Vengeance and population
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MagdaV✭✭✭
Another Vengeance night...
This is not the same Vengeance that I knew from last year, when the campaign was locked on all 3 factions.
What in the oblivion is going on with this campaign? Why is it so empty and so stale?
1.) There is a PvE event happening at the same time
2.) A certain group of PvPers were HORRIBLE to PvE mains last time
3.) Some boycotting because they think Vengeance is permanent
4.) Last bit of "warm" weather is happening, not as many people are on in general
Just my observations, but it is sad to see. For wanting PvP to be given attention so much, you'd think people would have been a bit more receptive to some change. Definitely seems those people may have shot themselves in the foot at this point.
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Sluggy✭✭✭✭✭
✭BXR_Lonestar wrote: »IMO Vengeance popularity is down this time around because they released it during a PVE event and when the event lines up with PVE-based golden pursuits. Most players are PVE-oriented, so when it comes to playing Vengeance or working on the PVE event, that is an easy decision.
If they want to test the vengeance servers to the max, they need to have PVP-related golden pursuits that aren't so easy to get that anyone can go in there and finish within a couple of hours. Release it with PVP-related golden pursuits, with something like crowns to be earned at every stage, and also have 2x AP going and I guarantee you that players will show up to play Vengeance.
Also doesn't help that effectively there is nothing new for players to latch their teeth into. I get that they added a couple new skill lines but players still want to play and those lines offer almost nothing new or useful for that purpose. I really hope there was something done on the backend to warrant such a long delay since the last test because otherwise, I see no reason for this one at all. From the player perspective it is a copy-paste of the last one. And frankly, without some incentive for players to keep trying new things there just isn't going to be enough of a population to garner any useful information anyway.
*tinfoil meta hat time* Orrrrr it could be that they were specifically testing to see what the interest level was in the worst-case scenario. I could surmise a couple or reasons for wanting such knowledge, ranging from understandable to downright bad news for pvpers everywhere. But I'll reserve those thoughts for myself since there is nothing substantial enough to make it anything other than guesswork on my part.1 -
YandereGirlfriend✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭BXR_Lonestar wrote: »IMO Vengeance popularity is down this time around because they released it during a PVE event and when the event lines up with PVE-based golden pursuits. Most players are PVE-oriented, so when it comes to playing Vengeance or working on the PVE event, that is an easy decision.
If they want to test the vengeance servers to the max, they need to have PVP-related golden pursuits that aren't so easy to get that anyone can go in there and finish within a couple of hours. Release it with PVP-related golden pursuits, with something like crowns to be earned at every stage, and also have 2x AP going and I guarantee you that players will show up to play Vengeance.
Also doesn't help that effectively there is nothing new for players to latch their teeth into. I get that they added a couple new skill lines but players still want to play and those lines offer almost nothing new or useful for that purpose. I really hope there was something done on the backend to warrant such a long delay since the last test because otherwise, I see no reason for this one at all. From the player perspective it is a copy-paste of the last one. And frankly, without some incentive for players to keep trying new things there just isn't going to be enough of a population to garner any useful information anyway.
*tinfoil meta hat time* Orrrrr it could be that they were specifically testing to see what the interest level was in the worst-case scenario. I could surmise a couple or reasons for wanting such knowledge, ranging from understandable to downright bad news for pvpers everywhere. But I'll reserve those thoughts for myself since there is nothing substantial enough to make it anything other than guesswork on my part.
I think that it's likely an oversight.
Though real-world Vengeance would have to compete against Events and such (and Grey Host) anyway so gauging the degree of population attrition is useful knowledge on its own.
But also, the simplest explanations are typically the best: Vengeance isn't a shiny novelty anymore with bribes "incentives" for casual PvE players to participate. And if its entire premise of sustainability was being propped-up by those obviously juiced conditions then... that approach was always building a castle out of sand.
Better to find that out now than further down the line.0 -
StihlReign✭✭✭✭✭ZOS reintroduced heal stacking in Vengeance 2, which it carried over to Vengeance 3, which has been complained about for years in regular Cyro. Since healstacking without tools to defeat players is kinda boring....low pop. Couple this with regular Cyro and the massive power creep in it's current state from sub-classing, the Vengeance tests feel like an entirely different game. The skills also feel a bit off when firing so I suspect the 3 things together have led to a fall off in participation.
There's probably some influence from the Undaunted Celebration Event, a ton of early in Zone negativity during the 2nd test, and the lack of a PvP specific Golden Pursuit...
And last but not least the increasing concerns from the community about where this is all headed. There's an increasingly strong desire to have a performing Cyro but not at the expense of the everyone's favorite build. And so folks have been asking Zos for clarity, aaaaaand crickets. So here we are.
Maybe starting tomorrow (Fri-Mon) will be better..."O divine art of subtlety and secrecy!
Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.” – Ch. VI, v. 8-9. — Master Sun Tzu
"You haven't beaten me you've sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke." — Ra's al Ghul
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious — Master Sun Tzu
LoS1 -
Ostonoha✭✭✭1) It would be nice if members wrote what server and platform they play instead of trying to figure out, and
2) as I wrote in another thread that console players should stop projecting their abysmal (?) situation onto PC.
Daily reminder that Vengeance pop cap is officially (much) higher, probably around 3x.
The server with the biggest player population - PC EU prime time:
Monday - all 3 alliances with 3 bars.
Tuesday - all 3 alliances with 3 bars, I had to wait 1 min to enter (AD).
Yesterday evening (Wednesday):
So far, every day AD wins massively, EP do some fighting - in Vengeance 2 we were close with Reds almost every day, and they even won 2 days. DC are again absolutely the worst, I think their PvP guilds are again boycotting. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my impression because DC absolutely (?) dominates GH, and AD is the worst.
Basically, Venegance is an opposite of GH.
The one I posted is PC NA during primetime. Not console. Glad to see EU is okay pop wise but not over here in NA.3 -
Ostonoha✭✭✭AngryPenguin wrote: »This is how a healthy map looks, and it is due to balanced populations. Yesterday, PC EU, each faction stood at 2 bars, AD briefly at 3 bars, but the other two factions were probably not that far away.
Factions having more or less the same number of players each, it is impossible for one of them to run in one huge megazerg. They have to break up the blob to defend/attack several objectives at the same time. Fights are spread across the map, and this is important performance-wise. Also, playing on such a map is a lot more fun.
ZOS needs to implement dynamic queue locks so there is no 3 bars vs. 1 bar situation that is detrimental to players' experience. @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno
Um, No. How are guilds going to play their official guild raids with your proposal? I'm sick of non pvp players trying to dictate how to improve PvP. If ya'll had relevant and viable suggestions that would be one thing, but you don't.
If you are bringing an EP "raid" into a campaign that is already dominated by EP, then you should wait in queue until AD and DC population catches up. OR, you can bring your raid in on one of the underpopulated factions.
allowing people to play cross faction would help. I would 1000% love to be able to play w/e the lowest pop was at any moment without constantly needing to faction swap or wait 30 days. But I do understand it would be abused to ruin the que.2 -
BetweenMidgets wrote: »Faction lock should go, no matter what campaign.
Agree. It feels like it would've been more fair if they'd stuck with the grey host faction locks, so people couldn't all leap onto one faction *cough cough* EP *cough cough*1 -
AngryPenguin✭✭✭✭✭Yeah, how are you supposed to enjoy vengeance when your faction isn't even playing?
Do we all have to join EP to enjoy it? What happen to this once fun event?
I didn't realize EP was the biggest PvDoor faction on PC NA as well. I guess they also tend to run in one big blob, so the moment you burn any objective, all of them show up to "defend."
This map looks so awful, it would be totally pointless to log in as DC or AD for ~30v300 fights. People play games to have fun. This doesn't look fun at all, even on the EP side IMO.
No faction should be allowed to reach 3 bars while other factions are at 1 bar. There needs to be a pop-lock in place once there are 50 or so more players on one faction; no one can join that faction anymore until the other two get enough players to be competitive. A faction hits 2 bars while the other two are still on 1 bar? Lock it until the other two factions have 2 bars too.
Forget the low pop bonus; it isn't at all efficient. Even if it were 5x the amount of AP, what does it matter if the moment you burn a single resource, 100 reds or yel or blue show up to "defend", and you never even cap it. I wouldn't go in there for 10x AP bonus.
ZOS needs to rethink how queuing into campaigns works if they intend to have 300+ players per faction. I suggest locking the queue for factions that are numerically superior, and this lock has to be dynamic and updating regularly (every 5-minute check).
Having increased population caps is a great goal in itself. It needs to be implemented properly though. Populations must be balanced by ZOS because clearly players will not be jumping ship to weaker factions to even the game.
Its shameful because at the beginning of the event... EP took every single thing on the map.. DC/ADscrolls... everything.. It's nearly impossible to play the objective.
Sadly I don't think ZOS even cares for PvP anymore. It's been like this for years now with no quality improvements in Cyrodill.
That's not EP's fault. That's ZOS' fault for creating a game mode nobody wants to play.0 -
AngryPenguin✭✭✭✭✭AngryPenguin wrote: »This is how a healthy map looks, and it is due to balanced populations. Yesterday, PC EU, each faction stood at 2 bars, AD briefly at 3 bars, but the other two factions were probably not that far away.
Factions having more or less the same number of players each, it is impossible for one of them to run in one huge megazerg. They have to break up the blob to defend/attack several objectives at the same time. Fights are spread across the map, and this is important performance-wise. Also, playing on such a map is a lot more fun.
ZOS needs to implement dynamic queue locks so there is no 3 bars vs. 1 bar situation that is detrimental to players' experience. @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno
Um, No. How are guilds going to play their official guild raids with your proposal? I'm sick of non pvp players trying to dictate how to improve PvP. If ya'll had relevant and viable suggestions that would be one thing, but you don't.
If you are bringing an EP "raid" into a campaign that is already dominated by EP, then you should wait in queue until AD and DC population catches up. OR, you can bring your raid in on one of the underpopulated factions.
You just demanded that an entire guild change their guild alliance daily because you're unhappy with the population imbalance a game mode ZOS created that most don't want to have anything to do with.0 -
MasterSpatula✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I just can't understand how people paying PCNA EP aren't too embraced to be part of this. But I suppose if I did understand it, I'd be out there on team red rather than having a rather miserable time on team blue.
Also, I suppose if I understood how being in this kind of unbalanced fiasco was in any way fun, I'd probably be a lot more tolerant of normal PVP, too."A probable impossibility is preferable to an improbable possibility." - Aristotle1 -
exiars10✭✭✭✭
You know what? We actually agreeYour premise is flawed. The two bars in Vengeance are about 200 players per alliance; whereas pop-locked in normal Live is about 80 players per alliance.
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If you check my messages in Vengeance threads, I was clearly sarcastic.
But you know that are members here on Forum who vehemently deny that Venegance test has increased pop cap?Aldmeri Dominion (PC EU via Steam)
The cowardly Wood Elves are best noted for their unwillingness to engage in a face-to-face attack; a Bosmer will strike at you from every side except the front. You won't cross swords with a Bosmer, but you might catch an arrow in the throat. Be wary in forests and jungles, and watch your back.1 -
exiars10✭✭✭✭For a moment (~10 min) last evening in the Prime time, we (AD) had 3 bars, and later EP had 3 bars, too.
And yet, map on PC EU is balanced every evening in prime timeYandereGirlfriend wrote: »This is what PvP looks like when you remove the ability of players to effectively fight outnumbered. It devolves into deterministic "Which zerg is biggest?" autobattling. There is completely no point to log in if you're on an underpopulated side because there is literally nothing that you can do within the existing ruleset to turn the tide.
Folk often wail about ballgroups, 1vXers, and bombers but what they don't realize is that they are the last line of defense for an underpopulated faction against a map that looks like this.
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Yea, Blues are a bit of soft, but we and Reds seriously fight / battle.
*Something, something, looks like "PC master race" players on the Old Continent are more cultured / balanced
?
P. S.
*I don't claim that we are, it's a joke. Aldmeri Dominion (PC EU via Steam)
The cowardly Wood Elves are best noted for their unwillingness to engage in a face-to-face attack; a Bosmer will strike at you from every side except the front. You won't cross swords with a Bosmer, but you might catch an arrow in the throat. Be wary in forests and jungles, and watch your back.0 -
MincMincMinc✭✭✭✭✭
✭edward_frigidhands wrote: »
The numbers are not shown anywhere. We only have access to pieced together info. Zos doesn't show us numbers because they likely don't want competitors offering better experiences during a low patch.
Zos early on stated 1800 players per server back in the beta days. This is still on an FAQ on their website.
Zos claims veng can do 3x live stable shown in their data stream. They tried 4x live on EU, but it became unstable.
From Cyr tracking addons we see live pvp is in the ballpark of 300 players total. The same addons read around 1100-1300 at one point during the first test on EU. The addon owner was in one of the other threads to explain the several methods it uses to collect IDs for counting.Zos should hire pvp consultants0
