Activity Finder & Server Performance Update

rstas

Dear ZOS. After last maintance BG are broken. If u solo u que for 15min if in group u can que forever (30min and more). If u get to bg last few days u can get game crash (happend to many people not only me from difrent guilds) and u get penalty??!!!(snip) I wait 15 min to get 15 min penalty?? When BG starts on end there are no full teams (couse we see people getting crash/logout) so game starts 4vs2vs0 for example and for whole game time BG doesn't let people to join. So U wait U get advantage or disadvantage and U get penalty. (snip)?? Can U just reroll BG's to month ago model? So even mmr wasn't working good u can have 4-5 games every hour? I can lose every damn game just let me play i dont care about mmr. And BTW Your MMR work like this that same people and teams wait for 30min to play exactly same match as before? Are U insane? Just reroll and kill MMR if can't fix it. Take care of your customer it is insult for each of us! U do literally nothing good to pvp comunity to help them play game for which we payed!!

(edited for content)

seerevaloc

Think like you have a 4-doors sedan car with 2-seats in front, 3-seats in back. Total capacity is '5'.
But you have 12 passengers. So your problem is basically beyond the efficient utilization, it's physical lack of capacity.

Fix = 2 passengers will sit on the laps of already-seated 2. Back side is unfomcortable, but now carrying 7 passengers.

Rework = 3 passengers will sit on the laps of already-seated 3. Total capacity 8 passengers. You can sit one more passenger on the lap of front-driver side passenger. Yeah, you're now fitting 9 passengers.

They are in the car; but none of them enjoying the conditions of transportation (lags, crashes, sh/tstorm).
You still have 3 passengers out, those waiting their queue on the unending loading screen
-

@ZOS_GinaBruno How long more you think you can continue to fix/rework and try to fit more people into a '5' seated car with 'so-called' efficient utilization of existing resources?

Gythral

only update that matters anymore is:
the issues are fixed

no more talk, but effective and swift action

Nerftheforums

Thank you for this update, super appreciated. Good luck with your work guys!

wolfbone

ZOS_RichLambert wrote: »

It’s time for the November update to our performance improvements roadmap. Before giving the update, we wanted to shed some more light on the recent issues related to the new Activity Finder so that you all have a better understanding of why these issues are happening. Note that completely replacing the old Activity Finder was something we had to do. It was not able to be easily updated and could not handle the load we see on the live servers.

Before launching the new Activity Finder, the team tried to put the system to as much internal load testing as possible by using automated bots. Even though bots cannot truly simulate player behavior, they are a good tool for identifying basic load problems, and we were able to get significantly more testing bots into the system than players on the live servers and still have the system run smoothly. This gave us confidence to push it to PTS for Update 24. On PTS, new problems were discovered and fixed, but we never saw player concurrencies on PTS as compared to Live. Once the system hit Live, well, we all know that what happened wasn’t good.

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. It is very important to note that almost all of the server issues encountered over the last month were caused by the Activity Finder – it is not a hardware issue or a more widespread problem. The reason why this seems to happen the most on the PC EU server is because it’s our most populated server where people generally all play during the same core hours.

So, when the most recent Undaunted event started, we started to see server performance issues, even though we had already found and fixed Activity Finder problems during the Witches Festival event. We found and fixed issue after issue during the Undaunted event, but new ones kept cropping up. So we postponed the event and are taking our time now to ensure that we resolve this problem once and for all. We are testing a new build internally, and we fully expect to have this issue resolved.

I, along with everyone else, appreciate the irony of stating just last year that we wouldn’t have another in-game event focused on the Activity Finder until we were “100% sure” it would work. With the new Activity Finder, we were a lot more confident than with the old one. Obviously, we were wrong.

Even though it is a small consolation, I do want to make sure everyone understands that the issues you have been seeing are caused by one system going haywire and not a deep systemic or hardware problem. This Activity Finder issue has been plaguing us for over a year now and it is long past time that we fix it.

We all appreciate everyone’s patience on this, and hopefully we are approaching the end of this process. We haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory--we know it, and we are doing everything we can to make it better.

instead of just words, I want to see some action. words mean nothing if you dont put action behind it.

GlorphNoldorin

Patience is a finite quantity. I am running out of patience from zos asking for patience.

Like the patience I need at the moment waiting for my 4th re login after disconnecting running to a contested keep. its 25min now trying to log in.....

I am just about out of patience

Banana

Im not holding my breath

Jabbs_Giggity

Figured, since there has been no official update from @ZOS_RichLambert in a while...Here are some of my current issues I am experiencing.

Console statistics: XBox One X NA Server
Internet statistics: 185 mb/s D/L, 18-25 mb/s U/L, 35-55 ms Latency, 0% Packet Loss (Not that this matters because everyone knows the issues are server side...)

Issue # 1: Logins. I have been experiencing more login issues since Dragonhold patch. Logging in to characters is a 50/50 chance of getting an Infinite Load Screen and/or game crash where game crashes on Load Screen and need to reboot.
This leads me to the next login issue of "Account already logged in" error populating 5-6 times before resetting and can login again.

Issue # 2: Battleground queues and issues. Battleground queues well exceed 15-20 minutes per attempt to queue before getting into a game. Once queue-popped I experience one of two issues, either I get an infinite load screen going into BG and have to reboot the game (also getting a deserter penalty upon logging back in) or I get an infinite load screen coming out of a finished BG.

The following issues are related to PVP in Cyrodiil (Kaal Campaign):
Issue # 3: Dodge-roll locks all skills on ability bar for 1-2 seconds after completing a Dodge-roll. This is detrimental to PVP gameplay, as it prevents you from using defensive skills and healing after dodging enemy attacks.

Issue # 4: Skills do not register. At this point, at any given time in PVP (whether in large-scale or small-scale combat) skills do not register with the Server one of two, or both, ways. Either skills require the press of the button 3-4 times to actually fire off, or they fire-off and do nothing.

Issue # 5: Gameplay Latency is so bad in Cyrodiil that often you are trekking an opponent who is 2-3 seconds (or frames) ahead of you in real time, causing you to be able to target a player but nothing happens because their instance is really not there. A prime example is is CCing an opponent then using Biting Jabs, where every - all four Jabs will miss the opponent because the server cannot keep up with the fact they have already CC broken and moved out of the area you are targeting. Similar experiences with Surprise Attack. Meanwhile, I can be 20-30m away from an opponent, in game, and still get spammed with Sap Essence.

Issue # 6: In Combat Bug - still not fixed. Nothing needs to be said about this.

Issue # 7: LAG. This is so bad now that the game is becoming unplayable without exaggeration...I was killed by a zerg at Chalman, blood spawned at North Gate ran to quest signs to turn in quests and was immediately rubber-banded back to falling off of Chalman wall...

Issue # 8: Health Desyncs. Working in tandem with Issue # 5, 5/10 fights result in two opponents rotating combos on each other with zero effect. No health bars move, no skills register. Then, a minute or two later one person dies instantly from presumably 100% health. It's a coin flip on who dies.

All of these issues are my personal experience. Most have been happening since before Dragonhold, but ALL have become increasingly worse with Dragonhold.

**The new run/gallop feels nice!

codierussell

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

Figured, since there has been no official update from @ZOS_RichLambert in a while...Here are some of my current issues I am experiencing.

Console statistics: XBox One X NA Server
Internet statistics: 185 mb/s D/L, 18-25 mb/s U/L, 35-55 ms Latency, 0% Packet Loss (Not that this matters because everyone knows the issues are server side...)

Issue # 1: Logins. I have been experiencing more login issues since Dragonhold patch. Logging in to characters is a 50/50 chance of getting an Infinite Load Screen and/or game crash where game crashes on Load Screen and need to reboot.
This leads me to the next login issue of "Account already logged in" error populating 5-6 times before resetting and can login again.

Issue # 2: Battleground queues and issues. Battleground queues well exceed 15-20 minutes per attempt to queue before getting into a game. Once queue-popped I experience one of two issues, either I get an infinite load screen going into BG and have to reboot the game (also getting a deserter penalty upon logging back in) or I get an infinite load screen coming out of a finished BG.

The following issues are related to PVP in Cyrodiil (Kaal Campaign):
Issue # 3: Dodge-roll locks all skills on ability bar for 1-2 seconds after completing a Dodge-roll. This is detrimental to PVP gameplay, as it prevents you from using defensive skills and healing after dodging enemy attacks.

Issue # 4: Skills do not register. At this point, at any given time in PVP (whether in large-scale or small-scale combat) skills do not register with the Server one of two, or both, ways. Either skills require the press of the button 3-4 times to actually fire off, or they fire-off and do nothing.

Issue # 5: Gameplay Latency is so bad in Cyrodiil that often you are trekking an opponent who is 2-3 seconds (or frames) ahead of you in real time, causing you to be able to target a player but nothing happens because their instance is really not there. A prime example is is CCing an opponent then using Biting Jabs, where every - all four Jabs will miss the opponent because the server cannot keep up with the fact they have already CC broken and moved out of the area you are targeting. Similar experiences with Surprise Attack. Meanwhile, I can be 20-30m away from an opponent, in game, and still get spammed with Sap Essence.

Issue # 6: In Combat Bug - still not fixed. Nothing needs to be said about this.

Issue # 7: LAG. This is so bad now that the game is becoming unplayable without exaggeration...I was killed by a zerg at Chalman, blood spawned at North Gate ran to quest signs to turn in quests and was immediately rubber-banded back to falling off of Chalman wall...

Issue # 8: Health Desyncs. Working in tandem with Issue # 5, 5/10 fights result in two opponents rotating combos on each other with zero effect. No health bars move, no skills register. Then, a minute or two later one person dies instantly from presumably 100% health. It's a coin flip on who dies.

All of these issues are my personal experience. Most have been happening since before Dragonhold, but ALL have become increasingly worse with Dragonhold.

**The new run/gallop feels nice!

I have the same experience on PS4 NA. PVP is unplayable most days and BGs don't work, I have a picture of 12 people loaded into a BG on one team. PVE is not a whole lot better. My group has figured out that most trials seem to have memory leaks and the disconnects increase the older the instance is, to the point we have avoided progging vMOL hm because if you don't one pull each boss the disconnects make it difficult to get a single pull in.

pdblake

PC EU. Unable to login again this morning, 7:30 am GMT, stuck in waiting for character load screen, again.

Whatever you are doing, you need to (snip) get on with it.

(edited for content)

horizonxael

I'm having some problems in the gameplay, my pg according to the situations goes in slow motion and only the restart or change map makes me return to normal speed

nolangrady

Banana wrote: »

Im not holding my breath

Nope. This was promised before and yet here we are. I’d bet the farm that this is still plaguing the game deep into 2020

FierceSam

U24 hasn't been good.

Constant crashing to desktop, lag, FPS drops to 0 for seconds at a time, rubber banding, snapback, long load screens, can't queue for dungeons.

I also see the dragons have reverted to v1 moments where, like flying pigs they simply crash out of the sky or rotate 180 degrees in an instant. As usual, their wing swipe animations are so badly coordinated that the wing is only half way up when the concussion hits.

And now you're pimping your Vegas Extravaganza - at least that's where old singers go to die so you'll be in good company

Jabbs_Giggity

@ZOS_RichLambert can we get an update on all of the recent feedback?

Electric_Pickle

I am usually one of the more vocal complainers about performance issues, but I will give you guys some credit for what's been done so far. Gameplay does seem to be a little smoother during heavy use times now, and some of the ,ore irritating bugs are either gone or show up less frequently. Now, if you'd only get rid of the stuck in combat bug.......

Agalloch

Revert the " Activity finder improvements" back to U23 until you have other solution.

Gythral

Agalloch wrote: »

Revert the " Activity finder improvements" back to U23 until you have other solution.

Revert most of the code back to about Morrowind until there is a proven solution, is near what is needed..

Veles

We r 3 players. Tank, healer and dd. We start search for pledge dungeon. And Waiting more then 30 minutes. Ur activity finder still broken, or u wanna tell me that there is no dd in search for daily pledge dung?

or do you specifically limit the number of registered groups, because you still cannot solve the issue with the capacities of your servers?

When we are four of us, we are divided into two groups, throwing us in different dungeons. We continue to stack at ready check status.

Who are these people who code activity finder? If they get paid, why are you still paying them? Or maybe you don’t pay them, so they provide you with a spoiled, unverified product.

phileunderx2

Tank, healer and DPS que for volenfell pledge. Que never pops.
Tank and DPS que for Arx pledge. Que never pops.
Group finder is far from functional.

volkeswagon

I rarely have the lag issues people speak about. Could it be more about the quality of the internet connection between one's ps4 and the server?

nordicdeath666

so me and my friend are PAYING members and have put a lot of time and money into this game, why on earth cant we do duo random dungeons together? We wait in a queue for ever then only one of us gets the notification to join and the other does not, and we cannot join a random dungeon. We cannot do any dungeons at all. What a shame. This is so disappointing because I really enjoy the game. I dont really think I will continue to be a paying member if I cannot do the dungeons with my friends. For such a good MMO this is literally this biggest fault I have ever experienced in any online game I have ever played. Are you guys even working on this problem as it seems difficult to find any information on updates. I cant even find anything to give me hope. Should I just quit and unsubscribe or is this something that is being worked on? Thanks- ND
@ZOS_RichLambert

FierceSam

Another paying member here who is being roundly *** on by ZOS.

12 months of work have resulted in no noticeable improvement in the game despite Rich's tattoo work and hair dye... Some of the latest DLC content still crashes repeatedly, some of the newer DLC dungeons are still replete with bugs. There seems to be either no quality control or no reaction to quality control saying, 'this product isn't up to scratch'. And all we get is a retread of 2018's mea culpa missive saying how astonished they are that the game doesn't work perfectly.

I get the feeling that ZOS are happier spending money on trips to Las Vegas than they are on sorting out PC EU.

WiseSky

PING is ALL over the place on PC NA after the update...

Acrolas

FierceSam wrote: »

I get the feeling that ZOS are happier spending money on trips to Las Vegas than they are on sorting out PC EU.

Travel and Events are covered by Bethesda's marketing budget, not any fund that would be used for game development.

FierceSam

Acrolas wrote: »

FierceSam wrote: »

I get the feeling that ZOS are happier spending money on trips to Las Vegas than they are on sorting out PC EU.

Travel and Events are covered by Bethesda's marketing budget, not any fund that would be used for game development.

And there in a nutshell we have everything that’s wrong with ZOS’s priorities. Like crappy mobile phone companies, they’d rather throw money at new payers than try to retain the customers they already have.

Their priorities are selling boxes, not providing a reliable service. They will have a whole host of stats about the cost of recruiting new players and how that justifies all their marketing? They will have none for the cost of retaining customers because that doesn’t really concern the marketing department and they would rather leech money from the maintenance budget to spend on flashy commercials and invite only events.

That’s how they roll

Facefister

Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies
(Tell me lies, tell me, tell me lies)
Oh, no, no you can't disguise
(You can't disguise, no you can't disguise)
Tell me lies
Tell me sweet little lies

MajBludd

Money, and profits are the only thing that will make zos act. As long as people spend money on crates and homes, you wont get anything fixed because what you want fixed doesnt make money.
Sure you might sub, but that's nothing compared to what the whales spend and that's what they will focus on, 13k crown houses.
You dont need pvp or grp finder to play house.

Stratti

We should be entitled to a refund - this is not what I paid for .

Sergykid

the sky is falling

again?

really now, all this drama won't solve anything

MajBludd

@Sergykid it already fell, zos missed it or didnt do much to stop it.