Jester Event - Loading Screen in Glenumbra

VoodooPlatypus · March 2017

The new Jester's event is fun and entertaining. I've enjoyed earning the achievements and watching the silliness of the Jester Royalty at each location. Something has been bugging me though. In another thread there is mention of the ground textures not loading properly (or at all), particularly in the wayshrine area of Vulkhel Guard, and the issue seems to have accompanied the Jester event. Possibly it's a server load issue due to the higher volume of players in the physical area...which is what leads me to the issue I'm reporting.

When in Glenumbra I have routinely, on all 4 characters I actively play, I take the following route. I start at the Jester camp, head east to jump across the river, dash past Ilessan Tower (to hit it on the return trip), then head north up the hill to speed past the flying nasties around Baelborne Rock, then west down the hill going westward to Silumm. Upon completion of the quest goals in Silumm, I reverse this path. East to Baelborne, south to Ilessan Tower. Without fail I hit a loading screen somewhere at/in/around the Baelborne Rock ruins. Usually this lasts about 3-4 seconds, sometimes with "combat music" playing while I wait for the world to come back.

Initially I thought, "ha, with max horse speed and 'rapid maneuver' I'm going faster than the world can keep up with!" However, this doesn't seem to be the case because it happens when I purposely choose to NOT use 'rapid maneuver' nor engage the 'sprint' function of my mount. I still get a loading screen every time.

What's the cause for this? It surely can't be video memory on a console, can it? I haven't seen posts about this from others (though I have, admittedly, not done much looking into it - if it doesn't show up on the first or second page in the forums I don't look much further). And will it go away when the event is over or is it just something that's always been IN THAT SPOT that I've never seen until now?

AbbieGoth · March 2017

I have also been getting loading screen in Glenumbra every time I do the Jester's Festival quest, without fail. I start at the camp, head to the Tower to get the dragonfire crystals, bolt through town and jump off the side of the wall and into the water to head to Silumm. When done, I swim across to the docks, bolt up past the traders and through the square, and right as I get to the gate heading out of the city (next to the camp) I get thrown into a loading screen. I've been told this is happening to put you into a new instance from server overload, but to get this literally every time I come back from Silumm is ridiculous.

VoodooPlatypus · March 2017

AbbieGoth wrote: »

I've been told this is happening to put you into a new instance from server overload, but to get this literally every time I come back from Silumm is ridiculous.

It makes sense that they would have things built in to prevent server overload, it just seems strange to me that it happens every time. I did have it happen once when completing the fireworks run IN Glenumbra when I was leaving the city itself and heading over to the camp. With your explanation that it's an instancing-switch going on, I think it makes more sense. I was wondering why it never happened in the other direction - well, the ruins and Silumm are much less populated than the area surrounding the event tent right now. The tent area is also more likely to be very crowded compared to the area just inside the city walls.

Now I get it. I don't LIKE it, but it seems like this is an attempt to keep us from having a *worse* experience during the event, so that's cool. Too bad it isn't a bit more seamless, but the event will be over in a few days and I won't be running through that spot 4x/night so I guess it's just part of the package deal.

Thanks for the reply, @AbbieGoth. Makes a bit more sense now.

Mystrius_Archaion · April 2017

This is an artifact of page fiel/RAM usage. Your game is keeping as much loaded of recent visuals as it can due to you going back and forth and not encountering any refresh from a load screen or otherwise.
The same issue almost always happens when leaving Skywatch from the wayshrine out to the zone area even if you just ported into Auridon from another zone.

Now, the texture load issue with Auridon is particularly glaring because it is repeatable by the very acts people are doing to maximize xp.
You go to the south dolmen and then run to the wayshrine just north and port to either the far north or the middle zone dolmen and then port to the remaining dolmen and finally after all done you port back to the far south one to see the textures mess up. This is all because it is trying to load a very large part of Auridon without any actual long distance traveled or loading screens to allow a refresh of the memory used in the game so it treats it like you are viewing the ground from a long way away where low res is used because you can't see high detail from far away anyway.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more in Cyrodiil considering the size of that zone, but that is likely because there isn't as much ability or need to teleport far and then back quickly.
We may see this very bad with one huge Vvardenfell zone with Morrowind, or hopefully not.

VoodooPlatypus · April 2017

Mystrius_Archaion wrote: »

This is an artifact of page fiel/RAM usage. Your game is keeping as much loaded of recent visuals as it can due to you going back and forth and not encountering any refresh from a load screen or otherwise.
The same issue almost always happens when leaving Skywatch from the wayshrine out to the zone area even if you just ported into Auridon from another zone.

Now, the texture load issue with Auridon is particularly glaring because it is repeatable by the very acts people are doing to maximize xp.
You go to the south dolmen and then run to the wayshrine just north and port to either the far north or the middle zone dolmen and then port to the remaining dolmen and finally after all done you port back to the far south one to see the textures mess up. This is all because it is trying to load a very large part of Auridon without any actual long distance traveled or loading screens to allow a refresh of the memory used in the game so it treats it like you are viewing the ground from a long way away where low res is used because you can't see high detail from far away anyway.

I'm surprised this doesn't happen more in Cyrodiil considering the size of that zone, but that is likely because there isn't as much ability or need to teleport far and then back quickly.
We may see this very bad with one huge Vvardenfell zone with Morrowind, or hopefully not.

Thanks @Mystrius_Archaion, I appreciate that info. I guess what I'm curious about now is whether or not this is something the development team (if that's who handles such things) is working to address it for other areas where it occurs. You mentioned the Skywatch area in Craglorn, for example. Also wondering if ZOS is being proactive about preventing it with the upcoming Chapter release.