Why Lag is what will KILL ESO

JackDaniell · February 2018

So, at this point its just plain ridiculous. The lag is so bad that i wouldn't even recommend logging in during prime time. I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES.
Lot's of past games have risen and fallen due to the developers ignoring this basic component of an online game.

I recently watched a video on why Pokemon GO died, and all it did was give me bad gut feeling about where ESO is going.

In the video the key reasons were as follows:
1. Lag and server issues, not getting addressed or fixed and no official comments that fixes are coming or false promises.
2. Prioritization of New content over fixing currently broken content.

This sounds eerily like modern day ESO. Watching the game I love so much get mistreaed this way is very frustrating and does not refelct well for my favorite games future.
So please Zenimax, take this warning! ESO NEEDS TO RUN SMOOTHLY FIRST! LISTEN TO YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS! Even a recent poll on the forums showed that 90% of voters would rather have lag/bug fixes instead of new BROKEN content.

Here's a link to the video, I recommend the watch as its really well made and nails allot of key points Zenimax should be listening to.

https://youtu.be/4odH8jDk-sg

Bhaal5 · February 2018

Lags been killing it since release

ccfeeling · February 2018

Please sell to Blizzard or SOE

I bet they could fix it .

geonsocal · February 2018

Elsonso · February 2018

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

JackDaniell · February 2018

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Pc NA west coast

Morgul667 · February 2018

I agree LAG is the ennemy !

TESO lag has always been worst than other games for me.

Bhaal5 · February 2018

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Epona222 · February 2018

I play on NA server from the UK (ping averages around 150 so not too bad) and don't have severe problems with performance, in fact it runs pretty smooth for me in most content. I used to have problems when I was playing on a PC with a CPU that couldn't handle NPCs and combat calculations, but since I built a new PC I have no complaints.

AzraelKrieg · February 2018

Many things will apparently kill ESO. It's still here

Elsonso · February 2018

Bhaal5 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Sure it does. The problem is not always the server, even though people laugh at that idea. Sometimes, people just have a crappy path to the server.

The OP talks about PVE lag and in solo instances. "I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES." On PC NA, I don't get lag anywhere like that in PVE. I never get crippling lag. I am on PCNA, not on the west coast, so maybe that is something.

I don't doubt that they need to fix their servers. I just don't run to that excuse every time someone complains about lag.

Devilhand · February 2018

JackDaniell wrote: »

So, at this point its just plain ridiculous. The lag is so bad that i wouldn't even recommend logging in during prime time. I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES.
Lot's of past games have risen and fallen due to the developers ignoring this basic component of an online game.

I recently watched a video on why Pokemon GO died, and all it did was give me bad gut feeling about where ESO is going.

In the video the key reasons were as follows:
1. Lag and server issues, not getting addressed or fixed and no official comments that fixes are coming or false promises.
2. Prioritization of New content over fixing currently broken content.

This sounds eerily like modern day ESO. Watching the game I love so much get mistreaed this way is very frustrating and does not refelct well for my favorite games future.
So please Zenimax, take this warning! ESO NEEDS TO RUN SMOOTHLY FIRST! LISTEN TO YOUR PAYING CUSTOMERS! Even a recent poll on the forums showed that 90% of voters would rather have lag/bug fixes instead of new BROKEN content.

Here's a link to the video, I recommend the watch as its really well made and nails allot of key points Zenimax should be listening to.

https://youtu.be/4odH8jDk-sg

Hey Jack,

I agree with you 100%. But we should try to keep all this in a single thread so ZOS can actually take us serious. People been making hundreds of this threads since game was released and they decided not to do nothing because people forget about them... Just another one...

Check the existing poll, over 400 votes so far.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/393101/does-zenimax-needs-to-improve-the-servers/p1

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO · February 2018

ccfeeling wrote: »

Please sell to Blizzard or SOE
I bet they could fix it .

no...no...NO AND NEVER TO BLIZZARD! last thing I want to see in ESO is pokemon...sure regarding graphics idk could get better or worse(aka wow cartoonish style) but I cant stand to get this game children-friendly...we are already missing a lot of mature content although the game is M rated and my hopes go to a brutality pack soon...hopefuly... so no sir...never to blizzard...never to EA(unless u want to see some grotesque upgrade of lootboxes and crown crates or smt)...not even sure that is someone worthy out there...maybe SEGA? idk...

Yolokin_Swagonborn · February 2018

The pokemon go video had some good points.

radio silence in the face of huge issues or missing features
Lack of Quality of Life fixes due to money being made from the problems
The need for addons to fix issues with basic or missing features
"We know best" type of attitude from the developers
Massive server issues and ridiculous bugs that last way to long without a fix.
Development company with no real love for the franchise but instead created just to generate profit from a valuable IP

We've seen all these things.

Elsonso · February 2018

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

The pokemon go video had some good points.
radio silence in the face of huge issues or missing features

Lack of fixes due to money being made from the problems

"We know best" type of attitude from the developers

Massive server issues and ridiculous bugs that last way to long without a fix.

We've seen all these things.

Pretty much reads like the ZOS playbook, doesn't it?

jerj6925 · February 2018

lordrichter wrote: »

Bhaal5 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Sure it does. The problem is not always the server, even though people laugh at that idea. Sometimes, people just have a crappy path to the server.

The OP talks about PVE lag and in solo instances. "I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES." On PC NA, I don't get lag anywhere like that in PVE. I never get crippling lag. I am on PCNA, not on the west coast, so maybe that is something.

I don't doubt that they need to fix their servers. I just don't run to that excuse every time someone complains about lag.

Ya know there is always that guy who feels he must contradict some one, I can never understand why... its almost like they feel they they lack relevance in the world and this is their one big opportunity.

You have not experienced the same thing OP has... well OP must be a... must be wrong right? move on troll because that is all you are.

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

jerj6925 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Bhaal5 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Sure it does. The problem is not always the server, even though people laugh at that idea. Sometimes, people just have a crappy path to the server.

The OP talks about PVE lag and in solo instances. "I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES." On PC NA, I don't get lag anywhere like that in PVE. I never get crippling lag. I am on PCNA, not on the west coast, so maybe that is something.

I don't doubt that they need to fix their servers. I just don't run to that excuse every time someone complains about lag.

Ya know there is always that guy who feels he must contradict some one, I can never understand why... its almost like they feel they they lack relevance in the world and this is their one big opportunity.

You have not experienced the same thing OP has... well OP must be a... must be wrong right? move on troll because that is all you are.

Well, he has a point.

I don't lag. Although to be fair, I also don't PvP, so I can't address that part. Aside from that NO lag. None, zip except higher latency on Sunday evenings and by "higher" I mean 100ms instead of 40ms or so.

I wish that folk who are encountering lag would do a traceroute or use PingPlotter because latency can be a routing issue. My connect to ESO is light years better than my connect to SWTOR. There a LOW ping was 100-120.

So it is not always the fault of the game, and the easiest way to start determining and eliminating causes is to check one's route. There's a free version of PingPlotter which allows building up a picture over time of the connection. Can't hurt, might help.

Iccotak · February 2018

Honestly I find this conversation funny because I have never experienced serious lag issues.

College Internet.

RinaldoGandolphi · February 2018

Tracert and pingploter do not show accurate routing data, all they show is the nodes your sending packets to will accept ICMP Time Exceeded Code ICMP packets. Hops that say “request timed out” just mean they are set to filter(drop) ICMP Time Exceeded codes. In fact ICMP isn’t even a reliable indicator if a service is up or down.

I can ping my company database server just fine despite the database server itself being down. ICMP and other ping plotting tools are not a good means of connection testing reliability.

The game lags because of some coding issues and design decisions by ZOS. We all love the fluid animation canceling real time like combat ESO has, but AC is just one of many small problems that end up causing bug ones. From a technical perspective every time you AC your telling your client to send packets to the server. If you couldn’t AC then you would slow down how many packets each player could send the server thus server response time would decrease. Lots of fixes like that is the only way they will ever fix lag because how how ESO uses TCP instead of UDP as it’s protocol.

There is a reason trials are capped at 12 people, dungeons at 4, and Battle Grounds at three 4 man teams(12 people) Cyrodiil is a lost cause at this point. Nothing short of a complete re-write of the game engine both server and client side will ever make Cyrodiil function as it should with its 24 man group size and 80 people stacking at keeps whole 16-24 man raids layer PBAOE on zergs of people.

It is what it is. I have found the game much more enjoyable just living with what it is. I play other games when it’s too laggy.

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

Tracert and pingploter do not show accurate routing data, all they show is the nodes your sending packets to will accept ICMP Time Exceeded Code ICMP packets. Hops that say “request timed out” just mean they are set to filter(drop) ICMP Time Exceeded codes. In fact ICMP isn’t even a reliable indicator if a service is up or down.

I can ping my company database server just fine despite the database server itself being down. ICMP and other ping plotting tools are not a good means of connection testing reliability.

The game lags because of some coding issues and design decisions by ZOS. We all love the fluid animation canceling real time like combat ESO has, but AC is just one of many small problems that end up causing bug ones. From a technical perspective every time you AC your telling your client to send packets to the server. If you couldn’t AC then you would slow down how many packets each player could send the server thus server response time would decrease. Lots of fixes like that is the only way they will ever fix lag because how how ESO uses TCP instead of UDP as it’s protocol.

There is a reason trials are capped at 12 people, dungeons at 4, and Battle Grounds at three 4 man teams(12 people) Cyrodiil is a lost cause at this point. Nothing short of a complete re-write of the game engine both server and client side will ever make Cyrodiil function as it should with its 24 man group size and 80 people stacking at keeps whole 16-24 man raids layer PBAOE on zergs of people.

It is what it is. I have found the game much more enjoyable just living with what it is. I play other games when it’s too laggy.

They are a place to start. No, they're not highly technical and there are better ways but they, especially PingPlotter, can help start the process. I was dreadfully plagued by latency in another game, really awful and PP helped me to find the hop that was the cause of my issues. This in turn enabled me to contact Telekom and grouse about it. It took awhile but they fixed the issue and voila! No more latency.

I do not lag. As I said, I don't PvP so I can't address that but aside from that no lag, at all. I do have some graphic latency due to my old card but that's not the servers' problem, that's mine.

RinaldoGandolphi · February 2018

I don’t lag in PVE either I only get red ping lag when huge zergs are fighting over keeps in Cyrodiil but that’s where most of the lag complaints originate from sadly

Ramber · February 2018

The lag is ruining a game that i came to love, I have no idea why they would rather lose players then fix it. My friends list is filled with friend that just stopped playing after they got good cause if the lag.

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

I don’t lag in PVE either I only get red ping lag when huge zergs are fighting over keeps in Cyrodiil but that’s where most of the lag complaints originate from sadly

Same, except on dolmen when there's a bunch of folk (like a WHOLE LOT) but that's my old graphics card, not network latency. It's like a slideshow, impossible to actually do anything.

Zer0oo · February 2018

RinaldoGandolphi wrote: »

I don’t lag in PVE either I only get red ping lag when huge zergs are fighting over keeps in Cyrodiil but that’s where most of the lag complaints originate from sadly

Have you tried trials? You will see lag is also there in pve and sometimes even solo trials like msa are laggy.

Sigma957 · February 2018

What do you consider lag?? I play constantly at around 270-300 ms in pve and some times higher in pvp because of my location but I'm still here and still having fun.

SydneyGrey · February 2018

I lag in Cyrodiil, but not anywhere else. I never have lag in PvE, so it's not a universal problem.

Zbigb4life · February 2018

lordrichter wrote: »

Bhaal5 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Sure it does. The problem is not always the server, even though people laugh at that idea. Sometimes, people just have a crappy path to the server.

The OP talks about PVE lag and in solo instances. "I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES." On PC NA, I don't get lag anywhere like that in PVE. I never get crippling lag. I am on PCNA, not on the west coast, so maybe that is something.

I don't doubt that they need to fix their servers. I just don't run to that excuse every time someone complains about lag.

I played on PS4 EU server and I can confirm these never ending lag issues while being in PVP or PVE. I love it when people say it's not ZOS' fault. The only game I have lag in is ESO but hey that's probably my fault?

DieAlteHexe · February 2018

Zbigb4life wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Bhaal5 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Sure it does. The problem is not always the server, even though people laugh at that idea. Sometimes, people just have a crappy path to the server.

The OP talks about PVE lag and in solo instances. "I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES." On PC NA, I don't get lag anywhere like that in PVE. I never get crippling lag. I am on PCNA, not on the west coast, so maybe that is something.

I don't doubt that they need to fix their servers. I just don't run to that excuse every time someone complains about lag.

I played on PS4 EU server and I can confirm these never ending lag issues while being in PVP or PVE. I love it when people say it's not ZOS' fault. The only game I have lag in is ESO but hey that's probably my fault?

I had issues with both WoW and SWTOR. It was "my fault" in that the journey from my computer to their servers had issues. Now this is not to say that explains it all especially since the occurrence of lag is pretty much "the way it is" in PvP BUT if "you" are having lag issues throughout the game, overland and all, might want to check your route.

I have no appreciable lag with ESO but if I log into SWTOR? Lag. It's at least worth checking into.

Slick_007 · February 2018

lordrichter wrote: »

Bhaal5 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Sure it does. The problem is not always the server, even though people laugh at that idea. Sometimes, people just have a crappy path to the server.

The OP talks about PVE lag and in solo instances. "I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES." On PC NA, I don't get lag anywhere like that in PVE. I never get crippling lag. I am on PCNA, not on the west coast, so maybe that is something.

I don't doubt that they need to fix their servers. I just don't run to that excuse every time someone complains about lag.

i dont get this lag either. to lag in all those places so crippling while others on the same server are not, its not the server.

swippy · February 2018

Zbigb4life wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Bhaal5 wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

Would be helpful to say what platform and server you are on. Maybe even where you are, too.

Just have to look at the technical threads and all the countless amount of lag threads to establish that it doesnt matter its xbone, ps4 or pc or if its na or eu.... Its bad on ALL of them

Sure it does. The problem is not always the server, even though people laugh at that idea. Sometimes, people just have a crappy path to the server.

The OP talks about PVE lag and in solo instances. "I lag in PvE, I lag in PvP, I lag in SOLO INSTANCES." On PC NA, I don't get lag anywhere like that in PVE. I never get crippling lag. I am on PCNA, not on the west coast, so maybe that is something.

I don't doubt that they need to fix their servers. I just don't run to that excuse every time someone complains about lag.

I played on PS4 EU server and I can confirm these never ending lag issues while being in PVP or PVE. I love it when people say it's not ZOS' fault. The only game I have lag in is ESO but hey that's probably my fault?

well, if you're using a bad route, then...
see, i truly doubt you constructed the entire infrastructure between yourself and the ESO server you prefer, so no need to be defensive. assigning and deflecting blame isn't the goal.

my route is pretty awesome. i don't see a fifth of the network problems i hear about, either in-game or on the forums. i'm going over wifi on a *** box. if i had half the problems i hear about i'd upgrade and run a cord, but there's no need because it plays fine. i merely tweaked my route, and it has been more than enough, and i can't take credit because i didn't build all of that stuff. if your lag is "never-ending" there's a problem between you and the server.

different games use different routes. and if it was the servers that were to blame, it would affect everybody.
it doesn't.

MCBIZZLE300 · February 2018

I totally agree, why wont they make more servers for console? It makes no sense, other games have twice or three times the amount of servers for their games. I wish zos would make an effort or at least comment on the issue. For console right now its just ridiculous, if they are going to carry on pushing the product on console they need to sort it out or at the very least address that its a problem.