Should ZOS reduce the Cyrodiil population cap to address lag?

fred4

The recent performance optimizations have been a mixed bag for some of us. As far as I can tell perfomance is improved for many, but there have been teething issues in the form of major FPS freezes for some of us. I have found ways of working around that, or perhaps this week's hotfix has already addressed them. I find their frequency greatly reduced, however the general issue of lag remains. My ping to the PC EU servers, from Ireland, is 100ms to 120ms at off-peak times. Right now, while Vivec is full, it is consistently in the 150ms to 170ms range. When I've had internet problems in the past, these have been bursty and intermittent, e.g. ping jumping to high numbers, then settling down again to normal. However when ping is consistently in the 150ms to 200ms range for my particular connection, I have long suspected that is due to ZOS' servers and/or their internal network being at the limit of what they can handle.

As a nightblade I am currently experiencing the "early symptoms" of this. Cyrodiil is still fairly playable, but when I try to weave some buffs inbetween my cloaks, e.g. Siphoning Attacks and Forward Momentum, I find either the buffs don't activate, or the subsequent cloak is delayed to the point where I briefly uncloak. This might not sound like much, however I've only been in some skirmishes today, not major battles. I have spent most of my PvP existence in Imperial City. You don't get those problems there, because it is always fairly empty. As someone used to that, I perhaps find Cyrodiil's lag problems particularly glaring.

ZOS' recent enhancements are improving the performance of the client. Should they also improve their server performance? I think they should! There appears to be one very easy way of doing that: Reduce the population cap of Cyrodiil campaigns. My proposal would be that ZOS halve the population cap of both the Vivec and Sotha Sil campaigns (both are regularly full on PC EU), and introduce two additional caompaigns to allow for the same total number of players.

redspecter23

The cap is a part of the problem, but I see the main issue being that players want big fights. Mechanically, they are also encouraged to group together, in large numbers to fight other groups with large numbers. If you're being attacked by 40 opponents, there is great incentive to have 40 or more defenders. The best way to win almost any pvp encounter is to simply bring more people to the fight. A lower population cap may help address this issue, but players need a compelling reason to spread out to other objectives on the map and there needs to be compelling reasons to not stack and ball up. Right now, one of the best ways for 24 players to get something done is to stick together and go do that thing then move on collectively to the next thing. I see that as the core issue that needs to be solved. Solve that problem and you could double the population cap and still be fine.

zyk

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

I believe lag can largely be solved at a gameplay design level by creating new types of gameplay outside of the highly congested keep lanes.

TheValar85

Yes, I'd been fine if ZOS halved the population cap of the 30-day campaigns and created additional campaigns to compensate.

zyk wrote: »

I believe lag can largely be solved at a gameplay design level by creating new types of gameplay outside of the highly congested keep lanes.

yeah but technicaly ZOS dosent have the tools to do it. Because if they do have it would be done ages ago.

fred4

My ping is slightly better when I am standing at the Cyrodiil home base. Yes, I think being in a big battle makes performance worse. However, when Cyro is at cap, performance is bad everywhere compared to Imperial City. I can ride through the wide open countryside and have reduced ping and things like the cloaking / skill activation issues I described. As soon as I go to IC, the issues go away. Thus I think the population cap is at least.part of the problem.

What is particularly glaring, even when everything else works quite well, are gap closers. There is such a delay between activating one and seeing it happen, you waste a precious GCD mashing that button and ruining your burst combo. It drives me nuts when I can't see the result of my actions until a second later, and I abscond to IC yet again.

Forget what I said about the freezes becoming better, by the way. Had somewhat larger battles, and they're back with a vengeance. About to change UserSettings.txt to try something I read.

idk

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

Zos has already reduced the cap more than once. They just need to figure out how to unclog whatever is bottlenecking.

fred4

Does anyone know what the cap actually is, as a matter of interest?

zyk

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

TheValar85 wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

I believe lag can largely be solved at a gameplay design level by creating new types of gameplay outside of the highly congested keep lanes.

yeah but technicaly ZOS dosent have the tools to do it. Because if they do have it would be done ages ago.

Of course they do. They are the same tools used to create Cyrodiil. What they lack is the will to invest the resources necessary to make it happen.

That's the fundamental problem with Cyrodiil: it's on life support and the changes ZOS makes are very basic, poorly vetted and take months or years to implement.

fred4 wrote: »

My ping is slightly better when I am standing at the Cyrodiil home base. Yes, I think being in a big battle makes performance worse. However, when Cyro is at cap, performance is bad everywhere compared to Imperial City. I can ride through the wide open countryside and have reduced ping and things like the cloaking / skill activation issues I described. As soon as I go to IC, the issues go away. Thus I think the population cap is at least.part of the problem.

That's because a large fight in a highly congested area can cause server processing lag, even to players nowhere near them.

The player cap has already been reduced multiple times. It's at the point already where it doesn't make sense to have so few players for so many objectives on such a large map.

zyk

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

duplicate post, please delete

fred4

zyk wrote: »

The player cap has already been reduced multiple times. It's at the point already where it doesn't make sense to have so few players for so many objectives on such a large map.

How do you know this? Do you have any figures? Enquiring minds want to know!

zyk

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

fred4 wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

The player cap has already been reduced multiple times. It's at the point already where it doesn't make sense to have so few players for so many objectives on such a large map.

How do you know this? Do you have any figures? Enquiring minds want to know!

I only have anecdotal evidence. For example, I believe a large majority of experienced players from 2014 would agree without hesitation that the population cap is far less now than it was then.

There have been multiple efforts by different groups of players over the years to estimate the cap using different methods. There seems to be a general consensus that it's gone from 400+ players per faction to 150 players per faction. Unfortunately, I do not have the time or inclination to search for the posts.

Regardless of whether it is true, fewer player does not make sense on a map of this size.

SwampRaider

the cap is already at 100v100v100

I remember back in the day when it was lag free, running 500v500v500

The cap isnt the issue, I think it should be increased

Elong

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

TheValar85 wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

I believe lag can largely be solved at a gameplay design level by creating new types of gameplay outside of the highly congested keep lanes.

yeah but technicaly ZOS dosent have the tools to do it. Because if they do have it would be done ages ago.

They have the tools if they wish, but they don't want to pay for it, PVP doesn't earn this game any money and it's played by the minority who log onto the servers.

Lucky28

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

I feel if they reduced population any further, Cyrodiil would be quite empty.

CrazYDunm3r

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

Lucky28 wrote: »

I feel if they reduced population any further, Cyrodiil would be quite empty.

This. They just actually need to do it right for once, since this new "performance update" Cyrodiil is even worse than before the new patch. Their priorities don't seem to be in Cyro and the problems we face are being solved very lazy it seems by just reducing the population. I know it takes some work to fix it, but you've had years by now ZOS and still you haven't managed. It is incompetence or blatant ignoring.

IxSTALKERxI

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

I don't think it has anything to do with population cap at this point. Lag is caused when a large amount of players are in the same place. For example, even if you reduced the cap to 60 people... 20 per alliance (making the game feel boring and dead in the process) if those 60 people all went to BRK the server would lag no different to what it does now lol. Population needs to be spread out, perhaps not have multiple groups of 24 going to the same place etc which shouldn't be up to the players to police, the game should be designed in a way to help with this issue (reduce group size cap, change map design / objectives etc)

VaranisArano

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

Cyrodiil at persistent low population turns into dead campaigns and emperor farming.

Cyrodiil needs more players and the server support for those players, not less, in order to thrive. If the server support were there, there probably would be more players and healthier campaigns.

dtsharples

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

Reduce group size to 12.
If people want to continue to stack 2 or 3 groups, they will need to communicate - which will make for better and more co-operative PVP anyway.

Irylia

im Sure ground dots and aoe ultimates have some play on the lag.

Shrink the map and the pop + create another 30 day or get us to the point where it can be 500vAvA
In which case hopefully players would spread out more naturally rather than 200+ to one area.

Incentive to branch out to different locations is needed

idk

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

Irylia wrote: »

im Sure ground dots and aoe ultimates have some play on the lag.

Shrink the map and the pop + create another 30 day or get us to the point where it can be 500vAvA
In which case hopefully players would spread out more naturally rather than 200+ to one area.

Incentive to branch out to different locations is needed

The size of the map has nothing to do with the lag or how players spread out. There is already incentive to break out to different locations but players tend flock to the action rather than find ways to take the pressure off.

So basically this fixes nothing.

Derra

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

TheValar85 wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

I believe lag can largely be solved at a gameplay design level by creating new types of gameplay outside of the highly congested keep lanes.

yeah but technicaly ZOS dosent have the tools to do it. Because if they do have it would be done ages ago.

How would you need tools to adress gameplay? You simply nerf mechanics that empower zerging/grouping and bring back mechanics that empowered outnumbered fighting that you´ve previously nerfed.

Zos doesn´t want that though because they´re very careful to cater to carebears in pvp.

Iskras

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

improv code, etc.

Kadoin

No, ZOS should keep the campaigns at their current population cap and find other ways of improving server performance.

I highly doubt the lag is the result of the population...it looks more like the issue is how much data is needed to be sent between the client and server. I've seen 1.4 megabytes per second constantly for ESO traffic before. Factor in the ping, noise, and all the other issues and I'm not surprised there is lag, especially given Windows' networking behavior and implementation.

Got a bad or your router rejected packet? lol. 99.999% chance of being disconnected in those scenarios (probably security is set up on ZOS' end to not retransmit anything). Makes me wonder why the devs have not looked into cutting the amount of data that needs be sent over the internet yet. I honestly wonder how their server manages to handle it...Oh wait...

Xai_Zi

I have never experienced lag in Cyrodiil, even when the campaign is full.

It would be great if ZOS didn't, but the current pop cap is less than half of what it was when the game was released. The conspiracy theorist in me says they quietly reduce the pop cap by 10 every major update and then include something in the patch notes along the lines of, "We've included some fixes to Cyrodiil to solve various performance related issues".

#UndoTheF***ingLightingPatch