Currently, the popularity of a faction on each campaign is “balanced” according to popularity within that campaign. The less popular side receiving things like more tickets per capture, faster capture times, etc. The issue is that this doesn’t account for when there are a surge of people on that side, giving them a massive advantage until its “rebalanced” again.
What I suggest instead is a system that changes balance according to the number of players within that game. So if one side is outmatched on numbers, they receive some small buffs to ticket gain and capture time INSTEAD of this being controlled on a large scale basis. This should solve the issue of sides getting oversaturated due solely to static unbalanced game mechanics.
Even if the number of players is the same, the less popular faction usually have worse equipment than the more popular faction because they win less so they got less xp.
Bad idea. Not much people like to grind two faction at a time. It will make the grind feels extremely painful and not all people have enough orders to enlist, arm and upgrade two faction at a time.
From my PERSONAL experience, it seems like a lot of the weapon balancing is based off of what faction is popular or unpopular at the time too. Not in every case, but rather often. Tunisia for example, a while back there were supposedly less people playing as Axis, so capture time was sped up, ticket gain per capture was increased, and a number of their weapons got some buffs, all at once. After that, all we saw for like 2 months was people playing as Axis in Tunisia.
When the gear is similar in tactical nature (such as most of Tunisia equipment) the balancing of said weapons should not be adjusted according to popularity. Even when its not similar in tactical nature (Pacific) balancing should not be done according to popularity, but rather how the equipment is used when it is being applied properly.
Pacific is my example on this:
Ally SMGs are designed to be more close quarters with high fire rate but low accuracy at range. Meanwhile, Axis SMGs on this campaign are designed with slower fire rate and good accuracy at mid range. They are meant for two different situations, and balancing needs to account for them as such, rather than one side getting a buff due to popularity.
You are talking about different thing? I am not talking about buffing weapons. What I want to say is even the match is full of player the equipment level of the less popular faction is usually worse.
For example, in my previous Normandy Axis experience, many of the match is a bunch of Axis player using Tiger 1 and STG44 to stomp Allies player with Stuart and M3 submachine gun. The Allies team is all real player.
Your suggestion will make less popular faction less likely to win.
Something to consider, a lot of advanced players use the Stuart and M3 submachine gun as well. The Stuart is the most mobile tank the American’s have at their disposal, and with the right knowledge can outflank and kill Tigers. On top of that, there was a bug (not sure if its still in or not) that made the armor on the Stuart way more effective than it should be.
As far as the M3 SMG, it shouldn’t be underestimated. Its the easiest to fully upgrade, and when it is, its a force to be reckoned with. It does amazing at mid range, and if players know how to make use of this, you will definitely be able to tell. The tommy guns however are really only good for close range, and are the favorites of run-and-gun players. Which is why you tend to see them more often usually.
I’m not saying that they will always be in the hands of advanced players. However, if their team is all real players, then they should be learning from their mistakes and not running head first into the middle of the fight. If they are, that’s another problem alltogether.
LOL, you can’t represent all the advanced player. I never meet a single pro stuart driver after playing 1000+ battle of Normandy Axis. Advanced player that willing to sacrifice a slot for low tier vehicle is very rare.
Also you are focusing on the wrong thing. We are not talking about how advanced player can use low level weapon.
The problem of the less popular faction now is they are mostly noob and using low level weapons even they are all real people.
Total irrelevant stuff LOL. We are talking about player base and equipment, not about tactic.
You bring me right back to the core problem that I am suggesting the fix for:
“The less popular faction are mostly noobs.” Stop and ask yourself why that is. For the most part, the advanced players that know which side is currently got the buffs is the “popular” side.
This is exactly why the blanket buffs to one side or the other is NOT a good system. It just causes advanced players to flock to one side or the other for ease of games.
If it was done on a PER GAME basis, you would have a better balance of players on each side, both advanced and noob alike. Rather than one side advanced and one side noob.
Normandy Axis, Moscow Soviet has been dominating for quite a long time. Do player flock to another side for easier game? The ticket and capture time is not the main cause of one side being popular lol.
That’s because on their last “rebalance” of Normandy and Moscow, those sides were given buffs! Causing the popularity of them to shift, therefore the side with the buffs is now the side with the numbers, and creating a massive imbalance that leads to them dominating.
Which is the EXACT ISSUE that I am suggesting to fix!
The side that WAS underpopulated was given buffs to make it easier for lower player count to do more. The issue is that those buffs are not removed when there are more players on that team than the other, causing a massive shift in power and therefore easier games that players flock too.
Due to imbalance of controls console is allowed to turn off crossplay with PC. I myself do this most of the time when I’m not running with my buddies that are on PC.
The thing is that there are often less players on at a time on console, (the weekends usually being the exception), to where players flock to the side they will have easier battles due to the mechanics I am talking about, just to grind resources to spend on other campaigns.
Meanwhile, the less popular side that doesn’t have those specific buffs are often only 1-4 actual players and the rest being bots. Meaning they have to fight against both stacked odds AND an imbalance of game mechanics.
EDIT: I use Tunisia as an example from a couple months ago. They made Axis capture insanely quick and get a lot of tickets back. We were playing as Allies and never had more than 1 or 2 player teammates in addition to our group. Meanwhile the enemy team was only missing 1 or 2 actual players.
If they made my suggestion only happen when console players turn off crossplay, thats fine with me. However, its still an issue for us and should not be discounted.
In addition, it may help more that you may think even for PC.
I am not sure about it. But I will say that the situation will become very different after they merge all the campaign and implement BR rating. Maybe the thing we talk about will be irrelevant at that time.