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Explaining The ‘House Slot’ Problem And Why It Is Difficult To Solve.

  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @TelvanniWizard

    You may not care how performance in impacted for yourself or other players, but Zos has to care.

    If game developers did not about performance and system integrity issues all games will be pieces of *** that barely functioned on even the most high end gaming machines.

    And this issue is not 'just for low end machines'.

    If you don't believe that try the test I suggested using your machine or any machine.

    Yes, some will perform better than others but if you place to many objects to close together 'all' machines will encounter some level or performance problems.

    Why?

    Because CPU speeds have not increased in about 15 years now. (Due to 'heat' problems)

    They have actually slowed down as the add more cores. (And cores don't help with collision algorithms)

    Back in the 80s and 90s a high end machine could be 10X maybe even 20X faster than a low end machine.

    Now that high end machine might be twice to two and a half times faster than the low end machine.

    So... run the test if you don't believe that. (Again at your own risk)

    Who knows, maybe Zos has 'solved' this issue and it everything I said is BS now and Zos is just lying about performance issue.

    NOTE: To solve this problem with 'Hardware' today means you would need CPUs running at something like 20 to 30 Ghz. Even with experimental Nitrogen cooling system they only get up to like 6 or 7 Ghz.
    Edited by Woefulmonkey on June 22, 2018 4:41PM
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @hiyde

    I actually talk about combining objects with a custom hitbox in this thread.

    It is a 'possible' solution. However, it likely requires some significant design changes and would definitely require a new UI to manage the 'combo box' placement and inserting and removing items from the 'combo box'.

    This IS a way Zos might be able to significantly increase slot allowances, but this is not a week of work on their part.

    What they can do relatively quickly and without even engaging actually software engineers is designing new and better furniture like the stuff they just released.

    That does not 'give you more slots' but it does let you 'do more with the slots you already have'.

    Again, saying 'We Need More Item Slots' is not actually are description of a problem, it is a demand for implementing a specific solution to the 'real' problem.

    'Adding Slots' is not the 'only solution to the decorating problems it is just the most obvious one and then only if you don't understand the performance issue or just don't want to care about them.
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @TelvanniWizard

    People say they are 'OK' with allowing for catastrophic failures so they can get what they want only because they don't think it will affect THEM personally. Which is a very selfish outlook in a community game like this.

    So, lets paly what if.

    Lets say they Zos did just say 'F IT' and added more slots and with a 'disclaimer' to users saying

    'In Some Cases You Could Get Locked In Your House Or Locked Out Of Your House Based On How You Place Items... Enjoy At Your Own Risk!'

    And they show that every time you enter your house so everyone sees it.

    You decide to buy a new $150 house, because now you can fill it with 3K furniture items.

    Then you give a online friend of your the ability to 'move' furniture you because your a 'guild buds'.

    2 months later you and your online friend have a fight and you forget to disable their access.

    They are pissed so they go to 'YOUR' house and they move all your furniture into a ball right at the entrance of your home.

    The next time you try to login... you can't because the system keeps persistently crashing every time you try to enter your home.

    I really doubt anyone would be 'OK' with just loosing the house they paid 150$ real dollars for in that situation.

    Again, saying 'We Need More Item Slots' is not actually are description of a problem, it is a demand for implementing a specific solution to the 'real' problem.

    'Adding Slots' is not the 'only solution to the decorating problems it is just the most obvious one and then only if you don't understand the performance issue or just don't want to care about them.
  • hiyde
    hiyde
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    @hiyde

    Again, saying 'We Need More Item Slots' is not actually are description of a problem, it is a demand for implementing a specific solution to the 'real' problem.

    'Adding Slots' is not the 'only solution to the decorating problems it is just the most obvious one and then only if you don't understand the performance issue or just don't want to care about them.

    While I appreciate the information you're providing, much of it goes over my head as I am not (as I said clearly in my post) a programmer.

    There's really no need to be rude or condescending which is how some of your posts come off (at least to me). That helps nothing. Your quoted text above has nothing to do with what I said. In fact, I led my post by saying the opposite.

    Again, I've enjoyed reading your posts, but a little less lecturing would go a long way. <3

    @Hiyde GM/Founder - Bleakrock Barter Co (Trade Guild - PC/NA) | Blackbriar Barter Co (Trade Guild-PC/NA)
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @Tezzaa

    Unfortunately people have been trying to improve these algorithms for over 30 years now. (Since Doom Was Released)


    They are still in much the same place they were 25 years ago.


    Physics calculation breakthroughs don't just happened because someone wants them to. This is a very hard problems to solve.

    It is much more likely they will solve the 'heat' problem with CPUs and hardware will start dramatically increasing performance again before they will solve these limitations in software.


    If they find a way to make CPUs that run a 30Ghz... well this problem basically goes away.

    Until then they have to find more ways to 'cheat physics'.

    I have even described 3 possible ways they might be able to do something in this thread.

    1. ) Provide separate item limits for interior and exterior areas of homes (Only benefits people who have interior and exterior areas)
    2. ) Limit how many objects you can place close to one another in segmented areas (Would increase the item limit but would interfere with things like building custom wall or populating a book shelf with individual books.. other decoration activities that involve overlapping items)
    3. ) Allow players to 'combine' objects into one 'hitbox' so multiple objects are treated as 1 object. (Does not increased item counts but does allow you to combine 10 or 100 objects so they use 1 slot. This has high development costs and requires new editing UIs to be developed)

    All of these solutions are way more expensive than just creating better items that allow you to get more from the slots limits that already exists. They are already doing this kind of work as you can see from the new furniture items release in the past month.
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @hiyde

    I am truly sorry, I really am not trying to be rude or condescending.

    I am a software engineer (not a game developer although I have dabbled) and we have a tendency to be blunt.

    It can come off as condescending especially in interactions with non-engineers, but that is not my intent.

    This is actually are real problem in the software industry as a whole because a good developer needs to be able to communicate openly with customers and understand what the need even if they are having trouble describing it in a technical way.

    If you are rude or condescending the customer can shut down and stop giving vital feedback needed to ensure you deliver what they need/want.

    And in the end if you can't deliver what they need/want you will be out of a job.

    So, let me try to restate what I was saying.

    When you say 'Give Me More Slots', that does not help the developer understand what the actual problem you are having is.

    We need to get down to the 'real' problem and find a way to 'solve it' or at least make 'improvements' within the confines of the systems design.

    So what I am saying is rather than just saying 'Give Me More Slots' try to explain 'Why You Feel That You Need More Slots'.

    1. ) I can't finish decorating both the interior and exterior of my house under the current slot limits.
    2. ) Even though I have used all my items slots my house still looks like a empty desert because it is so large and I am limited to how many items I can populate it with.
    3. ) I like to make custom bookshelves and dining areas and doing that take hundreds of slots so I run out items before I can finish decorating my house.

    I think these are some of the real problems and they are solvable in ways that may not required increasing item limits.

    All I am saying is that people should try to give more examples like that to explain why they want more slots which may lead to unexpected solutions.
    Edited by Woefulmonkey on June 22, 2018 5:36PM
  • TelvanniWizard
    TelvanniWizard
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    @Woefulmonkey

    Regarding your example and little hypothetical story, it could be easily solved by giving us the abbility to retrieve items being out of the home, either way sending them to the inventory or to the bank. It´s just a matter of personal responsibility. Give those who are willing to risk loseing a little performance the actual chance to see what happens. It´s not shelfishness, but practical sense. Many of the homes in this game will always be incomplete with just 350/700 slots. Just be sensible and don´t do weird things. And if something like your example happens, given to option to retrieve items, added with the increase of slots, you´ll just have to redecorate, and learn to know whom to trust.
  • hiyde
    hiyde
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    @hiyde

    I am truly sorry, I really am not trying to be rude or condescending.

    All I am saying is that people should try to give more examples like that to explain why they want more slots which may lead to unexpected solutions.

    I've spent enough years on gaming forums to have expected a very different reply. What a pleasant surprise. :)

    Personally, I've encountered all 3 situations.

    1) We've built a beautiful "Crafting Boardwalk" at our "guild" house with wooden paths, trees/hedges, lanterns etc. That, plus having all the set stations has us emptying the inside of our house every time new tables come out. We're down to 1 room with anything in it and we've boarded off most other rooms.

    2) Gigantic properties like Topal Hideaway leave a choice of sparse decorating covering more ground or making a small portion look awesome. While I love the premium properties, I haven't bought another for this reason.

    3) For our Halloween House, we bought tons of Daedric books and started loading them into bookcases for people to read. As the item count rapidly bloated, we took them all out and put in prefab bookcases.

    Here's a few shots of our Guild House:

    khndfp62r4ia.png

    9vby4cprb5lz.png

    bjqyi4lchiy6.png

    xurthbu5lbj8.png

    And the interior...

    sivv8xwxpnmp.png



    @Hiyde GM/Founder - Bleakrock Barter Co (Trade Guild - PC/NA) | Blackbriar Barter Co (Trade Guild-PC/NA)
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @TelvanniWizard

    So first let me be clear, I don't 100% disagree with you. At least in that 'most' players would never experience an issue with object placement even if they increased the limit significantly.

    What I am saying is that increasing the limit is not the 'only' solution.

    It is just the most obvious solution because it only requires changing a single integer which also makes it the 'cheapest' solution for Zos to implement.

    It also happens to be the most 'dangerous' solution which is why Zos has not just done it.

    Ask yourself, why would Zos want to limit the amount of money they can make on furniture sales in the first place?

    (They would not)

    Trust me they want to sell you as many of these houses and as much furniture as you are willing to pay for. It funds other development actives because that content is really cheap for them to produce.

    (I for one am very thankful to players who spend money on houses and decorations, because I am sure it is a big reason why we see new dungeons almost every other month)

    Additionally just increasing the item slots across the board requires the least work from them.

    So why wouldn't they just do that?

    Because the issues that unrestricted item placement lead to are severe. They can crash the game in a variety of known ways.

    And player are extremely creative and do very unexpected things all the time which makes knowing deploying a change like this irresponsible to the community as a whole and could hurt the companies reputation over time.

    Based on feedback from another poster let me try to explain my position on this issue a different way:

    When you say 'Give Me More Slots', that does not help the developer understand what the actual problem you are having is.

    We need to get down to the 'real' problem and find a way to 'solve it' or at least make 'improvements' within the confines of the systems design.

    So what I am saying is rather than just saying 'Give Me More Slots' try to explain 'Why You Feel That You Need More Slots'.

    1. ) I can't finish decorating both the interior and exterior of my house under the current slot limits.
    2. ) Even though I have used all my items slots my house still looks like a empty desert because it is so large and I am limited to how many items I can populate it with.
    3. ) I like to make custom bookshelves and dining areas and doing that take hundreds of slots so I run out items before I can finish decorating my house.

    I think these are some of the real problems and they are solvable in ways that may not required increasing item limits.

    All I am saying is that people should try to give more examples like that to explain why they want more slots which may lead to unexpected solutions.
    Edited by Woefulmonkey on June 22, 2018 8:19PM
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @hiyde

    So, first let me say that the images you provide look great.

    That is the type of creativity by players that 'NEEDS' to be supported.

    Again I am in 100% agreement that there is are 'real' problems regarding players ability to effectively decorate their houses, especially for the large and notable homes.

    It sounds like you are impacted by 2 specific issues currently

    1. ) Not able to decorate both the interior and exterior they way you want under the current item placement limitations.
    2. ) Not being able to effectively decorate the entire space of one of the extremely large areas.

    I think these are the 2 most egregious issues with the current placement limitations.

    So, if I worked for Zos and I got this feedback my first questions would be:

    (Just a disclaimer I in no way work for Zos, I am just interested in how players are running out of slots to begin with and how to address those issues from a technical perspective.)

    1. ) In the home were you are unable to decorate the interior, how were you decorating the exterior?

    For instance were you creating many custom walls and structures out of block that was using up all your item slots?
    Were you planning custom gardens and placing lots of individual flowers and shrubs?
    (From the pictures it looks like a lot of custom trees an bushes were used)


    2. ) For the home you felt could not be 'filled' what did you want to do to 'fill' it?

    In other words did you have a specific idea about what type of objects you wanted to place and then what experience did you have that made you believe it would not be possible in that home.

    3. ) What decoration area in your house is using the most object slots right now and what objects is that area comprised of?


    Now I really hope Zos has engaged with some of it's players who are having these issues and is currently asking these questions or similar ones themselves.
    Edited by Woefulmonkey on June 22, 2018 8:52PM
  • notimetocare
    notimetocare
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    ak_pvp wrote: »
    If they can give increased slots for ESO+ and increased slots based on the "size" of the house, then they can give more for all. 700 for all non ESO members for any med+ house.

    And even if it fks with performance, so what, its your house not a part of base game, and they should just put a disclaimer there that too many items can cause instability. Maybe on load they can just say "this house has X items, do you want to enter, or this house has X items and is close together, do you want to enter

    Keep in mind everything in houses is still server load. Give this to every hoarder house in ESO and you get a shedload of server stress
  • bellatrixed
    bellatrixed
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    I have actually run into performance issues in some of the larger houses. I 'broke' my Erstwhile Sanctuary by adding enough items with particle effects that random ones show up as off even when they're on and the only way I can fix it is to max out my particle suppression which in turn lowers performance.

    But IMO there's a few things they can do to mitigate that even if they don't touch slots.

    - The reason I broke my house's particles is because I needed to use a trillion lights. Lighting is a huge issue in housing. They either need to give us some sort of day/night controls, to let us set a brightness level of the interior or to just plain give us brighter/more ambient lights. I shouldn't have to put a light every 10 feet or else it's pitch black.

    - YES to the suggestions about giving s more prefab items. We now have a few bookcases that come packed with books (but have tons more styles that are empty only) and we have a placemat with utensils and plate/food already on it. These are all steps in the right direction.

    - Make tiny items take up a half slot (or less). It's absolutely insane that a fork and a massive statue take up the same item space. I notice a load time when I zone into my Princely Dawnlight courtyard filled with statues. I can guarantee if it was filled with forks instead there would be no load time. So, if the item cap is 300, I should be able to put 600 forks in it.

    There's a lot they could do to give us more possibilities without physically upping the limit.
    ESO Roleplay | RP community for all factions/servers/platforms
  • Karivaa
    Karivaa
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    Zos has stated on more than one occasion that adding housing slots is a performance issue but many players will not believe them and some people even claim they are lying for some unknown reason.

    I hesitate to even try to explain this because it will get technical and most will not read it. Additionally the people who don’t want to believe there is an issue are unlikely to be swayed by ‘any’ explanation since it is not what they ‘want’ to hear.

    I understand the skepticism because games have come so far in the last 20 years they it seems like this kind of issue should be ‘solved’. However, in reality the root cause of this issue has been around for that entire time and no one has ‘solved’ it, they just found ways to work around it and benefited from ‘hardware’ improvements over time. However, the days of hardware doubling in performance every 3 years is long gone so things have been stagnant in this area for about 10 years now.

    The ‘Explanation’:

    This is going to be a bit of a long and winding road involving math but I will try to keep it is simple as possible.

    Lets start by conceptualizing the ‘Game World’ as a ‘Turn Based Board Game’ where each ‘Round' is 1 ‘Frame’ based on the games ‘Fames Per Second’.

    Then let’s examine a vary ‘naive’ view of how many object calculations ‘need’ to be performed to track the positions of all objects in a game world for each ‘frame’.

    Based on our view of the ‘real’ world to know the positions of every object you must examine how each object in the world moves and how it interacts with every other object in the world because of that movement. That is because all objects are always ‘moving’ due to ‘gravity’ and even if 2 unique objects do not interact at all you need to verify they do not interact.

    This leads us to a very bad number of required movement calculations N * (N -1) where N is the total number of objects in the world.

    This calculations can be simplified to N squared – N which is what is known as a geometric progression that is very bad in terms of calculation growth.

    If N is 5 the number of calculations required is 20

    If N is 10 the number of calculations goes to 90

    If N is 15 the number of calculations goes to 210

    As you can see the number of calculations needed goes up much faster than the total number of object added.

    If N is 700 the number of calculations goes to 489,300 which I guarantee not even the most powerful gaming computer could handle.

    But games work, so how do they get around this issue?

    Well they find ways to ‘cheat’ the math.

    So, let’s start ‘cheating’.

    We start by realizing that the ‘Game’ world is not a ‘Real’ world so we not bound by real world physics conditions like ‘gravity’.

    Most objects in the game will ‘never’ move. So we can restate N as the number of ‘Moving’ objects M plus the number of ‘Collidable’ object C.

    Then we can restate that original equation as M * (M + C - 1).

    This can be simplified to M squared + M * C – M.
    This may look ‘worse’ but M is a much smaller number than N so the number of calculations does not grow as fast as it did before.

    That is good, but we still have a geometric progression algorithm which is still bad.

    So, lets look at M.

    M is now only the moving objects which are basically ‘Players’ P and ‘Other AI Controlled Objects’ A.

    So M = P + A

    Ok, so now lets ‘cheat’ some more. What if we could say that AI Controlled objects were not part of M but instead were part of C.

    What does that mean?

    Well, it turns out that if we manage AI movement at the ‘Server’ level and say AI objects always win any collision detection operation then the ‘Client’ machine can treat all AI controlled objects as if they were ‘stationary’ at least during each individual frame of movement.

    Think of it this way. Imagine that the game is a ‘Turn Based’ table top game and all NPC’s get to move first in each round. Now when all ‘Players’ move the ‘Board’ is set so they know where all the NPCs are during this round and they are guaranteed not to ‘move’ again until the next round.

    So M = P and C now becomes C + A

    Ok so what does our formula look like now?

    It would be P * (P + C + A -1)

    Which can be simplified to P squred + ((C + A) * P) – P.

    Again, this looks more complex but again P is an even smaller number than M so the number of calculations grows even slower than the last time. However, P squared still means we have a geometric progression.

    Time to cheat again.

    Ok so P is now just ‘Players’ right. Well what if we said every ‘Player’ managed their own world movement calculations and ‘Players’ could not ‘Collide’ with one another.

    What does that mean?

    Well think of it this way. Imaging you are the only ‘real’ player in your world and all other players were ‘ghosts’ you can see but cannot actually touch.

    If we do that then P = 1.

    So what happens to that equations now?

    P squred + (C + A) * P – P becomes 1 squred + (C + A) * 1 – 1

    That simplifies to C + A.

    OMG the square is gone. We no longer have a geometric progression.

    Problem solved!

    Zos must be a bunch of liars after all… right?

    Sorry, no…

    It is great that we now have a linear progression for the ‘number’ of calculation required for each fame of movement. But that is just a count of how many unique ‘collision’ calculation need to be perform at each frame every time a player moves.

    Those ‘calculation’ have a cost measured in milliseconds.

    So here is the second half of the ‘object count’ problem.

    To give you smooth movement in the game you really need to process at least 10 ‘moves’ per second or movement begins to feel jerky and unresponsive to the player.

    That means you only have 100 milliseconds to process ‘ALL’ collision operation for each ‘move’ frame.

    Imaging that turn based game again but now you have a timer and you have to move in a set time each round or you are penalized. However, before you can move you have to perform a calculation in your head for each object on the board. The more objects the less time you have for each calculation you need to make before you can move.

    The time needed to perform all collision calculations is then (C + A) * t.

    Now lets also simplify the calculation by saying C + A is just C.

    So the calculation is now just C * t.

    Lets say each ‘collision’ calculation takes 5 milliseconds (I am pretty sure they take longer than that even today).

    Ok how many calculations can you perform in 100 milliseconds if t is 5 milliseconds?

    C = 100 / 5 = 20

    WTF!

    So even if the time required to perform a collision operation is only 5 millisecond you can only process 20 objects for each frame of movement!

    How the F can any game possibly function?


    Well they use things like BSP trees and Occlusion operations to further reduce the size of C so you don’t perform calculations on ‘All’ objects in the game world but instead only perform them on a small sub set of objects near the player.

    What does that mean?

    Think of the table top game again. Now you have to move in a set time frame but instead of having to perform a calculation in your head of all objects on the board you just have to perform the calculations for the set of objects that are within say 3 squares of the object you are moving.

    I am not going to describe the processes for deciding ‘which’ objects you ‘need’ to perform collision calculations on but know those processes also have a time cost that goes up as the number of total objects go up.

    However, no matter what they do, they can’t escape the limit of how many objects that can effectively perform collision calculations on before hitting performance issues and that number is actually pretty small.

    So they do everything they can to ‘avoid’ those calculations.

    In the ‘Dev’ controlled game world they ensure objects are placed far enough apart that you are basically guaranteed that you will never have ‘too many’ objects close enough to a player that it causes significant performance issues.

    However, in a ‘House’ players are placing the objects, which means they can do ‘bad’ things, like building a house out of bottles, that can cause serious issues with performance because they have place way too many small objects close enough to each other that the value of C goes way beyond 20 even after performing all ‘limiting’ operations.

    If you still don’t believe this I suggest you try a test I have posted several times already.

    NOTE: This test may cause your player to get ‘stuck’ in your house or if you perform the test too close to the entrance cause you to not be able to ‘enter’ your house.

    1. ) From a test server acquire a large home capable of the deploying the max furniture count which I believe is 700 items the new ‘Coldharbor’ house would probably be good.
    2. ) From the test server acquire 700 items based on the items types described at the beginning of the test notes. (Make sure all lights have been turned on)
    3. ) Place all 700 items in a pile somewhere in the center close enough that they are not overlapping and you can see all objects.
    4. ) Log out of your house, then log back in and note the ‘load time’
    5. ) Now move around the object while trying to keep them all in your view window and note the ‘Frame Per Second’ you are getting. (I believe there are PC addons that will give you slash command to see the FPS)
    6. ) Now move so you will collide with the object, jumping on top of them would be good the more objects you can hit at once the better. Again note your Frames Per Second.

    NOTE: I have another thread in which I describe ways Zos CAN increase the slot count in some way, but I am not really a fan of the solutions described since they are not ‘fair’ and can lead to other issues customers would like even less than the current slot limits.

    https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/418234/examples-of-how-zos-can-increase-house-furniture-slots#latest

    Wow! Thanks so much for explaining this. How would Zos fix the cyrodiil freezing problems that have started since Summerset?

  • themudkipb16_ESO
    It's infuriating watching people with no insight or expertise whatsoever challenge the OP on the basis of nothing at all.
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @Karivaa

    Sorry, I am not 100% sure if your question was meant to be serious or sarcastic.

    However, I will assume it is serious and try to answer as best as I can.

    I am not familiar with the issue you are describing specific to cyrodiil as I don't play PvP (although I am considering it since my guild recently started PvPing), so I have not experienced the issue in that zone myself.

    I also have no insight into Zos code or system design so all my comments are based on 'black box' observations and my knowledge of development practices and my own experiences writing physics engines (the last one I wrote was about 10 years ago).

    So, I can't give you a definitive answer as to why they system would be freezing more frequently in cyrodiil after the last expansion updates.

    However, I can say that I have experienced some zone load issues and some 'game stutters' (where the screen seems to freeze for about 2 to 3 seconds then resumes) in Summerset since the release. I have also had 2 disconnect events where I game still ran for almost an entire minute but all surrounding AI's were completely unresponsive and none of the marital nodes or chests could be interacted with.

    I believe both of those issues have the same 'general' cause, which would be 'network connectivity' issues.

    The most likely contributing factor for the attack of the 'lag monster' this way is simply more users being online at the same time which increases network traffic and make it more likely to hit one of the communication hiccups.

    The 'internet' is a massive complex structure of interconnected routers that literally spans the globe.

    Your communications with Zos do not take a straight line from your house to Zos servers that are nearest to you. They pass though dozens of routers and internet backbones in the form of 'packets' which do not necessarily take the same 'path' every time. So when a 'packet' is traveling it spends 95% of the time moving through systems that Zos has no control over.

    Imagine it as an actual 'snail mail' service. Each time you move you send a letter to Zos with instructions about what you did. All other players are doing the same thing. The players do not 'hand deliver' this letter to Zos, instead they give them to the post office and 'trust' that it will deliver them. The letter are then passed though many sorting centers until they reach a location close to Zos and a carrier delivers them to the actual location. However at times like the 'holiday' the number of letters being sent increases dramatically, but the number of employees at the post office remains the same. Which means that packages get process more slowly over all and the likelihood of letters being lost periodically increases during that time.

    You machine is sending and receiving a constant stream of 'packages' if this stream is 'interrupted' suddenly one way they may deal with it is to slow down or temporally halt the number of transactions 'your machine' processes per second. You would experience this slow down as 'lag' or momentary 'freezing'.

    If there is an significant loss of 'packages' the game will sometimes try to re-establish communications on the fly. During that time you would be able to move your character but no interact with items and all AIs would basically stop moving. If communication re-establishes successfully your character gets 'teleported' back to the location and in whatever condition the 'server' says that your character has.

    So, how does Zos fix that?


    Well they can't fix the internet, that is a beast with a thousand heads.


    The things that 'cause' temporary freezing and lag are actually how they 'handle' packet loss and keep you from being 'kicked' entirely.


    So for low percentage of temporary issues, 'freezing' is actually them 'protecting' you from being 'kicked'.


    If these issues persist because community size increases, the only think Zos can really do is increase the number of servers they have on their end and place them in locations across the glob to break up message traffic so they can be handled by a server closer to the user and the packages can find a more direct routs. (This is why they have several 'regional' server listing when you start the game)
    Edited by Woefulmonkey on June 25, 2018 5:29PM
  • Karivaa
    Karivaa
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    Thank you! I was not being sarcastic, I was interested.
  • HappyElephant
    HappyElephant
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    I don't understand the technicalities but I can share from experience that as the number of furnishing items placed in EarthTear Cavern increased, so too did performance. I get weird glitches when I go to decorate mode.
  • MornaBaine
    MornaBaine
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    No matter how you slice it, 700 items is too few for the Notable homes that allow that max. If "the math" means they really never can go beyond this (and I'm willing to believe that is true) then they should have thought ahead and made those homes smaller. Also, "the math" makes no sense on the homes where you actually go through a loading screen to get to various different places in the home. Outside grounds should hold 700 items and inside the home should hold 700 items as these are, essentially, separate instances. For instance, the Daggerfall Overlook has outdoor grounds as you enter, indoor space inside the castle...and a third "instance" beyond the trapdoor downstairs. If EACH of those "instances" held 700 objects people would be in heaven. What is keeping them from doing just that? If you have an explanation for it I'd love to hear it.

    Also, knowing their own limitations, there absolutely SHOULD be a "filled" version of most pieces of furniture in the game. Just like the Reguard and Dunmer filled and empty bookcases. And the filled version should be the same price as the empty one, NOT more expensive. Why? Because it's being created in the first place because of a deficiency in the game itself. Mixing both "filled" and "empty" pieces of furniture will allow you to customize your overall look AND save you item slots. Knowing how BAD the current system is, ZOS should be all over creating these "filled" pieces of furniture for every racial category they have.


    But of FAR more annoyance than the item limits are the PLAYER LIMITS. Can you possibly explain why 50 people can cram into the Daggerfall bank but I can only have 12 in a house easily as large as the 24 player Notable homes? And, for that matter, WHY only 24 players as a max cap???
    Edited by MornaBaine on June 29, 2018 1:55PM
    PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!

  • MornaBaine
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    @Tezzaa

    Unfortunately people have been trying to improve these algorithms for over 30 years now. (Since Doom Was Released)


    They are still in much the same place they were 25 years ago.


    Physics calculation breakthroughs don't just happened because someone wants them to. This is a very hard problems to solve.

    It is much more likely they will solve the 'heat' problem with CPUs and hardware will start dramatically increasing performance again before they will solve these limitations in software.


    If they find a way to make CPUs that run a 30Ghz... well this problem basically goes away.

    Until then they have to find more ways to 'cheat physics'.

    I have even described 3 possible ways they might be able to do something in this thread.

    1. ) Provide separate item limits for interior and exterior areas of homes (Only benefits people who have interior and exterior areas)
    2. ) Limit how many objects you can place close to one another in segmented areas (Would increase the item limit but would interfere with things like building custom wall or populating a book shelf with individual books.. other decoration activities that involve overlapping items)
    3. ) Allow players to 'combine' objects into one 'hitbox' so multiple objects are treated as 1 object. (Does not increased item counts but does allow you to combine 10 or 100 objects so they use 1 slot. This has high development costs and requires new editing UIs to be developed)

    All of these solutions are way more expensive than just creating better items that allow you to get more from the slots limits that already exists. They are already doing this kind of work as you can see from the new furniture items release in the past month.

    Actually they did not bother to do a filled bookcase for the Alinor furniture nor a filled winerack, the other completely obvious piece of furniture that SHOULD have a "filled" option.

    I also like the idea of "filled" tables for dining tables. Not everyone focuses on that but many of us want that look somewhere in our houses as it just makes sense for a home. So using the "lazy" filled version would free up item slots to be used for more readable books and/or other decorative items.
    PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!

  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @MornaBaine

    Just to be clear I am not saying there is no way to increase slot limits just that it is not easy and that 700 is not an arbitrary number.

    I have actually described at least 3 ways they can increase the slot count, but each as it's own problems and most require some significant work to change existing collision logic.

    As for the player limit, that is a different issue. The problem there is that 'houses' are instanced and almost certainly instanced on 'player' hardware not dedicated Zos server.

    So, the reason you can get 50 people in a bank in the game is that they have a dedicated server organizing and redirecting packages to all the players. Zos is in control of there is probably a cluster of high end machine performing various distributed actions. This is really really expensive and they are not going to set something like that up for every single player home.

    Dungeons are also instanced, although they definitely appear to be instanced on Zos controlled temporary hardware. Meaning the bascilly spin up a 'Virtual Machine' and run the dungeon from there then reclaim the system when all the players exist. Which is why Dungeons also have a player limit that is much less than 50. Even though these is Zos hardware they only spin up a single VM not an entire dedicated cluster of server machines.

    So, why are homes limited to only 12 players, because that is the max the figure the lowest end client hardware can handle when it is being used to host an 'instance'. Even on a high end gaming rig you would probably only be able to double that number.
  • Jhalin
    Jhalin
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    ZOS could up the slot limit plenty if they stopped instatiating interiors and exteriors in the same game space.

    If there were separated instances for interior spaces, both the interior and exterior could support the current max limits, essentially doubling the current item limits. Right now they can only efficiently handle a few hundred items at once, but that’s combining all interior and exterior sections for no good reason.
  • Gnortranermara
    Gnortranermara
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    Low item limits are not the only solution to this problem.

    1) Small decorative items do not need to have collision properties at all.
    2) A proximity limit could prevent too many items that do have collision properties from being placed too close together.
    3) Making larger structural items available for building would reduce the number of small building materials used.
    4) Some calculations could be shifted from server-side to client-side. ESO's server/client division of labor is pretty much the worst that I have ever seen and causes many of the performance problems in this game.
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @SidewalkChalk5

    I know the original post was long and boring, but without reading it in it's entirety you do not get the idea of how bad this is.

    The problem is not that Zos can't handle 700 items in a single environment, the problem is that physics collision algorithms can't handle more than about 20 object being close together before you start having performance issues. By the time 200 objects are very close together you will end up with severer performance issues that likely are observable even on high end gaming machines because they would sill be performed on only 1 CPU core.


    1. ) Zos already has many object that have no collision detection. This reduces the likelihood of a player doing something bad, but even if 1 object exists that you can collide with and they let player place those objects, this risk still exists.

    2. ) I actually refer to a 'solution' involving 'proximity' limitations using restricted BSP trees, this would likely work, but we are talking about limits of 20 to 30 items within relatively large areas, which would hamper player creativity. Further this kind of solution mean you would have to 'flush' the existing home decorations players have already spent hours placing and make them start over with the new restrictions. That is not going to make people happy.

    3. ) I have been preaching 'Give Us Better Items' for some time. This is the cheapest and most viable solution Zos can provide. It does not require increasing the item cap because it allow players to do what they want with less items to being with.


    4. ) This issue exist on the 'Client Side' not the server side. Doing collision detection on the server side would mean sending and receiving packet to a server thousands of miles away ever time you move. So the transmission time would eat up tons of vital calculation time. Both Rendering and Collision operation always happen client side. The most the 'servers' do is perform 'validation' operations on packets indicating where a player moved to ensure they did not 'cheat' by moving through a wall or moving underground or into the sky. Collision is a critical game calculation that has catastrophic game results if not performed correctly and it must happen at the 'client' side.
    Edited by Woefulmonkey on June 30, 2018 10:39PM
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @Jhalin

    That is a possible solution I discuss in a different thread. However not all homes a have interior and exterior areas. Additionally some homes have multiple segregated interiors. Which means only 'some' players would benefit from that solution and some would benefit more than others.


    I am not against that idea but it is not a 'global' solutions to this issue and it will suddenly make some homes much more valuable than others.
  • Jhalin
    Jhalin
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    @Woefulmonkey

    Adjusting item limits to fit the size of interiors/exteriors is not an issue. And why wouldn’t houses with larger homes or exteriors be allowed to have more items. It makes plenty more sense than these massive courtyards being forced to share item slots with equally massive interiors.

    For example, the boat house: say the interior has 200 item slots, and the exterior has the same 700 currently supported. That’s essentially 200 more slots that are now decidicated to the cavern that has to be used on the interior before, meanwhile the interior, which could have contained up to 700 items on its own, will now be capped at a point that is reasonable for the space but still workable.

    Another one, Sleek Creek. Small interior, larger courtyard. Change the outdoor limit to 500, make the interior 200 (whereas currently I could put 600 items in there). 100 more potential furniture slots.

    People who want large interiors can seek out houses with those large interiors, people who want large exteriors can do that while still being able to put some decent layouts inside if they want.

    This is how it should’ve been done in the first place, in addition to combing little items into large merged pieces we can craft (ie alinor placemats, full bookcases)
  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @Jhalin

    I am not trying to be a jerk here, but did you read what I wrote?

    I am not disagreeing with the idea that having 'separate areas' have 'separate slot' counts is a viable way to increase slot limits in a workable way.

    I discuss that exact solution in this thread a couple of times and I wrote a separate thread that explains how that can be achieved and that is it a workable solutions.

    However, just because this would solve 'some' players issues with slot limits it is not going to resolve them all.

    I would also agree that if this was done 'before' houses were ever released to being with it would have made scenes.

    But they did not release houses that way so it 'what could have been' is now irrelevant. The question is what is the affect of making that change now.

    So lets looks at the pros and cons of this 'solution'.

    Pros:

    1. ) If your only problem is that you used all your slots 'outside' and so you can't decorate your 'interior' this solves your problem.
    2. ) This solution does not exasperate the existing performance issues based on object placements.
    3. ) Although this solution does require development changes of some kind it is likely not exceptionally expensive to implement. (Basically someone would just have to define strict 'segments' for each area and when you were in that area you would only load objects that exist in the target 'segment' group).

    If you can think of any other benefits please let me know.

    Cons:

    1. ) If you 'want' more slots for an area where you are already using 'all' your slots, this does not benefit you. (Many players have this problem)
    2. ) Players who already bought homes before this was implemented will not benefit equally nor will the benefit in proportion to the money they spent. Some very expensive homes have only 2 areas while less expensive homes have up to 4 distinct areas.
    3. ) This type of change after the housing service has been released will require some additional development work that takes away from efforts to add new actual game content like dungeons and expansions.
    4. ) There are logistics issue in deploying this change since it means the objects that players have already placed in their homes may have to be 'moved' (Although I think it may be possible code this in a way that would not require relocation of objects, but I could not say for sure since I don't know what the actual game design looks like)

    Again, I am not actually against this 'solution' I just say it is not a fix for all slot limit issues, it is not fair solution to all players, and it had development and logistics costs associated with it.

    Based on that I personally believe that 'better items' is still the most viable solution.

    But I would not complain if they implemented this feature and it is at least a achievable goal.
  • MornaBaine
    MornaBaine
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    @MornaBaine

    So, why are homes limited to only 12 players, because that is the max the figure the lowest end client hardware can handle when it is being used to host an 'instance'. Even on a high end gaming rig you would probably only be able to double that number.

    If that is genuinely the issue... that everything housing is client side... then I kinda wanna strangle everyone at ZOS. Because what made them think for an instant that a max of 24 players was going to make people happy? What about other games that have GUILD housing? And it still doesn't explain why the larger 12 player homes "can't" hold 24... when I'm pretty sure they could.

    PAWS (Positively Against Wrip-off Stuff) - Say No to Crown Crates!

  • Woefulmonkey
    Woefulmonkey
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    @MornaBaine

    Let me just say first I can't say for sure how Zos handles housing I am just going by my knowledge of software development in general and my black box observation.

    However, I am almost certain base my observations that houses are 'client' hosted.

    Here is why Zos would have done that

    1. ) Money would be the first reason. Not because they are cheap but because of the erratic nature of how houses instances need to be spun up for customer use. Thing like Dungeons are also instanced but likely instanced on Zos Virtual Machine hardware, because Zos can anticipate the average volume requirements for servicing Dudgeon instances and they have a queue system with wait times that ensures they don't run out of hardware. However, houses must be instanced immediately on request and their is no way to effectively know how much hardware would be need to support instance access for all users at all times. If they were to instance things on their end they would need a massive set of hardware that grows and shrinks with the number of users (active or inactive). But each user always has a client, and if they leverage the client they don't need to buy any hardware and they always have enough to support all user requests.
    2. ) Service availability. I basically just explained this in the 'money' section. If Zos supplied the hardware it would be very difficult to ensure users could load houses instantly on demand. It would require Zos to have tones of idle hardware just waiting for users or that the introduce a dudgeon like queue system to ensure they did not run out of instances for user requests. By using client hardware they ensure you can always load your house since your hardware is always available.

    There are more reasons to instance on client hardware for a service like this but these would have likely been the most compelling reasons.


    Now, as for way you can't have more people in a larger house. Well that is because the network traffic issues don't change with the size of the house. What matters is bandwidth and the ability of the client to process the message and upload data. Upload speed is the real 'limiter' when the client is used as the 'server'. Real Game Servers are using T3 and above network backbone connections because they have to have massive upload speeds to communicate with literally millions of users. Your home connection likely has an upload speed of 5mbps or less. Which is normally more than enough of almost all home users needs, but it not nearly enough to be a gamer server host for 100 users in 3d game.

    I actually wrote an post about the need for 'Guild Event' services a while back.

    Guilds need the ability to host large events at time, and houses are not providing that ability.


    So what I had suggested was basically isolating a 'town' on the actual game server then allowing guilds to 'schedule' times kind of like a chucky cheese party then only members of that guild would be allowed to access the town for a certain amount of time. This would allow guilds plan mass activities with hundreds of members because now they would be on the actual game server using Zos servers.
  • idk
    idk
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    @Woefulmonkey Give those who are willing to risk loseing a little performance the actual chance to see what happens. It´s not shelfishness, but practical sense.

    This is a prime example of why the explanation essentially falls on deaf ears. Someone is not concerned about server performance for everyone as long as it is acceptable for him/her.

    Most players do not have the basic understanding of the server or programing because it is far from what they deal with. Heck, even some who deal with servers and code, etcetera get confused and think every server or program is the same.

    Essentially we all become lounge chair experts even when we lack the basic fundamental foundation to understand the concepts we speak of.
  • elijafire
    elijafire
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    Long And Winding Road

    So they need FO and organic memory then tighten up the code with some condensed iterative functions. Problem solved.

    You're welcome.

    E
    Edited by elijafire on July 4, 2018 2:33AM
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