Maybe I'm missing something...

[Grotnob]

Past couple of days, maybe a week, when I've logged on to Karak Hirn it's been Order Med, Destruction Low, yet there's this little blue circle saying Order are getting additional exp/renown because apparently they're underpopulated.

From what I've seen in game, T4 numbers seem pretty equal, and the lower tiers are if anything slightly tipped in Order's favour, and occasionally Destruction's outnumbered 2:1 in T2/3.

Now obviously I don't have precise figures, but let's say arbitrarily that anything up to 500 active players on a given side is "low" population, and 501 to whatever is "medium". If destro have 500 players logged on, and order have 501, the population will show Order Med, Destruction Low.

This would indicate that the worst case scenario for Order is that their active playing population is roughly equal to Destruction.

So why the bonus?

I mean, I realise there's got to be some sort of incentive to play a pointy-eared dress-wearing emo, or one of those hairy, miserable rock-molesting lithophiles, and that destruction is more or less made of pure Mojo, but really, what gives?

 

[Case]

I was wondering the same

 

[civy]

Trouble is dest only seem to logon at weekends when they zerg the shit out of order. During the week things seem pretty even.

 

[mooSe_]

Yeah I have started playing on hirn again on order and in the lower tiers I haven't really found us outnumbered at any point. But that's not to say I'm complaining about the xp bonus it's awsome.

 

[Calaen]

No disrespect to Nic and Magnus (good folk no doubt )but whoever decided on giving Order that bonus needs their head sawn off with a lettuce.

It's the biggest pile of shit I have ever seen. Giving a realm that is clearly not under populated even more incentive to zerg non stop.... plus 20% anyone? Hows about +20% fuck the hell off morons.

Bugs I can handle, lag I can handle, people moaning about clases I can handle. What I can't handle is sheer incompetence.

Clearly some random stray cat running around France made the decision based on statistics gathered by fred the homeless guy down at the docks about herpes in under aged snails. It's shit.

 

[Mabs]

No disrespect to Nic and Magnus (good folk no doubt )but whoever decided on giving Order that bonus needs their head sawn off with a lettuce.

It's the biggest pile of shit I have ever seen. Giving a realm that is clearly not under populated even more incentive to zerg non stop.... plus 20% anyone? Hows about +20% fuck the hell off morons.

Bugs I can handle, lag I can handle, people moaning about clases I can handle. What I can't handle is sheer incompetence.

Clearly some random stray cat running around France made the decision based on statistics gathered by fred the homeless guy down at the docks about herpes in under aged snails. It's shit.

dont feel you need to hold back mate, say it like it really is

 

[Calaen]

You have seen it

 

[NicGOA]

Good feedback guys, we anticipated questions about this particular case and I can assure you that there was no stray cat involved in this decision. Let me try to explain where we are coming from in this.

WAR obviously benefits from equal numbers in the factions. We consider this a very important part of the game and our main tool to balance this is by actively applying bonuses. Therefore, before applying bonuses, we look very carefully at highly detailed statistics over a given period of time.

For Hirn, this data was telling us a very clear picture, Order was underpopulated and thus the bonus was applied.

We have seen very quick reactions to bonuses in the past few weeks. We even swapped a bonus around on another server where we went from a bonus for Order, to a destruction bonus. And we will continue to do this if the population (im)balance requires it.

What you have to realize is that these bonuses always need to be based on facts, in this case mainly on average numbers of characters online (it's not quite that simple though, but for the example it works). We can not base it on "Faction A has fewer numbers but is still trashing faction B, so faction B needs a bonus." The bonuses are there to make sure there are equal numbers in the factions, not to help a faction that may be losing more than average.

In Hirn's case we have already noticed a change as a result of the bonus, and this will certainly be reflected in the next round of bonus updates. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Jaberwocky]

What Nic is saying is that the bonus information lags behind real time events by some time due to the way data is collected and the time between bonus updates.

Add in that the exp bonus was added before transfers where opened too Hirn, adding a reasonable amount of new Order players to the mix.

Unfortunately for those playing on Hirn we soon have a new wave of rerollers inc for the introduction of the Slayer and Chopper, with the bonus still standing we are due a heavy load of new Slayer players looking to level qucikly to t4, this is likely to turn an already tenuous server balance into a one sided landslide.



Destruction +20% bonus inc sometime in March.

 

[MagnusGOA]

What Nic is saying is that the bonus information lags behind real time events by some time due to the way data is collected and the time between bonus updates.

Unfortunately for those playing on Hirn we soon have a new wave of rerollers inc for the introduction of the Slayer and Chopper, with the bonus still standing we are due a heavy load of new Slayer players looking to level qucikly to t4, this is likley to turn an already teneous server balance into a one sided landslide.

Destruction +20% bonus inc sometime in March.

You're mistaken; we have access to live data from all our servers. What Nic was saying was that we don't only look at the current population, but we try to put it in a context; identify trends. What we were seeing was that Destruction were slowly but steadily gaining more players on Hirn. Sure, many of these players are not yet in Tier 4, but they will be soon enough. Implementing an Order bonus now was a way for us to put a halt to this development.


-Magnus

 

[Ormorof]

Clearly some random stray cat running around France made the decision based on statistics gathered by fred the homeless guy down at the docks about herpes in under aged snails. It's shit.

i believe the WAR GOA team are based in ireland?

 

[Jaberwocky]

You're mistaken; we have access to live data from all our servers. What Nic was saying was that we don't only look at the current population, but we try to put it in a context; identify trends. What we were seeing was that Destruction were slowly but steadily gaining more players on Hirn. Sure, many of these players are not yet in Tier 4, but they will be soon enough. Implementing an Order bonus now was a way for us to put a halt to this development.


-Magnus

I've been quite active on Hirn recreantly in multiple tiers, there are other trends to take into consideration here.

A large percentage of lower tier characters are alt characters of existing Order players from other servers, only a small percentage of these will ever hit t4, there's also the matter of activity over shear numbers to take into consideration.

With the current set up I'll stick with my perdiction of a Destruction server bonus due within the next two months.

 

[Grotnob]

M'kay, so basically GOA's ploy seems to be working, according to the official line.

So moving on from here, the existing R40 Order players are getting +20% renown as well, yes? So kill for kill they're getting (rude and ready) 120RP to Destruction's 100RP. Yes?

Does this not mean the existing R40 Order population, for whom it's business as usual, are advancing down the renown path quicker than their Destruction counterparts, whilst in theory operating in a more target-rich environment and therefore having more chance of getting max renown?

 

[Two Ton Ted]

Does this not mean the existing R40 Order population, for whom it's business as usual, are advancing down the renown path quicker than their Destruction counterparts, whilst in theory operating in a more target-rich environment and therefore having more chance of getting max renown?

One way of looking at it.

Another way is that we get fuck all renown because we keep getting zerged to shit.

 

[Jaberwocky]

One way of looking at it.

Another way is that we get fuck all renown because we keep getting zerged to shit.

Nice to see you play Destruction.

 

[Calaen]

Thanks for the info, I feel happier knowing that twinkles didn't have any say in the decision making process.

Can you give us any information on when a fortress will be taken on an evenly balanced rvr server? because our server, regardless of what is being perceived has a very active and willing community to defend against assaults, which tends to lead to silly attempts on a badly designed keep, with a badly designed walkway leading into the badly designed lord room. please tell me I have missed the information release regarding changing the layouts of these forts.


no really please

 

[chrislocalboy]

Thanks for the info, I feel happier knowing that twinkles didn't have any say in the decision making process.

Can you give us any information on when a fortress will be taken on an evenly balanced rvr server? because our server, regardless of what is being perceived has a very active and willing community to defend against assaults, which tends to lead to silly attempts on a badly designed keep, with a badly designed walkway leading into the badly designed lord room. please tell me I have missed the information release regarding changing the layouts of these forts.


no really please

I'm in agreement with this..... that walkway up to the Lord room is not good at all, its too small and simply does not allow you get get enough people in position before going in, 2 or 3 tanks are bound to die if they go first!

 

[Tetley]

I agree that lately the numbers seem to have evened out in the lower tiers and order seem to win more scenarios than they lose in t1/t2 now - which makes a big change. The reason seems more likely to be the server switches going our way though, I have my doubts on how much the bonus has influenced that.

Are the stats just based on overall figures or do they exist at a level where you can see what happens when roughly equal numbers meet at roughly equal levels?

 

[Calaen]

I would like to take back my rant from earlier in this thread, Looking at how you handled the initial problem of a possible pop unbalance the changes you made were perfect and have had the desired effect.

Again I apologise, keep up the good work.

p.s. just stop the other forts doors from bugging now pelase

 

[Jaberwocky]

I want my 20% rp bonus, there's 4 more Order logged on and it's just not fair!