Faction balance?

SeriousWhale

I just got turned on to this game not long ago and have quickly become very interested in it. I had heard the name before way back when it was first announced but never kept up with it. The only thing I see that might possibly become a problem is faction balance. I think that they did a great job of making the enforcers look rough enough so that people won't feel like there playing a blue boy driving in a cop car, but still, I forsee there possibly being a lot of criminals over the enforcers. I can see a lot of people wanting to turn there toon into the next scarface or resevoir dogs kind of person. However, I'm not in the beta so I can't back this up with hard fact. Anyone else have more experience beta side that can elaborate on if this has been an issue at all?

Dreathor

It doesn't matter. Action districts are balanced at max pop (50 enf vs 50 crim). Though if you were lacking opponents in your district for whatever reason, you could just hop over to a more populated one.

GTwander

True, but it won't account for the massive overlap of crim to enf players. Say there is 3k crims and 2k enfs online at one time, there would have to be an algorythm to seed that excess into a slight advantage of increased population per-server, or people are simply going to have to wait it out in queues.

Dreathor

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Originally posted by GTwander
True, but it won't account for the massive overlap of crim to enf players. Say there is 3k crims and 2k enfs online at one time, there would have to be an algorythm to seed that excess into a slight advantage of increased population per-server, or people are simply going to have to wait it out in queues.

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I don't think there is will be one myself, only time will tell !

lethys

Since the action districts are instanced this doesn't end up being a problem on the normal rules servers.  Not to say what you do doesn't affect the world because it is instanced, because this doesn't work like other games.  Instead the only thing is that you won't feel the full effect of there are 10k crims and only 5k enforcers.  There will still be times when the servers are 50 vs. 50 and times when the server is more or less than that.

 

The only thing to worry about is the skill level of each player, which is what completely determines all of these balancing issues.  Skill is determined based on your action during your game session, so if you are doing really well the game takes that into account when sending a certain number of people or certain difficulty level of tasks at you.

Cik_Asalin

Originally posted by Dreathor

It doesn't matter. Action districts are balanced at max pop (50 enf vs 50 crim). Though if you were lacking opponents in your district for whatever reason, you could just hop over to a more populated one.

Very true.  And from hearing from others that have had some real testing experience at peak hours, the furthest concern from their minds is population balance. 

Kebeck

This is a problem for every MMO in fact. Most people tends to go for the "evil" side. For my part, I like being the underdog, so not an issue for me, the more baddies the better : I'll go enforcer all the way.

Preta

since you can only fight players who are doing missions to fight you, i dont think it matters as much as other mmos.  there are some exceptions, but they can easily tweak those exceptions if they're a problem.  i mean, even if it's only 5 enforcers vs 75 criminals, the missions would still just be 1-3 vs 1-3.  

 

would actually be better to be one of the 5 enforcers, because the crims would lack opponents - if it were ever that extreme, but it never would be.

Kiteslive

First of all max battle is capped at 40 v 40 on an action disctrict of maximum 100 players. In beta currently that number is only 80 and Ive never seen a match go more then 14v14 but of course thats mostly because 90% of the beta players have left after hearing the payment plan and overall state of the game.

In beta there doesn't seem to be an issue of over balance on one side and theyve actually made it so criminals can go up against other criminals if there arent any enforcers around to do so.

Quicksand

I think one thing that would help is to open a new action district that is Open pvp Enf vs Crims all the time. as it is in the action districts now, you have to wait for a mission and then can only attack someone in that mission (not a bad system) but it would be a nice addition to have a district that you can go to that is all out war all the time. Would be kinda cool I think, then you would have crims sitting on building tops sniping enf and vice versa.

Kiteslive

That is something theyve already discussed and while it hasnt shown up in beta its something a lot of people want. Chaos districts is still something doable I think.

Devalon

The best way to balance faction is to make three factions. If one is more populated then the other two they can just gang up on that faction. Always always a bad design decision for pvp to only have two factions.

Heffy424

the question is who would that third faction be??? the actual law? right now the game seems fine, maybe they'll add another faction down the road like government (take away enforcer badges but they go vigalante and take things into their own hands still). Still don't think they'll be an issue with population plus skill will balance some of that population out, not saying im the greatest FPS player ever but their were plenty of times in CoD:UO during base assualt I held a base alone with just a rifle, or in WaW were I carried a team during HQ or TDM. Now I know they'll eventually break people down based on skill but at first that won't matter it'll take some time to gather that information. What about when people make new characters it'll matter, someone could be a better driver thana  shooter etc............and I just ranted sorry *end rant*. All in all I agree a third faction would be pretty nice since that's what made DAoC great (plus more targets ) it added that sense of "Hey lets stop killing each other and go kill the Hibs/albs/Mids that out number us both, only to have one side betray the other for the keep.

Senadina

Originally posted by Kiteslive

First of all max battle is capped at 40 v 40 on an action disctrict of maximum 100 players. In beta currently that number is only 80 and Ive never seen a match go more then 14v14 but of course thats mostly because 90% of the beta players have left after hearing the payment plan and overall state of the game.

In beta there doesn't seem to be an issue of over balance on one side and theyve actually made it so criminals can go up against other criminals if there arent any enforcers around to do so.

This. Criminals can go up against other criminals if need be. However, if this site is any indication, people are claiming they want to play Enforcer in droves.

Heffy424

What i've been hearing is that people play Criminal first than some switch to enforcer mainly do to the fact that that enforcers can chose to attack (or so i've heard) while criminals are at risk all the time. I'm still debating on what side i'm going to pick I might end up just being a criminal for the challenge, but it might come down to who I play with.