Cyrodiil Population Balancing

Estwing

Are we going to see a better way to balance the populations or a reset sooner than 90 days on the campaigns? In the Bloodthorn it was fine then EP transferred a large amount of players in and they out number both sides by enough to hold just about every keep. Currently they own all 6 scrolls, all 18 Keeps and 52 of the 54 resources. I know the amount of alliance points is currently very low but as you can see all EP did was transfer in to a low pop server to control everything and even if we did move they would just move as well.

Jake71887

Aldmeri Dominion did this to Dawnbreaker early the first day as well... We're still being spawn camped at the gates.

Zargorius

I would give it at least a week after the official launch date before things start to stabilise.
Once people have levelled up a bit and guilds are organised properly I foresee the tides turning.
Besides I see no way you can hold to all those keeps if both oposing sides sign a truce and gank on you.

driosketch

This current balance is not how the game will be. There are enough players to fill all the campaigns currently. A few guilds rushed into PvP and took a side. But eventually more players will start to join up. Obviously, those one sided campaigns are going to have a tough time getting people to join until the other campaigns fill up. The rush will actually make PvP pretty boring in those ones for the next week or two until more players have progressed.

If your're in one of these where they have you pinned in your gate area, I recommend guesting to a more balanced campaign in the mean time.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

While i do think it is far to early to tell any sort of balance, it is one of my larger fears for Cyrodiil. Being a casual pvper/player in most games over the last decade, one thing i can be sure of is, the masses will take the path of least resistance.

I am afraid in the long run almost all of the campaigns will end with one dominating faction and next to no participation from the others.

But maybe i am just worried about nothing and people will go out of their way all on their own to make sure the campaigns are fair and balanced. Hahahaha. I cant even type it with a straight face.

Imperator_Clydus

I personally believe ZOS should just wipe the progress of all the campaigns until the populations balance themselves. Right now, you have the "elite guilds" taking large alliances to dead campaigns in order to easily crown an emperor and gain other perks.

To discourage this bad behavior, ZOS should disable features of AvA, such as emperor, to prevent this mentality and people taking advantage of a game barely out of the door. If anyone actually considers themselves to be true PvPers, they would actually want healthy populations for all three alliances and balanced PvP.

Having a lopsided/overpopulated alliance isn't fun and inevitably hurts the campaign and the community more than helps.

GravityX19

So Clydus you are saying that ZOS should disable the content until you feel the population balances? That is not going to happen any time soon, as most of the true PvPers have already chosen their home campaigns and started PvPing. Wiping out their progress will do nothing but irritate them and alienate them from the game.

Rescorla_ESO

I hope it is safe to assume that no new campaigns will be added until the existing ones all have relatively balanced populations.

GravityX19

Probably fairly safe to assume that, but with the 3 day early access people just getting into the game today, stuff should balance out later.

Tendeep

Jake71887 wrote: »

Aldmeri Dominion did this to Dawnbreaker early the first day as well... We're still being spawn camped at the gates.

Yeah, I am AD and in Dawn... this is garbage, not even fun - this 90 day campaign needs to end, we own the whole freaking map!!! Nothing to do, its broken, the other sides cant even play, so we run around with jack *** to do lol...

Karkashan

Sees how things are for the EP and DC on the Dawnbreaker campaign. Remembers being Dominion. Whistles innocently and walks away...

Although being a part of the uber-winning faction makes it (somewhat) easier to get as many of dem Cyrodiil skyshards as possible (specially dat mountain one. Got it by jump climbing up the wrong side of the mountain).

driosketch

For anyone stuck in a bad campaign:

In preparation for Early Access, we have changed the campaign reassignment and guest campaign assignment cooldown to 12 hours. In addition, we have also changed the cost to reassign your campaign any time from 100,000 AP to 15,000 AP. This change was done to help you find your campaign of choice, and play with your friends in our first month with ease and lesser burden on their Alliance point gains.

If you want to wait it out for 90 days, you can change at the end for only 10,000AP I believe.

Kodiak

I really don't see the problem with this system.

If a faction pop bombs a server, such as we've seen in Bloodthorn and Dawnbreaker, sure they will dominate the map but there isn't much for them to do shortly after. The other two factions will stop trying entirely (no one likes being camped) and they have easy access to just go play on an other campaign entirely that will offer them actual competition instead of a one sided battle.

If the big faction switches servers and pop bombs another server but then that local population can also just move on and guest elsewhere till the populations return to normal. These big groups typically don't form because they're looking for good competition, they're looking for an easy win and want to throw the bulk of their numbers at the problem to solve it. If they really wanted good competition they'd seek each other out and just have at it. Instead they will transfer around looking for victims till they burn out doing so and break up entirely finally bored that no one is willing to play victim for them.

These are problems created by players and are easily solved by players.

Laura

I think a lot of people haven't messed with them tillt hey are 50. I know I haven't even set a home point or anything and most of my friends haven't I think you will see that stuff even out later on

Imperator_Clydus

GravityX19 wrote: »

So Clydus you are saying that ZOS should disable the content until you feel the population balances? That is not going to happen any time soon, as most of the true PvPers have already chosen their home campaigns and started PvPing. Wiping out their progress will do nothing but irritate them and alienate them from the game.

What I'm saying is if ZOS wants to avoid the same PvP disaster GW2 had at launch, they should discourage campaign hopping as well as the benefits and perks for doing so.

Whether "true PvPers" have chosen their campaigns or not, many players have still not participated in Cyrodiil and the winning faction receives major boosts for their entire alliance, even outside of PvP.

It would make more sense from a community standpoint to make an introductory to Cyrodiil phase and then fully roll out the system once the game is settled and campaigns are relatively active on all fronts.

The way it is right now, most of the campaigns are lopsided, the "winners" have capped populations while the other two alliances have low populations, and there is no competition or PvP to be had.

True PvPers wouldn't be interested in how unbalanced and uninteresting AvA is currently. As a long-time PvPer myself leading a AvA guild, I just want balanced alliances so we can truly see the amazing AvA system in action, as many of us experienced during beta.

Kewljag_66_ESO

Just so you know the map never actually resets....... A campaign end and restarts but the only thing that resets is the leader boards. it is apersistant world like in DAOC and Planet Side 2

driosketch

Kewljag_66_ESO wrote: »

Just so you know the map never actually resets....... A campaign end and restarts but the only thing that resets is the leader boards. it is apersistant world like in DAOC and Planet Side 2

I forgot this is true. That means these lopsided campaigns are good and spoiled for the time being, effectively making them PvE zones for the dominate alliance.

They're not going to see an influx of other faction players until they're forced to because every other campaign is filled up.

Igolbug

I'd rather be getting stomped by one faction than having both factions outnumber me and both hitting me like Wabbajack had last night

TheGodless1

2 days in and the crying about pvp balance starts...It's only 2 days in...We haven't even hit full release when those players will fill in the gaps. Already you all are asking for nerfs, resets to the populace, downtimes...geez...my kids don't even cry this much at 2 and 6!

Kodiak

TheGodless1 wrote: »

2 days in and the crying about pvp balance starts...It's only 2 days in...We haven't even hit full release when those players will fill in the gaps. Already you all are asking for nerfs, resets to the populace, downtimes...geez...my kids don't even cry this much at 2 and 6!

Vast majority of people who wanted the game already bought it. They can buy it now, in fact, and still get in. There isn't going to be some mythically huge influx of people on "release day" of 4/4.

The only thing going to fill gaps is when/if people join campaigns and switch around. Good number of people could be leveling up and not filling them in which is the main hope for a lot of these lopsided campaigns.

jinxcat

Our AD guild took over Goldbrand campaign. It was a ball of 20-30 Pact players vs us as a guild of 13 with vent. We stopped them from getting Emperor for a day so they all quit pvp or changed campaigns I'm guessing , we own almost everything and there have been no Daggerfall or Pact players in pvp since yesterday.

BigDumbViking

The key is that alliance points earn faster if you are loosing your campaign. So I'm guessing guilds will want to transfer to other campaigns to gain more AP. Not to mention the fact that it's impossible to hold the entire map if the three sides are even strength.

thefreezingvoid

I'd imagine a lot of people are still leveling their toons. The XP in cyrodil is quite horrid. Wait a week or two, once a lot more people start hitting 50 they will more than likely start joining cyrodil.

Right now what you are seeing in terms of pops is likely the hard core pvpers. I will admit it is a bit strange that most of these players ended up choosing campaigns where their Alliance was completely dominant though.

I fail to see the point. PvP is about winning, sure. However its also about losing. If their is no chance of losing, where is the excitement. Maybe it doesn't translate so much into a game like ESO where the matches last 90 days, however some of the best pvp matches are the ones where everyone is on pretty much even grounds, where their is no clear victor until the final few moments when one sides clinches the win or the other chokes.

****

A perfect RvR example of this comes from GW2, first Round of their fall tournament. Jade Quarry vs Black Gate vs Sea Of Sorrows. A 7 day match up, and at the end of day 6 the difference between the top faction and the bottom faction was only 5% which could easily change if one side screws up or slacks off. The bottom faction did end up taking third, but they were closing the gap when one of the guilds rage quitted (Guild was called "Rage N Quit", how fitting) and basically cost their faction almost half of their income per tick for several hours. At which point that faction was down and out.
Was a very fun match up to a part of. Was IMO one of the best match ups I experienced in over 6 months of WvW. Most match ups in GW2 were usually decided by the 3 or 4th day (With no chance for the other factions to change their positions) if not sooner.

****

I do wish their was a cap on how much one faction can dominate the other. Sure it might mean long queues for one or two factions, but would more enjoyable.

Winnower

In ESO you could even have entire guilds who are secretly on another side.

Let an Aldmeri Dominion guild bolster a campaign, then pull out at a critical time; ceding territory and manpower while they all log back in as their Ebonheart toons in another guild and take the same areas they just gave up.

Deception is one of the highest forms of warfare. Strategy is what happens when you're not casting spells or whacking someone with an axe.

Estwing

Kodiak wrote: »

I really don't see the problem with this system.

If a faction pop bombs a server, such as we've seen in Bloodthorn and Dawnbreaker, sure they will dominate the map but there isn't much for them to do shortly after. The other two factions will stop trying entirely (no one likes being camped) and they have easy access to just go play on an other campaign entirely that will offer them actual competition instead of a one sided battle.

If the big faction switches servers and pop bombs another server but then that local population can also just move on and guest elsewhere till the populations return to normal. These big groups typically don't form because they're looking for good competition, they're looking for an easy win and want to throw the bulk of their numbers at the problem to solve it. If they really wanted good competition they'd seek each other out and just have at it. Instead they will transfer around looking for victims till they burn out doing so and break up entirely finally bored that no one is willing to play victim for them.

These are problems created by players and are easily solved by players.

You do know there are bonuses related to owning everything right? So they get XP, AP and Gold bonuses for basically doing nothing.

Tendeep

Kewljag_66_ESO wrote: »

Just so you know the map never actually resets....... A campaign end and restarts but the only thing that resets is the leader boards. it is apersistant world like in DAOC and Planet Side 2

Good to know! Thanks.

Kodiak

Estwing wrote: »

You do know there are bonuses related to owning everything right? So they get XP, AP and Gold bonuses for basically doing nothing.

It's been 3 days and I am almost 50 and have earned roughly 90000 gold and have zero problems doing any content in the game without damage or defense bonuses because I have yet to even pick a campaign at all (I'm also Mages Guild 8 and Fighter's Guild 8 with over 105 Skill Points total).

Who cares about trifle bonuses of XP or Gold when they're so easy to get otherwise? Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill.

malais

The system is fine and will balance itself out over the next few weeks.

Wabby was mostly AD but the blues kept us from crowing an emperor by working with the reds. Stopped us 1keep short of an emperor. Then they turned the tide the next night.

This is how most will end up. The real trick is going to be how much of a difference guild organization makes.

Arx

A vast majority of people have not even selected a campaign yet, nor will select one for awhile as they level up to 50. I have not selected a campaign either because I knew this would happen. I really love PVP too, but waiting for the uber min/maxers to get their "I haz emperor and my guild iz uber" out of the way.

A good chunk of the PTS players have mowed through most of the PVE content and want to PVP. They are organized. They generally have online communities. Soon as they reached level 10 they "bombed" servers to experience the main content that is left to them, which is PVP. Bitter sweet victory as they will sit on their hills with nothing to do while the rest of the population meet each other and form guilds, etc.

So, in about a week or so these organized PVP guilds will be screaming that PVP is boring and after that about no competition, blah blah and will move on to something else they can dominate. This is nothing new. Several people have made comments about this and they are right...the real PVP will not start for awhile yet.

vyndral13preub18_ESO

jinxcat wrote: »

Our AD guild took over Goldbrand campaign. It was a ball of 20-30 Pact players vs us as a guild of 13 with vent. We stopped them from getting Emperor for a day so they all quit pvp or changed campaigns I'm guessing , we own almost everything and there have been no Daggerfall or Pact players in pvp since yesterday.

This is exactly why balance at this point is meaningless. 1 guild took over a whole campaign. If this is actually the case, and you are worried about balance, i would tell you, you need to worry about the life of the game if 13 people make a campaign.

But this is what happens when games launch.

Hessen

Hopesfire EU is like 95% Daggerfall - have 5 scrolls and was about to take 6th before servers just went down.
- Having to get a whole guild to farm up AP to then switch just to balance seems a bit extreme just to get some competitive PvP going.