No FC's compounds the population imbalance

rtc07 · November 2014

First off - yes the old FC mechanic was silly, and changes needed to be made. However, it doesn't mean that there are not issues with the new system, which have been discussed at length here. However, I have not really seen this specific topic discussed much.

Essentially, FC's helped lower populations remain competitive by allowing them to churn what limited numbers they have against the superior numbers. My play time on Thorn NA is the tail end of prime time and later into the evening. At this time, DC is almost always 1-2 bars lower than AD and EP. This leads to us getting our skulls caved in repeatedly. Almost every night by around 2 AM EST, DC owns literally nothing.

This is because using their superior numbers, AD nails Glade and Rayles. We either have to give one up to properly defend the other, or split our forces to defend both - neither of these work because we're outnumbered 2:1. Sensing the opportunity, EP hits Warden and takes the other scroll. This is not AD/EP teaming up, as some like to complain, but simply them taking advantage of the situation. It doesn't mean it's fun for us. I don't really care about the scoreboard, I just want to have fun. Being outnumbered 4:1 every fight is not fun.

I "defended" one scroll against EP last night and it was about 40 against 5. Judging from zone chat, it was a similar situation at the other scroll against AD. People had already logged and given up by then. No FC's means no way to churn limited numbers, and means constantly getting your butt kicked. The current system supports picking on the lowest population faction.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

FCs should not be used as an artificial fix on population imbalance. I am completely against that. The moment the population is balanced (prime time, for example) they become an extreme balance issue, as shown in the past.

Populations locks should have a sliding scale that starts with the current lowest population faction and adds only room for a small fraction of players more (less than 20, maybe as low as 5). That scale increases as the lower populations log in.

That prevents things like the events of Thornblade NA last night from happening.

rtc07 · November 2014

I don't disagree that FC's should be used as a crutch, but something needs to be done because late time play as DC on Thorn is pretty crappy ATM.

The issue with your suggestion is DC seems to go to bed earlier while EP/AD stay online. A slider would work if everyone was at 1 bar because it would stop people from logging on - but in reality the reverse is true. Populations are going from 3 to 1. What are you going to do, start booting AD/EP as the DC start to log off?

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

rtc07 wrote: »

I don't disagree that FC's should be used as a crutch, but something needs to be done because late time play as DC on Thorn is pretty crappy ATM.

The issue with your suggestion is DC seems to go to bed earlier while EP/AD stay online. A slider would work if everyone was at 1 bar because it would stop people from logging on - but in reality the reverse is true. Populations are going from 3 to 1. What are you going to do, start booting AD/EP as the DC start to log off?

Every faction suffers 'attrition' over the evening. AD (and to a lesser extent EP) would have a much harder time replacing logoffs and crashes as the DC population lessened. Eventually AD / EP would have no turnover as there'd be constant queues.

The Australian AD would, for instance, be stuck in queue from the moment they logged in until enough had logged. They wouldn't immediately get to refill the population as they currently do when the evening gets late.

The real point of this is to get players to reroll because of no queues in the lower pop faction.

rtc07 · November 2014

Locking people out with an artificial queue is great from a gameplay point of view, but terrible from a business perspective. How many of the Australians are going to remain subbed if they can't even play? I'm not saying I have a better solution though unfortunately...

And yes re-rolling would be ideal - but it's silly that the players have to sink hours into fixing a problem that ZoS should be dealing with.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

rtc07 wrote: »

Locking people out with an artificial queue is great from a gameplay point of view, but terrible from a business perspective. How many of the Australians are going to remain subbed if they can't even play? I'm not saying I have a better solution though unfortunately...

And yes re-rolling would be ideal - but it's silly that the players have to sink hours into fixing a problem that ZoS should be dealing with.

It's either queues or an unbalanced gaming experience. How many DC are going to keep logging in if they're in a can't win position? A game with no opponent isn't much of a game.

How much Monopoly or Chess would you play if you were told "Oh, you're guaranteed to lose by the end due to x, y, or z reasons. But I still want you to pay us to play."

ZOS could also offer things like free character transfers, XP boosts to rerollers, etc.

At the same time, there was a lot of collaboration and cooperation between established gaming guilds and various live streaming communities to get everyone rolled into AD. It's as much the player base's fault as ZOS for doing that. The consequences were easily forseen and ignored.

Columba · November 2014

Then provide better incentives to play the under dog, don't fix with fcs.

k2blader · November 2014

Zeni won't implement a sliding scale queue unless they want to kill PvP altogether as people will simply stop playing. Heck, as it is currently it's not really that worth it to queue for the riding in groups, I mean PvP. Damage bonuses for the underdog would probably result in the same.

While it makes sense to push whatever faction has the lowest pop (usually DC), I wouldn't say it's very fun. But if I want to stay in my riding buddy group I have to do what it does. :-P

LonePirate · November 2014

EP needs to stop attacking DC and focus on AD once the DC players start logging off for the night. EP needs to realize that once DC has been decimated, AD will focus all of their attention and larger numbers on the only remaining faction. That leads to more AD emperors and a completely yellow map like the one from this morning on Thornblade NA.

Agrippa_Invisus · November 2014

k2blader wrote: »

Zeni won't implement a sliding scale queue unless they want to kill PvP altogether as people will simply stop playing. Heck, as it is currently it's not really that worth it to queue for the riding in groups, I mean PvP. Damage bonuses for the underdog would probably result in the same.

While it makes sense to push whatever faction has the lowest pop (usually DC), I wouldn't say it's very fun. But if I want to stay in my riding buddy group I have to do what it does. :-P

PVP would benefit more from the overpopulated faction losing multiple plaeyrs to quitting than the underpopulated faction. If the overpopulated faction loses players, then it's not overpopulated anymore.

If the underdog quits, then there is no more competition at all.

You're going to make someone mad, so you have to do what's in the best interest of the health of the game. That's to lock the overpopulated faction's queues.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · November 2014

This is not a binary situation where you have to get someone angry.
How about making no one mad and actually fixing the issue?

Sliding caps are not a solution. They are not only unnecesary but also add on to the attrition problem. Working with incentives will work and make everyone invovled on both sides happier.

As of now, the rules of the game tell the players: "you have to be part of a winning alliance" not "you have to win at AvA".
There is no incentives on either sides to actually fight and populate AvA.

IF there were reasons to log in despite the situation, then you'd have a positive feedback loop of activity.
The natural non sliding caps of the servers would be "negative punishment" and would work in combination with the "positive reinforcement" of fighting on a losing faction in order to cause campaign switches.
At the very least it would reduce the attrition rate and make guesting something purposeful rather than destructive.

Ackwalan · November 2014

Being able to switch alliances would be better then re-rolling. I'm not saying you should be able to play DC then be able to switch to AD or EP whenever and as often as you want, but some kind of alliance switch would be nice.

frosth.darkomenb16_ESO · November 2014

Ackwalan wrote: »

Being able to switch alliances would be better then re-rolling. I'm not saying you should be able to play DC then be able to switch to AD or EP whenever and as often as you want, but some kind of alliance switch would be nice.

Agreed.
What I thought would be just to spread out accross all campaigns, but giving players the ability to switch once a month or so would be great.