The realm imbalance is the reason for low server population. It's just the way it is. You can claim I'm just crying, you can pretend that the imbalance doesn't exist, you can claim the low server pop is because of "reason x"... but at the end of the day, the imbalance is driving people away form Uthgard and contributing to the further decline of DAoC.

Simply put: people generally don't want to stay in a game where you can either choose the winning side and have no challenge or choose the losing side and have no hope of winning.

Lets look at each realm's share of population and realm points for a moment. In a perfectly balanced game with no statistical deviation you would expect 33% population in each realm and each realm holding 33% of the total realm points. The world we live in does in fact have variation, so it's unrealistic to expect "33%" across the board even with perfectly balanced realms. However, if the deviation from "33%" is due to statistical noise and not imbalance, you would expect the percentages to be close to "33% and fluctuate above and below it with time. You would also expect the variations between realms to be similar (ie. Albion vs. Hibernia, Albion vs. Midgard, Hibernia vs. Midgard).

Unfortunately, the percentages are not close to 33% and do not fluctuate above and below an even share. Midgard consistently holds the lion's share of realm points, and this can not be explained by statistical noise. Furthermore, While Albion and Hibernia are similar, Midgard is not similar to either.

Now according to the Uthgard Herald on 9/28/18, Albion has 36% of the server population, Hibernia has 29% of the population, and Midgard has 35% of the population. As for the share of total realm points, Albion has 27%, Hibernia 26%, and Midgard 46%. Those numbers are inherently noisy, so to help remove that noise, lets apply a cool technique...

We expect the share of realm points to scale with population. More population = more people to hold realm points = more realm points. The converse is also true. Dividing the percentage of realm points by the percentage of population for each realm should give 1 for each realm given perfect balance and no noise. For our real world, we have Albion: 0.75, Hibernia: 0.90, Midgard: 1.31. Do any of those numbers jump out to you?

Lets look at the percentage variation of this ratio between any two realms. Averaging the "realm points to population ratios" for Albion and Hibernia we get 0.825. Then taking the difference of 0.825 and either realms ratio (0.75 or 0.9, your pick) as a percentage of their average (0.825) gives 9.1%. That is to say: Albion and Hibernia vary in their realm point to population ratios by 9.1% of their average. Similarly, Albion and Midgard vary by 27.2%, and Hibernia and Midgard vary by 18.6%. Midgard literally varies with the other realms by 200%-300% as much as Albion and Hibernia do with each other! Meanwhile, the difference between how Midgard varies with each of Albion and Hibernia is only 50%! Does that jump out at you?

If you still are not convinced, lets look at the world map: It's almost always blue. Relics? All 6 almost always owned by Midgard. Darkness falls? Nearly perma-owned by Midgard. 80% of top 5 strongest and most active guilds are on Midgard. 80% of top 10 realm point holders are on Midgard. 65% of top 20 realm point holders are Midgard. 50% of top 50 realm point holders are Midgard. See a trend here? (These should all be close to 33% in a balanced game). Now, of course there will be that Midgard player who will say "BuT 3 MoNtHs AgO AlB/HiB hAd ALl 6 RElIcS! So YouR ArGUmeNT FaLls ApARt!". To those people I say: statistical noise. Of course each realm will have its moments, but long term averages remove this noise, and over the long term, Midgard is dominating.

Refuse to believe this fact because you play Midgard and don't care? Look at population. The imbalance is killing this server.

The point of this post is not to say the server admins are doing a poor job in running the server. I do not feel that way in the least. But the server does need some balancing. And if we as a community - both admins and players - fail to see the writing on the wall, then we can expect nothing less than for seasoned DAoC players to start logging in less frequently, and eventually never at all.

A change needs to be made for the longevity of the server.

Zerging is cancer, 8v8 is the cure!

I bet RvR tasks would help maintain interest for casuals. From what I understand Uth1 had RvR tasks that had diminishing returns, by RR5 or 6 weren't worth it.

Anyway I think that would liven things up, and help soften the transition from a brand new fresh level 50, and straight open field fighting. That transition point I think is where a lot of players either reroll or quit.

And, it's content all realms can enjoy, rather than a mid nerf or alb/hib buff.

For my Albion teammates:

1\ Get to know and use the abilities of your chars. Always play the same toon.
2\ Start building reasonable groups. Use synergies (kabby debuff, all Bodynuker focus dmg. Cleric stun).
3\ Learn to play as a group by supporting and helping each other.
4\ Practice, practice, practice.

Mids aren't invincible. Hibs are our challenge... ; )

Nonsense like rp for killing keepguards is useless. Sorry. Player want to win !

Maybe we can help with a few tweaks...

Here are my ideas to help:

#1. Keep Taking RPs
If a realm owns less than 7 keeps. Taking a keep gives a bonus amount of RPs per keep taken. When equal to 7, the bonus is removed. When over 7 keeps, the RPs reduce based on a ratio relevant to the number of keeps owned.

#2. Keep Bonuses/Penalties
If a realm owns less than 7 keeps. A flat XP and dmg bonus is applied. This will be a small amount per keep but be more significant if no keeps are owned.

#3. Relics
Owning your own relics will give you 10% for magic or melee - depending on the relic. If you own an enemy relic, you deny them their damage bonus. However as the realm with no 10% magic or melee relic - you will gain a flat increase to XP and RPs of 20% (per relic lost).

#4. Keep Doors
RPs will be awarded for upgrading doors and upgrading them.

#5. Relic Doors
RPs will be awarded for relic keep door repairs as above. As they are lvl8 doors the return will be higher. In addition, relic doors will autorepair if no relic is stored in the keep. This will not happen if the relic keep is under attack. The rate of repair will be slow in any case. Doors will auto-repair to 75%.

#6. Realm Swap Timers
Swapping to a realm with relics will add 2 days per relic owned. If no relics are owned the timer is not increased.



The idea behind these tweaks is to give the weaker realms ( in terms of current status, not making a statement here), bonuses to damage and XP if it is being dominated. This will give incentives for people to XP and go into PvP in a realm that is not doing as well - due to bonuses to RPs and XP.

There is another reason Midgard are favored at this patch version: they only need 4 classes to cover all RvR essential abilities:
Skald, Healer, Shaman and Runemaster.

Some might wonder what abilities I consider essential, so I'll list them here:

204% movement speed song, all buffs and heals, idealy all 6 resist buffs, AoE mez, stuns (they are the only realm to have AoE stuns) Endurance and power regen, Disease (again, only realm to have a pbae insta) Nearsight and PBT, and Midgard-only celerity.
And also realm specific tools, Ichor of the deep.

You can even cut out the runemaster for NS and pbt, and fill up the rest of the group as you please, end result is you'll end up with more healing/damage than what you face.

Now let's compare what classes Albion and Hibernia needs to cover these abilities:
For Albion: Minstrel, Sorcerer, Paladin, Cleric, Theurgist, Cabalist and another cleric (as friars group utility kinda blows)
As a result, you seldomly see this particular setup as there are only room for 1 or 2 DET tanks.
Albion however, has some powerful RA timers like: Bunker of Faith, Speed of Sound, Faith Heal and Soldiers Barricade.

For Hibernia: Bard, Druid, Warden, Eldritch.
I admit i've never played hib much, certainly not RvR, so feel free to correct me in this comparison.
It relies heavily on finding a bard, but from here you can build pretty much any group setup you desire.
Realm specific strengths and RA timers: Group purge, Ameliorating Melodies, Thornweed Field baseline stun, and ofc mushrooms.

There's more depth to it than what I mentioned, but I just wanted to cover the basics.

I rather think the low population is the reason for Mid doing so well. They have a few highly organized groups and they do very well in small scale engagements. Alb and Hib just experience the impact of the current server situation.

Prettypinkunicorns wrote:There is another reason Midgard are favored at this patch version: they only need 4 classes to cover all RvR essential abilities:
Skald, Healer, Shaman and Runemaster.

Some might wonder what abilities I consider essential, so I'll list them here:

204% movement speed song, all buffs and heals, idealy all 6 resist buffs, AoE mez, stuns (they are the only realm to have AoE stuns) Endurance and power regen, Disease (again, only realm to have a pbae insta) Nearsight and PBT, and Midgard-only celerity.
And also realm specific tools, Ichor of the deep.

You can even cut out the runemaster for NS and pbt, and fill up the rest of the group as you please, end result is you'll end up with more healing/damage than what you face.

Now let's compare what classes Albion and Hibernia needs to cover these abilities:
For Albion: Minstrel, Sorcerer, Paladin, Cleric, Theurgist, Cabalist and another cleric (as friars group utility kinda blows)
As a result, you seldomly see this particular setup as there are only room for 1 or 2 DET tanks.
Albion however, has some powerful RA timers like: Bunker of Faith, Speed of Sound, Faith Heal and Soldiers Barricade.

For Hibernia: Bard, Druid, Warden, Eldritch.
I admit i've never played hib much, certainly not RvR, so feel free to correct me in this comparison.
It relies heavily on finding a bard, but from here you can build pretty much any group setup you desire.
Realm specific strengths and RA timers: Group purge, Ameliorating Melodies, Thornweed Field baseline stun, and ofc mushrooms.

There's more depth to it than what I mentioned, but I just wanted to cover the basics.

In theory, it's easier to build groups on Midgard. However, at this idiotic patch level and with even more idiotic old RAs, Midgard is the weakest realm for sure. I honestly couldn't care less what someone thinks, it's the truth. And I don't know where this idiotic commie attitude that things should be regulated if one realm is prevailing comes from, it will kill all the fun in the game or most of it if we start doing it. People write these elaborate posts about what should be changed and how, but if you read between the lines it all comes down to "I'm not winning, it's not fair, a higher authority should make it so all conditions are perfect for me to win with the least amount of effort". Look, say what you want about Midgard but even during the period when Hibs had all the relics for months(and it's literally the kiss of death when they have them with old RAs due to no charge, so even mid-skill caster group can obliterate any mid group if they have some intelligence), I didn't see Mids whining as much as spysubhuman is crying and whining. It's been like this on uthgard1 too, we had a whole German alliance of horrible noobs, but they showed up every night, played their 2-3 hours and logged off. Some of those guilds were family guilds, some big guilds but I've never heard any whining on their part. It is what it is, I'm fine with Hibs and Albs having relics for a few months if they want to defend them.

Midgard gets ****** hard here. Heals are very slow and most groups run 2 healers, if you can rupt them for 10 secs, you can easily drop half of the group because there is no PD or DI. In zerg Albs and Hibs obviously have the advantage due to shrooms, better caster synergy and theurg pets along with some OP charmable pets. Purge re-use timer is 30 mins, yet one realm gets 2x group purge in group, which pretty much nullifies any nearsight war won by a RM, not to mention the ridiculously overpowered SOS and BOF on Alb side. Midgard is also forced to run a stupid class like skald, which with old RAs is a glorified speed bot, but you depend on getting a good inc to stand a chance in the fight. With old RAs most of your fights rely on A) getting a good inc and B) opponents not having certain op 30min re-use RAs up.

You do understand that even an average minstrel is practically not ccable(other than 1-2 stuns per fight) and can rupt the ****** out of everything + do a lot of damage with a strong pet? Also, there are like 5-6 people on Mid capable of properly playing a RM and most of them are inactive + most Mid groups have no clue how to play a caster group or with a RM in the group for that matter. It's not my fault or yours that people are like Romu are avoiding fighting players at all costs, unless they have double the numbers and even then they die 90% of the time. Have you ever seen how an inc vs their 3fg looks like? I can give you a scenario I've seen happen many times as an example. So, 7-8 of us are inside a keep(Bled for example) and we're baiting their 3fg to attack it and maybe get some classic overextending noobs like Romu or Macdeath, pac healer drops a mezz on some of them and of course we will not rush into 3fg, yet half of them blow purge, panicking minstrels use SOS right away etc. These nimrods run together every day and still have zero communication, even though their zerg should be strong.

Adding, zerging, some realms prevailing etc. will always be a part of the game. Some months back Hibs owned all the relics for a while and even if they lost them, their Koreans would retake them during EU daytime when there weren't enough of active players to defend them. We were trying to do some 8v8 and we had them adding all the time with 2fg. Of course it's frustrating, but it's a part of the game and if I've chosen to play it, I won't whine about it. Are the shadowblades supposed to whine about not having access to 2 different damage types or due to the fact that nightshade and infi get better RAs and reactive stun styles, not to mention infi's 2.5 points per level?

I can agree with you that most people can't play a bard properly but it's the same on Mid, not many good pac healers(insta cc on inc, and spam spread heal until out of power is the most common pac you'll find) around and communication is often not that great. Each realm has its pros and cons and it's really not anybody's fault that some people choose not to challenge themselves in any way and are trying to play a keep take simulator with no inc.

If you want things to change, start with yourself. I'm sure you can find 3-4 decent players who can listen and well, find a few more average players to fill the slots for the easiest classes to play(maybe try a 5 naturalist tank group, quite durable/strong and not too demanding to play). Start running a few times a week and stick to it, write about your experiences on forum and maybe more people will follow. Uthgard2 population is very whiny, there are some horrible noobs around and most of them don't want any kind of challenge, but that doesn't mean it can't change in time.

Well, it is what it is...I wouldn't be surprised if we had safe spaces on this server some months down the road and go full SJW mode.

all the statistics aside....the one thing that shows the imbalance is the relics.
having SIX relics up (and keeping them for a long period of time) is impossible to do unless you can just easily stomp any opposing force thats being thrown at you.

that said....its not only the winningteamjoiners that are to blame.
from an alb perspective....right now...its almost impossible to build a pug. and by pug i mean a full. group. of randoms.
many, many people have given up. and i cant blame them. im currently playing in a super low-RR friar-mincer duo....and even go out solo on my friar (altho im just food for 90% of all potential incs) just to help creating some form of activity. we roamed the whole FZ yesterday from 11pm to 2am....and had VERY few fights. and the fights we did get were vs. some high RR mid 4-5 man. super exciting. not. in the end we managed to kill a lone zerk we spotted near svasud. i underestimated his damage and got deleted by him. we almost lost the 2v1. so i invested quite some hours....got 2k rps in return (...) and donated about 7-8k. not one of the fights has been interesting. still im going to continue trying to play my subpar class in rvr, get something going and maybe motivate a few people, be it by giving them a good fight....or free rps.

while this may sound a bit "all over the place" all im trying to say is: for the sake of the server: stop with the pve derping. just get out there. create activity. i know, its frustrating to donate to mids over and over again (and its not like they care either. which i can understand....because LEL ARPEES) but just watch the killspam...avoid the midspam and just get out there and try. pretty please

hazelhimself wrote:all the statistics aside....the one thing that shows the imbalance is the relics.
having SIX relics up (and keeping them for a long period of time) is impossible to do unless you can just easily stomp any opposing force thats being thrown at you.

that said....its not only the winningteamjoiners that are to blame.
from an alb perspective....right now...its almost impossible to build a pug. and by pug i mean a full. group. of randoms.
many, many people have given up. and i cant blame them. im currently playing in a super low-RR friar-mincer duo....and even go out solo on my friar (altho im just food for 90% of all potential incs) just to help creating some form of activity. we roamed the whole FZ yesterday from 11pm to 2am....and had VERY few fights. and the fights we did get were vs. some high RR mid 4-5 man. super exciting. not. in the end we managed to kill a lone zerk we spotted near svasud. i underestimated his damage and got deleted by him. we almost lost the 2v1. so i invested quite some hours....got 2k rps in return (...) and donated about 7-8k. not one of the fights has been interesting. still im going to continue trying to play my subpar class in rvr, get something going and maybe motivate a few people, be it by giving them a good fight....or free rps.

while this may sound a bit "all over the place" all im trying to say is: for the sake of the server: stop with the pve derping. just get out there. create activity. i know, its frustrating to donate to mids over and over again (and its not like they care either. which i can understand....because LEL ARPEES) but just watch the killspam...avoid the midspam and just get out there and try. pretty please

On uthgard1 most strong groups switched to hib/alb as soon as Mid got the relics because most Mid groups(especially zergs) were free RPS. You can't imagine the level of noobs we have on Mid, but I guess having Romu is no picnic either. Honestly, I can't take you seriously because I can't imagine in what universe is it possible for a friar/minstrel duo to almost lose a fight to a solo zerk, you should probably ask someone how to play your class. Granted, you are weak to crush and most zerkers are hammer spec but friar is still a 1v1 nightmare for many classes, especially in duo.

Valfar wrote:
On uthgard1 most strong groups switched to hib/alb as soon as Mid got the relics because most Mid groups(especially zergs) were free RPS. You can't imagine the level of noobs we have on Mid, but I guess having Romu is no picnic either. Honestly, I can't take you seriously because I can't imagine in what universe is it possible for a friar/minstrel duo to almost lose a fight to a solo zerk, you should probably ask someone how to play your class. Granted, you are weak to crush and most zerkers are hammer spec but friar is still a 1v1 nightmare for many classes, especially in duo.

haha i totally get you, mate.
the thing is...my mincer buddy is....not a very skilled pvp player and im rusty af as well. i just got hit for 600+ on capped swingspeed (well im sure he didnt have cele...but he WAS hitting fast ) 3 times in a row. and my friar has 1.6k hp. i got deleted. (high end template, dodger II, MoParry I atm)

(also....if you think friars are a nightmare in 1v1 - lel - just kite em, bro a friar cant touch anyone except for some low sneak who thinks ur a caster. or people that just /stick and hope for the best)

hazelhimself wrote:

Valfar wrote:
On uthgard1 most strong groups switched to hib/alb as soon as Mid got the relics because most Mid groups(especially zergs) were free RPS. You can't imagine the level of noobs we have on Mid, but I guess having Romu is no picnic either. Honestly, I can't take you seriously because I can't imagine in what universe is it possible for a friar/minstrel duo to almost lose a fight to a solo zerk, you should probably ask someone how to play your class. Granted, you are weak to crush and most zerkers are hammer spec but friar is still a 1v1 nightmare for many classes, especially in duo.

haha i totally get you, mate.
the thing is...my mincer buddy is....not a very skilled pvp player and im rusty af as well. i just got hit for 600+ on capped swingspeed 3 times in a row. and my friar has 1.6k hp. i got deleted. (high end template, dodger II, MoParry I atm)

(also....if you think friars are a nightmare in 1v1 - lel - just kite em, bro a friar cant touch anyone except for some low sneak who thinks ur a caster. or people that just /stick and hope for the best)

Hmmm well I can't kite a friar with a zerk . And on some other classes if you kite them, they can run the other way for a few secs and fully heal. I guess maybe low RR is to blame, but you should have side snare, no? A bit of practice and side styles pretty much become anytime styles and it's hard to run from a friar. Ok, atm you don't have a strcon charge but you compensate with having real con buff and not the pot + other bases are real bases. I hear you though, I think a friar would be much more competitive if we had an environment where people respected fights(not all people, to a degree red is dead mentality is needed) and you'd get a lot more pure 1v1 fights. Again, it is what it is. Even though I'm annoyed by the old RAs and dumb patch level, it would pretty much be alright if the population was more active in game and less on forums. Many good players/groups are gone forever and we have what we have, it is a circus atm. I like your attitude of trying to play regardless, hopefully more people embrace it.

Valfar wrote:
Hmmm well I can't kite a friar with a zerk . And on some other classes if you kite them, they can run the other way for a few secs and fully heal. I guess maybe low RR is to blame, but you should have side snare, no? A bit of practice and side styles pretty much become anytime styles and it's hard to run from a friar. Ok, atm you don't have a strcon charge but you compensate with having real con buff and not the pot + other bases are real bases. I hear you though, I think a friar would be much more competitive if we had an environment where people respected fights(not all people, to a degree red is dead mentality is needed) and you'd get a lot more pure 1v1 fights. Again, it is what it is. Even though I'm annoyed by the old RAs and dumb patch level, it would pretty much be alright if the population was more active in game and less on forums. Many good players/groups are gone forever and we have what we have, it is a circus atm. I like your attitude of trying to play regardless, hopefully more people embrace it.

true :> and well ofc...you can run and heal up. but healing yourself to 100% doesnt give rps sadly and yup, i do have sidesnare. but how to make it an anytimer i dont know :c im a casterplayer, dude! im using strcon pots....which is fine for me. 100hp extra for minimal effort and cost.

and i completely agree with your statement. im not asking for 1v1s...im not asking for fair fights....im asking for people to get out there and have some fun together. i used to whine a LOT about the rvr situation without actually trying to fix it myself. so dont think im the knight in shiny armor here. but im determined to try my best to save this server. devs are ACTUALLY listening now. the server setting is absolutely glorious. (well except for old RAs but thats a matter of taste after all. plus i dont have any RR anyway huehue.) now we just lack people. motivated people.

also: please be gentle next time you rip me a new one

hazelhimself wrote:

Valfar wrote:
Hmmm well I can't kite a friar with a zerk . And on some other classes if you kite them, they can run the other way for a few secs and fully heal. I guess maybe low RR is to blame, but you should have side snare, no? A bit of practice and side styles pretty much become anytime styles and it's hard to run from a friar. Ok, atm you don't have a strcon charge but you compensate with having real con buff and not the pot + other bases are real bases. I hear you though, I think a friar would be much more competitive if we had an environment where people respected fights(not all people, to a degree red is dead mentality is needed) and you'd get a lot more pure 1v1 fights. Again, it is what it is. Even though I'm annoyed by the old RAs and dumb patch level, it would pretty much be alright if the population was more active in game and less on forums. Many good players/groups are gone forever and we have what we have, it is a circus atm. I like your attitude of trying to play regardless, hopefully more people embrace it.

true :> and well ofc...you can run and heal up. but healing yourself to 100% doesnt give rps sadly and yup, i do have sidesnare. but how to make it an anytimer i dont know :c im a casterplayer, dude! im using strcon pots....which is fine for me. 100hp extra for minimal effort and cost.

and i completely agree with your statement. im not asking for 1v1s...im not asking for fair fights....im asking for people to get out there and have some fun together. i used to whine a LOT about the rvr situation without actually trying to fix it myself. so dont think im the knight in shiny armor here. but im determined to try my best to save this server. devs are ACTUALLY listening now. the server setting is absolutely glorious. (well except for old RAs but thats a matter of taste after all. plus i dont have any RR anyway huehue.) now we just lack people. motivated people.

also: please be gentle next time you rip me a new one

Haha, say no more . Btw, I don't think they're listening tbh. They're just paranoid because another server is out, if it weren't for the "other server", we'd still have 1 charge pots etc., even though some of them say "the veil has been lifted and this was the plan all along" xD...yeah, the plan was to get the population as low as they can to see how quickly can they rise from the ashes like a certain mythical bird which oddly enough shares the name with the other server. I guess for some people it takes a lot to be a man and admit you were wrong about something, instead they resort to such claims which even the most delusional and dumbest of people can't buy at this point...that shows how much respect that person has for community's intelligence and by extension how much respect does this person have for them as human beings .

I think most of the staff has good intentions but hmmm in my humble opinion they have made many bad choices, probably because of their refusal to learn anything about basic human psychology. But hey, they are capable. I just hope any future changes will be productive and not just candy to keep people around because the other server is out there. We'll see how it goes. Honestly, the best thing to do would be just to get uth1 back online but even then I doubt that more than 50% of that population would come back. It is what it is, I'm sure most of GMs and devs mean well but the situation is confusing at times, we'll see how it goes .

While I do agree with what unicorn wrote, it really is a double-edged blade afterall. In times of low population and having the most constant playerbase, it sure helps being able to more easily build pugs around a few classes played efficiently, however it turns quickly into being a disadvantage, a burden really when the opposing team - especially alb - gets a decent group together with people somewhat knowing their class, assisting on MA and listening to driver/leader.
Sure it's convenient to have constant endurance and for that matter speed6 all the time without any effort, compared to mainmezzer/driver having to twist all the time or the need to have Pala switch on and off all the time. The pro about this is, your peeler, who happens to be a full tank blockbot with highest AF has to be aware all the time - as he should be in RvR - and even more important you don't lose endurance and buffs mid fight, when the opposing team succeeds in taking out the disease-farting low-hp kobold.

I fully agree with what spymistress mentions and think it's the most fair adaptation for all the realms, while not dis-/advantaging any realm over the others.
No realm should be able to possess all six relics this easily, but rather have to put great efforts into keeping them or getting all back.
A raid at 4:30 am european time should simply not be possible with two fgs, and yeah I do understand it's only a problem during times of low population and I've seen the epic hours long relic fights when pop was high, but that's not the situation anymore and it only works with a constant playerbase above 600 people.