Update on Cyrodiil Performance

Sylvyr · April 2015

Agrippa_Invisus wrote: »

[snip]

Crickets from officials for weeks now...

Ridiculous solutions offered...

We've been upset since 1.2 or so...

What can we do?
- Give them money? -We've done that for a long time now, hasn't shown to be fruitful has it?
- Unsub+don't buy crown store items? Let our lack of support show our dissatisfaction? Or will that just give them an excuse to cut PvP? If it is, then why perpetuate a lose lose situation?

It seems like they are so used to the problems in the game that apathy has set in. Usually, lack of response and communication is an indication of apathy.

But yeah, stop pointing the finger at each other, ZoS is really the one to address.

@ZoS why not just pull the plug on PvP? it's like watching a dying person on life support suffering for too long. Just end it because your players are miserable trying to play the dream that you started and let nose dive into this mess. Have a heart. End it.

[edited to remove quote]

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · April 2015

The last official word in the matter (in the ESO Live session) was that they are "not giving up on it", but it only means that they are not giving up yet, and I am beginning to think that they were forced to say that in order not to create bad press for the console release.

The fact that they even felt the need to say "we are not giving up" shows that the problem is very serious. Continuing the analogy with the sick patient, you wouldn't expect that kind of response unless the condition was life threatening.

(Edit: typo)

Lorkhan · April 2015

i tried to play yesterday.
10 minutes on chillrend's queue, then 10 minutes of weak perfomance (lagging all the time), then i crashed (back to queue). so i gave up.
today i'll try to play again but i'm hopeless. please @ZOS_MattFiror, help me. just you can help. you know we need more hardware, man. so pay for it. then we can spend all the money we have with your crowns

Johngo0036 · April 2015

The LAG on the servers is ridiculous!!! Unacceptable actually. WHAT is being done to fix this? Paul you said it ONLY happens when numerous people are in the same place, I cannot even have 1V1 or 1v2 fights.. its time you stopped talking and started doing something about the lag, we(ESO) are losing people daily and soon it will only be you and you developers playing the game.

Rune_Relic · April 2015

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

Sylvyr · April 2015

Johngo0036 wrote: »

The LAG on the servers is ridiculous!!! Unacceptable actually. WHAT is being done to fix this? Paul you said it ONLY happens when numerous people are in the same place, I cannot even have 1V1 or 1v2 fights.. its time you stopped talking and started doing something about the lag, we(ESO) are losing people daily and soon it will only be you and you developers playing the game.

You are assuming that they play this game.

Bouvin · April 2015

HiP wrote: »

better hardware and bandwidth is the solution.

Anyone with a degree in C.S. master+ would disagree.

No amount of bandwidth and hardware can fix sloppy code sucking up all of those clocks.

Borak_Bloodaxe · April 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCbzXYBFsDM&feature=youtu.be

Bouvin · April 2015

So.. I was actually against the whole "lag sploiting" theory, until the last couple of nights.

Apparently, other guilds have figured out how to do it and it's a real thing. There's one group on Chillrend we've been running into particularly that lag sploits almost every fight.

Now.. like I said I didn't beleive into it, until I saw them doing it, and had another member of our group explain how they are doing it and then saying "If we run into this group it's going to lag. just watch." And by gosh.. it would lag every time we ran into them..but not against other group.

Last two keep fights with them, server lags out and desyncs. Well tonight we had a 20 minute battle inside a keep while they lagged it out. We were all fighting on the porch at first.. then noticed they had a group of about 10 players standing off to the side, out of view, just casting stuff. No enemies for them..just casting.

Once thigns would start lagging out then the meteors would come in, and the caltrops would come out. See.. it does lag them out too but they've figured out tactics that work in the lag.

What is really sad is that ZoS is standing by and allowing this to happen.

Aldarenn · April 2015

Bethesda Softworks, it is your turn to step up and save this!

deleted221205-002626 · April 2015

ROFL!!! I love reading these threads! Lagsploitation has really grown into something so massive it could almost be considered a religion now!!

I for one am still a non-believer.. jus sayin

Hamrammur · April 2015

ZOS_PaulSage wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Our Cyrodiil performance is something we are very aware of. Performance drags when there are numerous players in the same place at the same time. This is why performance in Cyrodiil is fine for much of the day, but gets worse during more popular times. We are currently investigating ways in which we can reduce the spike of performance loss. We added in some features for Update 6 which we hoped would help, but ultimately did not. This is not a situation where we can just add more hardware. Player population in a given area hurts the performance and the more people that are in one area, the more performance is going to be hurt.

Actively, we are looking at changing the behavior of the players to remove incentives for large groups to stay in the same area. We want to do this by providing larger incentives for Alliances to split up and take on multiple-challenges in Cyrodiil. We’ll continue to work on this. We are also asked by players if there is anything they can do to help. In this situation, the best thing you can do is split off to different objectives when you notice performance going down. Cyrodiil is a big place with lots of different things to do. And thank you for asking.

This thread has been up since 13. march 2015, it has 450 replays and 21.3K views, there has been no developer response since the day created. This tells us only one thing!

Zenimax don't give a wooden nickel!!!

Lettigall · April 2015

Hamrammur wrote: »

ZOS_PaulSage wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Our Cyrodiil performance is something we are very aware of. Performance drags when there are numerous players in the same place at the same time. This is why performance in Cyrodiil is fine for much of the day, but gets worse during more popular times. We are currently investigating ways in which we can reduce the spike of performance loss. We added in some features for Update 6 which we hoped would help, but ultimately did not. This is not a situation where we can just add more hardware. Player population in a given area hurts the performance and the more people that are in one area, the more performance is going to be hurt.

Actively, we are looking at changing the behavior of the players to remove incentives for large groups to stay in the same area. We want to do this by providing larger incentives for Alliances to split up and take on multiple-challenges in Cyrodiil. We’ll continue to work on this. We are also asked by players if there is anything they can do to help. In this situation, the best thing you can do is split off to different objectives when you notice performance going down. Cyrodiil is a big place with lots of different things to do. And thank you for asking.

This thread has been up since 13. march 2015, it has 450 replays and 21.3K views, there has been no developer response since the day created. This tells us only one thing!

Zenimax don't give a wooden nickel!!!

They have other priorities! Consoles> PC/MAC and PvE> Crown store >PvP

If there will be Cyro lag fix it will be after consoles release.

Sylvyr · April 2015

Hamrammur wrote: »

ZOS_PaulSage wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Our Cyrodiil performance is something we are very aware of. Performance drags when there are numerous players in the same place at the same time. This is why performance in Cyrodiil is fine for much of the day, but gets worse during more popular times. We are currently investigating ways in which we can reduce the spike of performance loss. We added in some features for Update 6 which we hoped would help, but ultimately did not. This is not a situation where we can just add more hardware. Player population in a given area hurts the performance and the more people that are in one area, the more performance is going to be hurt.

Actively, we are looking at changing the behavior of the players to remove incentives for large groups to stay in the same area. We want to do this by providing larger incentives for Alliances to split up and take on multiple-challenges in Cyrodiil. We’ll continue to work on this. We are also asked by players if there is anything they can do to help. In this situation, the best thing you can do is split off to different objectives when you notice performance going down. Cyrodiil is a big place with lots of different things to do. And thank you for asking.

This thread has been up since 13. march 2015, it has 450 replays and 21.3K views, there has been no developer response since the day created. This tells us only one thing!

Zenimax don't give a wooden nickel!!!

There should be weekly updates on this. Going on a month with no update, response, road ahead, or anything, come on now.

Sylvyr · April 2015

Lettigall wrote: »

Hamrammur wrote: »

ZOS_PaulSage wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Our Cyrodiil performance is something we are very aware of. Performance drags when there are numerous players in the same place at the same time. This is why performance in Cyrodiil is fine for much of the day, but gets worse during more popular times. We are currently investigating ways in which we can reduce the spike of performance loss. We added in some features for Update 6 which we hoped would help, but ultimately did not. This is not a situation where we can just add more hardware. Player population in a given area hurts the performance and the more people that are in one area, the more performance is going to be hurt.

Actively, we are looking at changing the behavior of the players to remove incentives for large groups to stay in the same area. We want to do this by providing larger incentives for Alliances to split up and take on multiple-challenges in Cyrodiil. We’ll continue to work on this. We are also asked by players if there is anything they can do to help. In this situation, the best thing you can do is split off to different objectives when you notice performance going down. Cyrodiil is a big place with lots of different things to do. And thank you for asking.

This thread has been up since 13. march 2015, it has 450 replays and 21.3K views, there has been no developer response since the day created. This tells us only one thing!

Zenimax don't give a wooden nickel!!!

They have other priorities! Consoles> PC/MAC and PvE> Crown store >PvP

If there will be Cyro lag fix it will be after consoles release.

Should be before console release. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that there are a lot of Skyrim fans with consoles BUT there are probably a lot of battlefield/PvP type players as well. If they come in and experience Cyrodiil as it stands there's going to be a lot of what the frank moments.

Lettigall · April 2015

Sylvyr wrote: »

Lettigall wrote: »

Hamrammur wrote: »

ZOS_PaulSage wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Our Cyrodiil performance is something we are very aware of. Performance drags when there are numerous players in the same place at the same time. This is why performance in Cyrodiil is fine for much of the day, but gets worse during more popular times. We are currently investigating ways in which we can reduce the spike of performance loss. We added in some features for Update 6 which we hoped would help, but ultimately did not. This is not a situation where we can just add more hardware. Player population in a given area hurts the performance and the more people that are in one area, the more performance is going to be hurt.

Actively, we are looking at changing the behavior of the players to remove incentives for large groups to stay in the same area. We want to do this by providing larger incentives for Alliances to split up and take on multiple-challenges in Cyrodiil. We’ll continue to work on this. We are also asked by players if there is anything they can do to help. In this situation, the best thing you can do is split off to different objectives when you notice performance going down. Cyrodiil is a big place with lots of different things to do. And thank you for asking.

This thread has been up since 13. march 2015, it has 450 replays and 21.3K views, there has been no developer response since the day created. This tells us only one thing!

Zenimax don't give a wooden nickel!!!

They have other priorities! Consoles> PC/MAC and PvE> Crown store >PvP

If there will be Cyro lag fix it will be after consoles release.

Should be before console release. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say that there are a lot of Skyrim fans with consoles BUT there are probably a lot of battlefield/PvP type players as well. If they come in and experience Cyrodiil as it stands there's going to be a lot of what the frank moments.

Console players will have their own servers and they won't have to worry about cheaters. No anti cheating code, lesser pressure on servers. I seriously doubt that console players will have same broken PvP as PC/MAC players.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · April 2015

Lettigall wrote: »

...
If there will be Cyro lag fix it will be after consoles release pigs sprout wings and fly.

(FTFY)

Seriously, with the low number of PC/Mac players left, and the even fewer of those who still give a rat's rear end about Cyrodiil, it would probably be smart to just give up on it. It makes no sense to spend scarce and costly developer resources on a project that won't generate much revenue and could fail no matter what. They might actually have given up on it already, but it wouldn't be a good move to go public with that before the console versions launch, so they are keeping up appearances.

eventide03b14a_ESO · April 2015

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

Lettigall wrote: »

...
If there will be Cyro lag fix it will be after consoles release pigs sprout wings and fly.

(FTFY)

Seriously, with the low number of PC/Mac players left, and the even fewer of those who still give a rat's rear end about Cyrodiil, it would probably be smart to just give up on it. It makes no sense to spend scarce and costly developer resources on a project that won't generate much revenue and could fail no matter what. They might actually have given up on it already, but it wouldn't be a good move to go public with that before the console versions launch, so they are keeping up appearances.

Are we playing the same game? PvP still seems very popular despite all the lag. I see many low level characters around Davon's Watch and other non vet places. They can't all be alts. I think you're severely overstating the demise of the game.

Bouvin · April 2015

Lettigall wrote: »

They have other priorities! Consoles> PC/MAC and PvE> Crown store >PvP

If there will be Cyro lag fix it will be after consoles release.

Because apparently they only have 1 team of different developers.. so if they work on one thing everything else gets put on hold.

Yep... makes sense.

Bouvin · April 2015

eventide03b14a_ESO wrote: »

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO wrote: »

Lettigall wrote: »

...
If there will be Cyro lag fix it will be after consoles release pigs sprout wings and fly.

(FTFY)

Seriously, with the low number of PC/Mac players left, and the even fewer of those who still give a rat's rear end about Cyrodiil, it would probably be smart to just give up on it. It makes no sense to spend scarce and costly developer resources on a project that won't generate much revenue and could fail no matter what. They might actually have given up on it already, but it wouldn't be a good move to go public with that before the console versions launch, so they are keeping up appearances.

Are we playing the same game? PvP still seems very popular despite all the lag. I see many low level characters around Davon's Watch and other non vet places. They can't all be alts. I think you're severely overstating the demise of the game.

Usually all campaigns are EP pop-locked.
Almost all are AD pop-locked or full bars.
One or Two will be pop-locked DC.

I'm pretty sure PvP is still a popular thing, despite it's issues. And if it was working how it should, would probably have even more interest.

hehekta · April 2015

But where all people in pop-locked campaigns? Usually i see only 25-50 people, just running around one keep. I think, so many PvEers in Cyrodiil.

wraith808 · April 2015

hehekta wrote: »

But where all people in pop-locked campaigns? Usually i see only 25-50 people, just running around one keep. I think, so many PvEers in Cyrodiil.

Because Cyrodiil is such a large area, it's very easy to be in a situation where there are a lot of people in the campaign, but they don't participate in keep battles necessarily. And that has to be OK. Personally, I like PvP, but not as a goal. I like to be going after objectives and the PvP develop spontaneously. That's no less a viable way to play than participating at keeps. So I don't get the keep missions, but the scouting ones and the bounties. I'm sure there are a lot of people that are the same.

Bouvin · April 2015

hehekta wrote: »

But where all people in pop-locked campaigns? Usually i see only 25-50 people, just running around one keep. I think, so many PvEers in Cyrodiil.

That's certainly not my experience in Cyrodil.

Generally we are running into groups from other factions that are 1-2 full raid groups. Sometimes more.

If you're running around Cyrodil trying to gank.. I guess how I can see how it might feel like there's not a ton of people. That's because you have a big chunk of the population grouping up into a few big groups. So if you aren't near that group then it might seem empty.

People definitely do not spread out across Cyrodil IMO. They tend to clump up, leaving the rest of the map sparse of people.

As far as PvErs go.. I've been camping Delves and PvE areas the last few weeks. I don't actually run into that many.

Elsonso · April 2015

Hamrammur wrote: »

ZOS_PaulSage wrote: »

Hello everyone,

Our Cyrodiil performance is something we are very aware of. Performance drags when there are numerous players in the same place at the same time. This is why performance in Cyrodiil is fine for much of the day, but gets worse during more popular times. We are currently investigating ways in which we can reduce the spike of performance loss. We added in some features for Update 6 which we hoped would help, but ultimately did not. This is not a situation where we can just add more hardware. Player population in a given area hurts the performance and the more people that are in one area, the more performance is going to be hurt.

Actively, we are looking at changing the behavior of the players to remove incentives for large groups to stay in the same area. We want to do this by providing larger incentives for Alliances to split up and take on multiple-challenges in Cyrodiil. We’ll continue to work on this. We are also asked by players if there is anything they can do to help. In this situation, the best thing you can do is split off to different objectives when you notice performance going down. Cyrodiil is a big place with lots of different things to do. And thank you for asking.

This thread has been up since 13. march 2015, it has 450 replays and 21.3K views, there has been no developer response since the day created. This tells us only one thing!

Zenimax don't give a wooden nickel!!!

Seriously? Two days before you said that they provided an EU server performance update where they identified a problem. They pinned it to the top. I've been gone all week and even I know this.

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO · April 2015

To those of you who insist that the game is doing fine:

We have only a few active campaigns in Cyrodiil for each of the two servers. Even if all of them would be pop-locked for all factions, that is only a few thousand players in the entire world playing PvP. That is not a success. I am not saying that Cyrodiil is dead, but it's probably not sustainable to keep the PvP servers running for only a few thousand die-hard fans, and it's certainly not a wise business decision to try to fix it if it requires huge resources and the chances of success are slim.

The PvE game seems a lot healthier, attracting new players and keeping people interested (myself being one of them), but it's not a huge success. There are enough players to make the game an enjoyable experience for those who play it, but most zones are quite sparsely populated, and they mostly seem to be just one phase, i.e. there is very little separation of players into different instances because an area would be too crowded otherwise. Tens of thousands of players, sure, but definitely not hundreds of thousands. I have no idea how many players it takes to keep the servers running, or how many it takes to keep developing new content, but it's not obvious that the current population is enough for either.

I am still enjoying the game, and I hope it will survive, but there is a difference between having hope and being in denial. ESO on PC/Mac is really not doing all that well at the moment.

Bouvin · April 2015

I have a friend beta testing Camelot Unchained and he says the PvP is sick .. well the whole game is pvp so it has to be.

http://camelotunchained.com/v2/

Kupoking · April 2015

There are some issues that could be adressed right now to at least help with lag.

1- AOE caps. Completely remove them. I'm pretty sure that all these calculations stresses out the server. Gameplay wise, its not going to to completely *** the gameplay.

2- Have a look at healing AOE abilities like healing spring, Combat prayers and morphs. Those abilities, when spammed, does create lag. Especially in huge numbers. Solutions like increasing cost and incrasing power of the heals could help.

3- Ressources Pools. The way regen currently works players have unlimited ressources pools to cast certains abilities that end up causing lag. A positive example would be non-vet campains. Although there are comparable numbers on this server than on Chillrend NA, there is less lag. Abilities are a bit less spammable.

4- animations and graphics of certain abilities (example. purge, impulse, wall of elements, sorc stormcalling armor buff, meteor, dk standarts). Some just seem to overload a players screen and cause lag. Some ult also seems to get spammable and have multiples anmiations of it (dk standarts and meteor are great examples). Maybe have an option to turn them down a little.

Efficient · April 2015

These are megaservers everyone. MEGA. There are no lag issues. I can't believe you would think otherwise, as Zenimax is clearly the best. I mean, as proof, just look at their quick responses, and they seem to be always diligent in implementing changes that the majority of the community suggests. You guys need to re-evaluate your hardware.

For those posting suggestions, why bother?

Bouvin · April 2015

McGeesus wrote: »

These are megaservers everyone. MEGA. There are no lag issues. I can't believe you would think otherwise, as Zenimax is clearly the best. I mean, as proof, just look at their quick responses, and they seem to be always diligent in implementing changes that the majority of the community suggests. You guys need to re-evaluate your hardware.

For those posting suggestions, why bother?

It's not a hardware issue.

It's a software issue.

Had they gone with Nvidia PhysX, this wouldn't be a problem.

C0pp3rhead · April 2015

Update: PvP is still buggy and suffers from lag.