The pop cap for each faction is not the maximum the server can handle. It is 1/3 of that (well, assuming the server were able to handle 3 full factions ...).
If the cap is 100 for each faction, it means the server can handle up to 300 players. So accoding to your argumentation it isn't ok that faction A can't get more players than 100 when the server limit (300) isn't reached yet, because the other factions aren't full.
The purpose of the population caps isn't just to limit the server strain. Because if that would be the case, there would be no need for individual faction caps. Those caps are already used to balance numbers. The problem is that it only works at times of near full population. Dynamic caps would change this already existing mechanism to work at all times.

VaranisArano wrote: »

I'm not fine with faction A being at, say 70 players, well below the max pop for their faction, and having a queue because Faction B only has, say, 40 players. There's no server performance reason why Faction A cant have 30 more players log on. There's only the desire to enforce semi-equal numbers on the different factions causing that.

When faction A has 100 players and a queue of 30 and Faction B and C have 50 each there is no server performance reason why those 30 players from faction A, who are waiting in a queue, can't play. For performance it doesn't matter if those 100 missing players come from faction A or B or C. The only reason for individual population caps is population balance, it has absolutely nothing to do with server performance.

VaranisArano wrote: »

At max population, all the teams should have the same max number of players within the number permitted by the server performance.

Why should factions have the same population only on a full server but not on an empty one? Doesn't make sense at all. Either faction balance is something that is desireable at all times or it is not relevant no matter the overall population. In the latter case there is no reason to force players to wait in a queue before the total server limit is reached.

VaranisArano wrote: »

Now, as for what we are actually arguing about, the difference is that I think having a situation where at 99 A/ 30 B/ 30 C there is still one more spot for a player from faction A, and you think that dynamic poplocks should have kicked in well before that point, preventing X number of players on faction A from playing for their faction until faction B and C have a greater population.

Dude, think about it.

Your mind is too stuck with the current population numbers. You think, "if we have a 99/30/30, and enable dynamic caps, i won't be able to get in for a long time!"

But if the dynamic pop caps are real, we won't have a 99/30/30 in the firstplace! Instead, you will see a 50/50/50 split, and you won't have to wait until faction B and C have a greater population, because they already do!

Sharee wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Now, as for what we are actually arguing about, the difference is that I think having a situation where at 99 A/ 30 B/ 30 C there is still one more spot for a player from faction A, and you think that dynamic poplocks should have kicked in well before that point, preventing X number of players on faction A from playing for their faction until faction B and C have a greater population.

Dude, think about it.

Your mind is too stuck with the current population numbers. You think, "if we have a 99/30/30, and enable dynamic caps, i won't be able to get in for a long time!"

But if the dynamic pop caps are real, we won't have a 99/30/30 in the firstplace! Instead, you will see a 50/50/50 split, and you won't have to wait until faction B and C have a greater population, because they already do!

It depends on timing. It is quite possible at some point in time there would be a 99/30/30 split or 60/20/20. If one or two big guilds log in on one faction shortly before one or two big guilds log out on another faction you will definitely see this. You are relying on people logging off in a balanced fashion on all 3 factions simultaneously. This is far from reliable.

When the timing is bad how long will it take to get to the 50/50/50 split? It could be hours on end. It can also work the way you are saying it will, but to think it always will, even mostly will, is a stretch. You can't ignore the worst case scenarios and only look at the best. And no matter how you slice it any time a faction is locked out you are forcing players to play for another faction in order to play and avoid a wait. It can also go from 90/50/50 to 60/20/20 before the other two factions ever start gaining player count. This itself could take a couple of hours.

I admire what you are trying to accomplish, I just don't see it always working out the way you are intending. I am dead against any mechanism which forces, coerces, or entices faction swapping which this does. Once factions are balanced it does not, but until they are it certainly does. While one faction is locked this is exactly what it does to everyone who wishes to play in that faction. The 3 banner war has very little meaning left to it and faction swapping is one of the main culprits. That and a scoring system which favors low server population over high sever population to a magnitude of around 10 times.

VaranisArano wrote: »

A 50/50/50 split could happen, but that seems more likely in a gym class where everyone picks 1 player at a time for their team. In a game where some players are faction loyal and others are willing to be cross faction, dynamic poplock basically relies on there being enough cross faction players willing to swap to the low pop factions so that the faction loyalists don't have to wait that long in queue (when under the current system, no one has to wait in queue until full faction poplock.)

You are still stuck in the "how it is now" mindset. The "now" where we have low pop factions and high-pop factions.

Dynamic pop lock does not rely on there being enough cross faction players willing to swap to the low pop factions because there will be no low-pop faction to begin with! Please realize, the only reason we have high and low pop factions today is the absence of dynamic caps(which allows people to stack on one side, creating a high-pop faction).

The factions are roughly equally popular (see old polls). Which means the loyalists are always (roughly) balanced. As long as the "non-loyalists" spread equally as well, there will be no queues.

Now think about it: why wouldn't they spread equally? They can no longer get easy wins by outnumbering - the only thing they achieve by not spreading equally is getting stuck in a queue. And they don't want that any more than you do.

Ranger209 wrote: »

I admire what you are trying to accomplish, I just don't see it always working out the way you are intending. I am dead against any mechanism which forces, coerces, or entices faction swapping which this does.

Oh come on.

"Leave your original faction, and swap to AD instead, we have a HUGE zerg in the morning while the enemies sleep - outnumber your enemies 20 to 1 and reap the easy AP!"

How much do you think that entices faction swapping?

Remove this huge motivation to faction swap (by enforcing equal populations) and people will start playing for the side they actually like.

Sharee wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

I admire what you are trying to accomplish, I just don't see it always working out the way you are intending. I am dead against any mechanism which forces, coerces, or entices faction swapping which this does.

Oh come on.

"Leave your original faction, and swap to AD instead, we have a HUGE zerg in the morning while the enemies sleep - outnumber your enemies 20 to 1 and reap the easy AP!"

How much do you think that entices faction swapping?

Remove this huge motivation to faction swap (by enforcing equal populations) and people will start playing for the side they actually like.

I am against the way it is working now as well if that is what you are wondering. I think there are other ways to fix the issues at present and that a a dynamic faction lock is actually a giant step in the WRONG direction from where we are at now. It goes from enticing to forcing players to alliance swap. That is the wrong direction.

Sharee wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

I admire what you are trying to accomplish, I just don't see it always working out the way you are intending. I am dead against any mechanism which forces, coerces, or entices faction swapping which this does.

Oh come on.

"Leave your original faction, and swap to AD instead, we have a HUGE zerg in the morning while the enemies sleep - outnumber your enemies 20 to 1 and reap the easy AP!"

How much do you think that entices faction swapping?

Remove this huge motivation to faction swap (by enforcing equal populations) and people will start playing for the side they actually like.

I am against the way it is working now as well if that is what you are wondering. I think there are other ways to fix the issues at present and that a a dynamic faction lock is actually a giant step in the WRONG direction from where we are at now. It goes from enticing to forcing players to alliance swap. That is the wrong direction.

The factions are roughly equal in popularity.

Which means if there is a huge population imbalance in a campaign, it is caused by players leaving their alliances and swapping to the overpopulated side. In other words, they are already swapped.

Dynamic faction lock thus does not force them to swap (they already are), but to return to their original factions.

Unless their original faction happens to be the one with the high enough population at the moment to have a queue. Then it encourages them to swap faction to avoid a queue. Anyone who's faction loyal to that faction has to wait in queue. I'm sort of in that boat right now, since the faction I've played for a year and a half now, win and lose, is the faction that's currently dominant and thus gets a bunch of bandwagon players.

Now, I don't myself subscribe to the idea that alliance loyalty will fix everything that's wrong with Cyrodiil. I'm a faction loyalist myself and it works for me, but I don't expect anyone else to do it. However, I certainly understand the viewpoint of people who do think that alliance loyalty and faction locking as was originally a part of Cyrodiil stands to solve a lot of issues (spies, scroll trading, emp trading, people not caring about the campaign, etc.) In that viewpoint, if alliance popularity is roughly equal (according to you), and everyone picks their actual favorite alliance and doesn't just bandwagon, we should wind up with a roughly equal population of actually committed players. (I think that's idealistic, but I get the appeal of the idea.)

In contrast, dynamic poplocks encourage alliance loyalty only when your alliance doesn't have a queue because the other alliances have a relatively lower population. If your alliance has a queue, dynamic poplocks absolutely encourage faction swapping to a lower pop alliance if you want to play without waiting in queue. (Yes, that's similar to how the full population poplock works after 3 bars of population, but I'm willing to accept that one because its tied to the max campaign population allowed by the server limitations and it only happens once, unlike however many times the dynamic poplock kicks in depending on how its designed.)

So to anyone who wants ZOS to encourage faction loyalty, I can see where dynamic poplocks which tie alliance loyalty to population queues are not a satisfactory answer.

Sharee wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

Sharee wrote: »

Ranger209 wrote: »

I admire what you are trying to accomplish, I just don't see it always working out the way you are intending. I am dead against any mechanism which forces, coerces, or entices faction swapping which this does.

Oh come on.

"Leave your original faction, and swap to AD instead, we have a HUGE zerg in the morning while the enemies sleep - outnumber your enemies 20 to 1 and reap the easy AP!"

How much do you think that entices faction swapping?

Remove this huge motivation to faction swap (by enforcing equal populations) and people will start playing for the side they actually like.

I am against the way it is working now as well if that is what you are wondering. I think there are other ways to fix the issues at present and that a a dynamic faction lock is actually a giant step in the WRONG direction from where we are at now. It goes from enticing to forcing players to alliance swap. That is the wrong direction.

The factions are roughly equal in popularity.

Which means if there is a huge population imbalance in a campaign, it is caused by players leaving their alliances and swapping to the overpopulated side. In other words, they are already swapped.

Dynamic faction lock thus does not force them to swap (they already are), but to return to their original factions.

Unless their original faction happens to be the one with the high enough population at the moment to have a queue. Then it encourages them to swap faction to avoid a queue. Anyone who's faction loyal to that faction has to wait in queue. I'm sort of in that boat right now, since the faction I've played for a year and a half now, win and lose, is the faction that's currently dominant and thus gets a bunch of bandwagon players.

You are in that boat right now because of bandwagon players, yes. But those bandwagoners are only there because its the path of least resistance to get AP.
With dynamic caps, they will no longer be there because their reason for being there will be gone. And thus you won't be in that boat any more. You won't be encouraged to swap faction because you wont have a queue because all those bandwagoners will be queueing against you instead of with you.

VaranisArano wrote: »

In contrast, dynamic poplocks encourage alliance loyalty only when your alliance doesn't have a queue because the other alliances have a relatively lower population.

Dynamic poplocks ensure your alliance doesn't have a queue, precisely because the other alliances won't have a relatively lower population anymore (where did those bandwagoners go? - exactly.)

---

To put this into numbers:
Currently you have 30/30/30 faction loyal players, and 60 bandwagoners who all join first faction, resulting in a 90/30/30 fight (that soon turns into a 90/0/0 as people get disgusted).

With dynamic caps, the bandwagoners have no reason to all join the first faction anymore(no outnumbering opposition, just a long queue), and will go back to their home factions(or else just do what's best for them this time), resulting in a 50/50/50 split. No-one has queues, challenging fights, everyone's happy.

You keep assuring me that there will be no queues.

That's not how that works. Eventually there will be no queues, at least while both populations are within the range allowed before another poplock, but the presence of a queue on the faction with the highest population at the moment is exactly what prompts those bandwagon players to go back to the other factions.

Lets take the OP's method of dynamic poplocks for an example, where the poplock cuts in at every population bar, and lets for the sake of imaginary numbers assume that the bars roll over at more than 33, 66, and 100 players.

In that situation, I log on in the morning as a faction loyalist for faction A and the faction split is 33/25/15. I've got a queue, because faction A can't have more players online until faction B and C get enough players for all of us to roll over to that 2nd bar of population. Any bandwagon player who's willing to faction swap will look at the queue on their faction A toon, and swap to faction B or C, but I still have to wait in queue until enough bandwagon players swap or enough faction B and C loyalists swap in order to fill up the bars to roll over to our 2nd bar of pop, whereupon I (and anyone behind me in queue up to 33 more players) can play in Cyrodiil.

So from the perspective of the faction loyalist in that version of dynamic poplocks, I do have to wait in queue for an unknown length of time until enough players swap or log on. That queue might be short, it might be long, I have no way of knowing while I'm sitting in queue. If its 33/25/15 at the start of the morning, it might not be long. If its 66/40/40 in the early afternoon, well, I might be in queue a while with no way of knowing. All the while, we're a long way from the actual max faction pop number that dictates the full number of people the server can handle playing from each faction.

Now, you may have a different vision of how the poplocks should work. Under the OP's vision, anytime a queue is created because one faction has reached the poplocked point before the other factions, faction loyalists have to wait in a queue for other players to log onto the other factions. You seem to expect that the queue will be minimal to nonexistent. I have no such faith.

Sharee wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

In that situation, I log on in the morning as a faction loyalist for faction A and the faction split is 33/25/15. I've got a queue, because faction A can't have more players online until faction B and C get enough players for all of us to roll over to that 2nd bar of population. Any bandwagon player who's willing to faction swap will look at the queue on their faction A toon, and swap to faction B or C, but I still have to wait in queue until enough bandwagon players swap or enough faction B and C loyalists swap in order to fill up the bars to roll over to our 2nd bar of pop, whereupon I (and anyone behind me in queue up to 33 more players) can play in Cyrodiil.

My original solution was simpler(posted somewhere years ago): no "cutoffs" for caps, instead whenever a player queues for cyrodiil, the game checks if allowing him in would create a population imbalance that would exceed a certain leeway (like, 10%), and only allows him in if the answer is negative.

That means your 33/25/15 situation would never happen - since the lowest is 15, and only a 10% (rounded up) margin is allowed, the highest population any other faction is allowed to have is 17.

What's the difference from your example: In your example, your faction is at 33, and you won't be let in until other factions reach 33 too, which means you need 26 enemy players to join the game before it lets you play. With my system, you only need a couple of enemy players to join the other side for your cap to be increased(and more players let in), since the cap moves smoothly up with each individual who joins.

But, that's really up to the devs to create a system that is most balanced while minimizing the downsides. We can not solve the technical details, since there might be internal factors we are not aware of. Our role as players is just to let them know 60 vs 12 battles are not fun.

Sorry, there's a TON of math in this one, because I was really interested in your idea and wanted to see how it works numerically. I hope you won't mind me launching into a whole bunch of math. If I've misunderstood your system or gotten the math wrong, sorry, I'll try to correct it. I wanted to do your suggestion justice, which for me meant making sure I understood the math behind it.


I guess I see where you are coming from that your system wouldn't ever permit really long queues because it never allows a gap of a lot of players to form. That's a big difference from the OP's suggested dynamic poplocks.

It still creates a lot of little, smaller queues, which can progressively get larger than the actual population, especially if there are a larger number of faction loyal players logging in at once.

Now, from what I'm seeing as I start crunching the numbers, that works really well as long as players queue up one at a time, evenly filling out the queues. It doesn't work all that well if a group of faction loyal players logs in at once. In fact, it creates a big problem for groups of players.




As near as I can tell, yours works so that at: (using the 1-100 thing we've been using for sake of imaginary numbers)

0-4 players, populations have to be exactly equal.
5-14 players, the higher pop factions can have 1 more player than the lowest pop faction
15-24 players, the higher pop factions can have 2 more player than the lowest pop faction
25-34 players, the higher pop factions can have 3 more player than the lowest pop faction
35-44 players, the higher pop factions can have 4 more player than the lowest pop faction
45-54 players, the higher pop factions can have 5 more player than the lowest pop faction
55-64 players, the higher pop factions can have 6 more player than the lowest pop faction
and so on.

So like you say, at 15 players, the maximum population disparity is 17/15/15. If I as a player on Faction A want to play and I log in at position 1 in queue, I only have to wait for 2 players to log in, one on each faction. That would bring it up to 18/16/16.

Now, lets say I log in at queue position 5, when the Cyrodiil population is at 17/15/15 because the 4 people in front of me are faction loyal players or chose for whatever reason to not faction swap. I have to wait until the population hits 22/20/20, or 5 players join the other factions. Maybe I get lucky and one of the players in front of me goes to another faction, so I only have to wait for 8 players. But if they all hold firm in queue, I'm waiting on 10 players to join up, and the total Cyrodiil population is just reaching 60 total players. That's a long way from the max population of 300 players that the servers will allow, in this illustration.


For another example, lets look at a higher number. At 60 players, the maximum disparity can be 66/60/60. If I join queue at position 1, I have to wait for 2 players again, one for each faction.

If my faction A guildmates and I decide to form a group in that campaign, at the same time that Cyrodiil's population is at 66/60/60, and let's go with 8 players since that's the low end of the 8 to 24 players groups Cyrodiil was originally designed for, well, we're going to be sitting in queue. In order for all of us to be able to play together, we'd have to wait for the population to hit 74/67/67, or 7 players to join both faction B and C. Now, obviously some of us would get in quicker than that, but we'd still have to wait to play together as a whole group.

Compare that to the current system, where anytime short of 92 players, my group of 8 guildies would be able to log on to Cyrodiil and play together right away.


Now, lets consider a full raid of 24 faction loyal players. They queue up at 70 players on their faction. If their faction is at low population i.e. 70/77/77, then 15 of their players can log in right away, leading 9 to sit in queue, while the Cyrodiil population is 85/77/77. Those 9 players will to wait until there is a high enough population for 94/85/85, or 8 players on each other faction for the last member of their team to be able to join their guild raid.

However, if that guild raid of 24 players logs in at high population for their faction 70/64/64, then the whole raid has to wait in queue. In order to play together as a full raid, they have to wait until the population is 94/85/85, or for 21 players on each other faction to log on.




Now, there's a major problem with that, since ZOS hasn't released the actual numbers of when factions hit poplocked status. So its unfair to judge your system on a basis of 100 players as the cap, since that's probably low. We don't know the actual numbers because ZOS isn't ever going to tell us that. So the most I can do is this.

In order for a 4-man group to log into Cyrodiil and all be able to play right away, the lowest the population can be is 35/35/35, going up to 39/35/35. They be split up by a queue anytime the population disparity is greater than 4.

In order for a 6-man group to log into Cyrodiil and all be able to play right away, the lowest the population can be is 55/55/55, going up to 61/55/55. They could still be split up by a queue anytime the population disparity is greater than 6.

In order for a 8-man group to log into Cyrodiil and all be able to play right away, the lowest the population can be is 75/75/75, going up to 83/75/75. They could still be split up by a queue anytime the population disparity is greater than 8.

In order for a 24-man group to log into Cyrodiil and all be able to play right away, the lowest the population can be is 235/235/235, going up to 259/235/235. (Honestly, I hate to say this, but I'm not sure the current server population limits go up to 259 players.) They could still be split up by a queue anytime the population disparity is greater than 24.

In short, anytime the population disparity is greater than the size of the group, groups of players who want to play together are going to be split up by the queue. Smaller size groups will have it easier, since the poplock will let groups of their size in at a lower population level and they won't have to wait as long for their members to make it through the queue. Larger group sizes are going to have a much harder time getting into Cyrodiil as a whole group, and depending on the faction population when they log in, will have to wait longer for all their members to enter the campaign. Keep in mind that Cyrodiil supports groups of 2 to 24 players. Unfortunately, larger groups of players who want to play together are very disadvantaged by this system.




So in effect, what happens is that your suggested poplocks create larger queues when faction loyal players play in groups. Your poplock system works to break up groups of players who want to play to together by forcing some of the group to wait in queue. Which, given that Cyrodiil is designed for groups of 2 to 24 players, and originally designed for groups of 8 to 24 players, is a significant problem. (I went back and read some of your original post on this idea and noticed some other players pointing out this exact issue.)

So to summarize my issue with your suggestion for dynamic poplocks, I see that as an individual faction loyal player, I should never have to wait longer than at most 1 player to join each faction. As the total number of players goes up, I'm less likely to have to wait. Okay, that's decent.

However, if I want to play as a member of a faction loyal group, since Cyrodiil is designed for large group battles, and I regularly play as part of a 8 to 24 man raid, it is extremely likely that the group will be split up. I have to wait until each faction has over 75 players before my 8-man group won't be split up to wait in queue. For a 24-man raid, I have to wait until the total pop hits 235 players on each faction before my entire raid can queue up and get into play together right away without having to wait on the enemy.

Now, if your overriding goal is to enforce faction balance, hey, you may not mind that groups can't play together without breaking into smaller groups close to 4-6 players. Smaller groups are easier to fight and easier to balance. That's exactly what your system forces groups to do if they want to play together without a group member sitting in queue or waiting for very long, at least above 35-55 players.

However, I'm going to have to point out that your system is pretty terrible for anyone (like me) who likes to play in larger groups of 8 to 24 players that Cyrodiil was and is still designed to support. There are plenty of PVP guilds that run groups of those sizes and surely the whole point of running with a group of friends and comrades in PVP is to play together, not play with half your group while the others dribble through the queue in onesies and twosies as enough enemy players log on. This isn't just a situation where people in groups are locked out at max population for their faction like what happens already thanks to server limitations. This is a small queue nearly every time a group of players logs in wanting to play together. That'd be darned frustrating for me as a player if nearly every time I logged on to play with a group of friends, we got split up by the queue even though the servers could handle lots more players playing.

TLDR: Your solution enforces balance nicely and creates a minimal queue time for any individual player (only needing to wait for 1 player on each other faction at the most). However, it makes in very hard for groups to log in and play together without some of their members having to dribble through the queue, getting much worse the larger the group. Since Cyrodiil is designed for groups of 2 to 24, I think that's a significant problem with your solution.

P.S. SO MUCH MATH. I'm sorry!

Rianai wrote: »

Well, it doesn't need to be 10%. Even if the system would allow lets say 50% differences, it would be an improvement already.

50% would be considerably easier on large groups who want to play together, yeah. You could still wind up with disparities of 100/50/50, but at lower population levels it wound be easier, like 45/30/30.

I still have a problem with putting a queue on players short of the server limitations at max population for their faction, since I tend to think that players shouldn't have to wait to play for their faction below the point where the game's hardware doesn't allow for more, i.e. max players for their faction. But I'll allow that a 50% dynamic poplock would be far more tolerable than a 10% one.

VaranisArano wrote: »

P.S. SO MUCH MATH. I'm sorry!

No problem at all, i am glad you gave the idea some thought (more than i did, by the looks of it).
The 10% was just an example(it does not even have to be a fixed number, but change depending on overall population levels). Like i posted before, the technical details are up to the devs to sort out. It is their job to find a working compromise that makes the game the most enjoyable for all the concerned parties. We just need to give them ideas to work with.