We found ourselves on a ‘dead server’, because we started off behind the curve in population and during the first month the dominating faction continued to bring in more members of their same faction, BYPASSING the ingame faction lock. They had their new members make a character on ANOTHER SERVER that would allow them to choose the same faction that was LOCKED on our server. Then, they would SERVER TRANSFER IN, because your transfer system LACKS a checks/balance failsafe to prevent this from happening.
We started off on our server in the middle, Gold with about 25% of the population, Green behind us with about 10% of the population and Purple accounting for around 65%.
After a couple days, Purple due to their numbers BOUGHT all but 3 of the territories on the map. Gold had 2, Green had 1, Purple the remainder.
Gold was the most organized, Green was in chaos and weak, Purple was a low skilled zerg that was made up of a massive multigame community with hundreds of members.
The SERVER LOCKED OUT players from choosing PURPLE, so many of the “really purple” members went Gold, but were really purple. A couple weeks went by, and Purple was getting their territories taken away systematically.
Purple figured out how to circumvent the faction lock, by having their NON-PURPLE members create characters on other servers, choose PURPLE on the other server, and then SERVER TRANSFER into OUR server already Purple! The lack of server transfers checking the players faction and preventing the transfer if the server currently has that faction locked internally, was the fatal blow to our servers health.
By this point, Green was down to maybe 5%, Gold down to 15% and now Purple made up at least 80% of the server population, and were bringing in more daily through server transfer of characters that had already chosen Purple faction on another server.
We remained for a couple more weeks, outmanned at least 8 to 1, with daily departures from our remaining faction members, as well as Green.
We transferred as multiple Companies last night, taking an estimated 100 Gold players with us to our new server that was as balanced and populated as we could determine ahead of time.
Our old server is now likely 1-2% Green, 2-3% Gold and around 95% Purple, with Purple owning ALL TERRITORIES, and the Mega Multi Company guild owning at least 6 of the Territories using child company names.
WE WOULD HAVE STAYED - had the game offered a working UNDERDOG MECHANIC.
- Measure TERRITORY CONTROL - CURRENT
- Measure TERRITORY CONTROL - OVER A PERIOD OF TIME
- Measure TOTAL PLAYERS, BY FACTION - OVER THE PAST WEEK (RECENT ACTIVE)
- Measure CURRENT ONLINE PLAYERS, BY FACTION
- Measure Total Owned Upgrades for Towns/Forts, BY FACTION, CURRENT
Take these measurements, weigh them, apply math to them, establish “levels of severity” from within the parameters measured.
- 10 points for each territory controlled by that faction.
- 1 point for each day, a territory has remained under control by that faction.
- 1 point for each one hundred unique players that have logged in in the past week for that faction.
- 1 point for every 33 unique players that are currently online for that faction.
- 1 point for every T5 upgrade active in a town by that faction.
Example of my server after ONE WEEK of server life.
- Purple 80 (8 territories controlled), Gold 20 (2 territories controlled), Green 10 (1 territory).
- Purple 56 (8 territory x 7 days), Gold 14 (2 territory x 7 days), Green 7 (1 territory x 7 days).
- Purple 13 (1300 Unique Players over a week), Gold 5 (500 UPs over a week), Green 2 (200 UPs over a week).
- Purple 30 (975 players online), Gold 11 (375 players online), 5 (150 players online).
- Purple 20 (8 territories w/20 T5 upgrades in town), Gold 4 (2 territories w/4 T5 upgrades in town), Green 2 (1 territory w/2 T5 upgrade in town).
Total the points;
Purple: 199
Gold: 54
Green: 26
The highest total of points establishes the BASELINE for the lower two point totals by faction.
Purple is highest with 199 points, 199 is the baseline. Divide Baseline by underdogs faction total.
Gold: 199/54= 3.68
Green: 199/26= 7.65
We have established the leaders points as the BASELINE. We have calculated how many TIMES BEHIND the BASELINE the other two factions are, dynamically. Gold is 3.68 times behind, and Green is 7.65 times behind Purple.
Now, to establish the UNDERDOG MECHANIC.
0-.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = NO UNDERDOG
1.00-1.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (1)
2.00-2.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (2)
3.00-3.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (3)
4.00-4.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (4)
5.00-5.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (5)
6.00-6.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (6)
7.00-7.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (7)
8.00-9.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (8)
10.00-14.99 times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (9)
15.00 or > times behind the Baseline Faction = UNDERDOG SEVERITY (10).
UNDERDOG SEV (1) = 10% Damage Bonus, 10% Damage Mitigation, 10% More Resources
US (2) = 15% Damage Bonus, 10% Damage Mitigation, 15% More Resources, 5% More LUCK
US (3) = 15% Damage Bonus, 15% Damage Mitigation, 20% More Resources, 5% More LUCK
US (4) = 20% Damage Bonus, 15% Damage Mitigation, 20% More Resources, 10% More LUCK
US (5) = 20% Damage Bonus, 20% Damage Mitigation, 25% More Resources, 10% More LUCK
US (6) = 25% Damage Bonus, 20% Damage Mitigation, 25% More Resources, 15% More LUCK
US (7) = 25% Damage Bonus, 25% Damage Mitigation, 30% More Resources, 15% More LUCK
US (8) = 30% Damage Bonus, 25% Damage Mitigation, 30% More Resources, 20% More LUCK
US (9) = 40% Damage Bonus, 40% Damage Mitigation, 40% More Resources, 40% More LUCK
US (10)= 50% Damage Bonus, 50% Damage Mitigation, 50% More Resources, 50% More LUCK
Calculate the UNDERDOG SEVERITY every hour, or every 3 hours. Damage, Mitigation, Resources and Luck are GLOBALLY APPLIED< PvE/PvP.
This type of Underdog Mechanic would prevent unbalance in the best way, and would make for some very interesting situations and scenarios.
Thanks for the time.