[PC/NA] Constant Game Freezes

React · December 2024

[PC/NA]

Happening to myself, my group mates, and players on other factions in both cyrodiil and imperial city each night I've played this past week. The game freezes intermittently before rubberbanding seconds later. Extremely frustrating and essentially unplayable. It is not an issue on our ends, this is very clearly some sort of problem with the servers.

Below is a video with several examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgYHQ9kVnA8

adamsmith42 · December 2024

Was constantly getting this for the entirety of the hour and a half my prog group had on Bahsei HM tonight; needless to say, it was more bombings that progression for us tonight.

Rkindaleft · December 2024

It's happening in trials too (PSNA). This was us in our Unstoppable prog 2 nights ago and last night. I posted these both in the lag thread but as of yet haven't really had any responses. The first clip is from Thursday night, a rubberband over several seconds and then 3 people getting disconnected at the same time. The second clip is from last night and literally 5 people got disconnected at the same time.

Apart from the usual inconsistent server performance the game has been *really* unplayable since the servers went down like a week ago. I've had 4 or 5 prog nights since and there hasn't been an evening we haven't had multiple people randomly disconnect (and/or rubberband).

https://youtu.be/Md7ZrI7o_nU

https://youtu.be/Ky4ssMSS-SA

React · December 2024

Rkindaleft wrote: »

It's happening in trials too (PSNA). This was us in our Unstoppable prog 2 nights ago and last night. I posted these both in the lag thread but as of yet haven't really had any responses. The first clip is from Thursday night, a rubberband over several seconds and then 3 people getting disconnected at the same time. The second clip is from last night and literally 5 people got disconnected at the same time.

Apart from the usual inconsistent server performance the game has been *really* unplayable since the servers went down like a week ago. I've had 4 or 5 prog nights since and there hasn't been an evening we haven't had multiple people randomly disconnect (and/or rubberband).

https://youtu.be/Md7ZrI7o_nU

https://youtu.be/Ky4ssMSS-SA

Looks like the same exact issue.

I asked the streamer "Imperial" in his chat if he'd been experiencing any kind of freezes the past week, and he described the exact same thing featured in both of these videos without having seen them himself.

This is definitely a widespread problem.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom Is the team aware of this issue?

imaslowlearner · December 2024

It's just a game mechanic at this point

Desiato · December 2024

Since the event began, all PVE group instances I've been in have been affected by varying degrees of lag that appears to be server-side.

Most of the time it has smaller impacts like making weaving a bit clunky or block a bit unreliable -- I've heard lots of tanks complain about that.

At its worst there is severe freezing and rubberbanding.

I normally have an excellent connection without performance issues for PVE activities.

IncultaWolf · December 2024

It's happening to me on PS5 and PC. I was wondering if it was just a hardware issue on my computer so I booted up eso on my Playstation, same thing happening in pve and pvp for over a week now.

IncultaWolf · December 2024

This is why arcanist is meta in pve, while the game is freezing, you're still beaming

Parasaurolophus · December 2024

Same here. After the servers crashed a week ago, there were problems with delays. It's a shame, because a couple of months before that, the game seemed to have stopped having ping spikes that had been there all year.

Lylith · December 2024

even running solo with no one around it's a feature.

been enjoying it for the last few days.

twinkles21 · December 2024

I was going to make a post asking what's up with the lag and freezes? I've just come back after a 2 year hiatus, and I don't remember these game freezes where latency jumps to 999+ several times an hour.

huskandhunger · December 2024

while crafting in a friend's house alone, simple menus began to stutter and delay just this week 🫠

Just_Attivi · December 2024

Have any of you tried just turning your computer/console off and on again? it can't be the servers, problems have to be on your end

Jokes aside, yea, I popped back in to try to catch up with a friend, and PVE in non-event, relatively unpopulated zones, youll get freezes/stutters every few minutes just walking around, visiting heavily populated zones frequently seize up entirely/crash and throw an error at you. PVP in blackreach was rough, whole lot of freezes and ping spikes and it was very far from pop capped (barely reached 2 bars on any faction while I was on). Not a particularly enjoyable experience. I get that they have the 'safety net' of 'reduced performance' while they fend off the DDoS as they stated in that one post, but this feels pretty much the same as it has for the last 7 months, except its coming paired with 7 months of frustration and disappointment. Whats shown in the various videos people have linked is pretty widely what 'normal' performance is these days for many players, which is ridiculous.

Arcanasx · December 2024

I've been having a lot more sudden lag spikes (without disconnecting) ever since the servers crashed.

React · December 2024

Here's another video from a guy I know on PC-NA, where he is experiencing the EXACT same issue from my video in the OP, and the same issue that everyone else has been describing.

Something broke during the server outage a couple weeks ago, and it has remained severely broken. I sincerely hope the team is going to address this promptly and not just pretend this isn't happening, because this is unplayable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf6xa0Bg-Jo

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

forum_gpt · December 2024

React wrote: »

[PC/NA]

Happening to myself, my group mates, and players on other factions in both cyrodiil and imperial city each night I've played this past week. The game freezes intermittently before rubberbanding seconds later. Extremely frustrating and essentially unplayable. It is not an issue on our ends, this is very clearly some sort of problem with the servers.

Below is a video with several examples.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgYHQ9kVnA8

I watched the video, and this doesn't look like game freezes but rather server lag caused by a routing issue. The key difference is that in server lag, all players stop moving or act unpredictably, as shown in your examples, whereas game freezes would involve your client entirely locking up. This kind of lag is typically tied to server performance or network instability rather than something on your end. Hopefully, ZOS can pinpoint the cause and address it soon!

Aurielle · December 2024

React wrote: »

Here's another video from a guy I know on PC-NA, where he is experiencing the EXACT same issue from my video in the OP, and the same issue that everyone else has been describing.

Something broke during the server outage a couple weeks ago, and it has remained severely broken. I sincerely hope the team is going to address this promptly and not just pretend this isn't happening, because this is unplayable.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf6xa0Bg-Jo

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Dealt with this exact issue for six months between May and October before giving up and uninstalling the game. ESO is basically unplayable in this state. I’m very curious to know if the latency problems you guys are having post-outage have the same root cause as the latency issues that cropped up for a number of us back in May, immediately following a patch maintenance. The game ran FINE for me prior to that update — only time I ever had issues was with larger fights against ball groups. Smaller scale fights like those depicted in the video you posted were completely smooth with no rubberbanding whatsoever. That May patch launched, and the game was never the same again for me afterwards.

React · December 2024

Here is a reddit thread where the poster is experiencing the exact same issue from the original post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/dN5yIE6rwU

weights44 · December 2024

It has been happening in bgs non stop the last two nights. its not there during the day but it usually happens during primetime at night. there are usually 4-10 seconds pauses in game play and then everything speeds up to catch up. And sometimes it kicks players in bgs from the server along with the zos penalty of 5 mins for dropping from the bg. It is really getting annoying at this point.

weights44 · December 2024

Sunday Morning 12-29-2024. I have yet to get through 1 bg this morning without getting kicked from the server because "an internal error has occurred". This has happened 3 bgs in a row now. I have deleted the game and reinstalled it yesterday...and now this morning. I removed all add ons. Still happened. Random Ping is spiking to 999+ for now reason on my end.

AND BEST OF ALL I HAVE TO WAIT FOR A 5 MINUTE PENALTY each time this happens. Over 40 mins waiting in que for 3 different bgs just to be given 15 minutes in penalties for zos failing to fix this issue week after week after week after week after week after week.

Onomog · December 2024

Here's a link to a thread that has been going on for a good 7 months about this same problem. Recently achieved the dubious distinction of reaching 100 pages...

shadyjane62 · December 2024

What they ^^^^^^^^^^ said.

weights44 · December 2024

Just logged on tonight and out of 5 bg's I actually que'd into I was able to complete 2 so far. The other 3 I was in ended up with me getting the 5 mins ban because the game somehow lost connection to the server (an internal error has occurred).

Ping is still jumping from 50 to 999+ for no real reason. And the game is still having 4-7 second pauses every 30-40 seconds during all fights.

BioBitter100 · December 2024

weights44 wrote: »

Just logged on tonight and out of 5 bg's I actually que'd into I was able to complete 2 so far. The other 3 I was in ended up with me getting the 5 mins ban because the game somehow lost connection to the server (an internal error has occurred).

Ping is still jumping from 50 to 999+ for no real reason. And the game is still having 4-7 second pauses every 30-40 seconds during all fights.

Aye, I couldn´t finish more than 10% of my BGs in the past weeks and now I stopped queuing because it´s annoying to get kicked out of a good BG.

Theignson · December 2024

Same issue in Cyrodil.

I noticed two varieties:
1) my ping goes to 999+ (red). This is not due to my internet which is otherwise no n affected
2) everything freezes in the game. You hope when it unfreezes you arent dead. Then a huge rush of rubbernecking occurs.

This is happening much more frequently than in the past-- something is definitely broken

Solantris · December 2024

same here. Consistent. Not every single BG but almost every bg. My ping is unnaffected, just everything freezing and then catching up.

Oddly, was in a bg while in comms with a friend today and our games froze at the same time. They were in a PVE dungeon

mattaeus01b16_ESO · December 2024

Last week or more, its been constant.
Disconnecting, rubber banding, freezing... Sometimes all at once.
PC/NA

Sluggy · December 2024

I mean, I can't imagine you haven't seen (and perhaps even posted in) the 100+ page thread that's been going on about this for over half a year now. I gave up some time in middle of summer. Reformatted my drive and never bothered to reinstall. I'll go to the trouble when posts in that thread suggest that this has finally been resolved.

React · December 2024

Sluggy wrote: »

I mean, I can't imagine you haven't seen (and perhaps even posted in) the 100+ page thread that's been going on about this for over half a year now. I gave up some time in middle of summer. Reformatted my drive and never bothered to reinstall. I'll go to the trouble when posts in that thread suggest that this has finally been resolved.

I have. But the specific freezing/rubberbanding issue being shown in multiple videos within this thread did not start happening to me until the server outage a couple weeks ago. Same is true for multiple other people I've spoken to. Since that outage, instances like those shown in the OP have been happening on a nightly basis every time I've tried to play, essentially making the game unplayable.

I'm sure that there have been other performance factors causing problems for quite some time, like those gone over in that thread. This specific issue seems to have become very widespread with the recent outage. Hoping we see this addressed by a member of the team ASAP.

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Aurielle · December 2024

Solantris wrote: »

Oddly, was in a bg while in comms with a friend today and our games froze at the same time. They were in a PVE dungeon

Thanks for sharing. This right here is the reason why I shake my head when all the lucky “I don’t have any problems” folks waltz into these threads encouraging us to upgrade our internet connections. Freezing at the exact same time as a friend (who presumably lives in a different location) while engaged in completely separate in-game activities sounds like a ZOS problem, not a user-end Internet problem…

Sythen88411 · December 2024

Imagine zone porting and your screen freezes so bad you can't even alt f4 and have to restart your computer...this has been happening since there big meltdown