Campaign Performance

ZOS_BrianWheeler

This thread is for ongoing discussions about Cyrodiil performance as we continue to make adjustments now and in the coming months. Most recently, regarding the Cyrodiil performance questions and what's going on there with the recent changes to some abilities in case you missed ESO Live...and the fancy graph which is now a meme thread...

We have been making changes to abilities bit by bit to save calculation cycles on the server. Using the example of Hemorrhage, this ability would check an area around the size of a 2700 meter circle around the Nightblade which critically hit. The Hemorrhage ability would then apply a bonus (minor Savagery) to all allies in that area.

"All allies" can be 1 ally or 100 allies, but the ability system first needs to get ALL the entities in that area first...monsters, players, siege weapons, friend and foe, then sort that list out to find allies, then apply the bonus to them. Changing the ability to Group only cuts out a lot of sorting the server would have to do. That change has helped a little bit, but not a ton, so obviously we're still digging.

The reason we're looking at abilities and the combat system at it's roots, is clear when you look at the difference between non-veteran Campaigns and veteran campaigns as we stated on ESO Live. The non-veteran Campaigns have better performance than veteran allowed Campaigns, and the biggest difference between those are the players making up the population of those campaigns and how much more the server has to calculate when higher level players fight each other. Veteran players simply have more "stuff" on their characters that has to be cycled into every combat calculation on the server. This means all the passives, weapon procs, blocks, roll dodges, potions, food, all of it, add up to the server needing to check all of that every second. This is why we're looking into how they're structured and their functionality at their basic operation level and making changes for performance reasons as we see opportunities to improve how they function.

We are also looking at how the server handles information from combat itself, so not all changes are going to be ability based, but also at the root of the server and how it processes the info coming from combat, movement, items, etc. Some of these changes will be deep rooted in the server code and some will be a bit more front facing, but we're making changes not just Ability wise like you've seen recently, but also how the servers handle combat at their core. Basically anything that can effect your character we are digging into and applying updates to them as we come across what we believe will improve performance.

This is an ongoing effort which we are resolved to delivering a solid PVP experience in ALL Campaigns, and we thank you for wholeheartedly for your continued support of ESO!

Zheg

You've been vocal, and informative on the pvp forums over the last month or so Brian; its much appreciated.

While you look at these things, shameless plug for a lasting fix to the fall damage shenanigans players have been abusing. Dying to lag, overhwhelming numbers, being dumb, or even a loadscreen - I'm able to stomach (to a small extent). But when objective layout forces you onto inclines and all it takes is one meteor to oneshot you and anyone else near you because of crappy coding... high levels of salt are achieved. We've already established meteor is one of the worst offenders in lag, I'd request you guys finally fix fall damage when you try to improve the performance related calculations behind meteor.

Maybe after all of these ability fixes we can see a return to a healthy cyrodiil deer population

olsborg

Thanks for the info, atleast we know its an ongoing effort wich isnt sweeped under the rug, hope we see noticeable improvements sooner then later. Merry xmas.

Curragraigue

Keep up the good work Brian. Would love to be able to play in a lag free Cyrodiil.

Preyfar

Thanks for giving us a heads up. This really gives a lot of insight to the problems, so... I'm happy.

Satiar

Anything to make the lag better! I hate looking at some fights and knowing I can't win just because of the latency

Mumyo

That sounds bad tbh. I think u crossed a line with the champion system aswell. Guess its screwed forever except u really make HUUUGE changes to the game, like take many abilities entirely away and redesign the classes and every ability.
Like reset the damn game to the state of 1.3 maybe.
Would be smartest to get rid of the damn champion system anyway.

If i get this right anyway u should remove the whole templar class, it consists of aoe and channels.

Rune_Relic

Thanks for the update. Always appreciated.

Forztr

In non vet you rarely see Magicka Det, Meteor or groups so tightly packed that you can't count the individuals forming the group.

If I was you I'd take a deep look into how your code works when people are tightly packed together and I'd <cough> break Magicka Det and Meteor in PVP and see what happens.

Moglijuana

Forztr wrote: »

In non vet you rarely see Magicka Det, Meteor or groups so tightly packed that you can't count the individuals forming the group.

If I was you I'd take a deep look into how your code works when people are tightly packed together and I'd <cough> break Magicka Det and Meteor in PVP and see what happens.

Don't touch my meteor! I enjoy seeing people melt >=)

zerosingularity

Glad you are working on this and are vocal about it. This helps make the community relax a bit, which we all need.

Any chance we can get someone to look into the FPS drops as well? This is a major cause of lag complaints in Cyro, even though FPS drops are not the same as lag. Its one thing to have 500+ ping from zergballs, its another to have a slideshow of 5 FPS with minimum settings on high-end machines.

CP5

Just want to pop in so this thread sticks around in my list and to say thanks again for keeping the community in the loop. I'm enjoying this kind of communication and am glad to see it doesn't seem like it'll slow down, least from you.

Bashev

That's a post Brian. Nice one. We need more info like this and most of the players realize that the it is not an easy job to improve the performance.

Minno

@BrianWheeler what are the next skills being looked at?

Niaver

ZOS_BrianWheeler wrote: »

what we believe will improve performance.

When? And you are takling about server, so it's all about latency? What about FPS?

WebBull

Seems there is a strong belief that the lighting changes back in 1.2 (?) had a huge impact on performance. Is there any truth to this? If so, do the light changes for the regular servers have to be the same on the PvP servers? Can the light changes on the PvP servers only be reverted back?

Manoekin

WebBull wrote: »

Seems there is a strong belief that the lighting changes back in 1.2 (?) had a huge impact on performance. Is there any truth to this? If so, do the light changes for the regular servers have to be the same on the PvP servers? Can the light changes on the PvP servers only be reverted back?

The lighting patch only affected client FPS, as far as the actual lighting changes went. You would gradually lose frames until you were stuck at 1 or 2 forever until restarting the game. My FPS still hasn't recovered to what it was before that patch, but it's well enough to play the game. Obviously, a graphical patch like that is not going to improve performance FPS-wise...

Also, Brian can only change the conditions of the campaign. I don't think he can put an entirely different version of the game in one campaign from the rest of the game.

Rylana

Brian, make sure you check into how those tracking systems you mentioned tie in with the anti-bot system you put in place near the launch of the game.

Most of the server performance issues can be traced back directly to that patch, the same one as the lighting patch, but I do not believe the lighting was the cause, it was that constant "nanny software" to give it a name that may very well be compounding the issue when a lot of abilities are "spammed'

AbraXuSeXile

All you got to do is look at what you changed in 1.2.3, this was where it all went wrong.

Latency and FPS was flawless before then.

VincentBlanquin

"abilities bit by bit"

this you should doing from day one and you present it as new solution, pathetic

jrkhan

Rephrasing question from another thread:

When it comes time to apply damage to a player hit by an AOE ability,
do you know all the players that have been hit by that ability?

If so, and if the damage multiplier feature on Magika Detonation requires additional LOS checks, consider refactoring

Enodoc

What happens to all these abilities that are becoming group-based if you're not in a group?

Bashev

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

All you got to do is look at what you changed in 1.2.3, this was where it all went wrong.

Latency and FPS was flawless before then.

Brian answered this question in the last ESO live. He said that they investigated the lightening patch and they concluded that there is no issues with it. The problem with the performance is noticeable around 1.2.3 because most of the players reached high rank at that time and more passive should be calculated.

Jhunn

Perfomance has gotten worse every update. I find it hard to believe this is because of player abilities. Something deep in this game has been f*cked since patch you-know-which.

Turelus

Thanks for the thread Biran, it's really nice to have open dialogue with the developers here and you've really been leading by example with that.

I'm not sure on the legality of it regarding it's another companies idea but have you or anyone else looked into CCP Games Brain in a Box idea they developed?

The idea of it IIRC was that rather than have the server run checks on every single item/resistance etc. when a hit takes place it would do this upon loading the solar system and giving you a static value in defences and offences this way when a hit took place it wouldn't have to do as much working out on.

I could be way off with the explanation as it was a couple of years ago that I attended the talk about what they were doing, either way when you get some free time it might be worth a Google search if only to inspire some other ideas about mitigating lag and reducing server load.

AbraXuSeXile

Bashev wrote: »

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

All you got to do is look at what you changed in 1.2.3, this was where it all went wrong.

Latency and FPS was flawless before then.

Brian answered this question in the last ESO live. He said that they investigated the lightening patch and they concluded that there is no issues with it. The problem with the performance is noticeable around 1.2.3 because most of the players reached high rank at that time and more passive should be calculated.

Its a lie, i was running a train before 1.2.3 getting into 3 way fights with other trains. No lag.

lighting patch gave us weeks of issues and never recovered, when they fixed fps the latency was broke.

Jhunn

Seems funny how player abilities and passives suddenly from one patch to another gave us this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irbdQQjVX3o

eliisra

Jhunn wrote: »

Seems funny how player abilities and passives suddenly from one patch to another gave us this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irbdQQjVX3o

That's the FPS drop/bug in Cyrodiil after 1.2.3. You suddenly got 2-5 fps and had to relogg to get rid of it, than came back again and again.

Only took Zenimax 2 incremental patches to identify and fix

The game never really recovered performance wise after the lighting patch, even after they(partly) got rid of the sudden fps drop. So most original ESO players thinks it's still somehow related to ongoing performance issues.

I find the explanation about "unlocking skills" a bit hard to believe myself. But I also doubt it's those little shadows on the ground causing today's slide show.

Turelus

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

I find the explanation about "unlocking skills" a bit hard to believe myself. But I also doubt it's those little shadows on the ground causing today's slide show.

I don't think he meant the unlocking of the skills themselves but the fact in a Veteran campaign there are a vast number of additional different skills being used, added to that end game armours with effects, champion points etc.

All together this gives the servers more information to process and calculate.

Still, it's good to see they're opening a dialogue and updating the community on what they're doing and looking into. Before everyone bashes them too much remember that the alternative to Brian posting here is returning to the days when we didn't hear a peep from a developer and the only way we knew something was being addressed was when it hit patch notes.

BuggeX

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

Bashev wrote: »

AbraXuSeXile wrote: »

All you got to do is look at what you changed in 1.2.3, this was where it all went wrong.

Latency and FPS was flawless before then.

Brian answered this question in the last ESO live. He said that they investigated the lightening patch and they concluded that there is no issues with it. The problem with the performance is noticeable around 1.2.3 because most of the players reached high rank at that time and more passive should be calculated.

Its a lie, i was running a train before 1.2.3 getting into 3 way fights with other trains. No lag.

lighting patch gave us weeks of issues and never recovered, when they fixed fps the latency was broke.

try not to zerg arround at azuras for one week, im sure you will notice how mutch better it will be..........

Weberda

Well I hate to break it to em' but game performance is pretty bad across the board. FPS drops and lousy latency occurs anywhere now where you find more than 4 players and 3 junebugs. A prime example is Orsinium. On the bright side Craglorn has improved considerably since everyone packed up and moved to Wrothgar.