Low Pop Bonus is broken

ShenaniganSquad

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

This new low pop bonus is total BS. Yesterday, my guild and I spent 12 hours in kyne, working our butts off with other AD players to control the map, hold keeps and earn points, all with the greater focus of wining the campaign this week. To our utter disappointment when we finally emp'd, AD was still at the bottom of the scoreboard in 3rd. AD dominated all day, held more keeps and more resources than the other two factions and yet still our hourly points were not enough to put us infront... tell me Devs, what the hell is the point of working our butts off all day to get ZERO reward for it.. our guildies had an amazing day and worked hard but at the end of it what did they get? nothing but a sense of futility and disappointment because AD were still at the bottom with no hope of getting in front because EP had the low pop bonus so even though they werent even on and representing, they were still getting points. This is utter bs. If a faction doesnt have enough players, then the guilds of that faction should go out and recruit. Why should those of us who do the work, turn up and represent have to be punished because the other faction cant get its s**t together?.... its absolute rubbish and it needs to be fixed asap. I hope you can pass this on to who ever it is that can remove the low pop bonus from the campaigns

Captain_Slaymore

Yeah, so much going on that has made the game just kinda eh. They have not addressed the delay between Break Free and when immunity is applied allowing exploiters to chain CC people, they introduced an armor set that is just unbelievably powerful when a zerg is all wearing it, and now the Low Pop bonus. Lol, but we do now have twitch drops that give amazing things like tri crown potions and mimic stones and man, the new cosmetics for sale are absolutely amazing. So, our options are now in PvP, get good (right trolls and exploiters), or everyone wear Sloads, run psyjic skills, pop reflect bubbles against the other "Zergs" wearing Sloads and hope enough players are on so that they don't get the Low Pop bonus. I think if we were townies standing around with our pets out, popping skill animations, creating lag and complaining about how our new cosmetics are broken, we would get a patch. Heck we can't even get an explanation of why for the last two weekends Steam Users have been locked out of game for 8 hours or more (must be a steam problem and thus not ZoS's, even though they are a reseller of the product), we get the copy pasted "we are INVESTIGATING the issue post. Well, how about this? FIx the issues? Cause your investigation skills are equal to or less than those of Barney Fife.

Necronhex

Yes i got on yesterday and noticed low pop bonus?????????? honestly you can come out with all these new games but come up with this, its really on the nose.
By the way i have a fix for you ......ready...........
Dedicate two new servers that your going to use for vault 76.A new one for Europe and one for America lag problems solved!!!!

bludy

You cannot introduce a low population bonus and not faction lock. Doing this allows factions to effectively cheat the system by logging into another faction just to stop them from getting a low pop bonus. Also, agree with above, you cannot penalise a faction for getting organised, recruiting, and driving the PVP side of the game, by giving another faction a bonus for NOT getting organised, recruiting, and driving PVP.

Turelus

There should never have been a bonus to help unorganized or unrepresented players catch up or win.

It's always been broken or abused in some way or another (I had a rant year ago to the point I unsubbed over it killing campaigns and players work).

NeroBad

Maybe a better alternative is a seperate time locked campaigns.

I know it is disapointing that there is reward for not being that populated, but altough when we are in prime time DC and EP has more resources and keeps (not always but most of the time) and logging in some time at morning or 14 CET and seeing it is a yellow festival is just demotivating.

Yeah you can say git gut, recruit but if we were unable to do it in the past months, then if it would stay the way it was then the three banner war would end with AD winning for good.

As for the cheat I think for a PEGI 18+ game where most of us are adults with limited time, it is a kind of unfair that AD has so many player who has freetime during when DC and EP players are working or sleeping. And altough they have less enemy to defeat during this time, they get much more points.

So again let it be a big prime time server from CET 17-23 where most of us could participate without giving up real life duties.
And there could be an alternative 23-17 server where the rewards could be the same, so AD can keep their super rewards for having so many players off prime time.

jaws343

bludy wrote: »

You cannot introduce a low population bonus and not faction lock. Doing this allows factions to effectively cheat the system by logging into another faction just to stop them from getting a low pop bonus. Also, agree with above, you cannot penalise a faction for getting organised, recruiting, and driving the PVP side of the game, by giving another faction a bonus for NOT getting organised, recruiting, and driving PVP.

Do you realize how crazy this sounds? What is the point of logging into another faction to give your main faction a low pop bonus? So you can win a campaign on your main faction? At what cost? If you are logged into another faction, you are not earning AP or getting (remaining) on the leaderboards for the faction you are attempting to boost. It is nonsense.

Now, with that being said, I do think the low pop bonus is over-tuned. I main EP and last night we were sitting at around 2K points ahead in Xbox NA Vivec. And knowing how we are usually the underdog population most days, most of that has to do with the adjustments.

Feanor

@jaws343

I wouldn’t rule out people doing „crazy“ things in Cyrodiil. I mean, who really logs to an alt to bring a scroll to the main faction, or log alts consecutively to feed someone AP? All things one would consider „crazy“ given the effort it takes. Yet people do it all the time apparently.

dotme

The low population bonus is needed. Problem is, it's applying to campaign score. It should apply to AP earned.

This provides incentive for faction-hoppers to jump on the low-population side, which balances the game.

When PvP was popular, before they broke it with bug after bug, main 30 day campaigns were pop-locked and balance people-wise took care of itself. Now, after months of neglect and major bugs, PvP guilds have been decimated and primetime participation isn't enough to even lock all three factions.

Low population bonus should work with Alliance Points. 2X if the faction has 1 bar, 1.5X if the faction has 2 bars, and 1X (normal) if faction is full. Bonus would have to scale based on the most populated faction at the time. For example, if all 3 factions only have one bar, no bonus at all. But if one faction has 3 bars, then full bonus applies to the other two based on their bars.

Kartalin

Low pop bonus does add to AP earned, as well as low score bonus. In Sotha on DC (PC/NA) we got 20k o-ticks for taking an empty keep, 11k for an outpost. On EP in Sotha we were getting increased d-ticks and AP gains for defeating players with the low score bonus. It’s definitely a thing that people should know about, maybe it will help bring more people to these campaigns where factions need help.

dotme

Kartalin wrote: »

Low pop bonus does add to AP earned, as well as low score bonus. In Sotha on DC (PC/NA) we got 20k o-ticks for taking an empty keep, 11k for an outpost. On EP in Sotha we were getting increased d-ticks and AP gains for defeating players with the low score bonus. It’s definitely a thing that people should know about, maybe it will help bring more people to these campaigns where factions need help.

Really? I did not know that. They should do an on-screen alert (like when a scroll is picked up or you level up) so all players in Cyrodiil and those just arriving see it when it's in effect. And probably scale back the campaign score buff...

frozywozy

Hey guys, before you post something, please have a look at the first page for similar threads.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/420537/low-pop-bonus-vivec-pc-na
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/420740/low-pop-bonus

Thank you!

Tiphis

NeroBad wrote: »

Maybe a better alternative is a seperate time locked campaigns.

I know it is disapointing that there is reward for not being that populated, but altough when we are in prime time DC and EP has more resources and keeps (not always but most of the time) and logging in some time at morning or 14 CET and seeing it is a yellow festival is just demotivating.

Yeah you can say git gut, recruit but if we were unable to do it in the past months, then if it would stay the way it was then the three banner war would end with AD winning for good.

As for the cheat I think for a PEGI 18+ game where most of us are adults with limited time, it is a kind of unfair that AD has so many player who has freetime during when DC and EP players are working or sleeping. And altough they have less enemy to defeat during this time, they get much more points.

So again let it be a big prime time server from CET 17-23 where most of us could participate without giving up real life duties.
And there could be an alternative 23-17 server where the rewards could be the same, so AD can keep their super rewards for having so many players off prime time.

I like how you have to bring up the fact that somehow AD players don’t work. Okay so there are numerous different time zones in this planet we called earth. Just because some players are not on when you are does not mean that they don’t work.

As far as you whining that it is unfair that there are Ad players on when you are sleeping or working, it is hilarious because you probably couldn’t have come up with a more self-centered topic. Maybe you should ask your dc and ep friends where they live, if they do shift work, what days they work, if they have kids, a significant other, or literally anything else that constricts their time and ask them to change their life around so you don’t feel disheartened.

The problem with low pop bonus is that it simply isn’t needed. With the numerous time zones and life schedules there are some people playing pretty much around the clock. As far as people playing during your non prime time, if it is so off to be game breaking simply switch servers.

ShenaniganSquad

I dont know how giving a faction a bonus for not recruiting, not showing up and not working their butts off is an equalizer and a good thing.. why does it need to be equalized? its a competition... the whole point of it is to win.. if we are going to give out participation certificates to everyone who cant get their *** together, just take the campaign scoring away all together, because whats the point?...

this idea about 'making it fair' and 'making it balanced' is ***. Hard work, time put in, recruiting, getting your guild to show up and represent so you can win the campaign, actually playing for more than 10 mins... these are what should be rewarded, this is what competition is all about.. 12 hours of play in kyne working our asses off to get no where on the leader boards.. its ***

A poster on the night capping thread said this and I think it applies for both the night capping whiners and the low pop bonus.. :-

"Telling a person to 'dial down' their want to win is an easy way to suggest maybe the problem isn't them, maybe no one in that faction wants to coordinate or 'work' for the win in the first place..... Instead of organizing and coordinating a reasonable response- the route of 'guilting' the opposition into not playing is selected. I play NA- we see these from time to time and I will say the only response is to organize and play the map. The only thing this is trying to do is take people who are putting in effort and asking them to 'for the sake of all that is good in the world' let others who are not trying as hard win.....why? Earn it."

zyk

If the other factions had so few player that the population bonus was in effect, how hard were you really working? pvdoor isn't hard work....

ShenaniganSquad

zyk wrote: »

If the other factions had so few player that the population bonus was in effect, how hard were you really working? pvdoor isn't hard work....

so AD was at high pop, dc was at medium pop, and ep at low pop.. and it was hard work, because AD is now full of summerset purchasing new players who dont know much about how to take a keep and how to defend, so the 'work' was having 3 tries to take a keep because 90% of the players didnt know what they were doing..

Again, rewarding a faction for not showing up is bs

dtsharples

Failing at PVDoor is bs
Now at least we can understand why AD need to do what they do each morning, while the other factions are absent.
I honestly can't see how anyone can get any enjoyment from it.
It's just PVE, why the need to PVE in Cyrodiil? It's quite baffling.
But at least you're enjoying your little selves I guess, and that's important too.

I just feel sorry for the AD playing in EU Primetime, they get so much flack.

Biro123

ShenaniganSquad wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

If the other factions had so few player that the population bonus was in effect, how hard were you really working? pvdoor isn't hard work....

so AD was at high pop, dc was at medium pop, and ep at low pop.. and it was hard work, because AD is now full of summerset purchasing new players who dont know much about how to take a keep and how to defend, so the 'work' was having 3 tries to take a keep because 90% of the players didnt know what they were doing..

Again, rewarding a faction for not showing up is bs

As is punishing factions who keep winning primetime.

Vapirko

Well the whole point is exactly so you can’t destroy the map when there isn’t adequate opposition. If EP weren’t around then what were you doing that was so hard? Idk people screamed for some mechanism so that other factions couldn’t roll over the map, now they’re unhappy when they can’t do it?

dotme

ShenaniganSquad wrote: »

I dont know how giving a faction a bonus for not recruiting, not showing up and not working their butts off is an equalizer and a good thing.. why does it need to be equalized?

Probably for the same reason that team-based sports have an equal number of players on each side. Outnumbering your opponents 5:1 simply leads to a map that's all one color. The dominating faction is frustrated because there's nothing to do, and the losing sides log on, look at the map and score, and log off again. I don't know how that keeps Cyrodiil exciting and interesting for anyone.

NeroBad

Tiphis wrote: »

NeroBad wrote: »

Maybe a better alternative is a seperate time locked campaigns.

I know it is disapointing that there is reward for not being that populated, but altough when we are in prime time DC and EP has more resources and keeps (not always but most of the time) and logging in some time at morning or 14 CET and seeing it is a yellow festival is just demotivating.

Yeah you can say git gut, recruit but if we were unable to do it in the past months, then if it would stay the way it was then the three banner war would end with AD winning for good.

As for the cheat I think for a PEGI 18+ game where most of us are adults with limited time, it is a kind of unfair that AD has so many player who has freetime during when DC and EP players are working or sleeping. And altough they have less enemy to defeat during this time, they get much more points.

So again let it be a big prime time server from CET 17-23 where most of us could participate without giving up real life duties.
And there could be an alternative 23-17 server where the rewards could be the same, so AD can keep their super rewards for having so many players off prime time.

I like how you have to bring up the fact that somehow AD players don’t work. Okay so there are numerous different time zones in this planet we called earth. Just because some players are not on when you are does not mean that they don’t work.

As far as you whining that it is unfair that there are Ad players on when you are sleeping or working, it is hilarious because you probably couldn’t have come up with a more self-centered topic. Maybe you should ask your dc and ep friends where they live, if they do shift work, what days they work, if they have kids, a significant other, or literally anything else that constricts their time and ask them to change their life around so you don’t feel disheartened.

The problem with low pop bonus is that it simply isn’t needed. With the numerous time zones and life schedules there are some people playing pretty much around the clock. As far as people playing during your non prime time, if it is so off to be game breaking simply switch servers.

@Tiphis My hypothesis was that AD has more none UTC+-2hours players not that they are different by any other RL aspects.

AD has the most players it is a fact by ZOS. I'm biased by the server name EU I thought (maybe wrongly) that most player play during 17-23 CET. Also true there is no Asian/Oceanian server which is wrong.

As for the self centered thing thanks...

My suggestion was about that all three faction could have some beneficial way without sacrficing much. But many of my friends are discouraged to play PVP beacuse altough we win many battles there is simply no way to win the campaign with the current situation, sorry to want some middle way solution where AD could still win both campaigns but maybe not every time.

Captain_Slaymore

Man, the people whining about Primetime this and that are just rude and need to stfu about it. You don't pay other players Plus memberships, you didn't buy the game or their rigs and you shouldn't complain because someone's schedule doesn't match your own. What? folks should adjust their work schedules and lives to accommodate your sense of how the game should be played? It's that "we get "Zerged" when they are on and we aren't and its not fair, cry sob boo hoo" crybaby BS that apparently ZoS feels the need to fix and not the plethora of other important broken things in the game. So, now, the most most popular faction (according to elderscrolls online news) with 36.33% of all characters, wins when none of their townies are on with a low pop bonus and underdog bonus during non "primetime" hours, and they win when the faction swap toons as well. So, enjoy running the map and winning the campaigns over and over due due lack of participation, its a hollow victory, you didn't earn it thru work, you earned it thru tears. On a final note, PvDoors huh? How do you take a keep? Without knocking a hole in the walls / doors? That's right, the bug that shows a hole in the wall at the outposts, its amazing to watch when one is inside an outpost and 4 enemy players just pop thru the door, and some of the biggest crybabies on the forums are the ones doing it. Siege is a dynamic / mechanic of the game, deal with it.

LarsS

I think that most can agree that the present system dont work and that the Summerset campaign changes made it worse. Most players probably would accept a system that give equal influence to players regardles if they ar playing when the servers are pop locked or empty. As it is now people playing when the servers are empty dominates the scoring and the underpop bonus sometimes introduces strange effect which are unfair.

My proposal requires very little coding and can be tested in an incremental patch.
1. Reduce scroll points to one 1pnt again.
2. Weight the campaign tick score with the number of players in the least populated alliance (or the mean of the two least populated alliances) divided by max pop for an alliance. This is a simple factor to add to the campaign points.
Example; let’s assume that max pop for an alliance is 200 and there is only 10 DC around. This implies 10/200=0.05 to be multiplied to each alliances campaign score. So if an alliance has 100 points we get 100*0.05=5 points.
3. Remove underpopulation and underdog bonus.
This would still make night/morning capping interesting from an AP point of view, but the influence on the campaign would be minimal.

Reverb

The pop score changes were intended to remove any incentive to pvdoor an undefended map. Seems like that's working.

dtsharples

They clearly just love to PVDoor, and clearly are terrible at actual PVP, otherwise they would seek out actual fights.
Instead they try to convince us that fighting NPCs should equate to winning a campaign over and over.
You can't reason with these people. They are all Megalomaniacs.

Captain_Slaymore

dtsharples wrote: »

They clearly just love to PVDoor, and clearly are terrible at actual PVP, otherwise they would seek out actual fights.
Instead they try to convince us that fighting NPCs should equate to winning a campaign over and over.
You can't reason with these people. They are all Megalomaniacs.

An undefended map is determined mostly by time of day and time zone, along with players schedules, not folks intentionally staying up 24 hours a day to get on just for an undefended map, which is something folks complaining about freaking prime time and zergs and other Real Life influences, stuff that happens naturally in the course of a campaign that runs 24/7 literally. Seriously, what do you want? a controlled environment in which you can go, fight an equal number of enemies on an even playing field? Do BATTLEGROUNDS if that the case, quit complaining about PRIME TIME on a game that has international players, who choose to play on an NA server during their evening hours which happen to be NA early morning hours. We as a guild accept the fact that when we get on that the map is going to have been turned by EP or DC while we were farting and drooling in our beds, we hit up the discord and form a group to go into Cyrodil as a guild (which is why we play an MMO) and play the game within the intended mechanics of the game. We don't wake up have a good cry and hit the forums accusing other players of being less than or worse than because they live in a different time zone on the real planet. We don't accuse other players of doing something that we do ourselves and act indignant over it. Get over yourselves.[/quote]

ShenaniganSquad

dtsharples wrote: »

They clearly just love to PVDoor, and clearly are terrible at actual PVP, otherwise they would seek out actual fights.
Instead they try to convince us that fighting NPCs should equate to winning a campaign over and over.
You can't reason with these people. They are all Megalomaniacs.

So I picked this quote because I want you to give me the lotto numbers for this week, since you CLEARLY know what me and the other hundreds of people who play the game while you lot sleep and work want from our eso membership, may as well use that talent and give us the winning numbers while youre giving out such insightful commentary.

On a slightly more serious note, these kind of comments keep coming up over and over again no matter what topic is discussed regarding cyrodiil and I for one am honestly baffled. Lets say just for the sake of the argument, that we do like pvdooring.. so what?.. what the actual f**k does it matter to you? Some people like pledges, some people like trials, some people like dueling, some people like playing against the guards... I mean if we really were just playing eso at night our time while america sleeps in order to pvdoor rather than skipping school or calling in sick to work so we could take those same keeps while most of the american players are on, what does it matter to anyone? If we did enjoy pvdoor, who cares? I pay my sub like everyone else, my money is worth just as much as anyone elses, and my time is my time to spend how I want. The fact that people take shots in this manner shows just how self centred they are.. "you need to play the game the way I want you to play it or im going to have a tantrum"... what bs. It effects your life and your game by ZERO if we spend a couple of hours a night playing a game with few people in it.

The only people who care if a small group of the opposing faction are playing while they are sleeping, is a sore loser. But then again, they arent losing, so that makes them sore winners?.. that really is pathetic.

Here is the other thing that makes me laugh.. these other factions keep complaining about the other side of the world playing while they sleep but the fact is AD loses consistently because we dont have the numbers. Every single day that I play during aussie day time, its against the DC and EP 30 man zergs in kyne and AD is lucky to field a 20 man group. Then on the days we manage to have enough to counter that, to maybe have a day where we dominate through the usa prime time, like we did on the day of my original post in this thread, AD are penalized with this low pop bonus because the EP zerged logged out and into their DC toons. There is nothing fair about that. I will remind everyone again that cyrodiil is not PvP... its AvA.. its not a dueling arena, its a war zone, if the keeps didnt matter, they wouldnt have scoring attached to them. I would hazard a guess that these people who are super duelists, dont even buy siege, they just run around like they are special while the rest of their faction spends ap in defence of their keep. When people can comprehend what this area of the game is actually about, it will really help their fragile sense of self importance.

If you want your faction to win, then recruit like we are, have teams who are on at different times, like we are trying to do, but dont try to tell someone who has paid just as much or more than you have for their game how to play it and stop thinking that being giving a bonus for not showing up is a good thing.

Captain_Slaymore

ShenaniganSquad wrote: »

dtsharples wrote: »

They clearly just love to PVDoor, and clearly are terrible at actual PVP, otherwise they would seek out actual fights.
Instead they try to convince us that fighting NPCs should equate to winning a campaign over and over.
You can't reason with these people. They are all Megalomaniacs.

I would hazard a guess that these people who are super duelists, dont even buy siege, they just run around like they are special while the rest of their faction spends ap in defence of their keep. When people can comprehend what this area of the game is actually about, it will really help their fragile sense of self importance.

So true, i do wonder how they feel about being called "Ganker" cause when they only PvP players and don't spend time on siege how are they contributing to the AP for their faction? Are these the super duelists that hide at the gates jumping folks on their way to defend / attack a resource / keep / outpost? I mean, that's part of the game mechanic, it just benefits them and not the faction really when it comes to personal goals. However, i don't send salty DM's to these folks if they get the better of me because i recognize that A) i don't pay their way or their sub or internet and i didn't buy their rig and these salty folks don't necessarily participate in groups because they don't have the siege cause they don't have the AP so they end up siege stealing and getting butt hurt over getting yelled at, plus, if they are so bold to come to a forum and not contribute to the conversation in a positive manner, they really aren't being part of a solution, they are just keyboard warrioring, much like they do in group chat in Cyrodil. But eh, people are people and if they need an outlet for the salt and venom, so be it, rather deal with it here than in game right?

ZOS_Mika

Since a similar thread already exists, we will be closing this one down. Thank you for your understanding.