I like the game, and I don't plan on quitting, but I get on my Imp toon and there's 200 people in the fleet, lots of stuff for sale on the GTN, and WZ's are so numerous we have to play each other in Huttball.

 

I'd rather play my Republic toons, but with the numbers so skewed, there's really no point. The above reasons are only the beginning.

 

Is anything going to be done or is this just going to be a Empire/Sith game?

 

Anyone posting without constructive feedback will be reported for violation of TOS. Don't waste your time denying this isn't a problem, it is.

 

Just throw out some bonuses to the faction that is badly outnumbered....for you to help your faction get these bonuses, you'd be required not to log in onto an opposing faction character for, say, three days. Bonuses to help the economy, drops, PvP costs, etc. When the factions are more balanced, turn off the bonuses...if they unbalanced again, turn them back on.

 

Everyone knows the numbers are heavily skewed in favor of the Empire on almost every server (e.g. 3:1 on my server, Tarro Blood...at any given time there are 3x as many people on stations or planets for the Empire).

 

EDIT (for people that insist on posting without reading thread):

 

This is an example of non-game breaking bonuses I have posted later in the thread.

 

Bonuses would not be anything game breaking, merely things that would encourage people not to switch sides and new players to pick the underpopupated side. Ideas suggested, but not limited to...

1. 10% bonus to credits earned

2. 5% bonus to non PVP damage and damage mitigated.

3. 10% bonus to crafting criticals (e.g. creating multiple items or mastercrafted items).

4. 5% bonus to movement speed.

 

To get these bonuses a player would have to NOT log into an opposing faction for a period of three days. A player only counts toward the faction population if they only log in to their faction for 3 days.

 

These bonuses would NOT apply to PvP. Only bonuses that help the economy and player leveling (as it is much harder to find PvE groups for heroics/flashpoints on a low population faction) should be implemented.

 

A lot of people would like to see better armor graphics as well. I approve this idea as well.

Edited February 6, 2012 by salvadorellama

Well what's your solution? The only thing they can really do is when they start to merge severs is to merge republic heavy ones with empire heavy ones.

Why does it matter? Go find a server that has a high Republic population if it bothers you that much.

I doubt it will. The guild that I'm in loves the Republic side story but we don't PVP.

Offering a temporary bonus won't do anything; people will just jump to whichever side currently has the bonus. If anything you'll just exacerbate the problem.

good idea, worked on every other game, so why not swtor

Something has to be done

Offering a temporary bonus won't do anything; people will just jump to whichever side currently has the bonus. If anything you'll just exacerbate the problem.

 

That's why it would take 3 days without switching sides for you to contribute to your factions bonus.

 

It's a similiar idea used in old MUDDs to great effect.

 

As far as bonuses...addition crit chances on crafting (craft multiple items on a single attempt, more mastercrafted items, etc.) to add items to the GTN, additional damage bonuses to help in FP's and Operations,...the list goes on. All they have to do is write some code (code that was used in MUDDs...it wouldn't be that complicated).

 

Face it...if something doesn't change all the money and time they invested in producing this game will be wasted in just a few months. Why let the game fail when they have it in their power to at least try something?

 

If they don't acknowledge and try to correct the problem, everyone will just migrate to the Imperial side for a time before eventually get bored and cancelling.

Just add races that will get me to switch because that is why I am waiting to go Republic

Adding races would take alot more resources than bonus options would. Animations and graphics at the very least.

 

There are 2 races the empire has that republic doesn't. Is playing a Chiss (or to a much lesser extent Ratt's..which I've seen maybe 10 of total) that more more important? If there were racial abilities that actually did something like wow, I might agree. However racial abilities don't have any real effects and make no real difference.

 

Just add some bonuses like I've already suggested and see if the balance comes. If it doesn't, then you've tried the easy programming code, then move on to something else.

Adding races would take alot more resources than bonus options would. Animations and graphics at the very least.

 

There are 2 races the empire has that republic doesn't. Is playing a Chiss (or to a much lesser extent Ratt's..which I've seen maybe 10 of total) that more more important? If there were racial abilities that actually did something like wow, I might agree. However racial abilities don't have any real effects and make no real difference.

 

Just add some bonuses like I've already suggested and see if the balance comes. If it doesn't, then you've tried the easy programming code, then move on to something else.

 

You're wrong. And the reason why is, I'm almost 99.9% sure they reused the same skeletal rigs. It's just common practice and smart development. This means all they need to do is model/texture and skin a few new races. It's not that difficult, especially with MMO characters that run some of the lowest poly counts of any gaming genre.

 

What WOULD be hard and costly is all the voice acting for those new races.

 

Honestly, the largest number of complaints I see floating around various class forums, is how awful the armor sets look for the republic side... namely jedi consular and knight. If you have some time, look at the end game PVE raid gear and PVP gear, it's absolutely atrocious. Even Kira Carsen cracks a joke about how the Empire gets all the greatest fashion designers. The very FACT that a writer thought to put that line in, is evidence that Bioware KNEW they were making Sith cooler. This is why we have the imbalance.

 

Empire Gets:

Cooler Animations

Purple Lightsabers (who the hell isnt crying about wanting one of these?)

Better looking armor

Better looking special effects

Better story (trust me, play both sides)

 

Bioware played favorites and its biting them in the ***..... They know how to fix it.

You cant give bonus that affect gameplay , since that would give the reps an edge and will cause empire rage , and has you know empire is the majority , the best they can do is give rep new races , cool looking armor and other stuff like this , still dont think will change nothing in less than many months from now.

You cant give bonus that affect gameplay , since that would give the reps an edge and will cause empire rage , and has you know empire is the majority , the best they can do is give rep new races , cool looking armor and other stuff like this , still dont think will change nothing in less than many months from now.

 

I agree...faction bonuses to me are like saying that one football team is allowed more players on the field because they are ranked lower than the team they are playing.

I personally wouldn't care what bonuses were added. The reason I don't play my Rep toons much, is because the quests and atmosphere are boring.

 

It's like a giant sea of beige Rep side, between the armor, the locations, and the general palate of the game, it's like being sucked into a 70's living room.

I rarely bother posting in the cesspit that is the forums anymore, but surely BW has noticed that subs are falling off and few new ones are coming in to take their place.

 

I like the game, and I don't plan on quitting, but I get on my Imp toon and there's 200 people in the fleet, lots of stuff for sale on the GTN, and WZ's are so numerous we have to play each other in Huttball.

 

I'd rather play my Republic toons, but with the numbers so skewed, there's really no point. The above reasons are only the beginning.

 

Is anything going to be done or is this just going to be a Empire/Sith game?

 

Anyone posting without constructive feedback will be reported for violation of TOS. Don't waste your time denying this isn't a problem, it is.

 

Just throw out some bonuses to the faction that is badly outnumbered....for you to help your faction get these bonuses, you'd be required not to log in onto an opposing faction character for, say, three days. Bonuses to help the economy, drops, PvP costs, etc. When the factions are more balanced, turn off the bonuses...if they unbalanced again, turn them back on.

 

I want to see the game succeed and I'd like to be a long term subscriber, but things are going to have to change guys. I hope you devs can see this. I don't even have access to your data and I can see it just from logging in the different factions and looking at numbers on the fleet on a couple of different servers.

 

You have years developing this game, I'd hate to see it go the way of so many failed MMO's just because you won't figure out a way to balance the factions.

 

The first paragraph doesn't really help your case fyi.

 

BUT, onto the meat of the subject. The issue here is less Skewwed populations and more server capacity I think. I can't say for certain but i'm willing to bet the max population for each server is substantially smaller than a Wow server which might be influencing your perceptions.

 

You're wrong. And the reason why is, I'm almost 99.9% sure they reused the same skeletal rigs. It's just common practice and smart development. This means all they need to do is model/texture and skin a few new races. It's not that difficult, especially with MMO characters that run some of the lowest poly counts of any gaming genre.

 

What WOULD be hard and costly is all the voice acting for those new races.

 

Honestly, the largest number of complaints I see floating around various class forums, is how awful the armor sets look for the republic side... namely jedi consular and knight. If you have some time, look at the end game PVE raid gear and PVP gear, it's absolutely atrocious. Even Kira Carsen cracks a joke about how the Empire gets all the greatest fashion designers. The very FACT that a writer thought to put that line in, is evidence that Bioware KNEW they were making Sith cooler. This is why we have the imbalance.

 

Empire Gets:

Cooler Animations

Purple Lightsabers (who the hell isnt crying about wanting one of these?)

Better looking armor

Better looking special effects

Better story (trust me, play both sides)

 

Bioware played favorites and its biting them in the ***..... They know how to fix it.

 

Voices are class based not race based. Also ,are you really trying to use a line from an in game npc to prove some type of favoritism?

Edited January 26, 2012 by Khraizin

Double post/ Edited January 26, 2012 by Khraizin

You're wrong.

 

Please notice that I said "at the very least." If I took the time to list every single thing, I'd still be typing the post after 12 hours.

Edited January 26, 2012 by salvadorellama

You cant give bonus that affect gameplay , since that would give the reps an edge and will cause empire rage , and has you know empire is the majority , the best they can do is give rep new races , cool looking armor and other stuff like this , still dont think will change nothing in less than many months from now.

 

Giving Reps an advantage would cause players to shift to that side, which would be great for a couple of months and then Empire would need some love and the pendulum swinging would begin.

 

The solution to population imbalance is to not make it matter so much. On non-PvP servers, the only place it really does is Ilum, anyway.

I love these threads. Do you want BioWare to prevent people from making Imp toons and force faction changes?

 

Hell, DAoC was a three faction game, and still had massive imbalances on some servers...some so bad that even with the two underdog realms teaming up, they still were steamrolled. Mythic gave out free level 30s to people that already had 50s instead of 20s like the other realms got, they gave RP (think valor), XP, and coin bonuses to encourage people to roll the underpopulated realm. IIRC the only thing that got significant faction switching was expansions adding extremely OP'd new classes to the underdog realms, and even this pretty much all this did was temporarily attract a few FotM chasers until those OP'd classes not hit with the nerf sledgehammer.

 

This game the factions are ALMOST identical in abilities, and Empire still outnumbers Repub just because they look better and generally have more interesting stories...plus the (I guess) coolness factor of being a badguy.

 

Maybe some cool Republic only race would help...IDK.

 

Well what's your solution? The only thing they can really do is when they start to merge severs is to merge republic heavy ones with empire heavy ones.

 

What is this "Republic heavy server" of which you speak?

Edited January 26, 2012 by ChicksDigHarleys

The first paragraph doesn't really help your case fyi.

 

Probably not, but I don't pull punches. Anyone that's taken time to read the forums for 15 minutes knows it's accurate.

 

BUT, onto the meat of the subject. The issue here is less Skewwed populations and more server capacity I think. I can't say for certain but i'm willing to bet the max population for each server is substantially smaller than a Wow server which might be influencing your perceptions.

 

As we don't have access to any of the data BW has, all we can do is make guesses based on what we see in the game. When I log onto Republic at, say 8pm there are around 70 people on the station. When I log onto an Imperial at the same time there are around 170 people on the station. This ratio is pretty consistant for any planet I bother to go to, therefore I'm guessing that, for my server at least, the number are pretty accurate: almost 3:1 in favor of the Imperials.

 

Adding bonuses is just one idea. First BW has to acknowledge there's a problem, which they haven't done. My prediction is that if they don't acknowledge and attempt to correct the problem, the Republic will slowly die out as people that keep playing the game switch sides due to lack of people to play with. Once one faction dies out, the game will most likely follow.

 

Like I said, the first step is admitting there's a problem. If things don't change, the game will die out prematurely. I don't think that's what BW wants to happen.

 

 

 

Edit: To address the issue brought up about races and resources it would take: the race everyone wants to play is the Yoda race (whatever it's called). A small race like that would require graphics, animations, everything...because there is no "small" race currently in the game.

Edited January 26, 2012 by salvadorellama

you know its going to swing the other way eventually people will go let me try an Empire Toon. Or a Republic Toon.

 

The only thing they can do on illium is to give the side thats on the field with a disadvante some damage and AC buff.

 

but before they do that they need to shore up illium to such a state that its lag free

 

I will say this at the end of this month they should allow people on servers to transfer there character to other servers.

 

the fall off from subscriptions is inevitable also playing times reduce and become normalized. they should of never added so many to begin with just make people wait or released the game not during a holiday when everyone one had so much free time.

Offering a temporary bonus won't do anything; people will just jump to whichever side currently has the bonus. If anything you'll just exacerbate the problem.

 

+10 for using such a cool word.

I'm hoping/betting that the way they implement the legacy system will help. If they start letting people roll Republic characters with Empire races, through the legacy system, that might help. If they start giving great bonuses and cosmetic rewards for leveling your legacy to high levels, then people will most likely play other characters to help level it. Edited January 26, 2012 by ElhonnaDS

Think totalbiscuit or whoever did an interview yesterday with gabe and asked about this. Their response was they were looking into incentives to play undermanned side or they could do other developer things. No real answer, other than that and to say it is something they are aware of and looking into. Which is also the typical canned response even if they aren't planning to do anything about something.

Offering a temporary bonus won't do anything; people will just jump to whichever side currently has the bonus. If anything you'll just exacerbate the problem.

 

How? once one side becomes dominant the other side get the bonus.