Okay so here's my quick fix and my long fix. If anybody has constructive solutions please respond. This is an important issue (especially on pvp servers). I won't get into ilum and warzones, but I think we all agree what faction imbalance does to those.

 

Quick fix:

 

Show the faction ratio on the server list. If players plan to join a server they will see that a particular server is 80% imperial and 20% republic. That may influence them to choose republic right off the bat. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I believe it's safe to assume that most people would want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. You can also add a "hint" above the preferred faction when they are on the faction selection screen. It could be a message above the minority faction that says "preferred for faction balance" or something like that. This is not a end all solution, but I believe it definitely would help.

 

Long fix:

 

Give players whose characters are of the opposite alignment of their faction (dark V or w/e for republic, light V for empire) the option to change to the other faction. So you could implement this option as a story driven quest line that becomes available once they finish their class storyline (and are lvl 50). I think it's pretty obvious why a completely light Sith Warrior would defect to the republic or a completely dark Jedi would defect to the Empire. Since the classes are mirrored, the mechanics would be the same, and the class abilities would be the same. You could just rename newly defected Sith Warriors Jedi Warriors, and visa versa. Or, make the penalty for changing sides reclassify the character to it's mirrored class. Powertechs would become vanguards, assassins would become shadows, guardians would become marauders or w/e you get what I mean. Or you could do a combination where BH's stay BH's, operatives stay operatives (republic spy?), but force users must either be sith or jedi. I can see an amazing opportunity for Revanites here.

 

This idea will also give added meaning to light side and dark side choices. It would also be cool to see a quest line that involves spying for the opposite faction if that character is of that alignment. Do not underestimate the power and value of choice BW! The storyline possibilities are endless with this!

 

I think this fix would definitely take time to implement, but this problem needs to be addressed, and soon. Ilum is dead on imbalanced servers, and will stay that way. Any hope for open world pvp will be crushed unless they begin to implement solutions that either provide incentive, buff stuff for the minority faction, or restrict adding to the majority.

 

To go further, I would also suggest enabling this option for completely neutral aligned characters, but idk.

 

EDIT: A common solution I've seen is to put the player cap on ilum to 50 per faction, and have hourly events that encourage players to flock to ilum to seek w/e rewards.

 

Plausible ideas from respondents:

 

the easy fix is to put in a queue system. It'd be like a zonal WZ. 20 on 20 or whatever. When ever the cap is reached, load the zone. If 20 more queue up from both sides, a new instance is started, etc to infinite. Then add a time limit for how long you can be in that instance of ilum.

 

Easiest solution from a questing on Illum standpoint is to lower the kill count required for the less numerous faction. After that they have to consider allowing faction changes / server merges to try an fix the imbalance. IMHO.

 

My solution to fix faction imbalance:

 

1. Through the legacy system add a feature that allows you to get 2x valor and 50% more XP between levels 1-49 when you create a new character on the opposing faction.

 

2. Add a feature in Ilum where whenever there's a 25% or more population difference between factions in the zone, the faction with less players gets 25% more valor for all kills, and zero diminishing returna.

 

 

What do you guys think? I doubt BW will ever see this thread but w/e. Maybe with your added CONSTRUCTIVE comments we may actually influence their decision making. We need to discuss this issue in a manner that will elicit the most attention from developers if we want to avoid wasting our breath. Thanks

Edited February 4, 2012 by Sybaris

We need Imps on ICE breaker.

 

That is all.

You do realize that the VO work for the classes makes switching sides a logistical nightmare, right? The VO for tons of content has already been prerecorded, for both the Republic and the Empire. Switching sides would mean bringing in all those people back. These are not ametures, who can come in at the drop of a hat; these are professionals, whose schedules have been worked out MONTHS in advance. Your long term solution is not very feasible.

I don't think they will allow faction transfer based on allignment. One could use the diplomacy crew skill to adjust allignment fairly rapidly, which would allow frequent faction transfers. Also, there is this idea that there are dark forces which assist the Republic and light forces which assist the Empire. The Republic and Empire are merely political factions, two sides to a war, and not necessairly good vs evil in a pure form. So allignment has little to do with faction, even from a story perspective.

 

I think the faction ratio listing is a good idea. To take things further, I would like to see a class distribution on server listings as well. That would inform lots of people to take, say healers instead of dps or something to that effect.

the easy fix is to put in a queue system. It'd be like a zonal WZ. 20 on 20 or whatever. When ever the cap is reached, load the zone. If 20 more queue up from both sides, a new instance is started, etc to infinite. Then add a time limit for how long you can be in that instance of ilum.

 

booyah

Seems to be even on my server. No fix needed

You do realize that the VO work for the classes makes switching sides a logistical nightmare, right? The VO for tons of content has already been prerecorded, for both the Republic and the Empire. Switching sides would mean bringing in all those people back. These are not ametures, who can come in at the drop of a hat; these are professionals, whose schedules have been worked out MONTHS in advance. Your long term solution is not very feasible.

 

I agree that would seem impossible. But if you read my whole suggestion I would remind you that this option is only available once a player has completed their entire storyline. You will not be able to start out with a character then immediately switch over to the other faction. So I'm saying that it would only be VO for one lvl 50 quest line. As for prerecorded VO beyond the current storylines, idk maybe you're right. I didn't consider what VO work they already have recorded for future content. Can anybody else verify that? Would VO make this impossible?

If people are not creating repubs, what makes you think they'd transfer? Why would someone transfer to the less populated side? To get continuously stomped and locked out of ilum? To have difficulties filling out groups for pve?

 

Imbalances will always exist simply because people want to be bad guys in their fantasy world, instead of good guys. That is why Episode one 3d features darth maul prominently on its posters, despite the fact that he is entirely a secondary character. That is why bobba fett has always been one of the most popular action figures in the star wars universe, even more than some central characters. That is why you see a lot more darth vader costumes on halloween than you do obiwan ones.

 

It is not something that is ever getting fixed, unless they allowed bounty hunters to be neutral and choose republic as well.

the easy fix is to put in a queue system. It'd be like a zonal WZ. 20 on 20 or whatever. When ever the cap is reached, load the zone. If 20 more queue up from both sides, a new instance is started, etc to infinite. Then add a time limit for how long you can be in that instance of ilum.

 

booyah

 

I've heard suggestions like this as well, and I agree. Definitely plausible. Or put the player cap on ilum to 50 per faction, and have hourly events that encourage players to flock to ilum to seek w/e rewards. A queue system would help too for sure.

 

I just wanted to put my crazy solution out there and see if I got some common sense responses, so looks like it's working. Good stuff.

You do realize that the VO work for the classes makes switching sides a logistical nightmare, right? The VO for tons of content has already been prerecorded, for both the Republic and the Empire. Switching sides would mean bringing in all those people back. These are not ametures, who can come in at the drop of a hat; these are professionals, whose schedules have been worked out MONTHS in advance. Your long term solution is not very feasible.

 

Assuming BW has a good database that stores all the dataelements associated with a character in a documented mannor, then writting a script that changes all to the opposite faction should be doable.

 

Sure, might take some time, money, testing and training of CSRs on how to execute the request, however doabable for any competent development team.

Assuming BW has a good database that stores all the dataelements associated with a character in a documented mannor, then writting a script that changes all to the opposite faction should be doable.

 

Sure, might take some time, money, testing and training of CSRs on how to execute the request, however doabable for any competent development team.

 

 

the problem are the quests/storyline. Say you are done with act 2 and starting act 3, then switch factions....what happens? Erase any and all quest progress? Do they start at the beginning of act 1 (oh Sith master you are now a Jedi padawan). It's hard to make it work and make sense.

I like the population idea but...

people will abuse it and screw it up. Honor is dead.

 

You would prolly have to make it so that you can not switch sides without deletion

Only allow people to join a server side with low account population...

 

Very ridged.

 

But on its face showing the population count is not a bad idea.

the problem are the quests/storyline. Say you are done with act 2 and starting act 3, then switch factions....what happens? Erase any and all quest progress? Do they start at the beginning of act 1 (oh Sith master you are now a Jedi padawan). It's hard to make it work and make sense.

 

Agreed, but if you read the post he was responding to you will see that this option would only be available after finishing Act 3.

the problem are the quests/storyline. Say you are done with act 2 and starting act 3, then switch factions....what happens? Erase any and all quest progress? Do they start at the beginning of act 1 (oh Sith master you are now a Jedi padawan). It's hard to make it work and make sense.

 

In his idea, the faction change would only be doable after main quests were completed and level 50 achieved, maybe some other requirementa like light or dark V and maybe a commendations requirement, it's all doable if you think about it like this. There would be less voice acting required if it was an endgame timing switch.

Anybody have any other ideas? Like something about server transfers or something? That could work but I wonder if players in the minority faction of severely imbalanced servers will just jump ship instead of players from the majority leaving.

the problem are the quests/storyline. Say you are done with act 2 and starting act 3, then switch factions....what happens? Erase any and all quest progress? Do they start at the beginning of act 1 (oh Sith master you are now a Jedi padawan). It's hard to make it work and make sense.

 

All classes are mirrors so all that is required is a cross index table that matches Republic Quest to Imp Quest.

 

Again, if it is a good database with a good coding and tagging system, scripts can be written to change a toon from one faction to another.

 

This is a common practice for anyone that knows anything about databases.

Give players whose characters are of the opposite alignment of their faction (dark V or w/e for republic, light V for empire) the option to change to the other faction. So you could implement this option as a story driven quest line that becomes available once they finish their class storyline (and are lvl 50). I think it's pretty obvious why a completely light Sith Warrior would defect to the republic or a completely dark Jedi would defect to the Empire. Since the classes are mirrored, the mechanics would be the same, and the class abilities would be the same. You could just rename newly defected Sith Warriors Jedi Warriors, and visa versa. Or, make the penalty for changing sides reclassify the character to it's mirrored class. Powertechs would become vanguards, assassins would become shadows, guardians would become marauders or w/e you get what I mean. Or you could do a combination where BH's stay BH's, operatives stay operatives (republic spy?), but force users must either be sith or jedi. I can see an amazing opportunity for Revanites here.

 

It seems like this would defeat the purpose of story based alignment choices.

It seems like this would defeat the purpose of story based alignment choices.

 

Possibly, but I would speculate that the majority of players will play a class that they want to play right off the bat instead of playing the mirrored class so they can just switch over at 50. I wouldn't do that anyways. The intended population for this would be the level 50's who do not have a guild holding them back from switching, or even entire guilds who want to switch over to balance the server. I guess I could see some unintended consequences in that regard though.

Show the faction ratio on the server list. If players plan to join a server they will see that a particular server is 80% imperial and 20% republic. That may influence them to choose republic right off the bat. I don't have any statistics to back this up, but I believe it's safe to assume that most people would want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem. You can also add a "hint" above the preferred faction when they are on the faction selection screen. It could be a message above the minority faction that says "preferred for faction balance" or something like that. This is not a end all solution, but I believe it definitely would help.

 

It's not rocket science for people to know Imperials are the higher pop in this game. The faction imbalance isn't an issue that people aren't aware of the imbalance, but an issue (if you even want to call it an issue) of the popularity of the franchise.

 

When you look at Star Wars fans, there is usually more interest for the Imperial side than the Republic/Rebel side.

 

Look at every time there are costumed star wars fans. Who do they dress up more often as? Darth Vader, Storm Troopers, Boba Fett. How often do you see people dressed as Luke Skywalker, or rebel pilots? It's a good indicator there are a lot of Imperial fans out there and they just want to play what interests them.

Easiest solution from a questing on Illum standpoint is to lower the kill count required for the less numerous faction.

 

After that they have to consider allowing faction changes / server merges to try an fix the imbalance.

 

IMHO.

It's not rocket science for people to know Imperials are the higher pop in this game. The faction imbalance isn't an issue that people aren't aware of the imbalance, but an issue (if you even want to call it an issue) of the popularity of the franchise.

 

When you look at Star Wars fans, there is usually more interest for the Imperial side than the Republic/Rebel side.

 

Look at every time there are costumed star wars fans. Who do they dress up more often as? Darth Vader, Storm Troopers, Boba Fett. How often do you see people dressed as Luke Skywalker, or rebel pilots? It's a good indicator there are a lot of Imperial fans out there and they just want to play what interests them.

 

A valid point. I would assume though that there are some players who are indecisive as to what side to choose. I don't know the numbers here, but I would go as far as to say that there are players who are not "fanboys" per se, and enjoy a challenge and/or like to be different from the majority. This quick fix is a simple solution, that would likely bring about favorable results. It won't completely balance things, but it will help down the line imo.

Edited February 2, 2012 by Sybaris

1. stop allowing republic characters to be created
   
2. leave ilum as it is until all current republic quit
   
3. pvp is now imp on imp huttball
   

 

fixed

Edited February 2, 2012 by Roak

1. stop allowing republic characters to be created
   
2. leave ilum as it is until all current republic quit
   
3. pvp is now imp on imp huttball
   

 

fixed

 

It's funny you say that because that is where the current road leads to for some servers. I know the Pubs on my server aren't going to be there for much longer as it is. We even had scheduled Guild battles on ilum last month, but there were so many pugs on the imperial side already in the zone that it started to look like the movie 300. Needless to say the pubs started leaving ilum as the "beast" sat at the gate.

And for every 1% more that the imperial has over Repub currently online, that's 1% more +exp/valor bonus. What's that you say, Imps outnumber repub by 300%?! 300% exp/valor bonus for Repubs!

And for every 1% more that the imperial has over Repub currently online, that's 1% more +exp/valor bonus. What's that you say, Imps outnumber repub by 300%?! 300% exp/valor bonus for Repubs!

 

I don't understand what you mean by this.. you have some sort of reference or something I can look at?