Game Performance Improvements Preview – Update 27

SmukkeHeks

G

RDMyers65b14_ESO wrote: »

SmukkeHeks wrote: »

Those tests in Cyrodiil on the live server, is that only na?

I would suggest you also get a good taste of the eu. Ballgroups, guildwars, missing skills, broken break free and everything

These things are quite frequent on Gray Host during prime time for PC - NA. Plus being stuck on textures, mini load screens, desyncs, skills not going off, unable to swap bars, and crashes.

The NA server is a stroll through a sunny day, compared to the Eu.

Which is why the Eu has a more than 100 pages thread on stability. Whatever the NA server right now experiences, is daily routine for the Eu - and has been since late 2018.

iALEXi

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Note: In addition to the persistent AoE Improvement work, the team will also be conducting a series of tests on the live servers in the next few weeks. These tests will center around AoE’s in Cyrodiil and will allow us to gather even more metrics of real-world scenarios. Expect more info about what exactly the tests will entail in the next couple weeks.

Please do this on EU servers on a Monday at 9 PM CEST

Major_Lag

Elsonso wrote: »

Major_Lag wrote: »

Blacknight841 wrote: »

27 updates later, still nothing to address the bots, gold buyers and sellers, and those that violate the terms of service. Perhaps start with enforcing the terms of service so that your player base can play the game as it was intended.

With all due respect, I'd much rather prefer for ZOS to focus on fixing the game's performance first and foremost.
At this point I couldn't possibly care less about bots and any other ToS violators, because currently the game does not work properly on a most basic level (the PvP especially so), with abilities not activating, frequent HP desyncs, and a plethora of other combat-related issues.

Once performance is brought back to an acceptable level, then - but certainly not before then - it would be appropriate to start looking into dealing with such offenders.

That's not to say that bots etc. are not a nuisance - because they are - but right now, ESO has much bigger problems in other areas.

With an equal amount of respect, the game isn't completely broken, and people are playing (successfully) every day. If the game were currently completely broken and not functioning, and by that I mean on a much larger scale than the problems that we have today, then I would say that you would be right. ZOS would need to stop what they are doing, right the ship, then resume.

That simply is not the case, and such extreme measures are not required, and would probably not be helpful. It is acceptable for them to continue to work on these things in parallel with other work.

My main issue is how long it takes them to actually accomplish the work, not that they are not working on it.

The entire CP Cyrodiil campaign (Gray Host) is severely affected on both PC servers, to the point of being effectively unplayable "as intended" - if that isn't a problem on a massive scale, then I don't know what is.

And inb4 "bUt PvE iS fInE" - no it isn't. Since Greymoor launched, I've started seeing some of the same problems in overland PvE that formerly only occured in PvP, such as very nasty HP desyncs for example.
Also, ZOS themselves recently admitted that Trials are currently suffering from serious issues as well.

colossalvoids

Major_Lag wrote: »

.
Also, ZOS themselves recently admitted that Trials are currently suffering from serious issues as well.

It only took them 4 months to react, that's lightning speed right there.

kind_hero

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Intermittent Load Screens: It's a source of frustration for everyone when you're running around Tamriel and you're intermittently hit with short load screens. We've identified two areas where this behavior could occur. The first issue is a bug with streaming of scaled assets that are switching between LOD models and main models. This should go to the live servers with an upcoming U26 incremental. The second issue is regarding a bug that could cause the game to have much bigger physics streaming radius when a high view distance is selected, resulting in more loads than necessary. This fix will release with U27. We will be actively monitoring the live server metrics after U27 releases to determine if additional investigation and work is needed.

I had this problem in Cyrodiil, Shor campaign (EU). I entered the campaign because its population was very low, to do some quests and delves. Around fort Warden I got so many intermittent loading screens that the game was unplayable, it was ridiculous. It happened all the time I went from the Covenant base to Iceheart Home and by just travelling. There were no players, no activity, so the server load at least for Shor was minimal. I have been playing ESO since beta, I know Cyrodiil well, but this has never happened until recently. Previously I thought this was because of high population campaigns, many players fighting in a region, general server load, etc. But this was early in the morning and the population was lowest for this campaign (after the pvp event almost none does these small campaigns).

I think this is quite bad, I haven't seen a game in the "big league" performing so poorly with such game breaking issues. You shouldn't release content and updates until you fix all this and have the game work smoothly. To be honest there is plenty of content even for veteran players, but the technical issues and constant nerfs make the game experience frustrating.

volkeswagon

i always thought the issues ly with too many calculations and the better a player you are the worse it gets so this all makes sense to me.

maddiniiLuna

As for the AOE Tests. I'm suspicious on how exactly these tests run. I mean putting a team member in one major battle doesn't give anywhere near accurate results.

If you brought out an Addon that will Monitor whatever it is you are looking for - i would be more then happy to install it and participate in as many fights as i can. Until then i'm in doubt, how this can benefit us.

The desync with gap closing: This also happens with the Psyjic Order by the way. Where you go back in time and then your Character stops dead, you can not move, can not roll dodge, can not do crap. Then you loose health again and wasted an ultimate.

And for the keep pieces: When you use certain additions that unlock on a keep with resources (I'm talking specifically about the corner of the keep and the middle walls on the sides) you run high risk of loosing your siege weapon. Basically it just disappears mid siege and you fall off and your Lancer disappears into oblivion. That's why nobody uses those sections, so you might as well just remove them entirely. If it helps then why not. Nobody's going to cry after it.

Rahar

I'm tentatively optimistic. That's the most I can muster. Still, this is more detail than we've ever gotten. Let's see where it goes.

Dunkz17

PvP Cyro has become unplayable to me. I wish you luck fixing the game. Seems to me like the game has become too big for the technology you are running it on and perhaps a "cull" of sets or dungeons or maximum player numbers might help. I will check the forums to see how its progressing but won't be playing anymore

xaraan

Well, performance is still trash in cyrodiil with good population. I don't think this will ever get fixed or priortized the way it should be.

LordOsiris

xaraan wrote: »

Well, performance is still trash in cyrodiil with good population. I don't think this will ever get fixed or priortized the way it should be.

I can't agree, because I can only report, that the support team is running like a rabbit to fix the problems especially in cyro. I could see that on my own after my last real immens tantrum against the ZOS team about kicks and so on. Even I had a wrong picture of the tech-team. they are fixing something and it takes felt like ages. If that, what I can do now in Cyro becomes standard for all, I see great battles coming forward in the future. can't wait for it any longer!

d3adpain

they should do something about siege's aoe cause when there's blue and yellow/red group fighting at keep and there's 20 siege at each side whole of cyrodiil is laggy cause of it
siege should be address too

Xzysts

I'm sorry, but before you limit the amount of AOE's and skills we can use you should know there are other ways of fixing this without ruining the game. Before obliterating the play-style and freedom the game offers, you should look at reinvesting some of the profits back into the community via better servers. I'm not the boss, but if I was I'd either do that or limit group size in PvP to 4 players, then you make abilities/sets/heals only apply to you and your group members. No more ball groups and no more zergs. Now you will *** less people off, save the game, and fix the lag. It is going to cost you much more money and time re-writing dozens of skills/sets, instead of upgrading your servers. Limit the group size to 4. I can personally tell you, I have heard a lot of negative comments about these "fixes" being made in game. People will stop playing PvP all together from what it sounds like, and for some that is the only reason that they play. Hopefully, you guys won't make these cool down changes final, this is ESO... not WoW...

Rungar

All groups/ group frames should be disabled in cyrodiil. This way certain skills can be designated for groups and thus certain problematic skills can be better regulated without affecting pve. There should be no expectation that every skill in the game should be useful for pvp.

Lysette

I said years ago already that AoE and DoT is the bottleneck in Cyrodiil combined with lack of methods to make zergs and ball groups unattractive - to see that AoE messaging is now being worked on is a good move, but I think there has more to be done than just improving it from a technical perspective - ball groups have to be made unattractive by game mechanics, this would go well together with those announced improvements and make them more efficient and effective.

Eventually not allowing effects to stack - one cannot more than burn, being burned twice doesn't do more harm f.e., but it well does in the game .- this is where one could reduce the amount of messaging a whole lot and reduce calculations. And it would make more sense as well. Furthermore being too close together hinders performance in real life especially with weapons which have to be swung and casters might be hindered as well - a debuff in effects for being to close to another player might help with this as well - ball groups less attractive will help solve the messaging problem and help with the announced improvements on top of it.

Elsonso

Lysette wrote: »

I said years ago already that AoE and DoT is the bottleneck in Cyrodiil combined with lack of methods to make zergs and ball groups unattractive - to see that AoE messaging is now being worked on is a good move, but I think there has more to be done than just improving it from a technical perspective - ball groups have to be made unattractive by game mechanics, this would go well together with those announced improvements and make them more efficient and effective.

I am generally confused by how ZOS is approaching this. They have mentioned in the past the same sort of stuff that they are talking about now. Basically, having to process all the potential targets in an area and processing getting overloaded when that happens. Years later, here they are, and it sounds like they are telling us the same thing, only this time, adding how they have been working around the core problem to hold it together, while we can see that they have been adding content to the game that would appear to make it worse.

Seriously, it feels like ZOS has been out all night partying and drinking, knowing they were going to have to pay for it the next day. Now, it is the next day, they have a hangover and a headache. Yay.


(Edit: I think that the answer is not to introduce MORE combat mechanics, like extended combat ability cooldowns, but to go back into time and remove or rework those things that they added to the game that contribute to the problem.)

Lysette

Elsonso wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

I said years ago already that AoE and DoT is the bottleneck in Cyrodiil combined with lack of methods to make zergs and ball groups unattractive - to see that AoE messaging is now being worked on is a good move, but I think there has more to be done than just improving it from a technical perspective - ball groups have to be made unattractive by game mechanics, this would go well together with those announced improvements and make them more efficient and effective.

I am generally confused by how ZOS is approaching this. They have mentioned in the past the same sort of stuff that they are talking about now. Basically, having to process all the potential targets in an area and processing getting overloaded when that happens. Years later, here they are, and it sounds like they are telling us the same thing, only this time, adding how they have been working around the core problem to hold it together, while we can see that they have been adding content to the game that would appear to make it worse.

Seriously, it feels like ZOS has been out all night partying and drinking, knowing they were going to have to pay for it the next day. Now, it is the next day, they have a hangover and a headache. Yay.


(Edit: I think that the answer is not to introduce MORE combat mechanics, like extended combat ability cooldowns, but to go back into time and remove or rework those things that they added to the game that contribute to the problem.)

It would be easy to solve, but it requires to be radical in cutting down on game mechanics which are overused and those have to be made so unattractive, that they will rarely be used if there is not enough space to do so. And of course most effects like healing and elemental damage should not be stacking at all - the highest damage or healing should count, but wouldn't stack.

And I would reduce the effects as well based on how near the next person is to the caster or the one applying the effect - and this based on the weapon and spell type of course. This would make it highly unattractive to be near another person, which could hinder to cast spells efficiently and get weapon damage applied to the target (for example because there is not enough space to swing a 2-hander in a crowd of people properly).

Can all be solved by changing game mechanics - but it takes courage to make this decision and get through with it.

Elsonso

Lysette wrote: »

most effects like healing and elemental damage should not be stacking at all - the highest damage or healing should count, but wouldn't stack.

I actually think that this would be an interesting place to go.

I will point out this, though...

"At some point, we crossed a threshold where most players in PvP were able to cast endless AOE abilities, without ever running out of resources. This is done through player knowledge, builds and group mechanics – resulting in a constant stream of AOEs with many players never using any other type of ability."

When I read that, my thought was, "gee, now who's fault is that?"

They can probably solve this with changes to how skills work, skill costs, and even sustain changes. They can roll back how things work, or even do as you suggest with elemental damage. They are game developers, and those are game development answers.

I think those are temporary solutions, which are fine since no game lasts forever. If they can hold out until they shut down the servers, that is good enough. I just don't think the problem is game design, so whatever game design thing they come up with will not be a real solution, just a band-aid.

As I said elsewhere, I am not convinced that all the right questions are being asked. I guess it depends on what answer they are looking for.

Icarus42

Just wanted to share my experience in CP Grayhost Cyrodiil PC NA last night 8/2/2020. I am not going to give a descriptive narrative, but instead I will provide a list of things that I experienced.

1) I was stuck in combat for around 25 minutes, had to run from BRK to Drake

2)My skills would not fire or any major battle at any keep for my first 2 keep battles (couldnt even light attack)

3)My bar got stuck so I couldnt bar swap (happens at least once or twice per session)

4)Could not target other players with any single target attack abilities (had special difficulty with crystal frag proc) this happened frequently over the course of the whole evening)

5)Could not fire my light attacks after my overload ultimate ran out, this happened several times

6)Had several 30 second to 3 minute loading screens after keep capture(resulting in death on one frustrating occasion)

7)Several loading screens over many locations in Cyrodiil (also resulting in death)

8)Slow bug (everyone on screen slowed down to a crawl for about one minute or so (like walking in quicksand)

9)My health desynced causing me to log out and in to fix it

10)Massive fps drops in a few keep battles went below 20 fps( I have a could machine this should not be happening)

11)The overload bug came back in 2 instances where I slowed down( had to reactivate overload ultimate and roll dodge to fix)

12)Pirate skeleton bar swap delays on proc (fixed by putting on crown dishdasha costume, thought you guys fixed that one?)

13)When I usd my Undo ultimate my character spazzed out and could not move until I figured out that streak and roll dodge stopped it.

14)Several moments of horrible debilitating lag (skills with 3-6 second delay at times, or not firing period)

Those are just a few.

Oh I forgot to mention I started off in the No Cp campaign and I experienced a few of the above mentioned as well!

We had people in our group who were new to Cyrodiil last night, and they were asking us if this was a regular thing, and unfortunately we had to say yes, the "game is broken" one of us said. Needless to say most of the newbies ducked out.

I don't know what else to say about this, I won't plead with you to fix, would just like to give you a taste of what your players are experiencing. No salt just facts.

Fuzzybrick

Just random thoughts with regard to aoe lag and server stability.

1. Turn cyrodiil into many battlegrounds so you can only get so many people in it at a time.
2. Make the entire map of Tamriel PVP able.
3. No more "One Tamriel" put levels back into the game, and separate the factions. If I'm AD I should get merked when I cross into EP and all NPCs should want to kill me. (expansions would obviously be neutral zones) PS. This is what I thought I was getting when I originally got this game 6 years ago.
4.(not necessary to fix lag... But) To make the game more competitive again, please do away with 5 guild... One guild, one alliance, one goal, to crush my enemies.
Edit: if cyrodiil had it's own versions of battle grounds, their standings could potential have a "buff/debuff" on pve'ers running trials. In addition, you could expand each zone into cyrodiil so that they actually had a real foot hold there with a large NPC military presence so that way if people still wanted to run the gambit they could, but each "zone" could be drastically reduced in size and at the border to your neighboring faction would be the "real world" locations to the battlegrounds to capture the lumber mill for example. Open world PVP wouldn't be dead, you would still get your gankers, that maybe we could place bounties on.
And now I take myself down the rabbit hole...

Lysette

Elsonso wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

most effects like healing and elemental damage should not be stacking at all - the highest damage or healing should count, but wouldn't stack.

I actually think that this would be an interesting place to go.

I will point out this, though...

"At some point, we crossed a threshold where most players in PvP were able to cast endless AOE abilities, without ever running out of resources. This is done through player knowledge, builds and group mechanics – resulting in a constant stream of AOEs with many players never using any other type of ability."

When I read that, my thought was, "gee, now who's fault is that?"

They can probably solve this with changes to how skills work, skill costs, and even sustain changes. They can roll back how things work, or even do as you suggest with elemental damage. They are game developers, and those are game development answers.

I think those are temporary solutions, which are fine since no game lasts forever. If they can hold out until they shut down the servers, that is good enough. I just don't think the problem is game design, so whatever game design thing they come up with will not be a real solution, just a band-aid.

As I said elsewhere, I am not convinced that all the right questions are being asked. I guess it depends on what answer they are looking for.

Yeah, it is not one or the other - both has to be changed - on one side improve performance from a technical view point, but at the same time reduce the load as well by making game mechanics easier on the hardware - and especially fight ball groups by implementing methods which lessen the effects when casted or applied within a crowd - we need game mechanics which will make people want to spread out instead to ball together in mindless groups which are overpowered due to stacking effects. Just doing one or the other won't help much.

Rungar

The need lightning strikes when too many players occupy the same space.

Knootewoot

I was very sceptical about the performance fixes they promised.

Especially if every update made the performance worse, and escpecially when there were promises since 5 years.

But seeing this post makes me a bit hopefull. An engineer sharing his findings is a step in the right direction.

Yes, after Dragonbreak i uninstalled the game never to look back. But if this year the Cyrodill performance will have a significant boost i will surely reinstall and have fun in PVP once again. I hope my friends are still playing.

Blynjubitr

I love it when they do not admit they should invest into server improvements instead of ruining the existing combat system entirely. Yoou know what ZOS ? Yes do not invest into anything but know this for sure if you do not invest into your own game at some point you will loose whatever players or subs you still got.

EyelessCZ

[snip] Today Imperial City Prison is under HEAVY lag. I tried three times with random mates and everybody got 200-999 ms lag. Its UNPLAYABLE.

I did not encounter a single day inside Tamriel not facing any major issue. Including normal wandering thruout almost any region, I am not talking about fighting or single dungeoning, just WALKING.

I got some break for several days, because I mainly feel sorry for my money you wasted. I played Kingdom Come Deliverance, Diablo III, Enderal in Skyrim, Path of Exile, Grim Dawn and everything not a single error. [snip]

After 10 days I finally got enough nostalgia acumulated to get in Tamriel and you prove yourselfs again! So I come here to look, if anyone else started thread about this lag inside Imperial City Prison and first thread I see is about you boasting how succesfuly you fight with game improvement.

[snip]

[snip] Before that, we got just Dungeon Finder for complaining. What a fools we were that times. Right?

[Edited to remove Baiting and Bashing]

EatsManyPancakes

"To prevent these crashes, the console versions will now detect when the game is about to run out of memory and react by temporarily unloading vanity pets and personalities from players outside of your group."

I'd love a toggle for this in the game settings on PC something like

• "toggle off non-group pets in 'city cells'"
• "toggle off VFX for duelling players in city 'cells'" (or straight up ban duelling within city cells)

I've tried the game using a few different PC builds and with all the customisation stuff going on in cities (even after the initial load) it still feels awful and "crunchy" with dips every so often, and this is on a PC that has no problem running the likes of Battlefield 5 maxed out...

The only other place i've ever experienced much in the way of stutter is in shadowfen or in the flooded sewer-like area in Summerset under the city in the east (forget the name of it just now) but thats because water reflections interactions with static assets seem to be incredibly under-optimised.

EyelessCZ

You are correct, this feature might help but problem is much deeper than in visuals. Me and my gfriend we play ESO together, We both have pretty decent PC rigs with fast processor, 32GB ram with good latency, high-end motherboards and excelent GPUs and still one of us is one, sometimes up to more than two seconds behind the other. We can´t even speak to each other because one has to use headset. For example Velidreth shouts: "Dont move a muscle!" and I hear her speakers: "Dont move a muscle!" and moment when you have to dodge from the spike is at different timeshift than her shout. I NEVER seen that in Diablo or WoW. If there was any lag to each other, it was same all the time.
By Vivec, I can play other online games using her monitor, just with 0.5s latency to the mouseclick!!!! That points at fact how messed ESo is. They need help from outside and it will cost them milions.

finehair

Elsonso wrote: »

Lysette wrote: »

most effects like healing and elemental damage should not be stacking at all - the highest damage or healing should count, but wouldn't stack.

I actually think that this would be an interesting place to go.

I will point out this, though...

"At some point, we crossed a threshold where most players in PvP were able to cast endless AOE abilities, without ever running out of resources. This is done through player knowledge, builds and group mechanics – resulting in a constant stream of AOEs with many players never using any other type of ability."

When I read that, my thought was, "gee, now who's fault is that?"

Exactly. Solo players, random lfg group players, and usual smallscalers can not spam 1 type of ability endlessly and survive. They will either go for defensive mode to heal themselves or stop spamming that ability because they run out of resource.
There is only a certain group of players, and "most players" as ZOS states, can do that kind of thing.
Funny part is; solos, lfg players and smallscalers all getting this aoe nerf because ball groupers can spam aoe endlessly.
Good work.

visionality

Icarus42 wrote: »

Just wanted to share my experience in CP Grayhost Cyrodiil PC NA last night 8/2/2020. I am not going to give a descriptive narrative, but instead I will provide a list of things that I experienced.

1) I was stuck in combat for around 25 minutes, had to run from BRK to Drake

2)My skills would not fire or any major battle at any keep for my first 2 keep battles (couldnt even light attack)

3)My bar got stuck so I couldnt bar swap (happens at least once or twice per session)

4)Could not target other players with any single target attack abilities (had special difficulty with crystal frag proc) this happened frequently over the course of the whole evening)

5)Could not fire my light attacks after my overload ultimate ran out, this happened several times

6)Had several 30 second to 3 minute loading screens after keep capture(resulting in death on one frustrating occasion)

7)Several loading screens over many locations in Cyrodiil (also resulting in death)

8)Slow bug (everyone on screen slowed down to a crawl for about one minute or so (like walking in quicksand)

9)My health desynced causing me to log out and in to fix it

10)Massive fps drops in a few keep battles went below 20 fps( I have a could machine this should not be happening)

11)The overload bug came back in 2 instances where I slowed down( had to reactivate overload ultimate and roll dodge to fix)

12)Pirate skeleton bar swap delays on proc (fixed by putting on crown dishdasha costume, thought you guys fixed that one?)

13)When I usd my Undo ultimate my character spazzed out and could not move until I figured out that streak and roll dodge stopped it.

14)Several moments of horrible debilitating lag (skills with 3-6 second delay at times, or not firing period)

Those are just a few.

Oh I forgot to mention I started off in the No Cp campaign and I experienced a few of the above mentioned as well!

We had people in our group who were new to Cyrodiil last night, and they were asking us if this was a regular thing, and unfortunately we had to say yes, the "game is broken" one of us said. Needless to say most of the newbies ducked out.

I don't know what else to say about this, I won't plead with you to fix, would just like to give you a taste of what your players are experiencing. No salt just facts.

same on PC/EU every single night for at least half a year by now. Anybody wondering while there is only one living cp campaign left and that not fully poplocked even at prime time?

EyelessCZ

I am sorry. My fault is clear. I know, I get it and I am sorry for it. I dislike way how I express myself here as well as you do. You can see same thinking and same opinions from lines of your customers in so long history, that you will find my previous comment as cumulation. Not violation.

Again I am terribly sorry you have to deal with this as moderators.

Game is in broken state. New DLC will be here soon. Game will be unaccessible again for hundreds of thousands of player. In a meantime here in this forum shines this thread, dedicated to announcing your efford to fix the game. In my age I have different sense for humor.