Low pop score bonus making PVP participation irrelevant?

Malveria

Can we address this please?

So currently on Thornblade, DC is getting 288 points per evaluation due to the low pop bonus. This is a full 101 points more than AD. However DC has three less keeps, one less outpost, and eight less resources than AD, who also has their scroll (and thus has three scrolls). Which means that the low pop bonus is more than 100 points per assessment.

Before anyone criticises me for AD being 'at the bottom', EP has the same amount of keeps as DC, one less outpost, one more scroll, and one less resource, and they are getting 116 points per assessment. Meaning that DC has the potential to overtake them in terms of point assessment by doing nothing other than not being there.

DC is winning in point assessment purely by being absent.

This system of scoring only encourages people to not log on to their server at all. They are being rewarded for not pvping. This is hardly a solution to anything. In fact, it only causes more problems.

I don't care about winning. I, and my guild, want good fights in PVP. But we also want a game that works. And a balanced PVP system that doesn't make it detrimental to our faction to even log on.

This solution means that a faction has to dominate the map in order to win against an enemy that isn't even present, thus punishing the other two factions who are fighting, because the third, absent faction can still win by virtue of being absent.

The system is ridiculous.

The only way that a faction can out pace a low pop bonus score assessment is to dominate the map, turn it their colour, potentially kill all the PVP fighting that might be going on, and then hold it. That means all the keeps, all the scrolls, everything theirs.

And even then, could a low pop vs a locked pop still mean that the absent faction wins? Why even bother playing?

Make keeps harder to take with lower pops. Increase the individual faction soft caps with lower pops. Something. Anything except rewarding factions for not playing at all.

dcincali

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Scoring underdog bonuses have a re-evaluation period of several days to allow underdog alliances to catch up/overtake positions in scoring. That said, the evaluation period can be reduced much like Haderus will be in the coming patch to a much shorter evaluation period.

Adding this info, DC could pop lock the camp for 2 days straight, take the whole map and still get the bonus. Who's going to catch up then?

SoulScream

I have been watching that and to me the low pop plus the low score bonus bugs ruined the campaign. I'm glad the low score bonus was removed but the points gained were not adjusted. I think a lot of people left the campaign because of these.

PlagueMonk

We discussed this silliness in the following thread recently.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/130810/devs-is-the-low-population-scoring-bonus-working-as-intended/p1

I took and posted multiple SS because I noticed the exact same stupidly large bonuses the previous weekend.

Raeder

It's almost like these devs don't think things through before changing something. Color me surprised /s.

dylanjaygrobbelaarb16_ESO

Its overdone, but something needs to be done. Guesting/ night capping into a locked campaign also kills a server if people feel its impossible to catch up. There needs to be incentive to retake the map even if its near impossible to catch up if you don't want masses constantly jumping servers.

Zabus

They're getting 459 points atm with only 2 or 3 more resources than EP, I say ZOS needs to fix this asap.

Grim13

Yeah, it's bloody ridiculous. At this rate DC will take lead and zoom out of sight in no time.

Grim13

Imho, the low pop bonus should be stat-based and not score-based... give the faction with the least amount of people more hp or dmg output... not the current clown points [snip] up pvp.

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

InvictoNZ

Team score increases because individuals leave campaign... what the ***.

Team score has nothing to do with individual point gain.

Let the brave who remain or join the low pop alliance get bonuses to their personal AP gain. Double, tripple, x10, I don't give a *** about individuals. But the team itself does not deserve ANY extra bonus.

Malveria

If we removed the capacity for people to leave for 'easy fights' it would go a long way.

FluffiestOne

Malveria wrote: »

Can we address this please?

So currently on Thornblade, DC is getting 288 points per evaluation due to the low pop bonus. This is a full 101 points more than AD. However DC has three less keeps, one less outpost, and eight less resources than AD, who also has their scroll (and thus has three scrolls). Which means that the low pop bonus is more than 100 points per assessment.

Before anyone criticises me for AD being 'at the bottom', EP has the same amount of keeps as DC, one less outpost, one more scroll, and one less resource, and they are getting 116 points per assessment. Meaning that DC has the potential to overtake them in terms of point assessment by doing nothing other than not being there.

DC is winning in point assessment purely by being absent.

This system of scoring only encourages people to not log on to their server at all. They are being rewarded for not pvping. This is hardly a solution to anything. In fact, it only causes more problems.

I don't care about winning. I, and my guild, want good fights in PVP. But we also want a game that works. And a balanced PVP system that doesn't make it detrimental to our faction to even log on.

This solution means that a faction has to dominate the map in order to win against an enemy that isn't even present, thus punishing the other two factions who are fighting, because the third, absent faction can still win by virtue of being absent.

The system is ridiculous.

The only way that a faction can out pace a low pop bonus score assessment is to dominate the map, turn it their colour, potentially kill all the PVP fighting that might be going on, and then hold it. That means all the keeps, all the scrolls, everything theirs.

And even then, could a low pop vs a locked pop still mean that the absent faction wins? Why even bother playing?

Make keeps harder to take with lower pops. Increase the individual faction soft caps with lower pops. Something. Anything except rewarding factions for not playing at all.

You just aren't as good as the smurf army, atleast TRY and take their keeps. My goodness.

ferzalrwb17_ESO

It's not any more broken than it was before but it's on the other side of the coin. What difference does it make if AD romp home by PvD or DC win by not being there? Similar amounts of PvP took place.

They obviously need to scale it down. Given their care factor and track record of timely changes I expect this to be resolved some time in 2015 after the F2P relaunch.

InvictoNZ

Fix this fucken ***.

Talcyndl

There are three issues IMO.

(1) The delay in updating the bonus. Last night DC was getting the bonus even though they were pop locked. It should be updated immediately.

(2) Exploits of the "travel to player" feature. This was a known bug that it doesn't seem has been fixed. DC appears to have significantly more players than show on the population bars.

(3) The size of the bonus is too great. Even if a bonus is appropriate in some situations, it should not be as large as it is.

Sakyo

(2) Exploits of the "travel to player" feature. This was a known bug that it doesn't seem has been fixed. DC appears to have significantly more players than show on the population bars.

So known that I can't find any mention of it anywhere except for people coming up with excuses for getting their teeth kicked in by a smaller force.

I do agree the delay is a bit too long but it shouldn't be immediate. If it was the second DC equalized they would never be able to catch up cause the bonus would only apply when no one was on to take things.

The size of the bonus needs to be looked at but till the delay is adjusted I would wait on changing both.

bitaken

dbetterton_ESO wrote: »

There are three issues IMO.

(1) The delay in updating the bonus. Last night DC was getting the bonus even though they were pop locked. It should be updated immediately.

(2) Exploits of the "travel to player" feature. This was a known bug that it doesn't seem has been fixed. DC appears to have significantly more players than show on the population bars.

(3) The size of the bonus is too great. Even if a bonus is appropriate in some situations, it should not be as large as it is.

Fwiw it just feels like we have more than it says because the dc that are on thorn are either guild groups built to plow zergs or one rolling zerg. So you either run into a buzzsaw or the dc zerg.

Travel to has always been in the game and does effect the population bars...you cannot travel to a player in a pop locked faction of a campaign. Try for your self. Travel won't even queue u for the campaign.

KellanKell

Malveria wrote: »

Can we address this please?

I feel there is some hypocrisy here considering you are using the "local campaign" scoreboard instead of your home campaign. Please tell us which "buff" server you are using? I mean you could always retake it showing home campaign on the top corner but that would cost you three days of buffs!

Talcyndl

Sakyo wrote: »

So known that I can't find any mention of it anywhere except for people coming up with excuses for getting their teeth kicked in by a smaller force.

It was being actively discussed a few months ago - in game and in official and unofficial forums. There were some people who claimed they bypassed the locked population q to enter immediately. However, that was shown to not be generally possible.

But, the separate issue which was discussed and I know some groups were trying to take advantage of is whether the "travel to player" people where counting to the population caps. That is obviously hard to test, but it was something that was being used.

Here's one post from here about it (but most discussion was on other forums and in-game since explicit talk of exploits is iffy here):

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/1014579/#Comment_1014579

I asked ZOS for a comment on the issue in the other thread on the low population bonus, but didn't get a response.

Sakyo

So it's a known exploit cause 1 guy with no real evidence says so? In a 2 month old post?

You are really reaching for this but it isn't there.


Also every faction uses the travel to player bug so ieven if DC had more then it showed so did every other faction.

Talcyndl

Sakyo wrote: »

So it's a known exploit cause 1 guy with no real evidence says so? In a 2 month old post?

Just the one that popped up after a 10 second search here.

It was being discussed a lot at the time.

Would be nice for ZOS to comment.

Sakyo wrote: »

Also every faction uses the travel to player bug so ieven if DC had more then it showed so did every other faction.

NOt really much reason for EP to use it at the moment on Thornblade. That's the best shot EP players have for campaign bonuses. AD and DC on the other hand are often homed on Chillrend (DC) and Haderus (AD) for those buffs. So they are more likely to be using it - for its accepted by ZOS purpose of joining up with guildies and friends when they aren't homed or guested here.

Sakyo

You are really trying to make something out of nothing, calling exploits when either none exist or maybe possibly if you squint your eyes just right there is a bug with the way pop isn't being added right.

Fact is the low pop bonus only comes into play when a side is grossly outmatched for an extended period of time so the 2 hrs a day EG was coming over here counted or not wouldn't have effected us getting it,

It is also gone now that DC pop has grown and is about equal with both other factions so it's intended effect worked more pop for DC here.


EP is still in the lead ftm so go out there and fight for your lead cause DC will keep coming hard at you for it low pop bonus or not.

Thechemicals

I think Ep is winning. Dc is just getting a bonus so that they arent completely shut out during off hours. Anyone else with a brain see this?

Xallus

Yeah, so lets get this thread back on track. So far it looks like the low pop bonus is working EXACTLY as intended.

It's accomplishing the exact opposite of making participation irrelevant. Participation WAS irrelevant with night capping and nothing to counter it. I could see that maybe the OP plays prime-time and thinks the giant score gap that was, was from their participation and not a population advantage, but Oceanic is why that gap existed.

This new extended low-pop bonus allows for actual competition. As it's been noted the bonus is now gone... as guess what... the opportunity for competition has prevented the server from turning into a ghost town. And it can actually be competitive again.

To the OP, your huge post completely overlooked the mechanics of the bonus and the point of it. It allows a faction to catch up and have a reason to be there, it doesn't last forever as in order to gain enough points to catch up, even with the enormous bonus, players must show up with enough numbers to actually take things. Thus, over a couple days with enough population the bonus goes away and its even competition again instead of Oceanic causing complete domination for lack of opposition.

My opinion is that Thorn will see-saw with these bonuses. We're all about even right now, no bonus. Night cappers will make large gains again and the cycle will repeat. Assuming EP guilds run away again anyway. If EP and AD Oceanic guilds would stay on the same server there would never be this problem imo. Or maybe that's ZOS' fault for making too many servers. There would be only 1 server if it were up to me, but I understand they're just figuring out how to keep the ones they have with "low" max pops running smoothly that's a pipe-dream.

Thechemicals

Thechemicals wrote: »

I think Ep is winning. Dc is just getting a bonus so that they arent completely shut out during off hours. Anyone else with a brain see this?

nice wall of text but this is it in a nutshell

Xsorus

Malveria wrote: »

Can we address this please?

So currently on Thornblade, DC is getting 288 points per evaluation due to the low pop bonus. This is a full 101 points more than AD. However DC has three less keeps, one less outpost, and eight less resources than AD, who also has their scroll (and thus has three scrolls). Which means that the low pop bonus is more than 100 points per assessment.

Before anyone criticises me for AD being 'at the bottom', EP has the same amount of keeps as DC, one less outpost, one more scroll, and one less resource, and they are getting 116 points per assessment. Meaning that DC has the potential to overtake them in terms of point assessment by doing nothing other than not being there.

DC is winning in point assessment purely by being absent.

This system of scoring only encourages people to not log on to their server at all. They are being rewarded for not pvping. This is hardly a solution to anything. In fact, it only causes more problems.

I don't care about winning. I, and my guild, want good fights in PVP. But we also want a game that works. And a balanced PVP system that doesn't make it detrimental to our faction to even log on.

This solution means that a faction has to dominate the map in order to win against an enemy that isn't even present, thus punishing the other two factions who are fighting, because the third, absent faction can still win by virtue of being absent.

The system is ridiculous.

The only way that a faction can out pace a low pop bonus score assessment is to dominate the map, turn it their colour, potentially kill all the PVP fighting that might be going on, and then hold it. That means all the keeps, all the scrolls, everything theirs.

And even then, could a low pop vs a locked pop still mean that the absent faction wins? Why even bother playing?

Make keeps harder to take with lower pops. Increase the individual faction soft caps with lower pops. Something. Anything except rewarding factions for not playing at all.

Rofl....i'm sorry....I have to bold that part...Because that's exactly how both AD and EP have previously won these matches... By PvDing

dcincali

Thechemicals wrote: »

Thechemicals wrote: »

I think Ep is winning. Dc is just getting a bonus so that they arent completely shut out during off hours. Anyone else with a brain see this?

nice wall of text but this is it in a nutshell

When zone talk is about "Hey lets go back to Chill to keep the low pop bonus" There is a problem. Kinda like the healing springs disconnects.. But it's just happening and we don't know why right?? Right??

Luvsfuzzybunnies

Malveria wrote: »

Can we address this please?

So currently on Thornblade, DC is getting 288 points per evaluation due to the low pop bonus. This is a full 101 points more than AD. However DC has three less keeps, one less outpost, and eight less resources than AD, who also has their scroll (and thus has three scrolls). Which means that the low pop bonus is more than 100 points per assessment.

Before anyone criticises me for AD being 'at the bottom', EP has the same amount of keeps as DC, one less outpost, one more scroll, and one less resource, and they are getting 116 points per assessment. Meaning that DC has the potential to overtake them in terms of point assessment by doing nothing other than not being there.

DC is winning in point assessment purely by being absent.

This system of scoring only encourages people to not log on to their server at all. They are being rewarded for not pvping. This is hardly a solution to anything. In fact, it only causes more problems.

I don't care about winning. I, and my guild, want good fights in PVP. But we also want a game that works. And a balanced PVP system that doesn't make it detrimental to our faction to even log on.

This solution means that a faction has to dominate the map in order to win against an enemy that isn't even present, thus punishing the other two factions who are fighting, because the third, absent faction can still win by virtue of being absent.

The system is ridiculous.

The only way that a faction can out pace a low pop bonus score assessment is to dominate the map, turn it their colour, potentially kill all the PVP fighting that might be going on, and then hold it. That means all the keeps, all the scrolls, everything theirs.

And even then, could a low pop vs a locked pop still mean that the absent faction wins? Why even bother playing?

Make keeps harder to take with lower pops. Increase the individual faction soft caps with lower pops. Something. Anything except rewarding factions for not playing at all.

The issue is we just don't have the numbers you guys do. We do log in and pvp quite often were sorry you picked the fullest faction but we can't make you play dc. If you do not like it help spread the population but please no bads.

Talcyndl

Luvsfuzzybunnies wrote: »

The issue is we just don't have the numbers you guys do. We do log in and pvp quite often were sorry you picked the fullest faction but we can't make you play dc. If you do not like it help spread the population but please no bads.

You seem to have plenty on Chillrend and Bow of Shadows.

Luvsfuzzybunnies

dcincali wrote: »

Thechemicals wrote: »

Thechemicals wrote: »

I think Ep is winning. Dc is just getting a bonus so that they arent completely shut out during off hours. Anyone else with a brain see this?

nice wall of text but this is it in a nutshell

When zone talk is about "Hey lets go back to Chill to keep the low pop bonus" There is a problem. Kinda like the healing springs disconnects.. But it's just happening and we don't know why right?? Right??

I've never seen this chat in zone on Thornblade but if you wanna say so.

Malveria

KellanKell wrote: »

Malveria wrote: »

Can we address this please?

I feel there is some hypocrisy here considering you are using the "local campaign" scoreboard instead of your home campaign. Please tell us which "buff" server you are using? I mean you could always retake it showing home campaign on the top corner but that would cost you three days of buffs!

What kind of a bull, ad hominem argument is this? What does it matter what campaign the poster is homed on when they're addressing a broken system? And don't say 'Oh you didn't say so it's clearly Haderus', because that's still ad hominem, and still pointless. It shouldn't matter what my home is to anyone who is taking this issue seriously. And if you are still hyucking over your oh so intelligent post, I'm homed on Chillrend.

Luvsfuzzybunnies wrote: »

The issue is we just don't have the numbers you guys do. We do log in and pvp quite often were sorry you picked the fullest faction but we can't make you play dc. If you do not like it help spread the population but please no bads.

You have huge population on Chillrend, and it's not a coincidence that DC population on Thorn goes from locked to medium/high right when DC on Chillrend goes from medium to locked population. This is rewarding people who move to other, dead servers, because when their points get high enough on Thornblade, they just flood back in from Chillrend and hold a lead that they did not earn.

Thechemicals wrote: »

I think Ep is winning. Dc is just getting a bonus so that they arent completely shut out during off hours. Anyone else with a brain see this?

DC is winning in points because of their low population. No faction should beat other factions in point gain because of their low population. The game should not punish factions that do maintain population, and are able to stay on one server, whilst another faction is locked on a dead server.