Havven't read everything because it's something been said before, but my basic 2 cents is that XP reductions/buffs are the worst way to try and balance zergs. In a game like this, where a big selling point is the large scale battles, having something which dissuades people/pubs from working together is a bad idea. So you don't team up in zergs, so there's lots of smaller scale fights, which means 2 zergs will never collide.

One of my most fun sessions in PS2 was cruising along with a TR zerg when at a crossroads, we literally crashed into the front end of a Vanu zerg. It was amazing. I personally hope that zergs will be a thing and the War Commanders will do their best to try and get their factions zerg to engage the enemy (firstly because an enemy zerg is a threat counterable by large numbers of your own players but also cos that's fun as balls)

Then you might as well be giving the Defenders an exp boost, also this will cause Free To WAAAGH! players to leave quickly, as most zerg formations will be made up of Free To WAAAGH! Boyz.

Picture this, you're a free player trying this game out. You're an Ork Boy alongside all of the other free players and you're rushing an objective. Suddenly, you're getting half the XP you were getting before. You're being punished for being a free player. What's the natural reaction? Quit the game.

The problem isn't the Zerg , indefensible bases and spawn camping are the real issue (at least in PS2)

I won't contest that. If we get properly destructible spawns, rather than shielded spawn rooms, zergs may never actually form at all, since there'll be nothing for them to feed on.

Oh well, nobody really likes the idea of a debuff. And frankly after seeing peoples arguments I don't really like it either. I'll hold out for the spawn attrition system with the rest of you folks, lets just hope it'll be enough.

Experience/req/territory control may be a big deal in the game at large, but in the moment to moment gameplay, shooting people in the face with your friends is more fun than being outnumbered 3 to 1 and getting killed before you can physically put out enough damage to kill a single person.

People gank low level spawn zones in MMOs despite getting little to no XP, people make smurf accounts in LoL or DOTA2 or CS: GO so they can enjoy stomping. People will often take destroying another player over level ups given the chance.

And people played games like CS: Source or TF2 for hours despite no levels at all. Fun gameplay is just fun gameplay.

There's only so much that bribing players with arbitrary amounts of ingame currency can do if the game itself isn't any fun to play. I don't think a significant number of people are going to play as punching bags for the marine faction long term, no matter how much req you shower on them (especially in a game with "horizontal" progression)

And is that really the kind of game you want Eternal Crusade to be anyway? A skinner box that bribes players instead of something that's genuinely fun moment to moment?

Here is the problem with reduced xp for the overpopulated side

side getting no xp from getting curb stomped<<<zerg side running around getting way more xp even halved from easily and quickly washing over areas anyway.

I cannot agree with this enough!

If bEhaviour or Games Workshop or even the fans cannot find the mechanics to keep players interested in playing Eternal Crusade with the wealth of knowledge and background lore contained in the 40k universe then no other arbitrary "population control" mechanics are going to help.

They need to design some bases for pure defense, such as fortresses and strongholds, and many more bases design for skirmishes that have cap points for the same base spanning a moderate distance from each other. That way players won't be funneled into a gigantic clusterf*** every base they walk into.

Or just avoid what planetside 2 did in general.^

You admit that game population is a problem, but insist that allowing an underpopulated side access to better wargear and more hero class spawns is tantamount to making a Skinner Box?

I'm not sure you actually know what that means.


A Skinner Box is basically a reward mechanism... You perform an action and get a reward or fail to perform the action and get punished.
On occasion you may get a random reward, but mainly you get a reward for a specific behaviour.
That's kinda the point.
The behaviour comes first, followed by the reward.

WoW is a good example of this.. You raid or kill mobs and get drops or fail and waste time. Effort followed by reward or punishment.

Making sure that a lower population side has access to relatively more REQ is not a reward for a certain specific behaviour.
Being outnumbered is a condition not a behaviour!
Therefore it is not a skinner box mechanic.


Skinner boxes are supposed to be about making an activity rewarding (literally) and it's hardly surprising that some designers mistake literal rewards for 'rewarding'.
Other Designers think that it's more about Fun gameplay, but miss the simple fact that you can get bored doing almost anything, and besides gameplay on it's own isn't necessarily fun, it's just the most obvious thing to point to when you are trying to locate this ephemeral and intangible 'fun' thing.

Thinking that moment to moment gameplay is the source of 'Fun' as you put it is therefore a misunderstanding.
Gameplay should be intuitive, ideally you really shouldn't even notice it.

Good gameplay is transparent, it's what you are able to 'achieve' through this gameplay that keeps you playing.

It's the difference between a bare bones fight simulator and that same simulator developed into a spectacle fighter with a compelling story.
Both have pretty much the same gameplay moment to moment, but one has a purpose that you are working towards, while the other simply has gameplay.. One will keep a player interested for a long time, the other... not so much.

The difference between the two is 'purpose', but that purpose can only keep your interest for as long as you feel you can achieve it.

People may still play a game that is too easy (or cheat) simply to achieve a purpose, but people will rapidly drop a game when the difficulty outweighs the rewards and when it is futile.


It's simple when you think about it.. What is really important is to allow players the feeling of Agency!
Players play games because they feel like their actions in the game have value, they believe they are able to achieve their desired purpose in the game by playing the game, hence playing has value.

Infact moment to moment gameplay when done poorly can actually get in the way of this and become an irritation or serve as a distraction, but being able to achieve something that you think has value.. Now that's why you play.


This is what being vastly outgunned takes away!
When you know your struggle cannot succeed or make any difference your best option is to give up and find something else to do that you can actually achieve something at.

You may say that you are no longer 'having fun', but the reality is that you are losing interest and engagement because you have learned through experience that you are trying in vain, you have no Agency, no ability to make a difference.


Giving people who have chosen to play in an outnumbered faction the fuel (REQ) to access powerful spawns isn't meant to be a reward to reinforce a certain behaviour, and anyway it would be completely useless as a reward, Logically speaking since the only thing it would reward is being outnumbered.

No, the point of it is to level the scales and grant players the opportunity to feel like they have some agency despite being in a minority.

Even if that is true, zerg is a standard industry term and preferable as it reaches more people than local jargon (waaagh!).