The reason why some of the large factions stay together is that they value their members - AAA is another case where members are valued and appreciated for their positive skills. Large factions that do not value their players eventually break up. I have seen this on a number of occasions, so there is nearly always a turnover of large (and smaller ones too) factions. The situation is self regulating and does not need any arbitrary number limiting the size of factions. It strikes me that there is a degree of envy from some smaller factions who cannot be bothered enough to grow.
I started as a one-man-band, added a member or two, allied with another single person faction, allied with a small multiple person faction and as a whole became AAA which has grown somewhat since then. We have become allied with several large factions since in order to counter another large group of factions, but we do not do everything as a ‘super-faction’ because we still like to do our own things, so we are not some mega-block dictating to others. The problem with large battles dropping the frame rate should not be blamed on large factions, but on the fact that the game is still in alpha and requires a large amount of optimisation. The players taking the game to its limits is a good thing because it flags up the problems to the developers. Limiting faction sizes will only limit the testing of the game and therefore limit the ultimate potential of the game.
Please don’t try to limit faction sizes because you cannot do large yourself.
You make it sound like it’s 15 players vs 3 whenever you guys come down here in force. Sure, there are times when there are 3 of you and 7 of us - and that sort of thing. That being said if you come to ‘our planet’ then you should expect to be swarmed.
If you don’t like it - recruit guys, get organized, adapt. The reason why Op4/TPP get wiped so often if you guys do not seem to adapt or develop new strategies. Just today, I had GRG setup a base, and with one guy defending it vs 2 was able to do more damage than 3 or 4 TPP players, and he didn’t even have really tank CVs/HVS/SVs, he just had a good base design and some ingenuity.
Now, I’ve been down to GG on EU, and it appears there are groups of 3 - 5 factions in 2 or three spots on the planet. I’m not sure why one side hasn’t fully wiped out the other, but from what I can see the only difference between GG on NA and EU is that the average pvper must be more experienced.
For all your talk about the ‘zerg’ alliance on GG NA, we have never fielded more than 12 combat assets at a time, and on average it’s around 5 - 7 players. (At least on operations I’ve been involved in)*
The issue on NA is the attitude: oh well they banded together and have a higher player base than us, therefore we can’t possibly win.
Yet, they always use the same bases, the same tactics, the vehicles. Make no mistake, we have a lot of good fights on GG-NA, but the average player in our ‘swarm’ has more PvP experience. 80% of ACP has been around since 3.0 - 4.0.
Back in 5.0 days, when I was running around in a one-man faction I regularly took on the big guys. I almost never completely wiped them out, but I destroyed countless HVs/SVs and the odd CV. Some of my most enjoyable operations were assaulting Op4 on Iceworld, setting up a base on the right angle and putting massive holes in their hvs.
All said and done, our players are generally more active, and we have more resources to throw at a fight. So, unless the enemy wants to get creative they will not win.
As I have mentioned, we can do large numbers, but choose not to perpetuate the problem.
“The problem with large battles dropping the frame rate should not be blamed on large factions, but on the fact that the game is still in alpha and requires a large amount of optimisation. The players taking the game to its limits is a good thing because it flags up the problems to the developers.”
You yourself recognize that the game struggles with these encounters. I’m certain the Devs have realized this too, but have frustratingly chose to focus instead on textures and PvE content. The problem has been flagged now for several updates. Repeating the same action and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. The desired change will not be brought about by continuing this, but by adapting to what the Devs have given us, with apparently little hope for change (optimization). I don’t “blame” the massive factions, I “blame” the Devs and am simply looking for a workaround. If we could have massive battles, then I would be all for that. As you have pointed out though, it isn’t feasible at the moment.
You say “we have never fielded more than 12 combat assets at a time” as if you don’t know that 12 comprises half of the allotted players allowed on a playfield. C’mon Ran, you know that’s excessive.
I don’t know why base clusters on EU stand for so long, but I can tell you why the ones on NA GG do. It’s because nobody bothers to attack more than 10 bases when half of them have OP turned on. It’s not worth anyone’s time to get shot at by things they can’t shoot back at, so we let you point drills at the dirt and hold your mouse button down. We have better things to do with our time.
PS: I have advocated several times for the removal of OP, but Rex doesn’t seem open to that. We did just fine in v6 without it though.
PPS: I’m talking less about ACP, Ran. I liked PvPing you guys in the start of the season. You attacked/defended with reasonable numbers and we had some good fights. You can’t say the same for all of your allies, however.
We already tried fighting on GG, with quite a few allies, however as admiral already stated the lag was ridiculous, so much that at one time I had to wait about 5 minutes for my SV to sit to see the damage it took. Hell just fighting with Beetle last night was a lagfest and it was only one SV and one HV. The devs need to wake up and do something about the network coding, otherwise we might as well play no mans sky (i.e. Single player)
At this point I could give 2 shits less about new plants and textures if you can’t fly or fight without it being a slideshow. Fighting used to be a lot of fun in previous seasons, now it’s a nonstop memory leak caching to SSDs and constant “cannot send more to server” when attempting to enjoy the aspects of PvP. This is unacceptable, and if you cannot take care of the player base you might as well fold up shop. Nobody here enjoyed single player, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. That’s why this game is running into. A single player experience until people get bored with it and find the next fad unless they do something about addressing the glaring disappointment that is PvP.
Well, not going to argue with you guys there - definitely lots of lag. Though it sounds like GG - EU seems to hold up with 10 - 30 combat assets running at a time.
What’s your memory usage over time usually hover around?
I have seen empy use damn near every bit of memory, highest was 14gb just for empyrion, rest was system processes.
It’s time to upgrade my system though, I’m not sure how the mobo is still holding out (pci-ex sockets lost power years ago, integrated nic hit by lightning last year).
Roughly 30 percent of my cpu time. 37ish percent of my ram in use and 22 percent gpu time just sitting at our gg bases with not much going on (including all my background processes etc)
Might ask you to check after a lot of fighting though, narrow down any possible memory deficiencies. Thinking of Ryzen or threadripper this next go-round.
Not saying you in particular but i find alot of gamers will buy the best gpu they can then skimp on everything else but Ive always thought having the best of everything else then a lesser gpu is superiror
Lol, I don’t like to skimp, I prefer overkill when I build a new system so I don’t have to upgrade it anytime soon. I bought the mobo and proc back in 2012 shortly after it came out, was running 6970’s in xfire, bought a pair of 290x’s and a 290 when they came out for tri-xfire, smoked the 290 (rma and sold), swapped out for a newer power supply (corsair ax1200), eventually pulled the second 290x cause it really wasn’t being used that much.
But some time has passed, and I think it’s time for another ridiculous spending upgrade.
Just need to justify it with the wife… that’s another battle.
Yeah I think multi gpu systems are a scam honestly I had 4 way at one point for testing and then sold 3 of em off on craigslist cause they made absolutely no difference
Back in 5.0 days, when I was running around in a one-man faction I regularly took on the big guys. I almost never completely wiped them out, but I destroyed countless HVs/SVs and the odd CV. Some of my most enjoyable operations were assaulting Op4 on Iceworld, setting up a base on the right angle and putting massive holes in their hvs.
I think alliances are okay, but there needs to be a better limit on base clusters. Maybe if the faction limit on GG included allies as well then things would be more interesting. It looks like Offline Protection is being addressed, but why can’t anyone use a little self control? If you know something is an issue, complain about it, then use it constantly that makes no sense.
