Official Discussion Thread for "ESO's Performance Improvements Plan"

ZOS_JessicaFolsom

This is the official discussion thread for the ESO's Performance Improvements Plan blog article.

We’re working hard to make sure The Elder Scrolls Online runs as best as it possibly can. Read our plan for the game’s upcoming performance improvements from ESO’s Creative Director Rich Lambert and check back monthly for status updates.

SantieClaws

This one would just like to suggest that, during the month of everyone download again, that you might want to make the daily login rewards reflect that, for some travellers, they may lose several days on the downloading and installing again.

If that makes any sense ...

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

Jolipinator

Patching Overhaul sounds so delicious.

perditioner

As part of the Q1 2020 Faster-loading art fixtures and characters, can you please, please, please change the load order so that NPCs load before other players? It currently takes more than 2 minutes on PS4/EU (PS4 Pro) to collect pledges as you are waiting for the NPCs to load in, and this is a significant issue if your queue has popped. Not to mention it doubles the chance that you accidentally steal the weapons next to them (who put them there!?). If I'm in a hurry I don't care what players are wearing.

Even if the load times for players are reduced, it still makes no sense to prioritise loading of the players first as I'm much more likey to want to interact with the NPC. This has been and issue and annoyance since launch.

pauli133

First - I'm very happy to see posts like this. I'm glad there is visible proof that progress is planned, and that the team is willing to stick their necks out and give an outline of this sort. I also like the format: here's what we're doing, here's what that means, and here's what that means for players. Slick.

Some comments:

NOTE: Every ESO player, on every platform, will have to re-download the game client when this change happens, probably with the launch of Update 25

This is going to be brutal for players on metered connections (seemingly most of Australia, for instance), and I hope you can find some methods for helping them ameliorate the sudden hit. Pre-staging blocks of data, salvaging/converting as much existing client data as possible, etc. I don't like the thought of losing guildmates because they just can't afford to re-download the game.

Account Database “Cold Storage”
There are millions of accounts in our database. The goal of this task is to split the character database into “active” and “inactive” shards to remove the need to pool all the character records for all logins
User Experience: Faster account login and character loads
NOTE: Players logging in for the first time after being inactive for a few years will notice an initial longer load while their account is transferred from inactive to active

Good! Just remember to let players getting that slow load know that they are being defrosted.

blnchk

Fantastic read. I agree with Pauli above: Listing what each change means for users is immensely helpful and makes the whole process that much more transparent. Well done. And please, release more articles like this in the future.

frostz417

Alright, awesome. Finally got a plan, now let’s see if you can make it happen

ZOS_GinaBruno

SantieClaws wrote: »

This one would just like to suggest that, during the month of everyone download again, that you might want to make the daily login rewards reflect that, for some travellers, they may lose several days on the downloading and installing again.

If that makes any sense ...

Yours with paws
Santie Claws

We've passed this feedback along to the team responsible for the daily rewards. Good callout, thanks!

Olauron

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Behind-the-scenes combat ability improvements phase 1
This is the first of an ongoing initiative to rewrite some of the more consumptive combat abilities to lesson server load
User Experience: This is the first of many behind-the-scenes combat optimizations and may not have a huge impact, but over time this will lessen the server load and allow smoother and more responsive combat with larger groups

Some proposals:
1. Consider decreasing the amount of DoT abilities working simultaneously. Make it so only one DoT from one (player) character could influence any enemy creature (or (enemy) player character) at a given time. If you cast another DoT skill on the same enemy it will remove previously cast DoT. This will not only increase server performance, it will decrease maximum obtainable DPS (that you are now decreasing through nerfs) and also decrease the gap of DPS between novice and top players.
2. Consider removing light attack weaving. Even introducing auto-attack instead weaving will increase server performance as you will decrease player input up to two times.

Haink

Thank you for posting this. It was well past due but very much needed.

xTarrant

I'm excited about the LFG system. Any chance we get a group finder where we can post listings for trials and harder dungeon objectives rather than spam craglorn?

VaranisArano

With the Q1 Update 25 changes:
"We need to refresh ESO’s patching and file manifest data to remove duplicate files and older data that is no longer needed. This will result in a major reduction of space taken up by the client on the player’s local hard drive. "

Are there any plans to change the way extra languages and voice over files are handled for players who only use 1 language?

For example, if I only intend to use the English voiceovers, do I need to redownload the French and German files?

Aliyavana

Olauron wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Behind-the-scenes combat ability improvements phase 1
This is the first of an ongoing initiative to rewrite some of the more consumptive combat abilities to lesson server load
User Experience: This is the first of many behind-the-scenes combat optimizations and may not have a huge impact, but over time this will lessen the server load and allow smoother and more responsive combat with larger groups

Some proposals:
1. Consider decreasing the amount of DoT abilities working simultaneously. Make it so only one DoT from one (player) character could influence any enemy creature (or (enemy) player character) at a given time. If you cast another DoT skill on the same enemy it will remove previously cast DoT. This will not only increase server performance, it will decrease maximum obtainable DPS (that you are now decreasing through nerfs) and also decrease the gap of DPS between novice and top players.
2. Consider removing light attack weaving. Even introducing auto-attack instead weaving will increase server performance as you will decrease player input up to two times.

Lol no

VaranisArano

For Q2 Cold Storage, before that rolls out can you communicate the cut off dates for "inactive" accounts and how long it takes for an account to become "inactive"?

terry2040

Please find a way to get rid of those farming bots. Less bots, less server load, and better performance for everyone else.

code65536

VaranisArano wrote: »

With the Q1 Update 25 changes:
"We need to refresh ESO’s patching and file manifest data to remove duplicate files and older data that is no longer needed. This will result in a major reduction of space taken up by the client on the player’s local hard drive. "

Are there any plans to change the way extra languages and voice over files are handled for players who only use 1 language?

For example, if I only intend to use the English voiceovers, do I need to redownload the French and German files?

This is already how it works on PC. If you have English selected, you don't get the German or French VO files.

So why do you see the German or French VO files on your hard drive? That's Steam's fault. If you have the Steam version, you first download the entire game from Steam (except it's a somewhat older version and contains things like the extra language VOs), and then the ZOS updater updates the data to the current version (without removing the extraneous data that the Steam downloader dumped onto your system).

Players of the Steam version have a very bad user experience right now, because they are doing extra downloading because the initial Steam download is of old game data and contains extraneous data and they need to immediately do a patch afterwards. The Steam download should just be a skeleton version containing only the launcher.

Merlight

SantieClaws wrote: »

This one would just like to suggest that, during the month of everyone download again, that you might want to make the daily login rewards reflect that, for some travellers, they may lose several days on the downloading and installing again.

If that makes any sense ...

Negative, fur. None. ZOS outlines their plan to address long-standing technical issues, and some unravellers freak out over missing their daily fix of REWARDs.

Enodoc

code65536 wrote: »

Players of the Steam version have a very bad user experience right now, because they are doing extra downloading because the initial Steam download is of old game data and contains extraneous data and they need to immediately do a patch afterwards. The Steam download should just be a skeleton version containing only the launcher.

I didn't realise Steam did that... as you say, Steam should definitely only download the launcher itself, and let the launcher download the rest, as that's how the purchase off the ESO website works. The user experience should be essentially the same regardless of where you buy the game from.

devildog13_93

terry2040 wrote: »

Please find a way to get rid of those farming bots. Less bots, less server load, and better performance for everyone else.

I agree with this and most of us do to, starter zones are completely inhabitated by farming bots, so much so that it starts to get really laggy in some areas and newer players and veteran players alike are unable to farm mats. They're on very intricate loops to get Evey piece as soon as materials spawn in.

No_Division

any plans to look into the Akamai server ping for our oceanic brethren? They get 300 ping on good days and its a source of pain for ALOT of players in cyro/pvp.

VaranisArano

code65536 wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

With the Q1 Update 25 changes:
"We need to refresh ESO’s patching and file manifest data to remove duplicate files and older data that is no longer needed. This will result in a major reduction of space taken up by the client on the player’s local hard drive. "

Are there any plans to change the way extra languages and voice over files are handled for players who only use 1 language?

For example, if I only intend to use the English voiceovers, do I need to redownload the French and German files?

This is already how it works on PC. If you have English selected, you don't get the German or French VO files.

So why do you see the German or French VO files on your hard drive? That's Steam's fault. If you have the Steam version, you first download the entire game from Steam (except it's a somewhat older version and contains things like the extra language VOs), and then the ZOS updater updates the data to the current version (without removing the extraneous data that the Steam downloader dumped onto your system).

Players of the Steam version have a very bad user experience right now, because they are doing extra downloading because the initial Steam download is of old game data and contains extraneous data and they need to immediately do a patch afterwards. The Steam download should just be a skeleton version containing only the launcher.

Huh. So Steam is the culprit. Interesting! Thanks for clarifying that.

knudsen

Olauron wrote: »

Some proposals:
1. Consider decreasing the amount of DoT abilities working simultaneously. Make it so only one DoT from one (player) character could influence any enemy creature (or (enemy) player character) at a given time. If you cast another DoT skill on the same enemy it will remove previously cast DoT. This will not only increase server performance, it will decrease maximum obtainable DPS (that you are now decreasing through nerfs) and also decrease the gap of DPS between novice and top players.
2. Consider removing light attack weaving. Even introducing auto-attack instead weaving will increase server performance as you will decrease player input up to two times.

Don't ever comment on balancing threads again.

ZOS_GinaBruno

VaranisArano wrote: »

For Q2 Cold Storage, before that rolls out can you communicate the cut off dates for "inactive" accounts and how long it takes for an account to become "inactive"?

The length of time for an account to be considered "inactive" is still being discussed, but we will let you know prior to this happening what the cut off is.

SugaComa

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

For Q2 Cold Storage, before that rolls out can you communicate the cut off dates for "inactive" accounts and how long it takes for an account to become "inactive"?

The length of time for an account to be considered "inactive" is still being discussed, but we will let you know prior to this happening what the cut off is.

What happens To inactive players guild spots ... Are they auto removed from guilds or do they retain their placement

Octopuss

...and still not a single word about the Vulkan client. This is hopeless.

We know that ESO performance has degraded for some players

I feel like you're trying to insult the entire playerbase.
The game's peformance is pathetic from ANY and ALL points of view and has been for a LONG time.

Neoauspex

Thank you guys for taking a serious look at performance and for the communication!

DjMuscleboy02

Who cares about performance mine is fine, just give us new quests and other content every patch

VaranisArano

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

For Q2 Cold Storage, before that rolls out can you communicate the cut off dates for "inactive" accounts and how long it takes for an account to become "inactive"?

The length of time for an account to be considered "inactive" is still being discussed, but we will let you know prior to this happening what the cut off is.

Excellent. Thank You!

agegarton

It's so so good to see some affirmative communication on the subject of performance improvements. Please keep updating us - communication with your player base is so important and, when you do talk to us, you do it so well !!

@ZOS_GinaBruno I note there is no mention - not explicitly - of the performance improvements for Mac-based players. The Mac client has been a dog's dinner (technical term, that) for months. Can we assume that the ongoing issues re. the Mac client (e.g. not quitting properly, the curse of the spinning character, memory leaks, FPS issues, and so on) will be addressed as part of these planned changes? If so, it would be good to spread the news - your Mac player base is a bit miffed, to say the least!

Many thanks

valeriiya

Thank you, this is the kind of communication I wanted. I'm still skeptical that things will change based on your track record but I'm hopeful.

Dracane

Obvious as always, that Zenimax only dedicates very little ressources to ESO. They pride themselves with slow babysteps, that other studios get done in no time.

It all sounds nice and good, but we are talking about this since years and still, the game keeps on breaking even more.
However, it can not be denied, that you folks have been more dedicated recently and it is noticeable.