Goonhub
12-03-2024, 01:02 PM
Honestly, a lot of players will always join the higher-pop server. It's really hard to tell anyone "go play on the server with single digit player counts, of which half of them are probably spectators/AFK in lobby, so that the servers can balance more". I say this as a 4 main, people always refused to join 4 in the past due to low playercounts, and because they refused to join, the playercounts never increased until people were forced onto 4 by the DDOS. I don't think that telling people to wait 5, 10, or even possibly up to 15 minutes would get them to swap to the lower pop server, they'd probably just go do something else until the higher pop round began. I'm not saying you proposed any of these higher times, but even with them, the result would likely be the same.
From what I've seen, the general consensus is that no RP is better than lowpop RP. Lowpop leads to a lot of antag imbalance, a lack of action, and frankly, unless you know someone to RP with, a lot less RP. You can't kill anyone or the shuttle is automatically called, you can't find anyone because there's maybe only 1 or 2 other crewmembers on the whole station who are possibly alt-tabbed for 50% of the round in their departments. It's lonely, and sort of just feels like you're wasting your time.
I don't intend to be a doomer, or shut down discussions on balancing playercounts, as I do personally want to see a more balanced playercount on both servers, but I don't think it's possible to implement systems to force or incentivize people to balance themselves. I think most people would rather leave and play something else than play on a server for an hour and a half with nothing happening, and I can't really blame them for that. Though, it does lead to this unhealthy atmosphere of one RP server being, in my opinion, overpopulated for proper RP interactions, and the other one left with basically nobody playing it and nobody wanting to play it.
Ultimately, most players just want to go where the other players are to see the chaos which emerges over the course of a round. It used to be classic, then it became 3, and now, post-DDOS, it's 4. I don't see any harm in testmerging your concept, or trying out a few different pop-balancing methods, but I also don't know if it'd do anything to fix the pop imbalance.
From what I've seen, the general consensus is that no RP is better than lowpop RP. Lowpop leads to a lot of antag imbalance, a lack of action, and frankly, unless you know someone to RP with, a lot less RP. You can't kill anyone or the shuttle is automatically called, you can't find anyone because there's maybe only 1 or 2 other crewmembers on the whole station who are possibly alt-tabbed for 50% of the round in their departments. It's lonely, and sort of just feels like you're wasting your time.
I don't intend to be a doomer, or shut down discussions on balancing playercounts, as I do personally want to see a more balanced playercount on both servers, but I don't think it's possible to implement systems to force or incentivize people to balance themselves. I think most people would rather leave and play something else than play on a server for an hour and a half with nothing happening, and I can't really blame them for that. Though, it does lead to this unhealthy atmosphere of one RP server being, in my opinion, overpopulated for proper RP interactions, and the other one left with basically nobody playing it and nobody wanting to play it.
Ultimately, most players just want to go where the other players are to see the chaos which emerges over the course of a round. It used to be classic, then it became 3, and now, post-DDOS, it's 4. I don't see any harm in testmerging your concept, or trying out a few different pop-balancing methods, but I also don't know if it'd do anything to fix the pop imbalance.