ZOS, will you address population caps?

Roechacca

The main issue with PVP since launch , besides performance , has been really unbalanced numbers in each faction . The population caps have not worked to stop any faction from greatly outnumbering another . Especially during off hours of a mega servers time zone . Does ZOS have any plans to address this in 1.6 or in the near future ? New threads on the same subject pop up almost daily and any news would be appreciated . It's a huge frustration with PVP players .

Moderator note: Edited thread title per our rules on names in thread titles.

DisgracefulMind

This really, really needs to be looked into, and a solution needs to be provided. It's ruining PvP more than lag.

c0rp

I still don't understand why one faction is allowed to have 3 bars while the other factions can be at one. I just don't understand why this has been allowed to go on for a year now.

morvegil

We're running out of dead horses to beat.

AhPook_Is_Here

c0rp wrote: »

I still don't understand why one faction is allowed to have 3 bars while the other factions can be at one. I just don't understand why this has been allowed to go on for a year now.

They said a bit back they left it that way so players could play together. Obviously maps can change quickly when there is a large population disparity. I'm not really sure how this can be fixed though other than some players on EP and AD re-rolling DC.

They could merge more servers so that players were forced to divide up over fewer campaigns. This might increase queues.

If there was a percentage cap system that wouldn't let populations get out of balance beyond say +/-~10% there would be huge queues for AD and EP and many would quit the game because they couldn't get into the campaign their gear, rewards and ranking were kept tally. Nobody in either of those factions wants to wait any longer than they do already to get in at prime time.

If there was a 2nd buff system that boosted the strength of a lower-pop faction that might help make fighting for DC more enjoyable. People would complain that it made fights imbalanced to small well run groups and those groups might go to other servers where they could reap the reward of the low-pop buff.

When you queue with a group or solo you could be assigned a faction on a temporary basis if your faction was under-populated. This would balance the teams but other issues like players with low incentives to work for a team they were assigned might troll their own faction or let themselves be farmed by their real faction. Also the campaign scoring system wouldn't work as it is set up now nor would the faction rankings so this would likely never work.

They could allow people to make a change to their faction status on a permanent basis.

They could merge AD and DC into one faction. This might be better for DC as DC works in this function for the most part anyway and doesn't get the benefits of being on the AD faction, at least on US Thornblade.

I get frustration and complaints but not sure how this should work where it wouldn't *** off a larger group of players than the smaller one it would benefit. In the end they will likely not do anything to *** off a large group of players to appease a small one for obvious business reasons.

gibous

Mercenary system.

DisgracefulMind

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

c0rp wrote: »

I still don't understand why one faction is allowed to have 3 bars while the other factions can be at one. I just don't understand why this has been allowed to go on for a year now.

I get frustration and complaints but not sure how this should work where it wouldn't *** off a larger group of players than the smaller one it would benefit. In the end they will likely not do anything to *** off a large group of players to appease a small one for obvious business reasons.

But if they don't do something to appease the smaller group of players, and most of those players leave, following the second smallest faction, what will the original large group of players that they didn't want to *** off do?

Ideally, pop-capping a campaign in a proper way would force groups to go to other campaigns, which would solve a lot of problems anyways. This should be implemented. There is no reason why an alliance should be able to be three-barred while the other two are 1-barred.

TheLaw

Here's another MAJOR issue. Lack of PvP content. How long are they going to force us to join the zerg-fest?

Suru

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

This really, really needs to be looked into, and a solution needs to be provided. It's ruining PvP more than lag.

Heh, I would much rather see lag gone. Without lag, blue MIGHT get their players back. Right now they are all in other servers farming. Same with AD just to a different degree. Fix lag = Get population back

AhPook_Is_Here

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

c0rp wrote: »

I still don't understand why one faction is allowed to have 3 bars while the other factions can be at one. I just don't understand why this has been allowed to go on for a year now.

I get frustration and complaints but not sure how this should work where it wouldn't *** off a larger group of players than the smaller one it would benefit. In the end they will likely not do anything to *** off a large group of players to appease a small one for obvious business reasons.

But if they don't do something to appease the smaller group of players, and most of those players leave, following the second smallest faction, what will the original large group of players that they didn't want to *** off do?

Ideally, pop-capping a campaign in a proper way would force groups to go to other campaigns, which would solve a lot of problems anyways. This should be implemented. There is no reason why an alliance should be able to be three-barred while the other two are 1-barred.

The only way I could see that happening is if you could "home" all the campaigns with all your characters across all factions, and have a "priority" campaign where you can get in based on your server ranking and would just bump someone off below you when you wanted to get in. That way at least one server could remain competitive and spaces wouldn't be wasted by non-productive players.

As to your other point, from a business perspective, erosion is better than avalanche. It is the same reason these changes never went into play when AD was rolling everyone with their super-massive zerg. You don't want to do something that makes half of them leave today, better to *** off a small loyal group that has a slower net negative effect.

DisgracefulMind

Suru wrote: »

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

This really, really needs to be looked into, and a solution needs to be provided. It's ruining PvP more than lag.

Heh, I would much rather see lag gone. Without lag, blue MIGHT get their players back. Right now they are all in other servers farming. Same with AD just to a different degree. Fix lag = Get population back

Could definitely be the solution, but that's too much to ask from ZoS.

In fact, all of this is too much to ask from them!!!

DisgracefulMind

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

DisgracefulMind wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

c0rp wrote: »

I still don't understand why one faction is allowed to have 3 bars while the other factions can be at one. I just don't understand why this has been allowed to go on for a year now.

I get frustration and complaints but not sure how this should work where it wouldn't *** off a larger group of players than the smaller one it would benefit. In the end they will likely not do anything to *** off a large group of players to appease a small one for obvious business reasons.

But if they don't do something to appease the smaller group of players, and most of those players leave, following the second smallest faction, what will the original large group of players that they didn't want to *** off do?

Ideally, pop-capping a campaign in a proper way would force groups to go to other campaigns, which would solve a lot of problems anyways. This should be implemented. There is no reason why an alliance should be able to be three-barred while the other two are 1-barred.

The only way I could see that happening is if you could "home" all the campaigns with all your characters across all factions, and have a "priority" campaign where you can get in based on your server ranking and would just bump someone off below you when you wanted to get in. That way at least one server could remain competitive and spaces wouldn't be wasted by non-productive players.

As to your other point, from a business perspective, erosion is better than avalanche. It is the same reason these changes never went into play when AD was rolling everyone with their super-massive zerg. You don't want to do something that makes half of them leave today, better to *** off a small loyal group that has a slower net negative effect.

There's just no easy fix to it. /:

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what 1.6 and the B2P model brings. Maybe times are going to get brighter...maybe.

Roechacca

Sometimes I wonder if Mr Wheeler is just so discouraged already knowing ZOS Management probably won't authorize anything PVP related that he just hides in his office on purpose . Starring blankly at his monitor hearing all the parties in the PVE and Cash Shop office lounge ....







Hello ?

Asgari

Any bets I if he will post in here?

Asgari

Perphection wrote: »

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Any bets I if he will post in here?

I think it was confirmed in a thread last night that he doesn't have the balls to address real concerns.

I got in trouble for pointing this out so I'm taking a more "peaceful" route to get a response.

DisgracefulMind

Princess_Asgari wrote: »

Any bets I if he will post in here?

I highly, highly doubt he will respond to this post. Typical.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

We have looked at population imbalances throughout the release of the game and have seen it change from campaign to campaign, month to month with Ebonheart, Aldmeri and Daggerfall all taking top population spots. As a snap shot, the past three days show the following:

• Haderus has swapped highest population between all three alliances.
• Azura has a steady stream of Aldmeri and Ebonheart, but not much Daggerfall.
• Blackwater has mainly Ebonheart with the highest with Aldmeri slightly behind and again, Daggerfall the lowest.
• Chillrend has Daggerfall with the highest population and Aldmeri/Ebonheart around the same
• Thornblade has Aldmeri and Ebonheart with roughly the same population with a slight edge towards Ebonheart, and Daggerfall trailing.

There are ongoing discussions about how to address population imbalances in the campaigns. Some of the possible solutions include the following:

• Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population.
• Giving more XP/AP than we currently do
• Giving alternate siege weapons to the underdog\low-population alliance(s) that do more damage while they have the underdog\low pop bonus.
• Altering Cyrodiil's landscape
• Changing/removing scoring and showing that other campaigns have underdog/low-population bonuses on the Campaign Selection UI
• Doing away with Home and Guest campaign options, so Campaign Reward tiers roll with a character instead of being tied to a campaign so you can play in any campaign you want.

All of these have their pros and cons, some of which may not be immediately apparent but we still have to consider. The last one, for example, would result in all the campaigns having the same duration (so people can't earn tier 3 then hop to a short campaign and get a reward when it ends), and scoring and would be better suited as a meta-score across all campaigns. We would also need to remove the limitation on the accounts which don't let players have characters from opposing alliances in the same campaign (and yes I know that "jump to buddy" circumvents this rule already).

I agree there are many solutions we can explore, and that population imbalances are always a challenge for PVP games in which battles are not instanced to launch on demand. Thanks again for your continued patience in this and many other matters that the PVP community and myself care about deeply

Junipus

I don't really see the problem. Some of the complaints are due to people playing outnumbered at various times of day when other factions are locked. The only real solution is to limit to the minimum as mentioned above, which is completely impractical. Others are for outnumbered factions on buff servers.

Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Especially when those shouting the loudest might not necessarily be shouting for the best.

Minnesinger

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have looked at population imbalances throughout the release of the game and have seen it change from campaign to campaign, month to month with Ebonheart, Aldmeri and Daggerfall all taking top population spots. As a snap shot, the past three days show the following:

• Haderus has swapped highest population between all three alliances.
• Azura has a steady stream of Aldmeri and Ebonheart, but not much Daggerfall.
• Blackwater has mainly Ebonheart with the highest with Aldmeri slightly behind and again, Daggerfall the lowest.
• Chillrend has Daggerfall with the highest population and Aldmeri/Ebonheart around the same
• Thornblade has Aldmeri and Ebonheart with roughly the same population with a slight edge towards Ebonheart, and Daggerfall trailing.

There are ongoing discussions about how to address population imbalances in the campaigns. Some of the possible solutions include the following:

• Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population.
• Giving more XP/AP than we currently do
• Giving alternate siege weapons to the underdog\low-population alliance(s) that do more damage while they have the underdog\low pop bonus.
• Altering Cyrodiil's landscape
• Changing/removing scoring and showing that other campaigns have underdog/low-population bonuses on the Campaign Selection UI
• Doing away with Home and Guest campaign options, so Campaign Reward tiers roll with a character instead of being tied to a campaign so you can play in any campaign you want.

All of these have their pros and cons, some of which may not be immediately apparent but we still have to consider. The last one, for example, would result in all the campaigns having the same duration (so people can't earn tier 3 then hop to a short campaign and get a reward when it ends), and scoring and would be better suited as a meta-score across all campaigns. We would also need to remove the limitation on the accounts which don't let players have characters from opposing alliances in the same campaign (and yes I know that "jump to buddy" circumvents this rule already).

I agree there are many solutions we can explore, and that population imbalances are always a challenge for PVP games in which battles are not instanced to launch on demand. Thanks again for your continued patience in this and many other matters that the PVP community and myself care about deeply

@BrianWheeler.


Thanks for the post. Just about what many want to hear. When you can solve the imbalance issues I believe many will thank you for that.

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

Hi @ZOS_BrianWheeler‌

I assume this refers to US side?

I would suggest the following:
- Resolve Lag
- Increase population caps back to launch values
- Reduce number of campaigns to 2 (+ Non VR)
- Give incentives to people on the low pop factions like increased XP gain whilst in Cyro (good for champion system)
- Limit the level scroll keeps can achieve when in enemy control i.e make the keeps easier to attack for the faction that 'should' own them.
- Give some way of players to teleport closer to the 'gate' of the scroll. This is the biggest limiting factor of taking your scroll keeps back once taken.

Most of the community I speak to would like to see the 'Massive battles' we experienced on launch that occurred with little lag all we see now are 30-40 people not the 100-200 most of cyro feels empty.
Perhaps give us capturable buffs and teleport locations that enable spreading out of combat a little and give some options to smaller groups / factions to take and hold.

ZOS_BrianWheeler

Ah yeah this is US population and not EU. And yup, server performance is always top priority.

Roechacca

Hey thanks for the update , and the title change .

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

Ah yeah this is US population and not EU. And yup, server performance is always top priority.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler‌

Np not assuming its not just a prerequisite for the other parts of the post ^^

I would guess if you removed the PVE benefits for buff campaigns server populations would actually level out as the hordes of players who defend their buff campaign would be more inclined to spread out as they no longer need to do so.

However might also discourage pure PVErs away from PVP completely lowering overall populations. (They will be back for Imperial City though where buff servers would arise again)

Additionally resetting campaigns on restart may be beneficial so where a server may be all blue at the end of a campaign it starts again clean with all 3 factions keeps and scrolls back in home control

"Reward tiers roll with a character instead of being tied to a campaign so you can play in any campaign you want" <--- is a good idea regardless of if you do the other part. Rewards should perhaps be weekly with a benefit for the whole faction at the end of a particular campaign.
Also Haderus should be 14 day.

Roechacca

Also I like your ideas Mr Wheeler . I like the first idea best .

Darklord_Tiberius

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

We have looked at population imbalances throughout the release of the game and have seen it change from campaign to campaign, month to month with Ebonheart, Aldmeri and Daggerfall all taking top population spots. As a snap shot, the past three days show the following:

• Haderus has swapped highest population between all three alliances.
• Azura has a steady stream of Aldmeri and Ebonheart, but not much Daggerfall.
• Blackwater has mainly Ebonheart with the highest with Aldmeri slightly behind and again, Daggerfall the lowest.
• Chillrend has Daggerfall with the highest population and Aldmeri/Ebonheart around the same
• Thornblade has Aldmeri and Ebonheart with roughly the same population with a slight edge towards Ebonheart, and Daggerfall trailing.

There are ongoing discussions about how to address population imbalances in the campaigns. Some of the possible solutions include the following:

• Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population.
• Giving more XP/AP than we currently do
• Giving alternate siege weapons to the underdog\low-population alliance(s) that do more damage while they have the underdog\low pop bonus.
• Altering Cyrodiil's landscape
• Changing/removing scoring and showing that other campaigns have underdog/low-population bonuses on the Campaign Selection UI
• Doing away with Home and Guest campaign options, so Campaign Reward tiers roll with a character instead of being tied to a campaign so you can play in any campaign you want.

All of these have their pros and cons, some of which may not be immediately apparent but we still have to consider. The last one, for example, would result in all the campaigns having the same duration (so people can't earn tier 3 then hop to a short campaign and get a reward when it ends), and scoring and would be better suited as a meta-score across all campaigns. We would also need to remove the limitation on the accounts which don't let players have characters from opposing alliances in the same campaign (and yes I know that "jump to buddy" circumvents this rule already).

I agree there are many solutions we can explore, and that population imbalances are always a challenge for PVP games in which battles are not instanced to launch on demand. Thanks again for your continued patience in this and many other matters that the PVP community and myself care about deeply

Some of these are decent solutions, but honestly the real issue is the fact that many people left or do not pvp anymore. The population imbalances have always been there, but now since we have less percent of the population pvping; the problem is more noticable.

I would suggest a few things to help bolster the PvP population:

1. Give us a token system for rewards so we can choose what to buy instead of random garbage that 99% of the time we do not need nor will use. Example:
Top 2% get 1 Emperor token to exchange for a master's weapon or good piece of gear or 1 Master Weapon token and 2 armor tokens for the top 2%.
Top 3%-10% get 1 Champion token to exchange for a good (non masters usable) weapon or good piece of gear or 1 Weapon token and 1 armor token for the top 3%-10%
11%-30% get 1 armor token
etc etc....

^ Something like this would please a lot of people. I know many people that use to PvP a lot that do not anymore because in their mind, there is not point.

2. Give us new content in Cyrodiil. Not PVE content, give your PvP base new PvP content. It has been almost a year and Cyrodiil is UNTOUCHED. Change the overall design of keeps, add challenging aspects to each keep, add new objectives, ADD SOMETHING.

Until issues like this are addressed trying to balance the PvP population will be pointless imo. The PvP population keeps getting smaller and smaller. It will get to the point you wont need to worry about balance because there will be nobody in Cyrodiil to balance it for.

My suggestion is to take 1.8 and dedicate it ONLY to PVP. Change the reward system, change keeps, add content to Cyrodiil, address the imbalance of servers, remove some PVP servers. FIX THE PVP. Until you all at ZOS dedicate an entire update to fixing PvP as a whole, it will never be where it should. Seriously, the PvP in this game is some of the most fun I have played, even with the lag. Do something to fix it please. This is a sincere request and in an agreement from every member of Phoenix Rising, one of the best NA Pact PvP guilds.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

ZOS_JessicaFolsom

roechacca wrote: »

Also I like your ideas Mr Wheeler . I like the first idea best .

The first idea (Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population) sounds good in practice, but there are some inherent problems with it. Let's say you're in a campaign where the lowest-population alliance has only 11 people on (this actually happens). That means the other two alliances would also be limited to 11 people, and no one is having fun at that point.

Roechacca

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

roechacca wrote: »

Also I like your ideas Mr Wheeler . I like the first idea best .

The first idea (Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population) sounds good in practice, but there are some inherent problems with it. Let's say you're in a campaign where the lowest-population alliance has only 11 people on (this actually happens). That means the other two alliances would also be limited to 11 people, and no one is having fun at that point.

What about allowing One full bar above lowest population ? I don't mind being out numbered , most of Us on DC knew that was coming from start . Just not horribly out numbered would be nice .

Any ways I like that at least it's a discussion and some of the other options listed might help too . Thanks again .

kwisatz

Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population.
No, because people who like to play together maybe couldn't because of it.

Giving more XP/AP than we currently do
Dont care.

Giving alternate siege weapons to the underdog\low-population alliance(s) that do more damage while they have the underdog\low pop bonus.
That could be great.

Altering Cyrodiil's landscape
Why and how?

Changing/removing scoring and showing that other campaigns have underdog/low-population bonuses on the Campaign Selection UI
No, cause people often looks for the easy way and that would make it easier to find.

Doing away with Home and Guest campaign options, so Campaign Reward tiers roll with a character instead of being tied to a campaign so you can play in any campaign you want.
In any RvR game, the sense of loyalty is very important. We already can play in any campaign we want.

I think it would be better give people an incentive to stay in the same campaign for a long time: the more you fight for the same campaign, the more you'll be rewarded. So people would think about it twice before switching campaign.

And please, dont remove alter's limitation! It would already must be made extensive to the "jump-to-buddy thing"!

At the moment, it's better to focus on performance issues and wait until march 17th when we can expect a bunch of new and returning players

Huntler

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

roechacca wrote: »

Also I like your ideas Mr Wheeler . I like the first idea best .

The first idea (Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population) sounds good in practice, but there are some inherent problems with it. Let's say you're in a campaign where the lowest-population alliance has only 11 people on (this actually happens). That means the other two alliances would also be limited to 11 people, and no one is having fun at that point.

Agreed, I am definitely more a fan of combining several of the other ideas Brian listed. I think in the cases where you have organized guilds, giving incentives to players going to different campaigns would really help. Such as the change to allowing "campaign reward tracking" to carry over all campaigns. Coupled with underdog bonuses to EXP/AP with 1.6 coming, I believe this could help empower players to naturally spread themselves out in campaigns.

Joy_Division

I dislike restricting one faction's population to the lowest/median of the others is a bad idea because this can and will be exploited.

I really think the best way to sort this out is to incentivize coming to Cyrodiil. One of the biggest worries/complaints about the champion system is that it will force long time players to spend much time "grinding" to reach the sort of relative power they previously enjoyed. If people knew Champion points - and loot ... please have the rewards from the worthy drop the occasional Cyrodiil set item so we'd actually open our mail - were to be had in Cyrodiil, then folks would come.

Part of me also thinks the population imbalance is artificial. I am pretty sure AD has just as many actual players as EP, ostensibly there should *not* be the sort of perceived dominance EP has. Also, the very nature of a 3 faction system ought to bring the the losing factions together against the dominant...Blue and Yellow should have more actively and more consistently worked against Red since that faction keeps winning NA's most contested server,Thornblade.

The other thing that comes to mind is "altering Cyrodiil's landscape." Playing on Backwater Blade really exposed the lack of non-keep related objectives...there is zero reason to control / contest the 95% of Cyrodiil that has nothing to do with keeps. Adding stuff like supply dumps, symbolic sites, strategic resources in the open fields would add some flavor to PvP and give those builds that specialize in small open field engagements more opportunities to shine. You have created a beautiful map of Cyrodiil and it is a shame we don't really use it.

AaronMB

Interesting ideas all around.

"Limiting population per alliance to match the lowest or median population of the lowest population."

^Unless I misunderstand, this one would concern me. Would this leave open the opportunity for a winning--or any--campaign to simply leave Cyrodiil and minimize the opposition's numbers? (e.g. "Alright! We got Emp and the scrolls. Everyone leave town!")