ZOS, Massive Spike in Ping/LAG in Recent Days - What Gives?

blktauna · July 2

Hi @ZOS_Kevin

aside from no longer being able to load a selected character,

What server/platform do you play on?
PCNA and PCEU

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)
Completely unrendered enemies, input lag, skills greying out, rubberbanding, siege not showing on the floor, mad lag and stutter on overland, rollbacks on overland, stutter and delay in delves. The best one is resurgence of hitting E to interact with something and my ultimate going off. No my ulti key is not near E. No I have several characters crashing me to desktop when I try to load them.

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?
I am on at all hours and get this at all hours. It is far worse at native primetime but there's never a time when you are free of it.

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)
Hmm...
I was antiquity collecting so I don't remember the most recent. The rift was bouncing around alot. On EU the Aetherium Archive had me stuttering, IC just kicked me and a few others when the @40 person AD zerg came in... Its the overland that is scary. This has never bled into overland before as badly as I am getting now.

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
Not in housing but on open empty overland, in cities, doing dungeons, delves and obviouly in cyrodil. Ah yes and the new fun, always being out of range when trying to interact with items. Doors, resources, wayshrines, looting. Thats fun.

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?
Native primetime, 5 pm to 1 am its far worse.

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?
now I cant even get out of character selection, I crash to desktop so no.

vsrs_au · July 2

Kainarel wrote: »

Xarc wrote: »

Launcher is the problem.

Playing directly from eso64.exe = normal ping.

Just tried it and works fine.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

Launcher and Steam are indeed a problem that causes very long loading screens and overall lag.

BUT I always play directly from the exe file, using launcher only for patching, and even directly from the file there are issues described in this topic because it's all server-related.

This topic was started precisely when those issues started -- before that time I had no issues, no lag spikes, no red numbers and my ping was 80-100. Now my normal ping is mostly in 120s. It gets more or less normal only when playing in non-populated hours (night, morning) and areas. It hasn't changed yet. Plus, many players are having frequent error 303 issues then can't login back at once and have to wait.

What does Steam have to do with performance issues? Steam just launches the ESO launcher, and maintains an overlay while the game is running for social/screenshot functions. How would that affect the game's graphics performance?

ElderSmitter · July 3

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After chatting with the team, we're looking to gather more information from players who have been experiencing new and/or worse latency/lag spikes/rubber-banding issues in ESO since the beginning of May 2024 (when the emergent issues in this thread were initially reported.) To help us with our ongoing investigation, could you please answer the following questions?
What server/platform do you play on?

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?

I have ATT Fiber Optics and have had lag the entire time i play basically to where even in combat using stampede I look stuck in the flying part of stampede. Ever since the DDOS attack ZOS has been practically unplayable. I play on PCNA . Average Ping use to be about 100 now it is anywhere from 250 to red 999

Even hitting E to collect gold from my mail has a terrible slow delay.

Photosniper89 · July 3

Update to my message earlier.

It's been reallllly bad tonight but it's a different kind of lag now. I've noticed less of the high pink spikes and more now to a 2-3 second "freeze" followed by some rubberbanding-ish followed by another 2 -3 second "freeze". Then it will be fine for a few minutes then it happens again.

Its got that feel to when you're playing a game and auto save happens and you get some lag... only way I can really explain it atm. @ZOS_Kevin

Arrow312 · July 3

@ZOS_Kevin

PC EU

TIME
Everytime i log in so there is not a special Time for me ( my time 5 pm - 10 pm MEZ)

High Ping nearly in every Zone (Special gold Road Zone).

Rubberband, delay, DCs

Rubberbands sometimes in Open World or Cyrodiil.

Delay and Disc:
Nearly everytime when there is a big fight in Cyro or more then 1 Ballgroup is around.

I have been kicked from Battleground matches after everything froze except for me before kicking me. I have been disconnected during traveling. I have experienced lag spikes with red numbers just doing nothing in empty zones while fishing or just collecting resources. Copied form Kainarel because it is the same for me.

aetherial_heavenn · July 3

@ZOS_Kevin
PC/NA

Issues in last 3 days.

1 Skill delay and not firing including simply facing an NPC and trying to heavy attack. Character stands with arm back doing nothing. For up to 3 secs. I use a target reticule that shows I am on target and in range.

2 Skill delay then all my skills firing simultaneously.

3 Positional desync.
~"Target out of range" on doors chests and NPC corpses
~Rez beams appearing at 90 degrees to my character's corpse.
~Dying to ground aoes which I am out of on my screen
~Placing items in houses which appear to be lined up on table etc. Then returning and finding them floating and forward of their location previously

4 High ping.
~Not as spikey as in May but has gone up to over 340 ms and sits at 310 ms consistently.
~ This is the same as when we Oceanics were sent through the notorious Akamai scrubber in the opposite direction to the quickest node. (ie Hong Kong and Netherlands from East Coast Australia!)
~If I use a VPN I can force it down to about 290_300 ms by selecting the quickest route with no packet loss. The VPN reports connection as approx 230 to various USA Central nodes. Then it takes another 100 ms to get through to the ZoS server. I had been consistently playing with appprox 240-260 ms for most of the last 12 months which was great. Over 300ms and the game becomes very hard to play.

5 NPCs rendering slowly in high pop areas. Invisible then unable to interact for a few secs. NPCss in delves invisible. Said in May it was so conssistent I thought it was a mechanic but it's not. The just disappear or zip and reappear.

6. My frame rate has dropped to 30 FPS from consistently 60-90 although this is less of an issue thean the high ping.

7 Disconnects at random: error message is 'report to microsoft or wait' with the spinning wheel. I was crashing to desktop afterr the ppatch when thread started.

Where/when does it occur in game/what am I doing
At random from high pop areas to empty zones. Placing items in my houses or in combat with NPC's. From US peak or at 4 am US EST

Equipment
I have a decent graphics card on the PC (ASUS GeForce RTX 3070) and nothing has changed at my end. I also have a new decent gaming laptop (ASUS TUF Gaming F15 Core i5 RTX 3050 15.6in 144Hz Laptop) and it happens on both.

Connection
I have a crappy fixed wireless connection thanks to our 3rd world Australian NBN so I put up with janky stuff a lot but it is noticeably resembling the worst performance in Cyrodil while simply doing WB's in an empty Deshaan. It's the desync that drives me nuts. I can account for high ping if it' consistent. But not knowing where the game thinks you are compared with what I see is impossible to deal with. Even opening urns!

edited to add more and tag.

vulonsil · July 3

- What server/platform do you play on? PC EU

- What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024?
Serious lag / delay in things, abilities activating late or not all, sometimes lag/problems in activating things with E. After new chapter release I also had new horse summoning lag - usually you slide sideways (e.g. cyro) and then mount, this time I ran onwards several meters and suddenly were on the horse without the summoning animation. 1-2 times in IA (with @jalabenjo specifically, not as bad with others) such bad lag it was almost like stop motion / almost as bad as Ravenwatch at its worst before server update. We wiped once because of the lag because he couldn't res (though should have been able to) and my skills didn't activate.

- Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?
Worst in the evening / during events, but I don't have much time to play in daytime anyway, or don't play the sort of content that would put strain on things.

- Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)
IA, sometimes in dungeons or trials, even overland, at least in new chapter area. Not sure, but the E issue might have shown up in housing too, I have a vague memory of complaining about it. Worst lag has been in IA or in WW after chapter release. WW is better now when there are less people farming it.

- Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
The E issue yes, horse summoning yes. Of lag in general not sure, it seems to be worst during combat at least.

- Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?
Haven't been in such content yet.

SeaUnicorn · July 3

What server/platform do you play on?
PCNA
What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)
Slightly increased ping, leading to noticeable lagspike, leading to disconnect to login screen. Game client does not crash. When trying to log back in getting 3 different errors and unable to login for several minutes.
Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?
Could be any time, but more prominent during peak hours.
Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)
In trials (Asylum, Lucent Citadel, Dreadsail Reef, Rockgrove) , inside of the house.
Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
Yes inside of the house while swapping skills around.
Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?
Prime time, Friday after 6pm and weekends.
Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?
Was not online to validate yet

verolo · July 3

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After chatting with the team, we're looking to gather more information from players who have been experiencing new and/or worse latency/lag spikes/rubber-banding issues in ESO since the beginning of May 2024 (when the emergent issues in this thread were initially reported.) To help us with our ongoing investigation, could you please answer the following questions?
What server/platform do you play on?

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?

What server/platform do you play on?

PC-EU

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)

Higher latency and everything that stems from it, such as delayed casting of skills, delayed interactions with NPCs/items, characters rubberbanding, and in acute cases complete freezes for 2-3 seconds.

Around what time have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?

I started experiencing this issue on June 21.

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)

Everywhere: overland, dungeons, trials, houses, etc.

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)

Yes. Again, it's the same everywhere in the game.

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?

It doesn't depend on the time of day for me. I experience same latency issues in the early morning hours (around the daily reset time) as well as in the evenings.

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?

The issue was especially pronounced in the first days after it had appeared (June 21-23): the ping was around 450, and the game was unplayable. After that, latency has stabilized to some extent, and it now sits at 230-250, which is still higher than my normal numbers (110-140). Monday's maintenance didn't have any impact on my issue.

SxFurey · July 3

PCNA Greyhost, Bruma

This just in. I played on the lowest graphic setting. Ping was okay-ish till 8 blues showed up to retake the town. They were spamming all sorts of heals and shields. Pring spiked to 999+, my screen froze and got kicked with error 308. I'm not blaming the 8 blues at all.

Lexalious · July 3

What server/platform do you play on?
PCEU - steam launcher
What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)
ping spikes to Red valeus occasionally and game visibly freezes, after few seconds everything happens at once or i disconnect.
Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?
all the time, happens once a minute or so.
Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)
overland, group dungeons
Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
yes, even when im opening daily writ boxes, it still can happen.
Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?
Not that i can tell
Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?
the red ping numbers dropped from 4k-9k range to 400-600 range. but lagspike is lagpspike i still can't play the game.

Im about to uninstall the game after 6 thousand hours. this has been happening for the last 10 days or so. i cannot take it anymore. I don't wanna rant or vent but its just facts. I do hope it gets fixed somehow.

GlassHalfFull · July 3

To help us with our ongoing investigation, could you please answer the following questions?

What server/platform do you play on? PC--NA

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)
Stuttering movement, skills delayed to going off in a bunch, skills not animated yet damage number shows, frame rate drop, and my frustration level increasing.

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread? This has occurred anytime of the day, mostly when EST evening players are mostly on (I am currently PST time).

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.) It is always worse in high player areas, towns, incurrsions, dungeons, etc.

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
Not as much, I do not do housing much, however at crafting stations the delay is noticable.

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times? Primetime is worse and most noticeable, however it has occurred during daytime hours as well.

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today? I will need to edit this response after playing today. The delay is less occurring after a server reboot.

SithDi · July 3

What server/platform do you play on? PC/NA
What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.) Moved back in time 'aka rubberband', resetting position and actions.
Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread? Mid-day and evening ET
Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.) Cryo (while farming and just moving), in West Weald while Farming, and in Houses when placing furnishings (furnishings were unplaced repeatedly).
Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example) - Yes, in house while decorating
Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times? Seems worse in evenings
Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today? It has been intermittent anyways, so hard to say.

Photosniper89 · July 3

Extremely disappointing to see nothing in Q4 QoL related to PvP (and Q4 already being stated it isn't Cyrodiil related leads me to believe its going to be some dueling arena or something literally no one is asking for) is also disappointing.

Unrelated - I was going to submit another round of tickets with videos from last night showing the new 2-3 "server save like" lock up that I'm experiencing but noticed there wasn't a single view on any of the 10+ videos that I've submitted in previous tickets.

doesn't give me a lot of confidence that they are even being looked at @ZOS_Kevin

nessarose_0112358 · July 4

[*] What server/platform do you play on?
NA/PS4

[*] What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)
Delayed graphics, animations (my character abilities, npcs, and enemies), sound dropping out, can’t use any abilities or even draw weapon after loading into a new zone, abilities cast being “out of range” when they aren’t, delayed interactions with npcs/looting enemies/harvesting nodes/digging up treasure maps, random load screens, invisible adds/enemies (only show up as a red dot in HUD, they are untargetable but I can vaguely see any projectiles (especially ones with light effects).

[*] Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?
The issues definitely seem worse during more standard American prime time hours, but they still happen during off hour times as well. In general, the issues got substantially worse on PS4 following the Gold Road update.

[*] Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)
I’ve experienced issues in nearly every zone. West Weald (overland, all the delves, both public dungeons, the mirror incursions), other zones (Vvardenfell and base game zones — following scribing quests), base game 4-man dungeons (darkshade, city of ash, direfrost, volenfell — whether I’m in a 4-man group or soloing it), dlc 4-man dungeons (white gold tower, mazzatun (especially puzzle room), coral aerie, bedlam (ran numerous times today, consistently had issues with add pull spawn ins and I always hit a load screen after running through the first archway after the last portal before the first boss), infinite archive (particularly prevalent on wave 2 adds), trials (vLC — the first waves of adds up until the first fire/keel cutter like add, the mantikora that charges up the steps when you start the run with the knot), just running around doing daily writs/quests in cities (Vvardenfell, Skingrad, mournhold). The more people there are in the area, the worse it seems; the more enemies that need to load in the worse it seems (especially if those enemies have a fancy entrance animation), and the more endgame the group the worse it seems. I’ve also had plenty of issues running in solo instances. Places that I have consistently experienced less issues — cradle of shadows (nearly flawless) and vBRP (no issues with invisible adds but the whole group had serious issues with bar swap/skills not firing by arena 5). I have also noticed that some of my characters seem more prone to experiencing these issues than others. I am not sure if this has to do with what class the characters are, how much play time I have on them (the more time spent on the character the worse the lag issues are), or what achievements they have unlocked (two worst ones have many crafting motifs, eidetic memory, the scrying treasure chest perk, and tales of tribute all unlocked).

[*] Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
I have noticed some lag for animations/skills particularly after arriving at a house. Besides that — running around in any major city or even just riding around Weat Weald on the main roads to get wayshrines.

[*] Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?
The issues seem to be slightly improved during morning/early afternoon US eastern time. They get substantial worse during US prime time hours.

[*] Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?
As of Monday’s update there have been some slight changes/improvements. I’ve noticed less random load screens — but the majority of the issues still remain.

Someone mentioned that it almost feels like a game running an auto save when the lag issues happen…..I would have to concur. Everything kind of freezes up — animations stop, abilities stop, sound stops, and then if the system catches up it all loads in at once.

silky_soft · July 4

What server/platform do you play on?

PC NA

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)

For a 230ms player it's significantly worse in battlegrounds. I cannot make gap closer happen. I cannot make cast time melee happen. I clearly wait for after thier Dodge roll to skill. Either fails to fire, gets delayed and they Dodge multiple seconds later. Even with major+minor expedition, 3x swift and steed. Don't get started on what pulls high ping players from cloak.

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?

10am AEST (7pm CST) to 1pm AEST

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)

Battlegrounds, all of them.

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?

No

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?

No, if not worse.

Feowyn13 · July 4

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After chatting with the team, we're looking to gather more information from players who have been experiencing new and/or worse latency/lag spikes/rubber-banding issues in ESO since the beginning of May 2024 (when the emergent issues in this thread were initially reported.) To help us with our ongoing investigation, could you please answer the following questions?
What server/platform do you play on? PC EU

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.) Movement lag, rubberbanding, dailayed ability visuals and sound or no abilities activating at all.

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread? No specific time frames that I noticed.

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.) Mainly West Weald and Vvardenfell but that is most likely because those are pretty much the only places I've vistited since the issues started.

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example) yes.

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times? Not that I noticed

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today? It seems to be at least less frequent. At first I thought it was fixed, but then I still did experience random rubberbanding and lag on occasion.

Questions are answered in the quote.
I would like to add that I have fully updated drivers, my pc is new enough and should still be able to carry ESO on highest settings easily. No new programs or addons or anything.
I feel like my game got affected around Gold Road launch, but that may be because I haven't really played during the month of May except for the daily log in (and then immediately logging out). I started playing multiple hours a day again after Gold Road's launch.

SeaUnicorn · July 4

Completed vet cloudrest trial and was observing the score

silky_soft · July 5

silky_soft wrote: »

What server/platform do you play on?

PC NA

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)

For a 230ms player it's significantly worse in battlegrounds. I cannot make gap closer happen. I cannot make cast time melee happen. I clearly wait for after thier Dodge roll to skill. Either fails to fire, gets delayed and they Dodge multiple seconds later. Even with major+minor expedition, 3x swift and steed. Don't get started on what pulls high ping players from cloak.

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?

10am AEST (7pm CST) to 1pm AEST

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)

Battlegrounds, all of them.

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?

No

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?

No, if not worse.

Even worse today. Even though it flat 233ms I constantly get stuck in a half animations running behind or towards players.

Skills I use and get stuck in the middle of animation.
Ambish, Crit rush, reverse slice, 2h heavy attack, incap strike, desteo staff heavy attack

Skills that don't go off that I get billed.
Ambush, Shadow disguise, crit rush, incap strike, soul tether, wrecking blow, repelling smash.

kyle.wilson · July 5

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After chatting with the team, we're looking to gather more information from players who have been experiencing new and/or worse latency/lag spikes/rubber-banding issues in ESO since the beginning of May 2024 (when the emergent issues in this thread were initially reported.) To help us with our ongoing investigation, could you please answer the following questions?
What server/platform do you play on?

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?

*PCNA Greyhost
* Problems only got worse after May update. Were already there. Ruuberbanding, skill lag, roll dodge and block not working, sound breaking, and disconnection
* I usually only pvp Friday and Saturday and lag gets worse around US east coast prime time int he evening into the night
* Experienced in all of greyhost. worse around large groups of people. still experience latency spikes over 1 second at gates.
* The lag experienced in Cyrodiil is sever related, I've yet to experience any of the same lag in the PVE environment
* Worst during periods of high occupancy (who'd've thought?)
* Wont see until tomorrow.

There also needs to be some accountability for the stuck in combat bug in Cyrodiil. It's been years.
Also ZOS devs should be playing in Cyrodiil so that they can take quantitative and qualitative measurements.
Then again ZOS devs should already be playing the game. if they aren't they can go work for Blizzard.
Might as well send the Trojan horse elsewhere.

Pelanora · July 5

SeaUnicorn wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

cptscotty wrote: »

Why is it we are being told the best way for ZOS to know of the huge glaring problem is if we, the paying customer, take time out to write reports for ZOS?

Pretty sure the best way for you guys to know the problem is by having your own paid testers play the game.

I mean...does anyone else realize that it wasn't even mentioned whether or not if the ZOS dev team is even looking into this problem? Just that the forum moderators are handing off the threads to them?

The data should tell them. What analytics do they actually run? How can a Microsoft company be bad at servers?

Server upgrade took place before acquisition by MSFT. So data center config has nothing to do with Microsoft.

But now..... they should have the resources to call on, for expertise and capacity. So I still ask it, how can a Microsoft company be bad at servers?

Photosniper89 · July 5

Yup, progressively getting worse since maintenance. I'm convinced there is some kind of memory leak somewhere.

Damn this is so frustrating. It's been so many years with performance this bad but it's just getting worse and worse.

But hey, at least we can look at other peoples houses now without using an Add-On..... -__________-

aetherial_heavenn · July 5

@ZoS_Kevin

I am also getting audio lag. Most noticably my 'jesus beam' (radiant) starts with the sound, goes silent mid channel, then makes an exploding noise just after the channel finishes. Music boxes volume varies at random. Some procs are audible, others not. There are delays on some npc's chat. I notice someone has started a thread on this but I think it is related as it started the same time. (around 21 June)

All the other details are in my post number #758.

VouxeTheMinotaur · July 5

VouxeTheMinotaur wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. After chatting with the team, we're looking to gather more information from players who have been experiencing new and/or worse latency/lag spikes/rubber-banding issues in ESO since the beginning of May 2024 (when the emergent issues in this thread were initially reported.) To help us with our ongoing investigation, could you please answer the following questions?
What server/platform do you play on?

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?

1. NA / PS5

2. Rubber banding / freeze frame, warping, frame rate drop, skill delay around 2-5 seconds or just do not fire at all. bar swap delay of 2-5 seconds, heavy attacks not connecting to enemies at range or close range despite red targeting glow around enemy and crosshair on enemy, combine this with skill delay is frustrating.

3. seemingly any time of day, but mostly during 8pm (EST) to 2 am (EST). Earlier hours of the day are usually *less* severe with these issues but still persistent enough to cause an Error DC at times.

4. Extremely severe in dungeon, trial, delves, dolmens / incursions / vents, arenas including solo arenas, and public dungeons, scrying questline, interacting with NPC's / items / loot nodes (like sacks or crates) in heavily player populated towns. Severe in open zones like Mournhold of Deshaan, Alinor of Summerset, Craglorn's trial gathering spot. It seems to be where combat is heavy and when lot of players are gathered in one area, though I have experienced very minor stuttering while running alone on the mount through zones, my own housing and in other players houses. Dungeons and Trials remain to be the biggest issue for me.

5. Yes, specifically when moving or placing furnishings. Placing furnishings also have a delay of around 2-5 seconds. There is also a pop-up notification that appears at the top right of the screen that says "your previous action has not been saved" or something like that, it comes up often. Accessing the Purchase tab in home decorating also has a delay when viewing furnishings to buy. Opening doors, whether they were apart of the home or a furnishing door / gate also has a delay along with interactable items / furnishings / NPC's like the assistants and crafting tables, up to a point that the "X" button needs to be tapped repeatedly to use said items.

6. Seemingly worse when there are more players active. My availability to play is always during nighttime of EST, sometimes mornings leading into the afternoon. Nighttime is worse than early morning / afternoon. An exact timeframe I would say between the hours of 6 pm and forward (I usually log off around midnight, but it still goes on afterward according to guildmates of the same platform / server, they are located in Australia / Western Canada / Western USA) this is when the issues gradually or suddenly become more apparent, most times it hits like a truck, coming out of nowhere after a couple of hours of "steady but manageable" issues.

7. I have yet to play today or yesterday, but prior to this maintenance, PS5/NA (at least for me personally) seemed to be a BIT better. The rubber banding / lag and skill delay were still there, but it did not spike or happen as often as it was in the prior weeks. I would say whatever the changes, if any were made, to the PS5/NA servers are a good start and seemed to be heading in the right direction as far as a solution or fix, since again, the issue does not happen at the same frequency. However, when it does happen, it hits just as hard as when it was frequent, enough for the same Error to show on the main menu screen. I do not know if there were any changes made, or if it's just because of player population slowing going down since many decided to switch to other games until the issue is fixed.

I will edit this comment later today or tomorrow beneath this sentence after playing the game tonight to give feedback on how the game feels / runs after maintenance. Fingers crossed that its better!!

update: it's not better at all... same issues are persisting as stated above

Cronopoly · July 5

Sigh, yet again... sub 13ms at all hops to datacenter with a TRACERT command to elderscrollsonline.com....then blackhole. Got booted 3 times just now. Gonna make some coffee then try again. hmmm, coffee 😁

Hey Is this site hosted at a colocation Datacenter? If so there's a ton of things that could cause this in a Datacenter, Edge Router, ACE, or Firewall...Failover of a device to a redundant backup on the network. Or the MOST COMMON someone running Incremental or Full Backups thru the DMZ Firewall screwing up all the other traffic.

P.S.
After 25 Years in IT Operations from Datacenter Operator to Manager of the Datacenter and Disaster Recovery, AS/400, OS/390, 3000+ Wintel, Linux, Solaris servers, Checkpoint Firewalls, Locomotive sized UPS units, EMC fiber connected Storage. And 9 times out of 10 it was a PEBKAC problem. (Problem exists between keyboard and chair). 😂

Datacenter "oh no" story...no real names ofc.
One of our senior dev's was named "Dr. Death" as he took the entire datacenter down at least 3 times. 😬 30B company too...Last time was the last. We were at IBM (Sterling Forest, NY) doing a DR (Disaster Recovery) exercise. Dr Death was, cough, promoted to the Storage team and was with us at IBM for the recovery exercise, and against protocol, networked back in production in our live datacenter to get the settings for the Storage fabric for the servers to be recovered as he never saved them up to the server in IBM like all the other teams were required to do, and did.

He had two green screens open side by side and screwed up which was Live Corporate, and Disaster Rcovery. Yes... he Initialized a Storage Fabric (Massive Hard Drive like space for 3 thousand servers) back in the Live datacenter wiping it clean...bye bye Live datacenter storage. Our company could not do business for nearly 2 days.

Back on topic I got back in....it failed when I ported from Greenshade back to Grahtwood. 5 minutes later I'm ok.

Four_Fingers · July 5

Pelanora wrote: »

SeaUnicorn wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

cptscotty wrote: »

Why is it we are being told the best way for ZOS to know of the huge glaring problem is if we, the paying customer, take time out to write reports for ZOS?

Pretty sure the best way for you guys to know the problem is by having your own paid testers play the game.

I mean...does anyone else realize that it wasn't even mentioned whether or not if the ZOS dev team is even looking into this problem? Just that the forum moderators are handing off the threads to them?

The data should tell them. What analytics do they actually run? How can a Microsoft company be bad at servers?

Server upgrade took place before acquisition by MSFT. So data center config has nothing to do with Microsoft.

But now..... they should have the resources to call on, for expertise and capacity. So I still ask it, how can a Microsoft company be bad at servers?

Software yes, hardware not so much.
They are not HP, Dell or IBM.

Cronopoly · July 5

Since the buyout, did they move? I thought they were in a non Microsoft Colocation Datacenter still. I hadn't heard that they Moved... I might be wrong.

The problem with colocations is that many of your networked Data is using shared resources IO Controllers, Firewalls, Fiber, HD Spindles in some storage frames etc, in that Datacenter with other clients, that you have No control over. meh

Spiritrush · July 6

What server/platform do you play on?
PC/NA

What is the nature of the issues you started experiencing or noticed got worse after the beginning of May 2024? (ex. did characters rubberband/warp, did abilities get delayed/fail to fire, etc.)
What is new recently is the 4-7 second lag spikes. While there has been significant lag in the past, these spikes are more pronounced. The results are the same as before, however - server boots, (extra long) rubber-bands, unable to bar swap, failed abilities, etc. The pull mechanics are already obscenely OP with apparent range desyncs, further exacerbated by the recent lag issues. I've also noticed significant lag interacting with banks and merchants as well, with some recurring emphasis on lag when interacting with jewelry.

Around what time of day have you experienced the new and/or worse issues reported in this thread?
Our group has noticed it more pronounced around 8:45PM - 9:00PM ET, whether we are encountering large groups or not. However, it is prone to show up any time large groups, particularly against a faction stacks. Years ago with groups of 24, the server appeared to sometimes preference players (groups) that had arrived at a battle first. This issue appears to remain a contributing factor.

Where in-game have you experienced these issues? Please be as specific as possible (name/area of overland zone, delve, dungeon, Trial, etc.)
Cyrodiil: from base to riding to battles anywhere
Infinite Archive: in combat
Trials: Lucent Citadel, in combat

Have you experienced these issues outside of combat situations (in houses, for example)
Yes. Interacting with banks. Random server kicks when wayshrining (when in load screen). Overland.

Have you noticed these issues are worse during any specific times of day? If so, what times?
Please see above.

Have you noticed any changes/improvements as of today?
I have had only one PVE server kick since your message, still having some bank/merchant lag. Cyrodiil on Wednesday July 3 from 9-10pm ET was akin to 7 years ago, the worst we have experienced in quite some time.

kyle.wilson · July 6

Cronopoly wrote: »

Since the buyout, did they move? I thought they were in a non Microsoft Colocation Datacenter still. I hadn't heard that they Moved... I might be wrong.

The problem with colocations is that many of your networked Data is using shared resources IO Controllers, Firewalls, Fiber, HD Spindles in some storage frames etc, in that Datacenter with other clients, that you have No control over. meh

Maybe they need to change equipment and location completely. What we have isn't working.
But, even a company with a massive cloud presence can drop the ball hard.
AWS and New World.
But, i feel that this recent data collection is another delay tactic so they don't have to admit they don't have 1 clue as to how to dig out of this hole.

edward_frigidhands · July 6

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Cronopoly wrote: »

Since the buyout, did they move? I thought they were in a non Microsoft Colocation Datacenter still. I hadn't heard that they Moved... I might be wrong.

The problem with colocations is that many of your networked Data is using shared resources IO Controllers, Firewalls, Fiber, HD Spindles in some storage frames etc, in that Datacenter with other clients, that you have No control over. meh

Maybe they need to change equipment and location completely. What we have isn't working.
But, even a company with a massive cloud presence can drop the ball hard.
AWS and New World.
But, i feel that this recent data collection is another delay tactic so they don't have to admit they don't have 1 clue as to how to dig out of this hole.

I am sadly tempted to agree here. The information they want they are able to clean from the posts we have here already.