The real solution to PVP population balance

Frawr · May 2015

The Problem is the existence of multiple campaigns

Each faction wants a buff server for PVE and so each faction dominates a different campaign. This is natural behaviour; the path of least resistance to the best min-max numbers.

Examples (as of right now, 11.55 BST):

Chillrend

Haderus

Thornblade
(obviously more populated but the imbalance is still there)

The buffs are fine, however, the only way for it to be 'fair' or 'balanced' is to have only 1 campaign where everyone must fight. Clearly the server architecture would have to improve because i assume that we have multiple campaigns due to the limits of the hardware/software.

I would suggest enlarging Cyrodil by 3-4 times and adding some more keeps/farms/towns.

Even more awesome would be to create a more sand-box Cyrodiil where we as players can build castles (a la rust etc) and towns (a la Star wars galaxies) and build transitus shrines etc so that the links can be maintained.

This would give people some ownership of land, a feeling of achievement and actual desire to build and defend and work as a team. I don't know whether it is possible, however, i believe that this would give far more replayability than any amount of storylines that you can create.

Crucially though, we all need to be on 1 campaign in order to prevent buff servers and make us all fight over the same (single) set of buffs. (note, i have ignored the difference between vet/non-vet because i think that Vet will go away).

Jauriel · May 2015

I will posit there are certain guilds who have a way of ruining servers and chasing good competition off of them. Many retreat to the one campaign they don't have a presence in and enjoy a lag free and fun game experience.

AhPook_Is_Here · May 2015

The easiest thing they could do that would work would be reduce the total server count to 2, at least for NA, then remove home and guesting so that the percentage of the population that has cross faction characters won't be overly upset. The home/guest thing does nothing anyway to prevent alts from hopping around to whatever server they want to play on.

Rewards could just be tracked for every character on every server along with rankings and so on. It would be very hard for anyone to hold emp on both of the 2 remaining servers at the same time and would force 3-way competition again instead of factions running away to try to find a place where they can farm AP away from competition they can't handle.

Jaxsun · May 2015

Frawr wrote: »

The Problem is the existence of multiple campaigns

Each faction wants a buff server for PVE and so each faction dominates a different campaign. This is natural behaviour; the path of least resistance to the best min-max numbers.

Examples (as of right now, 11.55 BST):

Chillrend

Haderus

Thornblade
(obviously more populated but the imbalance is still there)

The buffs are fine, however, the only way for it to be 'fair' or 'balanced' is to have only 1 campaign where everyone must fight. Clearly the server architecture would have to improve because i assume that we have multiple campaigns due to the limits of the hardware/software.

I would suggest enlarging Cyrodil by 3-4 times and adding some more keeps/farms/towns.

Even more awesome would be to create a more sand-box Cyrodiil where we as players can build castles (a la rust etc) and towns (a la Star wars galaxies) and build transitus shrines etc so that the links can be maintained.

This would give people some ownership of land, a feeling of achievement and actual desire to build and defend and work as a team. I don't know whether it is possible, however, i believe that this would give far more replayability than any amount of storylines that you can create.

Crucially though, we all need to be on 1 campaign in order to prevent buff servers and make us all fight over the same (single) set of buffs. (note, i have ignored the difference between vet/non-vet because i think that Vet will go away).

I'm all in.

IxSTALKERxI · May 2015

The problem is people can change campaigns too easily. You can guest on any campaign you please regardless of where your home is. Half the players aren't even playing where they are homed at this point. Within the last 3 days alone those population numbers have changed drastically between the campaigns.

What I've seen over the last month is this: (this is just from my perspective which may/ may not be accurate don't hate on me)

-All of DC inhabit Chillrend
-AD go to Chillrend for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Chillrend so they join in
-Chillrend lags
-All of DC run to Azura's Star
-AD go to Azura's Star for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Azura's Star so they join in
-Azura's Star lags
-DC run to Haderus
-AD go to Haderus for fun fights against DC
-DC get's owned
-DC run to chillrend before EP even realises people have disappeared from Azura's to Haderus.

Aquanova · May 2015

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

The problem is people can change campaigns too easily. You can guest on any campaign you please regardless of where your home is. Half the players aren't even playing where they are homed at this point. Within the last 3 days alone those population numbers have changed drastically between the campaigns.

What I've seen over the last month is this: (this is just from my perspective which may/ may not be accurate don't hate on me)

-All of DC inhabit Chillrend
-AD go to Chillrend for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Chillrend so they join in
-Chillrend lags
-All of DC run to Azura's Star
-AD go to Azura's Star for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Azura's Star so they join in
-Azura's Star lags
-DC run to Haderus
-AD go to Haderus for fun fights against DC
-DC get's owned
-DC run to chillrend before EP even realises people have disappeared from Azura's to Haderus.

All of what you described is absolutely despicable. Here I thought AD & DC we're competitive and looking for good fights, no matter the odds. I guess you guys only want to fight under favorable conditions? That is pathetic.You have a ready and willing opponent that which BTW you did give stiff competition (especially in the month of March) but abandoned ship in the beginning of April when they rallied. You should all be ashamed. Thorns only empty because of you both running from the real fight. Man up!

Takllin · May 2015

Aquanova wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

The problem is people can change campaigns too easily. You can guest on any campaign you please regardless of where your home is. Half the players aren't even playing where they are homed at this point. Within the last 3 days alone those population numbers have changed drastically between the campaigns.

What I've seen over the last month is this: (this is just from my perspective which may/ may not be accurate don't hate on me)

-All of DC inhabit Chillrend
-AD go to Chillrend for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Chillrend so they join in
-Chillrend lags
-All of DC run to Azura's Star
-AD go to Azura's Star for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Azura's Star so they join in
-Azura's Star lags
-DC run to Haderus
-AD go to Haderus for fun fights against DC
-DC get's owned
-DC run to chillrend before EP even realises people have disappeared from Azura's to Haderus.

All of what you described is absolutely despicable. Here I thought AD & DC we're competitive and looking for good fights, no matter the odds. I guess you guys only want to fight under favorable conditions? That is pathetic.You have a ready and willing opponent that which BTW you did give stiff competition (especially in the month of March) but abandoned ship in the beginning of April when they rallied. You should all be ashamed. Thorns only empty because of you both running from the real fight. Man up!

His description of why AD left Thornblade is not correct. As is your assumption that AD/DC left Thornblade because of the "competition". Thornblade had a mass exodus because the majority of guilds, some EP included, left because of the tactics(PvDooring) and playstyles used by certain guilds which caused insane amounts of lag and significantly decreased player satisfaction with PvP there. Enough was enough and people got tired of the same antics over and over again, so we left.

We are all for fair fights with minimal amounts of lag, but when some people don't care about the state of PvP as long as they win, it ruins the competition and causes people to find this elsewhere. If you are one of the people who use these tactics/playstyles, then you've only to look at yourselves for the reason people leave.

Aquanova · May 2015

Takllin wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

The problem is people can change campaigns too easily. You can guest on any campaign you please regardless of where your home is. Half the players aren't even playing where they are homed at this point. Within the last 3 days alone those population numbers have changed drastically between the campaigns.

What I've seen over the last month is this: (this is just from my perspective which may/ may not be accurate don't hate on me)

-All of DC inhabit Chillrend
-AD go to Chillrend for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Chillrend so they join in
-Chillrend lags
-All of DC run to Azura's Star
-AD go to Azura's Star for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Azura's Star so they join in
-Azura's Star lags
-DC run to Haderus
-AD go to Haderus for fun fights against DC
-DC get's owned
-DC run to chillrend before EP even realises people have disappeared from Azura's to Haderus.

All of what you described is absolutely despicable. Here I thought AD & DC we're competitive and looking for good fights, no matter the odds. I guess you guys only want to fight under favorable conditions? That is pathetic.You have a ready and willing opponent that which BTW you did give stiff competition (especially in the month of March) but abandoned ship in the beginning of April when they rallied. You should all be ashamed. Thorns only empty because of you both running from the real fight. Man up!

His description of why AD left Thornblade is not correct. As is your assumption that AD/DC left Thornblade because of the "competition". Thornblade had a mass exodus because the majority of guilds, some EP included, left because of the tactics(PvDooring) and playstyles used by certain guilds which caused insane amounts of lag and significantly decreased player satisfaction with PvP there. Enough was enough and people got tired of the same antics over and over again, so we left.

We are all for fair fights with minimal amounts of lag, but when some people don't care about the state of PvP as long as they win, it ruins the competition and causes people to find this elsewhere. If you are one of the people who use these tactics/playstyles, then you've only to look at yourselves for the reason people leave.

Here we go again accusing EP or who ever of " Intentionally " lagging the server. Where's the proof? ......video proof? There's none because there was no intentional lagging of the server going on. It's just an excuse to explain away another loss which could have been avoided by you guys not throwing in the towel so fast. EP experienced the lag you all did, but no one wants to hear that or admit that there was no foul play going on, it's just another dirty EP tactic to clinch victory. AD & DC need to come to terms that EP wins the Thorn Blade campaign because we have a larger population, which means our players can and will be on at all times of day or night. As for the accusations thrown at (That guild you guys cry about) no offence intended, I have never seen them do the things you all claim they do (and no, I'm not a member of them) and I would be the first to report them since the lag they supposedly cause has gotten me killed numerous times and lost me a great many siege weapons I purchased. AD & DC need to realize that demonizing EP for things out of our control is just poor sportsmanship on their part and adding to the deterioration of ESO pvp.

Takllin · May 2015

Aquanova wrote: »

Takllin wrote: »

Aquanova wrote: »

IxSTALKERxI wrote: »

The problem is people can change campaigns too easily. You can guest on any campaign you please regardless of where your home is. Half the players aren't even playing where they are homed at this point. Within the last 3 days alone those population numbers have changed drastically between the campaigns.

What I've seen over the last month is this: (this is just from my perspective which may/ may not be accurate don't hate on me)

-All of DC inhabit Chillrend
-AD go to Chillrend for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Chillrend so they join in
-Chillrend lags
-All of DC run to Azura's Star
-AD go to Azura's Star for fun fights against DC
-EP see AD and DC having too much fun on Azura's Star so they join in
-Azura's Star lags
-DC run to Haderus
-AD go to Haderus for fun fights against DC
-DC get's owned
-DC run to chillrend before EP even realises people have disappeared from Azura's to Haderus.

All of what you described is absolutely despicable. Here I thought AD & DC we're competitive and looking for good fights, no matter the odds. I guess you guys only want to fight under favorable conditions? That is pathetic.You have a ready and willing opponent that which BTW you did give stiff competition (especially in the month of March) but abandoned ship in the beginning of April when they rallied. You should all be ashamed. Thorns only empty because of you both running from the real fight. Man up!

His description of why AD left Thornblade is not correct. As is your assumption that AD/DC left Thornblade because of the "competition". Thornblade had a mass exodus because the majority of guilds, some EP included, left because of the tactics(PvDooring) and playstyles used by certain guilds which caused insane amounts of lag and significantly decreased player satisfaction with PvP there. Enough was enough and people got tired of the same antics over and over again, so we left.

We are all for fair fights with minimal amounts of lag, but when some people don't care about the state of PvP as long as they win, it ruins the competition and causes people to find this elsewhere. If you are one of the people who use these tactics/playstyles, then you've only to look at yourselves for the reason people leave.

Here we go again accusing EP or who ever of " Intentionally " lagging the server. Where's the proof? ......video proof? There's none because there was no intentional lagging of the server going on. It's just an excuse to explain away another loss which could have been avoided by you guys not throwing in the towel so fast. EP experienced the lag you all did, but no one wants to hear that or admit that there was no foul play going on, it's just another dirty EP tactic to clinch victory. AD & DC need to come to terms that EP wins the Thorn Blade campaign because we have a larger population, which means our players can and will be on at all times of day or night. As for the accusations thrown at (That guild you guys cry about) no offence intended, I have never seen them do the things you all claim they do (and no, I'm not a member of them) and I would be the first to report them since the lag they supposedly cause has gotten me killed numerous times and lost me a great many siege weapons I purchased. AD & DC need to realize that demonizing EP for things out of our control is just poor sportsmanship on their part and adding to the deterioration of ESO pvp.

Mate I'm not accusing them of lagsploiting, read my post again.

Certain play styles cause more lag than others, and some people are better at using this than others. The better they are, and the more people who use it, the more lag it creates. There are many guilds that use this play style, not just them.

There are ways to play PvP without lagging out the servers, some people recognize this more than others. This isn't directed at any one side, as every side has people who fit into this.

Frawr · May 2015

RIght now:

Haderus:

Azuras:
(yellows feeling greedy?

)

Thornblade:

All in the pursuit of pve buffs?

Come on Zenimax. This cannot be your vision of epic gameplay.

1 server for everyone that is 4x the size with 'real' territory control instead of ping pong flag capture.

edit: bah images failed and no time to edit. Will fix later. Copy links to see (though you can all guess).

IxSTALKERxI · May 2015

My post was just my observations on the population distribution across the campaigns and I was just trying to make sense of what is going on.

I was just talking about the factions in general and also i don't believe EP intentionally lags servers, the server lags when all 3 factions are fighting on 1 server. My main point is that it appears all factions are constantly hopping between campaigns on a daily basis whether it is to avoid lag or avoid competition idk but it shouldn't be like this. The point I was trying to make is the way guesting works needs to be changed.

Psilent · May 2015

Frawr wrote: »

The Problem is the existence of multiple campaigns

Each faction wants a buff server for PVE and so each faction dominates a different campaign. This is natural behaviour; the path of least resistance to the best min-max numbers.

Examples (as of right now, 11.55 BST):

Chillrend

Haderus

Thornblade
(obviously more populated but the imbalance is still there)

The buffs are fine, however, the only way for it to be 'fair' or 'balanced' is to have only 1 campaign where everyone must fight. Clearly the server architecture would have to improve because i assume that we have multiple campaigns due to the limits of the hardware/software.

I would suggest enlarging Cyrodil by 3-4 times and adding some more keeps/farms/towns.

Even more awesome would be to create a more sand-box Cyrodiil where we as players can build castles (a la rust etc) and towns (a la Star wars galaxies) and build transitus shrines etc so that the links can be maintained.

This would give people some ownership of land, a feeling of achievement and actual desire to build and defend and work as a team. I don't know whether it is possible, however, i believe that this would give far more replayability than any amount of storylines that you can create.

Crucially though, we all need to be on 1 campaign in order to prevent buff servers and make us all fight over the same (single) set of buffs. (note, i have ignored the difference between vet/non-vet because i think that Vet will go away).

I disagree with everything in this post. I do not want just one campaign and here is why:

1. I don’t want to wait in a queue every day I want to PvP; I play this game to PvP and if I have to wait everyday in long queues to get into Cyrodiil, I will not be happy. It’s already been proven that the servers cannot handle more than they are set at currently, so there will be queues for everyone; every faction is pop locked somewhere.

2. I have always enjoyed playing the underdog and I like playing exclusively on buff campaigns. I am EP and have only been a part of winning a campaign twice in the entire time I’ve been playing in Cyrodiil. Once when I was level 25 on Blackwater Blade, during Rylana’s reign as Emperor, and the second time when EP won on Haderus a few months ago. My guild recently moved to Haderus from Azura’s Star due to that campaign getting filled up with to much EP. Nothing is worse than taking a Keep and turning around seeing 20 people not in your group and realizing you won with numbers and not superior tactics.

Why rain on other player’s fun by wanting just 1 campaign? There is a competitive campaign right now, its Azura’s Star, if you want a chance to win a balanced campaign go there and let those of us who enjoy being the underdog have buff campaigns to fight on.