Once again, we have the issue where a lot of players are jumping on one side or the other. This isn’t even a case of better gear. Simply that matchmaking needs to have more incentives to push players to play whichever side CURRENTLY has fewer players.
We have seen that messing with capture mechanics such as speed of capture and tickets rewarded is NOT a good method, because players will just jump on the side with the advantage.
My suggestion,
add in a +50% xp bonus for playing as the current “underdog” team,
additionally +25% xp bonus for each extra player the enemy team has. Example: if the enemy team has 3 more real players than yours, you get a +75% xp boost.
These numbers may seem high, but remember that the incentive needs to be high for it to START working. After that, the teams will begin to balance out and you will see far less instances of a single team being so stacked.
In the oddball matches where they ARE still stacked, the underdog gets CONSIDERABLY more XP for their efforts.
I don’t think this mechanic will be relevant after the merge. We still don’t know how the situation will be after the merge. In addition, dev already said they will add reward for people who choose random side.
I suspect that even AFTER the merge it will still be an issue. Many players tend to gravitate toward whatever side is easiest due to objective mechanic changes.
So every time they do a change, the previously underdog faction now gets significantly more players, ONLY because it is easier to win on that side now.
By removing that method of “balance” as a whole and instead incentivizing teams to balance out in regards to numbers, the game will become a lot more even.
I think it’s a great idea to incentives players to choose the side with the lower population.
I think it would also help if they removed the 50% victory bonus altogether and boosted xp gain by 25%-50% across the board to reduce the pain in losing a match and remove one reason players desert in the first place
Without the win bonus, there is absolutely no incentive to actually try to WIN the game. That is specifically the REWARD FOR WINNING. Without it, everyone just runs around, ignoring the objective, only interested in farming out kills.
“Reduce the pain in losing a match”? You get standard xp for losing! Its not like you get a penalty or anything.
You didn’t get as much as the WINNERS did? Then maybe you should focus harder on WINNING and get the reward for WINNING, rather than focus on farming kills or getting the biggest score!
In an IDEAL game where both teams have the exact same number of players, do you think people would be deserting?
If the teams were even, and your team won, don’t you think you should get a reward for winning?
Now consider this:
Leave the win bonus as it is. Implement my suggestion.
If you go into a game as an underdog, and you have 4 less players than the enemy team, you would ALREADY be getting a bonus of +150% xp.
If you then managed to WIN that game, your grand total would be +200% xp.
That ALONE would make it more valuable than quitting out and finding another game.
Currently people absolutely consider it a penalty to lose the 50% bonus and many will quit the match if they think they will lose. There’s more reason to win than just the bonus, at least there is for me. The game already incentivises players to move forward and get kills and capture points.
Also who cares? If you play and lose and still have fun that’s ok because it’s a game and not a competitive sport. In the end somebody has to win, there are no ties in enlisted.