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

Elsonso

Kittytravel wrote: »

With Update 25 or Update 26 possibly will we see any standardization in reset timers?
Currently Fence resets at 10 PM EST
With Writs and other dailies resetting at 4 AM PST.
And a few other odd resets like Dungeon Finder triggers 20 hours after the previous first random dungeon has been ran.

It'd be nice to see all these reset timers just happen at the exact same time everyday so that whenever we ask ourselves "I wonder what dailies I can do right now" we aren't playing the guessing game of is it X time yet for X activity.

While it is a little confusing, I think it is also deliberate. There may be some job on the server that has to run, and trying to do all of that in the same minute would probably be less than desirable.

daemonios

lordrichter wrote: »

Kittytravel wrote: »

With Update 25 or Update 26 possibly will we see any standardization in reset timers?
Currently Fence resets at 10 PM EST
With Writs and other dailies resetting at 4 AM PST.
And a few other odd resets like Dungeon Finder triggers 20 hours after the previous first random dungeon has been ran.

It'd be nice to see all these reset timers just happen at the exact same time everyday so that whenever we ask ourselves "I wonder what dailies I can do right now" we aren't playing the guessing game of is it X time yet for X activity.

While it is a little confusing, I think it is also deliberate. There may be some job on the server that has to run, and trying to do all of that in the same minute would probably be less than desirable.

If that's the case, it would be a simple task to communicate it to the players. I suspect it is deliberate, but for different reasons, namely to force multiple daily logins and inflate those engagement numbers.

TheRealPotoroo

daemonios wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Kittytravel wrote: »

With Update 25 or Update 26 possibly will we see any standardization in reset timers?
Currently Fence resets at 10 PM EST
With Writs and other dailies resetting at 4 AM PST.
And a few other odd resets like Dungeon Finder triggers 20 hours after the previous first random dungeon has been ran.

It'd be nice to see all these reset timers just happen at the exact same time everyday so that whenever we ask ourselves "I wonder what dailies I can do right now" we aren't playing the guessing game of is it X time yet for X activity.

While it is a little confusing, I think it is also deliberate. There may be some job on the server that has to run, and trying to do all of that in the same minute would probably be less than desirable.

If that's the case, it would be a simple task to communicate it to the players. I suspect it is deliberate, but for different reasons, namely to force multiple daily logins and inflate those engagement numbers.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

daemonios

TheRealPotoroo wrote: »

daemonios wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Kittytravel wrote: »

With Update 25 or Update 26 possibly will we see any standardization in reset timers?
Currently Fence resets at 10 PM EST
With Writs and other dailies resetting at 4 AM PST.
And a few other odd resets like Dungeon Finder triggers 20 hours after the previous first random dungeon has been ran.

It'd be nice to see all these reset timers just happen at the exact same time everyday so that whenever we ask ourselves "I wonder what dailies I can do right now" we aren't playing the guessing game of is it X time yet for X activity.

While it is a little confusing, I think it is also deliberate. There may be some job on the server that has to run, and trying to do all of that in the same minute would probably be less than desirable.

If that's the case, it would be a simple task to communicate it to the players. I suspect it is deliberate, but for different reasons, namely to force multiple daily logins and inflate those engagement numbers.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.

I don't presume malice. I suspect it because ZOS have never responded to numerous threads and polls that were made regarding this issue, in particular after the start of back-to-back events starting and/or ending on maintenance days. They've never defended their system, nor have they rejected the proposals for changing it. If there were valid technical reasons to keep different timers, a reasonable company would have explained them and killed the discussion right then and there.

Ashtaris

lordrichter wrote: »

Um.

Q1 2020: Update 25

o Patching overhaul
- Work is ongoing and on track with internal bug fixing and asset clean-up as the focus.
o Faster loading fixtures and characters
- Work is ongoing and on track – no new major updates at this time.
o Behind-the-scenes combat ability improvements phase 2
- Work is ongoing and on track – no new major updates at this time.
o Frame rate improvements part 1
- Effects manager work is in progress and on track.
- We have identified some multi-threading work that is needed, and that is now in progress. This work will allow more game systems (specifically the fixture update process and renderer for this round) to utilize multiple cores, improving overall performance on the game client.
o Server optimization & stability
- This work has moved out to Update 26 (see below)


Q2 2020: Update 26

o Account Database “Cold Storage”
- This work is not yet started. Transfer system work (noted above) needs to be completed before we start this. We still believe this work will be completed in time for Update 26.
o Server optimization & stability
- Pets – We are going to rewrite how pets are handled to be more performant (work better, more efficiently, and take up less overhead/resources on the server.)
- Player character loading – We will make the player character loading process multi-threaded on the server to improve performance
o Frame rate improvements phase 2
- Work is ongoing and on track – no new major updates at this time.
o Additional bug fixes and other updates
- Work is ongoing and on track – no new major updates at this time.

Transfer system?

What I think they mean by a “Transfer System” is the archiving and transfer of unused accounts to a cold storage or archiving server. Not 100% certain, but it makes sense

IndorilArwynLlethran

Would be nice if they stopped recoloring pixels each update and worked only on performance.
There's a simple fact - the dear precious crown store is inaccessible too when the rest of the game is inaccessible. Somehow ZOS still didn't get it.

ACamaroGuy

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.

Remember, we may have those in the Armed Services playing this game. The time they are gone may vary. You should be careful on what that cutoff time should be.

Abyssmol

Please test your game on Xbox. The fix for the memory leak made the game stutter after an hour of play. (It feels like the FPS decrease to single digits) - The memory leak is even worse now!!!

Varana

ACamaroGuy wrote: »

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.

Remember, we may have those in the Armed Services playing this game. The time they are gone may vary. You should be careful on what that cutoff time should be.

In that case (and similar ones), the first login after a prolonged absence will take a few minutes (disclaimer: according to ZOS' plan; reality may differ). I don't think this will be an issue.

ZOS_SarahHecker

Hey all, the November update is live and you can read it here: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/56681

Elsonso

ZOS_SarahHecker wrote: »

Hey all, the November update is live and you can read it here: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/56681

Thanks, @ZOS_SarahHecker

This includes the section:

Account Database “Cold Storage”

This work is not yet started. Transfer system work (noted above) and additional Looking for Group system work needs to be completed before we start this. As such, this has been shifted out to Q3 2020 (Update 27).

What is meant by "Transfer system work (noted above)"? It seems like there is something missing (above).

Edit: Also, wanted to know if the NPC pathing was still on the white board for Update 26

The NPC and monster “pathing” system will be overhauled to result in fewer movement bugs

katanagirl1

I have some suggestions regarding performance improvements for things that are communicated to all players in the instance that I feel are not necessary:

1. XP Scrolls - I do not need to see that gold animation when I approach a player that has an XP boost from scrolls or event items like Witchmother’s Whistle or Pie of Misrule, etc.

2. Level Up - I do not need to see that purple animation when other players level up

Eliminating this should reduce the amount of info that is communicated and reduce lag. This is not useful or necessary information for me anyway.

Also, I wonder if sharing nodes and containers in the same instance actually creates more lag by cross-communicating among all users in the instance whenever something changes rather than each player having their own true instance for these things that is not shared. Something to consider.

FlopsyPrince

These have been very counterproductive it seems. The game crashes far more often now than in the past, for example.

I lost another Dolmen reward because of a "too many messages" kicking me out of the game. No loot when I got back in.

katanagirl1

Oh I remember one more think to add - in delves and public dungeons especially, and also possibly general overland content as well - mobs spawn much too frequently and bosses take much too long to respawn. I can clear a delve quickly for a daily quest, immediately turn around to leave and the mobs have respawned within less than 20 seconds while I’ve waited up to 5 minutes for the boss, and there are no other players around.

Not only is it immersion breaking, but again it is another inefficient example, and more data intensive because there are many more mobs to refresh than the number of bosses.

DBZVelena

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Oh I remember one more think to add - in delves and public dungeons especially, and also possibly general overland content as well - mobs spawn much too frequently and bosses take much too long to respawn. I can clear a delve quickly for a daily quest, immediately turn around to leave and the mobs have respawned within less than 20 seconds while I’ve waited up to 5 minutes for the boss, and there are no other players around.

Not only is it immersion breaking, but again it is another inefficient example, and more data intensive because there are many more mobs to refresh than the number of bosses.

I agree that waiting for a boss respawn isn't fun. but you forget that 1: there should be mobs to kill for whoever comes after you in to the delve. and 2: the boss should be a lil bit more challenging than the average spawns, and thus worth it to wait for others to help kill.

My solution would be to add more health to delve bosses. difficulty stays the same, but because of the boss taking longer to solo. It's actually a good idea to wait for help, or start the fight and hope more will join you while you're fighting. This way the chance of arriving to either others waiting for boss or arriving to a boss fight in progress is bigger. And waiting alone is never fun, but waiting together can be.
Other options are to not do delves when player numbers are low, but that depends on your personal situation.

I wouldn't touch the respawn rates because 5 min is better than half an hour. and you know somebody would just place that 0 in the wrong spot. (3 min becoming 30 min)

Vanos444

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

That Altmer looks sexy. ( I might make an Alt )
As for the performance goes.... Lol!

katanagirl1

DBZVelena wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Oh I remember one more think to add - in delves and public dungeons especially, and also possibly general overland content as well - mobs spawn much too frequently and bosses take much too long to respawn. I can clear a delve quickly for a daily quest, immediately turn around to leave and the mobs have respawned within less than 20 seconds while I’ve waited up to 5 minutes for the boss, and there are no other players around.

Not only is it immersion breaking, but again it is another inefficient example, and more data intensive because there are many more mobs to refresh than the number of bosses.

I agree that waiting for a boss respawn isn't fun. but you forget that 1: there should be mobs to kill for whoever comes after you in to the delve. and 2: the boss should be a lil bit more challenging than the average spawns, and thus worth it to wait for others to help kill.

My solution would be to add more health to delve bosses. difficulty stays the same, but because of the boss taking longer to solo. It's actually a good idea to wait for help, or start the fight and hope more will join you while you're fighting. This way the chance of arriving to either others waiting for boss or arriving to a boss fight in progress is bigger. And waiting alone is never fun, but waiting together can be.
Other options are to not do delves when player numbers are low, but that depends on your personal situation.

I wouldn't touch the respawn rates because 5 min is better than half an hour. and you know somebody would just place that 0 in the wrong spot. (3 min becoming 30 min)

You have a point, but respawning the same mobs I killed less than a minute ago is too much. I do the same dailies and just run in and out, total time in delve is less than 2 minutes probably, and no other players so they shouldn’t respawn anyway. I can start sprinting when I pick up/kill whatever for the quest and race to the exit and before I run out of stamina they are already back.

I cleared the delve, I shouldn’t have to kill the same mobs again if I’m that fast. That’s the immersion killer.

There does seem to be some additional respawn when other players enter the area that makes the mobs respawn faster than if just myself as well. This is true with bosses especially, you can get only gold instead of the usual gear set drop if another player trips them up when you are farming the bosses.

Elsonso

Edit: And... I thought this was in the leveled zones topic, not the performance topic, so I deleted this comment.

Soul_Demon

Here is the best feedback I can manage regarding the performance overhaul.

This game plays like the Claymation 'Santa Clause is coming to town and Rudolph the red nosed reindeer"
This is not some clever insult meant to demean, its quite literally like watching one of those shows- That is what the performance improvements have done thus far for me. Went from 80's FPS to average of say 40-50 and as low as 20's during combat with say only 10 players now. The rest of the time unless completely alone on map- Claymation.

Please don't think its meant as insult- its truly the way the game looks and feels right now.

epicjiiangb14_ESO

"We are striving to improve performance"
-proceeds to use Akamai
What in the world are you guys thinking

ZOS_SarahHecker

Hey all, December's update is here.

NBrookus

Memory management ... Stability is greatly improved on all platforms.

Ha. Yes, provided you deliberately crash your game and restart it every hour or so of being in Cyrodiil.

katanagirl1

The only thing I see that has improved are the low, stuttering frame rates that occur when fast traveling to a new zone, they don’t occur as often as they used to. I still have the game freeze up probably once a day when using a wayshrine to fast travel, and have to close the app and restart.

Like @NBrookus said, Cyrodiil is still a huge mess right now. I see no improvement there, at least one blue screen a day on PS4/NA Kaalgrontiid, sometimes it crashes and I can’t submit a bug report and have to reboot safe mode. Many times after the blue screen it takes multiple login attempts to get back on because it says I don’t have an internet connection. Long loading screens when keeps flip are causing everyone in one faction to come back to empty death recaps.

I saw that you nerfed resolutions to mounts and shortened draw distances on console, did you also nerf mount stamina as well? I can’t tell the difference between my fully upgraded mount sprinting and regular speed anymore.

Hotdog_23

Blue screens and unending load screens are a daily occurrence on PS4 for me. Just a new fact of life, I guess. Happens so much that you never worry about getting kicked from the group because it happens so much to everyone knows what happened and never kick them. Run lots of dungeons with 3 people waiting on the fourth to come back. Used to be we would kick someone after a few minutes if they did not return. Now everyone waits, lol.

Thanks for the monthly update, (really really) sad to see PS4 has to keep waiting and waiting……….

VaranisArano

"Look for an undaunted test early next year to stress test the fixes."

Is this going to be a proper stress test prior to the Undaunted Event or the same old "throw players at the Undaunted Event, make them grind for rewards, and pray to the Divines/Daedra/Sithis the Activity Finder holds together" type stress test?

The former, like a "Pre-Undaunted Stress Test", would be great! Especially if you are able to run it during primetime for NA and EU, it would give me a lot more confidence in the Activity Finder fixes.

Going ahead with just the regular Undaunted Event with no prior Live testing on the other hand, is using players as guinea pigs while dangling extremely time-limited awards in front of us. If something goes wrong, again, it'll be extremely frustrating.

katanagirl1

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

Blue screens and unending load screens are a daily occurrence on PS4 for me. Just a new fact of life, I guess. Happens so much that you never worry about getting kicked from the group because it happens so much to everyone knows what happened and never kick them. Run lots of dungeons with 3 people waiting on the fourth to come back. Used to be we would kick someone after a few minutes if they did not return. Now everyone waits, lol.

Thanks for the monthly update, (really really) sad to see PS4 has to keep waiting and waiting……….

I think it’s time we get a console rep from ZOS. I’ve been bumping a thread for a bug that has been fixed on PC for a month or more and has not, to my knowledge, been fixed on PS4. I can’t even get a response on it. Now I wonder if there are other bugs that have not been addressed for us as well. I would have assumed that someone makes sure all bug fixes get implemented on consoles as well, but now I have my doubts.

imredneckson

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

Blue screens and unending load screens are a daily occurrence on PS4 for me. Just a new fact of life, I guess. Happens so much that you never worry about getting kicked from the group because it happens so much to everyone knows what happened and never kick them. Run lots of dungeons with 3 people waiting on the fourth to come back. Used to be we would kick someone after a few minutes if they did not return. Now everyone waits, lol.

Thanks for the monthly update, (really really) sad to see PS4 has to keep waiting and waiting……….

I think it’s time we get a console rep from ZOS. I’ve been bumping a thread for a bug that has been fixed on PC for a month or more and has not, to my knowledge, been fixed on PS4. I can’t even get a response on it. Now I wonder if there are other bugs that have not been addressed for us as well. I would have assumed that someone makes sure all bug fixes get implemented on consoles as well, but now I have my doubts.

Most of the dev team does not have a good reputation when it comes to communicating with the player base and even more refuse to talk about bugs or issues. Wish they would change that and start fixing bugs rather that just releasing new skins for mounts. Not gonna re-subscribe till they start listening to their player base like the devs from New World have done.

katanagirl1

imredneckson wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

Blue screens and unending load screens are a daily occurrence on PS4 for me. Just a new fact of life, I guess. Happens so much that you never worry about getting kicked from the group because it happens so much to everyone knows what happened and never kick them. Run lots of dungeons with 3 people waiting on the fourth to come back. Used to be we would kick someone after a few minutes if they did not return. Now everyone waits, lol.

Thanks for the monthly update, (really really) sad to see PS4 has to keep waiting and waiting……….

I think it’s time we get a console rep from ZOS. I’ve been bumping a thread for a bug that has been fixed on PC for a month or more and has not, to my knowledge, been fixed on PS4. I can’t even get a response on it. Now I wonder if there are other bugs that have not been addressed for us as well. I would have assumed that someone makes sure all bug fixes get implemented on consoles as well, but now I have my doubts.

Most of the dev team does not have a good reputation when it comes to communicating with the player base and even more refuse to talk about bugs or issues. Wish they would change that and start fixing bugs rather that just releasing new skins for mounts. Not gonna re-subscribe till they start listening to their player base like the devs from New World have done.

Yeah, just a quick word to say they plan to update it with whatever patch, that would go a long way.

There is already a fix so what’s the big deal???

As a console player I already feel like a second class citizen, we get the scraps from whatever falls off the PC table, and we have to wait until they’re stale.

Ashtaris

katanagirl1 wrote: »

The only thing I see that has improved are the low, stuttering frame rates that occur when fast traveling to a new zone, they don’t occur as often as they used to. I still have the game freeze up probably once a day when using a wayshrine to fast travel, and have to close the app and restart.

I still get them almost all the time when goiing from one zone wayshrine to another, usually lasting up to 10 seconds. And I’’m running a 1080ti on a I9 platform so I don’t think it’s anything at my end.

imredneckson

katanagirl1 wrote: »

imredneckson wrote: »

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

Blue screens and unending load screens are a daily occurrence on PS4 for me. Just a new fact of life, I guess. Happens so much that you never worry about getting kicked from the group because it happens so much to everyone knows what happened and never kick them. Run lots of dungeons with 3 people waiting on the fourth to come back. Used to be we would kick someone after a few minutes if they did not return. Now everyone waits, lol.

Thanks for the monthly update, (really really) sad to see PS4 has to keep waiting and waiting……….

I think it’s time we get a console rep from ZOS. I’ve been bumping a thread for a bug that has been fixed on PC for a month or more and has not, to my knowledge, been fixed on PS4. I can’t even get a response on it. Now I wonder if there are other bugs that have not been addressed for us as well. I would have assumed that someone makes sure all bug fixes get implemented on consoles as well, but now I have my doubts.

Most of the dev team does not have a good reputation when it comes to communicating with the player base and even more refuse to talk about bugs or issues. Wish they would change that and start fixing bugs rather that just releasing new skins for mounts. Not gonna re-subscribe till they start listening to their player base like the devs from New World have done.

Yeah, just a quick word to say they plan to update it with whatever patch, that would go a long way.

There is already a fix so what’s the big deal???

As a console player I already feel like a second class citizen, we get the scraps from whatever falls off the PC table, and we have to wait until they’re stale.

Agreed.

I think the main problem is that even with the talk about fixing the game, there is still no signs that anything has been fixed. They have talked about fixing problems like this before but that's all we got. Just talk and no fix. Rampant lag, still stuck in combat for 30 minutes at a time, crashing, etc.

I know the feeling, I'm a full time PvPer. We have been dealing with horrible servers, events getting stripped away, bugs that have been in for many years now, lack of content, rewards are crap, and more.