Dear NCSoft, please look into Faction balance before it completely died!

[elliv]

2 minutes ago, Duri said:

All this chatter about lazy reds needs to cease.  For players who are not level 45, Mistywoods means nothing to them,  You can beg and call names all you want and there isn't a thing those players can do about Mistywoods, nor do they care.  So why are they lazy for not going to Mistywoods?  Go tell level 10s to go to Mistywoods and see how much good you do.   Calling these people lazy just makes them not want to bother leveling up so guess what, you'll never see them.  Your fault, not theirs.

 

The second thing is everybody should play this game their own way.  If you want to rush to 45 and hit end game three days after the game comes out, fine.  But that isn't how I play.  I'm not in a rush to burn through the entire content of the game in a mad hurry.   Hurry hurry hurry, no thanks.  I have no sympathy for those who rushed to the end and have nothing else to do but complain about not being able to do dailies.   

 

And finally the faction balance screen MEANS NOTHING!!!  The balance counts every single ALT which is in either faction.   So if you have five reds in your character screen, that's counted as five different members of the faction.  If somebody started playing during launch, made a couple characters and then never came back, those characters still count toward the faction count and always will until NCsoft purges dead accounts, if they ever do.   

 

So the red/blue imbalance in the game is simply because there are more reds with inactive or duplicated to extra characters that never get played or they do get played but aren't 45 so again Mistywoods doesn't matter to them.   Blue apparently has more actives who actually can come to Misty, so there you go.  

 

What to do?  Go delete characters you aren't actually playing or move some of them to the other side.   If both sides clog up the faction count with dead or inactives, the count will eventually balance out more.   Meanwhile it means nothing so don't get your panties in a wad freaking out about it.  

I beg you good sir to see what state we are currently in with your own eyes by joining

red in Mushin,

red in Poharan,

red in Jiwan,

blue in Yehara,

blue in Old Man Cho,

And see whether Faction balance is balanced or not.

 

To me it is not, and those people in my friend lists, and those people that switched their whole guild to the other faction because they couldn't even done faction dailies without getting the pickup NPC butchered on all available channels.

 

I'm a stupid person so I cant give solution, but I want NCsoft to look at this at least, therefore I posted this thread.

[Temjiu]

I did both on my account, much of it depended on how the costumes looked on that particular toon. So now i have a mix over on Old Man Cho. 

 

And I agree, it's really more of what that individual server is dealing with. Red is affluent on OMC, blue suffers.It sucks for my alts that are blue, as they're progress has ground to a halt outside of just saving money and buying stuff off the market. My red are cruising along just fine. IMO it's bad design. balance needs to be struck on both sides.

 

IMO the issue is the disparity of rewards in PvE vs. PvP. If they gave ways for players to make soulstones on PvE side, then there wouldn't be as much frustration since your literal advancement would not be cut off. Then there wouldn't be so many people clamoring to join red on OMC since they wouldn't "have" to Play world PvP to get their soulstones.

[LLamasBCN]

World pvp was and will never be a thing, it was never balanced and will never be balanced, a summoner hiding between his npcs and having counter every 2 seconds with the obviously mov speed buff will always be stronger in world pvp than any melee, any class with force choke will be stronger than any class without force choke ALWAYS. I get it, some people like world pvp and like to kill people with worse gear but i hope eventually people at least don't kill other people while doing dailies.

World pvp proves nothing but having better gear, a better class or a better computer. Arena pvp is gear balanced for a reason. 

Btw, for those saying faction dailies force you to do world pvp, that's bullshit, i've been playing in JP and no one ever attacked me doing faction dailies, and those who did the kill 10 guys of the other faction quests just traded kills.

[Callback]

Just make 2 tiers of faction outfit.  1 for actual PvP, and 1 for daily faction PvE and insignia farm.

 

Or make 1 "safe" channel that disables players from attacking each other, even with PVP outfits on.  The outfits on that channel only affect NPC hostility.

 

People wouldn't be so concerned with zerging one side if they had a safe way to get dailys done on the other.  The problem is people defecting out of necessity creating a feedback loop.  Remove the necessity and players will balance back out.

 

 

Oh, and remove durability loss from PVP death.  Unnecessary cost/frustration forces the feedback loop even harder.

[gypt]

Plaplafkinpla :)

 

U just dont know how to operate in "world pvp", u need to get your self in good party, perhaps join in a guild that does pvp dailies together, or search on forums for groups or create one, then if u still cannot find ur way in the "world pvp", seek more groups and start organizing with them, so that u roll with group of blood thirsty geeks.

 

I think there should be larger area for world pvp and more rare materials that can only be get from these hot zones. Would force ppl to create more organized effort to get em, rather than rant how hard its to fight in "world pvp".

 

Edited: Larget open world pvp action would not go well with the slow computers, perhaps that is reason why theres not larger scale pvp.

[Suziana]

So what I'm getting out of this is that Crimson Legion was overpopulated in CBT and that was okay because it's your faction; but now that the tables have turned you suddenly have a problem with faction imbalance? LOL. 

[xxxi]

That is exactly the point. Faction balance is extremely important in this game if you have played CN or TW server. I am crimson in Poharan, and misty woods is hell to me

[AttacKat]

On 2/2/2016 at 1:45 PM, elliv said:

So how is faction balance on your server? Are you satisfied with it? share us your horror story!

 

GL trying to balance owPvP, when you cannot fairly limit the number of people within a channel per faction, their level, or anything else for that matter. IOW, owPvP is never balanced because you cannot. That is like asking Syrian Gov't to limit their troops against their Pro-Demo citizens who doesn't have tanks and guns.

[xxxi]

Duri,If this problem means nothing to you, why you bother typing out a paragraph of shit?

[elliv]

1 hour ago, and_rea said:

3 minutes ago, AttacKat said:

 

GL trying to balance owPvP, when you cannot fairly limit the number of people within a channel per faction, their level, or anything else for that matter. IOW, owPvP is never balanced because you cannot. That is like asking Syrian Gov't to limit their troops against their Pro-Demo citizens who doesn't have tanks and guns.

decide it based on real pvp activity, not numbers of players.

Perfect faction balance is impossible, but I think we should prevent 100:1 faction balance and we could if we would.

[Drake]

One change I would like to see is for us to be able to get Soul Stones from places other than pvp areas.  Yes, we have Tomb of Exiles daily but that only gives 2 and you can only do that once a day.  A lot people are switching to the dominant side on their server because like others have said in this post, they have almost no chance getting Soul stones from the dailies other wise.   And I think it is not good when for some the reason they pick there faction has nothing to do with what they represent just what side they can get their Soul stones dailies done to upgrade there PvE weapons and accessories.  Yes, there is the auction house, but that can get quite expensive, especially with the amount of Soul Stones needed going up with each upgrade and you need them for both your weapon and accessories.

 

Also I think a change is needed because further down the line newer players won't be able to change side as easy to get there dailies done if they pick the wrong faction.  (due to when one side is full and newer players being force to join the less populated faction so it becomes even again, will be less frequent)

Plus, I think you will just get more people that will stick to there chosen faction if they could get the same amount of Soul Stones in PvE.  Heck, if the devs are worry about people getting to many in a day, put a restriction on them that you can either get them by PvE or PvP for the day and not both.

 

Well that is my 2 cents.

[KatHead]

 

Soha seems to be blue heavy, but not brokenly so (yet, but seems to be rapidly heading that way).

 

Channel 1 almost always has reds farming soul shields and is a "fairly" safe place for reds. Channels 2-8 are blue dominated with at least 2 of those (many times 3) having large groups farming bosses. It is not worth it at all to attempt to do anything pvp related in any channel that is not channel 1 on Soha. That is unless you were in a fairly decent sized group. 

[Income]

In my server (Gunma) Crimsons are always full, you'd see them farming insignias in Channel 1 around 20 to 25 people. while blues are farming in channel 2 with 8 to 10 people. In terms of numbers we are really outnumbered. But when we switch channels and clash with them. they all die. lol. I once bugged them while doing the boss. and killed 19 people instantly and tada my faction quest is done LOL.

[Zerecas]

This issue should really require more attention.

 

If World PvP isn't a thing then the developers shouldn't even introduce it in the first place, and stick to Arena as the sole PvP aspect.

What's more important is that those faction quests give significant returns, and you don't simply telling those in the minority to deal with it because that's how it is? 

Sure, some of the daily quests can be done after a several attempts after being ganged by a larger group or one single run by luck. 

Let's not talk about even attempting BlackWrym or the Terrors, just simply farming for Insignia without constantly being harassed is something.

Those faction quests and activities often relates to equipment gap and wealth gap, like a chain effect. You just told us to deal with it? Are you stupid or what?

 

This isn't even a complaint about something purely made for entertainment. It has its value behind the faction system and the current approach is obviously doing no good at all.

[elliv]

1 minute ago, Zerecas said:

This issue should really require more attention.

 

If World PvP isn't a thing then the developers shouldn't even introduce it in the first place, and stick to Arena as the sole PvP aspect.

What's more important is that those faction quests give significant returns, and you don't simply telling those in the minority to deal with it because that's how it is? 

Sure, some of the daily quests can be done after a several attempts after being ganged by a larger group or one single run by luck. 

Let's not talk about even attempting BlackWrym or the Terrors, just simply farming for Insignia without constantly being harassed is something.

Those faction quests and activities often relates to equipment gap and wealth gap, like a chain effect. You just told us to deal with it? Are you stupid or what?

 

This isn't even a complaint about something purely made for entertainment. It has its value behind the faction system and the current approach is obviously doing no good at all.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bladeandsoul/comments/44e8ga/what_being_crimson_feels_like_on_pohwaran/?

[Riata]

It's the human nature that you will choose the easy way out.  People will switch to the side with higher population. 

Maybe they need to charge high fee when switching from low population to higher population like 10g or more. 

If you switch from high population to lower, the fee will be free.

[Zerecas]

32 minutes ago, elliv said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bladeandsoul/comments/44e8ga/what_being_crimson_feels_like_on_pohwaran/?

That's not surprising for me, its always one sides that dominate, if the developers have no intention of managing it then remove all the rewards related to the faction altogether, and move it to where everyone gets equal opportunity. I don't even want to talk about the classes so 'balance' in this OW aspect.

PvP combat animation and mechanism is crappy anyway.

[Xiuyu]

Literally everyone is crimson on Taywong. I have never seen a different clan advertised. For every 10 crimson players you see, there is 1 dead blue somewhere.

[elliv]

1 minute ago, Xiuyu said:

Literally everyone is crimson on Taywong. I have never seen a different clan advertised. For every 10 crimson you see, there is 1 dead blue somewhere.

Yeah, in the end it's not the problem about reds or blue, it's the problem about people clumping up on one side of the scale causing stomp, zergs, and in the end those people on the other side of scale will get frustrated and flipped their color to the majority one and they are not alone they bring along their whole guilds to other color and make the bandwagon even worse.

 

Without incentives, any sane person would just flip to the majority side and get things done fast

[AuraLove]

on Yunwa Cerulean can't really do much. There is so many crimson people around. I don't think there will ever be balance. Not really NCsofts fault either. It's the players. They see red and black mindlessly walk to it. Colors effect players choice more then population.

[and_rea]

Yep, agree, if being the underdog brings in some good quality of life improvements (higher drops??), balance will be quite stable, as long as that makes being in the majority less desiderable.

 

But the root problem is, the server "thinks" that things are balanced right now, but they are not.

 

Edit: maybe it can be done a map-wide "pvp buff" to the minority faction actually present in the map, as something like it has been done in Aion, that had almost same problem in sieges.

[Zerecas]

4 minutes ago, AuraLove said:

on Yunwa Cerulean can't really do much. There is so many crimson people around. I don't think there will ever be balance. Not really NCsofts fault either. It's the players. They see red and black mindlessly walk to it. Colors effect players choice more then population.

It's not really about colour anymore, some servers are dominated by Crimson and Cerulean respectively, players currently has no longer choose their faction solely base on the appearance but the population itself.

 

[elliv]

7 minutes ago, and_rea said:

But the root problem is, the server "thinks" that things are balanced right now, but they are not.

Everyone thinks everything is balanced.

 

2 minutes ago, Enhance said:

My faction is on the lower pop, but there are channels for that. It's never a problem to find a group to farm the insignia either. I see the other faction farming all the time as well.

If all channels are taken (I haven't had that happen yet) try again an hour later.

 

I fail to see an issue. 

[and_rea]

10 minutes ago,  Enhance said: 

My faction is on the lower pop, but there are channels for that. It's never a problem to find a group to farm the insignia either. I see the other faction farming all the time as well.

If all channels are taken (I haven't had that happen yet) try again an hour later.

 

I fail to see an issue. 

 

 

"Try again one hour later" implies you have all day free to play. Not everyone is an unemployed kid. Then if the issue does not happens to you, it does not means it does not exists.

 

[Enhance]

4 minutes ago, and_rea said:

"Try again one hour later" implies you have all day free to play. Not everyone is an unemployed kid. Then if the issue does not happens to you, it does not means it does not exists.

 

I implied that it switches up. I've met times when a channel or more than one was overrun by the opposing faction, especially when they were doing blackwyrm, but it never crossed my mind to whine about that on forums and ask to balance them out. I just farmed at a later time/date. 

What's with the "I must have everything, at any time" mentality?