What could ZOS have broken with Elsweyr that performance dropped so much?

Seraphayel · July 2019

Can somebody answer this question? Somebody with a knowledge in coding or game development maybe that has some insights into the matter.

What exactly could have happened from Pre-Elsweyr to Post-Elsweyr that performance on all platforms and servers took such a hit?

I am playing on Xbox One X (EU), the game wasn’t running perfect before Elsweyr but it was running smooth like 90% of the time. Since Elsweyr it’s incredibly laggy and I experience a lot of (frame) lags even outside Elsweyr, e.g. I am approaching a three mob group and the game immediately lags and frames drop almost to 0. This didn’t happen before.

So please dear “experts“, what can be damaged from one day to the other that performance becomes 100% worse than before?

chess1ukb16_ESO · July 2019

I do not think its a coding issue but an oversight. The new Guild Finder has been wildly successful so that far more people are in Guilds. Being in a guild means you pull certain amounts of data (guild history including sales and roster member location) when you log in and periodically thereafter. I think this significant increase in data moving is the prime issue.

Elsonso · July 2019

I don't think it is one thing. Personally, I think that they hit a "straw that broke the camel's back" situation. made worse by the game gaining new players due to Elsweyr. It all adds up.

twev · July 2019

lordrichter wrote: »

I don't think it is one thing. Personally, I think that they hit a "straw that broke the camel's back" situation. made worse by the game gaining new players due to Elsweyr. It all adds up.

This.

The engine just can't handle the number of connections and data they pull.

fletchunit · July 2019

Seraphayel wrote: »

Since Elsweyr it’s incredibly laggy and I experience a lot of (frame) lags even outside Elsweyr, e.g. I am approaching a three mob group and the game immediately lags and frames drop almost to 0. This didn’t happen before.

Exactly what i have been experiencing since elsweyr, unsubbed from eso + and dont play anymore. I don’t understand how people still play on xbox ..
i think people are in denial because they love the game so much and just keep playing ,or are just too casual too even notice or care about performance.

Palidon · July 2019

It is not what has ZOS broken with Elsweyr it's an accumulation of expansions and dlc's that were riddled with bugs and performance issues that were released. Folks this game is broken and it just keeps on getting worse with every new expansion or dlc . Why because ZOS will not fix the majority of problems reported during PTS testing. They ignore them and release the new content anyways so the problems just pile up. It's all about making money and the quicker they release new content the quicker they make the money. With ZOS it has not been about quality content for some time. Now their game is at a point were I really don't think they can fix it. It is sad but, nothing is going to change .

Bekkael · July 2019

They definitely broke my spirit from all the lag.

The xbox play hurts us now, precious...but we still wants it!

Seraphayel · July 2019

You just think Elsweyr was like the last drop that brought the system down? And no specific Elsweyr related change that brought this mess over us?

rpa · July 2019

I guess the bloat added up until the database subsystem just can not handle the amount of traffic any more.
Adding more hardware will not help that. Keeping data consistent and in sync is a hard problem.

Mik195 · July 2019

As a CP 699.99,, I died to one of the Dremora groups in Malabal Tor. The stuttering was so bad the none of my skills went off, but apparently all of theirs did even though I saw nothing. Just full health, pause, dead. Don't know what the did to XBox, but wish they would fix it

BrooksP · July 2019

My guess is feature creep. They add in new systems and areas yet didn't expand the hardware or they don't design it in a way that flows with prior systems(or update older systems). So I have a feeling this is a compounding issue, not unique to Elsweyr.

MJallday · July 2019

ive said many times the server hardware isnt the issue.
remember server hardware can be very easily added to, at minimum cost and oftern 0 downtime thanks to virtualisation.

in my opinion its likely to be a threading issue, probably caused by the amount of over-complex calculations which currently have to be performed server-side - which results in the lag - put simply the engine and .net code cant handle it.

this is opinion based on the fact theyve said they will be pushing stuff onto the client in update 24.

i would expect that if they get it right a lot of the issues re: performance will be sorted in 3-6 months time.
that said, doing this it may cause OTHER performance issues locally - or indeed network bandwith issues as now the servers has to deal with added throughput.
Its also worth noting that ZOS havent exactly been 100% on their testing to date.

Marto · July 2019

It is no secret that the interface and backend have severe performance issues. That was mostly the fault of the 2010-2014 developers, who made some pretty awful mistakes in many areas of the game (Like making particles of abilities be processed by the server)

Achievements, guild history, guild roster, book collection, leaderboards... They all have bugs in some shape or another that reduce performance.

That's why the Guild History had to be hotfixed out of the game for a few days. ZOS tried to completely rework how guild history is gathered and saved in the servers, in order to improve performance. But they encountered a bug, and likely had to roll back some fixes.

It's not server hardware that's an issue, it's server software.

In general, the dichotomy of server-side vs. client-side is a big reason why the performance is so poor.