Faction balance in shards

PVP War Mode and World PvP
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In a 50/50 forced balanced zone and queue situation, all wm players will have to be somewhere while in queue. Assume a temporary single faction shard. Then, their queue pops, and they join a forced 50/50 balance shard. Disappear from one, appear in another. That would be extra in itself, however…

Zones have natural fluctuation, players traveling to and from zone. To maintain 50/50, excess players will constantly be kicked to or go straight to a single faction queue shard for that zone. Players already in that balanced shard will see a lot more appearing and disappearing.

And anyway… if a zone is perfect 50/50 balance… what’s stopping X players being concentrated in one area like a base, and the rest spread in zone. Even tho forced balance and its drawbacks introduced, still have outnumbering, and same forum complaints.

Ok… then force 50/50 queuing per subzone. Problem, even more appearing and disappearing. The more strict it gets, the more player shuffling is required to maintain it.

With forced 50/50, still there will be complaints.

What we have now basically works. It has imperfections. But they can be lived with. Alternatives I’ve seen always have worse drawbacks. That’s why we have the current design.

Tools like lfg are just part of the game. Players control how it’s used. If a raid is too op in a zone, it already gets kicked out of shard. Fair enough.

40

I’m not sure if this is how sharding already works, but what if there is a x % more of a faction, then it just puts a cap for that faction, and only allow people from, the other faction until it balances out.

41

There is one problem: XRealm. How is Blizz supposed to balance numbers of players, if they themselves frequently change it by building and disbanding XRealm-groups and even entire raids within seconds?

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42

Let me start off by saying that I am not a fan of sharding. I prefer realms where the population is more static.

I think Blizzard is currently having problems with optimizing the algo that is taking care of player allocation and thats one of the major reasons for the lag we are experiencing. As people are constantly coming and going, the servers need to constantly calculate who is going where. If this is true, most probably actively controlling shards is not a good idea in general.

Anyway, I am sure that Blizz is using some sort of algo to maintain some sort of balance. I dont know how they have defined that balance but the result is that the servers are slow and shards are unbalanced :smiley:

What I see as a potential flaw is that people get into groups just to change shards. So when I am questing in Mechagon and my bro is questing in Nazjatar but he is getting pwned by horde and he asks me for invite so he can change shards. I am pretty sure that this happens all the time when it actually shouldnt be like that. You should only get sharded together when you are in one zone.

I know I havent answered the question “How is Blizz supposed to balance numbers of players” but I cant answer for them. I am just paying my sub. and thats it :slight_smile:

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43

I agree to your post on every single point.

I could literally quote every single line/sentence of your posting and comment it with a “I totally agree”, “this!” or “signed”.

That is exactly what I think about this whole stuff but you put it on paper in a knowledgeable way. Thanks for that.

It’s quite a timesaver for me as I simply need to quote this one from now on. :grin:

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44

Stop it, you… :))

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45

Maybe it’s working as intended, and lag is not a general issue, but only an issue for some. Just like there are other issues for some but not all. Unfortunate, but the affected can try to identify cause of lag issues in tech support forum.

I don’t experience this severe lag all the time, once some brief minor lag in nazjatar, others say no lag. There’s more to this than a blizz tech issue. Sure, could be part of it, but not all.

I’ve heard some say, it’s a Blizz issue because YouTube, etc. works fine. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a Blizz issue. This post takes you through a process to identify what the connection issue is.

I doubt it’s the number of players entering/leaving shard. There is already a limiter that kicks in, and shunts excess out of your shard to another shard. For example, when naz battle starts, I create instant x shard 40 raid via lfg. All those players entering shard in very short time, and ofc Horde doing same, no lag for me. Seems like players changing shard is not an issue for lag in general.

But there is something causing lag. Enough complain to know something is happening. If I ever get lag, it tends to be brief, and not that bad. I’ve only noticed it once since 8.2, and maybe twice since 8.0. It could be different things for different people. If not already done, worth ruling out these connection troubleshooting solutions, because tech support will likely do nothing for you until that is tried.

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46

Hello Vaëyn,

Thank you for this post, I will go over the steps you’ve recommended even-though I am pretty sure that the problem is not on my side.

I am suspecting that there is some sort of a problem, because I see many others compaining at the same time as me:

I am questing in Nazj and everything is great and then suddenly the PvP event begins and I have a huge delay. Please note that this delay is not reflected by the system so it shows 40 ms world ping and then when I input commands they are executed with 3000 ms delay.

I dont know why or how but I am pretty sure it’s not me.

Still, I will check your links out and a big thanks for the post.

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47

No problem. I’m not saying it isn’t a Blizz issue, could be 100% them. But, when some experience lag but others don’t, at same time in same shard, suggests there’s more to this. Internet is complicated, could be many reasons.

When multiple in same shard having lag…

I wonder if worse affected in certain locations, based on zone chat lag reporting. In our region, those in one shard experiencing lag at same time, are they all from same general vicinity in EU, like Scandanavia… not saying that’s the case, just saw that suggestion in zone chat.

When any person experiences lag…

Are they confusing fps with connection.
Or is pc internet security software overly scanning wow’s connection.
Or are they on wireless connection.
Or router issue.
Or a thousand other possibilties.

I’ve seen someone say they did the troubleshooting but still lag, while another said slight improvement. The troubleshooting steps need ruled out as the issue though, process of elimination.

It’s this support thread that interests me, because the poster eventually was able to post their diagnostic info, tech support pointed out possible issue “You are loosing data right when you connect to your router.”, but poster never bothered to say if issue resolved.

Anyway, good luck. Helps to at least rule things out. If it’s a blizz issue, odd that only a % are affected.

48

How do you know he has 15 120’s? something on profile or just an assumption?

49

I think there has been an optimization in the sharding as now I am able to fight 100 v 100 in Nazjatar without lag.

50

Maybe for yours but people from Ragnaros still complain about lag in chat when the battle is up

51

So lag is related to the realm you are on? Would be interesting to see if any from Outland experience lag, since I’m on that realm but don’t lag.

My understanding is that you’re on a wm shard, not your realm, during wm. But maybe realm could somehow be tied to issue.

I also wondered if location was relevant, being in a paricular section of eu like scandanavia for example.

52

Slickdi? poke :slight_smile:

53

When I play on my sham on Stormscale, alliance always outnumber horde overwhelmingly. When I play my priest on Tarren Mill, it’s the other way around. Neither experience is good, cause I like world pvp.

54

Ye, but in wm you are not on a realm.

55

RP realms still shard the same, there is more than 1 shard on the RP realms + I see the Green named fool is back. Should go back into the closet love and stop talking about topics that you have no clue about.

As for RP shards there’s so many different shards which in end makes it difficult to even see anyone, also LFG screws up sharding becuase you fill up a shard with your pathetic LFG and then people get put onto the next shard how about just bring back servers.

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I cant recall. I think I’d met him on the forums recently before I wrote it so I knew. Is it that important? lol. rhetorical question :smiley:

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not really important, just wasn’t sure if i was missing something when viewing profiles. Was curious as I’m quite an alt w**re :stuck_out_tongue:

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