Population locks

[partyanimal]

Josh Drescher talked about server faction imbalances and said that when a faction is overpopulated, players won't be able to log in.

This may cause more problems than it solves, but it seems to be only way.

I sense a lot of frustration for the zerg realm and some ppl will be forced to play different hours.

But on the other hand, there will be balanced fights and no alarm clock raids.

Lets hope these caps are flexible for everyone to be happy.

 

[Faya]

Givs link please!

Faya

 

[Chrismorris]

Givs link please!

Faya

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/42862

Enjoy.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Population locks are more likely to be (e.g.)

max 1500 Order
max 1500 Destruction

instead of a max 3000 per server.

I doubt it'll be a 'there are 500 destruction on, max 1000 order until destruction goes over 1000' or anything like that.

 

[Chrismorris]

All that matters is its all fair (within reason) and its not just a destruction gang rape.
If the caps dont work then mythic will find away that does.

 

[Shazzoo]

I don't think he meant they won't be able to log in.
I thought he meant they won't be allowed to create new characters?
That was my impression anyway.

 

[Maasu]

I don't think he meant they won't be able to log in.
I thought he meant they won't be allowed to create new characters?
That was my impression anyway.

thats what i assumed also.


Edit is this video being whored by the lot of you? It's taking forever to stream .

 

[partyanimal]

I don't think he meant they won't be able to log in.
I thought he meant they won't be allowed to create new characters?
That was my impression anyway.

his exact words were that chars from overpopulated realm won't be able to log in at that time(when they reach max) and it will give the chars from the other realm time to come and defend.
but there is nothing against creating new char at some other point

your interpretation flim sounds reasonable, but it hardly solves any imbalances.

in wha forums, yanks make lots of scenarios and most of them take for granted that population will will be proportional 24/7.
cause you can have lets say 1500 vs 500 most of the day and 1500vs1500 only for a few hours on prime time.
how balanced is this?

 

[Faya]

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Faya

 

[Zoldot]

in wha forums, yanks make lots of scenarios and most of them take for granted that population will will be proportional 24/7.
cause you can have lets say 1500 vs 500 most of the day and 1500vs1500 only for a few hours on prime time.
how balanced is this?

Well it is more balanced then to NOT have the restriction, ie it could be
2500 vs 500...

 

[thergador]

what happens is its 1500 v1500 it it get to 22:00 and 1400 order log off what then 1300 destro get kicked?

 

[Faya]

MY opinion how they handle all that is simply..like in DaoC. Xp buffs /level 20 etc.
I think, an assumption out of the blue, that they dont recon with server imbalance on a grand scheme but more with small language specefic problems, like we have seen in DaoC.
Of course, as soon as say Order on server 1 start to loose population, they will put in +xp so more people from server 2 come over to create alts.
Well we all know what happens if they start with that anyways

Faya

 

[Flimgoblin]

what happens is its 1500 v1500 it it get to 22:00 and 1400 order log off what then 1300 destro get kicked?

nope...

As he said it's a fairly basic fix for things - it just means that a server population cap doesn't break the game

 

[Cadelin]

The trouble is you really don't need to have 500 vs 2500 to have population imbalance.

Take a server of 3000 people with a population imbalance of 52% Order vs 48% Destruction. That means the Order zerg will be on average 8% larger which although not game breaking is still a significant difference and one side will still be considered the zerg realm.

Population caps can only balance a server population very crudely. Having a 10% damage increase or something similar for the underpopulated realm would be a far better way of balancing things.

 

[Xandax]

I must admit that I'm a bit worried when I hear about population locks like this as it could potentially lock people out from playing their preferred faction with their friends.

I know imbalance in population is a huge problem (always is), but disallowing people to play while still collecting their cash, might in fact end up costing them more then other realm-balancing mechanism would.
I for one do not like this prospect.

 

[Radi]

does it work out what level the chars are? I mean 1400 destruction could be level 10 and below and 100 of them level 40 and then 1400 order could be level 40 with only 100 level 10 and below. (er yeh thats confusing) but it means the level 40's still out balance the game. The amount of people in the game doesn't = amount of people in each RvR tier.

 

[lairiodd]

Population locks are more likely to be (e.g.)

max 1500 Order
max 1500 Destruction

instead of a max 3000 per server.

I doubt it'll be a 'there are 500 destruction on, max 1000 order until destruction goes over 1000' or anything like that.

That is what he actually says. It is independent realm caps, rather than the normal server caps based caps. This will only have an effect on overpopulated servers.

His main points are:

- independent population caps
- bonuses to help leveling up (also he specifically mentions new players to the realm getting bonuses)
- no rvr bonuses for being under-populated (so presumably no upkeep reductions like in daoc)

 

[Popov]

Josh did make it sound like you would literally be stuck in a queue if you try to log in while your side outnumber the other. Personally I'd be very annoyed if I was trying to log in and was unable to just because 500 of the other side had gone to bed.

 

[Mellon]

I must admit that I'm a bit worried when I hear about population locks like this as it could potentially lock people out from playing their preferred faction with their friends.

I know imbalance in population is a huge problem (always is), but disallowing people to play while still collecting their cash, might in fact end up costing them more then other realm-balancing mechanism would.
I for one do not like this prospect.

I agree with you. The prospect of being locked out on a friday night is making me a sad panda...

Hace you got any other clever ideas as to how realm-balance can be maintained?

 

[arknor]

I agree with you. The prospect of being locked out on a friday night is making me a sad panda...

Hace you got any other clever ideas as to how realm-balance can be maintained?

cant they just put population caps on the actual RVR zones that are of importance? instead of the whole server

like WOW did for alterac valley back in the day when AV was only for your server so it wasnt always full

 

[Faya]

There is allways the option to go on a different server. I will for sure make use of that option if my main server is full. In times of vent/ts it is useally not a problem for my guild and me to coordinate to move until our main server is unlocked again. Just a thought.

Faya

 

[Talivar]

Id rather be zerged that forced to go play a diff game, since alts not really my thing.

 

[Xandax]

There is allways the option to go on a different server. I will for sure make use of that option if my main server is full. In times of vent/ts it is useally not a problem for my guild and me to coordinate to move until our main server is unlocked again. Just a thought.

Faya

Well, if most of your guild/friends plays on one server, which you get locked out off - I'm sure the incitement to go to another server is not terrible large.
And if it happens regularly, I'd suspect people getting annoyed.

Also if you play on a server which is "balanced", yet others are imbalanced, you risk a large influx of people to your server causing imbalance and potentially locking you out. Having a high level character and being locked out, again the incitement to go to another server to just start new characters isn't there for everybody.

I think it especially will be a risk for head start people because they have no way of knowing if their server will end up balanced or not after launch.

I do think locking out players is a dangerous route to travel, and would much rather see incentive (bonus/buffs) or NPC help in the RvR zones instead of it.

 

[Draig]

Locking paying customers out of a game, the games media will kill it. Post WoW mmos are more mainstream now and I dont think Mythic/GoA would want this kind of negative press plastered all over the web and magazines somehow.

Think their going to have to come up with a better balancing option than that

 

[Faya]

I agree and my post was more suited to my guild/prolly ME then others, for the fact i have to much time on my hands which will lead to countless alts
I cant exactly remeber how Mythic handled Daoc with Caps?
I know thou that they had realm buffs, /lvl and whatnot, so i think as they actually have used quiet alot from DaoC and improved it, they might aswell do that /lvl and realm buff stuff.

Faya

 

[lairiodd]

Locking paying customers out of a game, the games media will kill it. Post WoW mmos are more mainstream now and I dont think Mythic/GoA would want this kind of negative press plastered all over the web and magazines somehow.

Well, most games have a server cap. In daoc, you couldn't have more than around 3k per server. New servers types often hit the cap initially as they are very popular and then trail off (see the pvp servers).

The solution is to open enough servers so that the server population hovers around 70% or so of the cap.

Think their going to have to come up with a better balancing option than that

They have all the daoc options, except possibly giving underpopulated realms bonuses in rvr.

 

[Flimgoblin]

It's no different to any other game - WoW locks people out of servers and has queues.

The difference though is that if your server has:

40000 destruction players
100 order players

You'll not ever hit a queue as order.

If it was WoW - everyone would be queueing.

 

[Tay]

Josh did make it sound like you would literally be stuck in a queue if you try to log in while your side outnumber the other. Personally I'd be very annoyed if I was trying to log in and was unable to just because 500 of the other side had gone to bed.

I saw that in Wow a few times and I can say I was wholly unimpressed.

 

[Popov]

Well I had no real problem with it in WoW or AoC as it only happened when the server was literally full, but to lock people out of the server when it's only half full just because your side has more online is crazy.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Well I had no real problem with it in WoW or AoC as it only happened when the server was literally full, but to lock people out of the server when it's only half full just because your side has more online is crazy.

If it's a simple half-max per realm then it's not too bad.

Having it dynamic based on the enemy realm's logged in players is just open to abuse really.