I've noticed an imbalance in the nations since I began playing, at least 100 years ago.

The UIT have always had a healthy population. They have the benefit of being neutral in the Serco-Itani war, and they fight for both sides and amongst themselves. This is good; the UIT are exactly as they should be, a buzzing nation between nations, divided amongst themselves.

The problem recently has been with the balance between the Serco and the Itani. The Serco have always been a minority. The reasons for this one can only guess at, but I would postulate that they started out on the wrong foot, the Serco having a reputation as the aggressors, while the Itani were portrayed as victims - the underdogs - in the cosmic war, and so sympathetic people would fight for the Itani, and before long, the balance was upset. How ironic is it then, that this very phenomenon has led the Serco to be the victims and underdogs in the war between nations? The Itani have grown in strength and numbers, learning to excercise that strength in ways that were never intended. They have grown into a large and powerful nation and have turned the war on the Serco, who are unable to defend their own borders. New members have been drawn to join the Itani for the sheer power in numbers that they boast, strengthening the Itani and weakening the Serco even more. The political climate of the universe is in disarray, turned backwards by the in-gameplay warlike Itani, who now prey upon the weak and under-represented Serco. This is bad news for the Serco players - so bad in fact that many of the most active Serco appear to have stopped playing altogether, or turned to join the other side, the harsh reality of 'if you can't beat them, join them' dooming the nation they left behind.

The Serco Warriors are a dying breed. Those that are left fight a hopeless battle against overwhelming numbers, and many have forsaken their legacy of honor to prey upon the weak targets and run from battles in order that they may simply survive in this harsh universe. We've all seen it: the once proud and honorable Serco warrior, emptying his load of rockets or swarms and then turning to run, rather than face his inevitable defeat in the hopeless battle where he is so outnumbered by valks that even the greenest of Itani newbs stand a chance of claiming him with a flare in the back. The younger Serco cannot afford the losses on their meager budget, and the older ones have given up hope of winning.

If something is not done to correct the balance of the universe, the Serco will die. The breed of proud warrior already teeters on the brink of extinction, and before long there will be nothing left of the Red Nation but a few lone pirates and renegades, sruggling to make a living in a dark and secluded corner of grey.

A plan is needed to strengthen the Serco species, and restore balance to the Universe. I must humbly admit however, that I have no ideas for this, beyond my personal plan to fight as Serco whenever I have time to fight at all.

What can be done to save the Serco? and who will do it?

Perhaps a careful re-wording of the nation descriptions is in order?

By making the Itani seem a little less "ninja" (pressing, perhaps, that only the elite few have the famous Itani Mental Abilities), new players might not see it as such a clear choice.
Also, pulling into light the Proud Serco Heritage and somehow draw parallels to war heroes and military might would possibly compel more newbies to follow the red-bricked road?

That, combined with a way to change from UIT to either of the warring factions, will probably even out the numbers.

BTW, why isn't this in Community Projects or Suggestions?

Until your reply, Demonen, there was no suggestion.

I'll posit, however, that since our sense of smell is so enhanced, the thought of "mingling" with UIT and Smurfs is repugnant to us, therefore, we are rarely seen except amongst our own.

As for running from a fight, younglings will be younglings.

[moved to Suggestions]

the issue is being discussed a related tread:

new serco cast, system, raison d'etre

i'm trying to gather material to revive it. it's more a discussion phase at this point but everyone should pitch in their ideas.

There's an advantage to being grouped with a large number of people during Border Patrol. The more people, effectively, the faster one levels. There's definately no loss to adding people to one's group during the mission, because even if that person does no work, and it takes twice as long to complete the mission, one still receives double the experience. The reason I prefer the Itani side over the Serco is because I find it easier to ask over universal chat who would be interested in BP, pick up one or two people, and just start flying. Everyone has an excellent time, and we do it again the next day. It's more fun to be an Itani, because there are more Itani, and so people continue to choose Itani.

This is the best way to screw up balance in a system, because although not all judgement on which nation to pick is based on BP, the mission makes for an exponential desire to play Itani. The way to restore balance in a system is to do the opposite; to make it so that the fewer players on any one side, the more rewarding the experience. It makes sense when you consider predators (in this case a cyborg bear :3) in their environment. There's only so much bounty to be reaped in a territory, and that creates incentives for the Red Cyborg Bears to spread out. The fewer there are online at a time, the more meat is available per individual. Of course the need to be social or what not brings them together, and so with two sides pulling against one another, balance is achieved.

But not in VO! Which is fine by me. I like a good gank. >=D

A simple retooling of the backstory and info about each nation would help a great deal IMHO. When I read it before I joined, there definitely was a hint of the good guys/bad guys feeling with Itani/Serco. Like has been said above, it makes the Itani seem like the victims, their shady past just isn't enough to tarnish their image present day. Making the Serco seem a little more appealing in the backstory could fix the issue. Crippled Pidgeon was writing a Serco sided backstory, but I don't know what happened to it.

Bringing newbies to the Serco isn't even half the battle, UC and Demonen, because as it stands, the Serco cannot retain the newbies due to the lack of experienced Serco players to help them and train them.

One of SCAR's original goals was to help the newbies and strengthen the Serco Nation by retaining players. Unfortunately, we can't even retain the players we do have at this point; most of the elder warriors of SCAR have stopped playing VO, and recently a lot of newbies have left us to join the Itani because there are never any Serco on to help them.

No increase in newbies to the Serco is going to solve this problem. In the last couple months, the Serco have lost at least two nation wars in which they greatly outnumbered the Itani and UIT, because 90% of the Serco players attending were newbies, while the Itani and UIT had seasoned players. In the wake of both of these nation wars, some of the Serco newbies changed nations so they could be on the winning side next time. As a recruiter for the premier Serco guild, I've seen a lot of this first-hand: new Serco players who don't want to join SCAR, because they're looking forward to changing nations and joining [Itan] instead. The fact that [Itan] has demonstrated an active recruiting campaign that targets Serco newbies and tells them to change nations isn't helping either.

The only thing that will fix the nation problem at this point is for more experienced players to start or resume playing as Serco. Getting more newbies to join as Serco is important, but it's meaningless if we can't retain them. I'm all for changing the nation descriptions to better target appropriate players and bring more new players to the Serco, and I'm all for any incentive programs for new Serco players (SCAR is offering one), but it's not enough.

The state of balance in the game isn't just hard on Serco newbies either; it's hard on experienced players as well. Between repair costs and constant ganking, it's costing me so much cred that I can't afford to fly good ships anymore such as my Rag, Taur or Maud - I have to fly cheap ones instead. This makes it very difficult to fight and win, especially when I'm still outnumbered either way, and the Itani always have an endless supply of Valkyries (even if I take 2 down with me for every time I die, I'm still losing more money than any of them, since they outnumber me more than 2 to 1, and frankly doing better than that simply isn't realistic when you're facing half a dozen valks alone). At this point I'm about ready to stop playing as well, because VO just isn't as much fun when I'm constantly getting ganked, spammed, killed, and then taunted for dying by cowardly itani greenhorns who hide behind superior numbers and ships. The fact of the matter is that if the Itani had any balls at all, they'd be playing as Serco rather than flying around in their valkjock ganksquads. I guess that's one part of the backstory that's still true... itani are cowards.

So here are my suggestions to alleviate the balance issue:

1) offer a cash incentive (starting credits) to newbies based upon the number active in the nation they choose.

2) reduce the price of military goods for the Serco. That's what they economy revolves around anyway, so why shouldn't it cost them less? The government should happily fund their war effort against the Itani anyway.

3) change the nation descriptions in the selector, put Serco at the top of the list, and give them a less sucky looking graphic already.

4) Prefix all Itani character names with the [coward] tag.

Until my sub runs out, I'll be playing my Serco character more solely for the sake of having more people to fight. Though I don't consider myself a coward just for being Itani...

1) and 2) will just create a phenomenon of itanis creating serco alts to get the cheaper stuff and cash incentive and passing it to their itani alts.

3) is what i'm pushing. see other tread.

Perhaps Serco space should offer ships and equipment at lower levels. You should be able to get a vult when you have access to a cent. I've never quite understood that about Serco stations, given that virtually no sercos use a cent.

I've also noticed that the Serco capitol sectors have yet to be redone, any word on that? Perhaps if SkyCommand looked a lot bigger and more powerful, it may help with the Serco image to newbs.

And yes, we need a new graphic, really badly.

-Nautargos

Serco have access to the same or similar resources than other races. That's enough balance.

The Serco who complain about their nation's reputation and numbers should think twice about their behavior. They're responsible for the current situation. If you're regularly using swarms or proms, don't whine about being ganked.

Reduced prices? New Capitol eye-candy? Great! You should add a psychological support team for ganked members and a cyber teddy bear consolation price when you get pwned in BP.

Actually I started as an Itani too because their description was much more appealing than Serco. But after I got aware of the inbalance, I immedeately started over again as Serco. Being the underdog is much cooler anyway.

-- Schelling

Ive felt the financial pinch Cunjo has mentioned. In the past 2 or 3 weeks Ive spent over 3 million on weapons and ships as liddy. Part of this is because I'm working on learning to use rails effectively and losing 4 at a time when i have to buy them from other players adds up quickly. Also my fighting ability has frankly gone to shit in the past few months to the point that I'm playing less and less because just throwing away ships isn't fun.

Also I've noticed that [itan] pilots really like using sunflares far more than serco pilots, hopefully the devs will kill friendly fire soon and it will become more dangerous to spray flares all over the place.

Something needs to be done but I haven't the foggiest idea as to what could be done. There's really no reason for people to choose serco when the levels for the svg are DOUBLE what they are for the ibg (actually combat 4 is more than double combat 2 its roughley 4 times as much combat xp) and the cost is TRIPLE

knocking the price and the levels of the svg down would go a long way I think. The SVG does have more armour than the ibg but its MUCH slower.

Work on the backstory ended when Ku Genin's website went down. I don't have a copy of the latest version myself, and frankly, I've been so busy with school that working on the backstory is the least of my concerns. Perhaps when it hits summer I'll be able to put out a version of the story if I can get copies of the threads from genin and have the desire to do the editing necessary to even begin to show it off (there are lots of inconsistencies, and that kind of thing)

i know someone that has a copy, apparently, but not quite willing to share because of lack of owner's permission.

regardless of this, i've decided to write one serco backstory. think of it as some unofficial account of a certain group. perhaps of a disputed origin too. but it'll suffice until peepz get their act together.

i'm making this a community project where others will be able to contribute. i'll let people know when the timeline is available--still working on the gross outline with the precious few time i have for that project.

make sure you refer to the itani as "those hippy wimps" several times in the backstory from the serco pov

"There's really no reason for people to choose serco when the levels for the svg are DOUBLE what they are for the ibg (actually combat 4 is more than double combat 2 its roughley 4 times as much combat xp) and the cost is TRIPLE"

This is Exactly what I'm talking about. High-end Itani ships are available at much lower levels and for much cheaper than the high-end Serco ships. The SVG needs to be available at the same levels as the IBG, and even then, SVG pilots are at a disadvantage due to their larger 'flare-magnet' profile. The Proms too are more expensive than valks and require higher levels. Just decreasing the levels and cost of ships to the Serco will go a long ways toward relieving the problem, and you can't argue that the Itani will create alts to take advantage of that - they can't pass ships from one character to another.

As for incentive pay, give Serco newbs like 5k starting cred. It's not enough to justify creating alts and passing the money, since the effort expendature isn't worth it if you're not a genuine newb.

"The Serco who complain about their nation's reputation and numbers should think twice about their behavior. They're responsible for the current situation. If you're regularly using swarms or proms, don't whine about being ganked."

Gee hypocrite, ya think that maybe the reason Serco are using proms are because it's hard to take 5-6 valks alone without one? As for swarms, the Itani use them a lot more than the Serco - Swarm spamming is less effective when you're the gankee than when you're the ganker. Quit hiding behind your pitiful excuses, coward. Learn to fight alone and stop whining. Serco flying proms is NOT justification for mass ganking and running, especially when the Serco only fly the proms because you're already ganking them. REAL FIGHTERS DON'T USE EX POST FACTO LOGIC AS AN EXCUSE FOR THEIR ACTIONS. Coward.

And Ghost, I'm not accusing you of being a coward. Many itani are, but it's obviously not true of everyone. Nevertheless, all of the cowardly players tend to gravitate to the Itani nation, where they're backed by gank buddies wherever they go, and that really doesn't do much for the image of the rest of you.

A couple days ago I was in Ukari, fending off an Itani blockade force. We held our own for a short while, and then most of the Serco logged off and I was left fighting alone. I was in a centaur with Gauss and Jacks, and being attacked by four Itani, one of them in a swarm spam taur. Guess what happened? Cowardly swarm spam tani got a bunch of cheap PKs, because I was too busy defending myself from his three buddies to evade all his spam. I wasted 90% of my cash on that character before logging for the night. You want to know why I call Itani cowards? It's crap like that, and it keeps on happening, almost every single time I play. And then the cowardly swarm-spamming ganker scumbags have the gall to trash-talk me and the other Serco, calling us weak or poor losers because they get a couple PKs from us, and refuse to face us alone when we ask for a fair fight.

Sigh. You made me shed a tear Cunjo.
Now lets get back to reality.
You know who you are and how you play the game.
Swarms are not a mistery for you. Your got your high duel ranking with swarms.
Lot of players, newbies and not so skilled pilots use swarms. I would be happy if they were taken out of VO but alas, that is not going to happen.

This thread is about balance and finding a way to even the odds on active players page like this one: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/15995
Try to stay on topic.

Perhaps you just need to get better, Cunjo...

LOL Just kidding, but seriously the Itani DEFINITELY do not have a monopoly on spamming or running.

And "Cowardly players tend to gravitate towards the Itani nation?" Hunh? Please, PLEASE don't let this turn into an "Honor" thread.

EDIT: And is it just me or is Bojan starting to write like Ayn Eizert / Nya13 ?!?

Ugh.... Leber...... noes.... how could you.....
Why?