Why dynamic population balancing and soft caps are necessary to save AvA.

Imperator_Clydus

Greetings and salutations members of the Elder Scrolls Online community,

ZOS has a major issue on their hands. While it may not be readily apparent currently for most as many are still leveling, AvA is in serious jeopardy of failure. With the questionable move of reducing the AP cost to 15,000 down from 100,000 to transfer campaigns, as well as the short 24 lockout before it can be done again, everyone knew this would lead to abuse. I realize this is a temporary measure, but it is leading to long-term consequences for many.

What truly disturbs me, however, is how ZOS either disregarded this issue, or completely missed it altogether. From earlier interviews, it was implied that dynamic population balancing would be implemented in order to maintain the integrity of AvA. Whether this was a blatant lie or ZOS didn't have time to finish the architecture of this system, that is really anybody's guess.

What I do know is that AvA is an absolute mess on the majority of campaigns due to various responses from players. I have spent a majority of my time on Bloodthorn since Early Access and it has transitioned from being underpopulated by all alliances, completely dominated by EP due to a super guild/alliance flooding the campaign, and now primarily being dominated by DC due to a super guild/alliance flooding the campaign and many in EP leaving.

This is a double-edged sword. What we have is not only large groups of coordinated players flooding campaigns. We also have others leaving in flocks to other campaigns where they can win as a consequence of the rapid flooding. This is causing an effect where true balance and consistency will never be possible.

Nobody likes to lose. Many will campaign hop as a result just so they can win. This leads to a scenario where there will likely never be quality PvP, as everybody is inherently trying to do what is in their best interest, at the expense of everyone else.

This is where ZOS needs to step in. To truly make AvA work and have a relatively quality experience on all of their campaigns, they need to start regulating what players can and cannot do. One of the first things they need to do is increase the AP cost of transferring campaigns back up to 100,000. This will highly discourage campaign hopping and prevent massive zergs from flooding or leaving servers in mass.

Secondly, dynamic population balancing and soft caps must be implemented as soon as possible. AvA only works if all three alliances have a fighting chance and can actually compete on a relatively even playing field. If there are only 30 DC and 50 AD currently participating on the Chrysamere campaign, we shouldn't have more than 100 EP currently participating.

This would lock these particular campaigns and allow them to fill in a balanced manner. If your current home campaign is not accessible due to low population of the other two factions, you can either wait to PvP later or guest on a different campaign to get in the action.

Certainly this isn't a perfect solution and there will be challenges and issues. That being said, it's a step in the right direction from the anarchy and lack of competition many campaigns are currently exhibiting due to player abuse. I'm sure I'm not the only person in the AvA community who just wants to have the fun battles that we experienced in beta again.

The longer ZOS delays to resolve this problem, the worse it will become. Feel free to share your own thoughts and comments about how ZOS can potentially rectify the many shortcomings AvA is currently suffering from. It's imperative that we voice our concerns and that ZOS adequately understands the gravity of the situation.

I firmly believe a large part of ESO's long-term success will be on the execution and quality of the AvA experience. Right now, it's not looking very bright. Here's to hoping for a better and more fulfilling future.

Regards,

Imperator Clydus

jpp

What is additionally interesting is that in beta ZOS explained how soft and hard cap works. Soft cap simply allows same number of players on each side.
So my question would be where is soft-cap?

Argurios

I agree totally, while i don't pvp regularly at the moment as i am waiting to hit VR10 before getting really stuck in, i was unaware they lowered the transfer cost. They lowered it which could be considered ok while people found their feet in a campaign, or hooked up with friends etc, but now the game has been out for a while they should raise it again back to 100k.

Too many *** will otherwise chase the glory on any campaign they can get an advantage, rather than making an effort on the one they are based on. 15k really isn't much at all.

Rainingblood

I find it interesting. So on campaigns where a dominant faction finally gets some competition, they leave? To go to a campaign where they have no PvP? I don't get it... My home campaign is dominated by EP and it's boring. I WISH a large guild/alliance would come to one of the other factions. I guest other campaigns in order to PvP.

But at the same time, those large guilds want to have guild PvP events in Cyrodiil and don't want there to be queue times. I agree with having a high cost to switch campaigns, but if you are in a large guild and the other factions have small populations, how do you propose a fix there? Cap everyone else from being able to go into Cyrodiil? So just because you are on a larger population faction, you get locked out?

Don't get me wrong, I understand what you're saying, but just saying a cap will fix the problem might not be looking at the entire picture.

chrisub17_ESO104

So this whole issue is not new to this game. It's been hashed out for ages now in GW2, and that game has some considerable history that's worth learning from.

While it's true that a large majority of players will simply go to where they can win, most of the organized pvp guilds will go to where the action is. Where they can fight other organized pvp guilds. Putting in place artificial caps of one type or another can have all sorts of unintended consequences. One thing you do not want to do is put in place a system that splits up guild member into separate compaigns or locks part of a guild out of a campaign. Which yours would given the information you provided.

IMO there is no perfect solution here. You pick the lesser of two evils. My vote is let the community sort it out. If someone actually comes up with a well thought out solution that accounts for all of the various known issues with artificial caps of one type or another, I'm all for it. But I have yet to hear one, including this one.

Imperator_Clydus

chrisub17_ESO104 wrote: »

So this whole issue is not new to this game. It's been hashed out for ages now in GW2, and that game has some considerable history that's worth learning from.

While it's true that a large majority of players will simply go to where they can win, most of the organized pvp guilds will go to where the action is. Where they can fight other organized pvp guilds. Putting in place artificial caps of one type or another can have all sorts of unintended consequences. One thing you do not want to do is put in place a system that splits up guild member into separate compaigns or locks part of a guild out of a campaign. Which yours would given the information you provided.

IMO there is no perfect solution here. You pick the lesser of two evils. My vote is let the community sort it out. If someone actually comes up with a well thought out solution that accounts for all of the various known issues with artificial caps of one type or another, I'm all for it. But I have yet to hear one, including this one.

You let the community "sort it out" and I guarantee this game will go F2P in less than a year. That is not an option. ZOS needs to step in. Whatever intentions you believe some of these PvP guilds may have, others just want to win and dominate regardless of competition. I've seen this scenario played out already plenty of times on Bloodthorn alone.

We cannot depend on a "what if" scenario hoping that players will do what is in the best interest of the game. That is naive and foolish. They will do what is in the best interest of themselves, likely contrary to campaign health and stability. AvA in beta was actually quite incredible most of the time, and it's because the population was concentrated and players couldn't just campaign hop.

Yes, my solution could negatively impact large guilds or super alliances. A potential solution to that is for ZOS to create a rule set with campaigns specifically geared towards large guilds. Otherwise, ZOS needs to sacrifice what large guilds/alliances want for the majority of the community. Considering they are a minority in the larger scheme of things, ZOS needs to be rational and execute systems in a democratic manner.

I suppose my question to you is should a guild of 500 truly be allowed to flood the same campaign anyways? If that is to truly be allowed, that one guild is more or less the entire alliance for that campaign. I think that severely cripples the point of faction camaraderie and AvA if one's guild is that large. This is just my personal opinion, but I wouldn't count on the PvP guilds to resolve anything.

The game has already been out for over two weeks and stability in AvA certainly isn't getting any better. It's time for ZOS to step up to the plate and save their own system before it goes under.

Imperator_Clydus

One other element I'd like to add to the discussion is the potential dissolution of most of the current campaigns. As it stands, most of them are low populated and generally are never competitive. Better to consolidate campaigns, boost the populations to high/full of all alliances in the remaining campaigns, then slowly expand campaigns based on demand.

Ten clearly is too many and is just exacerbating the issue of campaign hopping. We need to give players less options and centralize the PvP experience more.

Numeriku

My guild is one of the 3 guilds that joined bloodthorn when it was dominated by EP during NA time, it was fun at first but now with the ep guys fairweathering, its just not fun.

hyro

So what happends when you have 20+ people in one campaign who are running around doing dungeons and questing all on the same alliance but they're still counted as being in PVP because they're in Cyrodiil but aren't actually helping PVP

Imperator_Clydus

hyro wrote: »

So what happends when you have 20+ people in one campaign who are running around doing dungeons and questing all on the same alliance but they're still counted as being in PVP because they're in Cyrodiil but aren't actually helping PVP

Well unfortunately this will happen. I don't believe it's going to be nearly as widespread or an issue as many might assume, but certainly it can be a problem.

In that kind of scenario the other two alliances finding these players either looking for sky shards or running public dungeons will discourage them from not participating in the Alliance War.

In the long run, I'm under the impression most players who are in Cyrodiil will be there to participate in AvA. I don't see this being an issue in the larger scheme of things.

Rainingblood

I suppose my question to you is should a guild of 500 truly be allowed to flood the same campaign anyways? If that is to truly be allowed, that one guild is more or less the entire alliance for that campaign. I think that severely cripples the point of faction camaraderie and AvA if one's guild is that large.

How would you remedy that? By saying "sorry, you are in a large guild so you can't PvP right now, but that smaller guild can all go in?"

These large guilds have brought a huge player base to the game and to say, "sorry but your guild is not allowed to all PvP together" is kind if like you are saying that you think a mechanic is unfair for some people, so you will create an unfair situation for the group you feel is at an advantage.

Again, I agree that we need longer than 24 hours for a lock, but ZOS said that they made it shorter for launch to see how campaigns play out, so that will hopefully change. But other than reducing the number of campaigns, what if they were ranked so you could pick based on competitiveness? Players and guilds who want hardcore PvP can choose one based on that style, and maybe there could be others that have a more casual ruleset, or RP, etc. Just brainstorming I guess...

Putok

Are there any balanced campaigns left?

Wabbajack was great for the first couple weeks, but now DC is dominant. It's not uncommon for them to own the whole map. They often have more players than the other two factions combined. I decided to not even bother playing until I get to max level, and even then...

All I can think is that perhaps they need to add a buff to outnumbered factions to dramatically boost their combat strength. If one faction has double the players of another, the outnumbered faction can have all of their stats doubled. That might be a better option than soft caps.

Smayes97_ESO

One thing I don't understand is why are there so many campaigns to begin with? During peak times Auriel's bow is usually the only one that is capped for all 3 factions. Then you have a few others that are capped on only 1 faction. I think they should cut down to 3 campaigns. It might result in having to wait in a Q but it would probably help alot with this issue. I just don't see a need in like 10 different campaigns right now. Having that many campaigns pretty much encourages campaign hopping imo.

Mobius0

Zenimax seems to love soft caps so much.....I don't see why they can't throw a soft cap into AvAvA.

And if a guild wants to bring a 500 players to the battlefield, then they should damn well have enough opponents on the other side, to keep it competetive. Other wise, HELL YES, block them from steamrolling a campaign!

savak

Just buff underpopulated sides so that players have more punch per person. Tgr question is why would a random Joe (the majority of the player base) join a campaign where their faction can't even hold one keep?

Lucardes

Very good thoughts here.

Also one improtant thing to note: If a player is inactive say for 30 days we should not count them as part of that dynamic cap thus freeing up one spot for someone else. Otherwise you could have a high population situation when infact most are just inactive. This needs to be accounted.

Rainingblood

Lucardes wrote: »

Very good thoughts here.

Also one improtant thing to note: If a player is inactive say for 30 days we should not count them as part of that dynamic cap thus freeing up one spot for someone else. Otherwise you could have a high population situation when infact most are just inactive. This needs to be accounted.

But this is about people entering the campaign. In actives won't matter.

Putok

savak wrote: »

Just buff underpopulated sides so that players have more punch per person. Tgr question is why would a random Joe (the majority of the player base) join a campaign where their faction can't even hold one keep?

There's no good way to check scoring or who holds keeps prior to joining a campaign.

Imperator_Clydus

Rainingblood wrote: »

I suppose my question to you is should a guild of 500 truly be allowed to flood the same campaign anyways? If that is to truly be allowed, that one guild is more or less the entire alliance for that campaign. I think that severely cripples the point of faction camaraderie and AvA if one's guild is that large.

How would you remedy that? By saying "sorry, you are in a large guild so you can't PvP right now, but that smaller guild can all go in?"

These large guilds have brought a huge player base to the game and to say, "sorry but your guild is not allowed to all PvP together" is kind if like you are saying that you think a mechanic is unfair for some people, so you will create an unfair situation for the group you feel is at an advantage.

Again, I agree that we need longer than 24 hours for a lock, but ZOS said that they made it shorter for launch to see how campaigns play out, so that will hopefully change. But other than reducing the number of campaigns, what if they were ranked so you could pick based on competitiveness? Players and guilds who want hardcore PvP can choose one based on that style, and maybe there could be others that have a more casual ruleset, or RP, etc. Just brainstorming I guess...

Again, ZOS could create a special rule set for large guilds to potentially avert this issue. The point is right now it is the large guilds who are campaign hopping and are largely crippling AvA on every campaign.

While these large guilds certainly have many members, remember that they are actually the minority of this game's player base. With any AAA MMO, the developer will cater to the majority of the population, which is not extremely large guilds/gaming communities.

It has been two weeks and it's about time ZOS increases the lockout timer and the AP cost for switching. As far as trying to create rule sets based on play style, every MMO has tried that in the past and it never works. Those were your RP, PvP, and PvE servers in other games.

A large guild doesn't necessarily mean more competitive. If we were to have any rule set, it should be strictly for large guilds only.

Imperator_Clydus

Putok wrote: »

Are there any balanced campaigns left?

Wabbajack was great for the first couple weeks, but now DC is dominant. It's not uncommon for them to own the whole map. They often have more players than the other two factions combined. I decided to not even bother playing until I get to max level, and even then...

All I can think is that perhaps they need to add a buff to outnumbered factions to dramatically boost their combat strength. If one faction has double the players of another, the outnumbered faction can have all of their stats doubled. That might be a better option than soft caps.

I disagree. This would lead to exploiting and balance already is terrible with bolstering and how much stronger VR players are in comparison to lowbie players.

Population balancing will definitely lead to the most quality experience as was proven by the great pvp in beta. Reduce the number of campaigns, restrict campaign hopping, prevent large guilds from flooding specific campaigns, these are all steps that would help alleviate issues and bring sanity to AvA.

Imperator_Clydus

Smayes97_ESO wrote: »

One thing I don't understand is why are there so many campaigns to begin with? During peak times Auriel's bow is usually the only one that is capped for all 3 factions. Then you have a few others that are capped on only 1 faction. I think they should cut down to 3 campaigns. It might result in having to wait in a Q but it would probably help alot with this issue. I just don't see a need in like 10 different campaigns right now. Having that many campaigns pretty much encourages campaign hopping imo.

This is very true and the number of campaigns is definitely an issue. ZOS should really treat campaigns like traditional servers in other MMORPGs. Most of the campaigns are ghost towns and are dominated by a single alliance. They are clearly not working as intended so ZOS should scale the number of campaigns back.

I'm not sure how many players ZOS was expecting to buy the game at launch or how many would participate early in AvA, but clearly ZOS overestimated the numbers. Better to have a queue and guarantee active alliances on all three sides rather than getting in instantly and seeing your alliance camped at your gate spawn.

Imperator_Clydus

I feel this thread needs more attention as the inadequacies of AvA and campaign populations cannot be overstated enough. As ZOS continues to seemingly ignore this issue, it is up to us to bring it up and make the issues with AvA known.

There are far too many campaigns. At most we should have four currently. At the very least we should have three. Auriel's Bow, Bloodthorn, and Wabbajack are the only campaigns that have had remotely respectable populations for some time now.

To prevent campaign hopping, lopsided campaigns, and overall lack of competition, ZOS must act and reduce the number of current campaigns. They can slowly scale back up once there is more demand and more players are participating in AvA.

Until that point, however, AvA will continue to suffer and I really see no point in ZOS delaying what should be an easy resolution. For the health and stability of AvA and ESO, I hope dearly that ZOS will address this sooner rather than later.

Cheatingdeath23

Putok wrote: »

Are there any balanced campaigns left?

Wabbajack was great for the first couple weeks, but now DC is dominant. It's not uncommon for them to own the whole map. They often have more players than the other two factions combined. I decided to not even bother playing until I get to max level, and even then...

All I can think is that perhaps they need to add a buff to outnumbered factions to dramatically boost their combat strength. If one faction has double the players of another, the outnumbered faction can have all of their stats doubled. That might be a better option than soft caps.

Ironic because it has been a few weeks (this was posted April 16) and now EP is the dominant faction and a lot of DC players have fled the campaign.

Igolbug

What of those really bad guilds that will just fill the opposing faction up with alt accounts so nobody can get in. This happened in GW2, and I know a few guilds that would do this if it made a difference.

SwampRaider

Low pop campaigns like chrysamere[NA] need a softcap of 75-100

Currently in Chrysamere, The population is somewhat like this:
DC:10-30
AD:10-50
EP: 10-40

BUT we have major issues. Last week, Angry Joes 300 Man Army came in and wiped the map. It took 8 DC and 3 hours to fix the issue the next morning.

Another day, EP had 100 people guest in, vs 10 DC. they didnt do much due to me mass spamming mages in keeps, but they took a considerable amount of territory.

Chrysamere itself is fairly balanced almost every night, save for 10-15 people less on one side or the other, but when zergs guest in, it ruins everything for everybody.

So please ZOS, make server soft caps that calculate the current population

Imperator_Clydus

SwampRaider wrote: »

Low pop campaigns like chrysamere[NA] need a softcap of 75-100

Currently in Chrysamere, The population is somewhat like this:
DC:10-30
AD:10-50
EP: 10-40

BUT we have major issues. Last week, Angry Joes 300 Man Army came in and wiped the map. It took 8 DC and 3 hours to fix the issue the next morning.

Another day, EP had 100 people guest in, vs 10 DC. they didnt do much due to me mass spamming mages in keeps, but they took a considerable amount of territory.

Chrysamere itself is fairly balanced almost every night, save for 10-15 people less on one side or the other, but when zergs guest in, it ruins everything for everybody.

So please ZOS, make server soft caps that calculate the current population

Ah so Angry Joe and the Angry army hopped to your campaign? They came to Bloodthorn about a week or so ago and we crushed them. They left the next day. This is part of the reason AP cost needs to be raised to transfer back up to 100,000. This would discourage players like Angry Joe and his mindless zerg from flooding campaigns.

Limiting the amount of campaigns to only three or four would cripple their flexibility and make these players and guilds stay where they are.

rawne1980b16_ESO

Imperator_Clydus wrote: »

Limiting the amount of campaigns to only three or four would cripple their flexibility and make these players and guilds stay where they are.

A few of us have been saying that for a while now.

There are far too many campaigns for the amount of players using them.

ChairGraveyard

Good post OP.

Unfortunately I think not much will be done until things are obviously and clearly messed up, as is the case e.g., with the AoE cap (which will 100% inevitably result in stacking exploits to make groups effectively immune to AoE damage, removing all skill and strategy from PvP).

xPALERIDERx

Game is new, everyone is making a lot of assumptions on what it will be like as more and more of the population reach max level.
I prefer how it is because I like that I can transfer away from the massive zerg balls on my alliance and go where the fights will be challenging and plentiful. This happens more frequently on campaigns where your side is out manned.
The truth is that most people will ONLY play like cowards and can only stand to log in when they can be part of the zerg. All other RvR games have been this way. Don't see how this one will be any different. So take the challenge onto yourself. Get organized, geared, and leveled and do your best to wipe the zerg. Those that try this will have fun, this that don't either are in the zerg or will be discouraged and quit anyways.

e.gamemarkb14_ESO

A big part of the server hopping is the ongoing abuse of a bug that has been around since Beta, that allows anyone to keep spamming "travel to player" until they get in. Apparently you can do this without having to switch home or guest campaigns.

I feel this is contributing a lot to the flood movements of faction from a challenging or losing campaign, to one that is winning. Everyone wants to win, so with all these systems and exploits to jump to other campaigns without actually having to change either home or guest settings, it makes things that much worst.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

No, horrible idea. Lets just keep people from playing with their faction/guild/friends. Thats what you are suggesting. Better suggestion just move to a different campaign