I Don't Understand

[LLogann]

Darn You!  You're always right!!!     <S>

Take a look at the timestamps. TnDep couldn't see my post as he was writing his - we were posting literally at the same moment.

[morfiend]

It's very simple:

The cap on Orange is depending on player numbers in Blue.

LWO: 114/100
LWB  104/150    <- now just one player less than the 105 needed to raise LWO cap.

One player enters LWB and now it's

LWO 114/200 -<- cap raised to 200 due to LWB having reached 70% of it'S capacity
LWB 105/150

Of course players will now rush into the arena with "more" players

LWO 118/200
LWB 105/150

And what happens if now someone leaves LWB? Right, LWO cap will drop again:

LWO 118/100  <- Cap dropped again due to LWB dropped under 70%
LWB 104/150

 Lusche....

 Your contributions to this community go above and beyond!

   

[Boxboy]

Set floors of each arena at say 300, do not start "balancing" till TOTAL number of players exceeds more than 300 THEN start "balancing".  

You then have a system that makes sure there are good fites during low population times of the day. My numbers are abritrary and subject to change but you get the idea.

[palef]

That is more a question about why there are split arenas at all, not how and by what way numbers are distributed between them. That's a different thing, and there are countless threads about it and HTC has stated why the split was done.

The explanation remains nonsensical to this day.

[JunkyII]

 Lusche....

 Your contributions to this community go above and beyond!

   

he always has the answer to everything

[Lusche]

Set floors of each arena at say 300, do not start "balancing" till TOTAL number of players exceeds more than 300 THEN start "balancing".  

Sounds nice at first.. but you only delay and amplify the problem:

LWO 300/300
LWB 20/350

That's even worse, because now it will take much, much longer for LWB to get to any acceptable numbers.
Remember, during the non-peak hours, there cap is at 400 already. When it's activated at US noon, it's dropping to 100 so that LWB gets numbers as quickly as possible. I don't like that stuff too, because it's happening at my primetime, but after doing some calculations I came to the opinion that it seems to be least "painful" way. I wish there was a better one, but unfortunately I haven't seen any yet

You can find the simulation I ran here: http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/index.php/topic,258987.msg3213688/topicseen.html#msg3213688. I found out that just by raising the minimum cap to 200 instead of 100, it would take more than double the time for LWB to get to 100 players than it does now.

[RTHolmes]

Set floors of each arena at say 300, do not start "balancing" till TOTAL number of players exceeds more than 300 THEN start "balancing".  

You then have a system that makes sure there are good fites during low population times of the day. My numbers are abritrary and subject to change but you get the idea.

agreed, although I would make it min cap 400.

The explanation remains nonsensical to this day.

also agreed, the logic behind balanced arenas/preventing hording doesnt stand up to scrutiny. the way its implemented may prevent the situation where too many players in one arena ruins the chance of decent fights, it does not however address the problem that there is also a minimum number of players in an arena to create decent fights.

Sounds nice at first.. but you only delay and amplify the problem

disagree here. you do move the point at which the cap effects players, but the effects are reduced dramatically. lets compare min caps of 100 and 400. assuming players will generally go to the arena with the most numbers (anecdotally true), the caps kick in when there are 100 and 400 players resp. at that point the other arena starts to fill up. the difference is that with a 400 min-cap, the other arena will fill up 4x as fast, meaning the 2nd arena gets to the minimum numbers for a decent fight 4x as fast.




edit: another effect of the sudden (and inexplicable to me) drop from min-cap 400 to 100 is that it locks in any team imbalance in that arena. the imbalance is then amplified as players from the outnumbered team leave and arent replaced.

[Lusche]

disagree here. you do move the point at which the cap effects players, but the effects are reduced dramatically. lets compare min caps of 100 and 400. assuming players will generally go to the arena with the most numbers (anecdotally true), the caps kick in when there are 100 and 400 players resp. at that point the other arena starts to fill up. the difference is that with a 400 min-cap, the other arena will fill up 4x as fast, meaning the 2nd arena gets to the minimum numbers for a decent fight 4x as fast.

Did you follow my link?

Why should the 2nd arena fill up  4x as fast just because the 1st one has a cap of 400? Where are those additional players coming from?

[RTHolmes]

yes i did follow the link, but it doesnt help me much because it only samples part of the day. to provide a proper analysis I would need the data for unique player logins (ie. excluding relogs to beat the caps) over a typical day, cant see HTC providing that data somehow ...

I didnt mean "fill up" the 2nd arena completely, plainly a 400 cap will take alot longer to fill than a 100 cap at the same rate (4x as long in fact). I mean the rate at which the 2nd arena fills up, or put another way, the time it takes for the 2nd arena to go from 0 players to the min required by that map for a decent fight - say 200.

4x is almost certainly too high, but it will fill up quicker, because the rate at which players are joining is alot higher at 400 total than 100 total. even on your linked graph, the rate at which players are joining at 300 total is almost triple the rate at 150 total.

[danny37]

lol,arena cap in orange atm 196/100
87/150 in blue and rooks have an eny of 29

[Bizman]

That situation is very common in early Finnish prime time, at about 8 - 9PM. Today (saturday) while enjoying myself at the Vaasa Annual International AH Meeting I had the opportunity to play during daytime, and to my surprise the numbers were like 150/400 and 40/400! The situation "normalized" when afternoon turned to evening.

I don't know if things are like that every day.

[MORAY37]

It makes me laugh that the same people who complain about arena caps ("I can't get into X arena because there're too many people in it.....") are the same people that complain about getting ganged and horded when they finally get into the arena that is full of peeps.

No matter which arena you pick, you can find a fight.  I always go to the arena with lower numbers.  I'm much more likely to find good, solid fights there..and not see massive horde missions, either.

[MORAY37]

lol,arena cap in orange atm 196/100
87/150 in blue and rooks have an eny of 29

It's not tough. 

1) Go to blue
2) Change country to bish or knit.
3) Have fun. 
4) Stop complaining.

[TnDep]

Darn You!  You're always right!!!     <S>

Yes he is, although sometimes the reading gets long most of the time I do read the second post if I know it's there  but it did look alittle goofy I admit.