It will be interesting to see if we get a second post from ZOS with a breakdown explaining what we're seeing, how it is working as intended and if they feel any adjustment is needed.

I still can't believe they haven't given us just a little smidgen of more information.

Plus I still reckon someone has put a decimal point in the wrong place or something...

*twiddles his thumbs waiting for an update* ;P

Thudunblundur wrote: »

I'm just wondering...they've told us everything is working as intended. Does this mean issue closed as far as they're concerned and no-one is looking at this any more?

ZOS_LenaicR wrote: »

Hey everyone,

Thank you for your patience while we've been looking into this report. At this time, we haven't found any bugs or behavior to indicate that something is not working as intended, but our team will continue to look into this issue. We'll update you as soon as we have more information.

Thank you again for your patience.

Hopefully this means so. I would hope for some more official word and maybe even future discussions with @ZOS_BrianWheeler or other members about the PVP team on how even if this is working as intended we can work on making it better.

I really don't like a system which rewards a faction for taking most of the day off to PVE then getting triple points in the couple of hours they play.

Thudunblundur wrote: »

Oh right - I'd forgotten the bold bit. Thanks.
-
Still very odd though - when I watched the populations the other day DC were consistently lower pop, yet AD got the bonus. There are (of course) rumours someone has learned to manipulate the bonus system, but whatever the reason it's ruining this campaign as a campaign, though of course individual battles are unaffected.

Whatever the mechanic is I really think it needs looking at. I hope ZOS take this seriously and don't ignore it. If someone truly has learnt to manipulate the mechanic then it's going to be dark times for PVP.

This is going to be a longer than normal post and I am really frustrated right now.

I woke up just little ago and once again got reports that during the morning hours (08:53) the AD on EU Thronblade were getting 548 points an hour for low population bonus. This happened for two consecutive hours granting them over 1,000 points.

Currently at the time of posting AD has 47,554 points in second position and DC has 46,588 points in last position.
This months campaign DC have been fighting tooth and nail every day to be where they need to be, AD at this point should not be in second position for the fact they have not battled. If we go back and look at all the screenshots submitted here, how many points behind should AD be.

I understand and support a system which helps low population factions keep up with others, however and I will use big text for this THIS SYSTEM SHOULD NOT LET A FACTION MOVE ABOVE AN ACTIVE ONE.
If the AD members are not going to play on EU Thornblade, or spend extended periods of time doing PVE rather than PVP why should they be reward for that?

Why should we play in a competitive PVP environment where those who don't play can in theory actually win by not playing.

It took four days of complaints across the forums, twitter and bug reports to get a response and what we received was

ZOS_LenaicR wrote: »

Hey everyone,

Thank you for your patience while we've been looking into this report. At this time, we haven't found any bugs or behavior to indicate that something is not working as intended, but our team will continue to look into this issue. We'll update you as soon as we have more information.

Thank you again for your patience.

So now a week later can I ask @ZOS_LenaicR what the further investigation has found out?
If this mechanic is indeed working correctly and not a bug then are you (ZOS) willing to sit with us an talk about how the mechanic might need adjustments to make sure it's not ruining the enjoyment of the factions actively playing PVP.

Could we also have further information on how this mechanic works and why points are allowed to go above those obtainable by the active factions?

I will close with a drama based statement but one which has been ringing true across my 78 member guild.
"If there is no point in us doing PVP because those who aren't active can win, is there any point in us playing this game?"

As of writing I have cancelled my subscription, depending on what happens in the remainder of this thread to if I activate it again or just move on.

Updated the OP with links to all known threads on this issues (since 1.5) as well as information about it.

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Thank you for staying patient, all. We have looked into the population bonus and everything seems to be working as designed. To give you a bit more insight into the mechanic, the population bonus is applied and dissolved over time and not immediately. Because of the gradual application, there isn't really a way for players to log in and out to raise or lower the bonus in a consistent way.

We can say after looking at the campaigns from the back end that the battles are often pretty close! That said, we will continue monitoring the campaigns to see if the population bonus needs to be tweaked.

I'm amazed you didn't ask them to reboot to see if the bonus is still there.

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

Thank you for staying patient, all. We have looked into the population bonus and everything seems to be working as designed. To give you a bit more insight into the mechanic, the population bonus is applied and dissolved over time and not immediately. Because of the gradual application, there isn't really a way for players to log in and out to raise or lower the bonus in a consistent way.

We can say after looking at the campaigns from the back end that the battles are often pretty close! That said, we will continue monitoring the campaigns to see if the population bonus needs to be tweaked.

Dearest TristanK, please review the logs from EU Thornblade (currently running). This system is not working as you originally designed it to, whilst it may be working as implemented this is not the correct implementation.

Fix this *** for the love of god....
I am losing around 4/5 members a day in my guild (PvP only guild) before this *** it was around 1/2

It makes sense to score a few small extra points for being a smaller force when in fact you are still actually present, fighting and retaining/defending your keeps and especially when you're taking keeps as a smaller group.

But that is not what we the customer understands is happening. So either the algorithm is not working or it's too complex and black-box for us to correlate the points with activity (or all).

Soooo if we the players cannot track and understand the points towards obtaining a win combined with seeing constant and extreme excess charity points given to low pop alliance... Then you're blowing our motivation to even care about who wins the campaign.

@ZOS_TristanK‌ , when you have hardcore PvPers from the beneficiary faction saying that this low-pop bonus is insane and has terrible impact on the game, then it's a good idea to start thinking about divulging more information on how this works and thinking about changing it.

"Working as intended" does not mean it's good for the game in its current incarnation.

If the pop-bonus is accumulated throughout the day and delivered in large doses at some point (night?) it removes the sense of control the players have over the scores and what's happening with the scoreboard.

In any event the added bonus + faction score should have a cap of what the highest scoring faction is getting. If DC score 300 for an hour AD score 100, then the pop-bonus should never ever be more than 200 or you're rewarding failure.

These bonuses should be applied in an hourly basis and the bonus should be shown separately from the score, along with the total sum of the two. That way the players have actual of information of what is happening instead of logging in to see huge bonuses of 800+ being handed out in one hour, completely flipping the scoreboard within 2-3 hours.

It might be working as intended (or not) but this current implementation is certainly enraging you player base. And this is coming from an AD players who's been on the receiving end of these bonuses. I'd like to have some opponents left to fight by the end of the month instead of them quitting, if you don't mind.

To be honest at this stage, I'd prefer no bonuses whatsoever than what we're currently having.