Should ZOS lower the population cap on campaigns?

SkysOutThizeOut

Everyone that complains about lag the most plays in vivec. The main issue we can identify is that their servers really start to struggle when each faction exceeds 3 bar populations. Reduce the population cap to effectively max out at the start of 4 bars and ZOS publicly acknowledge that the player base can help to mitigate lag by dispersing while they search for a fix...

Gilvoth

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

absolutely

Juhasow

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No point in that. Population cap was lowered already like few times. Problem is that lowering population cap wont solve the issue with lag in Cyrodill because to actually solve that issue cap would have to be very low but what would be the point of huge Cyrodill map then ?

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

@Juhasow if you played shor you’d know it’s amazing at 2-3bar with no real lag issues and combat is everywhere.

Juhasow

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SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@Juhasow if you played shor you’d know it’s amazing at 2-3bar with no real lag issues and combat is everywhere.

Population bars have nothing to do with actual state of campaign. Yes shor may have 2-3 bars when Vivec is on pop locks but many of people in Shor will just do quests/collect skyshards etc since they cannot do it on Vivec and actuall amount of people PvPing at that point is low. If everyone on that 2-3 bars campaign would join the battle it would also cause server lag. You can see that happening on Vivec or Sotha Sil sometimes where despite 2-3 bars there is already lag.

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

@Juhasow false. I’ve played shor since it changed. And that’s is a misrepresentation of the campaign.

Juhasow

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SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@Juhasow false. I’ve played shor since it changed. And that’s is a misrepresentation of the campaign.

Can You be more specific ? I dont understand what You have in mind.

Also You said in previous post that quote "combat is everywhere" on shor and when it's not completly true it's actually what should happen to lower lag in Cyrodill - spliting the fights so they could happen accros whole map not in 1-2 places at once. This is actual solution for lag in Cyrodill. Fights happening in different places not in 1 place. ZoS should come up with ways to achieve that by either forcing or encouraging people to split and fight somwhere else but they need something more creative then capturable cities or destructible bridges that can keep PvPers attention for a week or 2 while being released every year or 2. Cyrodill is huge map and at any time given 90%+ of it is dead.

frostz417

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

Absolutely, Infact id go as far as to remove vivec and just implement 3 7 day CP campaigns. Reduce the population cap from 140 to 110 or 100. This will make cyro a lot less laggier and more enjoyable. People who play in shor notice light years difference from the reduced lag.

Juhasow

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frostz417 wrote: »

Absolutely, Infact id go as far as to remove vivec and just implement 3 7 day CP campaigns. Reduce the population cap from 140 to 110 or 100. This will make cyro a lot less laggier and more enjoyable. People who play in shor notice light years difference from the reduced lag.

With cap lowered by 40 people there will be much less small scale happening accros the map so the rest of remaining small scalers will just join the zerg so lag will be the same or even higher.

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

Answer first question and then I’ll offer other options. Your right at 1-2bars and I’m saying at 2-3 bars, most of the time shor’s combat is dispersed in 4-5 different location. Not quiet everywhere but enough to catch people between keeps and to prevent lag.
1. The more people of the same faction in one area gives a “stalwart defender” or “hero” buff to people outnumbered significantly to force dispersion. Find a way to reward smaller gameplay and punish zergs slightly.
2. Rework the map. 1 bar population across factions shrinks Cyrodiil to just the ring or something. 2 bar pop opens it up slightly more and 3 bar opens all the way. Would have to dig in details, but smaller maps would force more fights, but prevent night capping and killing the campaign if.no one is on.
3. Come up with a whole new map altogether that is significantly smaller, but still larger like iraylia has talked about with overland zones.

Juhasow

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SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

Answer first question and then I’ll offer other options. Your right at 1-2bars and I’m saying at 2-3 bars, most of the time shor’s combat is dispersed in 4-5 different location. Not quiet everywhere but enough to catch people between keeps and to prevent lag.
1. The more people of the same faction in one area gives a “stalwart defender” or “hero” buff to people outnumbered significantly to force dispersion. Find a way to reward smaller gameplay and punish zergs slightly.
2. Rework the map. 1 bar population across factions shrinks Cyrodiil to just the ring or something. 2 bar pop opens it up slightly more and 3 bar opens all the way. Would have to dig in details, but smaller maps would force more fights, but prevent night capping and killing the campaign if.no one is on.
3. Come up with a whole new map altogether that is significantly smaller, but still larger like iraylia has talked about with overland zones.

Now You're just a dreamer with slightly farfetched visions.

1. That requires additional dynamic calculations which means lag and at the end zergs will win anyway if they're vastly outnumbering enemy (as they should btw).
2. It's easy to say "shrink the map" harder or even impossible to implement. Also how other things like for example buying gear from city vendors or even collecting the skyshards would look like with shrinked maps ?
3. So from lowering population we are now at implementing totally new map ?

Juhasow

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Look guys I would also like to see lag free Cyrodill , problem is that lowering population is no longer way to achieve that and it's super lazy and very inefficient solution.

TBois

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

Everyone that complains about lag the most plays in vivec. The main issue we can identify is that their servers really start to struggle when each faction exceeds 3 bar populations. Reduce the population cap to effectively max out at the start of 4 bars and ZOS publicly acknowledge that the player base can help to mitigate lag by dispersing while they search for a fix...

ZOS has alluded to needing people to spread out in cyrodiil.

"WATCH YOUR SPACING IN CYRODIIL
In Cyrodiil, we want to encourage a wide variety of strategy and tactics, and this includes the way large groups move together. Over time, we've tried to encourage groups to spread out more and stack up less with various additions (e.g., the Vicious Death set) but we still weren't seeing the changes we wanted.

To further this goal, we have removed the damage cap on area-of-effect abilities. Previously, the total damage a group of players received from AoEs was capped, but now, everybody within an AoE's radius suffers full damage.

This change encourages large groups to spread out more and take different approaches to large-scale combat. In addition to this, it gives smaller groups opportunities to take on larger ones with smart, tactical placement of their AoEs."

quoted from: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26307

edit: More direct communication about the issue would be welcomed.

idk

No, keep it the way it is and wait 5 more years for the fix that may never come.

Zos has already lowered the caps multiple times. Each time is an admission of their further failure to properly design Cyrodiil. Each time Cyrodiil also becomes more of a joke.

The battles used to be so epic. These days much less so and the strats used are pretty flat.

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

@idk what solution do you have for a fix? What’s the point of playing if your lagging so bad you dc frequently?

idk

No, keep it the way it is and wait 5 more years for the fix that may never come.

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@idk what solution do you have for a fix? What’s the point of playing if your lagging so bad you dc frequently?

Zos figure out the actual issue and remedy it. Seems like the best possible solution. Certainly better than a solution that has been used multiple times and failed to remedy the issue.

If an action fails to resolve the issue why do we want to keep doing the same failed action? I guess once we have the population down to 4 per alliance we might see success.

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

@idk because the action taken was my drastic enough. Much like you have to take a whole zpac to kill most infections, whereas choosing to take 1 pill will only make you feel better for a short while, but not resolve the issue.

VaranisArano

I prefer holding ZOS' feet to the fire because that's the only way we'll ever get a fix. Call me a pie in the sky idealist if you want, but what I enjoy most about Cyrodiil is the epic large scale battles for keeps, scrolls, and Emperorship that Cyrodiil is in large part designed to create.

If ZOS really wants people to spread out, they ought to consider changing the scoring to not incentivize huge battles for scrolls, keeps, and Emperorship. What they've done hasn't worked, precisely because Cyrodiil has important objectives that draw players to them like flypaper draws flies. I mean, I'm not going to mess around with the AP buff at dragonclaw if a 10 pt EP scroll is in play, and if enough other players make the same (correct, score wise) call, boom, lagfest.

idk

No, keep it the way it is and wait 5 more years for the fix that may never come.

My only guess is that you do not want Zos to fix the problem and just continue to make Cyrodiil a shell of itself.

You do not even know what the actual issue is so your zpac analogy would be an example of malpractice. I am not going to sit here and argue over guesses leading to ill-thought ideas.

VaranisArano wrote: »

I prefer holding ZOS' feet to the fire because that's the only way we'll ever get a fix.

This, Exactly

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

@idk reducing population would reduce lag. If that’s wasn’t true shor would lag as much as vivec if the issues was something else. But please continue to be a naysayer and offer zero ideas for a solution.

@VaranisArano not much holds ZOS feet to the fire to fix the issue, considering the issue has remained.

frostz417

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

Juhasow wrote: »

frostz417 wrote: »

Absolutely, Infact id go as far as to remove vivec and just implement 3 7 day CP campaigns. Reduce the population cap from 140 to 110 or 100. This will make cyro a lot less laggier and more enjoyable. People who play in shor notice light years difference from the reduced lag.

With cap lowered by 40 people there will be much less small scale happening accros the map so the rest of remaining small scalers will just join the zerg so lag will be the same or even higher.

I disagree. Small scalers won’t join Zergs. There won’t be as many Zergs infact since the cap isn’t the same. It won’t make it even laggier since you won’t have as many people zerging.
Small scale/solo players would like this change due to reduced lag and less annoying Zergs to Xv1 people. I dare say reduce the cap to 90 so that the 3 new 7 day cp campaigns all have a healthy population. People join vivec because it gives the 50 gem rewards, which is why it’s so tremendously laggy and always population locked. This attracts zerglings since they just join cyro and type “LFG” in chat and just mindlessly zerg without any thought. They do it for rewards. Which is 50 gems. Shor isn’t as populated because the rewards are less. Adding in 3 cp campaigns will
Split the Zergs since everyone won’t be attracted to 1 campaign for rewards. All the rewards will be the same for each campaign, the population cap will be lower and it’ll be more evenly split up since everyone won’t be swarming a single campaign due to rewards.

technohic

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

Can sit around waiting for ZOS to never see it fixed, or people who love what this game could make something happen by moving their crew themselves. Asking for the devs to incentivize this would be a good idea

idk

No, keep it the way it is and wait 5 more years for the fix that may never come.

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@idk reducing population would reduce lag. If that’s wasn’t true shor would lag as much as vivec if the issues was something else. But please continue to be a naysayer and offer zero ideas for a solution.

Using Shore as an example merely proves my point. Shore population is so low the PvP is rather boring..

I have offered an idea that you just choose to ignore. Have Zos fix it rather than do half backed ideas and that is all you are offering. I would rather be smart about it than give up as you are suggesting.

dtsharples

No, keep it the way it is and wait 5 more years for the fix that may never come.

The cap has been lowered multiple times.
The issue is groups, groups need to be capped at 10 people.

DeadlyRecluse

No, keep it the way it is and wait 5 more years for the fix that may never come.

I'm sympathetic to the idea...

But every time the pop cap has been reduced, the result hasn't been other camps becoming more populated. People want to play in whatever they see as the "main" campaign. I don't really see anything changing that.

I'd rather see shifts that address that social/psychological condition rather than a mechanical attempt to spread people out (that will just result in longer queues, tbh).

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

@DeadlyRecluse how about increasing rewards for 7 day campaigns? Or making shor a 30 day campaign?

DeadlyRecluse

No, keep it the way it is and wait 5 more years for the fix that may never come.

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

@DeadlyRecluse how about increasing rewards for 7 day campaigns? Or making shor a 30 day campaign?

I would, generally, support an approach focused on rewarding desired behavior rather than one punishing allowed-but-problematic behavior.

...however, when they revamp PvP rewards we see increases for what, 2 weeks?

At the end of the day, the way for more people to play in shor/sotha is for more people to want to play in lower pop campaigns. They clearly don't. It's yogi berra-esque.

SkysOutThizeOut

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

@DeadlyRecluse what if different campaigns offered different rewards that appealed to pvers? Do people play vivec because it’s 30days?

VaranisArano

dtsharples wrote: »

The cap has been lowered multiple times.
The issue is groups, groups need to be capped at 10 people.

So...

Instead of 3 raids of 24 EP each showing up to dethrone an emperor and take back their scroll, plus two raids of AD defending, and one raid of DC going for the dethrone...

We'll have: 7 groups of 10 EP each, 4-5 groups of 10 AD, and 2 groups of 10 DC!

Genius!

Or, as the joke goes, "DC never zergs. Those are all 4-man squads, all 20 of them."


In short, as long as Cyrodiil incentivizes lots and lots of players showing up in one place to fight for important objectives, lowering the size of groups isn't going to do squat for lag at large scale fights that happen naturally.

Vapirko

Yes, reduce campaign caps to force population to disperse to other campaigns while ZOS looks for a fix. Also, temporarily increase rewards (double/ triple maybe) for staying in shor for a month.

TBois wrote: »

SkysOutThizeOut wrote: »

Everyone that complains about lag the most plays in vivec. The main issue we can identify is that their servers really start to struggle when each faction exceeds 3 bar populations. Reduce the population cap to effectively max out at the start of 4 bars and ZOS publicly acknowledge that the player base can help to mitigate lag by dispersing while they search for a fix...

ZOS has alluded to needing people to spread out in cyrodiil.

"WATCH YOUR SPACING IN CYRODIIL
In Cyrodiil, we want to encourage a wide variety of strategy and tactics, and this includes the way large groups move together. Over time, we've tried to encourage groups to spread out more and stack up less with various additions (e.g., the Vicious Death set) but we still weren't seeing the changes we wanted.

To further this goal, we have removed the damage cap on area-of-effect abilities. Previously, the total damage a group of players received from AoEs was capped, but now, everybody within an AoE's radius suffers full damage.

This change encourages large groups to spread out more and take different approaches to large-scale combat. In addition to this, it gives smaller groups opportunities to take on larger ones with smart, tactical placement of their AoEs."

quoted from: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/26307

edit: More direct communication about the issue would be welcomed.

And then they introduce AOE snares and nerf mobility lol. Spread out while we give zergs the ability to literally freeze you in place and no counterplay .

gabriebe

People don't go to Vivec because they love the lag, they go there because there are fights at any given time. Lag is annoying, yeah, but so is spending my evening riding my horse around looking for fights that involve more than 5 people.

As others pointed out, Sotha and Shor are empty for most of the day and it's unlikely to change even if Vivec was locked. The pop is around 2 bars in off hours most days anyway.