Actually this morning (possibly still ongoing) AD on NA is getting about a 300pt low pop bonus and contrary to what AD players are saying. AD spent the night (roughly from 1am CT-4am CT) with more population than EP and DC, pushed EP with their double pop to reclaim their scroll, open an EP scroll gate, leaving EP with 1 keep, and now are receiving a low pop bonus hours later while the populations are equal. So the high pop faction that night capped, is receiving a low pop bonus after. I have no issue with the night capping, it is realizing that even if EP takes all of AD's remaining objectives it still won't be enough. And I have no idea why DC hasn't been getting this, they frequently have lower pop than the other factions.

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.

Ok, can you do one thing for us? Could you give us the score for all factions in EU Thornblade, with and without the low pop bonus, to see what kind of impact it has on the overall score?

From my side of things (and many of my guild) as an EP player it's a mix Izanagi.

The number of points given seems rather crazy and we dislike a system where you can score more points per hour by not playing than you can by having 100% map control.

I don't think any of my guild are against there being a system like this in the game however we would rather see it keep the low populated faction in a competitive third place than allowing a faction to actively move up positions.

I know this seems harsh to low populated factions but here are few things to consider in this case with EU Thornblade.

• AD are the strongest and most organised faction.
• Shido & SWAT (others who helped sorry I don't know all names/guilds) proved last campaign they can win in a single week from last place.
• If one faction has no players willing to PVP in favour of PVE, or have entire campaigns elsewhere that they play on, why should they win the campaign.
• DC are often at the same low levels of AD yet never get this bonus.

I'm not sure I want to see systems which penalise populations for being too big either. It's not the fault of players who work on shifts or play from other timezones that they are online when others are not.
To me the cause of this problem seems to be that once again everyone is spread over multiple campaigns meaning that you don't have a standing force online for all factions at all time. If ZOS can ever make Cyrodiil into something which could handle and entire server I think we wouldn't ever see a low population due to everyone who can play PVP being in one fixed location.

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 will explain how AD game your low pop system (Azura Star EU).
1. Stay offline until pop bonus is at max.
2. Shock and awe the map with everyone guesting in at the same time to take back the whole map rapidly while the low pop bonus is maxed.
3. Log off again
4. Rinse and repeat.

Now...
EP fight DC all day long winning keeps back and forth where one might gain all keeps during the day and the other in the evening. These are always average population so get no bonus.
1. EP wins all keeps at one point with no pop bonus as they always logged in fighting DC (Home Campaign).
2. DC wins all keeps at one point with no pop bonus as they always logged in fighting EP (Home Camapign).
3. AD wins all keeps at one point with MAX pop bonus (Guest Campaign).

YOU CAN SEE WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE SCORING HERE RIGHT ?
EP and DC will have to win 3x as many keeps etc to match the point scoring of AD.
In effect..AD win by guesting and gaming the low pop bonus. They only have to do 1/3 of the work EP and DC do.

Remove the 1hr re-appraisal time or whatever it is. There is too much time for AD to mass migrate and take all keeps before the pop bonus ticks.

[edit: type from EP fight ADto EP fight DC all day long]

There are people in one of my guilds that believe that if you leave AD with their keeps in the evening the mystery calculation won't kick in. I'm sure that isn't correct; but the fact that our guilds are forming strategies like not attacking your competitors out of fear that attacking them will give them a bigger bonus than leaving them alone is creating behavior that is anti-competitive.

ZoS, I'm sure you didn't intend your bonus to persuade players not to play your game. Therefore, I would appreciate if you could post your calculation to clarify how our strategic choices impact that calculation and prevent our more superstitious leaders from acting against our interests out of false beliefs.

I've pvped a bit more recently on Thornblade EU. I work 9-5pm so have no indication of what population is like at those times or even through the night.

I can definitely understand why AD has low population bonuses, last night it was a ghost town; both reds and blues outnumbered us across the night at maybe 5:1 numbers (I'm being kind to EP/DC).

As another person said, the low pop bonuses are valid; but the extremity of the bonus is a bit far fetching. One point I can agree on is that an alliance receiving a low score/pop bonus should never be allowed to go past the next alliance without losing their bonus score.

However, even with these bonuses AD aren't winning the campaign; albeit the other alliances have to work much harder.

Without these bonuses, AD would be maybe 6-8k points behind; do the guys of the other factions really just want a 2 way battle on the highest populated server?

It is a fact, like all the other campaigns show, the casual pvper will not enter a campaign that sees their alliance being facerolled.

I am a neutral, I don't know what they can do to keep 'fair' scoring system without pushing a losing alliance away from the campaigns.

So @ZOS_LenaicR is this intended?

Just look through the logs and consider giving DC and EP players the 1st place rewards too this campaign pls

ZOS_TristanK wrote: »

we will continue monitoring the campaigns to see if the population bonus needs to be tweaked.

Well, 30-day campaigns are over. AD just barely won, after receiving thousands of points from this bonus. Can we get an update on ZOS' position? You may want to take notice that many AD players themselves are supporting other factions over this. I know I would be, since a victory like this would leave a foul taste in my mouth.

Rylana wrote: »

I am pretty sure the devs flat out said it was a 4 hour refresh.

So if AD is losing the map from 4am - 10am, and they all log in at noon, they have the low pop bonus for another two hours until 2pm when it should then drop off or reevaluate based on the pop from 4 hours prior.

Always consider what pops looked like four hours ago when youre thinking of the bonuses. Was AD low population four hours ago? If so, thats why they have the bonus.

no matter. A mechanic that allows a faction to dominate by not PvPing is disgraceful and needs change

Just give the low population bonus a max of 100 points and let the bonus stop if they are 1000 points away from the second Alliance or something.

Cody wrote: »

Rylana wrote: »

I am pretty sure the devs flat out said it was a 4 hour refresh.

So if AD is losing the map from 4am - 10am, and they all log in at noon, they have the low pop bonus for another two hours until 2pm when it should then drop off or reevaluate based on the pop from 4 hours prior.

Always consider what pops looked like four hours ago when youre thinking of the bonuses. Was AD low population four hours ago? If so, thats why they have the bonus.

no matter. A mechanic that allows a faction to dominate by not PvPing is disgraceful and needs change

things like this made me write the the text above ... as i said if someone has population bonus means THEY ARE WAY LESS THEN OTHERS and they can lose anything that give points easy ... if they have like 25 points max every late night/early morning and others have 150+ where is the balance ???

Edit: There is always a 3rd option that no one will like ... after a period ( every week or so ) auto force switch random members from the side with higher numbers to the side with lower till end of campain.

Jeddite_Eso wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Rylana wrote: »

I am pretty sure the devs flat out said it was a 4 hour refresh.

So if AD is losing the map from 4am - 10am, and they all log in at noon, they have the low pop bonus for another two hours until 2pm when it should then drop off or reevaluate based on the pop from 4 hours prior.

Always consider what pops looked like four hours ago when youre thinking of the bonuses. Was AD low population four hours ago? If so, thats why they have the bonus.

no matter. A mechanic that allows a faction to dominate by not PvPing is disgraceful and needs change

things like this made me write the the text above ... as i said if someone has population bonus means THEY ARE WAY LESS THEN OTHERS and they can lose anything that give points easy ... if they have like 25 points max every late night/early morning and others have 150+ where is the balance ???

Except those on Thornblade EU who watched the populations never saw a time when AD had one bar and the others had more that lasted for more than a few minutes. DC had a very similar but slightly lower population and never got a bonus. AD got in excess of 7,000 points from this.

More than that they got 6,000 points over a few days about half way through the campaign which took them from 3,000 points behind to 3,000 points ahead. Then there were no bonuses at all for 10 days or so, until DC overhauled AD again and a day later out of nowhere a 900 point bonus gives them a 500 point lead with 48 hours to go and no-one, nobody, not a soul has seen them with the population bars showing this lower population they are supposed to suffer from and it's the timing more than anything else about that 500 pointer. Just when they needed it. There hadn't been a bonus for over a week.

In EU Thornblade EP has the largest population, AD and DC are very close in numbers, but when the population bars change, AD goes up before DC as a rule and down after... They are NOT way less than others but they get huge bonuses.

It could all be bad design and coincidence. I'm not accusing anyone of anything. But I AM saying it looks suspicious and I won't be surprised if it later turns out that some lumps of sewage did know how to manipulate this.

There are number of highly skilled players in AD. They are very tough to fight and have often won through excellent organization and great tactics. They might very well have won again anyway.

But this time the way they won stinks, and what I now remember about the AD is that most of the bad stuff you find in the game is most associated in my head with them. Some of it is entirely legal and some of it is on dodgier ground but it always pisses you off: troll camps, Vampires and batswarms - god, even lag was more pronounced when you fought AD, until EP developed the megatrain, but by then we were used to the fact that AD made the game lag so EP doing it didn't matter so much.

Fighting EP is fun and a pleasure. Killing AD is becoming an unholy joy.

Jeddite_Eso wrote: »

As i said if the points are the problem remove the bonus points system and add defence boost system for more npc/stronger walls.
In prime time if people dont want to fight they cant blame anyone for losing but at something like 5 am its no ones fault that less people fight for AD over all. I am sure no one is happy when he wakes up in morning and sees all scrolls and keeps in enemy over and over again and cant do anything about it no matter how hard he tries.
There must be some balance.

It's not just the amount of bonus points that are the problem. As it is, the system is completely opaque. I haven't kept tabs every day for obvious reasons but I can say I rarely see AD having the lowest population (if the bars are anything to go by). Also, contrary to what someone posted here, this bonus doesn't kick in only during the morning after a DC or EP night cap. I've seen AD get +400 points per hour during prime time, while holding most of the map and scrolls.

The whole low-pop bonus system is under suspicion right now, and ZOS haven't said a word except for the (for me and seemingly many others) unsatisfactory "working as intended" post.

As for waking up to all your keeps and scrolls in the hands of another faction, I think DC was the biggest sufferer as both EP and AD regularly pull night cap sessions. Whatever the case, I'm not against night caps. Any faction's members are free to put in hours when they want, it's part of a persistent game world. The only fix would be to "close" Cyrodiil from midnight to 08:00 or something like that, which I doubt would fly with anyone.

Jeddite_Eso wrote: »

Cody wrote: »

Rylana wrote: »

I am pretty sure the devs flat out said it was a 4 hour refresh.

So if AD is losing the map from 4am - 10am, and they all log in at noon, they have the low pop bonus for another two hours until 2pm when it should then drop off or reevaluate based on the pop from 4 hours prior.

Always consider what pops looked like four hours ago when youre thinking of the bonuses. Was AD low population four hours ago? If so, thats why they have the bonus.

no matter. A mechanic that allows a faction to dominate by not PvPing is disgraceful and needs change

things like this made me write the the text above ... as i said if someone has population bonus means THEY ARE WAY LESS THEN OTHERS and they can lose anything that give points easy ... if they have like 25 points max every late night/early morning and others have 150+ where is the balance ???

Edit: There is always a 3rd option that no one will like ... after a period ( every week or so ) auto force switch random members from the side with higher numbers to the side with lower till end of campain.

getting 600+ points because you have fewer numbers is B.S. Having everything on the map does not give close to that amount....

the way the mechanic works right now is completly unacceptable. it needs a re-work.

Just logged in and saw AD getting 660 points while holding most of the map.
Right after tick it fell down to 150.

Even IF AD was on low pop (which is NOT the case) this bonus
is far to high. I'm not absolutely sure if AD figured out how to abuse the mechanic or if this
is a stupid bug that benefits just one faction again and again, but this has to stop.