126952-f2p-is-coming-what-about-the-unbalanced-population

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Hi guys,
 
I think that some people knows there is a problem with the population between Exiles and Dominions (in each server).
 
Exiles are the most represented compared to the Dominions, it is getting worse and with the F2P i'm afraid that this unbalance grows up.
 
This problem has already appeared in others games (Aion for example) and if there is no restriction before Wildstar becomes F2P, it will be too late.
 
So, do Carbine has planned something to improve the situation ?  :unsure:
 
Thanks.	
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How can they improve it? What are some suggestions?
 
They cannot and should not place restrictions on what characters players can create. This is something largely out of their hands.	
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They could add a faction change service but to a start it would only allow Exile to Dominion.
 
I play on Dominion, EU Jabbit and I feel the population is fine. Maybe it is really a lot higher on the Exile side but I don't think it's as bad as people might think. 
 
A funny thing might be to make advertisment for the faction that is lowest on the server. So when you log onto a server and click create character you will get a popup that says "The Dominion/Exile needs YOU" etc. And then it'd explain that the faction rewards players who choose to join their side, and there'll be a list of stuff you'll get. 
 
It'd probably not persuade most but maybe a few  ;)	
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			Yes, currently the population in Dominion Jabbit server is fine, I agree with you. But with the F2P, the difference between Exiles and Dominions will be more important. This is what happened to Aion when it became F2P.	
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			One way transfers are what killed the pvp servers, which were the most populated servers before that little fiasco. I'm on my phone right now and don't feel like typing out the long drawn out explanation for it but you can probably do a little forum searching to get the details. One way transfers are not the right answer though.	
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If we are speaking on strict PvE terms, they could just throw away the stupid faction divide and have all players able to party together for whatever content both factions share (which is basically everything after a certain point in Whitevale). All they need is a lore justification which is quite easy to fabricate.
 
Of course, this is going to be a pretty big problem in the PvP servers (for reasons I imagine will be obvious) and, to be honest, I do not see any way to fix it. It comes from a design flaw, from making the Dominion hilariously evil in all promotional material, on their backstory, on their idelogical basis, and even on their race selection. As someone mentioned in another thread, the Exiles get two very popular races: the 'people with animal ears' race and the 'gothic elf zombie'. On top of that, they get the heroic ragtag humans. Meanwhile, the Dominion just get the demon/dragon race as their popular choice. I suspect they were expecting the Mechari to offset the popularity of the elves undead  Mordesh because, well, they are robots! How cool is that? Yet they failed miserably when they gave them the most ugly face selection along with some of the most off puting running animations.	
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They could add a faction change service but to a start it would only allow Exile to Dominion.
 
I play on Dominion, EU Jabbit and I feel the population is fine. Maybe it is really a lot higher on the Exile side but I don't think it's as bad as people might think. 
 
A funny thing might be to make advertisment for the faction that is lowest on the server. So when you log onto a server and click create character you will get a popup that says "The Dominion/Exile needs YOU" etc. And then it'd explain that the faction rewards players who choose to join their side, and there'll be a list of stuff you'll get. 
 
It'd probably not persuade most but maybe a few  ;)
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			The dominion just needs an Aurin equivalent when it comes to race choice. You'll hear people say, "I chose exile because of the lore." "I chose exile because of the population." but how many Aurin are there? They are your blood elves Wildstar.....introduce a dominion equivalent and watch the numbers soar. Of course this would come much later down the line and I don't expect it to make it in time before FTP, but in the future this would greatly help.	
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The dominion just needs an Aurin equivalent when it comes to race choice. You'll hear people say, "I chose exile because of the lore." "I chose exile because of the population." but how many Aurin are there? They are your blood elves Wildstar.....introduce a dominion equivalent and watch the numbers soar.
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i have chars in both factions now, and in my experience its easier to pug in the exiles, but the dominion groups are kinda more biased to be sucessfull (people are more geared, know better what to do) and their raid and pvp teams are really glad to help new people,  still i love my exile.
 
so for me its, if you want the bulk of the population go exile but quality of players have its edge on dominion. still all the community of wildstar is great and you should make a char in the one you feel more confortable.	
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We do...its called a Chua
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There's a reason why you see a lot of female Aurin.....chua don't have equal footing here.
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How can they improve it? What are some suggestions?
 
They cannot and should not place restrictions on what characters players can create. This is something largely out of their hands.
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			The balance would get even worse if they allow Aurin to be a wariror/medic/engineer.. I don't want to be the last Mordesh.	
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There are numerous ways, though the OP really should have made some suggestions. 
 
Dom can get a bonus to leveling experience / money which changes depending on the population difference. Though I am not a fan of more money as it's quite a big advantage but it could be while leveling and stops at 50. 
 
There needs to be incentives, but not restrictions or something that makes it unfair to exiles (some games have extra health or whatever)
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The balance would get even worse if they allow Aurin to be a wariror/medic/engineer.. I don't want to be the last Mordesh.
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There's a reason why you see a lot of female Aurin.....chua don't have equal footing here.
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			The unbalanced population will only effect if you are on a PvP server. As long as you got folks on your faction on a PvE server so that queues don't take forever to pop it's OK imo.	
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			Incentivizing players to join one faction over another due to an imbalance is not a decent solution in a long term, rather, the better solution is to allow people, regardless of faction, to enter the group finder pool for grouped content. At the end of the day, if you're queuing up then the main factor here is numbers (you may not have other people to go with at the time), not lore.	
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			I just mentioned this in a few other posts - having 2 factions, REALLY divides player base, not to mention having to be a particular faction for a guild. Sure there are circles, but I really wish there wasn't factions. OR, introduce into the story an event that forces them to set their differences aside and have to fight together against a new, greater enemy. I don't know, I haven't delved into the lore, so I don't know if it could ever work - all I know is I want to play a chua, but my guild is exile :/	
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			You think it's bad now, just imagine the number of Aurin we will start seeing when all the manga dorks decide to check out the game.	
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You think it's bad now, but imagine the number of Aurin we will start seeing when all the manga dorks decide to check out the game.
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I suggest just selling new character slots by faction, and then dynamically adjusting the price of them based on faction balance.
And doing the same with cross factional character transfers.
 
Finally / optionally - to give it a shove if needed - give everyone 1 bonus dominion-only character slot.
- which can be switched to exile after 6-months, at whatever the cost for a dominion to exile faction transfer ends up being.	
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You think it's bad now, just imagine the number of Aurin we will start seeing when all the manga dorks decide to check out the game.
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Yea, grown ass men have an obsession with females that are vertically challenged apparently...and like running them around naked while watching anime. I would rather keep that type of player off Dominion side. When I levelled my mordesh medic, I couldn't stand the Aurin players. Have to yet meet one I like, as generalising as that may be, maybe even boarder line racist? Bah, all Exiles have to burn any way.
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You think it's bad now, just imagine the number of Aurin we will start seeing when all the manga dorks decide to check out the game.
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The balance would get even worse if they allow Aurin to be a wariror/medic/engineer.. I don't want to be the last Mordesh.
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You, Sir, are a most educational example of the tolerance and pleasantness of the Dominon faction! ;)
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Us proud Dominion citizens will not tolerate rodents...we have a big enough problem with the Chua!
 
Without being crowned the king of off topic, I will say that for the topic, I believe it will work out fine as I mentioned before. One faction will always appeal more, and apparently being a rebel is more appealing than order and civilisation. I am happy with that!!
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How can they improve it? What are some suggestions?
 
They cannot and should not place restrictions on what characters players can create. This is something largely out of their hands.
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Yea, grown ass men have an obsession with females that are vertically challenged apparently...and like running them around naked while watching anime. I would rather keep that type of player off Dominion side. When I levelled my mordesh medic, I couldn't stand the Aurin players. Have to yet meet one I like, as generalising as that may be, maybe even boarder line racist? Bah, all Exiles have to burn any way.
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It was mentioned earlier in the thread but I think a lot of the popularity divide comes from the fact that the Dominion is so unforgivingly evil, at least it seems that way in the tutorial. I think this turns off a lot of players. I know it turned me off at first. However, once I powered through and got to the rest of the story the Dominion seemed less evil. They aren't the rebels, but they become more relatable. 
 
They mentioned in the live stream that they are retooling both tutorial areas. I think this could really help the faction divide. I hope they take this opportunity to make those three levels count in bringing the player to the Dominion's.
 
Or they could just make  a Dog-people race to chase the Cat-people race. 	
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The balance would get even worse if they allow Aurin to be a wariror/medic/engineer.. I don't want to be the last Mordesh.
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It was mentioned earlier in the thread but I think a lot of the popularity divide comes from the fact that the Dominion is so unforgivingly evil, at least it seems that way in the tutorial.
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They could add a faction change service but to a start it would only allow Exile to Dominion.
 
 
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I never understood the Aurin hate. It seems to be because they are so popular?
 
I mean, I'm sure there's people who don't dig the hug everything tree-lover vibe they give off, not even I do, I enjoy my space cowboy killer that doesn't give nature much of a thought, but I guarantee that most people merely hate it because of a section of the playerbase that plays it. And this section is just more openly viewable because Aurin make up the largest amount of Wildstar population.
 
I brought this argument up to someone who was hating Blood elves, and they couldn't actually give me a reason that related to Blood elves and not the players who play them. They ignored me when I tried to point that out. Good times!
 
Also, yes, I keep trying to play Dominion but a few friends made it abundantly clear that there's almost nothing redeeming about them. Not even Toric Antevian seems to be all that good far as the lore is concerned. Exiles are worse than the Strain, right? All-consuming force of pure evil trying to destroy the galaxy worse than people fighting for their own freedom and livelihood?	
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			I hope they'll add race/faction changes with the cash shop.	
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I never understood the Aurin hate. It seems to be because they are so popular?
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How can they improve it? What are some suggestions?
 
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Yea, grown ass men have an obsession with females that are vertically challenged apparently...and like running them around naked while watching anime. I would rather keep that type of player off Dominion side. When I levelled my mordesh medic, I couldn't stand the Aurin players. Have to yet meet one I like, as generalising as that may be, maybe even boarder line racist? Bah, all Exiles have to burn any way.
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			 Who knows maybe the protostar guys will sell the option to be an aurin or just look like one for the dominion. But on a serious note the faction imbalance is agitated by the fact that race/class comps was a bad idea and still sucks. Hopefully this will get lifted.. with f2p comming the dominion should see some activity in its growth.. unless it ends like DCuo where players prefered the heros and anti heros to just being a villain. But at least this game the sides are more balanced as far as moral goes. Just have to wait and see i guess.	
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Who knows maybe the protostar guys will sell the option to be an aurin or just look like one for the dominion. But on a serious note the faction imbalance is agitated by the fact that race/class comps was a bad idea and still sucks. Hopefully this will get lifted.. with f2p comming the dominion should see some activity in its growth.. unless it ends like DCuo where players prefered the heros and anti heros to just being a villain. But at least this game the sides are more balanced as far as moral goes. Just have to wait and see i guess.
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It's the falsly associated negativity with the players.
 
"Weaboos" furries RPers, the "Strange" folk of the internets that everyone assumes play Aurin because "LOL KAWAII DESU! LETS BE FRIENDS FOREVER" crap.
 
It's racial profiling in a very oddly assumed manner.
 
Instead of you know taking everyone at face value, and giving everyone a chance to prove or disprove on their own merits...
 
It's just humans being crappy to each other for no reason ohter than just to be pathetic and crappy.
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OK,, I'll bite..
 
Some people just have an aversion to Aurin-like characters.  These aversions may have come up from past experiences with other games with Aurin-Like characters (Tera-Elin, WoW-blood elves). 
 
Past experiences shape the future. The things I've seen on RP servers... oh gawd...
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			 This game is so entrapped in its own faction system that it would be a very big project to lift it.. the best we could hope for is unified grps for pvp pve.. maybe selling the abitlity to play opposing faction races or the creation of a third faction that players can opt to join to play with opposing faction players. but outside of that I dont see the practicality of investing a lot of money to develop a non factions system.. game would almost need a huge facelift to pull that off and at that point might as well just make a wildstar sequel. Which I dont see happening unless F2P throws this game to the top of the charts later on down the line.	
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This game is so entrapped in its own faction system that it would be a very big project to lift it.. the best we could hope for is unified grps for pvp pve.. maybe selling the abitlity to play opposing faction races or the creation of a third faction that players can opt to join to play with opposing faction players. but outside of that I dont see the practicality of investing a lot of money to develop a non factions system.. game would almost need a huge facelift to pull that off and at that point might as well just make a wildstar sequel. Which I dont see happening unless F2P throws this game to the top of the charts later on down the line.
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I suspect they were expecting the Mechari to offset the popularity of the elves undead Mordesh because, well, they are robots! How cool is that? Yet they failed miserably when they gave them the most ugly face selection along with some of the most off puting running animations.
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Hate to be the bearer of bad news... but there's not really any way they can fix the population balance between factions.  Not unless they plan to have bots running to fill in the gaps.
 
Several other games that have gone f2p have had the same situation, and there's no fix available... only real fix would be to force people to only be one faction or the other depending on which needs more... which in turn would cause people to leave again, especially if they can't be the faction they were hoping for.
 
Anarchy Online, which has three factions (or two, if you don't count neutral), is a great example... game's been f2p for quite awhile, and there's still a massive imbalance between factions.
 
Another good example would be The Secret World... three factions... and my poor Dragon faction character grows moss every time I log in from lack of other peoples absorbing the air around it.
 
Other prime examples might be APB or even Allods Online.	
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			Why this should be a problem at all? We have battlegrounds with mixed factions so this should not be a problem at all..	
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Hi guys,
 
I think that some people knows there is a problem with the population between Exiles and Dominions (in each server).
 
Exiles are the most represented compared to the Dominions, it is getting worse and with the F2P i'm afraid that this unbalance grows up.
 
This problem has already appeared in others games (Aion for example) and if there is no restriction before Wildstar becomes F2P, it will be too late.
 
So, do Carbine has planned something to improve the situation ?  :unsure:
 
Thanks.
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After much reflection and deliberation, I have come up with the solution:
 
Blood Aurin	
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The problem is people are too me too-ish: "I want an Aurin too!!!"
I got rid of mine after beta. I knew that they would be overplayed. I'm way too cool for that. I play a Black Dominion Casssian. Get some swag! ;)	
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Why this should be a problem at all? We have battlegrounds with mixed factions so this should not be a problem at all..
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Why this should be a problem at all? We have battlegrounds with mixed factions so this should not be a problem at all..
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It also doesn't help that Carbine even poked fun at the Aurin player base in one of their first trailers... When I saw that.. It dawned on me that I'll never play one >.>
 
https://youtu.be/fn8648VGMKM?t=1m10s	
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So people are using shallow reasoning to fuel their preconsived prejudice to hate on a particular character type.
 
 
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I'm not too worried to be honest. Dominion used to be biggest at launch at least on EU.
 
If we keep a strong pvp influence on dommy side, the pvp'ers will flock there and fill out the population imbalance (at least I hope..)	
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			I honestly think the Aurin population is attributed to the classes. Aurins are the only Exiles that can be Esper besides Humans. I don't know about other people but I HATE playing humans in MMOs. This is the first MMO I've ever been a human. Humans aren't popular, which is why they get all the classes to make people want to play humans. But if I want to be an Esper and I have a cute animal girl vs a simple human, I'm going to be the cute animal girl. Mordesh and Granok just do not have proper class balances in my opinion.	
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Nope, I just don't like the overcute hippy hugs anything that moves everything is rainbows and sunshine nature. Aurin are evil. they just hide it well :P
there are two factions of Aurin on Nexus now who have turned there back on the Exiles and their own Queen, Either that or they have the Queens blessing to be evil terrorists who will kill anyone including there Exile allies.
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All I know for sure is, when and if they implement the possibility to play all classes with all races....
 
The Exiles should really just get rid of all the other race options that aren't Aurin...
 
and seeing a bunch of chua warriors is going to be me reliving all the DKs in WoW when they first appeared.	
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I can tell you in Warhammer online if a faction became less in numbers they offered a renown, exp, and something else bonus to get people to roll or encourage them to play the other side. 
 
I'm not sure if an exp or some other bonus would work here but it probably couldn't hurt. 
 
Really I'd love to see cross queuing for anything in the groupfinder. I could care less if I rock a dungeon with an exile as long as I get into the dungeon in the first place that is a win. 	
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I never understood the Aurin hate. It seems to be because they are so popular?
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Holy multiple posts, Batman!
 
But now I want to hear more about Jung's archetypes as applied to Wildstar.
 
Though I wouldn't personally underestimate the 'they are way too evil' problem. The Dominion problems are at the very least two, and that's only because I can't think of others from the top of my mind:
 
1) Their races aren't as interesting as the Exile ones: the granok won the war against a superpower with no external help; the Mordesh are immortal gloomy essentially-undead elves; the Exiles rebelled against an unjust regime; the Aurin were unfairly punished for not knowing that the space travellers that visited them were fugitives (and they are also small cuteish people).
Meanwhile the Dominion has: snob humans who regard eugenics as the ultimate form of prestige; draken are murderous jerks whose greatest achievement in history was surrendering after exactly one casualty (though they fit the dragon/demon aesthetic); the chua are another type of murderous jerks whose greatest achievement in history is to have polluted and emptied their planet; the Mechari are plotting robots who kickstarted every major event for the other playable races and probably the only cool race in itself (except they have ugly faces, but that's a personal detail). 
I guess we can say this is the Jungian problem.
 
2) Institutionalized evil. Their society is based on racial superiority (Luminai are always on the top of command chains. See: the Emperor), control through a fake religion that endorses and supports the previously mentioned racial superiority, disregard for the integrity and liberty of anyone not part of the Dominion (See: the prison camp quests in Whitevale, the ravaging of Auroria). All of those are pretty big problems and huge 'No' buttons for many people. Basically everything they do in-game reinforces or shows these problems. Worse, they sometimes are shown as positive qualities of their society. If you do quests that are morally despicable with the Exiles, you are often aked to feel bad about it.
As for institutionalized evil in the Exiles side...well, I guess they have the Black Hoods? But that seems to be the worst thing they have going on.	
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Worse, they sometimes are shown as positive qualities of their society. If you do quests that are morally despicable with the Exiles, you are often aked to feel bad about it.
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Shouldn't that tell you right there that the aurin are a lot more complicated than you would try to claim in your first sentence? :P
 
 
 
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Holy multiple posts, Batman!
 
But now I want to hear more about Jung's archetypes as applied to Wildstar.
 
Though I wouldn't personally underestimate the 'they are way too evil' problem. The Dominion problems are at the very least two, and that's only because I can't think of others from the top of my mind:
 
1) Their races aren't as interesting as the Exile ones
I guess we can say this is the Jungian problem.
 
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Personally I don't really like the aurins, their demeanor and personality never struck a chord with me. However the mordesh, if they could be dominion I would be the happiest lopp with the biggest shiny ever.
 
For me it was choosing between chua/draken/mechari or mordesh. Even though I longed to be a mordesh the choice of having 3 awesome races over my one favourite sealed  the deal for me.	
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			personally i can't stand chua	
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Personally I don't really like the aurins, their demeanor and personality never struck a chord with me. However the mordesh, if they could be dominion I would be the happiest lopp with the biggest shiny ever.
 
For me it was choosing between chua/draken/mechari or mordesh. Even though I longed to be a mordesh the choice of having 3 awesome races over my one favourite sealed  the deal for me.
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Mordesh would have been on Dominion, But they hold a grudge that we didn't want for the contagion to spread to the rest of the galaxy so we quarantined them.
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			lol, I think f2p will help because there'll be a lot more people. The best way they could do it is if they ever add a new race, give the dominion the "prettiest" one lol.	
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Don't mistake personal preference with popularity. You might be able to find the MMO were humans are not a popular choice, but I could respond with nearly the entire rest of the industry were if humans are a choice, they are the number 1 or 2 choice of players.
 
People complains about Blood Elves a lot, self included. But Humans are still more played in WoW than Blood Elves.
http://www.warcraftrealms.com/census.php
http://www.statista.com/statistics/276315/distribution-of-world-of-warcraft-characters-by-race/
 
Yet nobody says "OMG, those human players and their kinky fandom. They are so weird for wanting to play 'the guy at the office as a death knight'...
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I see where you're coming from but I wouldn't consider WoW nearly the entire rest of the industry. There's an entire Eastern industry not competing with WoW, and I still think it has more to do with classes than the races themselves. I don't know how it is in WoW but every MMO I've played with class locking, humans had more choice. I don't think this disregards the race that Aurin and Humans are the only ones that can be Espers. Esper is a really unique class unlike typical MMO roles like "Archer" and "Mage" and I think it plays a huge role in selection because class directly impacts gameplay first. I like the Modern aesthetic the most but I can't be an Esper with it. Warrior and Esper are the only two classes that interest me and I already have a Dominion Warrior so I don't really want to make a second one. Granok only have three choices out of six, which is abysmal. I think if they unrace locked classes (especially since there's no race benefits) the populations would balance out more.
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I agree, but I just think it would take a lot of work to animate spells and etc with races that could be spent on other areas. Maybe for the F2P transition or a future expansion, if we get that far?
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Guys. 
 
It's a videogame, a fictional universe.. Get your act together, lol.
 
 
On the imbalance issue, merging the two factions together isnt an option as it would take a giant crap on the very fundament upon this game is built.	
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Guys. 
 
It's a videogame, a fictional universe.. Get your act together, lol.
 
 
On the imbalance issue, merging the two factions together isnt an option as it would take a giant crap on the very fundament upon this game is built.
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			I hope dominion get a lot more players when f2p comes. They need some terrible pvp players to even things out.	
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Being on topic if there is any solution, it's simply what A LOT of people have been saying from the beginning which is to loosen the faction wall. Let the  players emphasize the importance of their faction divide. So long as there is a strict faction divide not just lore wise, but mechanically as well that is outside of the players control there will always be one side larger than the toher. to what degree that gap is will vary, but you can't get rid of it without removing some of the restrictions.
 
Only place it really should belong is open world pvp..	
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To be constructive: opening up all the classes on all the races would even out the population. For myself I made a female Mordesh Medic and after playing as a Chua (FYI "genderless" does not mean basically all male options) since beta, being able to wear short shorts and dress up cutesie blew my mind. Now, I tried to make a Mechari I liked, but couldn't. And I prefer to not play humans cause... Well, I'm a human irl... I want to be fun. That left me longing for a Draken Medic. The second that happens I would change over my Mordesh in less than a heartbeat. 
 
People don't need incentive to move which way or what. But even the "lore" that stops certain races from being what is kinda crap if you look at the time line. The races would have kept cultural traditions, but would have eventually learned things from other races. 
 
 
To not be constructive: I hate Aurin so much cause they were portrayed them as such hippie dippies, and even as an Exile now I want to rip their heads off. I just don't like the hippie dippieness that they are portrayed with. Otherwise, besides the small stature it's kinda hard to mistake them as children. The closest I heard were fairies.	
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			Allow Chua to be a stalker and warrior.. End of story you will see tons of Chua and boom population balanced.. I mean Chua We are the master race. 	
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Im not sure, do they like lay eggs or something?
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To not be constructive: I hate Aurin so much cause they were portrayed them as such hippie dippies, and even as an Exile now I want to rip their heads off. I just don't like the hippie dippieness that they are portrayed with. Otherwise, besides the small stature it's kinda hard to mistake them as children. The closest I heard were fairies.
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You might as well hate on Mordesh for being emo. They're a parody too, by the way. Gothy emo space vampires. They're so tragic they speak in alliteration. If you find hugbunny environmentalism to just ruin the mood, why don't Mordesh do the same every time they speak some somber sonnet of sorrow?
 
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I'll post a longer opinion on F2P and faction balance later - but I'm patiently waiting for my Draken engineers.
 
I mean really - Draken are perfect for big guns!!	
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I'll post a longer opinion on F2P and faction balance later - but I'm patiently waiting for my Draken engineers.
 
I mean really - Draken are perfect for big guns!!
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I'm legitimately surprised that Draken got Spellslinger but not engineer.
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Hard restrictions on factions during opening F2P period is harmful to the population of newcomers, because you down right forbid their personal preference on who to play. Problem with Wildstar is that it has mega servers (1 for PvP and 1 for PvE) if things were to change during F2P transition and they add more servers than: 
 
1. Very populated servers (The current P2P server) could have faction block for new accounts until factions balance out while still allowing new comers to play any faction they want on new servers if they add them during F2P which I think defeats the purpose of mega servers.
 
Now that we got the harsh reality out of the way lets focus on what can in reality be done without harming the population influx.
 
1. Less populated faction can have bonuses that stimulate new comers to join that faction examples:
 
20%-35% boost to XP
10% cheaper vendor items, repairs etc...
10%-20% more gold from quests or mobs...
Any combination of boosts really as long as its enough to stimulate new comers to pick that faction but it cant be only 1 boost like 20% xp as what's it to them when they reach level cap?	
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{| class="blockquote"
because I like dark/emo/tragic/morbid and don't like hippie/hug/lovefest it is purely personal preference
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{| class="blockquote"
 
There is no such lore, though. If there is, I'd like to have some actual quotes. The only things that are actually stopping all races from being all classes are two:
1) The developers not having the time to properly tune all the animations for each race and gender.
2) The player themselves who rationalize the class restrictions as something that is part of the world.
 
The second one isn't a problem in itself, if you don't mind my opinion: we can do that with skills. That certain classes have certain skills can be used to create some decent picture of what is and what isn't possible in the universe. It gives a basis for things that might not be stated directly in the lore.
However, there lies the actual dilemma:  the writers could come with some piece of lore that actively contradicts notions we can get from the mechanics of the world. When that happens, we have to admit that the writers have the ultimate say on how the physics of their world work and that the gameplay elements are just that: gameplay elements to make a fun game. 
Since the developers have indeed stated in the past that their intention is to have all classes available for all races, but that they cannot do so for matters of time and priorities, anyone rationalizing the class limits as actual part of the world is simply wrong.
 
 
That's something all races have. They are all portrayed as very clear archetypes:all granok like to fight and get drunk, all Mordesh are gloomy and kind of fancy; all draken are bloodthirsty fighters, all chua are obsessed with technology and are sociopathic, etcetera.
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Hey folks, 
 
None of the previous discussion is regarding the unbalanced population and F2P which the OP brought up. Please lets get back on topic. As a reminder, insults and name calling are not permitted as per our code of conduct. 
 
- Team WildStar 	
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			As somebody else pointed out Anarchy Online; it's true, played it and it's more lop-sided than a big kid on a see-saw.  One side can be made to be more enticing to join, but there's no way unfortunately of out-right balancing.  Unless perhaps we sack a few villages on one side or the other, that's always fun.  :ph34r:	
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{| class="blockquote"
As somebody else pointed out Anarchy Online; it's true, played it and it's more lop-sided than a big kid on a see-saw.  One side can be made to be more enticing to join, but there's no way unfortunately of out-right balancing.  Unless perhaps we sack a few villages on one side or the other, that's always fun.  :ph34r:
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{| class="blockquote"
.. I don't want to be the last Mordesh.
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{| class="blockquote"
I don't know either, they look like mammals though.
 
The point is races are different then humans so should we always compare them this closely to humans even though they aren't not human?
Your getting my point? Nothing positive or negative just a different point of view.
 
For all we know that Aurin that looks like 12 year old might be 40 years in human years ^^
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			Some of the imbalance may go away if Carbine reopens the RP server.	
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{| class="blockquote"
 
Hard restrictions on factions during opening F2P period is harmful to the population of newcomers, because you down right forbid their personal preference on who to play. Problem with Wildstar is that it has mega servers (1 for PvP and 1 for PvE) if things were to change during F2P transition and they add more servers than: 
 
1. Very populated servers (The current P2P server) could have faction block for new accounts until factions balance out while still allowing new comers to play any faction they want on new servers if they add them during F2P which I think defeats the purpose of mega servers.
 
Now that we got the harsh reality out of the way lets focus on what can in reality be done without harming the population influx.
 
1. Less populated faction can have bonuses that stimulate new comers to join that faction examples:
 
20%-35% boost to XP
10% cheaper vendor items, repairs etc...
10%-20% more gold from quests or mobs...
Any combination of boosts really as long as its enough to stimulate new comers to pick that faction but it cant be only 1 boost like 20% xp as what's it to them when they reach level cap?
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Some of the imbalance may go away if Carbine reopens the RP server.
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{| class="blockquote"
Back to Evindra! I wonder if Scott of Awesome will come back if they do...
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{| class="blockquote"
Then again, I know quite a few people that would love an RP/PvP server.
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{| class="blockquote"
Then again, I know quite a few people that would love an RP/PvP server.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Oh, just have to re-open those old wounds, you meaniepants.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Then again, I know quite a few people that would love an RP/PvP server.
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Regarding the unbalanced population, I do think one of the main reasons that the Dominion doesn't get more players is because people are conditioned to see them as the "Evil Galactic Empire" when they're really closer to a combination of the Romans and the British Empire. 
 
One of my personal concerns when I first purchased Wildstar a year ago was that I didn't want to play an evil character. Fortunately, the game does a very good job of making it so that the Dominion player character is consistently portrayed as heroic if that's how you choose to interpret them. However, a lot of the art for the game portrays them as villainous. 
 
Look at the Loremageddon headers for examples, every Dominion race looks aggressive and intimidating, and has their attention directed toward the viewer. Meanwhile, with the exception of the surprisingly savage looking Aurin, none of the Exile races appear to be directing their aggression toward the audience. This gives the impression that the Exiles are the "Good guys" and the Dominion are the "bad guys". It shows up in a lot of places too. 
 
The defining traits of Granok, Aurin, and Mordesh are "Likable soldier guys", "Hug faeries", and "sad but strangely attractive emo zombies", where as the defining traits of the Draken, Chua, and Mechari are "I want to eat your face", "I want to melt your face", and "Imma scary robot".
 
As for what can fix it? A tweak in PR might help. The lore doesn't really support a permanent breach in faction barriers, though I could see the various factions being forced to work together under CoGS to fight the Strain. I could also see members of each individual faction breaking away on a case by case basis.
 
Exile Humans and Cassians don't have much of a stretch, and a lot of people roleplay Cassians on the Exile side (Though the reverse is less common).
 
Aurin who disagreed with the evacuation of Arboria could potentially be swayed to the Dominion side if the Dominion made some sort of effort to undo the damage to Arboria. It'd be a deal with the devil kind of situation, but some Aurin could be swayed.
 
Mordesh could easily be swayed to the Dominion side if the Collegium announced they had some sort of improved treatment for the contagion.
 
A Draken probably isn't likely to turn their back on the Dominion because of Proud Warrior Race Stuff, but I could see some of the shadier and less honorable Draken jumping ship. Especially if the Exiles don't have any qualms about Necroshaman.
 
Chua are probably the easiest, since they only joined the Dominion in the first place because the Dominion offered them resources. If the Dominion wasn't the optimal choice anymore, I could see a few slipping over to blue side.
 
The difficult ones would be Mechari and Granok.
 
Granok are a stubborn race with a loooong memory. The only way I could see a Dominion Granok is if they were some sort of second wave from Gnox, and even then that would be a radical cultural shift for them to both abandon the Path of Stone and team up with their former invaders.
 
Mechari are a little bit easier; While it's hard to imagine existing Mechari jumping ship, if XAS found one of the original Mechari Foundries on Nexus they could start churning out their own. 
 
But all of that is a major stress on the Lore. The easiest thing to do would to just tweak the Dominion's PR so they don't seem like puppy kicking Nazis, make the Exiles a touch more morally ambiguous, and maybe increase CoGS presence in the game to allow for more cross faction stuff. 	
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{| class="blockquote"
Regarding the unbalanced population, I do think one of the main reasons that the Dominion doesn't get more players is because people are conditioned to see them as the "Evil Galactic Empire" when they're really closer to a combination of the Romans and the British Empire. 
-snip-
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For those who keep saying there's no faction imbalance. This is Jabbit EU from the viewpoint of Dominion.
 	
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So I just have to put my 2 cents in... and IMO it has to do with the character creation options for the Dom...(there are other reasons... but the main reason is that we humans like to play sexy/pretty things more than anything else... AKA sex sells...)
 
I really believe that if they can make some "cute" and more feminine Chua options and I’m talking the fur color. Well maybe a face or two also. There really isn’t any "female" faces but one and even though I hate the hair styles too, I can live with bald. Anyway, I would like to see a purple fur color, pastel color(s), or maybe a gray with baby blue/pink/purple on it. I can even see an albino colored Chua, which i have no idea why there isn’t, that would be bad ass. Anyway, just adding some female looking colors like the pink would help out alot.
 
I also believe that making better faces for the Female Mechari too because a lot of the faces are just a NO. In fact the two at the top on customize options list is the only good liking ones there. They are female and yet the males have sexier faces (alittle on the buff side but still better than the females)... I Iike the look of that race too.. but wont play it because of the faces (which i know most of my friends agree to this)... T_T
 
The Female Draken needs a bit more love also, but I think it is the hair that kills it. They can have sexy hair and be bad ass too. Some Sassy and/or Messy short hair would be very sexy on them. That can go with the Chua too if they wanted to make new hair for them too.
 
Anyway, that’s the one way I can see fixing the balance of players without putting up some kind of limit and/or force on the players to pick the Dom side.
 
Tho I dont think this will happen just because I know that others and myself have been saying this for the past year..	
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I also believe that making better faces for the Female Mechari too. Female Mechari is just a NO on a lot of the faces. Only 2 of the faces look good (the two at the top on customize options list)... I Iike the look of that race.. but wont play it because of the faces... T_T
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I actually like a few of the "nontraditional" mechari faces (the one with the blank crystal plate and the one with the Geordi-reminiscent visor especially), but the Mechari have a very particular character creation problem: the faces are too unique. There is NO way to make any of the faces look particularly different, especially the less human-looking ones. A mechari with the crystal faceplate is always going to look identical to other mechari with that face option. It's frustrating.
----
			What do you mean by look rushed? I don't particularly see any lesser quality in them. I just see an inability to get a unique-looking character out of them. (Though even then, I'd totally make a mechari still... except they can't be espers or spellslingers. *SIGH*)	
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Let's all just play Dominion :-) 
 
Problem solved!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Come to me my bunnies, my precious, furry, bunnies.	
----
			Dominion here I come.	
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I like the Dominion for a variety of reasons. I got over my "evil empire aversion" quite some time ago.
 
You know why I can't make myself level a Dominion toon? 
 
Because I know the minute I get to Whitevale, I'll be doing the exact same quests I've done a hundred times as an Exile, only from the other side of the map.
 
Gimme some alternate leveling zones, and I'll be all over the Dominion.	
----
			
Didn't you know, Tex? Repetition makes you HARDCORE!
 
{| class="blockquote"
 
I also believe that making better faces for the Female Mechari too because a lot of the faces are just a NO. In fact the two at the top on customize options list is the only good liking ones there. They are female and yet the males have sexier faces (alittle on the buff side but still better than the females)... I Iike the look of that race too.. but wont play it because of the faces (which i know most of my friends agree to this)... T_T
 
----
			
All Carbine has to do is put somewhere on the character creation screen:
 
Suggested Faction: Dominion	
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Too many times have I started playing this game with a buddy only to log the next day and find they have jumped the Dominion ship and ended up making an Aurin.  :rolleyes: It's happened so often that I've been thinking about this one way to bring numbers back to us....
 
There is one sure way to boost numbers for the Dominion and it's as simple as this...
 
Adorable. Chua. Females.
 
Let's be real, even in games vanity drives a large chunk of the population. A vast majority of people will align with a race purely for looks. We've seen it with others games like Lalafell for FFXIV, Elin for Tera, Blood Elfs for WoW, Elyos for Aion, Asura fro GW2, High Elves for Rift, Aurin for Wildstar and so on and so forth ... a large group of people will flock to the pretty/sexy/adorable/cute character before they consider a class.
 
By creating an impossible cute female Chua for the Dominion more players will join our side.
 
You go cute with them for it to work so, for example, give them cute/adorable colors like fur options snowy white, pastel purples & mints, peach and pinks shades, give them large adorable puppy eye options, dewy big eyes or eye options with long pretty lashes (thinking of cross dresser bugs bunny here.) Instead of facial hair give them face marking options like whiskers but also beauty spots, lipgloss or cute birth markings like a love heart etc etc blah blah blah.  As for the voice, leave it. I've been playing a pink "female" chua I can say the voice doesn't matter, the current male voice works. It's funny and quirky that they sound the same anyway, typical Chua.
 
How do you explain their absence from the game? IDK, say the boy chuas gave them the wrong coordinates and they've spent the past year conquering a planet of space unicorns and now bored they've tracked the boys down via GPS. In fact, give them an exclusive flashy space unicorn mount or pet and that would seal the deal with boosting their numbers ten fold. It's not uncommon, in fact normal, for F2P games to invent a new race and then give them an exclusive item for a limited time and grouping something cute with something limited is wildfire in the the gaming world. You can always put a limited time less flashy option in the cash shop down the track to celebrate their 1 year with us. 
 
As long as they are over the top adorable, cuter then the Aurin, the numbers will beef up for us.. err... the Dominion  ;)
 
TL;DR
 
+ space unicorns.	
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People who deny the population issues are crazy. It urks me that Carbine says it's not that bad. I have 2 max level medics one on each side both are 6/6GA.
 
For a comparason... 10:30pm EST
Thayd                                        Illium
contract Vendor : 71                 Contract Vendor: 42
AH/CX: 127                               AH/CX: 30
Crafting: 112                             Crafting: 18
 
Keep in mind the numbers are slightly scewed due to overlapping areas. but the general population 100ish  Exile  /   35ish  tell me again that they population imbalance is " a lot smaller than it looks " 
 
 	
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Add more feminine traits to chua if you need, but please please please PLEASE do not make them into 2 split genders.  It may not seem like a big deal for you, but it's a really nice thing to see in the game and being able to have both traits, and not have to be stuck with the boring old "male/female" choice.
 
A bit of PR facelift for dominion would really really help as well.  Hopfully with this arkship revival they were talking about on the stream we'll see less uh... "evil" right from the start.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Add more feminine traits to chua if you need, but please please please PLEASE do not make them into 2 split genders.  It may not seem like a big deal for you, but it's a really nice thing to see in the game and being able to have both traits, and not have to be stuck with the boring old "male/female" choice.
 
A bit of PR facelift for dominion would really really help as well.  Hopfully with this arkship revival they were talking about on the stream we'll see less uh... "evil" right from the start.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Add more feminine traits to chua if you need, but please please please PLEASE do not make them into 2 split genders.  It may not seem like a big deal for you, but it's a really nice thing to see in the game and being able to have both traits, and not have to be stuck with the boring old "male/female" choice.
 
A bit of PR facelift for dominion would really really help as well.  Hopfully with this arkship revival they were talking about on the stream we'll see less uh... "evil" right from the start.
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How do you know that a bushy mustache isn't the height of Chua feminine beauty?
 
You don't. You're just pushing your humanocentric values on an alien race. Shame on you.
 
Why is it so hard to accept that not every female of every race has to have pink hair and an hourglass figure? Or big, sad eyes with long lashes?
 
Man, if the Ekose were a player race, NO ONE would be a female Ekose, ever.	
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{| class="blockquote"
You're just pushing your humanocentric values on an alien race.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
LOL this always gets me XD
 
but joking aside, I do agree. IT was one of the more notable comments on Chua and while I don't mind "feminine" options or just more in general that aren't just "bushy" and "bushier", I'll also get behind not overtly splitting their gender.
 
Overall I just feel like increasing race/class combos and loosening the faction barriers will just go a long way.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
How do you know that a bushy mustache isn't the height of Chua feminine beauty?
 
You don't. You're just pushing your humanocentric values on an alien race. Shame on you.
 
Why is it so hard to accept that not every female of every race has to have pink hair and an hourglass figure? Or big, sad eyes with long lashes?
 
Man, if the Ekose were a player race, NO ONE would be a female Ekose, ever.
----
			
I'd play a warrior grandma/pa...
just sayin...	
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{| class="blockquote"
For whatever bizzaro reason the only Ekose females we've seen IG are elderly. 
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{| class="blockquote"
If that's aimed at me it's not in reference to wat Chua percieve or acknowledge as feminine or not. In fact I'd go as far as to say that they wouldn't care, but we as outside people looking in would socialy communicate a feature and or option possibly as "faminine" dependant on our culture and varying from individual to individual. Thing is not everyone likes mustaches, beards, etc...and requesting options that aren't those is perfectly fine regardless f whether people see it as masculine or feminine. How they communicate that is something in and of tself, but the fact most people i know try to also state they do not want Chua overtly seperated tells me theyre not trying to push their "humanocentric values" as you put it on an alient race, but rather they're trying to their best ability to communicate what it is they'd like to see in a manner they feel best.
 
I don't expect everyone able to draw or do paint overs so I'm a bit more lenient I guess with reading suggestions like "add more feminine options". There were like 2 people though in older topics that clearly wanted Chua to be overtly female though which I couldn't get behind.
 
For me I want some friggen facial hair for aurin...This is genuinely canon by the way!
 
And in regard to Chua:(#2 was a bad inhouse joke sorry...lol though im not really sorry...)
 
 
 
 
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I totally play a female ekose if they look like crazy grandmas...
 
Sign me up!	
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{| class="blockquote"
I totally play a female ekose if they look like crazy grandmas...
 
Sign me up!
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{| class="blockquote"
Yeah, me too. But I've always been a sucker for "unpopular and/or unconventional" character types.
 
Trolls and gnomes in WoW, those little blue dudes in Guild Wars 2, Granoks here ... I just like weird-looking toons.
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{| class="blockquote"
How do you know that a bushy mustache isn't the height of Chua feminine beauty?
 
You don't. You're just pushing your humanocentric values on an alien race. Shame on you.
 
Why is it so hard to accept that not every female of every race has to have pink hair and an hourglass figure? Or big, sad eyes with long lashes?
 
Man, if the Ekose were a player race, NO ONE would be a female Ekose, ever.
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Given their voiceover and dialogue quirks, I'm pretty sure the female ekose in-game are just elderly. Not that I would be opposed to the young female ekose looking like that, too!
 
... I just want playable Ekose in general. @.@	
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{| class="blockquote"
Asura aren't blue, they're brown. And they're awesome. I have an Asura mesmer with the tiniest body type named Aweso Me, so the awesomeness is confirmed. They actually did a great job with the different sexes for Asura, both are somewhat androgynous but you can still tell which is which without resorting to standard humanoid breast/backside/big beefy muscle tropes.
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I like the chua the way they are, and I know a lot of rpers who play female chua and don't mind the lack of sexual dimorphism at all. They just want more options in general. If you're going to go genderless for a race, then that race should just get twice as many customizaiton options.
 
Anyway, I still say the female chua are the ones that sport beards :P
 
*Looks over at Mondo*	
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I play a female chua :D
 
Isn't she adorable? 
 
 	
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			Is she ... wearing bacon and eggs on her ear?	
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			Uh, I think that's the guild tag...lol! It's making me hungry for breakfast though! :)	
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{| class="blockquote"
I totally play a female ekose if they look like crazy grandmas...
 
Sign me up!
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I came here to read what ideas people have for bringing more faction balance, and I see fury Aurin and bacon and egg earrings on a chua.
 
FWIW, I'm not sure WHAT Carbine can do to try and balance the factions. I personally prefer Dominion, tho that's mostly to do with the quality of the players. More population on Exile means more of the attention-seekers gravitate there, for, you know, the attention (IMO, of course). I also loved the concept of playing a psychopathic hamster, but ended up with a human as a main (that i would change to Mechari in a heartbeat if they could be espers).
 
P.S. I would totally play an Ekose.	
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{| class="blockquote"
How do you know that a bushy mustache isn't the height of Chua feminine beauty?
 
You don't. You're just pushing your humanocentric values on an alien race. Shame on you.
 
Why is it so hard to accept that not every female of every race has to have pink hair and an hourglass figure? Or big, sad eyes with long lashes?
 
Man, if the Ekose were a player race, NO ONE would be a female Ekose, ever.
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			Carbine messed up the lore by making Dominion Bad guys 	
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{| class="blockquote"
 well since this is about human perception and a human population playing the game... I have to say i dont care what is considered "HAWT" for a chua... As a female gamer I wanted to and tried to play a chua.. I cant do it. The male animations, Underwear, and lack of customization to look like a girl at least slightly without looking like every other chua in the game that's trying to do the same thing. I gave up.
 
Also not asking for sexy, cute works fine. Or just in general look different than the males.
----
			I'm a female gamer my main is a chua and I like them just as they are.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Carbine messed up the lore by making Dominion Bad guys
 
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{| class="blockquote"
When I started playing City of Heroes years ago, it was all single faction, and many players clamored most insistently for the opportunity to play villains as well as a second faction. But when City of Villains finally was released as a paid expansion to CoH, the complaints were just as loud that it was not villaneous enough...
 
Some people do like to play the bad guys. It can be noticed on these very forums in how many do come here and talk "in character" about "inferior races", "extermination" and "eradication". ;)
 
It's not really fair to change the lore after people have made their decision on what to play. I expect there are people that play e.g Chua just because they are portrayed as murderous psychopaths in the intro movies. Invalidating their decision by changing the lore so that they are harmless, misunderstood carebear-friendly furballs who just temporarily were off their meds - well, as I said that would not be fair to those players. :D
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