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https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/668861

Population Balance in PVP

amadeus001
Hey guys i play N/a Grey host. I have noticed enormous poluation imbalance for more than a year. Some factions are beating the others by up to 10000 points a campaign. I think this is just not fair and separately i think the developers or something need to happen to return population balance. For examply i wouldnt mind coming in 3rd if for example Developers published hours played per campaign by each faction. One might go we were down on hours so that it why that happened. I am sick of being zerged campaign after campaign. I don't mind being outnumbers, but every login being beaten x 3 to 4 times you numbers makes PVE looking better gaming.
  • olsborg
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    Also nightcapping is an issue. It should be half points gained after midnight and until 06 am.

    PC EU
    PvP only
  • Brrrofski
    Brrrofski
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    olsborg wrote: »
    Also nightcapping is an issue. It should be half points gained after midnight and until 06 am.

    Midnight and 6am where?

    East coast? West coast? Australia? UK? Russia?

    There's a lot of different time zones.
  • SaffronCitrusflower
    SaffronCitrusflower
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    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.
  • LarsS
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    Much of the problem with the campaigns beeing won at times when the population is very low could have been solved by ZOS long ago.

    Seven years ago we were a large group of pvp players with different interests and servers, who made a written proposal to ZOS and also had a discussion with then. Our most important proposal were that campaign points should depend on the number of players online. The suggestion would have given very few campaign points at times when a campaign is largely empty. Many players have suggested simmilar solutions over the years sadly ZOS never listend.

    Maybe ZOS recent willingness to listen to the customers could change this.

    GM for The Daggerfall Authority EU PC
  • maxjapank
    maxjapank
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    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.

    This is true. Having a low population cap also makes it harder for unorganized pugs to take on an optimized 12-man ball group, too. Sure, the organized group should demolish, but if the entire faction is stuck in one area, then there aren’t enough to get anything done elsewhere. In addition, the population of AD during Oceanic hours is way down right now. Sunday night we had 2 bar pop trying to defend against both a full pop DC and a full pop EP. AD just doesn’t have the numbers to defend against the full populations of two factions. I ask DC and EP players to think about the health of a campaign and realize that players will quit if this continues.
  • LarsS
    LarsS
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    maxjapank wrote: »
    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.

    This is true. Having a low population cap also makes it harder for unorganized pugs to take on an optimized 12-man ball group, too. Sure, the organized group should demolish, but if the entire faction is stuck in one area, then there aren’t enough to get anything done elsewhere. In addition, the population of AD during Oceanic hours is way down right now. Sunday night we had 2 bar pop trying to defend against both a full pop DC and a full pop EP. AD just doesn’t have the numbers to defend against the full populations of two factions. I ask DC and EP players to think about the health of a campaign and realize that players will quit if this continues.

    We are a few on the DC side who try point out to people that its not good for the campaign to push on the least populated alliance, there is already more AD on Blackreach than on Gray Host on PC/EU.
    GM for The Daggerfall Authority EU PC
  • Tommy_The_Gun
    Tommy_The_Gun
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    Brrrofski wrote: »
    olsborg wrote: »
    Also nightcapping is an issue. It should be half points gained after midnight and until 06 am.

    Midnight and 6am where?

    East coast? West coast? Australia? UK? Russia?

    There's a lot of different time zones.
    It could be based on population difference. It would require to re-scale the population bar (3 bars to lets say 10 bars, so what is now a 3 bar population would be a 10 bar population). If one faction "night caps" and other are empty, potential points gained by capturing objectives would be reduced by 2x, 3x, 5x, or 10x, depending on population difference.

    Example: curently a faction gets 1 point for capturing an objective or 10 points for capturing an enemy Elder Scroll. This is doubled for owning home objectives (2 points for owning a keep or 20 for owning Elder Scroll behind gates).

    With the population difference taken into account, lets say if AD population is locked and they capture DC objective, while DC population is empty, then they will get 10x less potential points, so in order to get at least one point, they will have to capture 10 objectives that way. Capturing a "dead faction's" Elder Scroll would also give you 10x less points, so 1 instead of 10. This is the most "Drastic" example however. For the most part, during so called "night cap" the population difference would be not that great and will give 2x, 3x or 5x less points.

    The "penalty" will be attached to the objective. The game will remember what was the population difference (attackers vs defenders faction) when objective was captured. So, in order to remove the penalty, one would need to lose the objective and re-take it when populations are more or less equall. This of course would not affect faction's home objectives (home keeps & resources, Scroll etc) and Allaiance Points gain would not be affected. Only potential points.
  • TechMaybeHic
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    Campaigns are really won on off hours. When all sides are pop locked, it varies from being pretty even to each side taking turns being the focus of the other 2. The times when its not locked, people gravitate mostly to whats easy so it gets uneven. There would have to be a design consideration to even attempt to address it, and they are not going to until performance is done if you take them at their word. So; I'd probably not count on it
  • Telel
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    The current lack of population for one team or another is an issue being exasperated by a few factors.

    One is all the AFK people just standing around until prime time. These naturally bloat the population numbers, and cost actual players a potential low pop bonus. This issue has only gotten more obvious as the population cap has been decreased.

    Then there are the scrubs who engage in some truly toxic, and abusive behaviors. These people are also taking up space that could be used by actual people.

    Right now on grayhost NA/PC there are some scrubs who've begun to get more and more blatant in their shenanigans. To the point it's very obvious that there's a good deal of score boosting occurring.

    Which is a form of cheating and has led to some large mass bans in the past. At least once it got to blatant to ignore.

    As an example....

    Just the other day on Gray Host. AD was in third, had 2 bars of pop while EP was pop locked, and missing scrolls. DC was in 1st, had EP's scrolls. Oh, and DC also had emperor.

    So Naturally there was a group of 'skilled' EP at fare running around in a bot train attacking the ungrouped AD. Outside of Fare more EP on 'good' builds were troll sieging. Each group of EP outnumbered the AD who were at the keep.

    They just kept it lit and farmed randoms. Never really making an attempt to hold the keep.

    Meanwhile a couple dozen DC were pvdooring AD keeps with an obvious attempt to get a scroll or two. When they turned up at Fare both groups avoided each other. In some cases running through or alongside one another as they chased down various AD..

    All of which we've seen a lot of over the last couple of months.

    I've also got a couple clips where we catch EP standing around a DC player as they're sieging. The EP then guard the DC as he continues to siege. It's almost always the same handful of names as well.

    Sadly posting videos of any of it here will result in someone being punished for 'naming and shaming'. XD

    Now, imagine if ZOS was more proactive in dealing with both AFKers, and the scrubs who're trying to pad their scores. It wouldn't fix some of the staleness of cyrodiil But it would remove some of the more toxic elements that tends to drive newer or more casual players away.
    Character: Telel
    Class: Night Blade-Werewolf-viking-ninja-catgirl-mallet wielder
    Past times: Refusing to go full magika spec, hitting things with a big hammer, sniping, and speaking in khajiit
    Also: Gelel the Derp Knight, Altsel the streaker, and Filafel the temp temp.

    Khajiit has a twitch stream! https://twitch.tv/telel_khajiit feel free to come see how truly unskilled Telel is.
  • UnabashedlyHonest
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    Telel wrote: »
    The current lack of population for one team or another is an issue being exasperated by a few factors.

    One is all the AFK people just standing around until prime time. These naturally bloat the population numbers, and cost actual players a potential low pop bonus. This issue has only gotten more obvious as the population cap has been decreased.

    Then there are the scrubs who engage in some truly toxic, and abusive behaviors. These people are also taking up space that could be used by actual people.

    Right now on grayhost NA/PC there are some scrubs who've begun to get more and more blatant in their shenanigans. To the point it's very obvious that there's a good deal of score boosting occurring.

    Which is a form of cheating and has led to some large mass bans in the past. At least once it got to blatant to ignore.

    As an example....

    Just the other day on Gray Host. AD was in third, had 2 bars of pop while EP was pop locked, and missing scrolls. DC was in 1st, had EP's scrolls. Oh, and DC also had emperor.

    So Naturally there was a group of 'skilled' EP at fare running around in a bot train attacking the ungrouped AD. Outside of Fare more EP on 'good' builds were troll sieging. Each group of EP outnumbered the AD who were at the keep.

    They just kept it lit and farmed randoms. Never really making an attempt to hold the keep.

    Meanwhile a couple dozen DC were pvdooring AD keeps with an obvious attempt to get a scroll or two. When they turned up at Fare both groups avoided each other. In some cases running through or alongside one another as they chased down various AD..

    All of which we've seen a lot of over the last couple of months.

    I've also got a couple clips where we catch EP standing around a DC player as they're sieging. The EP then guard the DC as he continues to siege. It's almost always the same handful of names as well.

    Sadly posting videos of any of it here will result in someone being punished for 'naming and shaming'. XD

    Now, imagine if ZOS was more proactive in dealing with both AFKers, and the scrubs who're trying to pad their scores. It wouldn't fix some of the staleness of cyrodiil But it would remove some of the more toxic elements that tends to drive newer or more casual players away.

    I don't feel like you are portraying the logistics of how things play out in Cyrodiil these days accurately at all. Just look at the score to see the proof.
  • Telel
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    Telel wrote: »
    The current lack of population for one team or another is an issue being exasperated by a few factors.

    One is all the AFK people just standing around until prime time. These naturally bloat the population numbers, and cost actual players a potential low pop bonus. This issue has only gotten more obvious as the population cap has been decreased.

    Then there are the scrubs who engage in some truly toxic, and abusive behaviors. These people are also taking up space that could be used by actual people.

    Right now on grayhost NA/PC there are some scrubs who've begun to get more and more blatant in their shenanigans. To the point it's very obvious that there's a good deal of score boosting occurring.

    Which is a form of cheating and has led to some large mass bans in the past. At least once it got to blatant to ignore.

    As an example....

    Just the other day on Gray Host. AD was in third, had 2 bars of pop while EP was pop locked, and missing scrolls. DC was in 1st, had EP's scrolls. Oh, and DC also had emperor.

    So Naturally there was a group of 'skilled' EP at fare running around in a bot train attacking the ungrouped AD. Outside of Fare more EP on 'good' builds were troll sieging. Each group of EP outnumbered the AD who were at the keep.

    They just kept it lit and farmed randoms. Never really making an attempt to hold the keep.

    Meanwhile a couple dozen DC were pvdooring AD keeps with an obvious attempt to get a scroll or two. When they turned up at Fare both groups avoided each other. In some cases running through or alongside one another as they chased down various AD..

    All of which we've seen a lot of over the last couple of months.

    I've also got a couple clips where we catch EP standing around a DC player as they're sieging. The EP then guard the DC as he continues to siege. It's almost always the same handful of names as well.

    Sadly posting videos of any of it here will result in someone being punished for 'naming and shaming'. XD

    Now, imagine if ZOS was more proactive in dealing with both AFKers, and the scrubs who're trying to pad their scores. It wouldn't fix some of the staleness of cyrodiil But it would remove some of the more toxic elements that tends to drive newer or more casual players away.

    I don't feel like you are portraying the logistics of how things play out in Cyrodiil these days accurately at all. Just look at the score to see the proof.


    Are you trying to say the following...

    1) That ZOS has never mass banned people for boosting?

    2) That there are no scrubs on the internet who'd engage in such needy and disappointing behavior?

    3) That there are in fact no clips of people working over multiple factions to make things easier for themselves?

    EDIT 4) That there are no people who go AFK so that they can avoid queue times during prime time?

    END EDIT

    Because if you are. Then I've got news for you. Plus a few years worth of clips from various incidents.
    Edited by Telel on 21 March 2023 02:02
    Character: Telel
    Class: Night Blade-Werewolf-viking-ninja-catgirl-mallet wielder
    Past times: Refusing to go full magika spec, hitting things with a big hammer, sniping, and speaking in khajiit
    Also: Gelel the Derp Knight, Altsel the streaker, and Filafel the temp temp.

    Khajiit has a twitch stream! https://twitch.tv/telel_khajiit feel free to come see how truly unskilled Telel is.
  • amadeus001
    Can i ask, when was the last time developers have made any comment, reply or acknowldgement of the population issue? has there been any feedback. My guild is slowly losing numbers including me. Being smashed 10 on 1 (a bit exaggerated) all the time is just not fun. I am actually PVPing now just to fill my sticker book. I love this game and frustrated as hell with Cyro which is where iove.
  • CameraBeardThePirate
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    olsborg wrote: »
    Also nightcapping is an issue. It should be half points gained after midnight and until 06 am.

    "Let's punish people that either don't live in the same part of the world as me or work a different shift than I do".

    It's an online game with servers that are up 24/7. Nightcapping is inevitable and should not be punished in any way.
  • kadar
    kadar
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    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.
    The actual population caps are higher than 80. I have detected as many as 94 players of 1 alliance at a single keep with the Miat's addon, meaning the true population cap is likley well over 100 per alliance once you account for all the people afk and otherwise memeing around the map.
  • Xarc
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    Brrrofski wrote: »
    olsborg wrote: »
    Also nightcapping is an issue. It should be half points gained after midnight and until 06 am.

    Midnight and 6am where?

    East coast? West coast? Australia? UK? Russia?

    There's a lot of different time zones.

    then in your own zone ?
    @xarcs FR-EU-PC -
    Please visit my house ingame !
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  • ProudMary
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    kadar wrote: »
    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.
    The actual population caps are higher than 80. I have detected as many as 94 players of 1 alliance at a single keep with the Miat's addon, meaning the true population cap is likley well over 100 per alliance once you account for all the people afk and otherwise memeing around the map.

    That add on does not work accurately anymore and hasn't for years. It's considered cheating because it used to be able to tell players when people in stealth were around even when they were stealthed.
  • kadar
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    ProudMary wrote: »
    kadar wrote: »
    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.
    The actual population caps are higher than 80. I have detected as many as 94 players of 1 alliance at a single keep with the Miat's addon, meaning the true population cap is likley well over 100 per alliance once you account for all the people afk and otherwise memeing around the map.

    That add on does not work accurately anymore and hasn't for years. It's considered cheating because it used to be able to tell players when people in stealth were around even when they were stealthed.
    That stealth detection functionality was removed years ago with an API change from ZOS, and I agree it was indeed cheating back then. But it is indeed accurate. You can test easily by counting the number of player in a small area, say by the gate, the addon number will match.
  • kadar
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    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.
  • acastanza_ESO
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    kadar wrote: »
    ProudMary wrote: »
    kadar wrote: »
    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.
    The actual population caps are higher than 80. I have detected as many as 94 players of 1 alliance at a single keep with the Miat's addon, meaning the true population cap is likley well over 100 per alliance once you account for all the people afk and otherwise memeing around the map.

    That add on does not work accurately anymore and hasn't for years. It's considered cheating because it used to be able to tell players when people in stealth were around even when they were stealthed.
    That stealth detection functionality was removed years ago with an API change from ZOS, and I agree it was indeed cheating back then. But it is indeed accurate. You can test easily by counting the number of player in a small area, say by the gate, the addon number will match.

    It is accurate for detecting allied players, but the API changes have made its detection of Enemy Players inaccurate, it no longer "sees" an enemy player unless they've done something that registers them in an event that your character receives (like hitting you or a group member with an attack, or them being visible when you pass your reticle directly over them). So like, an entire enemy faction can be at a keep, but if you've only "interacted" with a dozen of them, that dozen is all ticker will show.
    Edited by acastanza_ESO on 27 March 2023 18:03
  • SaffronCitrusflower
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    kadar wrote: »
    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.

    The population cap is not "far beyond 80". You do realize, of course, that the pop cap used to be around 400 players/faction, and now, even by your calculations, it's still less than 100/faction. So even by your calculations, the pop cap is less than 1/4 of what it used to be, yet performance is not better, it's generally worse.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.
  • Reverb
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    kadar wrote: »
    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.

    The population cap is not "far beyond 80". You do realize, of course, that the pop cap used to be around 400 players/faction, and now, even by your calculations, it's still less than 100/faction. So even by your calculations, the pop cap is less than 1/4 of what it used to be, yet performance is not better, it's generally worse.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.

    ZOS has never publicly stated the population cap. Never.

    Not the current one, not the original highest one, not at any point after any of the published and stealth pop reduction changes.

    One can make an informed estimate, but stop throwing out numbers as if they are fact.
    Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. ~Friedrich Nietzsche
  • SaffronCitrusflower
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    Reverb wrote: »
    kadar wrote: »
    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.

    The population cap is not "far beyond 80". You do realize, of course, that the pop cap used to be around 400 players/faction, and now, even by your calculations, it's still less than 100/faction. So even by your calculations, the pop cap is less than 1/4 of what it used to be, yet performance is not better, it's generally worse.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.

    ZOS has never publicly stated the population cap. Never.

    Not the current one, not the original highest one, not at any point after any of the published and stealth pop reduction changes.

    One can make an informed estimate, but stop throwing out numbers as if they are fact.

    It's a fact that Cyro pop caps are about or less than 1/4 of what they originally were, and that performance is not better than it was with the higher population caps. Everyone who's played in Cyro since the beginning knows and recognizes this.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.

    Edited by SaffronCitrusflower on 28 March 2023 15:53
  • NordSwordnBoard
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    Reverb wrote: »
    kadar wrote: »
    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.

    The population cap is not "far beyond 80". You do realize, of course, that the pop cap used to be around 400 players/faction, and now, even by your calculations, it's still less than 100/faction. So even by your calculations, the pop cap is less than 1/4 of what it used to be, yet performance is not better, it's generally worse.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.

    ZOS has never publicly stated the population cap. Never.

    Not the current one, not the original highest one, not at any point after any of the published and stealth pop reduction changes.

    One can make an informed estimate, but stop throwing out numbers as if they are fact.

    https://help.elderscrollsonline.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/6533

    Dated info but still it's all I could find...
    Fear is the Mindkiller
  • Flangdoodle
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    maxjapank wrote: »

    This is true. Having a low population cap also makes it harder for unorganized pugs to take on an optimized 12-man ball group, too. Sure, the organized group should demolish, but if the entire faction is stuck in one area, then there aren’t enough to get anything done elsewhere. In addition, the population of AD during Oceanic hours is way down right now. Sunday night we had 2 bar pop trying to defend against both a full pop DC and a full pop EP. AD just doesn’t have the numbers to defend against the full populations of two factions. I ask DC and EP players to think about the health of a campaign and realize that players will quit if this continues.

    ...and yet somehow AD maintains second place.

    a few counterpoints:

    1) a couple of years ago AD routinely steamrolled the map during Oceanic Hours, these things wax and wane. The campaign is and always has been decided by the faction with the most nightcappers.

    2) Your concern for the other two factions responsibility for the health of the campaign is noted - however the health of the campaign might also be served if you would ask your compatriots to stop stacking 3 plus ball groups at outposts during prime time?

    3) you are correct that organized groups routinely defeat unorganized pugs. The solution to that is to organize.

    4) If I had a nickel for every time players have threatened to quit, I could set half my money on fire and still have enough to buy ZOS.
  • UnabashedlyHonest
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    maxjapank wrote: »

    This is true. Having a low population cap also makes it harder for unorganized pugs to take on an optimized 12-man ball group, too. Sure, the organized group should demolish, but if the entire faction is stuck in one area, then there aren’t enough to get anything done elsewhere. In addition, the population of AD during Oceanic hours is way down right now. Sunday night we had 2 bar pop trying to defend against both a full pop DC and a full pop EP. AD just doesn’t have the numbers to defend against the full populations of two factions. I ask DC and EP players to think about the health of a campaign and realize that players will quit if this continues.

    ...and yet somehow AD maintains second place.

    a few counterpoints:

    1) a couple of years ago AD routinely steamrolled the map during Oceanic Hours, these things wax and wane. The campaign is and always has been decided by the faction with the most nightcappers.

    2) Your concern for the other two factions responsibility for the health of the campaign is noted - however the health of the campaign might also be served if you would ask your compatriots to stop stacking 3 plus ball groups at outposts during prime time?

    3) you are correct that organized groups routinely defeat unorganized pugs. The solution to that is to organize.

    4) If I had a nickel for every time players have threatened to quit, I could set half my money on fire and still have enough to buy ZOS.

    On PCNA there are at least 3-4 hours every day that AD gets low pop bonus. I don't see this happening for any other faction, ever, and it's been happening since the population caps were reduced to the unbearably low levels they are at today.

    On PCNA between 8am and noon EST pretty much every day you can check and see for yourself, AD is most likely going to be getting low pop bonus. The low pop bonus mechanic does not work properly with population caps as low as they are at present.

    Edited by UnabashedlyHonest on 29 March 2023 13:36
  • kadar
    kadar
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    kadar wrote: »
    ProudMary wrote: »
    kadar wrote: »
    The current population caps are just way too low for healthy three way PvP. If 10 daily PvP players swap to a different faction that is enough to determine which faction is going to win the campaign now. The population caps are just way, way to low now. 80 players/faction is just too low for healthy, competitive PvP.
    The actual population caps are higher than 80. I have detected as many as 94 players of 1 alliance at a single keep with the Miat's addon, meaning the true population cap is likley well over 100 per alliance once you account for all the people afk and otherwise memeing around the map.

    That add on does not work accurately anymore and hasn't for years. It's considered cheating because it used to be able to tell players when people in stealth were around even when they were stealthed.
    That stealth detection functionality was removed years ago with an API change from ZOS, and I agree it was indeed cheating back then. But it is indeed accurate. You can test easily by counting the number of player in a small area, say by the gate, the addon number will match.

    It is accurate for detecting allied players, but the API changes have made its detection of Enemy Players inaccurate, it no longer "sees" an enemy player unless they've done something that registers them in an event that your character receives (like hitting you or a group member with an attack, or them being visible when you pass your reticle directly over them). So like, an entire enemy faction can be at a keep, but if you've only "interacted" with a dozen of them, that dozen is all ticker will show.

    Agreed, sorry I was unclear there. I do mean allied players. 94 allied players detected in one keep battle. Therefore the pop cap is likely well over 100 given there are always smallscalers, delvers, and afks lurking around in prime time.
  • kadar
    kadar
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    kadar wrote: »
    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.

    The population cap is not "far beyond 80". You do realize, of course, that the pop cap used to be around 400 players/faction, and now, even by your calculations, it's still less than 100/faction. So even by your calculations, the pop cap is less than 1/4 of what it used to be, yet performance is not better, it's generally worse.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.
    Based on what evidence? Earlier I mentioned seeing mid 90s allied players at one keep battle (detected with Miats) and several first hand reports of 90+ AD at an in game funeral recently while my group of 12 was elsewhere PVPing lol. This puts the cap at bare minimum 102 players per faction completely ignoring questers, “solos”, afks, etc.

    IDC what the original cap was, I’m sure you’re right, it used to be way higher.
  • Lebkuchen
    Lebkuchen
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    On Playstation it feels like the cap is somewhere around 40-60. But that doesn't matter anyway, because whatever it is, it's too low. The performance is still not good enough, and most of the time the map is completely empty. Would be great if they gave Cyrodiil more love, but i guess that ship has sailed years ago :'(
  • Adernath
    Adernath
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    In my opinion a good solution would be to just freeze the campaign scoring if one faction population drops below a given threshold. Also EMP will not be possible in such cases anymore.
    Edited by Adernath on 2 April 2023 16:50
  • SaffronCitrusflower
    SaffronCitrusflower
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    ✭✭
    kadar wrote: »
    kadar wrote: »
    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.

    The population cap is not "far beyond 80". You do realize, of course, that the pop cap used to be around 400 players/faction, and now, even by your calculations, it's still less than 100/faction. So even by your calculations, the pop cap is less than 1/4 of what it used to be, yet performance is not better, it's generally worse.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.
    Based on what evidence? Earlier I mentioned seeing mid 90s allied players at one keep battle (detected with Miats) and several first hand reports of 90+ AD at an in game funeral recently while my group of 12 was elsewhere PVPing lol. This puts the cap at bare minimum 102 players per faction completely ignoring questers, “solos”, afks, etc.

    IDC what the original cap was, I’m sure you’re right, it used to be way higher.
    Reverb wrote: »
    kadar wrote: »
    There was also a funeral in Cryo for a player who passed away IRL not too long ago. Multiple people reported counts of 90+ players far from the chaos of a large keep battle. My group of 12 was online PVPing elsewhere on the map at that time. The cap is far beyond 80.

    The population cap is not "far beyond 80". You do realize, of course, that the pop cap used to be around 400 players/faction, and now, even by your calculations, it's still less than 100/faction. So even by your calculations, the pop cap is less than 1/4 of what it used to be, yet performance is not better, it's generally worse.

    The take home message is that pop caps have been drastically reduced with no increase in performance, regardless of what the exact population cap may be.

    ZOS has never publicly stated the population cap. Never.

    Not the current one, not the original highest one, not at any point after any of the published and stealth pop reduction changes.

    One can make an informed estimate, but stop throwing out numbers as if they are fact.

    I raid in cyrodiil with raid group every day, literally every day, for a minimum of two hours, and have been for about 8 years now. How much time do you spend in cyrodiil kadar?

    Edited by SaffronCitrusflower on 3 April 2023 15:56
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