Suggestion: Dynamic population caps.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Getting a more balanced reward system means that even at night, you'd get guilds fighting other guilds rather than all joining the same faction to get the buffs because fighting would reward just as much, if not more.

So yes, more ap, leading to a more balanced campaign, will impact late night as well. Maybe even more.

People are not logging for the night because the AP is not good enough, they are logging because they have to get some sleep before going to work in the morning. No amount of AP offered will change that.

You're replying too fast, take some time to read and understand what people are taking the time to write for you.

If total population for campaigns were balanced, they would be more or less balanced at all time of the day.
Meaning that instead of having 60 guys loged in one faction at night, there would be an average of 20 in each.

The ap gains aren't there for the one situation you are focused on but to fix the underlying problem: the vicious circle of losing and rage quit.

The idea being to change up things enough that all members of one faction stacking in one campaign is not the preferable situation.
If fighting an opposition is the most desirable situation, then people will spread out to gain the benefits and will have fun despite their min maxing nature.

Your solution doesn't address that at all.
The preferable situation would still be to be part of a buff campaign and dominate the map.
Sure, you're placing barriers along the way, but the finish line hasn't changed.
And as colateral damage, you're hurting people that just want to have fun.

Rune_Relic wrote: »

If you can figure up an idea that doesnt involve people not being able to play....that would be better.

I've posted one, but it got lost in this discussion:
- Campaign buffs are unlocked through activity tiers.
- Activity tier is depending on the amount of AP earned in the last 24h.
- You start at 0% of current buffs, and it increases as you "charge them".

- ap/xp for kills and captures increased by pop difference. (10v50 = x5)
- ap/xp for kills and captures increased by campaign point difference.
- Increased capture ticks on home keeps and resources.
- Increased capture ticks on objectives based on owners overall territory.

This is a three pronged solution.
- You first have a feature that enables strong buffs to exist, but they aren't gained for free. You need to cary your weight,not just be part of the campaign.
- The second part is to keep the morale up for the losing faction so that they don't rage quit the campaign. This is designed to stop the vicious circle of losses. When they do gain some victories, how ever rare, they get a large chunk.(Skinner box)
- The third is to encourage the three faction to keep each other balanced. If fighting the leader gives out more rewards and "activity tiers", then the two others will organically focus on it a bit more without the need for actual leaders.

This is mostly based on behaviorialism and decision theory. These are proven solutions based around incentives rather than punishments.

Sharee

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Getting a more balanced reward system means that even at night, you'd get guilds fighting other guilds rather than all joining the same faction to get the buffs because fighting would reward just as much, if not more.

So yes, more ap, leading to a more balanced campaign, will impact late night as well. Maybe even more.

People are not logging for the night because the AP is not good enough, they are logging because they have to get some sleep before going to work in the morning. No amount of AP offered will change that.

You're replying too fast, take some time to read and understand what people are taking the time to write for you.

If total population for campaigns were balanced, they would be more or less balanced at all time of the day.
Meaning that instead of having 60 guys loged in one faction at night, there would be an average of 20 in each.

The ap gains aren't there for the one situation you are focused on but to fix the underlying problem: the vicious circle of losing and rage quit.

The idea being to change up things enough that all members of one faction stacking in one campaign is not the preferable situation.
If fighting an opposition is the most desirable situation, then people will spread out to gain the benefits and will have fun despite their min maxing nature.

Your solution doesn't address that at all.
The preferable situation would still be to be part of a buff campaign and dominate the map.
Sure, you're placing barriers along the way, but the finish line hasn't changed.
And as colateral damage, you're hurting people that just want to have fun.

I know what you mean, but i think it will not work.

Let's take a model situation. EU server with balanced EU population on all sides, plus one US guild playing reds, capping the whole map while everyone else sleeps.

---

With your solution(give big AP boost to underpopulated sides):

Possibility 1>: The guild moved to blues.
Effect: None, except the map will now be painted blue instead of red. The guild gains nothing(since blue side no longer gets the low-pop boost).
Result: guild won't change(why should they?)

Possibility 2>: The guild splits.
Effect: map is balanced. The guild gains nothing however(no low-pop AP boost anywhere), and loses the ability to play together.
Result: guild won't change(why should they? They get the same AP, and can play together when they just stay red)

---

With my solution(long queues for overpopulated side):

Possibility 1>: The guild splits.
Effect: balanced game, and queues gone. Better, but the guild cannot play together.
Result: they just might do it if they insist on playing on the EU server.

Possibility 2>: The guild moves to the US server
Effect: balanced game(they arent playing while everyone is sleeping anymore), no queues
Result: Most likely, as they can get the benefit of 1> without losing the ability to play together.


However all the options require players to do something everyone is very reluctant to do: abandon their current characters. And that is where my solution is better than yours: It works even if the players choose to ignore it and stay where they are.

Turelus

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Second point:
Have you paused an instant to wonder why they have more people at off times than you?

Actually, i don't have to wonder, i know it exactly. A large US guild is playing on the EU server.

No. No. No. No. No!
It's a EU based guild with a large number of shift workers, students and unemployed! Do you want a screenshot of our TeamSpeak?

Also for maybe the third time in this thread go back to, this wasn't an issue until the DC and AD night shift players left for other campaigns.
The same thing is happening on Chillrend and Haderus for DC and AD.
The three factions (as they did before) found campaigns where they can easily win and moved to them, it just happened that it wasn't EP members who left Thornblade first leaving the campaign to fall to their full ownership.

There are posts in other threads where people say they up and quit on Thornblade because it was too much effort to fight, they didn't like lag, they didn't like queues. Those are the things which need fixing to help these issues not capping it so people can't join their home campaigns.

I would out right state here that if I couldn't play on Thornblade with my friends at 00:00 because the enemies of other factions were all on Chillrend and Haderus I would just quit PVP and probably the game.
I want to play on my home campaign, with my guild when I am free to game, right now that's often early hours for some of us because of shift work.

Edit

Sharee wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

There are already many players playing around the clock, and this game keeps going after you go to sleep.

Many players playing around the clock is not a problem. Many player playing around the clock only in a single faction is. My caps do not hinder the former, only the latter.

They're not only in one faction though, it's just the AD/DC ones are all playing the other two campaigns, so no one fights each other.

Zadian

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

…
I've posted one, but it got lost in this discussion:
- Campaign buffs are unlocked through activity tiers.
- Activity tier is depending on the amount of AP earned in the last 24h.
- You start at 0% of current buffs, and it increases as you "charge them".
…

That's currently the best solution I've read on this forum for a lot of problems.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

@Sharee‌
These aren't the only possible situations on either side.
Also, I'm really not sure you're getting the concepts I'm using.

The primary goal isn't to get people to change campaign, but to keep login in in their home campaign even if they aren't currently winning.

It is an effect that starts at a campaign reset and maintain it healthy until it runs its course. I'm not trying to fix the problem, but prevent it from happenning.

As a side effect, it may help fix the current campaigns. Some people will change, but not because of the incentives but because they can now be balanced without losing out on the campaign buffs.
It may even get people guesting on losing campaigns for the temporary xp/ap boost, This would make guesting an actually positive aspect of the game rather than being the problematic mess it is now.
But these effects are just "cherry on top".

And it will work, because that's how human beings work.
We are animals, we have evolved to be some of the best min maxers in nature.
We have a much stronger reaction to incentives than to punishment.
Positive reinforcement is what makes us get up everyday.

It is actually even more important to focus on the positive with gamers as we can just log off when we are fustrated.
We could go with your idea, and have people feel like they are fighting the game or competing with allies.
Or we could go with an incentives based approach and have people feel like they have been buffed and are now given new options.

Zadian wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

…
I've posted one, but it got lost in this discussion:
- Campaign buffs are unlocked through activity tiers.
- Activity tier is depending on the amount of AP earned in the last 24h.
- You start at 0% of current buffs, and it increases as you "charge them".
…

That's currently the best solution I've read on this forum for a lot of problems.

Thanks. I'll put it in form and post it as a thread of its own.

I forgot to mention, the territory buffs should only be applicable in PvE and on their main campaign, not when guesting.
Activity can only be earned on home campaign.
However the xp/ap gains are boosted even when guesting, so that people can "backup" their faction on other campaigns and be rewarded for it.

Sharee

Turelus wrote: »

No. No. No. No. No!
It's a EU based guild with a large number of shift workers, students and unemployed!

Do i believe you are in a guild with a large number of shift workers, students, and unemployed? Yes.

Do i believe your guild is the sole reason why EP population is locked at 1AM CET monday morning, while the other two factions have 1 population bar each?

Not a chance.

Sharee

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, I'm really not sure you're getting the concepts I'm using.

The primary goal isn't to get people to change campaign, but to keep login in in their home campaign even if they aren't currently winning.

It is not a matter of people not logging in because they are 'losing'. We are pop locked every primetime, wash the red off the map every day, and got an emperor last night while both our and EP populations were locked.

The problem is people cannot stay to defend our lands after 1AM on a workday, because they have to go to work in the morning. And no amount of extra AP offered will change that.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

Your two last comments display two ways to missunderstand the same point.

The other poster said they weren't dominating until the opposing guilds at their hour frame left the campaign.

What I'm was saying is that player distribution in factions over all campaigns is equal, no matter the hour.
It's just that they have organized themselves in buff campaigns rather than spreading out equally.

The two combined point toward the same issue: People leave campaigns to go towards buff campaigns because they have no reason to remain.
The way the game is currently setup, it is stupid not to join a campaign you can use for the buff.

Ap buffs will change that, which in turns will mean that players will stay in their campaigns, even the hardcore night players, which in the end will lead to balanced fights all day long, even at night.

Sharee

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Your two last comments display two ways to missunderstand the same point.

The other poster said they weren't dominating until the opposing guilds at their hour frame left the campaign.

Nope. There was no population-capped night fighting until an US guild joined the fray. Until then, the 'night shifts' were balanced at low pop.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

What I'm was saying is that player distribution in factions over all campaigns is equal, no matter the hour.
It's just that they have organized themselves in buff campaigns rather than spreading out equally.

The two combined point toward the same issue: People leave campaigns to go towards buff campaigns because they have no reason to remain.
The way the game is currently setup, it is stupid not to join a campaign you can use for the buff.

And you don't find it strange that only the supposed 'night shifts' did the above? That the normal primetime hours players all stayed? Not likely.

No. No-one left anywhere (or at least not to the degree you believe). Only the red side got foreign reinforcements:

Volla wrote: »

I just gonna make people to be aware that there is a US guild playing on Thornblade atm. They were on Dawnbreaker before and we had same problem.
They call em self " Elite " guild. in what way i can't see when they apparently need to play when all is sleeping to be " Elite "...

Well there you have it.

I think maybe Zenimax can offer them a transfer to the US Server so we can have the balance back. And maybe don't allow US to play on EU or something like that, or force move em back where they belong

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

And you don't find it strange that only one faction got reinforced at night?
And that other campaigns have the same issue but with different factions?
Why didn't backup came in uniformly?
Because it would have been stupid to do so.

Also, prime time isn't exactly a valid example.

From my experience on backwaters dominated campaigns(Haderus EU) the dominating faction(ad) is locked while the two others are around 2 bars, sometimes 3.
It got better lately, but the first couple weeks were horrid, and ad still pulls ahead consistently.

On more popular campaigns, it is logical that at prime time all three faction are locked, but it isn't representative of the actual amount of members.
The rest of the day is more accurate.
As total potential players(loged in + queued) lowers by the same percentage for each faction, the gap in online players increases.

Sharee

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And you don't find it strange that only one faction got reinforced at night?

Only one US guild joined thornblade.

As for other campaigns, i cannot comment as i only play one. But i know your solution won't help mine.

Also, prime time isn't exactly a valid example.

It is a very valid example. If people were to "leave campaigns to go towards buff campaigns because they have no reason to remain" like you suggested, it would not be limited to the night crew. Primetime shows there are lots of people to whom your theory does not apply. And none of those people play at night? Only those to whom you theory applies do play at night? What a strange coincidence...

Not likely. Blue and yellow people don't play at night on thornblade because they are asleep, not because they moved to play elsewhere.

Turelus

I have never ever seen this US guild you speak of, ever! I have only ever found and played with EU based players, many of whom don't mind staying up for hours. Honestly if you know who their members are let me know, I would love to know who they are.

Yes people did leave, because during the early hours of the first two weeks populations for all factions were two bars most the night. In fact AD had the strongest numbers and players in the first two weeks which is why they crowned the first Emperor.

There have been a lot of examples by this point about how dynamic population caps wouldn't help improve the game and could in fact cause more issues.

Sharee

Turelus wrote: »

I have never ever seen this US guild you speak of, ever! I have only ever found and played with EU based players, many of whom don't mind staying up for hours.

You have a locked campaign at night. That means 500 people. I am not surprised you do not know all of them.

As you said, during the first weeks there were two bars at most at night. And now EP is locked. That's twice as many people! Where did they come from all of sudden? An US guild joining the campaign 2 weeks in is the most obvious answer.

Turelus

It's only been locked at 1am once, that was Sunday night. Normally we are one bar above everyone else, going down to all at 1 bar around 3am BST.

Sharee

Turelus wrote: »

It's only been locked at 1am once, that was Sunday night. Normally we are one bar above everyone else, going down to all at 1 bar around 3am BST.

Look at the 'date uploaded':

http://imgur.com/TGiCul7
http://imgur.com/cDKXQR3

Reds being locked while the other 2 factions have 1 bar each definitely did not happen only once. Even i have 2 separate screenshots, despite only playing that late rarely.

Anyway, we are getting off-topic. This thread is not meant to be about Thornblade.

Turelus

Well in my time playing I have seen it once, apologies for that.

Getting onto the topic though, firstly I don't think there should be locks because players of one faction don't choose to play on a specific campaign.
There are three established and large guilds in my alliance which all want to log in daily and play with their friends, we settled on Thornblade because we wanted a longer campaign where we could fight more people. Should we really be punished and forced to not play with each other because AD and DC members would rather leave for campaigns they're winning on.

I think there needs to be something done about the issues, but I don't think the issues are what you believe them to be.
The issues at least the way I see it are that people don't want to play on laggy or queued campaigns, moved to less populated ones and then dominated there and wanted to stay. Next time you're checking the population caps for campaigns see if there are high populations in the other ones for the weaker factions.

I can say this so many times but I don't think you will ever believe me, when the campaigns started, the whole first week had members who were up until 6am every night, and we couldn't capture the map.
The reason was every other faction had the same, there are enough players in every faction to even out the sides 24/7 the problem is the ones who are online to counter night teams in Thorneblade are in other campaigns doing the same thing there for their factions.

Unless ZOS can find a way to merge the campaigns and stop factions going to have a campaign all to themselves you will continue to see this.

In closing a guild member wanted me to post some numbers for the campaigns and points scored by faction.
THORNBLADE Points in proportion EP 53.07% DC 24.56% AD 22.36%
VET ONLY CAMPAIGN Points in proportion EP 7.71% DC 12.46% AD 79.82%
CHILLREND Points in proportion EP 6.48% DC 77.05% AD 16.46%

Sharee

Turelus wrote: »

I can say this so many times but I don't think you will ever believe me, when the campaigns started, the whole first week had members who were up until 6am every night, and we couldn't capture the map.
The reason was every other faction had the same, there are enough players in every faction to even out the sides 24/7 the problem is the ones who are online to counter night teams in Thorneblade are in other campaigns doing the same thing there for their factions.

Yes all factions had the same, but all were low pop. It wasn't until EP started to be locked at night that they started to dominate the map.

If there is an US guild causing the EP lock, then my solution might cause them to go home (and i do believe ZOS should offer them a free transfer to the US). As soon as this happens, the populations of the 3 factions will become balanced once again at night, and the dynamic population caps won't affect regular EU players at all (it will be back where we were during the first 2 weeks)

Incidentally, if what you say is true ("the ones who are online to counter night teams in Thorneblade are in other campaigns doing the same thing there for their factions"), then the dynamic caps will solve this as well - they will get an incentive to come home, since they will be facing queues in the other campaign, but not home.

Tintinabula

Just fix it. Ill not resub next month if the campaigns lopside quickly. The Sims 4 has come out and several betas have sent invites for other games..ill find another game. I'm not going to be rolled daily for another month by scrubs in a lopsided campaign.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

Okay, I'll go in more details as to why prime time is not a good example.

See, if factions total population are split as such:
ad: 2000, ep: 800, dc: 1000
They can all have 500 players online at prime time, with people in queue.
But as the night starts, players log off at the same rate, a gap gets created.

If 10% of players play at night, then the online population would look like this:
ad: 200, ep: 80, dc:100.
Which is what we are witnessing.
So keeping the total population balanced is what keeps offtime population balanced as well.

Dynamic caps would be, in this case: 88v80v88.
Which means it won't solve the problem, 8 players is a guild group and make a big difference.
At the same time, the caps would make 124 out of 380 players unable to play.

Your caps only push the issue under the rug, but doesn' fix it.
There will still be buff campaigns and factions willing to pile in one campaign and dominate it because the caps haven't removed the viability of such strategy.

They just won't need to log in anymore, but will still benefit from the buffs while only the most "hardcore" will be online.
If you have a pool of 200 players available to fill 100 slots, only the most dedicated will be patient enough to wait and will remain online for a longer time.
The other factions will have a "normal mix" of players and will still get crushed.
These are just basic statistics calculations. Nothing far fetched or hard to grasp.

There are other aspects that are silly, like possible edge cases where dynamic caps could cause a campaign to be stuck at 100v110v110 at prime time when it could have been 500v500v500. This is a waste of server resources and a great way of frustrating people and make them leave the game, not just their campaigns.

Also, stop calling dynamic caps an incentive, it is a punishment/limitation.
Learn the difference.

DarioHammerson

Good day fine citizens of Ebonheart and brave enemies from abroad.

Yes, there is a US guild on Thornblade. It's the alliance of guilds I am a part of. The captures during the EU nights are lead by our polish Warlord. The rest of our army is from the following member-states of the USA:
GB, Ireland, Scandinavia, France, Germany (e.g. me), Italy, South Africa, Poland, Russia, Benelux and Austria. I'm really sorry, if I forgot to mention one of the other all-American states from the USA, which are part of our US-War Council.
Since the summer holidays of most countries are going to end soon, the amount of us Americans is decreasing soon as well in my opinion.
My holidays end e.g. on 11. Sep. 2014 . (Also a bad date for us Americans, but thats another story.)

Thanks for your attention and don't be shy to quote me.

Greetings from Hamar Eisenhaut

See you on the battlefield! FOR THE SKALDKING!







P.S.: Trust me, I have a beard.

Sharee

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Dynamic caps would be, in this case: 88v80v88.
Which means it won't solve the problem, 8 players is a guild group and make a big difference.

One side having 8 more guild players makes a lot less difference than one side having those players and 100 more players on top of that.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

At the same time, the caps would make 124 out of 380 players unable to play.

They would be able to play just fine if they moved to a campaign with active opposition. If they are so much determined to stay that even long queues wouldn't make them move, then a mere AP bonus wouldn't make them move either.

Your caps only push the issue under the rug, but doesn' fix it.
There will still be buff campaigns and factions willing to pile in one campaign and dominate it because the caps haven't removed the viability of such strategy.

On the contrary. My caps very well remove the viability of the strategy to crush the enemy with 3 times their numbers(which is the issue here) simply because fielding 3 times their numbers will be not just unviable, it will be impossible.

My caps ensure one side won't be overwhelmed by superior numbers, no matter how those numbers came to be, and no matter whether the players do anything to react to the measure or not.

Your solution on the other hand only works when

1> the imbalance is artifical(meaning all sides are equally strong, just night teams are playing in different campaigns avoiding each other) and
2> the people actually choose to react to it. If they choose to ignore it, the imbalances stay.

(That being said, your solution would work well as a supplement to the cap, so that players feel rewarded for doing the right thing.)

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

I understand that you believe in your ideas, and you aren't entirely wrong, but you don't take into account many things.
You are way too focused on one single situation to see that the problem is wider than what you're trying to address.
What you notice is just a symptom of the actual disease.

Primarily, you fail to see how people won't change campaigns over this, they'll just log off. it is not an incentive to switch, just a reason to not bother with the game. After all, buff campaigns even work when you don't fight.

You also don't take into acount that the winning faction still causes a vicious circle.
First, their 88 will be 88 hardcores against 80 "normals". Meaning that they'll have more prepared and experienced players. Even at equal number ,they'll win. Numbers aren't the only way to be overwhelmed.
Secondly, the drive to fight the weakest rather than the strongest is still there, and the lowest faction will be ganged upon, as an easy target.
Third, once a faction members start losing morale, its members will log off.
This favors the winning faction even more because its members will stay, so they'll keep their pop advantage while the second faction will be stuck by the cap set by the third one.

Your solution doesn't fix the problem it sets out to fix and can actually make it worse. At best in slows the process down a bit at the cost of player frustration.

Even if we assumed that dynamic caps were an actual solution to the problem, it still would be undesirable. As a company, you cannot refuse to provide the service you are paid for. If your best ability is 1500 players online, then you should always provide 1500 slots.

And thankfully, we have other solutions, like the one I propose, or any other one based on incentives.
People have stronger reactions to positive reinforcement. That's the whole concept behind gear treadmills and loot rewards. Players will do the grindiest things if it gives them something they care about.
Xp/ap gives them power, loot and gold. If the gains are suffiscient (more than the 10% percent a buff campaign gives) they will have no choice but to react.
Especially since it doesn't reward them for grinding but actually take part in fun combat.

And overall faction balance may not be perfect. From what I remember from pre launch polls, AD had a slight advantage in pop. But it was still more balanced than what we're seeing now.
And the night shifts over all faction seem to be equivalent.

Sharee

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

First, their 88 will be 88 hardcores against 80 "normals". Meaning that they'll have more prepared and experienced players. Even at equal number ,they'll win.

The point of this proposed change seems to have been lost in the noise:

The whole point of the population cap is to ensure the player populations in all factions of the campaign are roughly equal at all times. The point is not to ensure that the player skill in all factions is equal.

It is entirely OK to lose a campaign because the enemy was better at equal numbers. It is just not OK to lose a campaign because the enemy outnumbered you three- or four-to-one every night.

Sharee

moved to previous post

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO

The reasons to expect what I've explained are basic statistics.

When you have a larger pool of potential players, you have a higher flat number of hardcore players.
If you take only a subset of the entire population, through a cap for instance, and put a barrier of entry that is annoying to the common player, you end up with a higher number of more dedicated players because they are the ones willing to pay the price to get online.

This flat number is also increased by the fact that hardcore players usually are the ones picking the solutions that give them the most advantages. In our case, a buff campaign. So the proportion of hardcore players in the overall faction population is higher in a buff campaign.

The winning faction will have better troops, which in turns will lead it to more victory, bringing more people to the faction, and so on. Feedback loop.

As per your proposal, they will have a pop advantage of 10% over the weakest faction. That pop advantage will exist at most time.
Even with low pop, that 80v88v88 example I've been using, that's enough for an extra strike force. As they win more fights, they'll have no reasons to log off, while the losing faction will.
Because it's not facing higher numbers that make people lose morale, it is getting defeated repeatedly.
Victory against higher numbers is actually a great boost in morale.

So not only they'll start at 10% more troops, but over time, the gap will widden as the weakest faction gets lower. Unless you're prepared to kick players at random, you can't counter this. Another feedback loop.

And you need to review your strategic skills. If you have an enemy 10% weaker than the other, and nothing to gain by fighting a hard fight, you should always go after the weakest.
Maybe not everyone knows this, but those that have the firepower to make an impact do.
That's why on most dominated campaigns, there still are mostly fights between the two underdogs instead of focusing on the larger faction. That's where the effort vs reward ratio is the most interesting.

The fairest solution is not to enforce equal fights, but to provide equal opportunity for all. A dynamic cap means that a part of the population is favored over another one. You either are in a faction where you can log in 100% of the time, or you're a second rate citizen that can't log in all of the time.
This is NOT quality service.
The flat 500 caps per each faction treats people equally. It is the choice of the faction members to not use that cap to its full potential, and the opposing side shouldn't be punished for that.
Do you consider it unfair to you that you pay 13 euros per month and play only 20 hours a week when someone else gets to play 40hours?
No, because the service is available to you all that time, you just didn't use it.

And finally, maybe I should have put it in bold letters too, but I addressed your points and told you that not only we are in the situation of cross campaign faction balance. You don't see all the potential situations, in either solutions. but there are situations other than the one you focus on that get solved by incentives.Those situations are the ones that lead to buff campaigns in the first place, so it is effectively killing your issue in the egg.

Also, if the incentives are implemented as I described, it won't be a choice. Either you follow the ap/xp, or you'd be doing it wrong.
Sure, some may go against it for personal preferences, or simply for being clueless, but the general trend will always lean towards min maxing.
Why stay in a campaign for a maximum of 10% buff you have to work hard to gain when you can fight balanced fights where you have the potential to gain x10 if you fight the leading faction?

Place an optimum choice in a game, and players will exploit it. They are doing the buff campaigns now, they'll fight over greater rewards tomorrow.
Players are greedy.
if you don't understand this, I'm afraid you lack the experience to provide constructive feedback.

Keron

Fun fact side remark without intent to derail or belittle this discussion:

Maybe the devs should take a look here, this is how 1vs1-pvp is supposed to be Noone gives ground, both just go at it indefinitely and the balance is there - both are equally tenacious in defending their idea.

madangrypally

They need to reword the underdog AP bonus as well as add in some other type of mechanics.

Every 20 minutes the campaign takes a snap shot of campaign population. This determines the buffs for the next 20 minutes before a new snap shot is taken.

Example:
DC = 10% campaign population: 0 scrolls and 0 keeps.
EP = 30% campaign population: 2 scrolls and 3 keeps.
AD = 60% campaign population: 4 scrolls and 15 keeps.

There are multiple types of bonuses the are determined by the above values.

AP Bonus:
DC gains 20% more AP when attacking EP.
DC gains 50% more AP when attacking AD.
EP gains no bonus when attacking DC
EP gains 20% more AP when attacking AD.
AD gains no bonus when attacking DC or EP.

Cyodiil Buff bonuses:
These are calculated with population, scrolls, and keeps.
Example:
DC: Will receive 46% of the base buff bonus.
EP: Will receive 42% of the base buff bonus.
AD: Will receive 61% of the base buff bonus.

Calculated by:
2% for every 1% away from 33% population. (DC = 23x2, AD = -(27x2))
10% for every scroll
5% for every keep

This was just a made up example and other values will likely be better.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

The fundamental problem here may be one of statistics, and of game design. The designers probably counted on lots of independent players from different guilds coming in to fight for each faction in each campaign, but right now, there are not enough PvP players in the game to create a reasonably random population. A single organised guild with a few hundred people on TS can all enter a low population campaign and be the overwhelmingly dominant force, and a few guilds can easily agree, formally or informally, on a cartel to make three campaigns single-coloured.

With six campaigns in total, the hard cap on the total number of simultaneous PvP players on each server is 6 x 1,500 = 9,000. I have never seen all campaigns at full population, so there are a few thousand players in Cyrodiil at peak hours, tops. This game was designed to have a lot more players with a lot less organisation, and now the rules of the game don't work out right.

Sharee

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

The reasons to expect what I've explained are basic statistics.

When you have a larger pool of potential players, you have a higher flat number of hardcore players.
If you take only a subset of the entire population, through a cap for instance, and put a barrier of entry that is annoying to the common player, you end up with a higher number of more dedicated players ...

All that wall of text, and it completely misses the point.

See my previous post. The goal is to make populations equal, not to make all sides in the conflict perform equal.

Your position throughout this conversation was a bit hard to see through because you write essays where simple sentences would suffice, but the basic of what you are saying can be summed up by "your caps won't help, because you will still be losing!" Because: (an essay follows)

Answer: the caps are not supposed to stop me from losing, they are only supposed to stop me from being outnumbered 3 to 1.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

You either are in a faction where you can log in 100% of the time, or you're a second rate citizen that can't log in all of the time.

Or you could play in a campaign that has live player opposition at your usual playing times, and be able to log in all the time no problem. No one is holding a gun to your head forcing you to play the overpopulated faction in a campaign.

Vizier

They just need to fundamentally alter PvP and campaign mechanics. This sliding pop cap is no bueno in my book. Won't really fix anything other than make the battles smaller.

Campaigns need to change. They need, necessary land control to expand, drastically reduced function of forward camps, introduction of guild/group camps, clear supply lines for strong sieging, more skirmishing for lands between keeps, vastly reduced damage too keeps from siege equipment, Oil pots use restricted to elevated poitions etc.

Your suggestion is merely a band-aid offering no real change to PvP. ZOS needs to get serious about their PvP environment.

I agree with you in that as is..nobody really gives a crap about who controls what in Cyrodiil since it changes faster than the weather.

You don't like who's in control or who's on the throne? Meh Shrug. Give it an hour. No worries.