Activity Finder & Server Performance Update

technohic

I'll join in with the people who are concerned about Cyrodiil and if/how this affects that. It has worn down my playing time as well as many others when we know its an uphill battle to just function, and more of a struggle to deal with the performance and bugs than it is our opponents. Many are losing faith that things will get better. Is there any sign of relief for that coming?

maboleth

Further, I hope I'm wrong, but based on your statement Rich, it sounds like you're trying to find a sweet spot, a nice compromise with AF + rest of the resources... rather than having an AF functioning like a rock solid service with everything it requires.

Anyway, by no means I dis your efforts to improve AF, it desperately needs one. If you mange to get it work nicely, high five, whatever you use!

DiosPunishment

Thanks for the update. I love this game. I am a n ESO plus member on PC and Xbox One. I also pay for ESO plus for my wife and 2 kids. This is our game we play together. I love having new content but i want what we have now fixed versus more content.

It sucks jumping on your mount and travel 5 feet and sit in a loading screen or to wait for a BG match just to sit in a loading screen or to join a match with uneven teams where it won't even start.

Southern Elsweyr i know after 2 wayshrine travels. I'm going to get dashboarded or froze in a loading screen. I will gladly continue to pay if what you provide works.

neverwalk

I hear today that battlegrounds is going good-awesome job guys and gals. Thanks for your hard work. Need to get GRAPPLER BOW into game more then it is already-nothing to use it on. Maybe use grappler bow to get into keeps.

VaranisArano

I've been hoping for a comprehensive update on the recent problems for a while, so thank you! This was very informative. Please keep up this level of communication with other current and future severe issues! It is much appreciated and does a lot to address my concerns and confidence that ESO will continue to improve with its known and obvious performance issues.

KyraCROgnon

much better to have an update on problems than to be kept in the dark, so thanks a lot for the news. And i hope GF can be stabilised and running smoothly soon.

KyraCROgnon

There definitely seems to be an improvement : today's patch apparently killed the gamestore instead of server EU

Flaminir

This really does help... Thanks @ZOS_RichLambert 👍

Odovacar

Thank you for another candid update!

Zypheran

I appreciate the update, but just a point to consider;
You mentioned that you use bots to test the load but acknowledge that isn't as reliable a test because of them not accurately mimicking player activity. I also recall that when you tried to test this on the PTS, the testing event was done at an awkward time for EU and offered little incentive.
Therefore, can I suggest that your next test be exactly that.. a test - not an event. Don't commit to having it working, don't dangle rewards that people will miss out on if the event crashes. Have rewards linked purely to participation in testing the event.
You could run a GF Test Event where everyone that logs in and tries to use the GF gets a reward. Or make it a community event and say that if the community has X,000 people participate in the event then everybody who was logged in on each day gets a reward.
This way nobody gets frustrated, you get your group finder properly tested and nobody has unrealistic expectations about what's actually going to happen during the event.

Juhasow

To be fair I dont care what was causing the issues. That deep dive into explaining why servers were working poorly during last few months is nice to read but from a players perspective completly not important. What I care and want to know as a player is when it'll be fixed and servers will work properly. And by when I dont mean answers like "soon" , "no ETA" , "we're working on it" or similar stuff.

Asys

Hellsbunnies wrote: »

Don't worry as they say, to err is to be human, this explains why so many people seem to join the Ebonheart Pact! You've done as you could do and I think cancelling the Undaunted event was a wise (and brave) thing to do. I think most people that were having a hissy fit were people that had bought the game and then played without ever giving another penny. I know this will be an unpopular view but I feel that doesn't give them the right to an opinion (unless they'd only just bought the game) but makes them actually part of the problem, draining resources without contributing to its upkeep.

sooo let me get this straight - i have only bought the game and havent spend another penny. I cant have a opinion then? im a problem?

Anhedonie

I will argue there is still something wrong with the hardware as well.
Like why do I even get 60 "bonus" ping 20km before reaching Frankfurt?

redgreensunset

Zypheran wrote: »

I appreciate the update, but just a point to consider;
You mentioned that you use bots to test the load but acknowledge that isn't as reliable a test because of them not accurately mimicking player activity. I also recall that when you tried to test this on the PTS, the testing event was done at an awkward time for EU and offered little incentive.
Therefore, can I suggest that your next test be exactly that.. a test - not an event. Don't commit to having it working, don't dangle rewards that people will miss out on if the event crashes. Have rewards linked purely to participation in testing the event.
You could run a GF Test Event where everyone that logs in and tries to use the GF gets a reward. Or make it a community event and say that if the community has X,000 people participate in the event then everybody who was logged in on each day gets a reward.
This way nobody gets frustrated, you get your group finder properly tested and nobody has unrealistic expectations about what's actually going to happen during the event.

Still wouldn't do much good in emulating live. The population on a pts server will always be a fraction of what it is on live, especially during an event. Thing is the AF needs to handle tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of people at once. No test environment is ever going to satisfactorily emulate that.
I mean, the whole game across all servers and platforms have apparently 13 million players or so. If we for the sake of easy math have an equal population on all servers and platforms that slightly over 2 million each. Obviously not everyone is on at the same time but prime time would see the lion's share, so maybe one million players at once, at least in a compressed prime time as EU has.
You see the issue here? How do you ever in a get a population on the pts server, simultaneously, that can emulate that? No test, however its deviced, can ever fully try to do that. Though I would think bots come the closest in sheer stress, buy I gather from both here and other posts that there were additional issues.
Live server is unfortunately the only place where they can truly tell if this is working or not. Best solution without trying to pass myself of as more clever or knowledgeable than I am, would be to put them live at a time where there is no event going, possibly middle of the week, to see how they hold up under modicum stress. Then let them run during a non AF related event where they'll see more use but not as much as say during Undaunted.

Titansteele

Thank you for some honest and open comm`s. You made the right decision by making this clear.

Reasonable and knowledgeable members of the community will understand.

Zer0oo

Is there any chance that we also getting working doors in cyrodill?

Charity164

Thanks for the update.

Tommy_The_Gun

LOL, was I the only one hoping that when ZOS proudly announced that they are rebuilding group finder tool from scratch and we will finally have full support for all ESO group content (Dungeons, Arenas, Trials) ?

I mean I was genuine disappointed when the "upgraded" group finder tool was introduced and it was still missing this features and somehow they managed to make it work worse... and in some cases not work at all LOL.

But well... maybe, one day we will have this... full support for all Group Content. Arenas & Trials... one can only hope I guess...

VaranisArano

Tommy_The_Gun wrote: »

LOL, was I the only one hoping that when ZOS proudly announced that they are rebuilding group finder tool from scratch and we will finally have full support for all ESO group finder (Dungeons, Arenas, Trials) ?

I mean I was genuine disappointed when the "upgraded" group finder tool was introduced and it was still missing this features and somehow they managed to make it work worse... and in some cases not work at all LOL.

But well... maybe, one day we will have this... full support for all Group Content. Arenas & Trials... one can only hope I guess...

I actually hope we don't get groupfinder support for Arena and Trials. One of the major factors in why that content can be more challenging is that ZOS doesn't have to balance for 12 random groupmembers thrown together with no communication beforehand beyond picking a role.

code65536

This level of candor was long overdue. Thanks.

FierceSam

I appreciate the communication.

Let’s not restrict it to an annual event though. This (not Twitter or Instagram) is the right place to be pinning messages like this. To paraphrase The Godfather, your audience is one that likes to hear bad news personally and immediately.

Just like last year, you will be judged on your performance.

And no, you haven’t covered yourselves in glory at all over that period.

Everyone on the forum cares deeply about this game and really wants you to succeed. Do it right. Do it speedily. Don’t let us down.

Czekoludek

Time will tell if your fix gonna change anything. I appreciate example of good communication, you could do a lot more of that.

myskyrim26

Dear Rich,
Thank you for the update! I wish you patience and luck in healing the game issues!

iiRenity

This is the sort of update that many of us having been waiting for. It’s the most direct and transparent update that we have seen since these issues started. We never wanted an apology or compensation, just to know that our voices are being heard and that changes are truly coming, not just alluded to. Thank you for this update. Hope has been rekindled.

Sylvermynx

Thank you @ZOS_RichLambert for the information and update. I wish you a LOT of good karma, so hopefully you can get this ironed out.

merevie

Performance issues were chosen to be worked on for a reason. I'd be careful attributing them all to the new GF. Servers do not cope with load < is the bottom line. Appreciate the communication, however.

Davadin

FYI the reddit users are also glorifying this post.

Thanks for keeping us up to date, ZOS.

good luck.

The core issue we’ve been having with the new Activity Finder is that it shares many of the same system resources as the rest of the game. This means that when the Activity Finder gets overloaded, everything else on the server starts to bog down – which is why players experience long loading times, timeouts/disconnects, and sluggish server response at these times. It’s been a challenge for us to identify and fix these issues as each time we go through a cycle of overload, we fix that particular problem, but then discover a new one as new concurrency levels are hit.

as an IT professional myself, this hits way too close to home lol

MCBIZZLE300

Time frame on improvements? People arent going to wait 3-6 months for promises of fixes that dont materialize.

mriley

Your transparency regarding this technical issue is appreciated. Thank you.

scorpius2k1

Thank you @ZOS_RichLambert and Team, THIS is what your community wants to hear and see...REAL COMMUNICATION.

AWESOME! Keep. That. Shizbabblenit. Up!!! Respect!

The next step is proving these words to be true with actual FIXES for this and continuing to do so with other issues in the game. I cannot say my faith is very high given the last 5 years, especially as of late, but I'm always hopeful that change will eventually happen. I believe and trust in all of you as individuals, let's get that great image pushed up for the company too so the name ZENIMAX/ZOS stands out from the rest in a GOOD way.

Performance, Bug Fixes, and QOL should be top priorities for 2020! Here's to hoping!


PS. Rich makes some MEAN AND DELICIOUS LOOKING BBQ. If you haven't followed his Twitter, I highly recommend you do.

EDIT: LOL @ZOS_JesC .. I am not sure why you snip out my already manually censored "S" word? I've replaced it with Shizbabblenit, hopefully that is acceptable for a rated "M" game :P