Population Balance

[GreenWolf2471]

I've been watching this space for a while now and am super impressed with how the development is going. I believe before long there will be floods of people coming to this server once the last few key features are added, myself included.

I was thinking about that the other night and remembering how faction imbalance used to be one the things that negatively impacted the original game, and I think I have come up with a solution that I wanted to present to you all.

So while it might not seem important now as you can only go up to level 10 and restarting a character isn't much of a big deal, as more content is released and players become more invested in their characters, we need to have a system in place that would help offset future problems of imbalance.

The approach uses classical conditioning (Pavlovs dog) as its basis in that with the system we want to reinforce 'good' behaviour, which we can define as something that makes the game better for everyone, in this instance balanced teams.

The idea is to offer free character transfers to the side that has a lower population, but it must be done with a few conditions in place, to balance such a thing.

Firstly you could only transfer 1 character per week, the transfer would give you the equivalent class on the other faction and maintain all your progression and items. For example lvl 35 Slayer would transfer to a lvl 35 Choppa. At the same time it would let you change your name incase someone on the other faction has it(This could be optional, as I'm not sure how if destro+order can have the same names on a server).

This would assure that the players who are doing a 'good' thing (transferring to the losing side for balance) have no negative consequences. On the flip side you should not be able to transfer to the higher population faction, as if you want to join any friends there you should just have to reroll.

Once we have assured that players have no negative reinforcement for moving we need to give them positive reinforcement to do so. This can be done with some sort of outnumbered buff for the side with a lower population.

A simple version I thought up last night could be that for every 5% one side is outnumbered, they get 10% more experience/renown. So for example if the server balance is 25%/75% the 25% would get a 50% increase in rewards.

This would hopefully be enough to encourage some players to switch sides for a bonus to their progression.

I do not know the inns and outs of the code/server database but the switching could perhaps we done via this website and tap into the database to swap over characters. I remember reading the other day that the website is almost finished so perhaps this could be the next project for you to work on!

If anyone has any other suggestions that might be even better I welcome to feedback, but i think it would be good to have the discussion about the early one before floods of people rejoin the WAHHGH!

[Ciciro]

I don't think population balance would be that big of a problem, at least not now. Most people have both order and chaos characters, and since the level cap is so low it is very easy to max then out.

[Ley]

In all honestly i read your post and i must say, what you are suggesting is pretty much close to impossible if not even impossible. Having all that that done , besides requiring craptons of coding (which im sure devs wouldnt mind because they do kick ass and are speshul ) would pretty much screw up with he server. There is character logs to be changed , skills , items ,quests , quest rewards, geo locs. and thats just a few of the things which would need changing.Its not as easy as you might think. Not to mention that the server as it is now has a population of about 160'ish online players almost daily.... it will surely grow in time and having that number of people asking for transfers , even if weekly/monthly will brainfunk our staff. The server and client changes may not be able to "deal" with it all.

Thats all i can think of now (long day) , i will however get back with anything else i have to say.

Take care and well thankies for caring about the server

[Idrinth]

While I do like the idea of switching to the underdog, I'm not sure a percentage increase in XP/RP is a good idea:
- RP equals power more than (player-)numbers do
- XP reduces power if RP can't keep up

I would propose to rather offer the underdog(by Renown and Numbers) something short-term like free officer's potions each day with a chance of getting an area+x% renown item with a limited use-time. That could actually be done with the post-system.

[Luth]

A simple version I thought up last night could be that for every 5% one side is outnumbered, they get 10% more experience/renown. So for example if the server balance is 25%/75% the 25% would get a 50% increase in rewards.

This would hopefully be enough to encourage some players to switch sides for a bonus to their progression.

There was the "against all odds" mechanic on the original server:

Against All Odds: A Realm outnumbered within an RvR Lake will now receive a scaling bonus to Experience, Renown and Influence based on the odds stacked against them, becoming active when a Realm is outnumbered in a specific Lake by 20% or more. The bonus amount cannot exceed 400%, will not apply to monster kills, and requires a minimum of 6 players from each Realm to be present within the RvR Lake.

Source

[GreenWolf2471]

Hey thanks for the feedback,

In all honestly i read your post and i must say, what you are suggesting is pretty much close to impossible if not even impossible. Having all that that done , besides requiring craptons of coding (which im sure devs wouldnt mind because they do kick ass and are speshul ) would pretty much screw up with he server. There is character logs to be changed , skills , items ,quests , quest rewards, geo locs. and thats just a few of the things which would need changing.Its not as easy as you might think. Not to mention that the server as it is now has a population of about 160'ish online players almost daily.... it will surely grow in time and having that number of people asking for transfers , even if weekly/monthly will brainfunk our staff. The server and client changes may not be able to "deal" with it all.

Thats all i can think of now (long day) , i will however get back with anything else i have to say.

Take care and well thankies for caring about the server

With regards to overwhelming the team I completely agree, How i thought of it is that it would be automated, there is already a check on the website showing how much each side has online, from this you could enable/disable the transfers for one side to the other.

Furthermore might it be possible to write some code (I realise its more work but perhaps for population balance it is worth it) that creates the new character, deletes the old one and gives it the level, renown rank and high level gear that is equivalent of what it has. So if you transfer a level 20 you might only take level, renown and gold across. while in your transferred a lvl 40 in full RR40 gear or higher it would map those items and give them to new the new character.

I don't think population balance would be that big of a problem, at least not now. Most people have both order and chaos characters, and since the level cap is so low it is very easy to max then out.

With regards to people having both characters and it not being an issues, i agree that it is not now, but I'm looking ahead into the future when the game is once again popular with all the features added back in and all the tiers. Would it not be good to get something in place early on so there isn't pressure on the devs later?

While I do like the idea of switching to the underdog, I'm not sure a percentage increase in XP/RP is a good idea:
- RP equals power more than (player-)numbers do
- XP reduces power if RP can't keep up

I would propose to rather offer the underdog(by Renown and Numbers) something short-term like free officer's potions each day with a chance of getting an area+x% renown item with a limited use-time. That could actually be done with the post-system.

Completely agree that renown/experience might not be the best way forward, but some way of rewarding people transferring to the losing team would be needed, perhaps your way or another that someone can think of would be even better, but the need for it would remain.

[GreenWolf2471]

There was the "against all odds" mechanic on the original server:

Against All Odds: A Realm outnumbered within an RvR Lake will now receive a scaling bonus to Experience, Renown and Influence based on the odds stacked against them, becoming active when a Realm is outnumbered in a specific Lake by 20% or more. The bonus amount cannot exceed 400%, will not apply to monster kills, and requires a minimum of 6 players from each Realm to be present within the RvR Lake.

Source

Haha I must of been remembering it then, I only played a year after release so my memory must have dimmed! Do you think it will be added back into the game at some point? If so then the dev would only need to work on the transferring half of my proposal and the game would handle the rest.

[Ley]

That is just a site % , easy linked with server character count , client would require a lot of changes which i already said might not even be supported by it. Creating such a code will have to "touch" all features which is too much imo.

[Khorba]

like J say many time Add 2-3h time block side change

[Ley]

like J say many time Add 2-3h time block change side

wat?