Alliance War Population Bars

HenryIvan · May 2016

Can someone plz explain the population bars to me? It makes no sense, I've seen all 3 factions at same bar population yet 1 faction may have twice the numbers the other 2 factions have?!?! If a faction has 1 bar how many ppl are playing for that faction? Are the bars accurate or just estimates of the current population?

Sallington · May 2016

I still don't know why they just don't have an x/max_pop instead of the dumb bar visual.

God_flakes · May 2016

I've waited two freaking years for zos to come here and explain why EP can have a poplock with a hundred man queue and DC has one with NO queue.

HenryIvan · May 2016

DEV! Searching for Dev to explain this please pretty please

Minno · May 2016

We do need an explanation how poplock works for the following reasons (from DC perspective Trueflame):

1) during non-prime time, faction is shown as pop-locked but in upper there are a 1/3 of the players on compared to EP. Inner has no noticible amount either, when we send players to check.
2) during this "pop-lock", players that join up are met with zero login lines. At primetime 8-9pm, que is 10 players deep.
3) weird bug or feature: when you log out at night and return the next day you are instantly in cyro. No action required by the player.
4) low pop bonus still calculated? I forget to check.

This leads me to believe that offline players are kept within the server pop until the server removes them.

Normally I let this go since many groups go fight away from where I am and its easy to get tunnel vision. But points 1 and 3 suggest otherwise, especially when DC is poplocked at 3am.

Skyy · May 2016

Minno wrote: »

We do need an explanation how poplock works for the following reasons (from DC perspective Trueflame):

1) during non-prime time, faction is shown as pop-locked but in upper there are a 1/3 of the players on compared to EP. Inner has no noticible amount either, when we send players to check.
2) during this "pop-lock", players that join up are met with zero login lines. At primetime 8-9pm, que is 10 players deep.
3) weird bug or feature: when you log out at night and return the next day you are instantly in cyro. No action required by the player.
4) low pop bonus still calculated? I forget to check.

This leads me to believe that offline players are kept within the server pop until the server removes them.

Normally I let this go since many groups go fight away from where I am and its easy to get tunnel vision. But points 1 and 3 suggest otherwise, especially when DC is poplocked at 3am.

1) I doubt it is actually 1/3, from what I've seen it appears the opposite, so most likely just easier to notice the enemies than the allies. Plus I've noticed people are terrible at assessing real numbers of enemies. 60 DC at dragon gets shouted a lot when there are only ~30. There is some flexibility in what is considered pop locked though which leads into point 2.
2) Pop-locked symbol includes both pop-locked and near pop-locked so you can get anywhere from instantly in to a queue.
3) If there is no queue when you log in after logging out in cyro you go back to where you were in cyro, unless you were in a keep or outpost, in which case you go to a gate.
4) I don't understand what you are saying.

God_flakes · May 2016

Skyy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

We do need an explanation how poplock works for the following reasons (from DC perspective Trueflame):

1) during non-prime time, faction is shown as pop-locked but in upper there are a 1/3 of the players on compared to EP. Inner has no noticible amount either, when we send players to check.
2) during this "pop-lock", players that join up are met with zero login lines. At primetime 8-9pm, que is 10 players deep.
3) weird bug or feature: when you log out at night and return the next day you are instantly in cyro. No action required by the player.
4) low pop bonus still calculated? I forget to check.

This leads me to believe that offline players are kept within the server pop until the server removes them.

Normally I let this go since many groups go fight away from where I am and its easy to get tunnel vision. But points 1 and 3 suggest otherwise, especially when DC is poplocked at 3am.

1) I doubt it is actually 1/3, from what I've seen it appears the opposite, so most likely just easier to notice the enemies than the allies. Plus I've noticed people are terrible at assessing real numbers of enemies. 60 DC at dragon gets shouted a lot when there are only ~30. There is some flexibility in what is considered pop locked though which leads into point 2.
2) Pop-locked symbol includes both pop-locked and near pop-locked so you can get anywhere from instantly in to a queue.
3) If there is no queue when you log in after logging out in cyro you go back to where you were in cyro, unless you were in a keep or outpost, in which case you go to a gate.
4) I don't understand what you are saying.

Your dismissiveness aside...I have talked to EP players who are sitting in queue when they have a "poplock" symbol and they claim they're in extremely long queues, often in the 100's. I have myself instantly entered TF when DC also has a poplock symbol. This is anecdotal, to be sure, but proof the poplock is meaningless. It absolutely means NOTHING. And this is what the issue is. This is what we need clarified. If it is as bad as some of us suspect (EP outnumbering DC at times 3/4 to 1)...I think the Dev's owe us some sort of explanation as to why this is allowed to occur and what they plan to do about it (if it is indeed happening AGAIN) as we have seen in the past on say, Thornblade for instance.

Göttermutter · May 2016

A "poplock" bar says indeed nothing about the real existing fighters on the map and is at least no sign, how many are realy in fights. Some standing around, maybe as spys!? *laugh*

booksmcread · May 2016

They need to decouple Imperial City from Cyrodiil. It's one of the things that skews the population bars and the two zones have absolutely nothing to do with each other apart from their geographic location. If the two zones contributed to one another, then the current setup would make sense. But they don't. They should just set up a couple of campaigns that are IC only.

Also, a pop-lock shows up at 90% capacity (iirc). So if you see a lock icon and you have no queue, your faction is still not at max capacity.

God_flakes · May 2016

I personally would love to know what the point of showing us those population bars and locks even is. They're misleading and false at best. Why are they even still a thing in the game at all?

RinaldoGandolphi · May 2016

In my experience the poplock in Cyrodiil is kinda misleading.

My observations in Trueflame it appears that:

EP Outnumbers DC by about 3-1 odds in most cases.
EP also outnumbers AD by about 4-1 odds

DC has slightly more people on TF then AD, but not by much. Most of Ad is on Haderus or zerging Azura's Star.

I have seen DC have 20 siege on Chal and seen AD have 20 siege on Alessia at the same time and have seen EP show up with 2 full raids worth of people at Chal to defend while still holding on to Alessia from the few organized AD still left fighting on TF with them also getting zerged by 3 times their numbers at the same time, and these Ad are not scrubs either.

Simply put EP has such a pop advantage on TF that they often times can defend two fronts at the same time without issue.

What reeally needs to happen is one of those EP guilds needs to move to Haderus and 1 Ad guild needs to move to Tf so we can have 2 somewhat balanced pop vet campaigns, if that ever happens or not remains to be seen.

right now though, EP has a 3-4 -1 pop advantage over DC and AD on TF and that makes winning a camapign in face of such odds simply impossible in the games current state especially when you take nightcaping into the mix.

HenryIvan · May 2016

Seems like Trueflames pop problem is rerollers cuz in bwb EP is lowest pop 99.9% of the time, A lot of DC and AD players must reroll non vet toons instead of moving up to the vet camps.

Minno · May 2016

Skyy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

We do need an explanation how poplock works for the following reasons (from DC perspective Trueflame):

1) during non-prime time, faction is shown as pop-locked but in upper there are a 1/3 of the players on compared to EP. Inner has no noticible amount either, when we send players to check.
2) during this "pop-lock", players that join up are met with zero login lines. At primetime 8-9pm, que is 10 players deep.
3) weird bug or feature: when you log out at night and return the next day you are instantly in cyro. No action required by the player.
4) low pop bonus still calculated? I forget to check.

This leads me to believe that offline players are kept within the server pop until the server removes them.

Normally I let this go since many groups go fight away from where I am and its easy to get tunnel vision. But points 1 and 3 suggest otherwise, especially when DC is poplocked at 3am.

1) I doubt it is actually 1/3, from what I've seen it appears the opposite, so most likely just easier to notice the enemies than the allies. Plus I've noticed people are terrible at assessing real numbers of enemies. 60 DC at dragon gets shouted a lot when there are only ~30. There is some flexibility in what is considered pop locked though which leads into point 2.
2) Pop-locked symbol includes both pop-locked and near pop-locked so you can get anywhere from instantly in to a queue.
3) If there is no queue when you log in after logging out in cyro you go back to where you were in cyro, unless you were in a keep or outpost, in which case you go to a gate.
4) I don't understand what you are saying.

If you are inside cyro, you are considered part of the population regardless if at a keep, gates, home base, in IC. So I've I logged back in, and my character appears in cyro sometimes in the same spot after about 15 hours, it wouldn't be far-fetched to consider that the server is not kicking players untill it has to.

That would explain why EP has such a giant que but DC can still enter cyro despite seeing a pop-lock symbol.

Skyy · May 2016

Deleted

Astanphaeus · May 2016

Minno wrote: »

Skyy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

We do need an explanation how poplock works for the following reasons (from DC perspective Trueflame):

1) during non-prime time, faction is shown as pop-locked but in upper there are a 1/3 of the players on compared to EP. Inner has no noticible amount either, when we send players to check.
2) during this "pop-lock", players that join up are met with zero login lines. At primetime 8-9pm, que is 10 players deep.
3) weird bug or feature: when you log out at night and return the next day you are instantly in cyro. No action required by the player.
4) low pop bonus still calculated? I forget to check.

This leads me to believe that offline players are kept within the server pop until the server removes them.

Normally I let this go since many groups go fight away from where I am and its easy to get tunnel vision. But points 1 and 3 suggest otherwise, especially when DC is poplocked at 3am.

1) I doubt it is actually 1/3, from what I've seen it appears the opposite, so most likely just easier to notice the enemies than the allies. Plus I've noticed people are terrible at assessing real numbers of enemies. 60 DC at dragon gets shouted a lot when there are only ~30. There is some flexibility in what is considered pop locked though which leads into point 2.
2) Pop-locked symbol includes both pop-locked and near pop-locked so you can get anywhere from instantly in to a queue.
3) If there is no queue when you log in after logging out in cyro you go back to where you were in cyro, unless you were in a keep or outpost, in which case you go to a gate.
4) I don't understand what you are saying.

If you are inside cyro, you are considered part of the population regardless if at a keep, gates, home base, in IC. So I've I logged back in, and my character appears in cyro sometimes in the same spot after about 15 hours, it wouldn't be far-fetched to consider that the server is not kicking players untill it has to.

That would explain why EP has such a giant que but DC can still enter cyro despite seeing a pop-lock symbol.

If you are not online, you do not count towards the population. Getting back in when you next log in just depends on the population at the time that you log in. I have logged out when there is a queue, and then logged in the next day and still been in Cyrodiil. As Skyy said, most people are really bad at counting the number of enemies they are facing, and that probably includes you. Just because an EP raid can wipe a DC raid doesn't mean we have more numbers.

Oh, and for the person who mentioned EP fighting AD at the same time and still being able to respond to DC, that is just because on TF the AD faction taken as a collective sucks. That's the nicest I can be about it. When we calculated how much defense we need against AD, we use a ratio of 1EP:3AD. Ever since Crown left the game, Cyrodiil has been EP v. DC with a few yellow gankers on the side.

God_flakes · May 2016

Astanphaeus wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

Skyy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

We do need an explanation how poplock works for the following reasons (from DC perspective Trueflame):

1) during non-prime time, faction is shown as pop-locked but in upper there are a 1/3 of the players on compared to EP. Inner has no noticible amount either, when we send players to check.
2) during this "pop-lock", players that join up are met with zero login lines. At primetime 8-9pm, que is 10 players deep.
3) weird bug or feature: when you log out at night and return the next day you are instantly in cyro. No action required by the player.
4) low pop bonus still calculated? I forget to check.

This leads me to believe that offline players are kept within the server pop until the server removes them.

Normally I let this go since many groups go fight away from where I am and its easy to get tunnel vision. But points 1 and 3 suggest otherwise, especially when DC is poplocked at 3am.

1) I doubt it is actually 1/3, from what I've seen it appears the opposite, so most likely just easier to notice the enemies than the allies. Plus I've noticed people are terrible at assessing real numbers of enemies. 60 DC at dragon gets shouted a lot when there are only ~30. There is some flexibility in what is considered pop locked though which leads into point 2.
2) Pop-locked symbol includes both pop-locked and near pop-locked so you can get anywhere from instantly in to a queue.
3) If there is no queue when you log in after logging out in cyro you go back to where you were in cyro, unless you were in a keep or outpost, in which case you go to a gate.
4) I don't understand what you are saying.

If you are inside cyro, you are considered part of the population regardless if at a keep, gates, home base, in IC. So I've I logged back in, and my character appears in cyro sometimes in the same spot after about 15 hours, it wouldn't be far-fetched to consider that the server is not kicking players untill it has to.

That would explain why EP has such a giant que but DC can still enter cyro despite seeing a pop-lock symbol.

If you are not online, you do not count towards the population. Getting back in when you next log in just depends on the population at the time that you log in. I have logged out when there is a queue, and then logged in the next day and still been in Cyrodiil. As Skyy said, most people are really bad at counting the number of enemies they are facing, and that probably includes you. Just because an EP raid can wipe a DC raid doesn't mean we have more numbers.

Oh, and for the person who mentioned EP fighting AD at the same time and still being able to respond to DC, that is just because on TF the AD faction taken as a collective sucks. That's the nicest I can be about it. When we calculated how much defense we need against AD, we use a ratio of 1EP:3AD. Ever since Crown left the game, Cyrodiil has been EP v. DC with a few yellow gankers on the side.

You don't need defense against AD. They rarely if ever attack EP keeps. If anything they only serve to assist EP when EP attacks DC keeps. I've also seen them tie up Glade for you guys when you needed to crown Hung Jim or whatever his name is. Must be nice to have them at your beck and call.

HenryIvan · May 2016

this morning there were like 4 ep online and like 20+ ad (bwb) yet pop bars said we were the same!?!?! Zos come on fix the pop bars to show actual numbers or something because the way it is now makes no sense!