Fully Pop locked AD gets "low pop" bonus for eval

Theignson

PC NA GH: this has been going on for months and ZOS has done nothing.

AD was fully poplocked last night and had been for hours. None of this "oh there is a formula that calculates the last 3 hour population.

Just before eval, and still poplocked, AD got low pop bonus , ~347 points.

They got the bonus to the ascore.

Then, RIGHT after eval, they reverted to normal population score.
Some people speculate that AD logs out en mass right before eval, but if so, the bonus shouldn't be applied right away.

ZOS please fix this, it makes a mockery of the PvP AvA campaigns.

Jaraal

I’ve never seen anything in zone chat about manipulating the low pop bonus. In my experience (and few play more in Cyro than me), we rarely get the bonus, even when we are the lowest population, and when we do, it lasts 1 - 5 minutes.

I believe it’s a matter of incorrect bar display, due to lag, corrupt cookies, or whatever. Many times I’ve heard people say “We are x bars while they are x and the other is y”, and when I check my own graph it’s something completely different. Close it and open it, different again.

I wouldn’t put much faith in ZOS’s population indicators. They are about as reliable as their tooltips.

Vevvev

Been seeing this happen a lot lately even when AD is dominating the map and having the most population. Makes no sense but whether it be exploit or bug it's been raising a lot of eyebrows and becoming a problem for the scoreboard.

AJones43865

I think it's most likely just an unfortunate side effect of such low population caps and participation rates. I have never heard of anyone that knows of a way to game the low pop bonus. That's not to say it's not possible, but without knowing the exact algorithm, I don't know how you would.

I think they need to update the way low pop bonus is calculated now that our caps and participation rates are so low.

mocap

saw same thing for EP, though it wasn't long enough, maybe for 10 minutes. Kinda bug or something.

maxjapank

What’s the score right now? Who’s in the lead and by how much?

AuraStorm43

You can also have people hop into delves right before eval to trigger it

Vulkunne

AD are winners and pop locked or not chances are good they're going to win regardless. Just an observation. That does not mean I like every guild on AD. But the faction has got what it takes to win campaigns.

Rohamad_Ali

Score is irrelevant imo. Good battles are all that matters. Target rich environments are best. Hearing a enemy complain about Our success is the real rewards. 💯

Reverb

It is not possible to impact the score by logging off right before the eval. I don’t know how many times we have to explain that. Low Pop Bonus is based on the average population over a period of 4-6 hours, not the current population. So if a faction has fewer people than the other 2 for 20-hours each day, but have high pop briefly every day, they will consistently get the bonus.

I’m going to guess you’re EP, since reds consistently complain about the low pop bonus more than anyone else on NA, despite having high pop the majority of the time.

maxjapank

Wow. Just looked at the score. Blue killing the campaign this time around. Guess some EP hopped over there.

Jaraal

maxjapank wrote: »

Wow. Just looked at the score. Blue killing the campaign this time around. Guess some EP hopped over there.

Some AD, actually.

faeeichenlaub

Queen Ayrenn is a gifted negotiator.

EmperorIl

Vulkunne wrote: »

AD are winners and pop locked or not chances are good they're going to win regardless. Just an observation. That does not mean I like every guild on AD. But the faction has got what it takes to win campaigns.

AD are zergers and night cappers on most campaigns I see.

Reverb

EmperorIl wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

AD are winners and pop locked or not chances are good they're going to win regardless. Just an observation. That does not mean I like every guild on AD. But the faction has got what it takes to win campaigns.

AD are zergers and night cappers on most campaigns I see.

On PC NA, AD has the most oceanic players and guilds. It’s not night capping for them. It is frustrating that they don’t spread out across all three factions though, and instead pvdoor the map against very small numbers of DC and EP. That’s been the primary reason for most of their wins on the main campaign.

Feaky

Reverb wrote: »

It is not possible to impact the score by logging off right before the eval. I don’t know how many times we have to explain that. Low Pop Bonus is based on the average population over a period of 4-6 hours, not the current population. So if a faction has fewer people than the other 2 for 20-hours each day, but have high pop briefly every day, they will consistently get the bonus.

I’m going to guess you’re EP, since reds consistently complain about the low pop bonus more than anyone else on NA, despite having high pop the majority of the time.

I've heard this over and over again, but I have a hard time buying that. It just doesn't feel like that is what's happening. I was on a few days ago for about 10 hours straight and AD was at 3+ bars almost the entire time except briefly when it dropped to 2 (but so did the other 2 factions). During that span AD received low population bonus 5-6 times sometimes for 10-15 min, but suspiciously around evaluation a few times. So while AD had the smallest portion of the map and did the least fighting, they received the most points. I did send a bug report to ZOS with screenshots each time this happened, but am not expecting anything meaningful to happen as a result.

I don't know if people found a way to exploit low population bonus or the algorithm is off, but whatever is happening just seems broken. That said, it is kinda a mute point as many don't even play the map anymore, most are just in pursuit of meaningful fights.