Worst PVP bugs - Status update

malistorr

I'm hoping to hear from someone who works at ZOS about this. I'm a PVP guild and play/speak with several PVP players daily. Of course there is the usual awful performance in Grey Host and Blackreach any time the campaign gets even half-full or more. I know ZOS says the Xbox NA server hardware should be replaced hopefully in the 1st half of 2023 and I assume that they are cautiously optimistic that this could help the overall game performance. But what about the game-ruining bugs? There was supposed to be a recode of PVP last year and the latest/only things I've heard about that is maybe we can hope for a few improvements later this year instead. There is no word about what will be recoded and when. So I'd like updates about the following issues that really ruin the PVP experience:

1. Stuck in combat - This happens many times throughout a night of playing. All players complain about it. Sometimes you'll be in a fight with another player and leave and if the other player hasn't died you can find yourself unable to mount. There are many versions of this that all lead to an equal amount of frustration and not being able to complete basic tasks in the game. You cannot log out of the game, mount, or change inventory for example. What is the status of this issue being addressed? I've literally had to run all the way from 1 keep to another because no matter how far you get from the previous fight, if you've died, or if you get into another fight and survive after killing the enemy, you're still stuck in combat. This behavior never seems consistent but this scenario is 1 huge mess and the largest single problem in PVP IMO.

2. Indefinite debuffs. Why do I keep seeing status effects on me stuck for something like 47,000,000 days? I have to find a delve and go into it for this to drop off. Poisoned, burning, there are too many to name. I have no idea the cause of this but it needs to be fixed yesterday.

3. Exploits - I plan DC in blackreach and in a guild. We come across a group of AD who seem to be using some type of exploit. Many of us will suddenly have performance issues with the game when around only this group or even a specific player. I'm hardwired in with half-gig fiber on a series X and when I was fighting a player in front of Nickel who I was about to kill my game suddenly crashed to desktop. Around this same group may of us complained of sudden and very strange slowness in our games. Everything was working fine before that for all of us. It seems like the player (or more) in question are using something to slow down or disconnect opponents internet to avoid their own kills or to increase enemy kills. I'd like to hear what ZOS has done/can do to stop this pathetic behavior by cheaters.

I'm sure there are others but the 3 above really ruin the ESO PVP experience for many so I'd like to hear ZOS answer to these. These have existed for years so when is ZOS going to fix this broken game?

React

malistorr wrote: »

These have existed for years so when is ZOS going to fix this broken game?

Without even going into detail about 2020's "year of performance" or any of the other dozens of performance related promises that have been broken..

The code rewrite was supposed to take "much of 2022", and after 11 months they told us it wouldn't start until halfway through 2023 at the soonest, and likely won't be done until 2024 at the earliest.

With these sort of timeframes, my guess is we will never see the game reach the state we want it to be in.

Amottica

I had seen one acknowledgment on the in-combat bug introduced when they made it so we could not change skills while in combat. That was over four years ago and I have not seen any comment on the issue since. I have linked Gina's post responding to this from 2018. If someone has found a more recent comment please post it.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5634077/#Comment_5634077

malistorr

No reply at all from ZOS as per the usual. My guess is that it was decided by upper management that they wouldn't spend any more money on fixing/adding to/enhancing PVP years ago. They just don't want to/aren't allowed to tell the customers because that would make people irate and/or make them leave the game completely. Replacing hardware should be relatively easy (I do this for a living) compared to fixing all the numerous bugs in PVP or recoding it. I doubt the developers are even allowed to fix things because of the low number of PVP players compared to people playing in PVE.

blktauna

Lol too late, their inactions have already made people enraged and quit.

maxjapank

Amottica wrote: »

I had seen one acknowledgment on the in-combat bug introduced when they made it so we could not change skills while in combat. That was over four years ago and I have not seen any comment on the issue since. I have linked Gina's post responding to this from 2018. If someone has found a more recent comment please post it.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/5634077/#Comment_5634077

There that quote is. Glade you linked it. Thought it was only 3 years ago. But looks like it's been 4 years now. There was actually one patch that fixed the "stuck in combat" bug. I believe after not attacking for 6 seconds, we were all able to get out of combat. Then the very next patch, when they changed how defensive ticks worked (that you no longer had to remain within the vicinity of the keep), we became stuck in combat again. Since then...crickets....

emeraldshado

malistorr wrote: »

I'm hoping to hear from someone who works at ZOS about this. I'm a PVP guild and play/speak with several PVP players daily. Of course there is the usual awful performance in Grey Host and Blackreach any time the campaign gets even half-full or more. I know ZOS says the Xbox NA server hardware should be replaced hopefully in the 1st half of 2023 and I assume that they are cautiously optimistic that this could help the overall game performance. But what about the game-ruining bugs? There was supposed to be a recode of PVP last year and the latest/only things I've heard about that is maybe we can hope for a few improvements later this year instead. There is no word about what will be recoded and when. So I'd like updates about the following issues that really ruin the PVP experience:

3. Exploits - I plan DC in blackreach and in a guild. We come across a group of AD who seem to be using some type of exploit. Many of us will suddenly have performance issues with the game when around only this group or even a specific player. I'm hardwired in with half-gig fiber on a series X and when I was fighting a player in front of Nickel who I was about to kill my game suddenly crashed to desktop. Around this same group may of us complained of sudden and very strange slowness in our games. Everything was working fine before that for all of us. It seems like the player (or more) in question are using something to slow down or disconnect opponents internet to avoid their own kills or to increase enemy kills. I'd like to hear what ZOS has done/can do to stop this pathetic behavior by cheaters.

I'm sure there are others but the 3 above really ruin the ESO PVP experience for many so I'd like to hear ZOS answer to these. These have existed for years so when is ZOS going to fix this broken game?

I play on PS5 and found out tonight of this thing called Lagswitch.

I don't know what the default time out value is for the game, but it, lagswitch, seems to be a hardware device that causes a de-sync with the game, but the exploiter has to time it to be under the games time out value so their connection doesn't get dropped.


"
Whatever you do during this time is cached up by the system and when the connection is restored your system syncs up.

" -- from their website.

what I presume this in essence does, is it queues all of their attacks during the time that they have severed their connection to
when they re-enable it, their attacks get processed all at once. thats how I can be on a keep wall and suddenly get hit with a poison arrow, followed by 6 birds from the same warden and die when I was at full HP.


https://packetlife.net/blog/2011/mar/2/tcp-flags-psh-and-urg/

im not sure if this device causes the push flag or the urgent flag to be generated within the tcp stack or application. it would be interesting to see if people using this have their packets modified by it to get a higher priority. Frankly I deal with enough network issues at work that I don't want to get one and risk the terms of service for the playstation network just to do a packet capture to find out.

"

Is using a lag switch against the ToS of Xbox and PSN?
Yes it is against the Terms of Service, so please take care when using your lag switch. While our switches are virtually undetectable, there is always some risk. Furthermore, we do not condone cheating. We just know you’ll do it anyway. To be safest and to be fair, it’s best to keep it to private matches.

"

but there would have to be methods to catch people using this device, both on pc, though i expect the usage to be less frequent than those on consoles.

a port mirror on a router or switch , or a hardware device set to find this would be semi difficult as it would have to do a form of packet analysis, and it would be difficult to distinguish a bad actor amungst the good people who have legitimate network congestion... though i doubt it would be impossible to do, just VERY costly and time consuming..

a form of network anlaytics would have to be setup to search for a[ repeating / re-occuring ] pattern that falls under the time out value and re occurs semi frequently within the gamers play duration.


I cant really think of a use case for why anyone would use this outside of pvp

( well, you could try to get dyes and beat more difficult trials with it, though it would be a hollow victory, if you cared about actually earning the item legitamitly )

, so a monitoring system could be setup only to look into people in battlegrounds and cyrodil.


an arguement could be made that you can only participate in cyrodil if you have a steady internet connection, and they could drop the time out value down to be lower than the usual time out value, potentially when in cyrodil or pvp if possible. ( i am not a network programmer, so that last one may be a dream / wish )


actually, now that I think of it, maybe grey host could have a lower time out value than 10 seconds or whatever the value is so as to make it more difficult for people to use these devices within that alliance locked region. though the server time out is most likely network socket based, so maybe a software timer within the game within greyhost cyrodil could disconnect them.
or you'd see the use frequency cut in half with a lower time out value.

analytics and searching for repeat offenders who don't start to show this pattern when outside of cyrodil would be best, but again, presumably very costly.



i forgot to mention that in this case, the device these exploiters are using does not have any negative effects against you such as causing you to disconnect or crash to title screen... but it may have an effect on Zos's network by instead of having a steady stream of water, every so often the hose is clogged and a small gush of water comes in at once that may have to be prioritized over legitimate non screwy water.

blktauna

Back in the day we accomplished this by yanking the phone cord out of the modem and then reinserting it. Ish. Mainly to buy time to sneak pasta boss. I see little has changed in 30 years except the tech improving.

mook-eb16_ESO

These are not that bad compared with dysncs caused by knock back skills like magnum shot, templar spear etc after i get hit with one these I cant do anything I'm just dead. I walk around not being able to activate anything. sometimes after I get a big roll back. But its always knock back that causes the problem. this is really game breaking.