ZOS, Massive Spike in Ping/LAG in Recent Days - What Gives?

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · December 3

Hey all! Thank you for the continued feedback and questions. We are here and see your replies. We are still working on writing up answers to some of the questions asked in this thread (and this has involved the ongoing investigations). We recognize getting those answers is taking longer than you'd like, and we're hoping to have those to share soon. Thank you for your patience.

LadyGP · December 3

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all! Thank you for the continued feedback and questions. We are here and see your replies. We are still working on writing up answers to some of the questions asked in this thread (and this has involved the ongoing investigations). We recognize getting those answers is taking longer than you'd like, and we're hoping to have those to share soon. Thank you for your patience.

Copy that, thank you for the update Jessica. Reassuring to hear this is still in work and some acknowledgment for our frustrations. I look forward to hearing more about how we got here and hopefully some context that has been missing to ease some frustrations.

ZOS_JessicaFolsom · December 3

LadyGP wrote: »

Copy that, thank you for the update Jessica. Reassuring to hear this is still in work and some acknowledgment for our frustrations. I look forward to hearing more about how we got here and hopefully some context that has been missing to ease some frustrations.

It is and thank you. I'm sorry it's taking so long. The investigation is complex and part of drafting responses has been collating some of that ongoing investigation.

Tandor · December 3

My concern at yet another holding reply is that it's now December and with the usual holidays and other year end commitments my hunch is that it'll be February before we can realistically expect any meaningful answers.

This effective silence can't go on, it really can't.

LadyGP · December 3

Tandor wrote: »

My concern at yet another holding reply is that it's now December and with the usual holidays and other year end commitments my hunch is that it'll be February before we can realistically expect any meaningful answers.

This effective silence can't go on, it really can't.

That's fair - there has been a lot of "working on an update" said in this thread since it's creation. Fingers crossed we get this massive update before the holidays.

AngryPenguin · December 4

Clearly yesterdays maintenance did something that radically impacted performance. Yesterday evening people couldn't even log on and prior to that the lag spikes were worse than I've seen them without ZOS shutting down the server.

LadyGP · December 4

AngryPenguin wrote: »

Clearly yesterdays maintenance did something that radically impacted performance. Yesterday evening people couldn't even log on and prior to that the lag spikes were worse than I've seen them without ZOS shutting down the server.

Hmmm... well since Apples or Carrot is down might as well log in and see what my experience is like. Fingers crossed...

I'll report back.

For a few minutes I got really excited... things felt great.... until they didn't.

and rubber banding.

Ping seems lower but... that could just be because there are so few people on.

Logos · December 4

LadyGP wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

My concern at yet another holding reply is that it's now December and with the usual holidays and other year end commitments my hunch is that it'll be February before we can realistically expect any meaningful answers.

This effective silence can't go on, it really can't.

That's fair - there has been a lot of "working on an update" said in this thread since it's creation. Fingers crossed we get this massive update before the holidays.

More than half a year and 85 forum pages later gives us a "we're still working on a response." I don't know that I'd hold my breath :P

Eclipse318 · December 4

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

Eclipse318 · December 4

Can't seem to edit my previous comment. Forgot to mention that at one point everyone got booted out of the game, then we had a 2-3 minute queue to get back in. Almost scrubbed the event out of frustration.

blktauna · December 4

Apparently starting a new character and playing for more than 5 min at a time today is a no go... PCNA

I have been dropped repeatedly in the hour I have been on. Timed out, booted from server, can't connect to server
and doing a trace shows 6 akamai jumps all of high latency.

come on people

Quackery · December 4

Orbital78 wrote: »

I had issues for awhile after switching to a new fiber company that had recently expanded coverage to my area. There was still construction going on in neighborhoods which may have been part of the issue, but it was definitely a routing issue. Things were work fine most of the time and then at certain times routing to Dallas, TX would plummet. Meanwhile routing to Chicago and other areas of the USA would be quite fine. I contacted my ISP support with IP addresses and described the issue, within a week or two the issue disappeared for the most part. I do notice evenings when there is higher than usual ping (180-200+, when I am normally at 60-80) but I rarely disconnect. I haven't experienced a disconnect in weeks, other than being idle for the 15+ min time out.

I do feel for those having issues, but make sure you do your part in contacting your ISP and trying to resolve the issue as well. There does seem to be some routing issues at least with PC-NA and some ISP. I remember I had a weird issue with a totally different ISP that I could not use the patcher unless I used a VPN. I could login to the game fine without it after that, but only the patcher was an issue. Quite odd, but that issue went away.

I've done every possible thing you can imagine to solve this issue, but it still remains. I've contacted my ISP, and everything looks fine on their end - no Internet issues at all. Also, I don't have these problems on my Xbox. It happens on PC, both EU and NA-server. The problem is NOT on my/our end, it's ZOS's fault.

Edit: Just wanted to add, that on the NA-server, I play for 15-20 seconds and end up frozen or lagged out for 15+ seconds - rinse and repeat. It's a CONSTANT issue that happens after playing for 15 seconds. I even lose connection quite often.

Destai · December 4

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Copy that, thank you for the update Jessica. Reassuring to hear this is still in work and some acknowledgment for our frustrations. I look forward to hearing more about how we got here and hopefully some context that has been missing to ease some frustrations.

It is and thank you. I'm sorry it's taking so long. The investigation is complex and part of drafting responses has been collating some of that ongoing investigation.

Totally understand. Can you share how many teams have been involved so far? Just as a high level summary to tide us over while you guys do your review?

Just speaking for myself, and maybe others feel this way too, but technical language is totally ok here, if that’s part of the challenge here. Definitely have the background to understand networking concepts and all.

Thanks for jumping in here and the empathetic tone, it really is appreciated!

Quackery · December 4

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

They should just shut down the game entirely. Make an ESO 2, because performance really can't get any worse than this. IT IS LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE!!! It's a game I CAN NOT play! I'm about to permanently uninstall it from my PC and focus on Xbox.

Quackery · December 4

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Copy that, thank you for the update Jessica. Reassuring to hear this is still in work and some acknowledgment for our frustrations. I look forward to hearing more about how we got here and hopefully some context that has been missing to ease some frustrations.

It is and thank you. I'm sorry it's taking so long. The investigation is complex and part of drafting responses has been collating some of that ongoing investigation.

Totally understand. Can you share how many teams have been involved so far? Just as a high level summary to tide us over while you guys do your review?

Just speaking for myself, and maybe others feel this way too, but technical language is totally ok here, if that’s part of the challenge here. Definitely have the background to understand networking concepts and all.

Thanks for jumping in here and the empathetic tone, it really is appreciated!

It's BEYOND unfathomable how this issue isn't at THE TOP of their priority list! PEOPLE CAN'T PLAY THEIR GAME!!!

JonnytheKing · December 4

it would seem they were DDoS attacked

moderatelyfatman · December 4

JonnytheKing wrote: »

it would seem they were DDoS attacked

Nah, the DDoS attacks don't work because they can't stay logged in long enough to do damage.

meekmiko · December 4

I just got a brand spanking new computer today to replace my old Windows 10 (with a 970) to a fancy schmancy Windows 11 (with a 4060) annnd it performs just as poorly as my 9 year old PC did. (ESO that is)

As soon as I booted up the game and signed into my account it froze on the loadscreen before character select. Par for the course. Lawl! I gave it a good 10 minutes before having to close out and reopen. No crash report it just stopped responding.

And when I did get in I still had the exact same lag spikes (300s-400s-300s-600s) while I was just standing around in Deshaan far away from anyone. This WITHOUT ANY add-ons as I haven't gone about reinstalling any of them yet.

Thankfully I didn't buy the new PC exclusively for ESO, but I'm just extremely disappointed. 😕

I have very fast internet speeds and everything else besides ESO runs smooth as silk.

Coo_PnT · December 4

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all! Thank you for the continued feedback and questions. We are here and see your replies. We are still working on writing up answers to some of the questions asked in this thread (and this has involved the ongoing investigations). We recognize getting those answers is taking longer than you'd like, and we're hoping to have those to share soon. Thank you for your patience.

I know you are responding, but for this long we have not received any response that would give us any hope.
All we get is a response every other month saying that it is being fixed and to trust us at ZoS to wait it out.

For example, the problem with Trials is the most serious one, and when this problem occurs, the group is half broken and we have to wait 20-30 minutes or even break up, wasting the time of all 12 members of the group that day.

Please, please, please, please put this issue first.

Quackery · December 4

Coo_PnT wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey all! Thank you for the continued feedback and questions. We are here and see your replies. We are still working on writing up answers to some of the questions asked in this thread (and this has involved the ongoing investigations). We recognize getting those answers is taking longer than you'd like, and we're hoping to have those to share soon. Thank you for your patience.

I know you are responding, but for this long we have not received any response that would give us any hope.
All we get is a response every other month saying that it is being fixed and to trust us at ZoS to wait it out.

For example, the problem with Trials is the most serious one, and when this problem occurs, the group is half broken and we have to wait 20-30 minutes or even break up, wasting the time of all 12 members of the group that day.

Please, please, please, please put this issue first.

How about making the game actually PLAYABLE at all as their main priority?? You might have issues with the trials, but us commenting have problems PLAYING the actual game! Lag spikes 999+ every 15-20 seconds is what MUST be ZOS's main priority to fix!

Tandor · December 4

Quackery wrote: »

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

They should just shut down the game entirely. Make an ESO 2, because performance really can't get any worse than this. IT IS LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE!!! It's a game I CAN NOT play! I'm about to permanently uninstall it from my PC and focus on Xbox.

The problem with that is that we still don't really know how extensive the issue is, but it seems probable that it is only affecting a comparatively small section of the playerbase. Yes, this thread has been running for 7 months and is on page 85 but there are some players who've posted mass comments on it, which is totally fine and understandable, but it makes it difficult to assess how many individual posters are affected. Usually on a forum for a game that is having such an issue across the whole playerbase you'd get to page 85 and beyond overnight!

All we can do seemingly is keep pressing ZOS for some more meaningful answers. Personally I don't experience these issues and never have, but I keep pressing ZOS on it because I realise that it's a really critical issue for those who do experience them.

Tandor · December 4

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Can't seem to edit my previous comment. Forgot to mention that at one point everyone got booted out of the game, then we had a 2-3 minute queue to get back in. Almost scrubbed the event out of frustration.

For future reference, if you refresh the page then you should see the drop-down edit prompt next to the post number.

manukartofanu · December 4

Tandor wrote: »

Quackery wrote: »

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

They should just shut down the game entirely. Make an ESO 2, because performance really can't get any worse than this. IT IS LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE!!! It's a game I CAN NOT play! I'm about to permanently uninstall it from my PC and focus on Xbox.

The problem with that is that we still don't really know how extensive the issue is, but it seems probable that it is only affecting a comparatively small section of the playerbase. Yes, this thread has been running for 7 months and is on page 85 but there are some players who've posted mass comments on it, which is totally fine and understandable, but it makes it difficult to assess how many individual posters are affected. Usually on a forum for a game that is having such an issue across the whole playerbase you'd get to page 85 and beyond overnight!

All we can do seemingly is keep pressing ZOS for some more meaningful answers. Personally I don't experience these issues and never have, but I keep pressing ZOS on it because I realise that it's a really critical issue for those who do experience them.

This problem can be easily solved without speculating about the scale of the issue. It’s enough to simply create a poll. Last time, such a poll was blocked by a moderator. In this thread, we specifically ASKED the ZOS staff to create a poll if they are not satisfied with ours. I haven’t seen any other polls on this topic since then. Draw your own conclusions.

Quackery · December 4

Tandor wrote: »

Quackery wrote: »

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

They should just shut down the game entirely. Make an ESO 2, because performance really can't get any worse than this. IT IS LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE!!! It's a game I CAN NOT play! I'm about to permanently uninstall it from my PC and focus on Xbox.

The problem with that is that we still don't really know how extensive the issue is, but it seems probable that it is only affecting a comparatively small section of the playerbase. Yes, this thread has been running for 7 months and is on page 85 but there are some players who've posted mass comments on it, which is totally fine and understandable, but it makes it difficult to assess how many individual posters are affected. Usually on a forum for a game that is having such an issue across the whole playerbase you'd get to page 85 and beyond overnight!

All we can do seemingly is keep pressing ZOS for some more meaningful answers. Personally I don't experience these issues and never have, but I keep pressing ZOS on it because I realise that it's a really critical issue for those who do experience them.

I've spent more than 10k dollars through out the years on ESO. Tell me again how my issue is not of significance to ZOS.

manukartofanu · December 4

Yes, just in case, I’ll attach the links to clarify what I’m referring to, so no one accuses me of speculating. If desired, you can check what the author of that survey wrote after it was closed.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667419/people-having-issues-one-comment-per-person-zos-please-enforce-on-this-post#latest
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667117/zos-do-a-survey-for-performance#latest

dk_dunkirk · December 4

Tandor wrote: »

Quackery wrote: »

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

They should just shut down the game entirely. Make an ESO 2, because performance really can't get any worse than this. IT IS LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE!!! It's a game I CAN NOT play! I'm about to permanently uninstall it from my PC and focus on Xbox.

The problem with that is that we still don't really know how extensive the issue is, but it seems probable that it is only affecting a comparatively small section of the playerbase. Yes, this thread has been running for 7 months and is on page 85 but there are some players who've posted mass comments on it, which is totally fine and understandable, but it makes it difficult to assess how many individual posters are affected. Usually on a forum for a game that is having such an issue across the whole playerbase you'd get to page 85 and beyond overnight!

All we can do seemingly is keep pressing ZOS for some more meaningful answers. Personally I don't experience these issues and never have, but I keep pressing ZOS on it because I realise that it's a really critical issue for those who do experience them.

A major source of my frustration with this situation is that we do not know how extensive the issue is, but ZOS does. Part of the hell of being a 30-year full-stack developer, network admin, sysop, and DBA is that you understand what's possible in a scenario like this. Without question, ZOS can see lag spikes and disconnects in their logs. They know exactly how extensive this issue is. They know who is having the problems, they can correlate that to ISP's or locations or versions of Windows or whatever, and they can simulate anything they'd like in their internal development and testing environments to investigate the ideas that come up, and work towards a solution. I know it probably feels "nice," and I've said this before in this thread, but giving them the benefit of the doubt that there's some kind of "fog of war" about this issue that they can't deal with is simply not warranted.

KaironBlackbard · December 4

Tandor wrote: »

Quackery wrote: »

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

They should just shut down the game entirely. Make an ESO 2, because performance really can't get any worse than this. IT IS LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE!!! It's a game I CAN NOT play! I'm about to permanently uninstall it from my PC and focus on Xbox.

The problem with that is that we still don't really know how extensive the issue is, but it seems probable that it is only affecting a comparatively small section of the playerbase. Yes, this thread has been running for 7 months and is on page 85 but there are some players who've posted mass comments on it, which is totally fine and understandable, but it makes it difficult to assess how many individual posters are affected. Usually on a forum for a game that is having such an issue across the whole playerbase you'd get to page 85 and beyond overnight!

All we can do seemingly is keep pressing ZOS for some more meaningful answers. Personally I don't experience these issues and never have, but I keep pressing ZOS on it because I realise that it's a really critical issue for those who do experience them.

I attempted to make a thread for that, with a poll to count numbers effected, and a request for basic specs that might help the crew locate the problem.
I've yet to hear back what the verdict was on the possibility of getting it reopened.
I also made a request in the main post for people to post only one message and edit whenever they have updates for their issue instead of making new posts, forwarding conversation to this thread.

KaironBlackbard · December 4

manukartofanu wrote: »

Yes, just in case, I’ll attach the links to clarify what I’m referring to, so no one accuses me of speculating. If desired, you can check what the author of that survey wrote after it was closed.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667419/people-having-issues-one-comment-per-person-zos-please-enforce-on-this-post#latest
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667117/zos-do-a-survey-for-performance#latest

Yep, that first one ( https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/667419/people-having-issues-one-comment-per-person-zos-please-enforce-on-this-post#latest ) is my attempted thread.

Tandor · December 4

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Quackery wrote: »

Eclipse318 wrote: »

Last night we were trying to do a guild fishing run and everything was going nuts. Rubber banding, monsters like trolls going down with just one little hit, tons of lag (dead monsters still standing there with health bars, looting containers sometimes took 2-3 clicks to open them), fishing holes really glitchy (disappearing as we got close or had just 1 fish), my horse running really slowly (like 2/3 normal speed)... seems better today, but wow it was like a bad dream.

They should just shut down the game entirely. Make an ESO 2, because performance really can't get any worse than this. IT IS LITERALLY UNPLAYABLE!!! It's a game I CAN NOT play! I'm about to permanently uninstall it from my PC and focus on Xbox.

The problem with that is that we still don't really know how extensive the issue is, but it seems probable that it is only affecting a comparatively small section of the playerbase. Yes, this thread has been running for 7 months and is on page 85 but there are some players who've posted mass comments on it, which is totally fine and understandable, but it makes it difficult to assess how many individual posters are affected. Usually on a forum for a game that is having such an issue across the whole playerbase you'd get to page 85 and beyond overnight!

All we can do seemingly is keep pressing ZOS for some more meaningful answers. Personally I don't experience these issues and never have, but I keep pressing ZOS on it because I realise that it's a really critical issue for those who do experience them.

A major source of my frustration with this situation is that we do not know how extensive the issue is, but ZOS does. Part of the hell of being a 30-year full-stack developer, network admin, sysop, and DBA is that you understand what's possible in a scenario like this. Without question, ZOS can see lag spikes and disconnects in their logs. They know exactly how extensive this issue is. They know who is having the problems, they can correlate that to ISP's or locations or versions of Windows or whatever, and they can simulate anything they'd like in their internal development and testing environments to investigate the ideas that come up, and work towards a solution. I know it probably feels "nice," and I've said this before in this thread, but giving them the benefit of the doubt that there's some kind of "fog of war" about this issue that they can't deal with is simply not warranted.

I don't doubt that ZOS know how extensive the problem is, and haven't suggested otherwise. My point was that we the players don't know how extensive the problem is.

LadyGP · December 4

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

Copy that, thank you for the update Jessica. Reassuring to hear this is still in work and some acknowledgment for our frustrations. I look forward to hearing more about how we got here and hopefully some context that has been missing to ease some frustrations.

It is and thank you. I'm sorry it's taking so long. The investigation is complex and part of drafting responses has been collating some of that ongoing investigation.

Totally understand. Can you share how many teams have been involved so far? Just as a high level summary to tide us over while you guys do your review?

Just speaking for myself, and maybe others feel this way too, but technical language is totally ok here, if that’s part of the challenge here. Definitely have the background to understand networking concepts and all.

Thanks for jumping in here and the empathetic tone, it really is appreciated!

Please hit us with the technicals. There is a large amount of people in this thread who have software/networking/overall engineering background - and we all want to help in any way we can.