Low Population Bonus Issues

Lava_Croft · December 2014

AD is having its usual low population bonus again. This time its a paltry 500+ points per hour. This is completely nullifying all the hard work that the filthy Smurfs have done to gain the lead.

@ZOS_GinaBruno‌ Could you please pressure the people in charge of this mechanic to look at it again? Thanks in advance!

Hermod · December 2014

Blues take the lead, Yellows get a Low Population Bonus

Lava_Croft · December 2014

Hermod wrote: »

Blues take the lead, Yellows get a Low Population Bonus

Yup. And in case this wasn't clear, AD seems to have the most people online too.

bertenburnyb16_ESO · December 2014

@ZOS
if it is working as intended.... what *** where you guys smoking when concieving this system...? there is no logic behind it to give the alliance with generally the second highest pop (max1 bar behind the largest pop side, and the same as the 3th side, but usually staying at that lvl for a longer time) a bonus of 500 to 1000 points ...
plz tell me how it is supposed to be working? i really want to know

Thudunblundur · December 2014

I watched the population bars for a while yesterday afternoon and noticed that AD were on 1 bar when EP and DC were 2 bars. Didn't dare log in - didn't want to make their bonus possibly worse. Went and played Rome Total War 2. Seems it's been upgraded since I last played!

-
Anyway, AD were lowest pop for at least a while yesterday. Thing is, last campaign, DC were in the position AD are as described above, a LOT. And NEVER got a bonus.

It now appears that either the bonus system is out of control, OR that certain AD players have realized that no action will be taken against them and have stopped bothering to try to hide their abuse of the system.

Dalglish · December 2014

Could it be the case that through the night, there is a much bigger EP/DC population, so they are literally forcing the numbers to low pop at certain times?

People need to realise this is computer mechanics, it is not going to work in favour of one alliance. I highly doubt there is a separate calculation for AD compared to DC and EP.

In all probability, the systems in place don't differentiate or indeed care about alliances; they just calculate in accordance to raw numbers over x time.

Thudunblundur · December 2014

Yes. And always in favour of one faction. The faction which has won the last 3 campaigns on Thorn EU.

edit: And that is very rarely lower population than the other factions according to the population bars.

AbraXuSeXile · December 2014

So no low pop bonus while AD have an hefty lead, Then DC push it to the limit's and get some nice points then the low pop bonus shows up?

If there's 40 people online with each faction at 4am. If one faction has a raid and tells everyone to be out of cyrodiil at evalution time then travel to player back inside after it ends, this could be a case of how it's working.

I'll put my tinfoil hat on for this now. Just looks way too obvious now.

r.jan_emailb16_ESO · December 2014

Few days ago, AD got low pop bonus while stealing scrolls and conquering keeps all over the place. Seems legit.

Rumors are that a lot of them log off just before score evaluation... who knows.

Dalglish · December 2014

I've been online when DC had the same pop bonus.

It's nowhere near the scale that AD get the bonus, but the fact they got it seems to point to something, somewhere, that there is a mechanism that doesn't care about which faction it gives the bonus to.

I'm not at all defending the bonuses, they are crazy at times.

But from a programming background, I do believe there has to be some sort of working mechanic for one of the CS guys to leave it at 'we see no problems'. Although, understandably, this is ZoS :P.

Thudunblundur · December 2014

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

So no low pop bonus while AD have an hefty lead, Then DC push it to the limit's and get some nice points then the low pop bonus shows up?

If there's 40 people online with each faction at 4am. If one faction has a raid and tells everyone to be out of cyrodiil at evalution time then travel to player back inside after it ends, this could be a case of how it's working.

I'll put my tinfoil hat on for this now. Just looks way too obvious now.

This is why I no longer play, really. It feels the game is rigged and whether it is or not that wrecks any motivation: If you log in to Cyrodiil, you are rewarding AD cheats. Who wants to do that?

Thudunblundur · December 2014

Dalglish wrote: »

I've been online when DC had the same pop bonus.

It's nowhere near the scale that AD get the bonus, but the fact they got it seems to point to something, somewhere, that there is a mechanism that doesn't care about which faction it gives the bonus to.

I'm not at all defending the bonuses, they are crazy at times.

But from a programming background, I do believe there has to be some sort of working mechanic for one of the CS guys to leave it at 'we see no problems'. Although, understandably, this is ZoS :P.

If I remember right, there have been reports of a single bonus for DC just after the launch of the low pop bonus from Haderus, and the same from Thorn. Other than that nothing.

AD on Thornblade EU got in excess of 7000 bonus points last campaign and must be past 3,000 in this one. I have not seen any claims that DC or EP received a bonus at any time during the last campaign.

Finally, DC were the lowest population faction in that campaign as far as it is possible to tell from watching the population bars. That their population was very close to that of AD is likely, since AD and DC were usually on the same population bars but AD would generally go up a bar first and down last.

AbraXuSeXile · December 2014

I suggest EP and DC just attack AD to there homebase everytime they get the low pop bonus.

Lettigall · December 2014

Hermod wrote: »

Blues take the lead, Yellows get a Low Population Bonus

Working as intended!!! And no doubt that it gonna work as intended whenever AD needs to gain score!

Thudunblundur · December 2014

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

I suggest EP and DC just attack AD to there homebase everytime they get the low pop bonus.

Unfortunately it seems that this simply increases their bonus from the 400-900 point range to the 900-1500 point range. Per hour.

AbraXuSeXile · December 2014

4x? Points x 0 = 0

Thudunblundur · December 2014

If we pushed them there and held them there? Yes. Heck, I'd go back for that! Went to have a look at the map just now. DC pushing EP for Chalman. I'm not sure there are many blues left who play for the campaign. It's just the people who are there for the fight, any fight.

edit: Oh - red DO hold one of our scrolls, so there is a good reason for attacking reds.

Turelus · December 2014

Hell Camp AD! :disagree:

AbraXuSeXile · December 2014

Once DC has there scroll back i guarantee yellows will be pushed.

Haxnschwammer · December 2014

I put some thoughts into this issue. AFAIK this bonus happens at early morning.
At night there are onl a few poeple on, so it's easier to manipulate the pop values.

Basics:

Low population bonus kicks in when a faction has significant lower poeple than
the others.

Let's have a look at this assumption:
a * 2 < (b + c) / 2
faction a needs to be at half than average of the other both

50 50 50 equal
25 50 50 faction a is at half than average -> bonus for a
25 25 75 faction a is at half than average, as is b -> bonus for a and b

At night I assume there are on all factions 25 people on. To achieve a bonus
enemy factions have to gain:
25 25+25 25+25 => 50 more poeple

The numbers if you need to be at 33%
a * 1,5 < (b + c) / 2
50 50 50
33 50 50 faction a is at 66% than average -> bonus for a
33 33 67 faction a is at 66% than average, as is b -> bonus for a and b

Needed persons on enemy side:
25 25+12 25+12 => 24 people.

In this case just 24 more are needed to proc low pop bonus.

So for a big guild it's easy to bring a handfull poeple to guest into campain
on enemy factions. It's just a single raid. They will split forces to get both factions to higher pop values, for intel and more.
While on enemy campaign they don't attack their own castles, they defend them.
If EP attacks DC alts attack, when DC attacks, EP alts attack.
Of course, as real pop is equal, they could stand somewhere doing nothing, just
be staying in game by a macro...
As soon bonus is there(after what I could see it procs after 4 hours) they relog
to AD mains, gather more people and try to flip the map.

This is all a theory, but it seems plausible to me.
That also explains why ZOS said it's working as intended, there has been
higher population on enemy side...

Turelus · December 2014

So @AbraXuSeXile ... is this actually the official founding of purple alliance now? Because... you know that makes people cry and whine right? :disagree:

Any way, time for some more daily tags, might tweet again later today.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GInaBruno @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_LenaicR‌

Any news at all? Anything to say for an additional bunch of pages, comments and threats about how people are angry at this system and it's bad enough to cause entire guilds to stop doing PVP now?

Maybe I am on a universal ignore list for the developers and community managers now... :disagree:

AbraXuSeXile · December 2014

If Zenimax won't fix the system, Let's fix it ourselves and give AD no points.

Thudunblundur · December 2014

Read your most interesting post Haxnschwammer and thought that yes, this fits very well with what we have been seeing.

Edit: It suggests that we need a ban on playing for multiple factions in a campaign. If you are DC for a month as your main campaign, you cannot play EP or AD in that campaign. At the end or start of each campaign you could switch, but not during a campaign.

edit: typos

Thudunblundur · December 2014

Incidentally, thank you Turelus for keeping this issue live. I've recently gone back over this and other threads and had not realized how much effort you have put in and patience you have shown!

AbraXuSeXile · December 2014

Low pop bonus usually procs when it's a unholy hour, Which is easy for a raid to manipulate as they probably have 75% of the population on.

Thudunblundur · December 2014

...I've realized that the only way to stop people logging in alts that belong to enemy factions is to ban it altogether. You choose your faction and that's it. You cannot then log in to Cyrodiil as a member of the other factions. It's the only way to stop this sort of abuse. As I remember this was pointed out months ago (not by me).

Turelus · December 2014

Thudunblundur wrote: »

Incidentally, thank you Turelus for keeping this issue live. I've recently gone back over this and other threads and had not realized how much effort you have put in and patience you have shown!

I try my best. I will admit I haven't been the most stable or polite person always, but if ZOS turn up and speak I wont trash, harass or be rude with them.
I'm really open to a honest and polite debate on the subject, I'm just insanely frustrated right now with the lack of anything from them.

Thudunblundur · December 2014

Turelus wrote: »

Thudunblundur wrote: »

Incidentally, thank you Turelus for keeping this issue live. I've recently gone back over this and other threads and had not realized how much effort you have put in and patience you have shown!

I try my best. I will admit I haven't been the most stable or polite person always, but if ZOS turn up and speak I wont trash, harass or be rude with them.
I'm really open to a honest and polite debate on the subject, I'm just insanely frustrated right now with the lack of anything from them.

chuckle. I certainly don't believe in shooting the messenger!

Thudunblundur · December 2014

I do, however think that when Haxnschwammer has shown them how the low population could easily be manipulated even if it is working exactly as intended, that some acknowledgement is in order. We'll see.

Until then, I suppose I'd better create an AD character and get him to level 10, ready to sit him in the AD Home area and get on with something else...

cazlonb16_ESO · December 2014

Thudunblundur wrote: »

...I've realized that the only way to stop people logging in alts that belong to enemy factions is to ban it altogether. You choose your faction and that's it. You cannot then log in to Cyrodiil as a member of the other factions. It's the only way to stop this sort of abuse. As I remember this was pointed out months ago (not by me).

You already can't login with different faction characters into the same campaign. I can't anyway,I guess there might be a way around it if you go looking for it though.