12 Neutrals, 3 Itani and 4 Serco players in game. To balance, one flag defense and one station defense bot in sector 3 go offline. One additional Flag defense bot goes online in sectors 1 and 2. A 350 (yes, 350, not 250) bounty player killer bot goes online in sector 12 - it is Serco-aligned, and its job is to search and destory all non serco players in that sector, especially to attack any enemy carrying a flag, even to the exclusion of attacking other enemies. Two Itani PK bots go online in sector 4.
In this scenario, I suppose, you could exploit by simply logging on as Gold if Gold is capping - if enough Itani and/or Serco come on as gold, a slew of PK/flag/station defense bots would spawn.
Another scenario would be to alter the chances that any normal bot will attack a player of a particular nation.
I'm just tossing ideas out - rather than necessarily telling me what's wrong with my ideas, how about you share some of your own?
I dont think flags should be cappable unless the defending team has at least 7 players online. This would mean caps would take place during peak hours, and be hard to do, instead of really easy to do in the slow hours when a team has 0 or 1 defender.
All new accounts should be forced into the nation with the least active players.
Dave: My short response has only two words. They are, "Absolutely not." If I'm paying, and I want to play red, then I will, or I won't be paying. This is critical in light of the fact that the various colours will have specialized ships of their own again.
X's ideas about economic balance, I think, are ideal, regarding monetary rewards and other encouragement. The key is to encourage (but not force) people to play the underdogs. For instance: trading should net more profit; ships, repairs, weapons and munitions should cost less; and players should be rewarded for inflicting damage on the enemy while in an underdog situation (or even given extra reward for destroying an enemy).
This ratio is based strictly on the number of players online, between the two (or three) colours involved.
For instance: If you are playing blue, and there are ten online, but you alone fight the only three online gold players (and they're all in the same sector), that's either poor tactics or extreme cockiness and deserves no extra reward.
However, if those three gold players would get extra reward in any action against blue, due to being outnumbered ten to three.
X's ideas about economic balance, I think, are ideal, regarding monetary rewards and other encouragement. The key is to encourage (but not force) people to play the underdogs. For instance: trading should net more profit; ships, repairs, weapons and munitions should cost less; and players should be rewarded for inflicting damage on the enemy while in an underdog situation (or even given extra reward for destroying an enemy).
This ratio is based strictly on the number of players online, between the two (or three) colours involved.
For instance: If you are playing blue, and there are ten online, but you alone fight the only three online gold players (and they're all in the same sector), that's either poor tactics or extreme cockiness and deserves no extra reward.
However, if those three gold players would get extra reward in any action against blue, due to being outnumbered ten to three.
xochiluvr: The 'leading faction' problem is one that I've seen plague every single MMORPG of this type I've ever been associated with. I doubt there is much you can do about it. People always prefer to join the 'winning team'. People naturally have more fun playing the 'winning team', and a significant number of people will change loyalties if there team is not winning.
I think dynamically balancing economy based on player load is a good idea. Overpopulated factions (ei those with more people online as a percentage online on average) tend to cause inflation of local prices, making everything more expensive in thier home sectors and reducing profits of trade runs to and from thier home sectors. Conversely underpopulated factions cause deflation, increasing profits to and from their home sectors, and making gizmos in thier home sectors cheaper to buy.
Beyond that, it sounds stupid, but the best way to stop this problem is write good stories about your game world. If you can cause people to identify strongly with some faction, then you can create a sense of loyalty to that faction regardless of the relative merits of being on that faction. If you create a bunch of interesting and deep cultures you increase the likelihood that someone will identify strongly with one particular culture and stick with it. Some companies make the mistake of not appealing to people on the right level too. It's not enough that each nation be interesting, on top of it - they all have to support the sort of superficially cool sterotypes that teenage gamers are going to want to create as characters. You can't have one nation of samurii's and another of accountants. The accounting nation has to have elite black ops teams and secret societies, etc. - because good accounting (even if its more important to winning wars than having samurii's) just isn't 'cool' enough to attract enough good gamers.
I think dynamically balancing economy based on player load is a good idea. Overpopulated factions (ei those with more people online as a percentage online on average) tend to cause inflation of local prices, making everything more expensive in thier home sectors and reducing profits of trade runs to and from thier home sectors. Conversely underpopulated factions cause deflation, increasing profits to and from their home sectors, and making gizmos in thier home sectors cheaper to buy.
Beyond that, it sounds stupid, but the best way to stop this problem is write good stories about your game world. If you can cause people to identify strongly with some faction, then you can create a sense of loyalty to that faction regardless of the relative merits of being on that faction. If you create a bunch of interesting and deep cultures you increase the likelihood that someone will identify strongly with one particular culture and stick with it. Some companies make the mistake of not appealing to people on the right level too. It's not enough that each nation be interesting, on top of it - they all have to support the sort of superficially cool sterotypes that teenage gamers are going to want to create as characters. You can't have one nation of samurii's and another of accountants. The accounting nation has to have elite black ops teams and secret societies, etc. - because good accounting (even if its more important to winning wars than having samurii's) just isn't 'cool' enough to attract enough good gamers.
/me agrees with Celebrim. What Sony is doing for Planetside is to give a +1% or -1% experience bonus to the nation with the least and greatest numbers of players, respectively. That's basically what you're suggesting...
I don't see how this will be a problem once CTF is taken out. Smaller nations will more likely travel in large fleets for protection, while larger nations will have more trouble getting their players to keep up with "convoys" or "squadrons", simply because there are more many people to keep track of. And the thing is, there'll be thousands of sectors in the final version. The chances of you ever bumping into a troublesome person or fleet repeatedly will be greatly reduced.
I think it's a good idea. One irony, though: if Gold is supposed to be the trading nation, and Gold is in the lead, the other nations will have benefits to trade, which breaks the story line. I'm just nit-picking, though. I think it's at least worth a try to see how it affects balance.
Another option along the same lines: Have aggressive NPC's factor in the nation's standing when targeting players. So, in your example, they would target gold very aggressively, a -20% modifyier would lessent he chance of aa bot targetting a blue... -15% for red. Station defense bots are not includded in this, obviously.
Another option along the same lines: Have aggressive NPC's factor in the nation's standing when targeting players. So, in your example, they would target gold very aggressively, a -20% modifyier would lessent he chance of aa bot targetting a blue... -15% for red. Station defense bots are not includded in this, obviously.
Celebrim, slappyknappy and Pyro see where I'm going.
And yeah, I don't really have a good answer. Perhaps there isn't -one- answer. Perhaps, when the game goes commercial, there will be enough players to go around that the superiority of any one nation will be minimized.
But you can go TOO far as well - if each nation doesn't have certain proficiencies regardless of online representation, there's no point in having more than one nation.
I hope the devs will give us some insight to their impressions of this issue when they can. I think finding this balance is as important to making the game commercially viable as E3 could be to get the game marketed at all.
And yeah, I don't really have a good answer. Perhaps there isn't -one- answer. Perhaps, when the game goes commercial, there will be enough players to go around that the superiority of any one nation will be minimized.
But you can go TOO far as well - if each nation doesn't have certain proficiencies regardless of online representation, there's no point in having more than one nation.
I hope the devs will give us some insight to their impressions of this issue when they can. I think finding this balance is as important to making the game commercially viable as E3 could be to get the game marketed at all.