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Causes for PVE and PVP lag
Liea
✭✭
Here are my two cents as to what is causing lag in PVE and PVP and how to fix the issue.
Zenimax said that lag is caused by too many calculations having to be made in too short a time. Let us just assume they are right about this - would be a first timer, I know, but please humor me.
So what is causing lots of calculations in the game? Ground targeted area of effect (AOE) abilities that tick every (half-)second for a duration of n seconds. Everybody standing inside such an AOE effect - be it healing or damaging - needs to be calculated every (half-)second. The more players are standing in those AOEs the more calculations need to be done. And if AOEs are stacked upon each other, then the number of calculations that need to be done skyrocket quickly.
And no, these are not AOE DOTs or HOTs as Zenimax believes since a DOT or HOT replaces itself and ticks for the entire length - if not purged / cleansed - no matter where a player moves to. But that topic is stuff for another discussion.
And I do think that the situation after patch 1.6 proves my theory:
From what I understand templars are not using their class specific group heal any longer after patch 1.6 but instead fall back to the now better Healing Springs from restoration staff - spamming that. One can stack Healing Springs three times unto itself which means a single 'healer' can cause up to 3 calculations per second per player standing inside his Healing Springs AOE. Mutliply that by 20 players standing inside the AOE and by 4 'healers' (the typical zerg bomb group in Cyrodiil) and you have 120 calculations per second from only one bomb group healing itself.
Meteor as I understand it has as of 1.6 seen the addition of a ticking AOE effect. And since Meteor is now (one of) the best Ultimates out there (this is definitely true for sorcerers) it is used extremely often - causing calculations to be made for every player inside its ticking AOE effect.
I ask you: Is it just a coincidence that lag has risen after Zenimax over-hastily pushed out a patch that favors even more ticking AOEs? That Zenimax said the solution to lag is for players to spread out more - as in 'have fewer players stand in each and every ticking groung AOE'? I do not think so.
Solution: Get rid of Zenimax's obsession with ground targeted ticking AOE abilities and the lag will diminish if not go away completely!
This next point is probably way less of an issue concerning lag but it definitely adds to it:
Every time someone activates an ability - even if it is only a self-buff - an animation is rendered for all players in the vicinity. Now, you will probably argue that that will not increase lag because the client does the rendering independently from the server. True, but how does the client know what to render when and for how long? Because the server tells it to!
An example: Say 100 players are standing in front of Faregyl keep doing nothing. Then just one of those players activates, say, Critical Surge - resulting in the server having to tell 100 clients to render glowing blue hands on that particular player and then to stop that after some seconds. 200 calculations for a self-buff!
Solution: Implement de- / buffs like in most other MMORPGs to only be shown as an icon in the players UI - where debuffs are only shown for the target you are actively targeting at the moment. This would have the positive side-effect that new abilities could be implemented much faster if they are just buffs / debuffs because no animations have to be programmed - creating a new icon and placing it on an existing UI is a matter of hours at most.
What is your impression - is Zenimax 'fixing' the symptoms instead of the cause ... again? Have ground targeted ticking AOEs increased with patch 1.6? Could my theory be true?
Zenimax said that lag is caused by too many calculations having to be made in too short a time. Let us just assume they are right about this - would be a first timer, I know, but please humor me.
So what is causing lots of calculations in the game? Ground targeted area of effect (AOE) abilities that tick every (half-)second for a duration of n seconds. Everybody standing inside such an AOE effect - be it healing or damaging - needs to be calculated every (half-)second. The more players are standing in those AOEs the more calculations need to be done. And if AOEs are stacked upon each other, then the number of calculations that need to be done skyrocket quickly.
And no, these are not AOE DOTs or HOTs as Zenimax believes since a DOT or HOT replaces itself and ticks for the entire length - if not purged / cleansed - no matter where a player moves to. But that topic is stuff for another discussion.
And I do think that the situation after patch 1.6 proves my theory:
From what I understand templars are not using their class specific group heal any longer after patch 1.6 but instead fall back to the now better Healing Springs from restoration staff - spamming that. One can stack Healing Springs three times unto itself which means a single 'healer' can cause up to 3 calculations per second per player standing inside his Healing Springs AOE. Mutliply that by 20 players standing inside the AOE and by 4 'healers' (the typical zerg bomb group in Cyrodiil) and you have 120 calculations per second from only one bomb group healing itself.
Meteor as I understand it has as of 1.6 seen the addition of a ticking AOE effect. And since Meteor is now (one of) the best Ultimates out there (this is definitely true for sorcerers) it is used extremely often - causing calculations to be made for every player inside its ticking AOE effect.
I ask you: Is it just a coincidence that lag has risen after Zenimax over-hastily pushed out a patch that favors even more ticking AOEs? That Zenimax said the solution to lag is for players to spread out more - as in 'have fewer players stand in each and every ticking groung AOE'? I do not think so.
Solution: Get rid of Zenimax's obsession with ground targeted ticking AOE abilities and the lag will diminish if not go away completely!
This next point is probably way less of an issue concerning lag but it definitely adds to it:
Every time someone activates an ability - even if it is only a self-buff - an animation is rendered for all players in the vicinity. Now, you will probably argue that that will not increase lag because the client does the rendering independently from the server. True, but how does the client know what to render when and for how long? Because the server tells it to!
An example: Say 100 players are standing in front of Faregyl keep doing nothing. Then just one of those players activates, say, Critical Surge - resulting in the server having to tell 100 clients to render glowing blue hands on that particular player and then to stop that after some seconds. 200 calculations for a self-buff!
Solution: Implement de- / buffs like in most other MMORPGs to only be shown as an icon in the players UI - where debuffs are only shown for the target you are actively targeting at the moment. This would have the positive side-effect that new abilities could be implemented much faster if they are just buffs / debuffs because no animations have to be programmed - creating a new icon and placing it on an existing UI is a matter of hours at most.
What is your impression - is Zenimax 'fixing' the symptoms instead of the cause ... again? Have ground targeted ticking AOEs increased with patch 1.6? Could my theory be true?
2
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Messy1✭✭✭✭✭
✭Here are my two cents as to what is causing lag in PVE and PVP and how to fix the issue.
Zenimax said that lag is caused by too many calculations having to be made in too short a time. Let us just assume they are right about this - would be a first timer, I know, but please humor me.
So what is causing lots of calculations in the game? Ground targeted area of effect (AOE) abilities that tick every (half-)second for a duration of n seconds. Everybody standing inside such an AOE effect - be it healing or damaging - needs to be calculated every (half-)second. The more players are standing in those AOEs the more calculations need to be done. And if AOEs are stacked upon each other, then the number of calculations that need to be done skyrocket quickly.
And no, these are not AOE DOTs or HOTs as Zenimax believes since a DOT or HOT replaces itself and ticks for the entire length - if not purged / cleansed - no matter where a player moves to. But that topic is stuff for another discussion.
And I do think that the situation after patch 1.6 proves my theory:
From what I understand templars are not using their class specific group heal any longer after patch 1.6 but instead fall back to the now better Healing Springs from restoration staff - spamming that. One can stack Healing Springs three times unto itself which means a single 'healer' can cause up to 3 calculations per second per player standing inside his Healing Springs AOE. Mutliply that by 20 players standing inside the AOE and by 4 'healers' (the typical zerg bomb group in Cyrodiil) and you have 120 calculations per second from only one bomb group healing itself.
Meteor as I understand it has as of 1.6 seen the addition of a ticking AOE effect. And since Meteor is now (one of) the best Ultimates out there (this is definitely true for sorcerers) it is used extremely often - causing calculations to be made for every player inside its ticking AOE effect.
I ask you: Is it just a coincidence that lag has risen after Zenimax over-hastily pushed out a patch that favors even more ticking AOEs? That Zenimax said the solution to lag is for players to spread out more - as in 'have fewer players stand in each and every ticking groung AOE'? I do not think so.
Solution: Get rid of Zenimax's obsession with ground targeted ticking AOE abilities and the lag will diminish if not go away completely!
This next point is probably way less of an issue concerning lag but it definitely adds to it:
Every time someone activates an ability - even if it is only a self-buff - an animation is rendered for all players in the vicinity. Now, you will probably argue that that will not increase lag because the client does the rendering independently from the server. True, but how does the client know what to render when and for how long? Because the server tells it to!
An example: Say 100 players are standing in front of Faregyl keep doing nothing. Then just one of those players activates, say, Critical Surge - resulting in the server having to tell 100 clients to render glowing blue hands on that particular player and then to stop that after some seconds. 200 calculations for a self-buff!
Solution: Implement de- / buffs like in most other MMORPGs to only be shown as an icon in the players UI - where debuffs are only shown for the target you are actively targeting at the moment. This would have the positive side-effect that new abilities could be implemented much faster if they are just buffs / debuffs because no animations have to be programmed - creating a new icon and placing it on an existing UI is a matter of hours at most.
What is your impression - is Zenimax 'fixing' the symptoms instead of the cause ... again? Have ground targeted ticking AOEs increased with patch 1.6? Could my theory be true?
Your theories seem very logical. In PvP I would be in favor of reducing the calculation load and buff/debuff animations for improved performance. Of course if some of these abilities are modified and/or taken away there will be some backlash, but hopefully people can see that it would ultimately be good for stability. On the other hand, if they can stabilize things as they currently are that would be a good thing too.0 -
Psychobunni✭✭✭✭✭
✭
Solution: Get rid of Zenimax's obsession with ground targeted ticking AOE abilities within Cyrodiil only and the lag will diminish if not go away completely!
I added 3 very important words to your solution. You may have the answer, it may not be. But breaking gameplay in the rest of the game is most certainly not the answer.
Edited by Psychobunni on March 25, 2015 1:49PMIf options weren't necessary, and everyone played the same way, no one would use addons. Fix the UI!0 -
Liea✭✭I had hoped for more insight into peoples' thoughts as responses to my posting. But at least I learned what two players believe concerning the matter: restrict changes to Cyrodiil only. And I believe it is a wise decision indeed to test my solutions on a confined scenario like Cyrodiil first before throwing everything overboard. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.
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