Remove the low population bonus from pvp RIGHT NOW

FinneganFroth

Working as intended, right Devs? So frustrating to fight for 30 days only to lose because of an exploit, with absolutely no response or acknowledgement from the developers.

But don't worry, we are getting a card game.

EdmondDontes

We are about to have the third campaign in a row on PC NA that is decided by the low pop bonus more than by the players.

This is really pathetic that nothing is being done to fix this.

Minnesinger

Kwoung wrote: »

Minnesinger wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

I just made a post about this, glad you showed some proof.. AD does this all the time.

Except you're outright accusing people, which the screenshot does nothing to prove. It only shows a busted mechanic. I have a really hard time believing that enough AD players coordinate en masse to go into delves to try and manipulate the low pop bonus. And if it's really so easy I also have a hard time believing the other Alliances aren't doing it as well.

Why is it hard to believe? To get a low pop bonus, your faction has to have low pop at "just the right time". It is literally impossible to be pop locked for 6 hours and still have the bonus unless you didn't have the population in Cyrodiil when the evaluation was calculated. Which would be incredibly unlikely to happen randomly when your faction is pop locked, unless there was manipulation happening.

FYI, with the new lower populations, it doesn't take that many people coordinating to make this happen. Back when there was 500 players per faction it was impossible, now that there is only 100 or less players per faction allowed, entirely possible and can probably be accomplished by a single guild.

Chill dude! You just throw accusations but can show no proof which backs your claims. Take a breath and remember you are playing an online game.

I am more than chill, did I even sound excited? There has also been plenty of "proof" posted by others. Anyways, AD was doing it all day yesterday while all 3 factions were pop-locked all day long from 9am-1am, EP being the only one that dropped to 3 bars around 11pm last night (and never got the bonus).. It's was cool though, since AD used their bonus to close a decent lead, DC got fed up of their cheating and banded together to show them how we felt about it... this was the result when I logged out at 1am last night, both AD & DC still being pop-locked. AD went from being 9 points behind to 400 behind, so it kinda backfired on them:

It is ok. I feel your frustration, Hope you did not need to be that passive aggressive for something that was not made by the players. I know it can be hard to accept the truth that something is not an exploit even if you mentality says it must be one.
By the way, if you logged I can post the map to be upated.

FinneganFroth

Minnesinger wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

Minnesinger wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

IronWooshu wrote: »

I just made a post about this, glad you showed some proof.. AD does this all the time.

Except you're outright accusing people, which the screenshot does nothing to prove. It only shows a busted mechanic. I have a really hard time believing that enough AD players coordinate en masse to go into delves to try and manipulate the low pop bonus. And if it's really so easy I also have a hard time believing the other Alliances aren't doing it as well.

Why is it hard to believe? To get a low pop bonus, your faction has to have low pop at "just the right time". It is literally impossible to be pop locked for 6 hours and still have the bonus unless you didn't have the population in Cyrodiil when the evaluation was calculated. Which would be incredibly unlikely to happen randomly when your faction is pop locked, unless there was manipulation happening.

FYI, with the new lower populations, it doesn't take that many people coordinating to make this happen. Back when there was 500 players per faction it was impossible, now that there is only 100 or less players per faction allowed, entirely possible and can probably be accomplished by a single guild.

Chill dude! You just throw accusations but can show no proof which backs your claims. Take a breath and remember you are playing an online game.

I am more than chill, did I even sound excited? There has also been plenty of "proof" posted by others. Anyways, AD was doing it all day yesterday while all 3 factions were pop-locked all day long from 9am-1am, EP being the only one that dropped to 3 bars around 11pm last night (and never got the bonus).. It's was cool though, since AD used their bonus to close a decent lead, DC got fed up of their cheating and banded together to show them how we felt about it... this was the result when I logged out at 1am last night, both AD & DC still being pop-locked. AD went from being 9 points behind to 400 behind, so it kinda backfired on them:

It is ok. I feel your frustration, Hope you did not need to be that passive aggressive for something that was not made by the players. I know it can be hard to accept the truth that something is not an exploit even if you mentality says it must be one.
By the way, if you logged I can post the map to be upated.

And AD still had low pop bonus at that point lol

maxjapank

Kwoung wrote: »

No one has been doing anything on purpose, except both DC and EP not touching each other for over 12 hours yesterday. It’s a 3-way faction fight by the way. Not some 2 v 1. While it’d be nice to fix what is unintentional, if there is something wrong with the low pop bonus. It would also be nice to have some kind of sportsmanship in a 3 way battle, instead of gating one faction for 12+ hours that isn’t even in the lead. Lol.

FluffWit

Kevin? Gina? Anyone who works for Zenimax?

FinneganFroth

maxjapank wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

No one has been doing anything on purpose, except both DC and EP not touching each other for over 12 hours yesterday. It’s a 3-way faction fight by the way. Not some 2 v 1. While it’d be nice to fix what is unintentional, if there is something wrong with the low pop bonus. It would also be nice to have some kind of sportsmanship in a 3 way battle, instead of gating one faction for 12+ hours that isn’t even in the lead. Lol.

You should check the campaign right now. Team Orange just [snip] all over DC.

[edited for profanity bypass]

maxjapank

FinneganFroth wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

No one has been doing anything on purpose, except both DC and EP not touching each other for over 12 hours yesterday. It’s a 3-way faction fight by the way. Not some 2 v 1. While it’d be nice to fix what is unintentional, if there is something wrong with the low pop bonus. It would also be nice to have some kind of sportsmanship in a 3 way battle, instead of gating one faction for 12+ hours that isn’t even in the lead. Lol.

You should check the campaign right now. Team Orange just [snip] all over DC.

Part of that happened because AD flagged bleakers during Oceanic time. Both DC and EP showed up in mass for our 5 man group. But we stealthed away and watched DC and EP battle it out. Then I guess EP felt the truce was over and began heading towards Alesswell after 12+ hours of nothing. Serves DC right.

[edited to remove quote]

Kwoung

maxjapank wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

No one has been doing anything on purpose, except both DC and EP not touching each other for over 12 hours yesterday. It’s a 3-way faction fight by the way. Not some 2 v 1. While it’d be nice to fix what is unintentional, if there is something wrong with the low pop bonus. It would also be nice to have some kind of sportsmanship in a 3 way battle, instead of gating one faction for 12+ hours that isn’t even in the lead. Lol.

Quite true, we ignored EP we were so ticked at AD for their constant "Low pop bug" .

maxjapank

Kwoung wrote: »

maxjapank wrote: »

Kwoung wrote: »

No one has been doing anything on purpose, except both DC and EP not touching each other for over 12 hours yesterday. It’s a 3-way faction fight by the way. Not some 2 v 1. While it’d be nice to fix what is unintentional, if there is something wrong with the low pop bonus. It would also be nice to have some kind of sportsmanship in a 3 way battle, instead of gating one faction for 12+ hours that isn’t even in the lead. Lol.

Quite true, we ignored EP we were so ticked at AD for their constant "Low pop bug" .

Karma plays both ways. But seriously, trying to punish AD because of something they cannot control is dumb. Gating a faction for 12+ hours is just another way to kill campaign and pvp interest. You can also get points by taking EP stuff, and it makes for a overall healthy pvp environment.

SimonThesis

Whats funny is that in the end EP is the one who used low pop to win, while poplocked. Had DC gated EP instead they may have won.

SimonThesis

runa_gate

1) it's been broken forever and thus should be removed

2) DC accusing people of exploiting while DC one group logs on and consciously lags the server is pretty rich; even DC hates them - and it's on stream pretty much every day and it's absolutely inexcusable that ZOS has done nothing about it

To be fair, the first group to do it was AD in 2015 and I provided ZOS complete chat logs of the quite open intention to lag and in some cases crash the server

Kwoung

SimonThesis wrote: »

Whats funny is that in the end EP is the one who used low pop to win, while poplocked.

Yup, they took 2 ticks of 350+ with low pop while pop locked, awesome bug.

Kwoung

Bug, intentional or whatever... ZOS needs to address this issue, it is just one more thing ruining PVP. If they need a place to start looking, it probably has to do with the population caps being lowered so much over the years it has gotten to the point where a small group getting a buff or clearing their 49K day debuffs off in Cheesemongers is enough to kick it in now. Back when it was 500 players per faction, getting 10-15% or whatever of them to do something would be near impossible, now with pop caps closer to 75, 8-12 of them (one group) is probably what kicks it in. The fact the game doesn't take the 50 people waiting in queue into consideration either, is just a severe oversight.

Would be really nice if they at least acknowledge the issue though, since it has become a standard part of the game now apparently.

SimonThesis

I wish there was a to tell if zos was aware of this bug/issue.

Kwoung

SimonThesis wrote: »

I wish there was a to tell if zos was aware of this bug/issue.

Well they asked how they could improve their communications, things like this would be a good start. If for nothing else than to say if it is a bug or an exploit, and if either, a bannable offense to purposefully abuse it. If it is just screwed up code, then they just need to turn it off until they fix it.

As I mentioned in another thread, AP is a currency in ESO, so it is pretty weird ZOS isn't considering this a priority. I am 100% positive if players were earning 2x gold in game due to some bug or exploit, they would be all over it.

Hey ZOS, players are able to earn AP, thus gold jewelry, motifs, etc... twice as fast as intended pretty regularly now due to a bug(?)... any comment/insight on the matter? @ZOS_GinaBruno ?

FluffWit

I don't care about players incorrectly getting the bonus AP... I go hunting for it during the pvp event.

But the campaign scores matter.

Kwoung

FluffWit wrote: »

I don't care about players incorrectly getting the bonus AP... I go hunting for it during the pvp event.

But the campaign scores matter.

I care about it, because if this is the new normal, it will completely imbalance the campaigns with everyone flocking to where they can earn the most AP. Think about it, would anyone ever roll up a AD or EP based character in PVE, if choosing DC awarded you a 100% increase in gold half the time for everything you do? Oh, your daily writs only award 5K, well I get 10K each from mine, you should swap faction.

I hope they fix this fast, because if it is a bug, some players are gonna be getting up to 8.2K resource ticks come Thursday and judging by these forums, there will be a lot of folks wanting to earn their alliance skills as quickly & painlessly as possible. This could become a serious curse on AD PVP really fast, when they see those 800+ deep queues just to get in Cyro, because of everyone going for the best place to earn AP.

FluffWit

Kevin? Gina? Anyone who works for Zenimax?

furiouslog

There is definitely something up with the LP bonus, and it always seems to be an AD thing lately, but I'm not accusing them. I think it's a server thing - another thing I see is that the bars periodically all drop down to 1 for a couple of minutes, and then go back to where they were. It's all the factions though, not just the one with the low pop bonus, and it does not always happen around the score timing, which should not make a difference anyway based on my understanding of how the bonus is awarded.

SimonThesis

FluffWit wrote: »

Kevin? Gina? Anyone who works for Zenimax?

Their silence on this issue is pretty deafening. Especially with a Pvp event coming you would think they would want to be ahead of random poplocked factions getting low pop double ap. Unfortunately, this is just another sign of apathy towards the pvp community.

dotme

SimonThesis wrote: »

I wish there was a to tell if zos was aware of this bug/issue.

I know! If only there was a forum where people could report issues and have the developer read and acknowledge them.

@FluffWit is right - just turn it off until you can fix it. It's frustrating to be passed by a faction clearly running at max capacity while enjoying a double point bonus. Personally, I think it's a bug not an exploit, but it doesn't make it any less annoying. This bug has more impact on overall alliance scoring than the hammer and scrolls combined.

Crispen_Longbow

Coming up on 8 years now that this game has been released. Campaign wins haven't mattered for 7 1/2 years now.

There are two types of players that care about campaign wins....

1. Ones that don't know how to actually pvp
2. Ones that don't understand how campaign scoring works

Reverb

The low pop bonus is so broken right now. On PC you can see the data passing in the API that it’s evaluating multiple times per hour right now, vs. the every few hours that it was up until a few months ago. This does make it easy to manipulate, since it appears to be looking at the pop in 20-minute increments instead of the average over several hours like we were told.

lindsaykay326

I'm the last one who would typically get in the middle of any AvA pvp drama but this entire low pop situation is getting ridiculous.
I'm the one who's constantly reassuring people that things will get fixed, that things aren't being done deliberately or that its just a random glitch, but this obviously isn't anymore. When I go into some of the delves down in AD territory, just sit there for 30mins or so and see 20+ AD show up and just stand there........then it's deliberate. I even thought, "Hey maybe they are waiting on the boss....." Nope. 2 killed the boss/bosses and the rest sat in stealth right inside the delve entrance. Then repeated this process again every hour and most of the times none of them even bothered to get the delve buff.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

jwarren68 wrote: »

Yep. Everyone in AD is in voice comms with each other

Have you seen AD chat lately? Half the people act like they don't even know they're in Cryodiil, much less be able to coordinate any type of plan of attack.

NordSwordnBoard

Remember in a trial people could shoot the boss with snipe or something from outside the arena, and effectively cheese/exploit it? The offenders got punishments and the trial got adjusted.
The material exploit argument comes in the form of gold jewelry rewards for the winning alliance. As well as the AP gain although AP to gold ratio isn't the best.
On a micro scale, the chaosball getting spawned with the dead carrier in the spawn so it will be unavailable to the rest of the competition comes to mind. Even if you bring it down straightaway, you still got an advantage from that happening. If you figure out how to repeat it, you win or have a serious impact on the outcome.
I would have no problem allowing the individual AP gain getting this bonus but not the campaign score. The only way to stop the bonus was to completely gate AD this campaign repeatedly so the bonus multiplied by 0.

ZOS encourages the team getting the catch-up mechanic to become the focus of the teams in 1st and 2nd?

KKolly

runa_gate wrote: »

1) it's been broken forever and thus should be removed

2) DC accusing people of exploiting while DC one group logs on and consciously lags the server is pretty rich; even DC hates them - and it's on stream pretty much every day and it's absolutely inexcusable that ZOS has done nothing about it

What group is this?

xylena_lazarow

One day last weekend, 3 consecutive eval intervals during NA prime time with all 3 factions locked:

EP normal, AD low pop, DC low pop
EP low pop, AD normal, DC normal
EP normal, AD low pop, DC low pop

The low pop was of course flickering on and off during each interval for all 3 factions. In one of those it looked like AD had low pop for the majority of an interval only to lose it 2min before the score tick.