8.1 war mode balancing seems to be working

PVP War Mode and World PvP
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I was wondering whether the 8.1 changes attempting to balance war mode were working, so my agents checked a few auction houses. I checked on a former RPPVP server, Emerald Dream, and on a former PVP server, Tichondrius.

Emerald Dream:

  • Alliance - 70% in war mode. Last I checked, a few months ago, this was 30%, so this is a significant increase.

  • Horde - 60% in war mode. Last I checked, a few months ago, this was 70%; the change may just be random variation.

Overall - war mode balance between the factions has improved, from 30/70, a significant but not overwhelming imbalance, to 70/60, roughly even.

Tichondrius:

  • Alliance - 40% in war mode. I don’t have previous figures to compare to, but this seems higher than typical Alliance levels prior to 8.1.

  • Horde - 70% in war mode. This seems consistent with the levels prior to 8.1.

It looks like the 8.1 war mode balancing changes are in fact working to some extent. If the Tichondrius figures are typical for Normal servers overall - and granted, that’s a big “if” - I’d expect the Against Overwhelming Odds quest to go away tomorrow, and the Alliance side bonus to drop to somewhere in the range of 20%.

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2

I’ve only had a more balanced experience so far.

Most of the incursions have been really good back and forth, and world pvp in general is more easy to come by. Prior to patch i’d have to look really hard for ally in Kul’tiras, now im finding them all over! Wish there’d be more in zuldazar and nazmir though : /

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I’m on ED and I have to say I’m liking it so far.

Irisse, where are you getting those numbers? Seems like a handy place to know :slight_smile:

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My “spies” just stand in the main auction house and count green and blue names, ignoring pets and the auctioneers of course.

Edit after 12-18 reset because I’m not allowed to update the thread:

Looks like the Against Overwhelming Odds quest is gone, but the bonus is still at 30% for Alliance, so I might have been half right. Based on this, the balancing mechanisms seem to be working, just not quite as fast as my survey indicated. We’ll see what happens this week. Edit: no, Against Overwhelming Odds isn’t gone, it just didn’t show up the first time I logged in. Lag maybe? Also, Call to Arms is bugged.

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Ahhh thanks… keep it up, sounds like too much work for me :blush:

I think it may take a couple/few weeks for it all to even out. I’m optimistic.

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I was wrong about Against Overwhelming Odds. The quest is there; it just didn’t show up for me the first time, possibly because of lag.

Also, Call to Arms is bugged: it shows up as complete as soon as you take it. I didn’t turn it in since I really like doing it and I’m hoping they fix it. I’d be curious as to whether it’s bugged for Horde too.

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I noticed last week that Tuesday and Wednesday there was a ton of Alliance all over the place, which was great, but by Friday it had settled back to the way things were pre-buff. I am curious to see if that pattern repeats itself this week with a bunch of alliance being very active and raiding until they complete AOO and then disappearing.

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I wouldn’t put the credit on the +30% buff or the new weekly helping out with balance but rather on the Faction Assaults giving an actual incentive to PvP.

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9

I realized yesterday that I was checking only former PVP servers on the assumption that most of the people in war mode were from those servers. My new theory was that the imbalance was mainly from PVE servers, where Horde could have been turning war mode on just for the 10% bonus that was essentially free to them, with Alliance having it off.

Last night I checked out a former PVE server, Dalaran. My theory did not pan out; just under 30% of Alliance were in war mode, and just over 30% of Horde. I do wish I’d checked this out before. I will check it again later in the week to see if PVE server Alliance are turning war mode off after completing Against Overwhelming Odds.

I think it is all three.

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10

Emerald Dream has an ongoing world pvp event system as a server: World War Emerald Dream 2019 My own experience is that regular player driven events like that tend to grow a much higher than normal pvp player base for servers engaged like that.

For example, back in 2007 when my own guild used to be in something called the “The Guardian Wars” on the Guardian server of City of Heroes/City of Villains. On the regular war night, player participation used to be about 60% of the players online, at the time of the event. In COX, you could literally run a scan for in that game as a player.

I think that higher server community investment gives you higher than average pvp player numbers. However, even passively, I do think that the balancing seems to be working overall.

My 2 cents. Your mileage may vary.

/salute

11

I didn’t manage to check before reset, but here’s my data for Tuesday, 25 December 2018. Tuesday night is supposedly when all the Alliance are on for Against Overwhelming Odds, though it’s after the incursion ended and toward the end of prime time.

Emerald Dream - 60% of Alliance in war mode, 80% of Horde.
Tichondrius - 30% of Alliance in war mode, 70% of Horde.
Dalaran - 10% of Alliance in war mode, 50% of Horde.

These numbers are not statistically significantly different from the previous numbers I mentioned for these servers, though Dalaran now has statistically significantly larger proportion of Horde than Alliance in war mode.

On Monday, 31 December 2018, the night before reset, in the alternate auction house since the primary auction house was taken over by the disco people:

Emerald Dream - 20% of Alliance in war mode, 60% of Horde
Tichondrius - 20% of Alliance in war mode, 50% of Horde
Dalaran - 10% of Alliance in war mode, 20% of Horde

The only statistically significant change was the reduction in the percentage of Horde in war mode on Dalaran, a former PVE server. This might possibly indicate a reduction in the number of Horde PVE people turning on war mode just for the 10% bonus, though that’s speculation at this point. The reduction in Alliance in war mode on Emerald Dream while not statistically significant, might still be read to suggest that there might be some truth to the idea that some Alliance turn on war mode just long enough to do Against Overwhelming Odds.

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Report from Monday, 7 January 2019

Emerald Dream - 70% of Alliance in war mode, 70% of Horde
Tichondrius - 30% of Alliance in war mode, 80% of Horde
Dalaran - 30% of Alliance in war mode, 30% of Horde

No statistically significant changes from the previous week.
[/quote]

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To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women."

Not enough of a reason Girlyman?

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Would not say that balancing seems to be working since you’re evidence is just 2 server populations. May be balanced for them but other side its probably not.

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I’d be interested to see the level ranges of people with and without WM enabled. I find most people keep it on while leveling because you rarely run into the opposite faction questing in places like kalimdor, eastern kingdoms, outlands, northrend, pandaria and draenor. Especially higher level players who would one to two shot you as most of them are spending their time in BfA content. Same for sitting in town spamming dungeons for quick leveling. It’d be interesting to see how the numbers fall for players in BfA content where the raid groups operate.

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Report from Monday, 28 January 2019

Emerald Dream - 80% of Alliance in war mode, 30%* of Horde
Tichondrius - 70%* of Alliance in war mode, 60% of Horde
Dalaran - 30% of Alliance in war mode, 10%* of Horde

The asterisked results represent statistically significant changes from 3 weeks ago: less horde in war mode on Emerald Dream, more Alliance in war mode on Tichondrius, and less Horde in war mode on Dalaran. All of these are factor of two changes or more.

From the standpoint of regional North American population in war mode, the sample from Tichondrius suggests that the 8.1 changes have, at last, gotten Alliance from former PVP servers to turn war mode on; statistically speaking, Alliance and Horde from former PVP servers are about equally likely to have war mode on, approximately two thirds of them in each case.

In addition, the proportion of Horde from former PVE servers in war mode has seen a statistically significant fall, and is now statistically significantly lower than the proportion of Alliance from former PVE servers in war mode - about one tenth for Horde versus about one third for Alliance.

If we take these numbers at face value, the faction balance in war mode has changed from probably nearly twice as many Horde as Alliance three weeks ago to slightly more Alliance than Horde now. If those numbers are correct, I’d expect both Against Overwhelming Odds and the larger Alliance war mode bonus to disappear tomorrow. Of course, I’ve been wrong in my predictions before, but if AOO is still around tomorrow, I’m going to have to blame Chinese farmers that sneak into the alternate auction house or something.

The Emerald Dream numbers probably don’t affect regional numbers that much since RP servers are slightly less than 10% of the total population. However, they do suggest that region wide balancing has caused RP server war mode to skew toward Alliance. With the region wide issues resolving, we should be thinking about how to better keep RP shards balanced as well.

I do think it’s now incontrovertible that the war mode balancing mechanisms are working - perhaps working too well, in the opinion of some.

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Give it time. This is how 8.0-8.1 was but in reverse. In a few more weeks, the horde numbers will be even lower as unflagging has a cascade effect. Plenty of evidence that this will happen as it’s exactly what the Alliance did.

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WAIT WAIT WAIT. Why is it on so many other posts you say that alliance are serverly out numbered when here, at a 10% split its “roughly even”. Maybe you should start to understand that being within 10% pop balance is roughly even and stop with the severly out numbered BS you keep claiming in every post you put your thoughts into.

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Actually I’ve been saying that Alliance were severely outnumbered in 8.0 - it’s not 8.0 any more - and were sufficiently outnumbered as of a week ago - actually between one and two weeks ago - for AOO and the 30% war mode buff to stay in place. I’ve also been saying that if things have evened out, AOO will go away and the buff will reduce at reset, and if AOO and the 30% buff are still there, that will be evidence that the Alliance is still outnumbered.

These observations were as of last night, one point in time, and are based on an imperfect assessment technique. In addition, based on observations in game over the week, the Alliance presence outside of assaults was still low at the beginning of the week but has been growing over the week (or the Horde presence has been shrinking).

Blizzard obviously has much better data than my rough count, plus they look at the whole week. It will be interesting to see whether AOO is there and what the buffs are at after reset today. If they are, I’ll have to figure out what’s wrong with my counting technique, which I’ve had to do once before.

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The Alliance buff is at 15%, which isn’t much higher than the Horde’s presumed 10%, so I think my sampling technique is now a reasonable reflection of reality.

However, Against Overwhelming Odds is still there, so clearly that doesn’t work the way I thought it did - I thought it only came into play when the population numbers would normally justify a bonus of more than 30% if it weren’t for cap at 30%, and that’s obviously not the situation now.

Edit: Against Overwhelming Odds has been removed; presumably its inclusion was an error or a reset timing issue. Blizzard has now said it appears only when one faction is outnumbered enough for a 20% bonus or more.