Analysis of District Grouping in Season 3 and Allied Servers
This is an AD-HOC report and will be a very brief analysis of the District Grouping in Season 3. In my humble opinion, the grouping of servers in each District will be fair if they can meet two general criteria:
(a) Similar number of active players
Total number of active players in each district should be similar other districts as far as possible. This is because rewards given out per district are exactly the same. Hence a district with a very low number of active players would benefit disproportionately to a district with a high number of players.
(b) Similar power levels and close to each other in terms of server age
Again, in order to ensure rewards are awarded as fairly as possible between servers, each server grouped should be of similar power levels. It is important to note that the more senior the server (i.e. older the server), the higher their base power is generally due to receiving more free story rewards and progression over time. Grouping junior servers with senior servers tend to disadvantage these junior servers.
We will now assess whether the District Grouping in Season 2 and 3 meets the above criteria:
1. Season 2 District Grouping
Firstly we will look at how Districts were formed in Season 2 and what criteria did Lilith used. I am able to perform a reasonably comprehensive analysis on this as over 90 Districts were directly surveyed in mid November 2024.
From the review of Districts, Lilith had attempted to aggregate these districts as to around approximately 1K players per district. There are certain outliers, most notably the most Senior Districts which comprised of the earliest servers. These servers had higher active players and were significantly stronger. Lilith chose to group these stronger servers in the same district to ensure that each server in the same district were of similar strength.
From the way the servers were aggregated, we can see that the most of the top 150 S-servers of similar strength were aggregated in similar districts. Green = strong server, red = weaker server.
Further we can see that on average, developers chose to ensure that servers were aggregated based on similar starting dates to ensure each server were competitive and started on an equal footing. Hence most servers that were grouped in a district were within a 20-server range.
Applying the 2 criteria above, we can see that almost all districts have an active playerbase of around 1K+ players and the servers are of comparable strength. No junior servers were included in districts with senior servers as most of the servers in a district were of a similar age.
2. Season 3 District Grouping
Take note that I am working off an EXTREMELY limited sample size of 22 districts only. This is meant to draw comparison of the methodology developers used to group servers into District in Season 2 vs Season 3. There is NO SURVEY carried out, the 'guesstimates' below are based on information I obtained from other players as well as my own educated estimate of server size and strength of players in the respective servers.
Based on my analysis, I find there is no substantial change in Lilith's methodology for Season 3 except for one signficant change, namely 'Junior whale-bait servers' being grouped with Senior Servers to make up the numbers.
This is NOT as horrible as it sounds. These whale bait servers generally have a very low number of active players, below 100. However there are about a core of 50++ players that are competitive and have high base power. By allying these servers with the more competitive Senior Servers, the strong players in these Junior servers can join the Stronger Guilds in the senior servers. Both servers win, since SERVER rewards still remain the same even when servers are allied with one another.
The overall aims are still achieved. namely to ensure each district has a similar number of average active players and that the relative power levels between servers remain as small as practicable. The most obvious examples of 'Junior whale-bait servers' as follows:
1. D13 consisting of S19, S36 and S508
The reason is mainly for expediency. S508 being a weak server would have been generally noncompetitive no matter which district they were placed in. Hence they were added to D13 to make up the numbers (or to put it more crudely as 'whale bait')
2. D108 consisting of S209, S394, S371 and S606
Again, S606 has less than 110 active players and only approximately 100 players are competitive. As such it didn't really matter which District they are placed in, hence the anomaly of a junior server being placed with senior servers.
3. D137 consisting of S300, S620, S364 and S590
S620 had 83 players attacking the Dream Realm Boss on first day of season 3. Out of these, probably only 60++ players are competitive. Hence they were allied with S620 in the hopes that the combined S300+620 servers can form more competitive guilds.
Conclusion:
This only a very preliminary analysis, so further work such as surveys may be required to further confirm this. However, I am satisfied that the aggregation of the servers by Districts has been done in a fair and consistent manner as in Season 2.