Enemy position desync and AoE telegraph bug: This is not how you develop software

BuddyAces · July 2019

casparian wrote: »

I suspect the coding was done by 3rd party contractors whose contracted work is now done, and since calling them back in to undo the work they did would incur a cost that wasn't in this quarter's financial plans, players are going to have to live with it.

I quit the game bout a month ago, cancelled sub and all that but still like to browse this dumpster fire of a game forum just in case something good happens to this game.

What you posted, that I'm quoting, is exactly the who/what/where/when/why and how.

Some Indian (from India) or Chinese (hahahaha) company got contracted for about 5 cents. They delivered us a crap show (Pretty much why I left). It would cost ZOS another nickel to fix. Ffs, can't have that happen.

DjMuscleboy02 · July 2019

You elitists wanted harder trials and now that you have them you just complain

tmbrinks · July 2019

These issues have been persistent for over a month now, with little to no acknowledgement. It's truly disheartening to see the state of this game that I enjoy so much, to see it fall into this level of disarray with, apparently, nobody at ZoS even really caring.

xeNNNNN · July 2019

DjMuscleboy02 wrote: »

You elitists wanted harder trials and now that you have them you just complain

Huge difference between well made mechanics that make the content difficult vs bugs that are unavoidable and seemingly random and impossible to predict.

Thats not an increase in difficulty, thats an increase in failed runs because of bugs and broken animations. You could argue it is still a difficult increase I guess but it honestly isn't a good thing at all. Nothing about this tests player skill or group coordination and planning.

idk · July 2019

Has Zos even acknowledged this issue yet?

code65536 · July 2019

idk wrote: »

Has Zos even acknowledged this issue yet?

Yes, as noted in the original post of this thread, ZOS had posted in the forum 10 days ago stating that this is a "priority".

But actions speak louder than words, and the last action that was taken was a failed attempt at fixing the problem three weeks ago.

idk · July 2019

code65536 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Has Zos even acknowledged this issue yet?

Yes, as noted in the original post of this thread, ZOS had posted in the forum 10 days ago stating that this is a "priority".

But actions speak louder than words, and the last action that was taken was a failed attempt at fixing the problem three weeks ago.

But "they fixed it". Have they acknowledged the fix did not work? If not we could be looking at GF issue again and they ignored that their fix did not work.

code65536 wrote: »

Frankly, from my perspective as a software developer, the way that ZOS has handled this bug is appallingly, disgracefully amateurish

And much of how they handle issues in this game are this way. GF. In-combat bug added last year. All a sign of poor management style.

John_Falstaff · July 2019

idk wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Has Zos even acknowledged this issue yet?

Yes, as noted in the original post of this thread, ZOS had posted in the forum 10 days ago stating that this is a "priority".

But actions speak louder than words, and the last action that was taken was a failed attempt at fixing the problem three weeks ago.

But "they fixed it". Have they acknowledged the fix did not work? If not we could be looking at GF issue again and they ignored that their fix did not work.

code65536 wrote: »

Frankly, from my perspective as a software developer, the way that ZOS has handled this bug is appallingly, disgracefully amateurish

And much of how they handle issues in this game are this way. GF. In-combat bug added last year. All a sign of poor management style.

The quote was posted by Finn long after 5.0.8 was out, so yes, it's the acknowledgement that the fix didn't work. Since the time it was posted, this morning's patch was the first, and it didn't address anything.

code65536 · July 2019

idk wrote: »

Have they acknowledged the fix did not work?

Seeing as how the comment was made nearly 2 weeks after the failed fix attempt, yes, a reasonable person would infer that they know that the fix did not worked.

It is easy, when getting out the proverbial pitchforks, to let accusations stray beyond the facts. While accusations of inadequate action are warranted, accusations of ignorance of the problem are not.

xeNNNNN · July 2019

John_Falstaff wrote: »

idk wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Has Zos even acknowledged this issue yet?

Yes, as noted in the original post of this thread, ZOS had posted in the forum 10 days ago stating that this is a "priority".

But actions speak louder than words, and the last action that was taken was a failed attempt at fixing the problem three weeks ago.

But "they fixed it". Have they acknowledged the fix did not work? If not we could be looking at GF issue again and they ignored that their fix did not work.

code65536 wrote: »

Frankly, from my perspective as a software developer, the way that ZOS has handled this bug is appallingly, disgracefully amateurish

And much of how they handle issues in this game are this way. GF. In-combat bug added last year. All a sign of poor management style.

The quote was posted by Finn long after 5.0.8 was out, so yes, it's the acknowledgement that the fix didn't work. Since the time it was posted, this morning's patch was the first, and it didn't address anything.

Its troubling too me just how much of the game this effects, which is virtually every raid and every HM dungeon that has AoEs or Cone attacks.

I mean as far as I know, vMoL and vAA are unaffected and thats it.

idk · July 2019

code65536 wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Have they acknowledged the fix did not work?

Seeing as how the comment was made nearly 2 weeks after the failed fix attempt, yes, a reasonable person would infer that they know that the fix did not worked.

It is easy, when getting out the proverbial pitchforks, to let accusations stray beyond the facts. While accusations of inadequate action are warranted, accusations of ignorance of the problem are not.

Thx. Missed that point.

Still troubling that Zos lets major issues continue as long as they do, which is why you made this thread.

dakkiii · July 2019

oh, vHRC has been fun with this bug. Meteors hitting people way outside the telegraph, the shield throw killing people on the opposite side of the room. HM minus the horn.

darthgummibear_ESO · July 2019

code65536 wrote: »

And to clarify, this isn't just a problem of AoE telegraphs being inaccurate. Enemies are frequently position de-synced. This leads to complaints about minor issues like unlootable bodies in overland zones.

Or major issues like being unable to bash to interrupt key mechanics in dungeons and trials.

Exactly, this problem is propagating into all sorts of things, even pick-pocketing and assassination. I've been wondering if this is part of why blastbones behavior has been so awful as well.

xeNNNNN · July 2019

darthgummibear_ESO wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

And to clarify, this isn't just a problem of AoE telegraphs being inaccurate. Enemies are frequently position de-synced. This leads to complaints about minor issues like unlootable bodies in overland zones.

Or major issues like being unable to bash to interrupt key mechanics in dungeons and trials.

Exactly, this problem is propagating into all sorts of things, even pick-pocketing and assassination. I've been wondering if this is part of why blastbones behavior has been so awful as well.

Can confirm this actually happens in Fang Lair. The last boss literally disappears half the time the moment you begin combat and then resets and phases back in. It can happen multiple times before the fight actually even starts.

Reverb · July 2019

Zeni’s blind spot is, and has always been, in the ability to understand how new changes impact older code. Their regression testing process (and comprehension of the importance of it) is among the worst in the industry. And so even if there was a performance overhaul, the benefits of it would be undone within 2 years of content development.

This game is destined to get progressively worse, it always was. Because they prioritized the multi-platform push and new content development above stability/strategy/integration in the early years. Now that they realize how bad things are, the people who could have helped them untangle it are long gone.

Unij · July 2019

casparian wrote: »

I suspect the coding was done by 3rd party contractors whose contracted work is now done, and since calling them back in to undo the work they did would incur a cost that wasn't in this quarter's financial plans, players are going to have to live with it.

Somehow thats reminds me that one girl in my course when I studied IT, she left the professor and everyone in the room speechless, literally she said: "So we have to plan and write a programme as a project. But does our programme have to work? Or is it enough to just deliver the code?"

aetherial_heavenn · July 2019

Well they turned the trade guild listing functionality off without telling the trade guild GM's and then just posted to say it is back on. Seems they just forgot to mention they had switched off a major piece of social interaction and game play to the people most affected. It is pretty clear if they can overlook something as fundamental and as simple as that, then fixing actual combat mechanics, maintaining version control, and any regression testing is doomed.

Of course EU players can't log in now so neither desyncs mentioned, nor missing trade history (nor unlootable bodies...nor interrupts not working... nor roll dodge being broken still... nor the cannot mount bug) will affect them.

And the SEA/Oceanic players are dealing with 360 plus ping and rising using a VPN. It used to average 220-240 without one.So we are in permanent desync. We have a 20 plus page thread *edit 31pages now* on our routing being borked by akamai's scrubbers. Still no response. At all. To 20 *edit actually 31 now* pages including traces and evidence.

The last time I saw this level of running down of fundamentals in an MMO it was being milked as a cash cow for another (failed) project the company had in the pipeline. That AAA game drifted to the churn model of recruiting new players who don't notice or know how things are meant to work, enticing them with slabs of substandard content while ignoring those who had spent months/years and the equivalent of mega bucks in time,as well as actual dollars on the game. They were warned they were killing the goose, or milking the cow dry, but they actively drove the older vet players who notice problems away because they were whiny. That game got sold 2 years later to a small co-op of devs.... from AAA to that. /sad

Be aware ZoS. MMO's notoriously have limited life. Yours is one of the few left and doing OK financially. Don't let the bean counters pushing for a churn/high volume model fool you ...it is guaranteed not to work for your type of business. AAA MMO's need a core reliable long term player base just to keep things working in game. (Raid guilds/ fashion experts/housing wiki makers/QA/ combat experts/trade guilds etc etc). You cannot run them like a street stall, you run them like a high end department store with very valued customers you want to keep coming back... and a reputation that makes new players want to be like them...

sorry for tangent/rant but I am worried about the slippery slope

xeNNNNN · July 2019

aetherial_heavenn wrote: »

Well they turned the trade guild listing functionality off without telling the trade guild GM's and then just posted to say it is back on. Seems they just forgot to mention they had switched off a major piece of social interaction and game play to the people most affected. It is pretty clear if they can overlook something as fundamental and as simple as that, then fixing actual combat mechanics, maintaining version control, and any regression testing is doomed.

Of course EU players can't log in now so neither desyncs mentioned, nor missing trade history (nor unlootable bodies...nor interrupts not working... nor roll dodge being broken still... nor the cannot mount bug) will affect them.

And the SEA/Oceanic players are dealing with 360 plus ping and rising using a VPN. It used to average 220-240 without one.So we are in permanent desync. We have a 20 plus page thread *edit 31pages now* on our routing being borked by akamai's scrubbers. Still no response. At all. To 20 *edit actually 31 now* pages including traces and evidence.

Is this the second time or the third time trade guild listings are not functioning? I feel like i hear about this none-stop.

Also to your worries I left out of the quote just so the post wasn't as long, I wouldn't "worry" the game was doing fine before june 3rd honestly. It wasn't perfect but it was in a better state clearly what happened since that patch has messed things up generally so they will fix it its just a matter of when as for performance....time will tell. Mostly because there are supposed to be a lot of back end fixes coming this fall intended on reduce performance hits generally in the game that can't be fixed by a simple server "upgrade". People so weirdly believe "upgrading the servers" solves all lag problems lol it doesn't. Id wait till after then till worrying.

I've played since beta a couple more months of wait and see wont hurt me really. Everyone else well? Easy come easy go I guess.

Sleep724 · July 2019

Wow, I guess I picked a good time to stop playing.

astraelis7 · July 2019

Can't die to desync if you can't get in the game
567505302790995970.png?v=1

xeNNNNN · July 2019

astraelis7 wrote: »

Can't die to desync if you can't get in the game

not 20 minutes later.....PC-EU is up haha

desyncs for everyone!

BooPerScOOper · July 2019

This should be a sticky

Blinkin8r · July 2019

We had Perma load screens for several months with CWC. At least you can play the game right now. 10 days isn't even enough time for ZOS to acknowledge an issue.

xeNNNNN · July 2019

Blinkin8r wrote: »

We had Perma load screens for several months with CWC. At least you can play the game right now. 10 days isn't even enough time for ZOS to acknowledge an issue.

Erhm, its been a month not 10 days.

r3turn2s3nd3r · July 2019

I'll probably get flogged by ZOS for it, whatever....

THIS is how you manage software:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/cloudflare-worldwide-outage-caused-by-bad-software-deployment/

Update causes big issue = ROLLBACK update. And look at that communication.

xeNNNNN · July 2019

r3turn2s3nd3r wrote: »

I'll probably get flogged by ZOS for it, whatever....

THIS is how you manage software:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/technology/cloudflare-worldwide-outage-caused-by-bad-software-deployment/

Update causes big issue = ROLLBACK update. And look at that communication.

I can't see why you would, doesn't violate ToS unless there is something I missed.

even if there is a chance of it though still keep the link here, the more pressure we can put on ZoS to fix this the more will get done. ... I hope.

usmcjdking · July 2019

The likelihood is that they don't even know what broke it - it's not different than a motor in that regard.

When you do a large project rebuild, nothing works as intended on first startup. Everything looks fine, but it just doesn't work. No different here.

Not saying it's excusable - with the propensity that it happens, there should be no way this was missed going to live.

Vitaely · July 2019

I have been watching this thread rather impatiently waiting for ZOS to finally come out and try to explain this situation. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_Finn Alas, that's still not the case.

To re-iterate, I -for one- would like to hear, why we have never seen ZOS rollback a faulty patch.

I think everyone understands that you have included many small combat and in-game fixes in the last few patches, but none of them were VITAL to PVE gameplay as a whole as this enemy position desync bug. If you don't see why that is, you don't play your own game. Because this bug has ****ed with every single mob/boss/elite animation in the game. If that doesn't sound important to you, I don't know what is an important bug anymore. It affects every aspect of the game, except purely PVP environments.

Getting back to my original question, if ZOS don't do rollbacks, is this because they wouldn't or they couldn't do a rollback? This is a serious issue. If you don't use a version control system in this day and age, that is unheard of! If you do, then it must be cleared to you that this version of the game is ****ed.

If ZOS is able to do rollbacks but they wouldn't do it because it somehow messes with your "crown store calendar", us consumers require you to get your priorities right. No one experiencing these problems should pay you for your terrible support and lack of professionalism.

I hope we can get some explanation on how and why this bug is let rampant after a whole month of release.

edit: Forgot to add, a rollback would also save the increasing amount of people reporting illegible text/UI scaling issues since this week's incremental patch.

p00tx · July 2019

Vitaely wrote: »

I have been watching this thread rather impatiently waiting for ZOS to finally come out and try to explain this situation. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_Finn Alas, that's still not the case.

To re-iterate, I -for one- would like to hear, why we have never seen ZOS rollback a faulty patch.

I think everyone understands that you have included many small combat and in-game fixes in the last few patches, but none of them were VITAL to PVE gameplay as a whole as this enemy position desync bug. If you don't see why that is, you don't play your own game. Because this bug has ****ed with every single mob/boss/elite animation in the game. If that doesn't sound important to you, I don't know what is an important bug anymore. It affects every aspect of the game, except purely PVP environments.

Getting back to my original question, if ZOS don't do rollbacks, is this because they wouldn't or they couldn't do a rollback? This is a serious issue. If you don't use a version control system in this day and age, that is unheard of! If you do, then it must be cleared to you that this version of the game is ****ed.

If ZOS is able to do rollbacks but they wouldn't do it because it somehow messes with your "crown store calendar", us consumers require you to get your priorities right. No one experiencing these problems should pay you for your terrible support and lack of professionalism.

I hope we can get some explanation on how and why this bug is let rampant after a whole month of release.

edit: Forgot to add, a rollback would also save the increasing amount of people reporting illegible text/UI scaling issues since this week's incremental patch.

It absolutely affects PvP. We've been getting desyncs and misfires like this for years now. The PvE community just didn't notice it or care until now and actually told us to shut up because we were being "whiny and dramatic" when we dared to complain about it. Welcome to our world. It's funny too, because I actually came over to PvE to escape these kinds of bugs, and now it's spread to there too. Even though it's a little late in the game, I'm glad the entire community is (mostly) finally on the same page in terms of demanding appropriate fixes.

xeNNNNN · July 2019

p00tx wrote: »

Vitaely wrote: »

I have been watching this thread rather impatiently waiting for ZOS to finally come out and try to explain this situation. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_KaiSchober @ZOS_Finn Alas, that's still not the case.

To re-iterate, I -for one- would like to hear, why we have never seen ZOS rollback a faulty patch.

I think everyone understands that you have included many small combat and in-game fixes in the last few patches, but none of them were VITAL to PVE gameplay as a whole as this enemy position desync bug. If you don't see why that is, you don't play your own game. Because this bug has ****ed with every single mob/boss/elite animation in the game. If that doesn't sound important to you, I don't know what is an important bug anymore. It affects every aspect of the game, except purely PVP environments.

Getting back to my original question, if ZOS don't do rollbacks, is this because they wouldn't or they couldn't do a rollback? This is a serious issue. If you don't use a version control system in this day and age, that is unheard of! If you do, then it must be cleared to you that this version of the game is ****ed.

If ZOS is able to do rollbacks but they wouldn't do it because it somehow messes with your "crown store calendar", us consumers require you to get your priorities right. No one experiencing these problems should pay you for your terrible support and lack of professionalism.

I hope we can get some explanation on how and why this bug is let rampant after a whole month of release.

edit: Forgot to add, a rollback would also save the increasing amount of people reporting illegible text/UI scaling issues since this week's incremental patch.

It absolutely affects PvP. We've been getting desyncs and misfires like this for years now. The PvE community just didn't notice it or care until now and actually told us to shut up because we were being "whiny and dramatic" when we dared to complain about it. Welcome to our world. It's funny too, because I actually came over to PvE to escape these kinds of bugs, and now it's spread to there too. Even though it's a little late in the game, I'm glad the entire community is (mostly) finally on the same page in terms of demanding appropriate fixes.

I gave up saying anything about PvP on PC like a year ago. Mostly because ZoS want a zerg orientated PvP environment with sets and balance changes that essentially keep ball groups rolling. This just reinforces the calculation issues that are bottle-necking everything in PvP enviroments and some trials because that many people running together spamming abilities is 100% going to cause more lag than normal in the games current state its been like this for a long while. There was a time where performance was actually "ok" for a little while a long time ago then it just went to hell again.

However thats neither here nor there regarding what the thread is about. As far as that is concerned the only problems I've come across in PvP regarding Cones moving and General AoE issues is , Negate, Selenes, Nearly all the AoEs from siege weapons, Warden Sub assault The list goes on. In most instances with general AoEs they seem to just be much larger than what is being represented visually as for the cones like selenes same is happening as in PvE though not as often, selenes will proc on me I will move before it lands but then it will move with the player sometimes too and still hit me.