Game Instances

eMKa8

Hi 👋

I heard in the past that ESO has several game instances open to avoid crowdy places in Tamriel (and laggyness)

Does anyone know how many instances there are ?

I guess that if you are friends on eso or in the same guilds , that then you will most likely see each other in Tamriel when being at the same spot

But what happens if you know someone but are not friended In eso, and you happen to be at the same spot ....
How big are the chances then of actually meeting the person for realAt that spot?

Does anyone know how eso runs these various instances and knows more about it ?

markulrich1966

don't know the amount.

Just some observations:
zonechat works above instances.

So you have situations like this:

A: "pleeease help with worldboss xy"
B: "ok, omw"
2 minutes later:
B: "where the heck are you? Nobody here"

In this case they have to group, and 1 has to travel to the other, so that they will be on the same layer and can see each other.
This travel also fixes the rare bug, where you can see just name and healthbar of a player, but not the player himself. But I encountered this just 3 times within 2 years.

Another, less reliable way to switch is to log out and in again.
I sometimes do it when I'm the only one at a worldboss.

After 2-3 logins I sometimes reach a layer where a group has already almost finished him.

My very very subjective impression during summerset event was, that on these overcrowded days we had maybe 3 instances, but I might be completely wrong.

zaria

As I understand number of instances depend on zone and how popular it is.
so during the summerset event it was more instance on it.
Instances is done for two reasons,
1) to prevent performance issues both client and server.
2) not to overcrowd zones, back then Morrowind launched you could enter an delve and it was more players than mobs
This was not an problem with Skyrim and Elseweyr, it was lots of people but not overcrowded.

Recomend travel to player, you don't need to group but do if more than two. Game try to put you in an instance with friends and guild mates so its somewhat hidden.
But I had one event during Summerset event then I used an wayshrine instead of travel to and ended in wrong instance.

josiahva

I remember years ago when they had the 2 year anniversary or whatever it was and they wanted to screenshot each of the alliance capitals around the undaunted encampments(this was prior to one-tamriel so if you EP in AD or DC territory, it was mostly empty) that you couldn't even log in from the character selection screen for 15 minutes...it was that crowded...everyone online wanting to be in the screenshot

Elsonso

They don't easily reveal details on how the megaserver works. We have to guess, based on snippets of information dropped like crumbs. Here is what I remember, without going back and re-reading past threads on this subject...

A few years back, there was a dev interview where they revealed that these "instances" were called "channels". The word "instances" was used for something else for ESO, according to the dev.

Everyone in a zone channel would be able to see each other and chat via zone chat, say, or yell. This only worked within the zone channel, not across zone channels. Probably the same, today.

Independent of that interview, it was revealed that people are placed in these zone channels based on social criteria. A player is more likely to be placed in a channel with someone from the friends list or who share a common guild. There may, or may not, be other criteria.

Observations from the open beta weekends that they had before launch indicate that there are multiple zone channels that can cover the same zone, and that they have the ability to merge them together dynamically. Presumably, they can also split them.

Based on things that they said this year, it seems reliable to speculate that there are zone servers, and that players on the same zone server are split into zone channels so that they can be managed better. It is likely that a zone can have more than one zone server. From a dev comment, apparently, the servers that handle Cyrodiil are not split into channels, leading to the conclusion that each Cyrodiil campaign has a separate zone server.


No one knows how many zone channels there are, or how many might exist for a given zone. Estimates from a few years back suggest that zone channels hold somewhere between 300 and 500 players. That estimate may no longer be valid.

kargen27

Sometimes you can be grouped with people and in certain areas they will disappear. Our guild had fishing events and sometimes members of the group would be gone. It happened because we were at different points of some quest in the area as best we could tell.
The guild also had a hide and seek event for a while but had to give that up because we couldn't always get everybody in the same instance.
There have been few times when I was talking to a guild member in Discord and would tell them hey someone just started a trial group. They would port to the zone and would be seeing different zone chat than I was. We learned to port to each other rather than use wayshrines so we end up in same instance.

Nestor

Based on the number of players I see on the PC/NA platform during crowded events/new content releases, I would hazard a guess that around 200 players is the limit to a Shard.

Elsonso

zaria wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

They don't easily reveal details on how the megaserver works. We have to guess, based on snippets of information dropped like crumbs. Here is what I remember, without going back and re-reading past threads on this subject...

A few years back, there was a dev interview where they revealed that these "instances" were called "channels". The word "instances" was used for something else for ESO, according to the dev.

Everyone in a zone channel would be able to see each other and chat via zone chat, say, or yell. This only worked within the zone channel, not across zone channels. Probably the same, today.

Independent of that interview, it was revealed that people are placed in these zone channels based on social criteria. A player is more likely to be placed in a channel with someone from the friends list or who share a common guild. There may, or may not, be other criteria.

Observations from the open beta weekends that they had before launch indicate that there are multiple zone channels that can cover the same zone, and that they have the ability to merge them together dynamically. Presumably, they can also split them.

Based on things that they said this year, it seems reliable to speculate that there are zone servers, and that players on the same zone server are split into zone channels so that they can be managed better. It is likely that a zone can have more than one zone server. From a dev comment, apparently, the servers that handle Cyrodiil are not split into channels, leading to the conclusion that each Cyrodiil campaign has a separate zone server.


No one knows how many zone channels there are, or how many might exist for a given zone. Estimates from a few years back suggest that zone channels hold somewhere between 300 and 500 players. That estimate may no longer be valid.

Good point, they probably call then channels ineternaly because instances are temporary.
Dungeons, trials, battlegrounds, even player houses is an instance, you have solo instances like maelstrom and instanced quests. Don't think its actual zone servers outside of Cyrodil campaigns.
The problem with Cyrodil is that you can have some very epic battles you don't get that overland.
But they probably try to hold channels on the same zone on the same physical server but its likely multiple server for new zones or during events.
Benefit is that its faster to move you to another channel.

Not sure if they can close channels, yes they can move people out then you port but say you are farming an zone at slow hours and don't port anyplace for hours. You could end up alone in the zone if all else are moved out. They can probably create new channels. In the middle of the night you can find busy places like Rawl very empty.
Guess maintenance after an event is in part to close down all the extra channels.

Remember that Morrowind was very crowded at launch wit say 20 players inside an quest house or more players than mob in an delve, overland this is more of an problem than server load.

"Dungeons, trials, battlegrounds, even player houses is an instance, you have solo instances like maelstrom and instanced quests."

Yes, they mentioned in the performance announcement for U27 how the instance launcher for trials was not performing properly and commented that they have an algorithm that determines how trials are distributed. The purpose of those launchers would be to create a runtime environment for that instance and they are clearly distributed across multiple servers. While it is possible that they have a special launcher just for trials, that seems unlikely. They probably have launchers for other types of instances, as well. This could easily include launchers to create runtime space for overland zones.

"The problem with Cyrodil is that you can have some very epic battles you don't get that overland. "

When they mentioned that Cyrodiil was handled differently from other zones, I am pretty sure that they mentioned that they have broken the Cyrodiil zone down into some sort of smaller processing regions. Probably a group of contiguous cells, but I don't remember the exact phrasing they used. This first came up a few years back with one of the other performance things they were doing, and most recently, it was mentioned that they have a "server process for that area" that handles AoE combat targets. Those two things, years apart, support each other.

"Not sure if they can close channels, yes they can move people out then you port but say you are farming an zone at slow hours and don't port anyplace for hours. You could end up alone in the zone if all else are moved out. They can probably create new channels. In the middle of the night you can find busy places like Rawl very empty.
Guess maintenance after an event is in part to close down all the extra channels. "

I am really not sure what they can do with these channels, except for one thing that I witnessed myself.

During the beta weekend, it was possible to watch while people basically appeared out of nowhere in Davon's Watch and zone chat started to explode and become too fast to read. They did this at the end, when they were preparing to shut down the servers, while everyone was partying.

Back then, I did not know about channels. I do, now, and so I can look back at that and say that what I observed was them merging channels together.

Today, how could one tell if they were being moved from channel to channel, except if people around them appear and disappear?

kargen27 wrote: »

Sometimes you can be grouped with people and in certain areas they will disappear. Our guild had fishing events and sometimes members of the group would be gone. It happened because we were at different points of some quest in the area as best we could tell.

These are generally referred to as "phases" and are usually based on quest stages. Many of these were removed in order to make it easier for groups to remain together.

As for "hide and seek", the way my guild did it was to always "travel to" the party that is hiding. This normally put the player into the same zone channel.

Nestor

markulrich1966 wrote: »

ok, the answers clarify that zone chat is not "above" layers as I assumed.

So when you do not meet the one who asked for help with a worldboss, there must be a different explanation if you cannot find him.
Most likely then using a wayshrine to reach him switches the layer, so you arrive in a different one.

*If* the Mega Server has created a another Shard, and, there are enough players in your zone to initiate Load Balancing, then you can find yourself in a different instance, even though you can can see the chat.

It is always best to request that person to invite you to Group (so they have Crown), then, use /jumptoleader in Chat. this is much quicker than Travel to Player from the Group Menu or other means.

MKintr

zone chat is also limited to the current instance, not above instances.

zaria

Elsonso wrote: »

They don't easily reveal details on how the megaserver works. We have to guess, based on snippets of information dropped like crumbs. Here is what I remember, without going back and re-reading past threads on this subject...

A few years back, there was a dev interview where they revealed that these "instances" were called "channels". The word "instances" was used for something else for ESO, according to the dev.

Everyone in a zone channel would be able to see each other and chat via zone chat, say, or yell. This only worked within the zone channel, not across zone channels. Probably the same, today.

Independent of that interview, it was revealed that people are placed in these zone channels based on social criteria. A player is more likely to be placed in a channel with someone from the friends list or who share a common guild. There may, or may not, be other criteria.

Observations from the open beta weekends that they had before launch indicate that there are multiple zone channels that can cover the same zone, and that they have the ability to merge them together dynamically. Presumably, they can also split them.

Based on things that they said this year, it seems reliable to speculate that there are zone servers, and that players on the same zone server are split into zone channels so that they can be managed better. It is likely that a zone can have more than one zone server. From a dev comment, apparently, the servers that handle Cyrodiil are not split into channels, leading to the conclusion that each Cyrodiil campaign has a separate zone server.


No one knows how many zone channels there are, or how many might exist for a given zone. Estimates from a few years back suggest that zone channels hold somewhere between 300 and 500 players. That estimate may no longer be valid.

Good point, they probably call then channels ineternaly because instances are temporary.
Dungeons, trials, battlegrounds, even player houses is an instance, you have solo instances like maelstrom and instanced quests. Don't think its actual zone servers outside of Cyrodil campaigns.
The problem with Cyrodil is that you can have some very epic battles you don't get that overland.
But they probably try to hold channels on the same zone on the same physical server but its likely multiple server for new zones or during events.
Benefit is that its faster to move you to another channel.

Not sure if they can close channels, yes they can move people out then you port but say you are farming an zone at slow hours and don't port anyplace for hours. You could end up alone in the zone if all else are moved out. They can probably create new channels. In the middle of the night you can find busy places like Rawl very empty.
Guess maintenance after an event is in part to close down all the extra channels.

Remember that Morrowind was very crowded at launch wit say 20 players inside an quest house or more players than mob in an delve, overland this is more of an problem than server load.

zaria

kargen27 wrote: »

Sometimes you can be grouped with people and in certain areas they will disappear. Our guild had fishing events and sometimes members of the group would be gone. It happened because we were at different points of some quest in the area as best we could tell.
The guild also had a hide and seek event for a while but had to give that up because we couldn't always get everybody in the same instance.
There have been few times when I was talking to a guild member in Discord and would tell them hey someone just started a trial group. They would port to the zone and would be seeing different zone chat than I was. We learned to port to each other rather than use wayshrines so we end up in same instance.

Yes, this is another system, some towns are under attack and can be liberated who change it from an combat zone to an restored town. I assume this is an sort of mini channel inside the overall one it hide players who is in the other state as.
Say you fight mobs but other can not see the mobs and walk right over them.

Adrion and Reaper march has many of these.

Nestor

zaria wrote: »

Yes, this is another system, some towns are under attack and can be liberated who change it from an combat zone to an restored town. I assume this is an sort of mini channel inside the overall one it hide players who is in the other state as.
Say you fight mobs but other can not see the mobs and walk right over them.

Adrion and Reaper march has many of these.

These are Instanced areas. Done for various reasons, usually so that one players quest progression/story experience does not get messed up by someone else, or, the area changes enough before and after the quest it warrants it. This would not really have an impact on the Shard limits.You can group in these Overland Instances, in most cases.

Other classic Instances are the Mages, Fighters and Main Quest Instances, and those tend to be Solo. Of course, Group Dungeons and Trials are their own Instances. Group Delves, however are not Instanced. You only find those in Craglorn, they have different behaviors with regards to other players and mob spawns.

markulrich1966

ok, the answers clarify that zone chat is not "above" layers as I assumed.

So when you do not meet the one who asked for help with a worldboss, there must be a different explanation if you cannot find him.
Most likely then using a wayshrine to reach him switches the layer, so you arrive in a different one.