How has this no-proc sets test affected game performance?

DTStormfox

We'll have to wait for the real data to see the real results of this test on performance. However, that doesn't mean we can't do a subjective measurement.

Personally, I have experienced a lot of improvement from the no-proc sets test. Albeit only in the FPS department. The client seems to be much more stable and I experience a lot fewer crashes. Furthermore, I hear a lot of guildies experiencing the same improvements. However, the test doesn't seem to have much effect on the Latency (Ping Rate) department. Which, despite the lack of proc sets, still seems to be making the experience less enjoyable. Examples of this are (1) moderately high ping rates, ranging from 100-200, which was also what I was averaging in Cyrodiil with proc sets. Other than that, I also experience (2) a lot of active abilities either not 'firing' or with a noticeable delay. This means that I have to either recast the ability or wait until it fires (if it ever does). I also experience a lot of (3) abilities 'landing' on me with a great delay after being cast by opponents in Cyrodiil. Meaning that abilities either damage all at once, or they cause damage or apply an effect with a great delay (such as multiple seconds after running around an obstacle).

This obviously is a personal experience (anecdote) and doesn't prove anything. Hence, I wonder: How has this no-proc sets test affected game performance?

FAQ: Where is the "Performance got worse" option?
- Answer: I honestly did not think the game could get any worse, hence I didn't think about adding this option to the poll. Unfortunately, poll options cannot be edited after they have been published. So, I guess you are stuck with the "No improvement at all" option.

(EDIT: removed some typos)
(EDIT 2: added a FAQ)

Pallio

Improved FPS, client stability, and latency (Ping Rate)

Excellent change, been the smoothest pvp game play in years. Even with pop locked and queue of 50+.

deleted221106-002999

While it's been more open play-wise no change to lag/latency which is still appalling.

I'm beginning to suspect these tests have nothing to do with fixing this game's performance but to provide metrics for whatever they're cooking up as their next title.

Or 'behavioural changes'. lol

MinnesotaKid

No improvement at all

I find the combat more satisfying w/ no-procs, maybe say more balanced?

But the performance itself is actually worse imho than prior to the test. Massive lag, de-sync's, and disconnects are still prevalent and tbh, not worth the headaches to play in cyro right now.

CSose

Where is the "made fps and ping worse" option?

rumple9

No improvement at all

wheres the option for worse performance?

NeillMcAttack

No improvement at all

Nothing has changed since Update 25, except they removed proc sets. It’s as unplayable as it was the weeks following U25. So how can we expect it to have improved? Zeni have done nothing significant for almost the entire year since that disaster!

If I was to be optimistic (and likely naive), I would hope that Zeni have something actually significant up their sleeves, ideas I won’t get into now. Because there is absolutely no way they can come out and say that multiplying the number of AOE checks on the server (by re-implementing cross group heals) has little effect on gameplay and actually believe that themselves. There is zero logic in claiming that. The issues are blatant. Are they actually that disconnected from the realities of what causes the issues. They have never even addressed what they did with U25. “Oh, we made some block changes to reduce de-syncs”. Nobody believes that. So I find it hard to believe they don’t know a hell of a lot more then they are letting on.

Fingers crossed that they are playing some 5d chess with us, because the alternative is that actually have no idea what to do. And we are left with the worst version of ESO ever, for the foreseeable future.

LightYagami

Improved FPS, client stability, and latency (Ping Rate)

Improved, but only slightly.
I'm still experiencing 999+ spike, skills not working, desync and disconnection, just less often.

Dojohoda

Improved FPS, client stability, and latency (Ping Rate)

^ Except for Friday

(edit: PC NA, Gray Host, prime time, ungrouped)

MasterSpatula

Improved FPS, client stability, and latency (Ping Rate)

Large battles don't seem improved all that much, but medium-sized battles are noticeably better for me. Of course, guildmates standing right next to me are complaining about lag at the same time everything's flawless for me and vice versa, so YMMV.

Feaky

No improvement at all

Unplayable on gray host during prime time.

Gilvoth

No improvement at all

worse lagg and higher ping now than before the test

DTStormfox

Improved FPS and client stabilty

CSose wrote: »

Where is the "made fps and ping worse" option?

To be honest, I didn't think it could've become worse because it already was in a terrible state (in my opinion). Hence, I left the option out.

WaywardArgonian

No improvement at all

No improvement at all. The game seemed to run much smoother during the first few hours of the test, but after the servers filled up and massive battles started happening, it was back to what I sadly have to refer to as 'normal'.

For some reason I also encounter some bugs more often than before, like that bug near big battles where everyone's character movement slows down/stutters.

nukk3r

No improvement at all

Somehow it's even worse than before. In addition to the usual lag, desync and grey bars I've had constant disconnects in heavy fights for the past two days. When I loaded back into the game, I was teleported to base, rode back to the keep to get disconnected near the walls again. Couldn't get back till the fights were over and missed some AP ticks.

Tommy_The_Gun

There is marginal improvement during small fights, but as soon as large-scale battle starts - everything goes to hell...

Game is "kinda" more responsive, as I did not encountered "skills / potions not working" bug. Those just lag horribly, but can be used after a couple of seconds. Still, unacceptable but marginally better. There is also a new issue I have encountered (and never seen before) - unbreakable stuns. I sit on 30K stamina and can not break free. It happens very often. Either randomly during big fight, or when a Sorc streaks through. Streak seems to be the most prone to causing that "unbreakable" stuns. I am not sure if this is a bugged skill, some kind of exploit or maybe server is so laggy that it can not track CCs and you get stunned by multiple CC and CC immunity effects are ignored somehow.

Either way, improvement is so marginal that it feelslike it is not worth it. What is worth though is balance, as the game feels more fair without all those dmg procs.

WaywardArgonian

No improvement at all

Another new bug I encountered yesterday was that I could not get a siege tool (Flaming Oil in my case) to work at all. I just kept trying to pour the oil for like a minute but kept getting the "The Flaming Oil is busy" message. I tried this for like a minute and re-engaged the oil multiple times, but nothing could get it to work. I had the error message before, but I never experienced a siege tool just flat-out not working at all.

techyeshic

No improvement at all

This sort of thing hasn't happened since the test: https://i.imgur.com/ZeILt3q.mp4

But actual ability delay/no fire has gotten worse.

CSose

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Another new bug I encountered yesterday was that I could not get a siege tool (Flaming Oil in my case) to work at all. I just kept trying to pour the oil for like a minute but kept getting the "The Flaming Oil is busy" message. I tried this for like a minute and re-engaged the oil multiple times, but nothing could get it to work. I had the error message before, but I never experienced a siege tool just flat-out not working at all.

That's not a new bug, just new to you. Those of us that can run 3 and sometimes more siege and keep them firing at max speed really notice the lag when sieging. In bad lag we have to only use two sieges because any more and the server can't keep up. One of the best ways to test what lag really is is with a stopwatch. Set up a ballista and time how long it takes to fire from the time you press the mouse button to make it fire. That is the true lag. It's often three full seconds or even more sometimes before the siege actually fires. Sometimes the glitch makes it impossible to interact with the siege and you lose it to entropy because you can't pick it up either.

Ralamil

Improved FPS, client stability, and latency (Ping Rate)

The only explanation I can think of for all of the people claiming performance has gotten worse is that they have something active capturing metrics, because it makes literally no sense how they could have removed a source server-side calculations used by (I'm going to venture a guess) every single person who knows what they're doing in pvp (given that even % cost reductions on sets count as "procs") and somehow *** things up worse than when they had the calculations going on.

Personally I have noticed that, in general, the performance has been better. It still slows down quite a lot when facing faction stacks - which is NOTHING new and that has always been performance is at its worst - but it's largely still playable. I haven't noticed as many issues with skills not firing (still some, but not as awful as before the tests). I don't notice nearly as many stuttering issues, nor as many desync issues or rebounding issues (where I think I'm in one place and suddenly I shoot back 30 feet).

I've also felt like the gameplay has been healthier. Its nice fighting enemies that actually have to attack and use skills to damage you, rather than simply holding block and popping their bone goliath ult. You finally have to balance tankiness and damage output again, and while I do NOT like to face entire factions stacked in one keep (and do not like participating in them in my own faction), it IS nice that if you happen to have pugs around you, they're no longer by being VD bombs that do more harm than good.

I would have no problem with them making this change permanent, to be honest. I would like for them to code certain sets more intelligently so that they're not classified as "proc" sets (why in the hell is a 5-piece bonus which gives, say, 10% reduced cost for magicka skills a thing that triggers ON CAST?! Just pre-calculate those modifiers and shove them into a series of "cost reduction" stats so that you're not recalculating them on every skill fire)

Sarousse

No improvement at all

Cross healing was reintroduced, this is the only explanation, besides the dev teams saying that it's doesn't have much impact (and having them saying this kinda worries me on the fact that lag will ever be fixed).

actosh

Improved FPS and client stabilty

Sarousse wrote: »

Cross healing was reintroduced, this is the only explanation, besides the dev teams saying that it's doesn't have much impact (and having them saying this kinda worries me on their capacity to fix the lag).

This.

erio

Where is the worse button

WaywardArgonian

No improvement at all

CSose wrote: »

WaywardArgonian wrote: »

Another new bug I encountered yesterday was that I could not get a siege tool (Flaming Oil in my case) to work at all. I just kept trying to pour the oil for like a minute but kept getting the "The Flaming Oil is busy" message. I tried this for like a minute and re-engaged the oil multiple times, but nothing could get it to work. I had the error message before, but I never experienced a siege tool just flat-out not working at all.

That's not a new bug, just new to you. Those of us that can run 3 and sometimes more siege and keep them firing at max speed really notice the lag when sieging. In bad lag we have to only use two sieges because any more and the server can't keep up. One of the best ways to test what lag really is is with a stopwatch. Set up a ballista and time how long it takes to fire from the time you press the mouse button to make it fire. That is the true lag. It's often three full seconds or even more sometimes before the siege actually fires. Sometimes the glitch makes it impossible to interact with the siege and you lose it to entropy because you can't pick it up either.

Well yeah I did mean new to me.

I've experienced lag before as I often operate 3 oils when inner is being sieged, including the "Flaming Oil is Busy" message. What I hadn't encountered before is that an oil or whatever siege engine refuses to fire even once during an entire minute. I'm sure that this bug is not a new occurrence, but the point is that, during this test, I'm encountering bugs that I had not even encountered before. It's a big contrast with some players initially reporting a minor or major improvement over the 'regular' situation, hence why I brought it up.

Ralamil

Improved FPS, client stability, and latency (Ping Rate)

Sarousse wrote: »

Cross healing was reintroduced, this is the only explanation, besides the dev teams saying that it's doesn't have much impact (and having them saying this kinda worries me on the fact that lag will ever be fixed).

Except that it's not?

They shut off cross healing after their first round of tests, when they reduce group size of 24 to 12, and I don't recall all of us miraculously praising ZOS for having fixed the lag, only to have it reintroduced when they turned cross healing back on and disabled proc sets. Because indeed if cross healing HAD been the issue, the lag would have been solved the first time around and they would not have needed to try disabling proc sets.

techyeshic

No improvement at all

Its definitely much worse right now. Getting worse each day since it was turned on.

DTStormfox

Improved FPS and client stabilty

erio wrote: »

Where is the worse button

The be honest, I assumed it could not get any worse.

spacefracking

Improved FPS, client stability, and latency (Ping Rate)

Its still bad on grey host NA between 730 and 1130 (primetime), but outside of that, its much smoother. I swear they have some sort of job that kicks off on the game servers around t hat time, because the lag hits so quickly, but that's just wild speculation.

Juhasow

DTStormfox wrote: »

erio wrote: »

Where is the worse button

The be honest, I assumed it could not get any worse.

Getting worse is the only constant thing about PvP performance since game release.

techyeshic

No improvement at all

DTStormfox wrote: »

erio wrote: »

Where is the worse button

The be honest, I assumed it could not get any worse.

It's worse. Most my group including myself logged last night by 9 EST because we were barely getting abilities off. All we could do is draw a zerg and run around not doing anything. Just trying to keep 30 chasing 7 and off the tri keeps.

rbfrgsp

No improvement at all

It is much, much worse. Performance is as bad as it has ever been in my 3 years' playing. Though I do not necessarily assume that it is due to the removal of proc sets, or the reintroduction of cross-healing. There might be other issues causing it.