Main Thread for Long Loading Screens

KrishakPanettier

ZOS Public Relations better notify the players quick what they intend to do to in future updates for this grossly incompetent handling of the update testing, and sub-par fix implementation.

I would rather have an update once a year and it be fully tested than deal with these sub-par fixes that seem to get worse each update. ZOS, abandon quarterly updates.

ButtersEP

Wow 2 weeks for Xbox one, you guys honestly just suck

KrishakPanettier

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Unfortunately, this is the fastest we can do this, and it is happening in an incremental patch. Big code changes like this aren't something we can quickly hotfix on console; it needs to go through a full patch with certification.

Thank you for your response. I am just frustrated with the lack of immediate ZOS response and loss of my guild mates and friends on ESO who will be hard to convince returning to this virtual world of ours.

ADarklore

What's interesting about all the complaints is that they come from players with three to four forum stars, which most likely means they haven't been playing long enough to remember all the other issues that long-term players have had to deal with without any compensation. It's a complex MMO, get over it! Nothing is perfect and they've worked pretty hard to diagnose and get a fix prepared, faster than I've seen them move on other issues.

With that being said, if this really upsets you that much that you threaten to quit, then perhaps you should find the door... because this isn't the first time and won't be the last that bugs or problems get introduced and takes time to diagnose and remove.

Nelson_Rebel

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

KrishakPanettier wrote: »

ZOS, should have reverted to the old pipeline immediately, not two weeks later? With incremental updates, you should be able to roll back quickly if it impacts Live as much as it did.

Unfortunately, this is the fastest we can do this, and it is happening in an incremental patch. Big code changes like this aren't something we can quickly hotfix on console; it needs to go through a full patch with certification.

While I agree with alot of people here’s opinion on how this issue that made it to live should have been caught.

I have to say I am thoroughly Impressed you were able to give out a full description of the issue and further expanded on it and gave us a fail-safe for the future Patch. Hopefully this also gets thoroughly tested with no unforeseen bugs. But again you also gave us some down the line info of what we can concretely expect.

All in all, while my gameplay and mood after work to play has been soured by the issue. I appreciate the work you ladies and gents have done to try and resolve this and I hope your QA team takes this as a future reference for lessons learned.


Sorry for all the toxicity here in this thread. I know it must suck reading it all.

Apache_Kid

ADarklore wrote: »

What's interesting about all the complaints is that they come from players with three to four forum stars, which most likely means they haven't been playing long enough to remember all the other issues that long-term players have had to deal with without any compensation. It's a complex MMO, get over it! Nothing is perfect and they've worked pretty hard to diagnose and get a fix prepared, faster than I've seen them move on other issues.

With that being said, if this really upsets you that much that you threaten to quit, then perhaps you should find the door... because this isn't the first time and won't be the last that bugs or problems get introduced and takes time to diagnose and remove.

Imagine thinking a month is fast for something that literally breaks the entire game mode of PvP.

Also forum stars do not correlate to play time whatsoever. I didn't join these forums for a long time once I started playing the game. I would agree with everything you are saying if they didn't offer a premium subscription tier. When you offer a service like that you need to compensate those that subscribe to the service when you break your game or you will lose subscribers.

Brutusmax1mus

ADarklore wrote: »

What's interesting about all the complaints is that they come from players with three to four forum stars, which most likely means they haven't been playing long enough to remember all the other issues that long-term players have had to deal with without any compensation. It's a complex MMO, get over it! Nothing is perfect and they've worked pretty hard to diagnose and get a fix prepared, faster than I've seen them move on other issues.

With that being said, if this really upsets you that much that you threaten to quit, then perhaps you should find the door... because this isn't the first time and won't be the last that bugs or problems get introduced and takes time to diagnose and remove.

Lol you're defending a company that has allowed bugs to stay on the game SINCE IT STARTED. This bug, however, hurt thier wallets. A month is still long.

On top of it all, THEY ARE REVERTING THE PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENTS!!!!! We have to deal with a broken game and then the reason it broke was to improve the game which they have to remove bc they don't have a fix. Reverting to a previous build is NOT fixing the problem, its the cheap way out so they can get players back for Q4 sales.

Go enjoy your thanksgiving zos. Make sure to thank all these easy millennials who accept this NONSENSE as a solution.

geonsocal

what else can be done?

except push for some type compensation...

while i myself am generally not invested in much to the point i feel like i am owed anything - can't argue against those whom feel like they should be recompensed for their trouble, and, whom pay a subscription fee for a product/service that encountered a sustained service failure...

Twohothardware

ADarklore wrote: »

What's interesting about all the complaints is that they come from players with three to four forum stars, which most likely means they haven't been playing long enough to remember all the other issues that long-term players have had to deal with without any compensation. It's a complex MMO, get over it! Nothing is perfect and they've worked pretty hard to diagnose and get a fix prepared, faster than I've seen them move on other issues.

With that being said, if this really upsets you that much that you threaten to quit, then perhaps you should find the door... because this isn't the first time and won't be the last that bugs or problems get introduced and takes time to diagnose and remove.

I've got more hours invested in the game than the majority and now invested on two different platforms. Name some of these other issues you think were on a similar level to this that took them a month to fix. You're on PC so you guys didn't have to deal with this one. Imagine going a full month where you can't respawn or fast travel without closing the game completely and spending a couple minutes logging back on every time.

allup8679

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

KrishakPanettier wrote: »

ZOS, should have reverted to the old pipeline immediately, not two weeks later? With incremental updates, you should be able to roll back quickly if it impacts Live as much as it did.

Unfortunately, this is the fastest we can do this, and it is happening in an incremental patch. Big code changes like this aren't something we can quickly hotfix on console; it needs to go through a full patch with certification.

Not. Good. Enough.

Acidlite

@ADarklore
ah well bud just because I decided to finally sign up to the forums doesn't mean I just started playing. Been here since launch so yea I have seen all the problems. Just means the games broke enough for me to start bitching.

MrCommunity

does no one test on console before a patch is released, how many weeks of PTS are there? I find it hard to imagine that this couldn't of been noticed prior to release. I mean long loading screens were also an issue, but was Zeni just hoping that you could still trade/whisper through it. what a joke....

Wrecking_Gorilla

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

KrishakPanettier wrote: »

ZOS, should have reverted to the old pipeline immediately, not two weeks later? With incremental updates, you should be able to roll back quickly if it impacts Live as much as it did.

Unfortunately, this is the fastest we can do this, and it is happening in an incremental patch. Big code changes like this aren't something we can quickly hotfix on console; it needs to go through a full patch with certification.

Complete and utter garbage! It can be fixed asap but Zos won’t spend the money to do so. I hope you have a nice care package for all the subscribers. Not only did we not get performance enhancements but we have to put up with this frustration for a month. This isn’t to mention all the current bugs that haven’t been addressed. Heavy attack bug, run/walk bug, door bug, weapon swap bug, and skill not going off, ultimates as well. The list goes on and on.

TequilaFire

Well at least we have the answers we asked for and light at the end of the tunnel.
Thank you. @ZOS_GinaBruno

Docmandu

So.. in about a week, the old code goes back in... PC still gets infinite loading screens ad nausea, consoles get sh.tty performance back.. and nobody will have sound since that is still broken too.

Did I leave anything out?! Oh yeah logging out in Cyrodiil / IC will kick you out of Cyrodiil / IC, acknowledged bug that was going to be fixed also couple of weeks ago.


But in other news... more loot crates and overpriced mounts, available NOW!

CatManDew

@ZOS_GinaBruno any word on at least compensating ESO+ subscribers during this incident? A simple yes or no would be better, than simply ignoring all the comments about compensation.

Moloch1514

ADarklore wrote: »

What's interesting about all the complaints is that they come from players with three to four forum stars, which most likely means they haven't been playing long enough to remember all the other issues that long-term players have had to deal with without any compensation. It's a complex MMO, get over it! Nothing is perfect and they've worked pretty hard to diagnose and get a fix prepared, faster than I've seen them move on other issues.

With that being said, if this really upsets you that much that you threaten to quit, then perhaps you should find the door... because this isn't the first time and won't be the last that bugs or problems get introduced and takes time to diagnose and remove.

Not true in regards to forum stars! Check my join date of September 2013. I only post occasionally, usually in response to ZOS acting like ZO$. Been here since PC closed betas.

YoshinJaa

So when are we getting console PTS?

Deedleqwerty

PS4/NA - original drive

I always get an infinite load screen if I'm killed in battle in Vivec, Cyrodiil and try to resurrect. I always get an infinite load screen if I try to use a transistis shrine. Battlefield ressurections by another player are fine. No problems.

Solution is to travel in big groups to ensure a ressurecton, and to never, ever use a transistus.

Restarting the app is the only other solution for Cyrodiil.

Load screens are situational in Imperial City. I ran a group of eight over the weekend. Two players got constant load screens on deaths or passing through doors. No one else did, until those two left due to excessive load screens, Then the others six started getting the screens as well.

Load screens in Tamriel are more occassional, though I can expect two to three each night, depending on my zone. More screens in Glenumbra, Grahtwood and Clockwork than other areas. But still, they're across the zones.

Dungeons are also producing more load screens. A week ago, they were rare. Now, each of four of us will see at least one long load, as well as a couple of disconnects. That's in each dungeon.

I haven't gotten any long loads in the trials, although other PS4/NA guildmates have gotten them.

Pyr0xyrecuprotite

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We’d like to explain what happened to cause the recent issue with long loading screens, and what we’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The source of the long loading screens came down to a bug we introduced in the Clockwork City DLC.

So, what was the bug? In Update 16, we added in a new system that refined the character texture loading pipeline as part of our ongoing effort to increase performance and framerate in high-intensity situations (such as in Cyrodiil and densely-populated cities). Unfortunately, this new pipeline was causing some character textures to get lost, which was causing the load screen to never drop because there were still textures that need to be loaded.

While we continue to work on fixing this issue fully, we’re going to be making two changes to an upcoming incremental patch. First, we’re going to be reverting to the old pipeline which doesn’t have this issue, but may affect how quickly you see other characters loading in (this will essentially be the same as it was before Clockwork City). Further, we’re introducing a new failsafe that will force your load screen to drop after two minutes if it is only waiting on textures. This patch is currently with first party certification for testing; the patch for PlayStation 4 and PC/Mac will be published next Tuesday, November 28. The patch for Xbox One requires a bit more time with first party certification, and we’re targeting a publish during the week of December 4.

In the future when we have a more permanent fix, we plan to re-enable the new pipeline because it makes for better game performance, but when we do that, we’ll be adding the equivalent of a switch on our side that we can turn off (to fall back to the old system) if we see these kinds of issues crop up again, rather than make you wait for another patch.

We sincerely apologize for the disruption this has caused, and we will endeavor to make sure that problems like these aren’t introduced in the future when adding new systems or making performance enhancements.

Best, most informative response to a major issue, ever. I like it. Kudos to ZoS.
(I'm also glad that I have not been affected by the load screen bug, probably because I don't PvP much.

Thogard

Oh hey, i was right about what was causing the problems.

*pats self on back*

As far as the solution, you guys just need to update the criteria that prompts a 'load check' and 'load complete' to match the new priorities (or pipeline as you call it) for textures... and make sure the precache file priority is actually working.

infinite loading screens have been around for a while. its always the same problem.

And on xbox.. its not an issue when people zone in.. its an issue when they die and respawn. Why? because the first time they zone in, they dont have any of the models cache'd.

The cache needs to be updated to match the new loading priorities, and the load screen's criteria for passing into the actual game need to be updated as well..

qq

I3akerOfcakes

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

KrishakPanettier wrote: »

ZOS, should have reverted to the old pipeline immediately, not two weeks later? With incremental updates, you should be able to roll back quickly if it impacts Live as much as it did.

Unfortunately, this is the fastest we can do this, and it is happening in an incremental patch. Big code changes like this aren't something we can quickly hotfix on console; it needs to go through a full patch with certification.

Nice 2 more weeks of unplayable PvP. Cancel your ESO plus subscriptions boys and girls ZoS is obviously not allocating the resources we pay them every month, back into the game. $15 a month for a game that only works half the time. Totally worth it.

Apache_Kid

SirAxen wrote: »

davidj8291 wrote: »

SirAxen wrote: »

Apache_Kid wrote: »

SirAxen wrote: »

davidj8291 wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Hey everyone,

We’d like to explain what happened to cause the recent issue with long loading screens, and what we’re doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again. The source of the long loading screens came down to a bug we introduced in the Clockwork City DLC.

So, what was the bug? In Update 16, we added in a new system that refined the character texture loading pipeline as part of our ongoing effort to increase performance and framerate in high-intensity situations (such as in Cyrodiil and densely-populated cities). Unfortunately, this new pipeline was causing some character textures to get lost, which was causing the load screen to never drop because there were still textures that need to be loaded.

While we continue to work on fixing this issue fully, we’re going to be making two changes to an upcoming incremental patch. First, we’re going to be reverting to the old pipeline which doesn’t have this issue, but may affect how quickly you see other characters loading in (this will essentially be the same as it was before Clockwork City). Further, we’re introducing a new failsafe that will force your load screen to drop after two minutes if it is only waiting on textures. This patch is currently with first party certification for testing; the patch for PlayStation 4 and PC/Mac will be published next Tuesday, November 28. The patch for Xbox One requires a bit more time with first party certification, and we’re targeting a publish during the week of December 4.

In the future when we have a more permanent fix, we plan to re-enable the new pipeline because it makes for better game performance, but when we do that, we’ll be adding the equivalent of a switch on our side that we can turn off (to fall back to the old system) if we see these kinds of issues crop up again, rather than make you wait for another patch.

We sincerely apologize for the disruption this has caused, and we will endeavor to make sure that problems like these aren’t introduced in the future when adding new systems or making performance enhancements.

Nah. You guys are done. You won’t be getting my subscription back. This is ridiculous. A MONTH of being completely unable to play the one element of the game I play?!? If Netflix or Hulu did this, they would no longer be in business.
But it’s okay for y’all? Nah. Good riddance.

If you play ESO only for the PVP then good riddance, indeed. There is a ton of PVP centric games out there. ESO is an MMORPG and has a metric *beep* ton of content outside of Cyrodiil.

People want to play a large portion of the game that is broken. There being "a ton of PvP centric games out there" does not change that. I promise you that none of us care about your suggestions on how we spend our free time.

Where did I suggest anything? I stated a fact about the game of Elder Scrolls Online. There is so much more to this game than PVP'ing in the Heartland. If you can't handle PVP being a cluster for a few weeks then maybe the game isn't for you, since you're blatantly ignoring the other 99% of it.

Considering you hardly PvP, you have no place to comment on the state of PvP or what someone else enjoys. So, stow it.

Yet here you are. If you don't like something, you stow it.

This is a message board/forum. One of it's main functions is literally for players to use it to cite issues with the game and things they don't like.

AnviOfVai

Wow.

I Thank you for the responce once again, and thank you for explaning it so throughly, but I have to agree with nearly everyone here...how did this get through testing? It is pretty bad especially for the people who subscribe, I do hope those customers get some kind of reimbursement.

Unfortunatly as much as all of us unlike this not much we can do but wait until its fixed.

I suggest PVP players give Battlefront 2 a go i'm having a blast.

ADarklore

For those who want an example of this happening before... try Orsinium. I believe it was almost two months before some players could log in and finish their crafting writs there, each time they tried they crashed, some players had to send ZOS tickets because their characters were stuck there.

Further, those complaining about wanting compensation, the 'game' is not inaccessible or broken, a specific section of the game- much like Orsinium was- is problematic. If 90% of the game is working fine, then they're not going to compensate anyone simply because the one section you are choosing only to play doesn't work... go play in another area until it's fixed. If they started compensating now, they'd set a precedent, and any problem from then on would have players using this precedent to demand compensation... the easiest way is to not compensate anyone.

Also, for those who don't get it, ESO+ isn't enough to support the game... if it were, it would have stayed subscription based. Fact is, ESO+ is just icing on the cake, the real cake, the real aspect that supports the game are Crown Store purchases. So saying you're going to cancel ESO+ doesn't cause ZOS to blink twice, it didn't support the game before, isn't supporting it now, so they're not going to listen to your tantrums.

Karivaa

RIP ESO

Karivaa

I’m canceling eso plus for sure. This is inexcusable and the game has been unplayable on Xbox.

Apache_Kid

ADarklore wrote: »

For those who want an example of this happening before... try Orsinium. I believe it was almost two months before some players could log in and finish their crafting writs there, each time they tried they crashed, some players had to send ZOS tickets because their characters were stuck there.

Further, those complaining about wanting compensation, the 'game' is not inaccessible or broken, a specific section of the game- much like Orsinium was- is problematic. If 90% of the game is working fine, then they're not going to compensate anyone simply because the one section you are choosing only to play doesn't work... go play in another area until it's fixed. If they started compensating now, they'd set a precedent, and any problem from then on would have players using this precedent to demand compensation... the easiest way is to not compensate anyone.

Also, for those who don't get it, ESO+ isn't enough to support the game... if it were, it would have stayed subscription based. Fact is, ESO+ is just icing on the cake, the real cake, the real aspect that supports the game are Crown Store purchases. So saying you're going to cancel ESO+ doesn't cause ZOS to blink twice, it didn't support the game before, isn't supporting it now, so they're not going to listen to your tantrums.

Sorry I refuse to adopt an attitude where i just excuse things that don't work. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

kitsune_beth

Xbox One

Mostly moving from one area to another via wayshrines.

Happens mostly in hub areas for me (cities etc)
(Particularly bad are Vulkhel Guard, Vivec City, but most have issues)
But also starting to happen moving to another area via doors etc.

Game is loaded on to my Xbox Internal HD

gp1680

Thogard wrote: »

Oh hey, i was right about what was causing the problems.

*pats self on back*

As far as the solution, you guys just need to update the criteria that prompts a 'load check' and 'load complete' to match the new priorities (or pipeline as you call it) for textures... and make sure the precache file priority is actually working.

infinite loading screens have been around for a while. its always the same problem.

And on xbox.. its not an issue when people zone in.. its an issue when they die and respawn. Why? because the first time they zone in, they dont have any of the models cache'd.

The cache needs to be updated to match the new loading priorities, and the load screen's criteria for passing into the actual game need to be updated as well..

qq

Need a job @Thogard ? If we're lucky, one may open up soon. Have resume handy.