(Horus) Solution too Population

[mr_scsi]

Originally Posted by Greyman_tle

I do wish NGD would post the lowest/highest pop for each realm over the last 24hrs....just so arguments like this would cease.

+1
There seems to be a disconnect with some users complaining about 'realm balance'.

They say X realm is underpopulated when in reality their experience is based mostly on perception.

During the time that they most frequently play, their realm 'feels' empty or they don't 'see' many players. When in reality maybe only an hour ago it was the opposite.
Some form of usage chart, or activity graph would go along way to curing this discussion. That's also what lead me to the thought of a more dynamic balancing system that is based on the current number of active players.


To play the devils advocate for a minute, I too have been farmed by the syrtis zerg and found my self raging about 'Where the f*** did all these gelfs come from, we must be under populated'

[UmarilsStillHere]

There is a tracker around that shows in line chart form which realm has been the most active in the warzone (by way of fort captures) over the last few days.

Im afraid I recently lost my bookmarks and cant find a link to it, if anyone has that it would be nice if you could pass it along

I used to use it as a 'rough' guide to what realm was dominant at what times and back then (over a month ago now Id think) it was mostly pretty balanced with realms trading the top spot every few hours, except for Syrtis gaining the super-zerg around 4pm (shown by a huge spike in activity )and losing pretty much all signs of life around 3am. (near-as hitting the bottem of the graph)

[Greyman_tle]

U mean this one ?

http://rostatus.heroku.com/world/horus

note...this only shows fort captures...not actuall pop...but you can assume that a higher pop will mean more captures.

[UmarilsStillHere]

Yes thats it ^^ Thanks,

Now yes its only rough but it does show whats sort of going on balance wise, as reflected recently Alsius is more active than normal, Ignis is still mainly towards the low end, with Syrtis active in the day and dead at night.

Overall Alsius seems to have the best constant player numbers covering all hours as they dont dip as much as the other realms 'at nite'.

[Hamster_of_sorrow]

Originally Posted by mr_scsi

To play the devils advocate for a minute, I too have been farmed by the syrtis zerg and found my self raging about 'Where the f*** did all these gelfs come from, we must be under populated'

i do that every time we get zerged. i always get pissed because everytime i turn around, gelfs seem to have 2x the previous number.

i stand by my previous theory. when we arent looking, they procreate in the tower. (that or they have a secret tele).

[Zas_]

Originally Posted by Punti_X

First of all, I want to see numbers of population per realm hour by hour for at least a month period. Than we can talk of measures. I belive that NGD can provide this. Without some exact numbers it would not be good to make decisions like suggested.

In fact, we need numbers for each realm, and for people in War Zone.
Then we can correlate them with fort captures and hold delay.
It would be a good tool to measure impact of any change.

[Groark]

This thread -as others I have seen- look at the "population" problem in a superficial way not asking himself why? why is the active population in the wz as it is? why do more people choose for Syrtis? The anwser is very simple: Syrtis is more beautifull than the others realms. Besides some of the characters in Alsius and Ignis are, how would I say it... Ugly. Many players start with Alsius or Ignis attracted by their bonus but after a while they change to Syrtis.

On the other hand, there can be unexpected factors diminishing even more the number of players of a specific realm. Ignis is one example of this. A few months ago was Ignis a powerfull realm, specially late at night (GMT) but all of the sudden a large group of them quitted the game leaving Ignis as it is now: the less active realm in the wz. Not Alsius. Alsius is nowadays a very active realm in the wz. Less than Syrtis but still.

In short: the problem of the more or less active population in the wz has -in my opinion- 2 causes:

1) aspect of the realms and its characters
2) unexpected factors

Therefore the suggestion of this thread (to give more xp or other incentives)to one or more realms will not work.

As I have noticed NGD is working at it very hard, improving those realms and their characters.

[bois]

Originally Posted by Groark

This thread -as others I have seen- look at the "population" problem in a superficial way not asking himself why? why is the active population in the wz as it is? why do more people choose for Syrtis? The anwser is very simple: Syrtis is more beautifull than the others realms. Besides some of the characters in Alsius and Ignis are, how would I say it... Ugly. Many players start with Alsius or Ignis attracted by their bonus but after a while they change to Syrtis.

On the other hand, there can be unexpected factors diminishing even more the number of players of a specific realm. Ignis is one example of this. A few months ago was Ignis a powerfull realm, specially late at night (GMT) but all of the sudden a large group of them quitted the game leaving Ignis as it is now: the less active realm in the wz. Not Alsius. Alsius is nowadays a very active realm in the wz. Less than Syrtis but still.

In short: the problem of the more or less active population in the wz has -in my opinion- 2 causes:

1) aspect of the realms and its characters
2) unexpected factors

Therefore the suggestion of this thread (to give more xp or other incentives)to one or more realms will not work.

As I have noticed NGD is working at it very hard, improving those realms and their characters.

Yes Indeed so. The situation is such a complex one.

Simple things like realm colours, races, realm environment can and have an impact. Add this to the fact that Ignis is is not the easiest realm to level in, it will be expected that Ignis will suffer a bit.
Rather than look at the overall picture it is good that several people mentioned the need to break down the numbers to get the real picture. While the statistic mentioned above give a rough estimate of the number of forts taken it is a little deceptive and really cannot be used for population purposes. Question is how many show up to take a fort and what % are remote forts with little defenses? As it is Menirah is the most harassed fort and requires few to take it. Many times Alsius may show up with 5-7 to take Menirah while Syrtis may very well show up with as little as 5-10.
Also, Ignis and Alsius may very well be prepared to assault and take a fort with a small assault team of 5-7 whereas Syrtis may not be as willing to do so with such a small number. Stats are a tricky thing. They can be twisted to show what you want them to.

One of the biggest grouses in Ignis was the tedious grinding /questing and the fact that you were forced to go into the WZ to grind certain levels. Ignis lost players because of this. This Is one thing that needs to be addressed. Personally, I think that all realms should have levels where players are forced into the war zone. If everyone were able to grind unmolested to 50 in realm what is the point of any mobs in the war zone at all?

NGD has reworked the initiation zone of Ignis as a start to resolve this problem at low levels and I think it has some success. Focus will have to move to the 30's and low 40's as we seem to lose players there now.

Realms need to have their jewellery the SAME. There should be no bonus or malus for joining this realm or that one. All realms have access to all rings, amulets. If not in quests then generate a few as rare drops in the war zone for all to access.

I believe the idea of a realm or gold bonus is a good one. The problem is keeping the players loyal to a realm. That is the problem these days.

Let us not forget the massive demotivator of facing severe odds in the war zone with no chance of winning. This is the result of time zone imbalances and at the same time compounds it. Facing ridiculous odds results in frustrations , ragequits, and simply multiplies on itself resulting in even further losses. There is no solution for this symptom. The only thing can be done is to attack the root causes and let solutions there gradually filter to the end.

I can hardly comment properly on realm imbalances because there there are so many variables I do not know. What and how is under-population calculated? what is the trigger point for a realm to be considered underpopulated? What is the poll interval of the server to calculate population densities? What is the eligible population ( player level) that is counted in the poll? Is activity taken into account? will multi-realming be a factor skewing results ?Too many questions.

Bottom line: there is no fix all solution to this.

The best way to address it (in my view) is to present equal opportunities or lack thereof for grinding , drops while maintaining the diversity. Each realm should have its equal share of "ugly" and "pretty" characters. Likewise each should have more equivalent distributions of pockets of ugly and pretty landscape features. There can be pretty ice features and likewise desert features. I mean there can be pockets in the desert where rain falls one in a blue moon and desert flowers appears for a short while. Stuff like that. Sun in the ice causing a thaw and something nice happening there.Added to this, a small element of every realm must be present in the others. Ignis must have a small Ice feature, Syrtis/Alsius a small desert (ice desert does not count).

Feature Same jewellery for each realm. Only difference is probably 1 amulet and 1 ring giving a specific bonus to the realm . Something like +ice, +fire, + lightning damage.

There is no fix I can think of for time zone imbalances. However if we address the underlying factors I listed above this may ease .

Other than that I don't see what else can be done. The main thing is player attraction and more importantly , retention. Realm bonuses are simply a mechanism to help normalise an out of balance system by moving resident player base or newly attracted players to the realm with less troop strength.

On this note I will say Gold and XP bonus works fine. I would also add a "noob pack" to the needy realms. It can contain items like a tiny booster e.g one 10% booster for 30 minutes. Non tradable item. If not that then a level 3-5 armour set and a scroll of mastery to lvl 5. NGD will lose no revenue at this low stage. A free horse for 1 day and a token for another one when you hit 30 then 40. This will get the player hooked and possibly sell premium horses. Some free gold. If you stay till 40 you get another lump some gold bonus. Stay to 50 and get a gift from NGD.In other words give a player a reason to go on and stay with a realm. This is what is needed for the player retention part.

Long winded , yes, sorry.

Best Regards
Artec

[Bladnoch]

Can't be bothered to look through every comment on this thread so I might be repeating something, but someone mentioned on the first page you realm change scrolls. This could be a problem.

- The reace would have to change prior to the realm. I've got a hunch that NGD have some coding which makes it so you MUST have the correct race in the correct realm (i.e. no dark elves in Syrtis). If you mess this up, we have no idea what could happen to the game mechanics.

- Wood Elve Archers from Syrtis have the best archer stats in the game. The two other elves cannot compete with that. Not that basic attributes effect the gameplay hugely, but it's enough to turn some people off.

- The big one. Quests. Should Syrtis people who transfer over to another realm get to do the quests again? If they aren't level 50 yet, then they will have a big advantage over everyone else by accessing double the quests. If we block foriegn quests to them and they hadn't completed all from Syrtis, they would be less likely to transfer. No good in matching up one quest to another either because each realm has a different amount of quests at different levels.


My proposal for population balance would be simple, although I'm not sure whether it would have repercussions. Pay 200 Xim to join Syrtis, the others are free. Gives NGD more money, makes Syrtis available but most people would rather go to the other two realms than pay money.

[Minorian]

I love the idea of a realm change scroll, but I have another concern to add. I have seen it multiple times in Ignis, not sure if the same problem occurs in Alsius and Syrtis. The majority of players in Ignis hate multirealmers, and sometimes even someone who has switched to Ignis. They swear at the person, tell them to f*** off back to goat/gelf land. I would be worried that someone that switched realms to Ignis would be treated like dirt as well.

Just a thought, It could be a large problem though.