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

SxFurey · May 23

Massive lag freezes in PCNA GH right now. Game is unplayable.

Did you pay your bills, ZOS? /s

BetweenMidgets · May 23

Over 2 weeks now without any word from ZoS.

Some "striving to communicate more".

thinkaboutit · May 23

Kainarel wrote: »

Something definitely happened with a massive kick of a good portion of players with a login queue afterwards.

Judging by the last post here, seems like the same issue kicked NA players as well as us from EU.

That certainly requires some investigation to see what happened and why.

0 Investigation has been done so far, 0 acknowledgement from ZOS and 0 improvement since the issue has started

Photosniper89 · May 23

BetweenMidgets wrote: »

Over 2 weeks now without any word from ZoS.

Some "striving to communicate more".

thinkaboutit wrote: »

Kainarel wrote: »

Something definitely happened with a massive kick of a good portion of players with a login queue afterwards.

Judging by the last post here, seems like the same issue kicked NA players as well as us from EU.

That certainly requires some investigation to see what happened and why.

0 Investigation has been done so far, 0 acknowledgement from ZOS and 0 improvement since the issue has started

All we can do is keep this thread alive and keep positing our experience here. Unfortunately, I don't expect anything from ZOS. I'm positive they are aware but as it relates to PvP they tend to be tight lipped. I'm making the assumption there is/was some internal decision to not comment on performance issues as it relates to PvP.

That's the only logical reason a company of this side would miss the mark so badly on communication. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_RichLambert @Zos_LiterallyAnyonePleaseSaySomething

Just_Attivi · May 23

Ill take this moment to
1) keep the thread active
2) remind that these issues arent exclusive to PVP, as many of the issues posted about in various threads have regarded overland/dungeons/prog trial groups as well as PVP.

the issues do not seem to affect everyone, but the number of posts and threads suggest its still a significant number of people from many different locations, domestic and across the pond.

While I am sure some people have troubleshooting they can do on their end that may help their specific problem, many of the people who are having issues have done all troubleshooting possible and do not have anything they can fix client side.

Many people experiencing issues are not experiencing issues in other applications, strictly ESO

these issues are intermittent but significant, as their frequency can entirely halt the ability to play the game. however, these issues seem to randomly come and go of their own, from my experiences over the *weeks* this has been happening, rebooting/restarting/sacrificing goats/unplugging it and plugging it back in do not seem to impact the lag problems, they just sometimes clear up at the same time as you doing these things.

ZOS_Kevin · May 23

Hi all, sorry about the slow response. We've seen your comments and have been investigating what's happening here. After yesterday's maintenance, we made a change that we believe should have helped, but given some of the comments this morning, the situation still persists for some of you.

We're continuing to take feedback, so if there is anything specific you've noticed, let us know in the thread. Anything is helpful, like is it specific to a megaserver? Does the situation changes if you fully shut down and reboot? Is it specific to an area or specific content? We'll take your specific issues to our team to further investigate.

Jaraal · May 23

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, sorry about the slow response. We've seen your comments and have been investigating what's happening here. After yesterday's maintenance, we made a change that we believe should have helped, but given some of the comments this morning, the situation still persists for some of you.

We're continuing to take feedback, so if there is anything specific you've noticed, let us know in the thread. Anything is helpful, like is it specific to a megaserver? Does the situation changes if you fully shut down and reboot? Is it specific to an area or specific content? We'll take your specific issues to our team to further investigate.

Well thank you for acknowledging that it is indeed a problem generated on your end that you can control.

I could not stay logged into PC/NA Gray Host until 8pm PST, so I quit playing for a couple hours. Kept getting the gray screen of death and either kicked back to character select, or frozen and had to force close the game and then log back in. Sometimes I got put in a queue that never advanced, had to force quit again. Other times got "Unexpected Error," "Unable to Connect to Server," "Booted From Server," "That Account Is Already Logged In," so I gave up and did other things on the internet, with zero issues.

But after I tried it again at 10pm, everything was running normally (normal being laggy around ball groups and the hammer, but reasonable everywhere else). If you guys made a change during those two hours, it worked.... at least for me. And no reboots, cache clears, or any other changes to addons or my system.

Windows 10 system, playing through Steam. No issues with my other Steam games.

Photosniper89 · May 23

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, sorry about the slow response. We've seen your comments and have been investigating what's happening here. After yesterday's maintenance, we made a change that we believe should have helped, but given some of the comments this morning, the situation still persists for some of you.

We're continuing to take feedback, so if there is anything specific you've noticed, let us know in the thread. Anything is helpful, like is it specific to a megaserver? Does the situation changes if you fully shut down and reboot? Is it specific to an area or specific content? We'll take your specific issues to our team to further investigate.

Thank you @ZOS_Kevin

Y'all heard the man.... start recording some clips to give them all the info we can.

Info I can provide:

PC Specs:
- 13th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-13700K 3.40 GHz
- PRIME Z690-A
- 32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090

Game Info:
- PC/NA
- Ultra Settings (but have had issue on potato mode too)

Experience:
- Obviously there are major spikes during prime time Cyro in GH (but have experienced it in PvE... just not as much) but outside of the prime time spikes will go from 75ms up to 400 - sometimes even 999. Happens during major fights but also happens just standing AFK inside a keep.
- If I had to describe the way it feels in game it's almost as though you can "feel" the server trying to do math or load something. You have that big front end load/performance spike and then things balance out. During prime time these spikes happen for me every 5 or so minutes. When I'm AFK in a keep (with no fighting near by) you can still feel it happening but just not as often (maybe once every 10 minutes).
- Restarting my machine doesn't fix it.
- I also repair my game every day I play ( I have no idea if this actually does anything but in my head it makes me feel better so lets roll with it lol)

I'll start recording some clips or see if I can pull some clips from streams to showcase this issue.

thinkaboutit · May 23

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, sorry about the slow response. We've seen your comments and have been investigating what's happening here. After yesterday's maintenance, we made a change that we believe should have helped, but given some of the comments this morning, the situation still persists for some of you.

We're continuing to take feedback, so if there is anything specific you've noticed, let us know in the thread. Anything is helpful, like is it specific to a megaserver? Does the situation changes if you fully shut down and reboot? Is it specific to an area or specific content? We'll take your specific issues to our team to further investigate.

From my perspective it has been 9:30-11:30EST timeframe with about half a raid group disconnecting at the same time

MrTibbs · May 23

Yes thank you for responding.

For me I experience lag and frame loss whenever I go into a menu, try looting an object, read a piece of lore, and sometimes when talking with npc's. Seems like anytime I interact with something. Also randomly getting booted while just running to my destination and then getting put into a login queue.

Windows 11 and using the ESO Launcher. non steam.

Mycroftz · May 23

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, sorry about the slow response. We've seen your comments and have been investigating what's happening here. After yesterday's maintenance, we made a change that we believe should have helped, but given some of the comments this morning, the situation still persists for some of you.

We're continuing to take feedback, so if there is anything specific you've noticed, let us know in the thread. Anything is helpful, like is it specific to a megaserver? Does the situation changes if you fully shut down and reboot? Is it specific to an area or specific content? We'll take your specific issues to our team to further investigate.

PS5/NA

I know one person in my raid group has been having constant issues with poor game performance (dropped frames, rubber banding, inability to bar swap/cast skills, being booted from server) since November. Deleting and reinstalling the game, optimizing settings, using ps4 or ps5 version, pretty much everything has been attempted and does not work. The issues come and go, but will persist for hours at a time. It only happens with ESO, and is not a problem with his internet.

Now, several other people have been experiencing these sporadic performance issues in the last few weeks. I know a couple weeks ago there was a server wide issue; since then, I am also now experiencing performance issues. Intermittent lag spikes, freezing for 2-3 seconds at a time, inability to cast skills (or they will cast many seconds later), being kicked out of game. It was at its worst for me yesterday during raid, started off fine for the first 20 minutes and then for the next hour and an half after that it was unplayable. This was between 10pm to midnight EST. It’s most noticeable in raid because that’s the most frequent thing I do in game. It gets worse during pulls (adds, bosses, etc) but was happening when running from place to place as well. I have clips I can provide if they would be helpful.

I’m on a PS5, playing the PS5 version of the game, no HDR, on performance mode.

Nucklez · May 23

I've been running dungeons and the lag spikes generally hit everyone in the dungeon at the same time. One example was after the maintenance yesterday I hit over 2,000 ping and two of the other players were booted from the game. We waited on them to log back on and continued the rest of the dungeon. We've even wiped on one of the bosses (that 2nd one in The Cauldron) from one of the lag spikes. I asked after everything settled down, and the entire group said they were also affected. These are randoms, I don't know any of them or anything about where they are.

Kainarel · May 23

Yes, like @Nucklez said, it seemed to have happened around the same time for everyone affected -- a huge lag spike (everything froze for me in the Battlegrounds), then many people booted from the server at the same time, some stayed after the lag spike passed.

Apparently that spike might have happened at the same time for both servers - judging by one of the comments here that I saw from a person of NA server - but I can confirm that it happened for me on PC EU at the same time as people here said it happened to them.

I didn't even see the red numbers in ping -- the picture simply stood still for me while I could move until I was booted. Upon trying to log back in I was placed in a small queue, then logged back and it seemed okay-ish, because there were some red-numbers spikes, but not to the extend of throwing me out of the game as during the Battlegrounds.

Thanks to @ZOS_Kevin and others for looking into this.

Wildberryjack · May 23

I'm still having issues with this as well. It reaches a point it's unplayable so I just log off. Really it would be nice to know if yall are even looking at this since Gold Road launches soon.

Kainarel · May 24

Didn't boot me today from Battlegrounds, but during playtime I still notice lag spikes with red numbers going into 300-600 or so in ping. My norm is 80-100 usually. I'm PC EU.

Those lag spikes are completely random, out of nowhere, no matter where you are or what you do. I can be inside my house and get a spike, or I can be someplace on the map (not even in a city) and get a lag spike with 600+ ping. It comes and it passes, and so on.

So yes, it seems there is still some instability present in the server, and we hope it gets sorted out and fixed soon. Being booted during some group mission is no fun at all.

Desiato · May 24

Kainarel wrote: »

Didn't boot me today from Battlegrounds, but during playtime I still notice lag spikes with red numbers going into 300-600 or so in ping. My norm is 80-100 usually. I'm PC EU.

When I get packet loss while pinging the IP ZOS provides for troubleshooting gameplay issues (198.20.200.1), it presents itself in the client as you describe -- because the ping value in the bottom left corner is an average over a period. If it's just 1 dropped packet, the spike will be around 300-400, increasing up to 999 based on the number of dropped packets within that period.

Anifaas · May 24

I seem to feel the effects most in dungeons. Over the last week I've lagged out for minutes at a time and sometimes I am just abruptly dropped from the game and have to relog. I'm hardwired into a gigabit fibre connection and experience no problems in other games currently, just ESO.

This is a live service and it is really, really bad decorum to not acknowledge or address these problems. Situations like this make it difficult to maintain respect for the company.

Seravi · May 24

I started having the issues again yesterday. Trying to enter a general dungeon in The Reach I thought the game would kick me it took so long to get spawned in but it didn't. Game was not very responsive after that in the dungeon, freezing, no response to key press, etc. Logged out, shut down the game and logged back in. The game was better but still had random lag and lack of key response.

I was kicked a few times since maintenance just using wayshrines for lost connection yet my tracerts and pings show no issues. Where I live I could throw a rock and hit the server so it is extremely unusual for me to have these types of issues.

I generally play from 7AM CST - 5PM CST.

PC NA

Rig:
CPU: intel i9-13900K with EKWB LGA 1700 ILM Replacement Kit
Motherboard: MSI Pro Z790-A WiFi
GPU: Asus GeForce RTX 4090 TUF Gaming OC 24G
RAM: 64GB Corsair Dominator DDR5-6000 CL30
Hard Drive: (2) Samsung 990 Pro NVMe, 1TB and 2TB
Operating System: Windows 10
Case: Lian Li V3000 Plus

Cooling

(3) Loops
CPU: EK Quantum Velocity² Nickel/Plexi
GPU: OptimusPC Signature V2 4090 GPU Block
NVMe Cards: AlphaCool HDX Apex Acrylic aRGB blocks

Four_Fingers · May 24

Solar flares...

Photosniper89 · May 24

Desiato wrote: »

Kainarel wrote: »

Didn't boot me today from Battlegrounds, but during playtime I still notice lag spikes with red numbers going into 300-600 or so in ping. My norm is 80-100 usually. I'm PC EU.

When I get packet loss while pinging the IP ZOS provides for troubleshooting gameplay issues (198.20.200.1), it presents itself in the client as you describe -- because the ping value in the bottom left corner is an average over a period. If it's just 1 dropped packet, the spike will be around 300-400, increasing up to 999 based on the number of dropped packets within that period.

Also would like to point out @ZOS_Kevin that I too have tracked packet loss and noticed that if there was even just a few ms of packet loss you get booted. Seems very odd considering other games usually can handle losing a few packets being dropped.

Photosniper89 · May 24

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Solar flares...

This was happening weeks prior to the recent solar flares.

thinkaboutit · May 24

Why are mass disconnects being conflated with individual pc/home internet connection issues?

...

SaffronCitrusflower · May 24

thinkaboutit wrote: »

Why are mass disconnects being conflated with individual pc/home internet connection issues?

...

https://manhattanmentalhealthcounseling.com/understanding-deflection-in-psychology-and-effective-ways-to-respond/

The section regarding the consequences of deflection seem especially relevant in this case.

ssewallb14_ESO · May 24

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all, sorry about the slow response. We've seen your comments and have been investigating what's happening here. After yesterday's maintenance, we made a change that we believe should have helped, but given some of the comments this morning, the situation still persists for some of you.

We're continuing to take feedback, so if there is anything specific you've noticed, let us know in the thread. Anything is helpful, like is it specific to a megaserver? Does the situation changes if you fully shut down and reboot? Is it specific to an area or specific content? We'll take your specific issues to our team to further investigate.

I'm noticing it more in dungeons, but it may be that I notice lag and dropouts more in that context.

davidtk · May 24

Looks to us like the ping on PC-EU is better. It can keep better within the normal range of what my wife and I are used to.
Unfortunately there are still crazy ability lags in some situations.
We're going through Endless Archive today (sorry but it sounds much better, more noble than the lame Infinite Archive) and the lags and ability lags get worse and worse in the bigger fights in the later Arcs.

Lexalious · May 25

Posting this just to inform the devs. PC-EU , 23rd evening, 3 of my dungeon prog group members disconnected all at once. They were prompted with the "5 hour login queue" thingy. and made it into the game in about 10 minutes. 23rd again i was having higher than average ping and occasional lag spikes. I play daily for years and have checked necessary cautions like resetting everything from router to pc. done the tests and its not on my end 100%. and 24th all day my lag spike issue continued.
In short this became an issue after the maintenance for me.

fizzylu · May 25

Game was running pretty well for me today, but now I'm getting disconnected over and over again. It won't even let me log back in easily and errors related to the server keep popping up when I try to do so.

miguelcura · May 25

normal day on teso.

Just_Attivi · May 25

Due to the intermittent nature of the lagspikes people (myself included) were having , I dont want to say it is fixed without more testing (and judging from comments, Im assuming it is not)

but I put in a good few hours this morning, PC NA, just doing overland stuff that I was experiencing issues with lag/freezing/teleporting/skills delayed multiple seconds/etc for the past few weeks, and had zero issues today. Havent tested dungeons/PVP yet.

No clue what was changed on ZOS' end, but it /might/ have helped some? Again, the issues were coming and going seemingly of their own regardless of client input the past few weeks, so I dont want to sing praises yet, just updating my individual experience since the maintenance

blktauna · May 25

Today on PCEU at bet 3 and 5 PM EST I had a terrible time, again, with getting repeatedly desynched and my frames do from 50 to single digits on your counter. the Ping would bounce between 160 ans 999+ in Ravenwatch.

Here on PCNA in CP IC I would meet up with certain players and no skills would work at all. I would try heavy attacks and nothing, skills nothing, the toom was held in that position it has right befoe the heavy attack position. After these players were out of range, all the skills would fire in rapid succession. This is happening more and more frequently, I am getting this in public dungeons as well along with being unable to interact with doors or other objects. The skill bar just greying out even on overland content is beyond irritating.