Suggestion: Dynamic population caps.

Sharee · August 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And as an added note, RvR is not about fair figbts or sport. It's supposed to emulate war.
Artificial limitations such as these are counter-productive.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Because balance is about fairness

... right.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And as an added note, RvR is not about fair figbts or sport. It's supposed to emulate war.
Artificial limitations such as these are counter-productive.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Because balance is about fairness

... right.

If you don't have a point, go ahead and argue semantics instead of addressing my arguments. What I meant could be infered with the rest.
If you feel you have a point, you could make an effort to have this discussion in good faith, perhaps it could be constructive.

Anyway, the notion of "fair fights" people are using is that, to them, every local contexts should be "fair" or "balanced": No ganks, no 50v10, no hours where one faction has an advantage.

When I say that balance is about "fairness", I talk about the global context: The asymetrical class balance, the overall conflict and game mechanics.

Dividing the technical cap by 3 is fair. Each faction has access to the same global resources but aren't forced to use it the same way.
That they don't use it in similar ways is an issue that needs addressing. We all agree on this.

Punitive measures are the least effective ones. Not only will it hurt innocents, but it causes situations where the optimum choice can be to not log in.

On the other hand, incentives and reward mechanics are effective. To fix our issue we could put an emphasis on fighting back and holding on to territory and scrolls:

- ap/xp for kills and captures increased by pop difference. (10v50 = x5)
- Increased capture ticks on home keeps and resources.
- Increased capture ticks on objectives based on owners overall territory.
- retain current buffs for holding to territory and scrolls.

This means that fighting outnumbered to reclaim your land can yeild a lot more resources for siege equipment, more loot bags and faster "participation" bonuses.

Those buffs also reduce as the map and campaign population becomes reasonable, meaning that the winners' buffs encourage going in pve while the losers' bonuses encourage going in pvp. Those two forces will keep each other in check and reduce farming.

These overall concepts are similar in goals with the Imperial city. Give selfish reasons to fight, and people will participate.

Tintinabula · September 2014

No they've done nothing wrong. However, they are reaping huge advantages from poor design. It needs to be rectified.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Tintinabula wrote: »

No they've done nothing wrong. However, they are reaping huge advantages from poor design. It needs to be rectified.

Exactly. And the solution is to bridge the gap in rewards.
Tie it to success rather than just being part of the faction to preclude leaching on one hand, and on the other reward fighting back and regaining territory.

Players desiring PvE buffs would need to fight the two other faction at the same time and hold on to territory in a secure way before going on to benefit from them.

The most active players could even gain a proportional increase in buff potency because it wouldn't come "for free" as it does now.

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Punitive measures are the least effective ones. Not only will it hurt innocents, but it causes situations where the optimum choice can be to not log in.

These caps are being introduced as a measure to even out the playing field during non-primetime hours, not as a punitive measure. You are not prevented for queueing for cyrodiil, nor fined for doing so, you are merely incentivized to reduce your waiting time by either switching faction, or switching servers.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

- ap/xp for kills and captures increased by pop difference. (10v50 = x5)
- Increased capture ticks on home keeps and resources.
- Increased capture ticks on objectives based on owners overall territory.
- retain current buffs for holding to territory and scrolls.

Neither of those will fix logging into the game in the morning and finding the whole map painted red because red population was outnumbering blue and yellow combined throughout the night. No matter how many AP you get per kills, you will get nothing when the enemy is camping your handful of defenders at their spawn point with a zerg.

I want the campaign scorecard to reflect which team was better, not which team was the one that could lock their population during the night.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

First point, those "reclaims" you already do now will net you much more.
Remember my suggestion, you increase capture gains of "home keeps" and at the same time gains on captures of a larger faction and a modifier based on population gap with that faction.

In the near future, gold will come in "worthy" mails. And that's tied to AP gains.
In the not so near future, there will be the Champion system, and that's tied to xp gains.
I also mentionned how buffs should be tied to "activity"(ap gains during last 24h), so doing that reclaim will net you very high activity so higher buffs for when you recapture and switch to PvE.

So in a way, you could be happy to see the map being completely overrun.
If you're saving up for a new horse, some new fancy champion perk or plan on running trials in the evening.

Second point:
Have you paused an instant to wonder why they have more people at off times than you? I doubt it is due to a nationalistic pride, I don't see why aussies wouldn't fight each other.

It's most likely because they have no incentives to spread amongst the factions. No reasons to try to have a hard fight since there is nothing to gain for them at an individual level.
Staying in the strongest one gives them PvE buff they can't lose.

With proper incentives, ghost capping Cyrodiil would not yeild them much benefits aside from the eventual buff. Which itself wouldn't be at full power as they would not have max activity.
However, being in an underpopped faction would give them full power buffs much faster due to activity , if they want to switch to PvE, or generally much better loot and gold through ap/xp/mails if they stay in PvP.

Most players are now vr 12 or heavily invested in one faction, so the effect won't be immediate. What matters is that the feedback loop gets stopped.

Over time, people will spread amongst other campaigns to have a chance of sometimes being the underdog, breaking the buff campaigns in the process.

EDIT:
You changed your first part before I could finish answering.
I had already understood you were doing it partly for the off hours, so I already addressed that.

But the way you formulate it now, I can't help but notice that you don't seem to see the difference between incentives and punitions.

Losing the ability to log into your campaign just because other players are not enough is a punition through no fault of your own.
If you don't change campaigns, you get the stick.

Gaining a bonus when behaving a certain way is an incentive.
If you change campaigns, you get the carrot.

While both work, players respond much better to the carrot.

Also, your edit doesn't address the fact that with such system, an instance of Cyrodiil could be limited to 32 players if the smallest faction had only 10 members online. It just begs to be exploited:
Stay in your buff campaign, capture the whole map, and get everyone to log off.
GG, you now have a buff much harder to lose.

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

First point, those "reclaims" you already do now will net you much more.
Remember my suggestion, you increase capture gains of "home keeps" and at the same time gains on captures of a larger faction and a modifier based on population gap with that faction.

Unfortunately, this will do nothing when it comes to campaign score. The score has nothing to do with AP gains, it is a simple tally of all the keeps and resources a side owns when the one-per-hour tick comes.

Neither will it help the frustration players experience when they see their valiant efforts during primetime erased after every night. AP you get fighting is just a cherry on top. A side-effect. Not really important.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Second point:
Have you paused an instant to wonder why they have more people at off times than you?

Actually, i don't have to wonder, i know it exactly. A large US guild is playing on the EU server.

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, your edit doesn't address the fact that with such system, an instance of Cyrodiil could be limited to 32 players if the smallest faction had only 10 members online. It just begs to be exploited:
Stay in your buff campaign, capture the whole map, and get everyone to log off.
GG, you now have a buff much harder to lose.

I already responed to this in an earlier post:

1, you cannot capture the whole map unopposed because the dynamic cap will keep your numbers even with those of the enemy. The only way to capture map is to win fair and square.

2, you cannot get everyone to log off during primetime. No matter how big your alliance is, the megaserver is bigger. All you will achieve is freeing slots for other players.

3, your keeps are not much harder to lose if the overall population is low. Smaller teams can capture keeps just fine. If the enemy does not have a zerg defending, you don't need a zerg to capture.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

First point, those "reclaims" you already do now will net you much more.
Remember my suggestion, you increase capture gains of "home keeps" and at the same time gains on captures of a larger faction and a modifier based on population gap with that faction.

Unfortunately, this will do nothing when it comes to campaign score. The score has nothing to do with AP gains, it is a simple tally of all the keeps and resources a side owns when the one-per-hour tick comes.

Neither will it help the frustration players experience when they see their valiant efforts during primetime erased after every night. AP you get fighting is just a cherry on top. A side-effect. Not really important.

You don't see the larger picture.

The victory of a campaign has basicaly no impact on an individual player.
Especially on longer campaigns.

Using short term rewards and incentives, you can make objectives that help reach victory matter to the individual. It's basic behaviorialism.

If more people care about campaign objectives, then they will be won more often, then more points get earned, and then campaigns tally points are closer to each other.

It's simple as that.

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Second point:
Have you paused an instant to wonder why they have more people at off times than you?

Actually, i don't have to wonder, i know it exactly. A large US guild is playing on the EU server.

You're answering the "How?" here, not the "Why?".
Why do you think this guild is playing at a different time zone?
Why aren't there any other US guilds playing in the two other factions?

Because they have nothing to gain by being in the other sides.
Attempting to balance the fight will just make them waste time fighting something that will get lost during their night/your prime time.

That's how buff campaigns get created, through feedback loops.

On another note, you answered fairly quickly, so maybe you didn't see my edit addressing yours. Check my previous post.

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

If more people care about campaign objectives, then they will be won more often, then more points get earned, and then campaigns tally points are closer to each other.

Have you read anything written in this thread thus far? Even if the objectives are the single most important thing in seven players' lives, they won't be won any more often when they are facing 40 enemies.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

You're answering the "How?" here, not the "Why?".

No. Your question was 'why do they have more people', not 'why are those people playing there'. I answered what you were asking. They have more people because an US guild is playing there while EU sleeps.

As to why they do that, i can only speculate, but a likely reason is that they prefer to fight enemies who are hopelessly outnumbered, because it makes them feel better about themselves. Some people seek challenge. Some just take the path of least resistance.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, your edit doesn't address the fact that with such system, an instance of Cyrodiil could be limited to 32 players if the smallest faction had only 10 members online. It just begs to be exploited:
Stay in your buff campaign, capture the whole map, and get everyone to log off.
GG, you now have a buff much harder to lose.

I already responed to this in an earlier post:

1, you cannot capture the whole map unopposed because the dynamic cap will keep your numbers even with those of the enemy. The only way to capture map is to win fair and square.

2, you cannot get everyone to log off during primetime. No matter how big your alliance is, the megaserver is bigger. All you will achieve is freeing slots for other players.

3, your keeps are not much harder to lose if the overall population is low. Smaller teams can capture keeps just fine. If the enemy does not have a zerg defending, you don't need a zerg to capture.

I thought we were talking about off time? Or did we change when it suited you?

In off time, one dedicated group can capture the map. Your change won't prevent it. It may actually make it easier.

However, you are correct, during prime time as we know it, it won't be possible.

But how would you handle a faction rage quitting?

There are no incentives to attack a larger target, so two can gang up on the weakest one. When you can't move out, don't have fun and don't gain anything from fighting back, why stay loged in?

So what will you do? Kick people at random? Prevent people from joining a fight that is still balanced 1v1v0?

And how would you do if this happened just before prime time?
Enforce a 100v110v110 when the servers can handle 5 times more?

And how about a faction that has no keeps left but not the lowest pop? If one of their guild decides to come help in masse they'd be stuck half in, half in queue despite being the losing side.
What is the point to organize anything if the game prevents you to do so?

Also, cyrodiil is a PvE zone too.
It is the only way to play with friends that are at a different level than you. How would you handle that? Each person playing is a potential liability, do you just scrap the only open world aspect of eso in order to prevent players from raging at each other?

And really, this is wasted resources to not allow the servers to run at full capacity at all time.

There are too many edge cases making it a complex solution to implement, it doesn't address the core issue but its symptoms only, it enables negative interactions between players of the same faction and is generaly a waste of the game's capacity.

Variable population caps are a bad idea.

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, your edit doesn't address the fact that with such system, an instance of Cyrodiil could be limited to 32 players if the smallest faction had only 10 members online. It just begs to be exploited:
Stay in your buff campaign, capture the whole map, and get everyone to log off.
GG, you now have a buff much harder to lose.

I already responed to this in an earlier post:

1, you cannot capture the whole map unopposed because the dynamic cap will keep your numbers even with those of the enemy. The only way to capture map is to win fair and square.

2, you cannot get everyone to log off during primetime. No matter how big your alliance is, the megaserver is bigger. All you will achieve is freeing slots for other players.

3, your keeps are not much harder to lose if the overall population is low. Smaller teams can capture keeps just fine. If the enemy does not have a zerg defending, you don't need a zerg to capture.

I thought we were talking about off time? Or did we change when it suited you?

In off time, one dedicated group can capture the map. Your change won't prevent it. It may actually make it easier.

However, you are correct, during prime time as we know it, it won't be possible.

We did not change anything. In off time, your dedicated group will be facing an enemy group of equal size.

If you win, it will be due to skill, not due to numbers - as it should be. Regardless of whether it is primetime or not.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And how would you do if this happened just before prime time?
Enforce a 100v110v110 when the servers can handle 5 times more?

Exactly.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And how about a faction that has no keeps left but not the lowest pop?

If a faction cannot hold their keeps despite not being outnumbered, then the enemy won because it was better. I see no problem with that.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

If more people care about campaign objectives, then they will be won more often, then more points get earned, and then campaigns tally points are closer to each other.

Have you read anything written in this thread thus far? Even if the objectives are the single most important thing in seven players' lives, they won't be won any more often when they are facing 40 enemies.

They won't be captured more often initially, but they'll be worth the hardship.

Players are basic animals you can make do anything you want with treats.
If you set as a baseline that work = reward, then the "work" aspect becomes enjoyable.

Right now, there is a vicious circle. You lose, some people start loging off, you lose more, so more people log off. They have no reason to stay unless they enjoy losing. And once this happens enough, then the damage is not reparable.
You get a buff campaign and rare victories.

Having sporadic high burst of enjoyment is the core of sandbox games and what makes them addictive. People will remain in a losing faction just for that.
If they stay, then they might work hard for the next victory, and in the meantime gain a lot of points.
Thus, the faction is fighting back, gains some ground, and people don't log off, or if they do, they do it with a good taste and the will to come back.
Which effectively means more frequent victories and a balanced campaign.

This creates a positive feedback loop, or at the very least, it has stopped the negative one.

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

You're answering the "How?" here, not the "Why?".

No. Your question was 'why do they have more people', not 'why are those people playing there'. I answered what you were asking. They have more people because an US guild is playing there while EU sleeps.

As to why they do that, i can only speculate, but a likely reason is that they prefer to fight enemies who are hopelessly outnumbered, because it makes them feel better about themselves. Some people seek challenge. Some just take the path of least resistance.

Aww come on. It was a rhetorical question, that's not hard to understand. Especially whithin its context and the paragraph I wrote about incentives and motivation just underneath it, answering the question by myself.
Who cares if it is a US guild or a bunch of nightcrawlers, that's not interesting. Why they don't spread out evenly over all campaigns is.

Also, don't try to fool yourself, you're not superior because you play in an outnumbered faction.
I do the same, and for what it's worth, it makes us worse players. We are gimping ourselves on purpose for reasons external to the game (pride, roleplay, laziness to do an alt, masochism (mine), etc)
Not to mention that the players in a buffing campaign, those that won at the start thus triggering the vicious circle, are only at fault of winning.
Over time, they kept on loging in to not lose their earned advantage while the two other factions stopped caring.

Again ,the true issue is that there are in this game absolutely no reasons to join and remain on the losing side.

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

If more people care about campaign objectives, then they will be won more often, then more points get earned, and then campaigns tally points are closer to each other.

Have you read anything written in this thread thus far? Even if the objectives are the single most important thing in seven players' lives, they won't be won any more often when they are facing 40 enemies.

They won't be captured more often initially, but they'll be worth the hardship.

Let me reiterate that we are talking about campaign score here, not AP.

If you have 7, and they have 40 (as was the case last night during our last scroll defense), then you won't capture anything unless by surprise, and even then it will be gone again in a flash. You may get AP from it, even many AP with your changes, but the net effect on campaign score will be nil.

Campaign scores do not depend on AP earned, only on objective ownership. If you cannot hold objectives(as opposed to cap them), then your campaign score is going down the gutter. And you cannot hold objectives 7 vs 40, no matter how much incentive you get in the form of AP gains.

Your whole argument seems to be coming from a player who does not give a damn about campaign scores or what keep has what color, and only cares about having an enemy to beat on, and his AP.

Not all of us are like that, however.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Also, your edit doesn't address the fact that with such system, an instance of Cyrodiil could be limited to 32 players if the smallest faction had only 10 members online. It just begs to be exploited:
Stay in your buff campaign, capture the whole map, and get everyone to log off.
GG, you now have a buff much harder to lose.

I already responed to this in an earlier post:

1, you cannot capture the whole map unopposed because the dynamic cap will keep your numbers even with those of the enemy. The only way to capture map is to win fair and square.

2, you cannot get everyone to log off during primetime. No matter how big your alliance is, the megaserver is bigger. All you will achieve is freeing slots for other players.

3, your keeps are not much harder to lose if the overall population is low. Smaller teams can capture keeps just fine. If the enemy does not have a zerg defending, you don't need a zerg to capture.

I thought we were talking about off time? Or did we change when it suited you?

In off time, one dedicated group can capture the map. Your change won't prevent it. It may actually make it easier.

However, you are correct, during prime time as we know it, it won't be possible.

We did not change anything. In off time, your dedicated group will be facing an enemy group of equal size.

If you win, it will be due to skill, not due to numbers - as it should be. Regardless of whether it is primetime or not.

Or they may be facing no group at all, if it is a case like you mentionned of one guild facing the nightcrawlers.
20 people spread out over the map can't face 20 people in a coordinated group on voice chat.
And those 20 would reduce quickly after getting stomped individually and loging off. Meaning not many people aside from the 20 would be able to log in in their faction. Once they log off, the population cap would get even lower.

Nothing to do with "skill" here. Just being in the correct band wagon.

Things would be different if guilds had reasons to be in opposing factions at the same time. You'd get rivalries and actual fighting.
But any organized group would be smart enough to avoid a dead end side.

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And how would you do if this happened just before prime time?
Enforce a 100v110v110 when the servers can handle 5 times more?

Exactly.

Great, and keep over 1000 paying customers locked out of their planned evening activity.

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

And how about a faction that has no keeps left but not the lowest pop?

If a faction cannot hold their keeps despite not being outnumbered, then the enemy won because it was better. I see no problem with that.

You're always outnumbered in ESO.
There are two enemy faction, if they gang up on you, then you're fighting 1v2.
Without incentives to do otherwise, it is always preferable to fight the weakest target, hence the ganging up on one faction.

A bit of history, one of the reasons why daoc was so successful and why so little RvR games ever worked since then is that it had 3 factions.
3 faction systems have the advantage of having built in population imbalance checks and feedback loop canceling. You just need to enable them by giving the proper incentives.

If it is worth more to fight the stronger enemy, then it won't win completely.
If one faction doesn't keep winning non stop, then there are no feedback loops.
No loops, no buff campaigns.

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

If more people care about campaign objectives, then they will be won more often, then more points get earned, and then campaigns tally points are closer to each other.

Have you read anything written in this thread thus far? Even if the objectives are the single most important thing in seven players' lives, they won't be won any more often when they are facing 40 enemies.

They won't be captured more often initially, but they'll be worth the hardship.

Let me reiterate that we are talking about campaign score here, not AP.

If you have 7, and they have 40 (as was the case last night during our last scroll defense), then you won't capture anything unless by surprise, and even then it will be gone again in a flash. You may get AP from it, even many AP with your changes, but the net effect on campaign score will be nil.

Campaign scores do not depend on AP earned, only on objective ownership. If you cannot hold objectives(as opposed to cap them), then your campaign score is going down the gutter. And you cannot hold objectives 7 vs 40, no matter how much incentive you get in the form of AP gains.

I understand what you mean, but let me reiterate too:
Do not underestimate the impact of Ap on the actual campaign score.

You seem to see things just as a snapshot in time rather than the entire movie.

We reached the state of buff campaigns because the more you win, the more you win, and the more you lose, the more you lose.
So regardless of the initial population sizes, the ones that pushed the harder at the start of the campaign get to keep it as a buff campaign.
Sometimes the "reputation" remains and the effect persists over to the next iteration of the campaign.

As you say, at the current snapshot, you can't win 7v40.
But what I suggest are ways to avoid getting at this point by either keeping people engaged with their current campaign or getting people to want to be on a losing side to win more ap/xp/gold.
We could even add incentives to fight off the actual leader of the campaign by having an xp modifier based on total campaign points too.
If one faction has it all, keeps, population and campaign points, it would be the juicest target that can be.

In short, what matters is to trigger the "ganging up on the big guy" effect to keep ballanced campaigns and have "safety nets" set up to keep losing faction players motivated.

This would have effect at all time of the day. Either by having guilds comming at night in the other factions, or by having the "day time" be ganged upon enough to balance for their night victory.

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Or they may be facing no group at all, if it is a case like you mentionned of one guild facing the nightcrawlers.
20 people spread out over the map can't face 20 people in a coordinated group on voice chat.

That has nothing to do with low population, only with you being lucky to face an unorganized opposition. This can happen at primetime just as well as during the night.

Besides, the opposition can pull the same trick on you, so it balances out.

Great, and keep over 1000 paying customers locked out of their planned evening activity.

Or they could plan their evening activity in a place that has adequate opposition, and not be locked out.(besides that number is wrong. No side has the ability to allow 1000 people in, even without my caps. And if those 1000 are split across factions, cap won't apply)

You're always outnumbered in ESO.
There are two enemy faction, if they gang up on you, then you're fighting 1v2.
Without incentives to do otherwise, it is always preferable to fight the weakest target, hence the ganging up on one faction.

You are contradicting yourself. On one hand, you say you are always outnumbered in ESO, on the other hand you say two of the factions in fact are not outnumbered.

I understand what you mean, but let me reiterate too:
Do not underestimate the impact of Ap on the actual campaign score.

There is exactly one way AP impacts campaign score: give people motivation to fight for objectives.

But once that motivation is maxed out (you don't have people not-caring about objectives) then any more AP offered have no effect.

Currently there is no problem with motivation, as evidenced by the ability of our side to push reds back when population is equal. The only problem is unequal population at off-times, and you can't fix that with more AP.

Lorkhan · September 2014

i like the idea, and i think the cap should apply to home assignments

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Or they may be facing no group at all, if it is a case like you mentionned of one guild facing the nightcrawlers.
20 people spread out over the map can't face 20 people in a coordinated group on voice chat.

That has nothing to do with low population, only with you being lucky to face an unorganized opposition. This can happen at primetime just as well as during the night.

Besides, the opposition can pull the same trick on you, so it balances out.

That was my point. It's just about luck, not skill.
But it doesn't balance out, because organized group are smart enough to use buff campaigns.
With changes to motivation, guilds would gain equally between attacking a stronger faction and babysitting one.

Sharee wrote: »

Great, and keep over 1000 paying customers locked out of their planned evening activity.

Or they could plan their evening activity in a place that has adequate opposition, and not be locked out.

How can they know, honestly.
And even then, if AvA is to work, people should feel invested in their home campaign. If it is a place you can be refused entry and you are forced to guest, why should you care?

Again, players should not be punished for soemthing that isn't their fault.
The game has some design flaws, that's what should get fixed rather than implementing a bandaid fix to barely reduce the issue.

Sharee wrote: »

You're always outnumbered in ESO.
There are two enemy faction, if they gang up on you, then you're fighting 1v2.
Without incentives to do otherwise, it is always preferable to fight the weakest target, hence the ganging up on one faction.

You are contradicting yourself. On one hand, you say you are always outnumbered in ESO, on the other hand you say two of the factions in fact are not outnumbered.

I'm not contradicting myself but pointing out a design flaw.

The point was, there are effectively twice as many of them as there are of us, at any time you can get ganged upon.
Unfortunately, the current design doesn't direct this feature and it is either random or always on the weakest one.

I then went on to explain how it would be better to have it directed at the current strongest faction. In effect, you'd get a linear progression of: the more successful your faction is, the more often you are outnumbered.

Sharee wrote: »

I understand what you mean, but let me reiterate too:
Do not underestimate the impact of Ap on the actual campaign score.

There is exactly one way AP impacts campaign score: give people motivation to fight for objectives.

But once that motivation is maxed out (you don't have people not-caring about objectives) then any more AP offered have no effect.

Currently there is no problem with motivation, as evidenced by the ability of our side to push reds back when population is equal. The only problem is unequal population at off-times, and you can't fix that with more AP.

Good, at least you are aware of the impact.
But one thing to understand is: Motivation isn't binary.

An objective is never worth anything in a vacuum, it always depends on the effort vs reward compared to other activities. And fighting off outnumbered, or against a stronger enemy is more or less annoying depending on the person.
It's a cost to pay to obtain the reward. Increasing the reward increases the amount of people willing to do this activity over others.

Also, there are people that don't care about objectives. I'd even consider it the majority. The game rewards killing far much than capturing or defending.
The objectives are only means to get more killing, not the other way around.
I've even seen people complaining when we burned enemy forward camps.

Increasing the worth of captures would also have a side effect of changing the mentality of people more towards winning rather than farming.

And finally, an unequal population at any time is a symptom of an over achieving faction.
If the faction wasn't already winning, then less guild would have joined it.
It's a bit like the chicken and the egg, really.

Getting a more balanced reward system means that even at night, you'd get guilds fighting other guilds rather than all joining the same faction to get the buffs because fighting would reward just as much, if not more.

So yes, more ap, leading to a more balanced campaign, will impact late night as well. Maybe even more.

Rune_Relic · September 2014

I can see a lot of good points and bad points raised.

1. 900 > 100 > 100 population would leave 800 players scratching their backside in a queue. I dont think any of us want to sit in a queue especially if we only have a 1-2 hour window of game time with other lives. (who are the remaining 800 to play against ?)

2. Having large population swings is just as bad. You are going to get dominated...like it or not. So you would have to distribute that population more fairly and evenly. Alas...you cant pull players out of thin air other than NPCs.

3. You could make it so only 1/9th of the 900 AP actually counts. This would make the points fair (from a population balance aspect). But it wont stop them over running keeps and taking all the scrolls. They simply have greater numbers.

4. You could increase the difficulty for OP populations. Which would be awkward like option 3 but could work with option 3.

I havent really seen anything which is 'THE' solution rather than 'A' solution.
We need to think about this more IMHO.
I am glad we are discussing it though.

A lot of the problem is we cant distribute because of factions. I dont see how we can fix that. Not yet anyway lol

Rune_Relic · September 2014

The only way I can think of to get anything to work is using NPC placeholders.
500 AD 500 EP 500 DC
The zones start off filled with NPC only. As more players come online they remove 1 of the NPC players.

This way we alway have populatoin balance. But as stated before....playing NPCs is nothing like playing Real players. I dont see anything else viable though

So it all comes down to the quality of the AI of the NPCs.

500 EP vs 500 AD npc's is far better than 500 EP vs 100 AD ?

If 1 faction exceeds 500 players....then they start an overflow campaign or instance 2. That way there is no queues either....you just dont know how many will be NPC though.

Would the servers be easier to power balance if they are constantly full with characters be they real or NPC ? Would zeni get a better handle on dealing with lag issues ?

Sharee · September 2014

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO wrote: »

Getting a more balanced reward system means that even at night, you'd get guilds fighting other guilds rather than all joining the same faction to get the buffs because fighting would reward just as much, if not more.

So yes, more ap, leading to a more balanced campaign, will impact late night as well. Maybe even more.

People are not logging for the night because the AP is not good enough, they are logging because they have to get some sleep before going to work in the morning. No amount of AP offered will change that.

Sharee · September 2014

Rune_Relic wrote: »

I can see a lot of good points and bad points raised.

1. 900 > 100 > 100 population would leave 800 players scratching their backside in a queue. I dont think any of us want to sit in a queue especially if we only have a 1-2 hour window of game time with other lives. (who are the remaining 800 to play against ?)

There is a 500 cap on population at primetime, so at no point will you have 800 players scratching their head due to the proposed change.

At this point it becomes a matter of what is more important: to have 300 players happy playing a balanced campaign, or to have the overflow reds happy they don't have a queue?

Personally i think having a pleasant game experience playing takes priority over getting to play faster. Especially considering the queues would be limited to late-night when most players are asleep anyway.

Skafsgaard · September 2014

WarrioroftheWind_ESO wrote: »

If they can get the coding right it might help things out, but the logic of a 3 way war is usually the 2 lesser facs gang up on the dominant one. "Enemy of my enemy" and all that. Unfortunately people sitting at their computers don't seem to have a grasp of military strategy and end up shooting themselves in the foot. I'd rather they just localize the buffs or remove them all together than trying to add in caps of any kind.

This is a concept well known to most and you do not need a degree from Sandhurts (sic) or any such place to figure it out. However, due to, at least in part, cross realm alliances and other 'affiliations' it isnt as straight forward. I dont care if a PuG raid of 30 attacks the 'right' faction or not - at least they're having fun (hopefully) in what mission they are now undertaking. No, the problem is with the guilds. Because of organization, numbers, and probably even skill at some level an alliance of DC and EP guilds can easily mess up that tri-balancing. Heck even AD guilds wanting to AP farm instead of contributing to the Alliance is problematic.

So you have to differantiate between average playerbase (PuGs termed here) which come in, find a group and enjoy some battles (the closer the better in this mindset). And then the Guilds who has a more dominating presence, if they choose and it is these interguilds alliances and drama BS that can *** up a 'balanced' campaing, imo.

IcyDeadPeople · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

I can see a lot of good points and bad points raised.

1. 900 > 100 > 100 population would leave 800 players scratching their backside in a queue. I dont think any of us want to sit in a queue especially if we only have a 1-2 hour window of game time with other lives. (who are the remaining 800 to play against ?)

There is a 500 cap on population at primetime, so at no point will you have 800 players scratching their head due to the proposed change.

At this point it becomes a matter of what is more important: to have 300 players happy playing a balanced campaign, or to have the overflow reds happy they don't have a queue?

Personally i think having a pleasant game experience playing takes priority over getting to play faster.

A long queue is annoying, but this is not the main issue. The main problem is not too many of one faction or another, the problem is not enough players in total. We need a lot more players in each campaign and we need improvement of the lag issues that arise in large battles.

I'd much rather play in a high population campaign where my faction is heavily outnumbered, than play on a ghost town campaign with too few players, which would be the end result of what you are proposing. The game becomes boring when it is hard to find action.

Sharee · September 2014

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

A long queue is annoying, but this is not the main issue. The main problem is not too many of one faction or another, the problem is not enough players in total.

In the middle of the night? No its's not a problem. 1 bar of population at 3AM monday morning is quite normal, i'd say. During primetime, the campaign is locked for all sides.

I'd much rather play in a high population campaign where my faction is heavily outnumbered, than play on a ghost town campaign with too few players, which would be the end result of what you are proposing. The game becomes boring when it is hard to find action.

We already had this conversation. You can find action easily even with both sides only having 5 players online. Just attack their keep.

Having large battles all over the place is more fun, yes, but that's what primetime is for.

Rune_Relic · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

I can see a lot of good points and bad points raised.

1. 900 > 100 > 100 population would leave 800 players scratching their backside in a queue. I dont think any of us want to sit in a queue especially if we only have a 1-2 hour window of game time with other lives. (who are the remaining 800 to play against ?)

There is a 500 cap on population at primetime, so at no point will you have 800 players scratching their head due to the proposed change.

At this point it becomes a matter of what is more important: to have 300 players happy playing a balanced campaign, or to have the overflow reds happy they don't have a queue?

Personally i think having a pleasant game experience playing takes priority over getting to play faster. Especially considering the queues would be limited to late-night when most players are asleep anyway.

The numbers were just for illustration.

To be fair... i think they are equally important. I dont want to queue. I want to have a balanced population too.
I get two hours a night if I am lucky. If 1-2 hours is spent in a queue why buy the game ?
I want the game to be fair too....I dont want to be outnumbered 2:1 let alone 5:1

As said people have to sleep and such. Population are gonna be up and down like a yo-yo.....as shown.

Sharee · September 2014

Rune_Relic wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Rune_Relic wrote: »

I can see a lot of good points and bad points raised.

1. 900 > 100 > 100 population would leave 800 players scratching their backside in a queue. I dont think any of us want to sit in a queue especially if we only have a 1-2 hour window of game time with other lives. (who are the remaining 800 to play against ?)

There is a 500 cap on population at primetime, so at no point will you have 800 players scratching their head due to the proposed change.

At this point it becomes a matter of what is more important: to have 300 players happy playing a balanced campaign, or to have the overflow reds happy they don't have a queue?

Personally i think having a pleasant game experience playing takes priority over getting to play faster. Especially considering the queues would be limited to late-night when most players are asleep anyway.

The numbers were just for illustration.

To be fair... i think they are equally important. I dont want to queue. I want to have a balanced population too.
I get two hours a night if I am lucky. If 1-2 hours is spent in a queue why buy the game ?
I want the game to be fair too....I dont want to be outnumbered 2:1 let alone 5:1

Keep in mind that this won't really impact the odd nightly bird here and there unless there is a large organized group intentionally taking advantage of timezone differences to dominate a map.

The idea is that my caps would discourage such groups from doing this. And as long as they stop doing it, the 10% leeway will be enough to allow the odd player or two to join the nightly fighting without much trouble.

IcyDeadPeople · September 2014

Sharee wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

A long queue is annoying, but this is not the main issue. The main problem is not too many of one faction or another, the problem is not enough players in total.

In the middle of the night? No its's not a problem. 1 bar of population at 3AM monday morning is quite normal, i'd say. During primetime, the campaign is locked for all sides.

Even during the busiest hours on weekends, on NA server we don't seem to have enough players to completely fill up Chillrend and Thornblade to the level we used to see on high pop campaigns shortly after launch.

I don't know what numbers the population locks represent currently, but three bars these days seems to be significantly fewer players compared to three bars around launch time.

You now propose to reduce the population caps even lower, which would result in the opposite of what we need. Provided Zenimax is able to improve the lag issues in large battles, many of us would rather see more players in the high pop campaign than we currently have even when all three factions are locked.

Sharee wrote: »

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

I'd much rather play in a high population campaign where my faction is heavily outnumbered, than play on a ghost town campaign with too few players, which would be the end result of what you are proposing. The game becomes boring when it is hard to find action.

We already had this conversation. You can find action easily even with both sides only having 5 players online. Just attack their keep.

What you are describing sounds more like PVE than PVP. That is the experience on a ghost town campaign, where you have to flag a keep to get a meager response of 2 or 3 players. I've been there, done that, and have no plans to participate in any campaigns like that in the future.

Some folks might enjoy fighting keep NPCs, but if ESO ever gets to the point where all we have left are ghost town campaigns, it would be time for me to throw in the towel. The Cyrodiil map is too large for that, meant to be populated with lots and lots of players.

Sharee wrote: »

Having large battles all over the place is more fun, yes, but that's what primetime is for.

Primetime for you may be very different from primetime for players on the West Coast, or in Europe or Asia, or even people on the East Coast who play during the day.

There are already many players playing at different times of day, quite a few friends I enjoy playing with are based in EU, Oceania and Asia. This game keeps on going after you go to sleep, part of the fun for me is that it's a sort of dynamic environment that changes throughout the day. Each time I log on there is a different narrative going on.

Rune_Relic · September 2014

..but thats at the expense of some players never being able to play unless the lowest population increases. I like the idea ....I just dont see how it can work 100% of the time.

If you can figure up an idea that doesnt involve people not being able to play....that would be better.

Sharee · September 2014

IcyDeadPeople wrote: »

There are already many players playing around the clock, and this game keeps going after you go to sleep.

Many players playing around the clock is not a problem. Many player playing around the clock only in a single faction is. My caps do not hinder the former, only the latter.

No, what you are describing is PVE, not PVP. That is the experience on a ghost town campaign, where you have to flag a keep to get a meager response of 2 or 3 players. I've been there, done that, and have no plans to participate in any campaigns like that in the future.

Then maybe you should consider changing campaigns to one that has full population during your usual gaming hours.