Faction War population balancing needs addressing asap.
So it is very evident that after the vikings close success in the closed beta, then the open beta, that the masses have moved over to vikings to be sure of a reward at the end of the season. I took a screenshot of the current predicament where the vikings have pretty much taken over the entire map already but don't have anywhere to upload it as yet.. will see about linking it in later.
To this end, i'm going to leave this thread here and post the feedback i previously gave in the hope more time and effort can be spent looking into my suggestions and others which will follow. In one way or another, a balancing system needs to be implemented, the simplest and quickest of which would be point allocation ratio based on the differences in active populations.
- Low Morale and flipping sides: I love the concept as it means you are investing in your faction, however there is real potential for people to feel despondent about it the way it is. Everything hinges on the quantity of active players in the faction. Whilst this would surely in real life tip the balance in the higher hordes favour, in a game it can feel hopeless to fight against it, and some may give up entirely, whereas others may even switch sides.
- Rewards: If nothing changes, then i feel there will always have to be some kind of reward for the 'runners up' too. Otherwise too many will flip sides and make it even more hopeless to fight back. Also.. Show the rewards so people can see what they will get for investing their time in it, people need incentive.
- Front Bonus 20%: The front bonuses seem like a good idea to help push back the tide, however i'm not too clear on how that mechanic is activated (in terms of whether it is when you are on the defensive or attack). Knowing the parameters for this would help.
- Complication of Attack and Defend: One major qualm i have is never knowing whether it is more prudent to place my assets in defence or attack. I think it might be more advantageous for the masses to just have 1 conflict zone on the border which both sides deploy their assets to in a tug of war. I believe the way you have it lends itself to more strategy, but i think only a small percentage of the playerbase will care about any strategy, which means most will just haphazardly place their assets essentially dissolving any potential strategy. So i think it may benefit from the front being simplified.
- Improvement coordination: It would be great if there were an ingame way to communicate with your faction. It might be beneficial to have a community representative be the 'general' for a faction each season. Ingame, that member can highlight the regions they want us to focus on with an icon or a small statue of a warrior on the map. If they can place a statue in each front.. and maybe a third special statue to show the 'main focus', then more people might cooporate in deploying assets and feel like they are more invested. Ideally there would be another ingame UI page, where the general can update a status line of text to provide a 'headline update' to their faction, where they can encourage or plead for more support, or specify a target region etc.. Perhaps an active chat for that page and faction, and showing whether the general is online at that time or not.
Picking a General: I'm not sure what to suggest as to picking someone, as most people will complain. There could be seasonal competitions, and the winner becomes the general, Ubi could make an agreement with a twitch streamer or youtuber to be the general for the season, obviously they'd need to ensure that person did actively take part too, to adjust targets each 6 hours. Or maybe people could bid steel ingame to become the next general (failed bids returning steel to the character). I'm sure the community and you yourselves could think of many other ways to choose one too. Maybe even simply awarding general status to the player who committed the most assets overall in the previous season.
Essentially the more communication and cooperation which can be added to this metagame, the more invested players will become in it. It is a great idea, and i'm eager to see how it develops.
Though it has to be said, i'm very invested in it, but disheartened at the swarm of vikings as it is pushing us samurai way back. I feel pity for the knights as they seem to have the sharp end of the blade. The worrying thing is that if i'm disheartened.. i worry more about how much others would give up or switch sides and make it even more uneven.
Asset Ratios Balance: Balancing numbers is never going to work, there are always going to be more active in one faction than in another. One way to combat this is to give each faction a multiplier based on the ratio of active players in each faction. So if the ratio was { Knights 1 : Vikings 2 : Samurai 2 } Then the multiplier for Vikings and Samurai could remain at 1, but the knights could get a multiplier of 2 which gives them double the assets to deploy after their matches. This would provide a balance on deployed assets... but that would create a new problem, the map might never change. So that would require more strategy, which would tie in nicely in terms of deciding whether to invest in attack or defence. Which can lead to more isolated regions if both sides successfully attack but lose their defence.
I know i've written a lot so i'll stop there. 
Hopefully i've given some food for thought. Overall, loving it but hoping it grows into something more.
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