Why 3 Factions?

[Furber]

Having 3 factions helps the persistence work. Whenever one gets the edge over another, the 3rd one typically steps in. Even if one faction is double teamed out of a fight, they can regroup and hit one of the other two factions (who will now inevitably be fighting each other). It's hard to explain just how well the system works, but trust me, having 3 factions works perfectly for Planetside.

[SKYeXile]

Originally Posted by thegreekboy

As a little disclaimer before people flame me for no reason, I'm fine with the fact that there are three factions, and don't propose changing it (not to mention it will never happen).
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So, why is it that there are three factions? Why not 2? 2 means even numbered teams and more players per team, not to mention easier map designing. Why did SOE go, in the original PS, with three factions?

explain how.

[Badjuju]

More interesting and for better balance. If one faction has overwhelming numbers chances are they will have to fight two fronts helping to even things out.

[Dougnifico]

I always thought it would be interesting to have like 5 or 9 factions all fighting it out on a single shard world. Planetside is good with 3, but more with a non-circular transit system could be cool for another project if only to see how well it works.

[GuyFawkes]

Its a magic number that promotes pvp ,and only 2 games designers actually 'got' it. PS and DAoC . Anyone who played them remember the great times they has and wish for a remake.

The same ethos is used when it comes to Tupping time with sheep . You always but an odd number of Rams in with a group of sheep. That way, if 2 are fighting, the other one is free to shag as many sheep as possible .

[Memeotis]

Yeah, like the others said. If there were only two factions, anf one turned out to be really powerful, there would be no stopping them. If there are three factions however, and one factions becomes too powerful, the other two can combine forces to drive the stronger faction back.

Why not 4? Well that would of course mean that there would be less players per faction, but if would also mean that (imagine a square map with each empire in each corner) that one faction would always fight the two adjacent factions, and hardly ever the faction diagonal from it.

Three seems to be the perfect number for this.

[RageMasterUK]

Not sure if anyone has mentioned this...

DOUBLE THE TARGETS BABY!!!! HELLZ YEAH!!!


Every empire's soldiers are outnumbered by targets in a ratio of 2-1, so 3 teams creates a more target-rich environment. That really helps add to the epic scale. It helps build the impression that the odds are against you, and that impression makes base-captures feel much more satisfying IMHO.

I work for a well known laser combat franchise and the 3 team battles are way way WAY more exiting.

-RageMasterUK

[IHateMMOs]

The question is, why not?

[Obiyer]

I read Malorn's article on Planetside and he made a good case for 4 factions. Frankly, I don't like 3 ways, I want an even fight between two factions. Fighting a 3 way for hours and hours doesn't get you anywhere fast, you may get to farm kills though. But as for accomplishing the objective of the game, I don't know.

Franky, that's what's bugged me about Planetside, like there is absolutely no point to the fighting. You can cap, base after base and sanc lock, but so what, then what? There really is no benefit to doing it, other than to say you did wherein other games there's an absolute win condition.

I had an outfit mate once who played WW2 Online and he said the reason he left was because the Germans always won, and it was boring. So there is a case for having a third force.

[Vreki]

Originally Posted by Obiyer

I read Malorn's article on Planetside and he made a good case for 4 factions. Frankly, I don't like 3 ways, I want an even fight between two factions. .

Well, you cant have it.
With two sides, one side always end up being perceived as having better weapons or whatever. It doesn't matter if it is based in facts, the perception alone is enough to attract more players
Then that side will start winning more due to numerical superiority, causing even more to join that side and so on until the game dies due to severe player imbalance.
As far as I recall, that is what happened to Warhammer Online. Two factions, didn't work out.

3 sides are optimal because even though it often becomes a 2vs1, the alliances will shift as soon as one of the previous weak sides starts to dominate.

But add too many sides and we just end up with squad deathmatch instead of a war.

[Nemeses]

With 3 factions its near impossible for one faction to become the dominating force, where in almost any proper world PvP MMO out there with 2 factions one has always become the stronger, and needed extra game mechanics to stop them totally dominating the game, this way the players themselves will BE the extra 'game mechanic'!

[Boof]

Hell, the scale of Planetside 2 can hardly contain three factions. There should be four! Just kidding, four would be too many. Too confusing and too much mayhem/things blowing up haha.

[Karrade]

In every game I've ever played where there was two factions the game was unbalanced after a time, and in some cases just became stupidly so. With people on the winning side quitting as it became too easy, and people on the losing side quitting as the mechanics didn't support losing in any way. It was very rare to have a neatly balanced map. Most people go to the winning side and that was that.

It'll be rare here too, but much more dynamic as a result. To put it in very basic numbers its not 1 x 1 x 1, its 3 x 3 x 3 for the amount of variables present.

Health bonuses helped in the original PS for instance also, and you had a term phrased as the unofficial 4th Empire, which were those who switched between sides often enough to benefit from those bonuses, or just to even out empires.

If you have a game that supports winning, such as PS2 looks to be, the effect is cumulative, people want to win and the masses move to or stay with a winning side. If you have a game that supports fighting more than winning, it isn't such as issue.

From an infantry grunts perspective if its anything like PS though what you'll see here, is good regiments swinging whole maps and believe me you'll know when it happens, you'll get about 20 seconds warning in chat saying such and such is on the way (if you are lucky) and them boooooooom .

[Malorn]

I'm actually more of a 3 faction fan now. Double teams can be discouraged other ways.

2 factions doesn't work out well as WAR and SWTOR and just about every other game. As basti and others have pointed out it helps balance populations and keep one side from dominating. DAOC showed how well it works. Mythic later regretted not making WAR a three faction game as they had with DAOC. In PS it mostly worked out well, and with some design you can make attacking a dominant empire more lucrative than kicking one that's down.

[LordReaver]

Everybody saying the third balances things, is wrong. Look no further than PS1, where we regularly have one team with more than 50% population. Contrary to popular belief, two works just fine.