I think PCEU might actually be more populated than PCNA, but I don't know. They did, however, confirm that the thresholds are different for each server and were set based on population/activity.

The thresholds are different by server. They also can and have moved the goalposts as necessary

It does seem strange that they are setting it so that all EU is further than all NA. I understand the desire to have a console “win” because that means for once a console will get the zone before PC, but the fact that the regions are spaced that way makes it look contrived.

And for every “but but but EU always has maintenance extend into primetime,” there’s a “NA hasn’t gotten an ESO specific in-person event since before the pandemic, NA only gets 4h for the last set of event tickets every round, and NA doesn’t get much time on PTS and it’s only the most unpolished of the patches.” Every server gets screwed in different ways, and we all are really only good at seeing how we have it worse and not how we have it better.

We don’t have numbers, but it has been said that PC EU is slightly more populated, but not overly so. However, the EU server is much more concentrated around CET primetime, while NA is a lot more spread out over all timezones.

I don’t like the idea of making this a competition though. It seems like a hollow way to force engagement, when the other community events have been about working together instead.

But really, all this means is that the ‘slower’ servers (aka the ones they chose to lose) get more gold boxes since they have the event go longer. It’s not like any server is not going to get the content they paid for.
(Unless you play in French, in which case you don’t get the content you paid for because they can’t be bothered to hire French VAs or even give updates on that missing voiceover)

Hello thumb, meet scale.

I really don't think the "differing thresholds" thing has worked out as fairly as hoped, and I suspect their calculations are straight up flawed, missing key context, etc. Add to that the "thumb obviously on the scale" perception (since they've manipulated the numbers more than once at this point) and the "competition" part feels some combination of absurd to bad depending on who you are.

I really hope there is nothing special whatsoever tied to "winning", other than advancing the phase, since I can't imagine anything more feeling fair or good to the vast majority of players no matter who "wins" at this point.

Badly managed. Poorly thought through.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I thought PCNA was the most populated server so I'm somewhat surprised by this, tbh. I'm guessing maybe the thresholds were proportional the server population to keep it fair? Or do you think this event is simply landing better on XBOX? Either way, it's interesting. What do y'all think?

I always assumed PCEU was more populated than PCNA, but I have no good basis for that assumption other than thinking the EU servers probably serve a larger portion of the world than the NA servers do.

I'm not sure why the EU servers are beating the NA servers, but I play on both PCEU and PCNA-- although PCNA is my primary server-- so I'm rooting for both teams.

kevkj wrote: »

Putting aside that it might not be scaled fairly, I think it does indicate a higher degree of participation in the console population and EU in general. There's been posts on and off claiming Xbox EU is a dead or dying server and whether or not that's true it seems the remaining players are very dedicated to the game.

If had to theorize, people in 'underdog' servers are more likely to want to win just for the sake of winning.

It must be the scaling, xbox eu is even more dead then ps eu.

Must be as lower population you have as more % you do or something.

Not like the wall would not get down if we wouldnt participate but yeah

I think it's a popularion issues as most NA players have come to terms that ZOS and Bethesda are slaves to the shareholder system causing the game to suffer. So it's seeming most NA gamers have decided to play other MMORPGs as our main with ESO being are filler game and that's reflected in the server populations. This is at least my view on the matter.

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

I think PCEU might actually be more populated than PCNA, but I don't know. They did, however, confirm that the thresholds are different for each server and were set based on population/activity.

Same.

I think the biggest pool of ESO players takes place in Europe + Russia (600+M people). NA seems to be mostly US (340M people) + China maybe (but I also see many Chinese/Japanese players on PCEU).

And even if China is a huge country in terms of population, I bet there are more german players than chinese players on ESO lol (no stats, just pure assumption).

Another adjustment would seem necessary, but I don't think it would be enough. These flood bars and percentages have been fiddled around so much they are no longer a credible measure of anything. I think ZOS needs to abandon them.

They should just set and announce a fixed time and date when each phase will begin and end. The same for every server.

Threatening players with late access to new content is clearly not working as an encouragement to participate.

Actually delivering new content later on some servers than on others is not going to make ZOS any friends. Especially on NA servers it seems.

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Another adjustment would seem necessary

I personally don't think ZOS should adjust it.

This event is basically a race between the two megaservers for each platform. And when you organise a race, you don't set different distances for each runner depending on their very own weaknesses.

If I'm watching a race between ten 100m runners, it wouldn't be fair to add 20 extra meters to the one who runs the fastest.

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Another adjustment would seem necessary

I personally don't think ZOS should adjust it.

This event is basically a race between the two megaservers for each platform. And when you organise a race, you don't set different distances for each runner depending on their very own weaknesses.

If I'm watching a race between ten 100m runners, it wouldn't be fair to add 20 extra meters to the one who runs the fastest.

But... that's precisely how it's set up.

XBEU has a lower population, so the 'distance' they need to reach is much less than for more populated servers like PC. They straight up confirmed that was the case.

And as a result, all servers have a different goal for their percentage (and we don't have that number), which means the entire race is utterly contrived and it's planned from the start which server will win and who will get to the end in which order.

scrappy1342 wrote: »

the consoles doing better does not surprise me either. if they are going by number of "active" accounts (however they decide to determine that), consoles are going to have a higher percentage of -actual- active accounts since they don't have ppl who picked up free accounts with epic games. again, including myself there lol. my second account is "active." i log into it every day for the daily bonuses. i do the easy endeavors. at the very least i pick up one gold crafting box, but that's about it. the only reason i'm even doing extra quests on my main is to get some work done on the golden pursuit so that i don't as much to do at the end of it.

But console players don't have to wait for a special event to get a free account. Their ESO account is their Xbox/PSN account and you can create more of those for free whenever you want.

ESO+ and chapter purchases are account specific, but any profile on the same console can play the base game and I don't think there's a limit on how many profiles you can have.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I thought PCNA was the most populated server so I'm somewhat surprised by this, tbh. I'm guessing maybe the thresholds were proportional the server population to keep it fair? Or do you think this event is simply landing better on XBOX? Either way, it's interesting. What do y'all think?

The compeletion rate is adjusted for population. On the EU server it might be 0.0001% for a quest, and on the US it might be 0.000099%.

Are we sure there are different values for the same platform?

If that's the case, I would find that completely stupid. I play on EU, and if EU has to lose because it has fewer players, then it should lose. Why would we sell this event as a "race between EU and NA" if we favor one side?

It wouldn't make any sense.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

What I don't want is to set different targets for the same platform, because the whole thing is based on a race between EU and NA. It's not a race between platforms. This is a competition between EU and NA, not between PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. That's why it's logical to set different targets per platform, but not per server.

There is no race. It's merely the appearance of one. If 25% of EU players have decided not to or can't participate and 26% of US players have done the same, that simple 1% would account for the disparity in the completion total.

The value of the completion amount for a quest must also vary between server because they have different populations. The reason that the console servers are further ahead is because of the state of things on those servers the % of casual players are much less leading to a higher participation rate.

I'm pretty sure it was depicted as a "race" between each side of the Atlantic by ZOS during the presentation livestream, but I'm not 100% sure. I may be wrong.

From what I remember, it was presented as an event where we would see which side would break the wall first.

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

RaddlemanNumber7 wrote: »

Another adjustment would seem necessary

I personally don't think ZOS should adjust it.

This event is basically a race between the two megaservers for each platform. And when you organise a race, you don't set different distances for each runner depending on their very own weaknesses.

If I'm watching a race between ten 100m runners, it wouldn't be fair to add 20 extra meters to the one who runs the fastest.

But... that's precisely how it's set up.

XBEU has a lower population, so the 'distance' they need to reach is much less than for more populated servers like PC. They straight up confirmed that was the case.

And as a result, all servers have a different goal for their percentage (and we don't have that number), which means the entire race is utterly contrived and it's planned from the start which server will win and who will get to the end in which order.

Except that you're comparing different platforms.

Of course, we should set different targets per platform. If PC is the most used platform, then of course we need a bigger target compared to Xbox and PS, because PC has the biggest theoretical pool of players.

That's not the case for the same platform. If I want to play on NA from Belgium, I can. If a US player wants to play on EU, he can. On the other hand, a PS player will be stuck on PS servers and won't be able to play on Xbox servers.

To use my previous comparison with races again: it's normal to have a category for male (PC) and for female (Xbox/PS), because both have significantly different resources. But that doesn't mean we should set different objectives within the same category. That wouldn't be fair at all, in my opinion.

What I don't want is to set different targets for the same platform, because the whole thing is based on a race between EU and NA. It's not a race between platforms. This is a competition between EU and NA, not between PC, Xbox, and PlayStation. That's why it's logical to set different targets per platform, but not per server.

Yes. But that's not how it is. Each server has a different goal. Not every server is equally populated, so there are 6 different end goals.

If it were just like you said, we wouldn't already know that some regions are more populated than others (like how XBEU is way underpopulated from XBNA because XBox really doesn't exist outside of the US. Even though US players could make an EU account, doesn't mean they will). Any indication of "we want to see which region is fastest!" is 100% marketing and designed to make you want to play more. The fact that "that's what they said during the livestream" is only evidence that they are selling it that way - after all, have you ever heard a politician come on TV and not lie to sell their point?

It's all fake. It's all already planned 'which server will win.' It's all designed to pit the playerbase against each other so we are too distracted arguing with each other instead of arguing with ZOS about the game's direction over the past year. Remember: they've already recalculated this twice by now because servers were going too fast. They want a console server to win so the consoles can be like "whee! we get something before PC!" and they are likely wanting EU to win so EU can stop complaining about maintenances during their lunchtime (and hopefully the French players can get excited enough about winning that they forget that they still don't have their localization).

If anyone still thinks that this is a fair race, then I have a bridge to sell you.