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[naossano]

As already stated, i don't think equal numbers can be reached or is even needed. My complains are about huge gap (when faction B has twice or more the number of faction A), like there is currently between V-Tec and BBoys, like before that between V-Tec/Family and Lawyers/BBoys or before that V-TEC/Lawyers vs Family/BBoys. At some point, the difference is so big that it not challenging for those who outnumber and hopeless to those who are outnumbered. There is no point in figting, no game to be played, no reason for staying on the server. It leads to people leaving, and maybe discourage others from coming if those who left complained about balance. When you are in the outnumbered faction, you can't afford to change faction as there would be even less people and even bigger gap. When you outnumber, you can switch faction, or make an alt in another one and solve the problem. It was done in the past by lawyers, it is still done by some family/lawyers.
Dunno if it'll change, but currently, BBoys seemed to have lost some faith in playing within their faction as there is not much hope to counter bigger group. I also lost some faith in V-TEC trying it. Arguments became pretty heated over the years between a few of us and V-Tec lead, which could make things harder.

I don't think all players ought to have alts in all factions. Newcomers & casual might have trouble dealing with more than one characters, more than one faction. They should probably better stick to one char and improve it. On the other hand, some players spend much more time into it, several hours a day, every days, for months. Considering how the reward work, they would have much less troubles sustaining an additionnal character, if needed. Also, there is the pattern to take into account.  Other that a few significant exceptions, V-TEC was the overwhelming faction for a lot of months, with a good number of player showing up almost all the time. I get that at the beginning, they would be reluctant to try out solution to improve balance. But after so much time, i find hard to believe they didn't considered a simple solution to a problem they share a part of responsability, and would have an easier time solving. Just moving a char or making a new one is much more easier than making appear a new player out of nowhere to increase a smaller number. But, as stated above, time is an important issue. The longer they wait to do it, the harder it is to accept their excuses for not doing it, considering the little trouble it would bring them to only try it. They might consider the result disapointing if they try (which i don't think so), but not trying at all seems a bigger failure/disapointment than trying an not succeed.

But, IMO, i spent too much time arguing about it. I don't think i'll have the will to rephrase stuff all the time. If they don't do it, they don't do it, but they cannot say they weren't explained why they should.

Features to help balance :

I might be wrong about it, but i recall that early on, even before the server became open, balance was already something in mind, for dev and the people interested in AOP (the would-be players).
Dunno if it was expected for the players to handle it themselves, or if it was expected that features would do the job.  IMO, i don't see the point in making all these differents weapons, leadership options, characters builds, supports tools, if sheer number was to decide the outcome of all battles, which happens in case of huge gap. No player skill involved, no choice of gear/build would matter. You play knowing the result.

On the other hand, if it is perfectly acceptable than one faction should have no chance of winning, like BBoys at that point, i don't see the point of the faction still existing. People that register in it might not know that they are doomed from the start. If the rare veteran of this faction decide to give up agains't those odds, there would be no one to tell those newcomers that they should keep playing, but not there.

I do think that balancing is an important issue, also in the hand of develloppers, and that AOP, won't be actually finished, IMO, as long as balance issues are ignored. But i am also well aware that i am playing an unfinished game, an early access game. If it follow the trends of others server, it will always be unfinished, but it is not the point. I don't know which is your current priority in the develloppement team, but i assume that as long as you are around (or new blood), there will be some changelog appearing in the future, with fixes, additions, new features. So i am not much worried, and think it is a bit early to consider that you are failed. You would have failed if you finished the game (which might not happen) and sold it (which will never happen) while pretending there are features in which aren't really there.

While i don't know exactly how to mod a fonline game, i assume almost all editing takes some time, a much longer time that it would take us for alting/switching faction. Alting/switching faction has also the benefit in allowing us to keep playing, which you don't do while you are coding/scripting etc... Which lead me to be more disapointed toward regular players that could do it and don't even try.

All that said, if it come to features leaning toward reducing or countering the huge gaps (not making numbers equals) while not forbidding players to play, there could be several. (by huge gap, i mean faction B having twice or more the number of Faction A for an extended period of time, more than two weeks for instance)


- Better individual score if you are in the team in lower number. Lower if you are swarming. (ZC)
- Lower condition on things you loot if you are swarming. Better condition if you are swarmed. (ZC)
- Short term alliance during ZC. Faction A & B team up for a specific ZC. They share benefits of that zone and it shows no contest while they are together.
- Medium term alliance. Faction A & B are officially allied for one week or one months. Every members of both faction should be aware of this (ingame message displayed) and would lose rep if they shoot each other. If faction A make a temporary alliance with team C, it should include team B.
- On the other hand, some event should only benefit one faction and screw others, so alliances couldn't work for every fight.
- No sworn enemy faction. I am not sure it is the most logical thing to do to destroy someone at the other end of the city, while your closest neighbours constantly threaten your territory.
- On the other hand, you cannot form a short term alliance with any team, if it represent more than half of the active playerbase (characters that showed up in ZC during the week), or a medium term alliance if it represent more than a quarter of the playerbase. (if there is 6-8 teams)
- Having simultaneous treats, randoms events, weak-spot to deal with, the more active players you got logged at the same time, encouraging you to split to seek those events.
- Overall, having much more things to do, several for each kind of activity. Even if your faction has 3 players vs 50 you would still have things to do instead of just log off. (would only come over time)
- More mechanics to make even easier faction switching & alting, by moving storage from room/platoon to another, or free XP for making a new character in overwhelmed faction, ONLY if your faction is overwhelming. So not only regular could alt/switch, but also casuals.
- Salary & rewards becoming frozen if the gap is too high.
- More items/money generated by zones, in core/HQ traders inventory and salary, if there is more factions involved in contesting those zones. The interest of all those faction increase the value of the location. Everyone best interest being in having more kind of people coming. (alliance count as one faction)
-  Risk of being permanently expelled from a faction if you do team killing while being in an overwhelming faction.
- You are more sneaky if part of an overwhelmed faction during a ZC. (overwhelmed faction according to a pattern, not this specific battle)
- Having some ressources depending of faction trading system. People from faction B having to buy some stuff from faction A, which would be possible with consent of both sides.
- Worst case scenario, but if a faction is judged doomed, just transfer people in the second lowest faction and close registrations. There is no point in allowing people to discover the game in a faction that can't do a thing.

I don't think it is a good idea, to force people to automatically move to another faction. They would try to move back if they didn't consent to it.
 

[Lidae]

I don't disagree that overwhelming numbers in one faction is a bad thing. But with the playerbase being very small, I think it's probably better to stick to only two factions rather than insisting on four different ones. And this is effectively what we have at the moment anyway. It would just be a matter of cosmetics at this point to remove BB and Family all together and forcing everyone to play vtec or lawyers. At least as far as PvP is concerned.


Of course the balance between factions has always been an issue, it's something that potential players typically bring up or ask about, and that skeptics are, well, skeptical about. And for a good reason too. I think the best we can do in this aspect is to encourage equality rather than enforcing it. We never wanted to block certain factions or force people to switch, or at least that was always the "worst case scenario" in terms of what to do if we have 100 vtecs and 5 in each of the other factions. But again, with such small playerbase, four factions doesn't make sense anyway, and it's not like vtecs vastly outnumber all the other factions combined.

As for ways of encouraging balance, let me go through your suggestions:

- Better individual score if you are in the team in lower number. Lower if you are swarming. (ZC)
- Lower condition on things you loot if you are swarming. Better condition if you are swarmed. (ZC)

These could be done, especially the first one (a variation of it already is in place: you get better score for shooting people in good gear and high level, though this could perhaps be accentuated further). But the main problem here is that ZC itself has to be meaningful for the change to have any impact. If nobody cares about the score or the zones (which is largely the case right now), then these suggestions will do little to help.

- Short term alliance during ZC. Faction A & B team up for a specific ZC. They share benefits of that zone and it shows no contest while they are together.
- Medium term alliance. Faction A & B are officially allied for one week or one months. Every members of both faction should be aware of this (ingame message displayed) and would lose rep if they shoot each other. If faction A make a temporary alliance with team C, it should include team B.

Like I said before, alliances and treaties were in fact planned, and the backbone for letting individual players from one faction temporarily join another for the duration of ZC is even in place. The problem was how to facilitate the actual alliance. Somebody ought to accept or decline an offer to help in ZC. Who? If you're in BB and want to help family take a zone, who to you go to, what do you do exactly? There just seemed to be this big practical issue about how to actually form such alliances that we never really got to the bottom of, and then the whole thing just sort of fell out of memory I guess. Anyway, something like this would be cool, but there's a lot of design behind such a system if it is to be any good, and we're pretty far from having a good concept for it. (Indeed, if you have a good idea for how to handle this, I'd like to hear it. Maybe post it in the suggestion forum). And depending on that concept, actually implementing it could range from really easy to excruciatingly hard. Typically with stuff like this, an idea sounds awesome and you think you have a pretty clear vision - until you sit down to actually code it. Then you realise there's a ton of things you hadn't really thought of, and the whole thing becomes a mess. Planning it carefully in advance is really the hard part.

- No sworn enemy faction. I am not sure it is the most logical thing to do to destroy someone at the other end of the city, while your closest neighbours constantly threaten your territory.

I kinda agree with this, but it seems to me like the concept of intimate enemies hasn't really had any major impact on how people behave toward one another anyway. I could be wrong though. Personally I'm not really a fan of the concept anyway. Not sure it would make a huge difference to even out the faction numbers though.

- Having simultaneous treats, randoms events, weak-spot to deal with, the more active players you got logged at the same time, encouraging you to split to seek those events.
- Overall, having much more things to do, several for each kind of activity. Even if your faction has 3 players vs 50 you would still have things to do instead of just log off. (would only come over time)

This is hard because, well, to "maek moar contant" takes time. We are adding things bit by bit (the new upper levels of the core maps is the latest in this), but just adding more content is not particularly easy. There's also a balance between keeping a focus on PvP and the core, and having other stuff that sort of detracts from that. Particularly when the playerbase is small, we don't want the few players we do have to all be doing their own thing in their separate parts of the map.

- More mechanics to make even easier faction switching & alting, by moving storage from room/platoon to another, or free XP for making a new character in overwhelmed faction, ONLY if your faction is overwhelming. So not only regular could alt/switch, but also casuals.

Faction switching should be made easier, with that I agree. There are also a bunch of bugs related to switching factions that needs to be fixed. This is something that we'll probably fix pretty soon, and which may or may not be present for the next season. Sort of a temporary fix, I mean. Free XP sounds like a bad idea, and tying it to the faction of your other alts is basically impossible without some major additions to the engine.

- Salary & rewards becoming frozen if the gap is too high.

This would probably just make life harder for casuals/noobs in the numerous faction, whereas the people who are better candidates for switching would likely just whine and not actually do anything. So I dunno if this would help honestly. At least it should be relatively easy to do though.

-  Risk of being permanently expelled from a faction if you do team killing while being in an overwhelming faction.

I don't see how this would help.

- Having some ressources depending of faction trading system. People from faction B having to buy some stuff from faction A, which would be possible with consent of both sides.

I'd like faction trading to be a thing, but unfortunately I think people just make alts in the different factions to get the stuff they need. We made the merchant stocks depend on the zones you hold, but people bypass that easily by just having alts, so that didn't really work out as we wanted. Perhaps if some items were only available if two factions cooperated to get them, but I'm not sure what that cooperation would look like, or if it would lead to any actual cooperation, as opposed to the same group of players just having temporary alts in another faction for the duration of that cooperation.




Anyway, I think the direction we're going in at the moment, and which I think is really promising at least as a concept, is to have a more well defined tech progression throughout the season, and allowing different factions to be gaining "tech" at different speeds. Connecting the zone control to this, as well as special operations that you have to do inside the core to gain tech (ie unlocking better gear). This would make ZC very important, which would stimulate PvP. Like we've touched on before, if people care about ZC, this would go a long way to naturally balance the different factions. If one faction becomes too strong, others will form alliances to defeat them, if not for their personal gain but in order to stop them from becoming even more powerful. Explicitly supporting such alliances is not strictly necessary I think (though it would be a nice thing to have eventually).

Ultimately, the tech progression would reach a point where the only way to advance further is to eliminate other factions. In a way, this is kind of the opposite of encouraging balance between factions, but I think the effect would be very interesting, especially with a larger playerbase. A weak faction would be a target for a strong faction, but at the same time, a strong faction would be a target for cooperating factions.

There's a risk of course that the "swarm faction" would gain a tech advantage that further perpetuates their lead and ultimately just crushes everyone. But I think the competitive nature of the core playerbase would go a pretty long way to try to prevent that. And in any case, as smaller factions get eliminated, those players can join with the next weakest team to give them a boost in numbers. It might work out rather nicely, and the dynamics of the server would change rather drastically across the season.

Personally I still feel like there are a few things missing, but I'm not sure what. Anyway, this is the direction we're currently headed, so any input or feedback on that might be useful.




To summarize, the issue of balanced factions is not an easy one, particularly if we are to let people choose for themselves how to play the game. And ultimately, part of the allure with fonline to begin with is the openness of it, the fact that you can do almost anything you want. Don't really wanna mess with that. So the only thing we're really left with is to try to design the gameplay in a way that it sort of magically balances itself. But particularly with a small playerbase, even small absolute differences in numbers amount to large relative imbalances. And you can't really split a prime.

[Oleg]

At this point in time it doesn't really much matter what you do to balance the teams and even-out the fights to make them more "honorable."

In the end, there aren't really enough people playing this game. I've seen 34 people at peak, some are AFK or doing ...shiver... assignments.

1) Maybe get rid of two factions and make it Vtec versus Lawyers only. At least for now, until the population grows and there are more regular players online. Lawyers and Family are teaming up against Vtec already anyway.

2) Or, give people incentive to join and belong to a different faction. Make them have unique bonuses, like they do in EVE Online with all the different races being well balanced but still unique enough to be interesting.

3) At minimum have a counter of non sneaking players from factions next to the zone control counters at top left of the screen. So that people don't get fagged by superior numbers and cry on the forums with long posts about "dishonorable" fights and "swarming."

We all obviously like playing this game. Bros before hos.

I also think we should put A.C.R.O.N.Y.M and Naosano in the same room. They will either kill each other or we will get the best Fonline game ever. Either way, it's a win-win.

[Anza]

As said above, encouraging people to switch faction or make alt is good, forcing them isn't. And I still think insulting them because they are having fun atm is not a legit thing. It is a game, if you do not have fun, it doesn't mean it is the case of everyone. I'm not saying outnumbering people is good, I just say people can find fun from that and you cannot blame them for that (maybe they are not core-pvp, or maybe it's their first Fonline game, many reasons can happen and not only I SWARM I WIN I LOL). Many times in Lawyers we asked people to come and join us in pvp and they said I don't want to be a burden, I should not count as 1 but a half coz i don't know how to pvp/i'm not confident etc 

For blocking faction, I don't think it's a good idea either. They did in WO at the release (only 2 factions so it was understandable), but at the end, people from big pvp guilds (at least EU guilds from DaoC) just waited till it was unlocked, playing another game during that time 

Again I do think alliances should be the answer to outnumbering faction. No sworn enemy could be nice yes, and short term alliances too. What could done is :
- Short term alliances = Squad alliances. You can invite someone from every faction, the squad leader determine the faction who will take zones. No contested status in zone if they are together. However, you are only able to join this squad if you have +XXX reputation to join them. That will make reputation useful.
- Mid/Long term alliances. That should be discussed on forums and triggered by GM when enough people agree. 2 factions will become allied, making you lose reputation in both your faction and the allied faction when you kill someone of allied faction. Same thing for capping zones. A message can be displayed for 2-3 days when alliance is made. It can be showed in cheapboy.

To finish, yes balancing numbers is a great thing, but don't force people it is a game 

[Teela]

Well my 2 cents:

with population below 25 you need some cross faction coordination to get fights going. This has worked to some extend, with some dedicated people playing multiple factions in order to get fights going.

With population above 25 you can solve this with short-term alliances. Or, like now, by having the three weakest factions unite against the strongest.

Of course this isn't ideal. But it sort of works. Server has stayed alive for months now with minimal server population.

However. I'd rather have the devs code awesome shit that will make AOP even more epic than it already is and that will have a positive effect on population long term, than them wasting time on coding balancing features that will be rendered obsolete as soon as population picks up.

So guys, stop bothering the dev team with issues we can solve with the community. Lawyers just got buffed by some very skilled family players, so lawyers should very well be able to make a stand against VTEC as it is now.

VTEC has a lot of active players ATM, which is, IMHO, by merit of the good atmosphere in the faction.

Search within thyself.

edit: typo's

[Oleg]

It feels like this game is dying in terms of player count. AoP had a massive number of players at some point compared to how many people log-in these days. http://fodev.net/status/history/

When there are only 12-20 players online and you're fighting the exact same people in each PvP sesh then something is wrong.

It's getting so desperate that TWAT will hop between V-tecs and Lawyers to balance out the teams and incite battles in the core.

When not in PvP there is absolutely nothing to do in the downtime: low level assignments are boring and high level stuff is not worth bringing along the good gear. Robco and dungeons are too hard for small groups.

Not to mention that it takes forever to download the client and then run the updater and the two Fallout 2 files that you need.

I know these steps weed out the stupid people from playing this game, but soon AoP will become irrelevant due to a lack of players. Only the really hardcore players will stay. Sadly I'm not one of them and I'm planning on giving up on the game until the wipe.

Throw the complete and up-to-date game client on a file sharing site or we will forever fight on the forums on how to balance the 20 people that still play this game.

[John Porno]

until the wipe.

exactly.

[Spore Plants]

Wipe when?

[mAdman]

How about some kind of variable effect that applies to a group that starts a ZC encounter and then to whoever enters, that updates every 30 seconds or so. The variable effect gives a bonus(es) or malus depending on the current numbers in the area (bonuses/minuses to say, crit defense, AP regen, AP cost, bleed resist etc).

Similar to how squad buffs already work, but specific to ZC and the current numbers involved.

E.G.

A team of 5 starts a ZC, the variable effect is applied to them with no bonuses and the timer begins etc. Soon a team of 7 shows up and an (empty) effect is added to them also, the math is done behind the scenes, and the conclusion is that the difference of 2 players isn't enough to provided a bonus to the smaller team in this circumstance, and it stays that way until the update 30 seconds later. By this stage 3 more players have entered on the side of the 7 player team taking their total to 10 versus the original team of 5. The calculations are done behind the scenes again, but this time the 10 vs 5 numbers are calculated to give the team of 5 a set of bonuses (or the team of 10 a set of minuses).

The calculation would become more complex with different factions entering, but there could be variables added to prevent abuse (like minimum team number to get the effect etc).

[twat]

None of you even care to fight

[S.T.A.L.K.E.R]

More PvP on forum than ingame

[mAdman]

Well, not that it is at all on topic, but I haven't had a lot of time to play anything lately. Came back here recently to see all the new updates and changes, and will probably be playing again soon. I guess I'll have to see what the players numbers are like at different times of the day, if they are small, then I can at least playtest a bit.

All of this is not to say that I haven't participated in ZC in the past though, as I have many times. And this specific problem I assume, has not changed that much.

[ProfessorYanick]

Well, if we have such an active thread I would like to insert my comment too (and ensure I posted on a forum at least once, he-he). Though I generally not very fond of the way naossano is bringing up problems, I can't deny their existence. There are faction number issues, but I don't believe they could be fixed during current session effectively.
Personally I got to V-Tec because of two reasons: the faction recruiter was easy to find and vault is kick-ass. I never had an alt and I really don't wish to have one while free rerolls are around and I'm satisfied with my current faction. We have all kinds of people, some I like more, some less, but in general they compose a team I love to be a part of. Nevertheless I have my mind set on switching faction after the wipe to one of the new ones if there will be any.
Speaking of development, I like Lidae's way of thinking. A tech progression in factions would be nice and possibility for players to contribute to it by ZC, assignments, dungeon completion and other possible ways would be great ("Lads, take your piperifles and bring me dat computer from RobCo!").
About factions: in my opinion there are three general things considered kick-ass by average fallout fan: vaults, Brotherhood of Steel and Enclave. So the presense of faction with "vault" in name is a sort of mistake. Maybe it could be made a sort of locked faction you could only enter having achieved some serious success in initial faction? Though there should be probably two such factions for balance reasons alongside four or more usual factions.
That leads me to the thought that some in-faction platoon, fame, reputation and trade tweaks should be made to inflict a harder progression on players.
Sorry for my mind-flow style, but I got a number of thoughts and just had a wish to share them I could not overcome 

[Count Matthew]

None of you even care to fight

I will fight you anytime. Any day.

[Spore Plants]

None of you even care to fight

I will fight you anytime. Any day.

No, he's right. As I type this, I am the only Lawyer trying to contest the 6+ group of Tecs taking our fucking zones. I guess people would prefer to roleplay in base.

[Count Matthew]

None of you even care to fight

I will fight you anytime. Any day.

No, he's right. As I type this, I am the only Lawyer trying to contest the 6+ group of Tecs taking our fucking zones. I guess people would prefer to roleplay in base.

True I guess it is not ''anytime'' - as I have a job.

[naossano]

I took a step back from the thread and i hope the steam gone a bit off.
Don't intend to make things heated. Just answering a few bits.

Lidae >

About alliances, i didn't dwelve much about the logistic about who would accept as there is a wide range of possibilities and the one chosen wouldn't change much the point of the feature. Beside that, there is also the fact that i don't know which option is the easiest to code.
I guess one of the options would be to have votes (throught ingame chat) in a limited duration, (1-2 minutes) involving peoples from both faction that are in the core. The option with the most vote would win in each faction. (Let's say there is 15 family, 3 vote yes, 2 vote no, 10 don't vote, the yes win) If both faction vote get yes, short-term alliance is made.
Anyone could vote, but only a few could ask for the alliance (let's say those who have reached a minimum of 1000 fame or 50 000 reputation). Otherwise, people could be spammed with invitations from all faction.
On medium term alliance, there might be more restriction to who can vote, and a longer duration for the vote, and no need to be in the core to vote.

About "more content", indeed it will take time, dedication, patience and hard work. I don't think we are trying to press you to put a billion features now. But, IMO, in a undeterminated future, there will be a need for variety.
One can argue that the need is already there, but as said before, it takes times to put them.
But, not only more content, but also a variety of things to do is important for the server.
First, it provides a motivation for the players in smaller factions to actually stay on the server when they are unable to ZC, for whatever reason. (low skill, low gear, low number, low kindness from leadership etc...) In other servers, there is a ton of faction that keep playing despite being unable to do ZC (for many reason). They keep playing because there is other stuff to do.
Second, considering all the playerbase play within the same gameworld, all their activities have chances to collide at some point.
The hoarder will risk PVP while scavenging. The roleplayer will need other to interact with, friends or foes. The collector will need the trader to get thing that he can't find. The trader will need some peacefull player to trade with.
Not sure if those are the best examples, but despite playing the same game for entirelly different reasons, those players with different mindset would end up participating in the activities of the others.
If you consider that ZC is the only reason people should come, there would be a ton of players not interested in ZC that wouldn't join AOP.
If they were there, they might be involved in ZC in some way, as they would have some interest in specific areas. You might even see some players that don't fight at all but who could play a supporting role by trading/roleplaying/etc, which would make the core more lively.

Oleg >
I think there is still quite a number of family. I heard that there was some family vs lawyers fights a few days ago. Three-ways battle aren't out of reach. I hope i will be there for the next one. Two-ways battle became way too repetitive...

I like your idea of faction unique bonus. Who the hell is acronyme ?

Anza >

I totally agree that forcing people to switch faction would be a terrible extreme. I hope they come to their sense before this get considered.
Anyway, there is too much inertia from them. I won't repeat all that was said, but it has been way too long.

ProfessorYannick >
I am not the king of diplomacy.