Pvp Lag

jelliedsoup · April 2015

With relatively low population the lag was enough that would be hit and die at the same time
At the end of the day it's not enjoyable or fun. Zos's wont adress it either so guess the balls in my court huh?

Xevothian · April 2015

They have adressed it and are currently working on it.

jelliedsoup · April 2015

Fark if they are working on it there really is no hope.

Athas24 · April 2015

I guess I am pretty lucky. I rarely ever have lag or any latency in the game. I do get the ol crash or freeze but that's ALWAYS in a town when I'm running and I'm holding the W key and press M for map or something at the same time or roughly the same time. It's either that or when the guards nab me with root and I pop a skill right away. That crashes me too. In Cyrodiil though, i can honestly say I don't ever have issues.

Bouvin · April 2015

Xevothian wrote: »

They have adressed it and are currently working on it.

LOL just cause they say they are working on it doesn't mean they are really working on it.

ZoS says they are going to do a lot of things that they never end up doing.

So far solutions for lag have been:

Remove deer from cyrodil
Increase seige damage
Make all mobs VR12 thus making Cyrodil the most popular grind spot and capping out the campaigns with PvErs who are in delves
Provide siege that hits even harder from dolmens so that people yet again spend more time PvEing in Cyrodil...

What they've failed to do is identify the CORE PROBLEM causing the lag and fix it. Instead, all we get are bandaid fixes...

This leads one to believe they really have no clue what's causing the lag and no clue how to fix it. Don't expect it to get better soon...

They've been "looking into solutions" since 1.4 which was like 7-8 months ago and have made no headway on the problem whatsoever. Actually, it's just gotten worse patch after patch....

Edit: And btw, fixes like increasing siege damage to try and spread out players does nothing to fix the lag, because most of the lag is coming from keep fights where you have a lot of people on screen at once, despite increased siege damage.

...

Obscure · April 2015

Bouvin wrote: »

Xevothian wrote: »

They have adressed it and are currently working on it.

LOL just cause they say they are working on it doesn't mean they are really working on it.

ZoS says they are going to do a lot of things that they never end up doing.

So far solutions for lag have been:
Remove deer from cyrodil

Increase seige damage

Make all mobs VR12 thus making Cyrodil the most popular grind spot and capping out the campaigns with PvErs who are in delves

Provide siege that hits even harder from dolmens so that people yet again spend more time PvEing in Cyrodil...

What they've failed to do is identify the CORE PROBLEM causing the lag and fix it. Instead, all we get are bandaid fixes...

This leads one to believe they really have no clue what's causing the lag and no clue how to fix it. Don't expect it to get better soon...

They've been "looking into solutions" since 1.4 which was like 7-8 months ago and have made no headway on the problem whatsoever. Actually, it's just gotten worse patch after patch....

Edit: And btw, fixes like increasing siege damage to try and spread out players does nothing to fix the lag, because most of the lag is coming from keep fights where you have a lot of people on screen at once, despite increased siege damage.

...

Thus far the tactics they've used to address lag are akin to a Doctor prescribing Kleenex to a patient diagnosed with clinical depression.

I suspect the problem to be inherent to the game engine. The kinda problem that costs LOADS of money to fix because Engine Programmers are very expensive. Programmers are the highest paid on any studio's pay roll, and engine programmers are among the tippy top, right next to the Lead Programmer, pulling ~$100k+ salaries based on their experience. In perspective the average Game Designer makes in the high $50k area, with Lead Designers maybe pulling barely upwards of $80k. An Engine Programmers time is thus extremely important to streamline and has to measure up with the profit margin. If it takes 4 engine programmers 3 months to fix and thus costs you around $100,000 just in salaries (not mentioning operating costs related to facilities and hardware), that fix better be making you more than $100,000 + operating costs if your business plans on staying a business.

Not trying to excuse the lag issue, just food for thought.

jelliedsoup · April 2015

The

Obscure wrote: »

Bouvin wrote: »

Xevothian wrote: »

They have adressed it and are currently working on it.

LOL just cause they say they are working on it doesn't mean they are really working on it.

ZoS says they are going to do a lot of things that they never end up doing.

So far solutions for lag have been:
Remove deer from cyrodil

Increase seige damage

Make all mobs VR12 thus making Cyrodil the most popular grind spot and capping out the campaigns with PvErs who are in delves

Provide siege that hits even harder from dolmens so that people yet again spend more time PvEing in Cyrodil...

What they've failed to do is identify the CORE PROBLEM causing the lag and fix it. Instead, all we get are bandaid fixes...

This leads one to believe they really have no clue what's causing the lag and no clue how to fix it. Don't expect it to get better soon...

They've been "looking into solutions" since 1.4 which was like 7-8 months ago and have made no headway on the problem whatsoever. Actually, it's just gotten worse patch after patch....

Edit: And btw, fixes like increasing siege damage to try and spread out players does nothing to fix the lag, because most of the lag is coming from keep fights where you have a lot of people on screen at once, despite increased siege damage.

...

Thus far the tactics they've used to address lag are akin to a Doctor prescribing Kleenex to a patient diagnosed with clinical depression.

I suspect the problem to be inherent to the game engine. The kinda problem that costs LOADS of money to fix because Engine Programmers are very expensive. Programmers are the highest paid on any studio's pay roll, and engine programmers are among the tippy top, right next to the Lead Programmer, pulling ~$100k+ salaries based on their experience. In perspective the average Game Designer makes in the high $50k area, with Lead Designers maybe pulling barely upwards of $80k. An Engine Programmers time is thus extremely important to streamline and has to measure up with the profit margin. If it takes 4 engine programmers 3 months to fix and thus costs you around $100,000 just in salaries (not mentioning operating costs related to facilities and hardware), that fix better be making you more than $100,000 + operating costs if your business plans on staying a business.

Not trying to excuse the lag issue, just food for thought.

The problem is, the reason why it's not getting fixed does nothing for
my enjoyment of the game. It is what it is.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · April 2015

Inb4 this thread gets closed or swept under the "alliance war" rug.

ZOS doesn't like letting the blissful PvE kiddies know how much we suffer fighting for their freedoms to quest and pick flowers without being overrun by the enemy alliance.

Support our cyrodiil troops!!

PvP veterans are getting more neglect than the ones at Walter Reed.

JD2013 · April 2015

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/166606/game-performance-on-the-european-megaserver#latest

SHADOW2KK · April 2015

Xevothian wrote: »

They have adressed it and are currently working on it.

Aye we know they have addressed it and "working" on it, but what myself and many others feel, is the sincerity is lacking, and the dedication is also lacking.

There has been no discernible improvement, the lag is still there, they promoted a game with 200v200 onscreen at once with no lag, oh really, um when....

Even other genres, like Battlefield 3/4 cannot do that, and their engine is IMO, way more advanced than ESO, and they use dedicated servers, where you can connect to your localised servers wherever in the world, and yet cannot manage more than 128 players total, with loads of modern day action going on.

Different genre granted, but the principle is the same, then there is the controversial ESO + package, which again is truly underwhelming compared to other genres offerings, again in reference to BF3/4, they actually have a priority queue system in place, access to all DLC and loads of content drops. but have already elaborated on this at length on other threads.

Back on point, a year later they are "working" on it, tbh the entire engine needs a rewrite, I would not mind the server being offline for a week or a month, or whatever, if it was properly tested and all issues that would cause latency, fixed.

It is my sincere belief that zeni will concentrate on the Crown Store, (already ranted about that too and its long term effects), and also the console, we are left behind people, and will be drip fed new content or other bells and whistles here and there.

But the problem still remains, because the infrastructure is faulty, the code cannot keep the promised "lag free" aspects in play, so it needs rewritten, or the game will die, more people will leave the game, or when the latest TES incarnation comes out, more will leave again, or maybe play casually.

I am not interested in other MMO`s, but I am a gamer who plays other games of differing genres, and it boils down to one fact, people do not tolerate a game that fails to deliver.

Game stability is absolutely essential to a games survival.

The game is absolutely amazing on so many levels, and so much great work has been done by Zeni, but surely they can see the writing on the wall here, more and more are getting so disgruntled with the state of affairs in the game.

Myself and many others who have been here since Beta feel arguably more strongly about this, never mind other good people who have joined this stunning but flawed gaming experience, and to be told every so often, oh the issues are being worked on.

It has been more than a year, come on, get a grip.

Please stop lying and stonewalling, game stability is absolutely alpha priority, everything else is secondary, as console release will probably still have same issues that plague the game.

We all bought your game, and love it to greater or lesser extents, the reasons why many of us are disgruntled with the game is because you allow it to happen, Zeni this game is your baby, take care of it better, fix where it is broken, sort the lag, and everyone will come together more.

Sighs.

badmojo · April 2015

SHADOW2KK wrote: »

Even other genres, like Battlefield 3/4 cannot do that, and their engine is IMO, way more advanced than ESO, and they use dedicated servers, where you can connect to your localised servers wherever in the world, and yet cannot manage more than 128 players total, with loads of modern day action going on.

Planetside 2

I've seen way more action on screen in PS2 than I ever did in ESO, and I can't remember EVER having lag in that game.

It can be done, but when they do stuff like remove the deer, it's pretty clear they have no clue how to even go about fixing it.

It's sad, the PVP is so much fun when it works.

SHADOW2KK · April 2015

badmojo wrote: »

SHADOW2KK wrote: »

Even other genres, like Battlefield 3/4 cannot do that, and their engine is IMO, way more advanced than ESO, and they use dedicated servers, where you can connect to your localised servers wherever in the world, and yet cannot manage more than 128 players total, with loads of modern day action going on.

Planetside 2

I've seen way more action on screen in PS2 than I ever did in ESO, and I can't remember EVER having lag in that game.

It can be done, but when they do stuff like remove the deer, it's pretty clear they have no clue how to even go about fixing it.

It's sad, the PVP is so much fun when it works.

Very good point, got a few mates who play Planetside 2, and waxed about the good points.

And yup, PvP is ace when it works, then the lag monster comes into play every so often.

Obscure · April 2015

jelliedsoup wrote: »

The

Obscure wrote: »

Bouvin wrote: »

Xevothian wrote: »

They have adressed it and are currently working on it.

LOL just cause they say they are working on it doesn't mean they are really working on it.

ZoS says they are going to do a lot of things that they never end up doing.

So far solutions for lag have been:
Remove deer from cyrodil

Increase seige damage

Make all mobs VR12 thus making Cyrodil the most popular grind spot and capping out the campaigns with PvErs who are in delves

Provide siege that hits even harder from dolmens so that people yet again spend more time PvEing in Cyrodil...

What they've failed to do is identify the CORE PROBLEM causing the lag and fix it. Instead, all we get are bandaid fixes...

This leads one to believe they really have no clue what's causing the lag and no clue how to fix it. Don't expect it to get better soon...

They've been "looking into solutions" since 1.4 which was like 7-8 months ago and have made no headway on the problem whatsoever. Actually, it's just gotten worse patch after patch....

Edit: And btw, fixes like increasing siege damage to try and spread out players does nothing to fix the lag, because most of the lag is coming from keep fights where you have a lot of people on screen at once, despite increased siege damage.

...

Thus far the tactics they've used to address lag are akin to a Doctor prescribing Kleenex to a patient diagnosed with clinical depression.

I suspect the problem to be inherent to the game engine. The kinda problem that costs LOADS of money to fix because Engine Programmers are very expensive. Programmers are the highest paid on any studio's pay roll, and engine programmers are among the tippy top, right next to the Lead Programmer, pulling ~$100k+ salaries based on their experience. In perspective the average Game Designer makes in the high $50k area, with Lead Designers maybe pulling barely upwards of $80k. An Engine Programmers time is thus extremely important to streamline and has to measure up with the profit margin. If it takes 4 engine programmers 3 months to fix and thus costs you around $100,000 just in salaries (not mentioning operating costs related to facilities and hardware), that fix better be making you more than $100,000 + operating costs if your business plans on staying a business.

Not trying to excuse the lag issue, just food for thought.

The problem is, the reason why it's not getting fixed does nothing for
my enjoyment of the game. It is what it is.

There is a silver lining of sorts to these kinds of issues.

Limitations incite creativity and can generate innovation. An example, if you'll bare with me needlessly bringing up things that will not improve the PvP lag situation, is the original Space Invaders. Might even be a bit too old for some to recall even playing a modern port, but the original arcade version had a bug in which levels would lag early on because the system couldn't handle that many active asset calculations on the screen at once. Consequently as the player killed more of the invaders the game would speed up. Long story short it invented level difficulty scaling for top down and even side scrolling shooters, by complete accident, since by the time the player got down to the last invader on the level it was going really fast and was much harder to shoot. To this day the last enemy in a top down or side scrolling shooter is the hardest. Limitation drives innovation; can't keep warm? Learn to control fire. Can't move fast at long distances? Learn to break horses. Humans define ourselves by our unique ability to overcome our limitations, it's just what we do as a species.

Another example, but rather of a system that suffered the same lag problems comes from Arena Net. They pulled it off in GW2 by culling assets and using low poly assets as placeholders while assets slow loaded with low priority in the background. In ESO that would be like each of the 4 classes having a generic low quality avatar version (change the color for each faction) that loaded first in high population fights, and would stand in for all the high res asset data. As people died and/or spread out, it would increase the amount of available bandwidth and with it the higher resolution asset data. Not sure if that would work in ESO's engine, but it sounds way cheaper than recoding the damn thing.

Back to the issue, fixing the game engine may be the direct approach, but figuring out how to fix the problem without ever messing with the engine would be that old fashioned stroke of genius; a Eureka! moment. If ZOS can do it, they'd regain a measure of respect from me that they have progressively been losing at an astounding rate. If they just throw their hands up in defeat, they'll only justify my low opinion of them. I just dare them to prove me wrong. The thing about the Eureka moment is that it's unpredictable, and can be something one started on years before but gave up on for one reason or another, thus you can't really ask for a deadline or a "y u no fix dis!", they may have just figured it out right now, or they may never figure it out to the day they turn off the servers. They need a cost effective solution, and if they can't find one they don't fix it.

TL;DR: blah blah blah, Obscure talks alot, maybe they'll fix it, maybe they never will, but the direct route is likely too expensive to justify. It sucks, and it's sad.

badmojo · April 2015

Obscure wrote: »

Another example, but rather of a system that suffered the same lag problems comes from Arena Net. They pulled it off in GW2 by culling assets and using low poly assets as placeholders while assets slow loaded with low priority in the background. In ESO that would be like each of the 4 classes having a generic low quality avatar version (change the color for each faction) that loaded first in high population fights, and would stand in for all the high res asset data. As people died and/or spread out, it would increase the amount of available bandwidth and with it the higher resolution asset data. Not sure if that would work in ESO's engine, but it sounds way cheaper than recoding the damn thing.

That would work if the problem was client lag causing unplayable framerates. But, it seems like the problem is server side, where the server can't keep up with all the players and therefore while we see our avatars casting a spell or swinging their sword, the other players aren't told this because the server is all clogged up and way behind. At least that's my take on the latest PVP lag. I know there are problems with low FPS in big battles, but that choppyness doesn't effect the game like the server issues.

Obscure · April 2015

badmojo wrote: »

Obscure wrote: »

Another example, but rather of a system that suffered the same lag problems comes from Arena Net. They pulled it off in GW2 by culling assets and using low poly assets as placeholders while assets slow loaded with low priority in the background. In ESO that would be like each of the 4 classes having a generic low quality avatar version (change the color for each faction) that loaded first in high population fights, and would stand in for all the high res asset data. As people died and/or spread out, it would increase the amount of available bandwidth and with it the higher resolution asset data. Not sure if that would work in ESO's engine, but it sounds way cheaper than recoding the damn thing.

That would work if the problem was client lag causing unplayable framerates. But, it seems like the problem is server side, where the server can't keep up with all the players and therefore while we see our avatars casting a spell or swinging their sword, the other players aren't told this because the server is all clogged up and way behind. At least that's my take on the latest PVP lag. I know there are problems with low FPS in big battles, but that choppyness doesn't effect the game like the server issues.

Well, I only have a laymans understanding of how the Arena Net fix worked, but essentially it freed up bandwidth by sending less asset data in large fights. Consider that your character consists of a customized avatar of various size/shape/color/hairstyle/armors/weapons etc., and that data is sent to every player that is near enough to load it. If there's 4 generic placeholders, that only come in three different colors, you've just reduced the amount of data being sent, opening up bandwidth to prioritize player inputs. The result is lower visual fidelity (every Sorceror would look like a generic Sorceror, every Dragonknight like a generic Dragonknight, varied only by color relative to alliance) but better server performance. It's not really an attempt to improve client performance, though that would be a side effect, but it theoretically makes sense...to me at least, I could be bat *** crazy though. Falls in line with why they'd delete the deer from Cyrodiil to free up bandwith from unneeded extra asset data.

Ultimately I'm just as in the dark as you are. It may just not be possible in ESO's engine. I have no idea. I can only hope ZOS is better at figuring out what to try than I am.