though many will disagree with me, the population of a server should be based on the faction with the least amount of players in a campaign. Lets say ad only has 200 or so people in a campaign, ep and dc will also be limited to 200

I get what you want and why,but In all honesty I don't think this game the way its pvp is set up will ever work around dynamic population caps due to how the campaign system is done because let me ask you this if people set home to one campaign and its full for them what the hell they going to do?wait *** that I mean some people pay to play/its just unfair to punish people's choice of faction you going to make them wait?Also if you say just go to guest campaign let me say this no rewards besides ap,so that wouldn't work.Sorry if this comes across as too heavy handed,but I just don't see how this would work unless pvp is redone almost and since we haven't had any real pvp content it is very very unlikely that they will overhaul pvp.

WarlordGrievous wrote: »

I get what you want and why,but In all honesty I don't think this game the way its pvp is set up will ever work around dynamic population caps due to how the campaign system is done because let me ask you this if people set home to one campaign and its full for them what the hell they going to do?wait *** that I mean some people pay to play/its just unfair to punish people's choice of faction you going to make them wait?Also if you say just go to guest campaign let me say this no rewards besides ap,so that wouldn't work.Sorry if this comes across as too heavy handed,but I just don't see how this would work unless pvp is redone almost and since we haven't had any real pvp content it is very very unlikely that they will overhaul pvp.

I take it your EP?

1, Being outnumbered the vast majority of time is more frustrating than having to spend some time in queue before entering cyrodiil.
2, This is a game. Unlike real life, games are supposed to be balanced. 7 defenders at a scroll temple against 40 attackers is not balanced.
3, Without balanced populations, any scoring is completely meaningless. It's like a hockey match you won 40:1 because you had twice as many players on the ice as the opponent. You don't deserve a medal for that.

Thus i agree with the OP.

Well, thing is with Thorn. It's basically an EP buff server. And a good number of the people in there at any given time, are just farming dolemens and delves. The actual pvping is off elsewhere. I'm not sure what would be a good fix for the population issues, that's a good question. I think reducing the out of cyro pve benefits of pvp buffs would go a long ways toward stopping the buff server mentality. Also, making it so being emp reduces the amount of AP you aquire while Emp would go a ways toward sharing the throne a bit instead of having 1 person keep emp the entire campaign, but that is a different issue.

SC0TY999 wrote: »

Dositheus wrote: »

Well, thing is with Thorn. It's basically an EP buff server. And a good number of the people in there at any given time, are just farming dolemens and delves. The actual pvping is off elsewhere. I'm not sure what would be a good fix for the population issues, that's a good question. I think reducing the out of cyro pve benefits of pvp buffs would go a long ways toward stopping the buff server mentality. Also, making it so being emp reduces the amount of AP you aquire while Emp would go a ways toward sharing the throne a bit instead of having 1 person keep emp the entire campaign, but that is a different issue.

Are you talking about NA?

I've never seen thorn be anyones buff server on EU.

Last campaign blues left towards the end due to the Scrubhuman lag train!

Hah, yeah I didn't notice you were EU. I'm talking NA.

SC0TY999 wrote: »

And I take you're EP?


You like zerging? Makes you feel epic?

Of course I do. And I like "night-capping", too.
Which may or may not even be my night time.
I could not care less what others think should be a time window I am "allowed" to play or locked out because of random underpopulation.

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Thorn as an example usually has 1 bar of DC with 3 bars of AD and locked for EP at prime-time. With your system EP and AD couldn't fight on Thorn with those numbers because they would be locked out by an absent DC. AD and DC would have to only have one or two bars most of the day in Chill waiting for EP to log in, or decided they don't want to

Those numbers however are the result of there not being dynamic caps. The various alliances are basically avoiding each other for easy wins, because players always take the path of least resistance. Easily visible on the population bar: Azura EP 1 bar, Thorn EP locked. Why are they all piling on one campaign instead of spreading out? Because easy wins.

With the caps, this would not be possible. AD and DC would not have to wait for EP to log in on Chill as you said, because EP would already be there - they have to, because the other campaign has a queue for them, even at 4am in the morning.

Need dynamic balanced Pop and also a priority queue system IMO.

And a stable game would be good too...

Oh wait...

Every NA campaign I have recently visited has imbalance issues. The trend is that one of factions gather troops to flip Emp or cap scrolls. After some time another factions returns in force to do the same. There is not one good/ competitive campaign anymore where 3 factions are able to win. I am not sure what goes in the minds of developers but this current state doesn´t make pvpers to play.

Sharee wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Thorn as an example usually has 1 bar of DC with 3 bars of AD and locked for EP at prime-time. With your system EP and AD couldn't fight on Thorn with those numbers because they would be locked out by an absent DC. AD and DC would have to only have one or two bars most of the day in Chill waiting for EP to log in, or decided they don't want to

Those numbers however are the result of there not being dynamic caps. The various alliances are basically avoiding each other for easy wins, because players always take the path of least resistance. Easily visible on the population bar: Azura EP 1 bar, Thorn EP locked. Why are they all piling on one campaign instead of spreading out? Because easy wins.

With the caps, this would not be possible. AD and DC would not have to wait for EP to log in on Chill as you said, because EP would already be there - they have to, because the other campaign has a queue for them, even at 4am in the morning.

Furthermore, if one faction is losing they might try to purposefully not log in, and just stack a small keep cadre in there to flip objectives.

A faction is not a person that makes a decision to 'not log in'. A faction is a random collection of players. Good luck deciding to 'not log in' and then try and force that decision on everyone else playing that faction. The only thing you'll achieve by not logging in is giving your campaign spot to someone else.

Also, I don't think the fact that factions tend to stack on a server they can dominate has much to do with easy wins; it's just lazy thinking or a rhetorical cop-out to believe that. Most of those numbers are PVE players looking for buffs, sky-shards, delve grinds and so on.

So when i was defending the scroll temple with four people this morning, those 40 reds that trampled us were just my imagination? Please.

Your single experience doesn't define the average of player's intentions nor the average experience of everyone playing, scroll takes are sometimes overwhelming, other times they fail. Sometimes you get zerged sometimes you are the zerg.

Even if intentionally boycotting a server was hard to accomplish, a demoralized group doesn't log in. Take your group for example, your 4 man scroll defense. Are you saying that EP should be limited to 4 players as well on the server? How does that work out when that is only about the right number to take a resource or undefended keep? And with the size of Cyrodiil is a 4v4 really appropriate for a venue of that size? The idea of population caps set by the opposition is bad.

I think they should make some instanced pvp, but they should also remove a few servers so there will be sufficient player liquidity in both Cyrodiil and whatever CTF, Domination or TDM scenario they create.

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Take your group for example, your 4 man scroll defense. Are you saying that EP should be limited to 4 players as well on the server? How does that work out when that is only about the right number to take a resource or undefended keep? And with the size of Cyrodiil is a 4v4 really appropriate for a venue of that size? The idea of population caps set by the opposition is bad.

The dynamic pop cap would not have to be set so rigidly.

For example (and with some very rough numbers) it could be that one side could have 60% more players when pop was at or below 10, 40% more players when pop was at 20, 30% more players when pop was at 40 , etc.

The main potential problem I see with dynamic caps would be with factions gaming the system to limit the pops of other factions. So the issue of players having characters in different factions on the same Cyrodiil server would need to be (finally) addressed.

Additionally, rolling back reasons for pve'rs to to contribute to the pop cap (mainly desireable pve in Cyrodiil) would likely be needed.

Which brings us to the point where ZOS would likely feel overwhelmed by the complexities of change and instead of comprehensive, thought out,forward thinking and positive change we would get more pets.
.

Dynamic population caps are a real solution to a real issue. People keeps scoffing at them, but giving no solid reasons why they wouldn't work.

As it is, PVP is devolving into who can run away from which campaign the fastest. Either there's a certain guild they hate, or they don't like the off hours capping of the map, or they lag, or whatever. What it ends up with is massively unabalanced campaigns that are no fun for any team other than the winning team to play in.

ZOS, it's been a year. Your playerbase cannot be trusted to police themselves. They have failed on every level to do so.

Force it. Make them 'play nice'. Chillrend's balanced at two bars? Sorry, you get to sit in queue if you're the faction with the most out of those two bars, or you can go to your guest campaign if that's available. Don't like that? There's a wealth of PVE content to try.

And yes, this means the 'Travel to Player' option for Cyrodiil will have to be nuked dead.

I have no sympathy for those that want to propogate the zerg or make excuses for it.

Sorry, this is a game, not real warfare. You want to outnumber your opponent, use tactics or strategy to achieve battlefield numerical superiority (such as luring them away to a less important objective). If you just want the power boost of having 50 more people on the field -- no. Online arenas and deathmatches in a variety of games work hard to achieve numerical parity for a darn good reason. Having more people is a MASSIVE advantage.

All the way back to WoW and Warhammer Online the arenas would close with too few participants on one side. Why? Because it's no fun and the outcome is statisically assured. Shadowbane Online closed entire server shards when the fighting became too one sided due to the large scale wars eventually painting the maps the color of a victorious alliance. And on and on and on.

Dynamic population caps balances the scales and ends this ridiculous merry go round we're all on right now.

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

Dynamic population caps are a real solution to a real issue. People keeps scoffing at them, but giving no solid reasons why they wouldn't work.

As it is, PVP is devolving into who can run away from which campaign the fastest. Either there's a certain guild they hate, or they don't like the off hours capping of the map, or they lag, or whatever. What it ends up with is massively unabalanced campaigns that are no fun for any team other than the winning team to play in.

ZOS, it's been a year. Your playerbase cannot be trusted to police themselves. They have failed on every level to do so.

Force it. Make them 'play nice'. Chillrend's balanced at two bars? Sorry, you get to sit in queue if you're the faction with the most out of those two bars, or you can go to your guest campaign if that's available. Don't like that? There's a wealth of PVE content to try.

And yes, this means the 'Travel to Player' option for Cyrodiil will have to be nuked dead.

I have no sympathy for those that want to propogate the zerg or make excuses for it.

Sorry, this is a game, not real warfare. You want to outnumber your opponent, use tactics or strategy to achieve battlefield numerical superiority (such as luring them away to a less important objective). If you just want the power boost of having 50 more people on the field -- no. Online arenas and deathmatches in a variety of games work hard to achieve numerical parity for a darn good reason. Having more people is a MASSIVE advantage.

All the way back to WoW and Warhammer Online the arenas would close with too few participants on one side. Why? Because it's no fun and the outcome is statisically assured. Shadowbane Online closed entire server shards when the fighting became too one sided due to the large scale wars eventually painting the maps the color of a victorious alliance. And on and on and on.

Dynamic population caps balances the scales and ends this ridiculous merry go round we're all on right now.

I agree.. but we won't see any thing done until after console release, and that is if we are lucky.

Sharee wrote: »

AhPook_Is_Here wrote: »

Take your group for example, your 4 man scroll defense. Are you saying that EP should be limited to 4 players as well on the server?

But that's the beauty of dynamic caps. With them, there would not be only 4 people defending in the firstplace.

The issue is not that there are more EP than DC in the game as a whole. The issue is that EP plays on a different server than DC. Those 4 defenders were outnumbered because their potential teammates were busy outnumbering the EP on another campaign. With dynamic caps, those DC would be playing with me defending the temple, because the other campaign would have a queue for them.

After a while, dynamic caps would cause people to naturally migrate/spread out to campaigns that would give them the shortest queues, and the population would be spread out evenly across all campaigns, on all sides.

Exactly. This guy gets it.

It's not there to limit teams, but to force everyone to stop faction stacking on one server and spread out in a more even grouping across all possible campaigns.

Using NA as examples, there simply shouldn't be periods where Azura's is locked DC and 2 bars EP -- at least not for long even assuming the worst ragequit imaginable as DC's numbers stop replenishing from logouts / disconnects. There shouldn't be 3 bars of AD vs 2 bars DC and 1 bar EP on Chillrend.

It's not uncommon on NA to see during prime time:

Chillrend - Locked AD, Locked DC, 3 bars EP
Azura's Star - 2/3 Bars AD, Locked DC, Locked EP
Thornblade - 3/Locked AD, Locked EP, 1 bar DC
Haderus - 3 Bars AD, 3 Bars EP, 3 Bars DC (good job, Haderus!)

Instead you'd see Chillrend triple locked the entire prime time, Azura's triple locked as well, and Thornblade limited to small skirmish forces because it's a buff server and needs DC to start moving back to it for it to have life again. Haderus would be unchanged (good job, guys).

This also prevents, when Imperial City comes out, a faction from forging a campaign into a buff server again and flooding Imperial City with impunity. Instead -- nope. You want a dead campaign, you don't get to farm it. Wait in line with the thousand other PVErs who want in.

If people want to avoid queues they can either a) switch to another campaign, b) switch factions, or c) go PvE.