Howdy
I seem to be drawn to PvP games where factions are a thing. I have played Planetside 2, Foxhole, Albion and Warborne. I am also looking forward to Anvil Empires, and I am in the lookout for this type of games. (Recommendations welcomed)
Population imbalance seems to be a problem in all of these, that manifest in each game differently, but ultimately seem to be one for the major downfalls of this type of games.
These games try different systems to counter population imbalance. One in particular that was super interesting to me was Planetside's NOPS faction, where playing this faction would get you inserted in the faction with least pop every time you logged in. It was a smart idea imo, but the fact that there are 3 other factions, and that NOPS was only available for monthly subs in a F2P game, meant that there wasn't a lot of people playing as them.
I think if it had been free to access, had extra small rewards, and there were only 2 factions, it would have worked. I think it would have been attractive to a solo F2P player, as they would care more about the rewards than faction loyalty.
What other deal with population imbalance? is there a game out there that successfully deals with it? What could be done to mitigate it further?
Lmk your thoughts