Population Control Nightmare.

Tanthul

Ok. I love Cyrodiil. I lead a PVP guild with top players and we currently "lve" in Cyrodiil. The only problem with it is population balance. Since the first days the issues were apparent but as of yesterday the situation got ridiculous.

It is impossible to do anything when you have 35-40 players vs 100+. Currently on Scourge the Pact is zerging everything. We are Dominion and we've managed to pull defenses for 4 hours of 3 vs 30 on keeps, with successful results. But there's nothing to do when we're being hit with a wave of 30 player bands from multiple sides simultaneously that even have no real strategy than just swarming us. The Covenant felt this very very early as they have the worst numbers available. They've been destroyed since day 1.

Population balancing is what was destroying similar open world faction PVP systems from their day of conception (eg DAoC, Warhammer) and one would think that with experience from these games there would be some mechanisms in motion to nullify the benefit of overpopulation yet to my surprise there are none.

What can be done about it? A few quick ideas:

a) For example. Do not allow joining campaign Scourge in Dominion alliance when Dominion alliance is overpopulated. If you're part of a guild that operates on Scourge and you want to join with them, then you would enter a queue system that would place you on Scourge when the numbers allow it. For the mean time you would be able to play on your Guest campaign.

b) Current overpopulation on a Cyrodiil map, would bestow debuffs upon you. Currently the situation is working entirely the opposite than it should. Overpopulation allows you to easily steal keeps, resources and even scrolls, that give you even further buff hence making your zerg entirely unstoppable. Firstly nullify buffs according to how overpopulating one side is (eg when you are at double numbers of the enemy nullify half your buffs, when triple nullify all of them) and then place further debuffs when overpopulation goes on for days. For example if you're a week with double the numbers, then apply a 5% penalty on stats (that is just an arbitrary number for example's sake..you know the metrics best so you know how high it should be). You can also apply buffs and debuffs accordingly to castle walls/doors etc.

Beshaba Tanthul, Scourge Dominion (Dark Moon Guild)

LadyChaos

I like the GW2 version of an outnumbered buff for side that has extremely low population on at a time, but it's not an equalizer it, just a buff. As the big servers get overfull guilds dont want to wait on queue times to get into cyr... they do sart looking for viable servers to allow them to PvP without having to put up with the wait... IMO another month will be helpful to the light servers

On GW2 launch this was big issue and kept being issue forever, but they had 3 times the number of servers, and people kept flocking from the innactives to the heavy servers to "be on a winning team" or to get hardcore pvp action you couldn't in low pop zone.

I think with ESO having less campaigns it will normalize much faster, but I'm optomist.

Kodiak

Lowering the number of campaigns is a band-aid fix. That will inspire people who don't want to face these kinds of mega faction servers (where their numbers are huge around the clock) to just sit in queues for the other competitive servers instead.

What really needs to occur is a dynamic population cap system. The intent of a 3 way combat system is when one side is dominate the other two would team up against them. This needs to be accomplished with two primary goals:

1. Attacking the dominate faction in a campaign numerically is worth more AP and XP. This will help direct the players on the other two factions to attack that side since they will be worth more AP.

2. Dynamic population caps. Essentially there needs to be a balancing system that enforces dynamic population caps. So lets say we start with 100 soft cap population for Cyrodill. Ebon pact immediately hits 100. DC has 30 and AD has 50. There'd need to be another 20 DC or AD to enter the campaign before the soft cap raises up to 150. When it raises to 150, Ebon immediately fills up but now it needs to wait on 50 more DC and AD to enter total.

This would keep the populations relatively balanced because as players stay and join the caps would raise with a reasonable amount of forces for them to fight. The queues would also inspire people to possibly look for a more competitive campaign for their numbers.

LadyChaos

Kodiak wrote: »

Lowering the number of campaigns is a band-aid fix. That will inspire people who don't want to face these kinds of mega faction servers (where their numbers are huge around the clock) to just sit in queues for the other competitive servers instead.

I meant that because there is a lower number of campaigns than some of the other 3 way RvR games with this problem in excess.. that I am hopeful of a speedy normalization time... not that I think it needs to change.

Alierion_ESO

Yeah I agree with giving buffs to the side that is both underpopulated and has their keeps/scrolls stolen. Right now its just too easy for the side that zergs to maintain control of the entire map.

Sunspot

A supply line mechanic for larger teams would be interesting. Debuffs for large zergs unless there is an established supply line would be interesting. Attack the supply line, bam, they're all significantly weaker, and zergs would have to dedicate a few people to making sure the supply lines were protected, which additionally, would thin the zerg.

arghaii

Tanthul wrote: »

Ok. I love Cyrodiil. I lead a PVP guild with top players and we currently "lve" in Cyrodiil. The only problem with it is population balance. Since the first days the issues were apparent but as of yesterday the situation got ridiculous.

It is impossible to do anything when you have 35-40 players vs 100+. Currently on Scourge the Pact is zerging everything. We are Dominion and we've managed to pull defenses for 4 hours of 3 vs 30 on keeps, with successful results. But there's nothing to do when we're being hit with a wave of 30 player bands from multiple sides simultaneously that even have no real strategy than just swarming us. The Covenant felt this very very early as they have the worst numbers available. They've been destroyed since day 1.

Population balancing is what was destroying similar open world faction PVP systems from their day of conception (eg DAoC, Warhammer) and one would think that with experience from these games there would be some mechanisms in motion to nullify the benefit of overpopulation yet to my surprise there are none.

What can be done about it? A few quick ideas:

a) For example. Do not allow joining campaign Scourge in Dominion alliance when Dominion alliance is overpopulated. If you're part of a guild that operates on Scourge and you want to join with them, then you would enter a queue system that would place you on Scourge when the numbers allow it. For the mean time you would be able to play on your Guest campaign.

b) Current overpopulation on a Cyrodiil map, would bestow debuffs upon you. Currently the situation is working entirely the opposite than it should. Overpopulation allows you to easily steal keeps, resources and even scrolls, that give you even further buff hence making your zerg entirely unstoppable. Firstly nullify buffs according to how overpopulating one side is (eg when you are at double numbers of the enemy nullify half your buffs, when triple nullify all of them) and then place further debuffs when overpopulation goes on for days. For example if you're a week with double the numbers, then apply a 5% penalty on stats (that is just an arbitrary number for example's sake..you know the metrics best so you know how high it should be). You can also apply buffs and debuffs accordingly to castle walls/doors etc.

Beshaba Tanthul, Scourge Dominion (Dark Moon Guild)

I understand your pain, but I think it's far too early to jump into conclusions about what's needed to be done, if anything, about your situation.
Also, it's too early to cater for the needs of one server.
It's just your server, not all servers, things like that might balance themselves out on the go. Also, if the zerg of 100 is as not organized as you claim and your 30 guildies top players as you claim, then you should have a very significant chance to beat them actually using tactics and terrain. Unless you are not as top players as you say.

Ganksalot

I am a long time DAOC guy. When one realm was overpopulated the other 2 realms would create a temp truce to wipe them out. We had to do this for a long time on one of the servers I used to play on. Don't get it twisted we still attacked the other guys but only after we made sure all the other enemies from the overpopulated side was dead. At times we would even let them res there dead and move on. Just depends on the enviorment. I do think each campagin should have its on set of forums and sub forums for each alliance so there is more of a since of a community. Personally I prefer to play for the underdog side.

joshisanonymous

Seriously, learn the mechanics. I'm not necessarily directing this at the OP, just everyone on this forum who is complaining about things in AvA being broken, because y'all mostly have no idea how the game works.

For instance, in this thread, multiple people are talking about how an overpopulated side should get debuffs and the underpopulated side buffs... Losing alliances already get buffs, pretty hefty buffs actually, right this very second.

You also might just want to wait until you get used to how strategies work in Cyrodiil when you're outnumbered. There is literally no way 100 players can control a large portion of the map against 30-40 from one other alliance. Consider guerilla tactics. If they have a force of 100 hunkering down on one of your keeps, leave a small group there just to keep that 100 busy. Prop up a whole bunch of siege that you don't actually have the manpower to run just to confuse the enemies about how many are defending. Meanwhile, run multiple groups around to other keeps along the supply line to take resources from those keeps. Your enemies will no longer be able to spawn near your keep unless they decide to use forward camps. If they use forward camps, they're not bothering with the resources that your other groups are taking, allowing you to continue on and possibly even take some keeps. If they don't use forward camps, it means they're coming to take those resources back or defend, but since you're taking them from multiple locations, they necessarily have to split up. You don't want to actually defend those resources, you just want to cause havoc in their organization and waste their time running around trying to keep everything in their color. Hell, you can even send a group deep into your enemy's territory to do the same. Sure, you might not take back your keeps, but you'll sure make it hell for them to advance any further, hopefully buying you enough time until more players log in on your alliance.

Really, let's get creative here. This is war and there's more than one way to do it.

Edit: Syntax.

joshisanonymous

Sunspot wrote: »

A supply line mechanic for larger teams would be interesting. Debuffs for large zergs unless there is an established supply line would be interesting. Attack the supply line, bam, they're all significantly weaker, and zergs would have to dedicate a few people to making sure the supply lines were protected, which additionally, would thin the zerg.

Again, you don't understand the mechanics, because Cyrodiil already uses supply lines that can be cut off by taking a keep's resources. I didn't get this far in the thread at first because the comments already made were disappointing enough, but this is yet another example of how poorly people understand AvA right now, and why people should seriously consider waiting before complaining. I'm not even sure how you could have missed the fact that supply lines exist: it's explained in the tutorial as well as the first time you open the map and the map even has colored lines strewn about it.

Tanthul

a) It is not just our campaign. We hear the same thing from almost every campaign. Our reports say that all campaigns that are not hitting the max have the same problem.

b) The overpopulation issue will not fix itself because the Pact seems to always be in higher numbers in general game population. Maybe more players prefer playing Dunmer and Nord? I don't know, but that's what we hear from players on other campaigns.

c) We actually know strategy and we know exactly how Cyrodiil works. Proof of that is that yesterday we crowned our Emperor Sylen Larethian against the massive Pact zerg. But that is only because the Pact did not think of strategy and acted as a massive swarm and after they swarmed everything they could they went back to PVE in which time we pushed the two remaining castles.
The strategic argument, though, has nothing to do with what I am talking about here. You never should assume that your opponents will not use strategy and tactics against you. When we are talking about an overpopulation problem, we assume same level of skill on both sides. If we managed to beat an unorganized and strategy lacking opponent, it does not change the fact that if they actually utilized clever strategy and tactics it would be impossible to defeat them. You can not use the lack of the opponent's skill as an argument.

@johnisanonymous: We are doing already everything you are suggesting (and much more) that is why we're winning when we are outnumbered by a reasonable amount. A small force can not hold back the zerg. You can hold up to 25-30 players max with a group of 5-6 very good players but certainly not more and certainly not when they opponent has a clue+alliance buffs. But there is just one point when 50 hostiles just run in the inner keep and swarm everything. They lose 80% in the process but they still get the keep because there are nearly not enough defenders. There is a threshold that depends partly on how quickly the NPCs can be burst down. As I said we have defended 3 vs 30 for 4 hours and won. And today we defended 10 vs 40 and still won. But that was only after peak time. Before that we were just getting swarmed no matter what strategy we followed. And like I already said, on Scourge, we're doing fine. The Covenant on the other hand is broken and destroyed. They don't even try to fight back 99% of the time they are always pushed right to their gates. For this reason we avoid hitting them (some small groups won't listen to us though and try to steal empty castles from them). We want them strong and in the game. But they also don't seem to take a hint either as when we were pushing the Pact hard, what they did was hit fort Ash instead of joining us against the Pact that has them locked to their gates for days..

Currently there is no disadvantage at all to fighting 3:1. Also your statement that the losing alliances get buffs is 2000% wrong. There is no buff whatsoever for the losing side. All the buffs available are for holding enemy territory and scrolls (besides Emperor). So you may want to examine the Cyrodiil system a bit more yourself.

joshisanonymous

What I'm gathering here is that you just like to complain and look at the negatives. You just explained how you've supposedly won against larger forces multiple times, even crowned an Emperor!, and you find a reason to complain about it because, "That didn't count because we're only considering some hypothetical where everyone in that larger force is equally skilled." You also know the game just launched and yet you're absolutely certain that numbers could not possibly balance out once average players start reaching max level. You're just gonna find a way to be upset with the game no matter what I say.

joshisanonymous

Also.

mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/821/feature/8237/page/2:

"There currently is a scoring imbalance check, where if one alliance gets about double the amount of points that the other two alliances own, then the other two alliances get bonuses against that alliance. So, if Ebonheart has 2000 points and Aldmeri and Daggerfall have less than a thousand each, they each get bonuses against that alliance when they take keeps from them. They don’t get it against themselves, but against the enemy that has the most, as well as for holding onto their own. So it’s a little bit of incentive to make sure you hang onto your territory as well as take territory from the “big bully” who has the most Alliance Points."

I guess I overstated what you get, but you at least get something when losing.

Tanthul

You seem to be a person that posts just for the sake of posting as you have nothing to contribute to the discussion. At all.

a) I love the game and I am not complaining or whining here. If that is your perception of an argumentative discussion made on a subject that has plagued these systems since inception, then please move along as you are entirely missing the point. No one is whining or complaining about the game here. I am just stating facts about the actual implementations of said mechanics and bringing the subject up for discussion. As I said multiple times, we can cope. The Covenant in our particular example can't. How you see that as complaining is beyond me. You are obviously a person that sees any kind of discussion as some sort of complaining. My post had a constructive character that even offered some suggestions for solutions to the problem. You posts evolve around nullifying the discussion for some reason only you know and understand.

b) For any numbers to balance out, there has to be a balancing mechanic. There is not one. Unless you believe that 300000 players will divide themselves to the three factions at exactly 100000 players each by some miraculous force, fate or inspiration. The notion alone is ridiculous. Some things are more popular than others. So are races and classes etc. In every game.

c) You are posting an article that describes the mechanism of alliance point allocation. We are not talking about alliance points. We are talking about buffs to stats. These are entirely different things. Who cares about AP? Your AP will always be proportionate to your participation and what your alliance gets. But that's way beyond the scope of this discussion. We're talking actual buffs and debuffs that affect the ability of the zerg to fight and the ability of the defender to defend. Telling people to study the mechanics of Cyrodiil when you directly claim a non-existent mechanic shows the weight and validity of your post.

So either add something constructive to the conversation, a proposal or idea that has to do with dealing with the problem of swarming factions with triple+ numbers or mechanic intended for balancing the population..or don't post at all.

We love this game and we play it and give feedback for this particular reason. I would be glad if you would actually try to help by providing a decent idea for managing the problem.