ZOS Low Pop Bonus Bug/Exploit throws Grayhost/NA campaign outcome with just over a day left

Dyngrin

ZOS, I'm sure all your customers (I'm ESO Plus but probably not much longer) enjoy playing a campaign for 30 days just to have your [snip] and buggy Low Pop Bonus (LPB) throw the outcome. AD is full pop for hours and then suddenly gets LPB (355 potential points). So, fix the bugs on the current LPB and replace your LPB with a proper Handicap system (see my many posts over the years). It might be a good idea to ask your customers how such a Handicap system could work (hint, look at many sports that have handicaps).

A proper Handicap system penalizes the person/faction that has an advantage, it doesn't give bonuses to what it thinks is the underdog (especially when then are 3 or more people/factions).

--Dyn

[edited for profanity bypass]

xylena_lazarow

Is it worse for the campaign to be decided by score rigging, or for the dominant faction to sit on a 10k lead for 3 weeks? We're probably stuck between these two outcomes until they fix PvP enough to where enough players come back that the server is evenly population for the majority of the day.

GlorphNoldorin

Factions have always dominated off peak. Nothing wrong with that, would be better if pop was even but no game mechanics are being affected. If low pop bonus is a bug or an exploit is a completely different matter and is not a solution for uneven population.

FinneganFroth

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

Is it worse for the campaign to be decided by score rigging, or for the dominant faction to sit on a 10k lead for 3 weeks? We're probably stuck between these two outcomes until they fix PvP enough to where enough players come back that the server is evenly population for the majority of the day.

Well one (the latter) is a real event, the former is a straight exploit. I'd side with the solution that doesn't allow exploits, duh.

EdmondDontes

We are about to have the third campaign in a row on PC NA be decided more by the broken low pop bonus than the actual players.

Minnesinger

If that helps with worries the points are correct. The low pop bonus is only on when there is no eval. It certainly seems to be broken anyways.

Theignson

This has been going on for ~ 6 months and has been posted many times. I've bugged it in game many times. Screenshots etc have been provided. ZOS has never acknowledged it and seems not to care.

On PC NA GH it is only AD getting these suspicious low pop bonuses. And, although sometimes it is before eval, they have gotten the full bonus for evals too.

Last night AD was poplocked all night but got the low pop bonus.

I have heard rumors that AD (which on this server often runs as mostly one huge group) has figured out how to trigger the low pop bonus by going into delves , or logging off en--mass briefly, etc.

But these are only rumors.

ONLY ZOS knows what is happening, and they aren't commenting.

But the campaign was super close going into the final hours and the whole thing has been ruined by this buggy and possibly exploited system.

biminirwb17_ESO

Maybe people should see when their faction gets low pop bonus so they can put the conspiracies to bed, DC had it almost all early morning two campaigns ago, EP had it almost all early morning last campaign.

The faction gets it because it had a lower population over time.

Maybe if guilds homed on other campaigns did not come to PC NA GH for a few hours a day after killing their own campaign the low pop bonus would not trip?

FinneganFroth

Theignson wrote: »

This has been going on for ~ 6 months and has been posted many times. I've bugged it in game many times. Screenshots etc have been provided. ZOS has never acknowledged it and seems not to care.

On PC NA GH it is only AD getting these suspicious low pop bonuses. And, although sometimes it is before eval, they have gotten the full bonus for evals too.

Last night AD was poplocked all night but got the low pop bonus.

I have heard rumors that AD (which on this server often runs as mostly one huge group) has figured out how to trigger the low pop bonus by going into delves , or logging off en--mass briefly, etc.

But these are only rumors.

ONLY ZOS knows what is happening, and they aren't commenting.

But the campaign was super close going into the final hours and the whole thing has been ruined by this buggy and possibly exploited system.

This is the most frustrating part of it to me. Whether it's just [snip] code or a true exploit, the lack of response by ZOS is unbelievable. Even something like "we know it's [snip] code, we are sorry, we are looking into it" would be better than just ignoring their customer base.

Well, GG on 30 hard fought days. Goodbye winning rewards.

[edited for profanity bypass]

Theignson

FinneganFroth wrote: »

Theignson wrote: »

This has been going on for ~ 6 months and has been posted many times. I've bugged it in game many times. Screenshots etc have been provided. ZOS has never acknowledged it and seems not to care.

On PC NA GH it is only AD getting these suspicious low pop bonuses. And, although sometimes it is before eval, they have gotten the full bonus for evals too.

Last night AD was poplocked all night but got the low pop bonus.

I have heard rumors that AD (which on this server often runs as mostly one huge group) has figured out how to trigger the low pop bonus by going into delves , or logging off en--mass briefly, etc.

But these are only rumors.

ONLY ZOS knows what is happening, and they aren't commenting.

But the campaign was super close going into the final hours and the whole thing has been ruined by this buggy and possibly exploited system.

This is the most frustrating part of it to me. Whether it's just [snip] code or a true exploit, the lack of response by ZOS is unbelievable. Even something like "we know it's [snip] code, we are sorry, we are looking into it" would be better than just ignoring their customer base.

Well, GG on 30 hard fought days. Goodbye winning rewards.

I personally don't care about the rewards. It's the principle that counts. If you are going to have a scoring system, it has to be fair and transparent. ZOS did something, at some point, to even out the scores to compensate for low populations. Whatever they did, is neither transparent nor fair. It is either buggy or exploitable.

I mean, there is no good way to fix nightcapping and low populations. You can't penalize your aussie or east asia players. If they all want to join one faction, so be it.

It results in what is supposed to be a competitive envornomnet, turning into 10 v 1-- unlike any sport or game, ever. But I don't see a fix.

I think ZOS should just scrap whatever they did to implement low pop bonus.

[edited to remove quote]

EdmondDontes

Theignson wrote: »

This has been going on for ~ 6 months and has been posted many times. I've bugged it in game many times. Screenshots etc have been provided. ZOS has never acknowledged it and seems not to care.

On PC NA GH it is only AD getting these suspicious low pop bonuses. And, although sometimes it is before eval, they have gotten the full bonus for evals too.

Last night AD was poplocked all night but got the low pop bonus.

I have heard rumors that AD (which on this server often runs as mostly one huge group) has figured out how to trigger the low pop bonus by going into delves , or logging off en--mass briefly, etc.

But these are only rumors.

ONLY ZOS knows what is happening, and they aren't commenting.

But the campaign was super close going into the final hours and the whole thing has been ruined by this buggy and possibly exploited system.

I have not seen any evidence of exploiting the low pop bonus by any faction, although I agree that it does seem like one faction gets the bonus more than others to me.

I think the problem is the low pop bonus algorithm was designed to work with population caps of 500/faction. So when they lowered the population caps to 75/faction the algorithm just doesn't work properly anymore. But how hard is it to adjust a math equation on a computer anyway? Seriously? Maybe two minutes to adjust the values so the algorithm will work again? Or, as you say, they could just eliminate the low pop bonus all together. That would be even easier.

BlakMarket

Apparently AD have found a way to leave instance at their home gate PC/NA, but not leave Cyrodil to trigger low pop. It's pretty crazy how often they get low pop, even with the higher pop.

Around 8-10 hours ago, Ad was 3 barred both Dc and Ep were 2 barred - Ad had low pop bonus in second place with both of their scrolls. Go figure.

I dont really care if my faction wins, just as long as the scores are close and not one faction winning by 10k+ I'm happy but there is clearly an exploit or bug happening.

Thunda

@ZOS_BillE @ZOS_Kevin
Players have been asking about COMMUNICATION from ZOS on this possible Exploit.
As mentioned in this post and multiple other posts, any communication in response to reported bugs and other game issues does so much more than silence.
Thank you.

FannyWarden

AD here. Just waited over an hour for GH queue and finally got in and see we have low pop bonus with an hour to go. We don't want this either. Even if we win, its tainted. If people are doing something to exploit, its not in guild chat.

FinneganFroth

FannyWarden wrote: »

AD here. Just waited over an hour for GH queue and finally got in and see we have low pop bonus with an hour to go. We don't want this either. Even if we win, its tainted. If people are doing something to exploit, its not in guild chat.

Thanks for the update. It's really disappointing that's things are going down like this.

maxjapank

I wonder if the low population bonus isn't just factoring in the population, but how many resources the faction owns over time? Could explain why one faction that has been gated for hours on end receives a bonus. It isn't the first time in the history of games/sports that something has been changed without public knowledge. Japanese baseball secretly changed their ball design because of a decrease in homeruns.

Kwoung

maxjapank wrote: »

I wonder if the low population bonus isn't just factoring in the population, but how many resources the faction owns over time? Could explain why one faction that has been gated for hours on end receives a bonus. It isn't the first time in the history of games/sports that something has been changed without public knowledge. Japanese baseball secretly changed their ball design because of a decrease in homeruns.

Doubtful, because on the campaign that just ended for PCNA GH, EP won due to a low pop bonus kicking in 2x today, vaulting them from last place to an uncatchable lead. The entire time they owned over half the map. AD would have won, but their low pop bonus which seemed to stay up a lot and often, kept falling off just before the score eval each time. I saw DC get a low pop bonus also once yesterday (well all 3 factions had it at the time actually), but it only lasted for about 10-15 minutes.

The fact it ruins the effort you put in for 30 days is bad enough, but AP is a game currency... So why exactly is one faction able to earn their AP (while pop-locked and winning the campaign) at a rate 2x faster than everyone else? I am pretty sure if players were duping gold due to some bug or exploit, it would be addressed immediately, why isn't this?

biminirwb17_ESO

People are assuming the UI for populations is correct, we know this is not the case. How many times have you logged into a pop locked faction immediately? I have many, many times.

How many times have you looked at the population UI to see every faction at 1 bar when you know this is not the case because you just lost a fight to 90 opponents?

PC NA GH was a fun campaign, lots of lead changes. There was a change in the early morning dominant faction every few days and nobody was sure of victory till the last hours.

Isn't this what we all want?

Kiira

I've seen ALL of the factions get an unfair "low pop" bonus and get more points then they should have this campaign. Its how EP pulled a win. It is not only AD and we are not sitting at our gate trying to exploit it.... lol. Most of the time when I play, not only are the low pop bonuses seemingly buggy, but so are the population bars. It will tell me we are 2 bars and tell someone else we are one bar. Meanwhile I am running around the map frantically trying to figure out why I see only 8 other players PvPing. The population and ques have been broken awhile. The low pop bonus has been bugged awhile. And I do find it kind of funny there is so much finger pointing at AD, when everyone has had the bonus, and we all have seen the bugged population bars. The uneven population on non primetime hours makes the game boring. Having a bugged system for said population unbalances makes it even worse. Then we have these folks screaming random accusations about us exploiting at the gate, which is funny since we are constantly at our tri keeps trying to def against 2 other factions who refuse to fight each other.

BlakMarket

biminirwb17_ESO wrote: »

People are assuming the UI for populations is correct, we know this is not the case. How many times have you logged into a pop locked faction immediately? I have many, many times.

How many times have you looked at the population UI to see every faction at 1 bar when you know this is not the case because you just lost a fight to 90 opponents?

PC NA GH was a fun campaign, lots of lead changes. There was a change in the early morning dominant faction every few days and nobody was sure of victory till the last hours.

Isn't this what we all want?

I agree with the close scores, I'm not fussed with who wins but seeing AD constantly getting low pop is ridiculous at this point.

biminirwb17_ESO

As was stated earlier in the thread ALL factions were getting low pop bonuses, in fact it was stated EP won the campaign because they got a bonus at a fortunate time.

Can we please stop the puerile faction x is cheating or faction y is magically disappearing up Uncle Sheo's backside stuff.

The bonuses are screwy, but all factions have benefitted or been hurt by this.

BlakMarket

Kiira wrote: »

I've seen ALL of the factions get an unfair "low pop" bonus and get more points then they should have this campaign. Its how EP pulled a win. It is not only AD and we are not sitting at our gate trying to exploit it.... lol. Most of the time when I play, not only are the low pop bonuses seemingly buggy, but so are the population bars. It will tell me we are 2 bars and tell someone else we are one bar. Meanwhile I am running around the map frantically trying to figure out why I see only 8 other players PvPing. The population and ques have been broken awhile. The low pop bonus has been bugged awhile. And I do find it kind of funny there is so much finger pointing at AD, when everyone has had the bonus, and we all have seen the bugged population bars. The uneven population on non primetime hours makes the game boring. Having a bugged system for said population unbalances makes it even worse. Then we have these folks screaming random accusations about us exploiting at the gate, which is funny since we are constantly at our tri keeps trying to def against 2 other factions who refuse to fight each other.

I pvp almost daily, and only really see Ad with low pop. Also the only reason Ad gets gated and camped nearing end of camp is because both factions know you guys will get low pop and pull ahead in points. I agree with pop bugs, but I also hear a rumor of an exploit from someone on Ad.

Playing for maybe 8-10hrs of the last 24hrs of the most recent camp PC/NA, I watched Ad get low pop 4-5 times - once literally when they were the highest pop.

maxjapank

BlakMarket wrote: »

Kiira wrote: »

I've seen ALL of the factions get an unfair "low pop" bonus and get more points then they should have this campaign. Its how EP pulled a win. It is not only AD and we are not sitting at our gate trying to exploit it.... lol. Most of the time when I play, not only are the low pop bonuses seemingly buggy, but so are the population bars. It will tell me we are 2 bars and tell someone else we are one bar. Meanwhile I am running around the map frantically trying to figure out why I see only 8 other players PvPing. The population and ques have been broken awhile. The low pop bonus has been bugged awhile. And I do find it kind of funny there is so much finger pointing at AD, when everyone has had the bonus, and we all have seen the bugged population bars. The uneven population on non primetime hours makes the game boring. Having a bugged system for said population unbalances makes it even worse. Then we have these folks screaming random accusations about us exploiting at the gate, which is funny since we are constantly at our tri keeps trying to def against 2 other factions who refuse to fight each other.

I pvp almost daily, and only really see Ad with low pop. Also the only reason Ad gets gated and camped nearing end of camp is because both factions know you guys will get low pop and pull ahead in points. I agree with pop bugs, but I also hear a rumor of an exploit from someone on Ad.

Playing for maybe 8-10hrs of the last 24hrs of the most recent camp PC/NA, I watched Ad get low pop 4-5 times - once literally when they were the highest pop.

There is no one exploiting the population bonus. Everyone is mystified by it. I've been around since the beginning and I'd think I would've heard about an exploit if there was one. Some of you really have some crazy conspiracy theories. Makes me wonder what theories you have in every day life.

BlakMarket

maxjapank wrote: »

BlakMarket wrote: »

Kiira wrote: »

I've seen ALL of the factions get an unfair "low pop" bonus and get more points then they should have this campaign. Its how EP pulled a win. It is not only AD and we are not sitting at our gate trying to exploit it.... lol. Most of the time when I play, not only are the low pop bonuses seemingly buggy, but so are the population bars. It will tell me we are 2 bars and tell someone else we are one bar. Meanwhile I am running around the map frantically trying to figure out why I see only 8 other players PvPing. The population and ques have been broken awhile. The low pop bonus has been bugged awhile. And I do find it kind of funny there is so much finger pointing at AD, when everyone has had the bonus, and we all have seen the bugged population bars. The uneven population on non primetime hours makes the game boring. Having a bugged system for said population unbalances makes it even worse. Then we have these folks screaming random accusations about us exploiting at the gate, which is funny since we are constantly at our tri keeps trying to def against 2 other factions who refuse to fight each other.

I pvp almost daily, and only really see Ad with low pop. Also the only reason Ad gets gated and camped nearing end of camp is because both factions know you guys will get low pop and pull ahead in points. I agree with pop bugs, but I also hear a rumor of an exploit from someone on Ad.

Playing for maybe 8-10hrs of the last 24hrs of the most recent camp PC/NA, I watched Ad get low pop 4-5 times - once literally when they were the highest pop.

There is no one exploiting the population bonus. Everyone is mystified by it. I've been around since the beginning and I'd think I would've heard about an exploit if there was one. Some of you really have some crazy conspiracy theories. Makes me wonder what theories you have in every day life.

Don't think its a crazy conspiracy, all I heard was people have been mass porting into the hammer quest instance to trigger low pop. I didn't really want to mention it, but there you go.

AgentZenish

The idea that AD has the coordination to mass port people in to delves/cheesemongers at the same time is hilarious as we can barely coordinate people to one pvp objective. The AD Faction is just as confused as everyone else.

This is clearly some kind of bug.

WhiteCoatSyndrome

EdmondDontes wrote: »

But how hard is it to adjust a math equation on a computer anyway? Seriously? Maybe two minutes to adjust the values so the algorithm will work again? Or, as you say, they could just eliminate the low pop bonus all together. That would be even easier.

Depends how spaghetti the code is. Changing one value if you know what value to change and where could be trivial, not counting time for testing etc. But if you don’t know what value you need to change, or where it is in the codebase, finding that one value and all its various side effects can be nightmarish in a big codebase. Good coding practices and documentation can help with this, and it gets a little better if you’ve got someone on hand who worked in that area of the code you can pester. Not sure if ZOS has anything along those lines.

AgentZenish wrote: »

The idea that AD has the coordination to mass port people in to delves/cheesemongers at the same time is hilarious as we can barely coordinate people to one pvp objective. The AD Faction is just as confused as everyone else.

This is clearly some kind of bug.

Very much this.

Kwoung

AgentZenish wrote: »

The idea that AD has the coordination to mass port people in to delves/cheesemongers at the same time is hilarious as we can barely coordinate people to one pvp objective. The AD Faction is just as confused as everyone else.

This is clearly some kind of bug.

I was fighting AD for 3 days straight for the most part, since EP was almost nowhere to be found, the final fight I had yesterday was very common. We were taking the resources around Blackboot to add a few more points in case a AD low pop bonus kicked in again (we wanted to make sure it wouldn't put us in last place)... and about 40 AD stormed the resource to kill us. Every decent fight we had was with 30-50 AD, most of which came from 2 main guilds. So saying AD doesn't work together is not accurate, there were the same 2-3 guilds I saw in almost large every fight.

Not accusing them, just saying there are definitely enough folks who can coordinate in voice chat easily enough if it was being done on purpose, and it probably doesn't even take that many due to the low pop caps anyways. Heck, maybe they all went to get a delve buff every 30 min and that caused it for all we know.

Minnesinger

Kwoung wrote: »

AgentZenish wrote: »

The idea that AD has the coordination to mass port people in to delves/cheesemongers at the same time is hilarious as we can barely coordinate people to one pvp objective. The AD Faction is just as confused as everyone else.

This is clearly some kind of bug.

I was fighting AD for 3 days straight for the most part, since EP was almost nowhere to be found, the final fight I had yesterday was very common. We were taking the resources around Blackboot to add a few more points in case a AD low pop bonus kicked in again (we wanted to make sure it wouldn't put us in last place)... and about 40 AD stormed the resource to kill us. Every decent fight we had was with 30-50 AD, most of which came from 2 main guilds. So saying AD doesn't work together is not accurate, there were the same 2-3 guilds I saw in almost large every fight.

Not accusing them, just saying there are definitely enough folks who can coordinate in voice chat easily enough if it was being done on purpose, and it probably doesn't even take that many due to the low pop caps anyways. Heck, maybe they all went to get a delve buff every 30 min and that caused it for all we know.

You really sure the population can be manipulated? I wish we could get ZOS to acknowledge the issue. Explain what is the issue. maybe then all this tin foil nonsense [snip] could be put to death. As far as I think, there will be no official explanation, which is sad.

[edited for profanity bypass]

BlakMarket

AgentZenish wrote: »

The idea that AD has the coordination to mass port people in to delves/cheesemongers at the same time is hilarious as we can barely coordinate people to one pvp objective. The AD Faction is just as confused as everyone else.

This is clearly some kind of bug.

I dont know about that, imo Ad consistently has the most guilds running PC/NA, not pointing finger at them at all & I dont know if they co-ordinate between each other, Im guessing they would in some capacity in Ad zone chat but not in VC for map objectives.

Delphinia

Kwoung wrote: »

AgentZenish wrote: »

The idea that AD has the coordination to mass port people in to delves/cheesemongers at the same time is hilarious as we can barely coordinate people to one pvp objective. The AD Faction is just as confused as everyone else.

This is clearly some kind of bug.

I was fighting AD for 3 days straight for the most part, since EP was almost nowhere to be found, the final fight I had yesterday was very common. We were taking the resources around Blackboot to add a few more points in case a AD low pop bonus kicked in again (we wanted to make sure it wouldn't put us in last place)... and about 40 AD stormed the resource to kill us. Every decent fight we had was with 30-50 AD, most of which came from 2 main guilds. So saying AD doesn't work together is not accurate, there were the same 2-3 guilds I saw in almost large every fight.

Not accusing them, just saying there are definitely enough folks who can coordinate in voice chat easily enough if it was being done on purpose, and it probably doesn't even take that many due to the low pop caps anyways. Heck, maybe they all went to get a delve buff every 30 min and that caused it for all we know.

Kwoung, for the record, I have played this "game" since beta, albeit I haven't been nearly as active on the forums as some.
However, in all the years I have played, not once have I seen the type of complaints and accusations about another faction receiving low pop bonus, at least not to the level of what I've recently read. I have seen questionable low pop bonus given to all factions over the years, but we just joke about it in zone and move on.
However, as I said, I haven't been very active on the forums, so I quite possibly missed a post. Apologies if so.

As @Kiira very well pointed out, "The low pop bonus has been bugged awhile. And I do find it kind of funny there is so much finger pointing at AD, when everyone has had the bonus, and we all have seen the bugged population bars." I am sorry you and some others feel the need to accuse AD of something that has obviously been a benefit to all three factions from time to time over the years.

Since you brought it up and say "30-50" AD "stormed" a resource to kill your small group. If the numbers, as you say, are accurate, I would like to point out that it's likely that they were only there in mass to defend or retake a keep. As I've often seen from DC and EP as well. I only wish we had this "30-50" AD with so much time on their hands they were able to defend resources and keeps from the double faction stacks.

However, again, if the numbers were accurate, this might make sense due to the last few nights. As you I'm sure are aware (per your statement about fighting AD for "3 days straight") AD has been pushed to their gates practically nightly over the last few days. It is highly likely that as there would be very few places for AD to go, that might attribute to the attention (as you say you saw) to those resources.

Now, what I have seen is DC and EP gate AD (during the time you specified), especially the last few days. I have seen DC pop a tent right outside our gates, killing off any AD attempts to retake tri keeps. Obviously things change, but years ago, some players and leads refrained from doing this as it entirely killed morale and caused that faction to just log. It also shows poor sportsmanship and lack of maturity. Which I'm going out on a limb here, hopefully that's not what you want correct?

As far as low pop, if there is anything going on, which again, as some have tried to convince us of, there would be huge communications zone wide to try and coordinate anything like that. It's just not that deep. If anyone is doing it, they've also done it on EP and DC. That could be why many of us on AD were laughing about it over the years when it was handed out to the other factions seemingly under questionable circumstances. Again, I just move on and play.

Now, do people in this game exploit? Sure they do. Yes, feel free to call it out when you see something. But, I have to say, since 2014, I have yet to see or hear of any attempts at manipulating this low pop bonus from AD side. And definitely not to the zone wide scale that is being accused here. That does not mean it never happened. But, I find it difficult to believe that in all the various time slots/days/hours/months/years, I would have not even heard a whispering of it.

If that were the case, and we really had the "30-50" AD to coordinate, all stack a resource, and waste their time to come out to kill you, trust me, you would see AD win campaign after campaign and never be gated to the blatant and gross display that it has been. Watching EP take DC's scroll and yet AD still be gated? That would not happen if what is being accused were the case. I'd love to see 30-50 AD have that many players and that much organization to be able to and have so much time on their hands to take resources and concoct such a diabolical plan lol.
At that point, there would be no question.
At that point, you would not have to scratch your head wondering what was going on.

biminirwb17_ESO

The reason DC did not win the campaign (NA PC GH) was that they were too worried about coming last, they chose a red herring about the evil AD abusing the system over getting points off the winning faction.

The irony is EP won because they got the 300+ plus evaluations from the low pop bonus sharing the map with DC