ESO PS4/NA Completely Broken

vARTEMISv · January 2020

ESO has basically been completely unplayable for me for the past ~2 weeks. You can refer to just a small amount of the recordings I’ve captured at the end of this post. Consistently I have experienced:

- Textures will not load, and if I ever pass across to a section that has not loaded my character runs in place for a minute or so, sometimes longer. In Cyrodiil this happens even more often and I’ve spent up to 5 minutes running in place only to be killed by someone because I literally cannot move or do anything.

- Buildings, characters and NPCs do not load. All players show as black silhouettes, usually taking several minutes to load in or just not loading in at all. NPCs take even longer to show up. If I ever fast travel sometimes my own character does not load in. I have even fast traveled, my character not loaded in, and couldn’t even turn my camera or move at all for over 3 minutes.

- Adds will not load in for some time. This occurs in zones, dungeons and even trials. During add phases in the final boss for Sunspire the adds do not show up for me at all. The add in portals takes at least 30 seconds to even show up.

- Mechanics do not display. In Asylum Sanctorium Llothis’ cone AOE does not show. In Sunspire, Nahviintas’ fire breath and head swing do not show. In Sunspire, the downstairs add’s cone AOE does not show, nor does his prayer phase.

- Random load screens, and very long load screens (much longer than usual). I get “unusually” long load screens before I can even select my character to log in, and when I log out of a character. Every other load screen when traveling 2-3 minutes long, and I often get random load screens just running around. This happens even more often in Cyrodiil.

- Icons in my menus do not always display, such as weapon/armor/jewelry icons that show you have pieces equipped.

- Abilities sometimes show as black squares and do not load in on my bars. When this happens and I press a skill I see no animation and hear no sound but respective buffs will show on my screen.

- Severe choppiness in all of my ESO video recordings (as you can see in the videos below).

- All afternoon today I couldn’t even get my game to load past the intro graphic with the dragon and the NPC standing on the rocks. When my game finally did get past that screen it took nearly 10 minutes.

These are just some of the issues that I have been having. I have uninstalled and redownloaded ESO twice, have deleted my application save data multiple times, have rebuilt my PS4 database, disconnected and reconnected my LAN cable and have reset my router. I have also done multiple speed tests throughout the ~2 weeks I’ve been having these issues and my download speed has always been between 107 and 116 Mbps and upload speed between 9.5 and 12 Mbps.

I have been submitting bug reports in game when these things happen and even submitted a ticket that did nothing but tell me to do what I’ve already been doing. I am not dealing with automated crap responses anymore. If this is not looked into I will be deleting this trash and canceling my plus membership.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OdPW4nuVog

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY21GKfgdw4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJERWKAvX0o

Anotherone773 · January 2020

Wow ESO looks horrible on PS4. Anyway...

Have you cleaned your case vents, fan, and heatsink? It very important to keep those clean. Also make sure the case isnt near a heat source, in direct sunlight, and has good ventilation flowing around it.

vARTEMISv · January 2020

Yes, my PS4 is clean and well-ventilated. I am only having these massive issues when I play ESO. These issues also occur immediately when I log on after work, when there shouldn't be any sort of overheating even happening.

katanagirl1 · January 2020

Hello @vARTEMISv I am on PS4/NA and I have experienced some of the issues you described above, but not to the degree you are experiencing.

In Cyrodiil, in addition to long loading screens and frequent disconnects, I noticed the last few days that when I enter another faction’s keep I cannot see the NPC guards for several seconds, they just aren’t visible to me but other players can see them and are fighting them.

I can only think of a few reasons why you would be having significantly more lag. I’m not sure when you mention a LAN cable if you are using wi-if or have a direct connection to your router, though I suspect that wouldn’t make a huge difference. Are you playing on NA server but located somewhere farther away? That could cause more lag, but you did mention that it got worse in the last few weeks, though. Are you on PS4 Slim or Pro?

I can’t think of anything else at the moment.

SirLeeMinion · January 2020

Possibly irrelevant, but I regularly see very similar behavior on PC NA when I am playing with my older, slow business laptop with integrated graphics. At the same time, a family member playing on a desktop with decent graphics and CPU will have no problems whatsoever.

Anotherone773 · January 2020

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

Possibly irrelevant, but I regularly see very similar behavior on PC NA when I am playing with my older, slow business laptop with integrated graphics. At the same time, a family member playing on a desktop with decent graphics and CPU will have no problems whatsoever.

Disclaimer: Not directed at the OP
You are correct. Its a memory/ processor issue. My older PC sometimes struggles in a similar fashion if i i have to much running in the back ground or have not rebooted it in a while. I just try to refrain from from telling people their console is an outdated paperweight in regards to this game because it makes all the PS4 trolls heads explode and they go on a rant about how the rest of the planet should live in 1956 because they dont want to spend more than $400 on a gaming device but the first thing they do is throw it in the most CPU and GPU intensive scenarios in the game and then complain because their $400 joke of a compute does operate like a $6000 Alienware.

So we have to pretend its a technical problem or software problem so they dont have a melt down. I cant wait for ESO to stop supporting PS4 as its a real limitation to everyone else who plays on other platforms.

katanagirl1 · January 2020

Okaaaay...thanks so much that was so helpful.

I have played a lot of really great looking and great performing games on PS4, so that’s not entirely true.

Nord_Raseri · January 2020

Anotherone773 wrote: »

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

Possibly irrelevant, but I regularly see very similar behavior on PC NA when I am playing with my older, slow business laptop with integrated graphics. At the same time, a family member playing on a desktop with decent graphics and CPU will have no problems whatsoever.

Disclaimer: Not directed at the OP
You are correct. Its a memory/ processor issue. My older PC sometimes struggles in a similar fashion if i i have to much running in the back ground or have not rebooted it in a while. I just try to refrain from from telling people their console is an outdated paperweight in regards to this game because it makes all the PS4 trolls heads explode and they go on a rant about how the rest of the planet should live in 1956 because they dont want to spend more than $400 on a gaming device but the first thing they do is throw it in the most CPU and GPU intensive scenarios in the game and then complain because their $400 joke of a compute does operate like a $6000 Alienware.

So we have to pretend its a technical problem or software problem so they dont have a melt down. I cant wait for ESO to stop supporting PS4 as its a real limitation to everyone else who plays on other platforms.

I'm also on ps4, and have had none of those issues. Only the usual lag spikes and random crashes during dragonhold patch.

Anotherone773 · January 2020

Nord_Raseri wrote: »

Anotherone773 wrote: »

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

Possibly irrelevant, but I regularly see very similar behavior on PC NA when I am playing with my older, slow business laptop with integrated graphics. At the same time, a family member playing on a desktop with decent graphics and CPU will have no problems whatsoever.

Disclaimer: Not directed at the OP
You are correct. Its a memory/ processor issue. My older PC sometimes struggles in a similar fashion if i i have to much running in the back ground or have not rebooted it in a while. I just try to refrain from from telling people their console is an outdated paperweight in regards to this game because it makes all the PS4 trolls heads explode and they go on a rant about how the rest of the planet should live in 1956 because they dont want to spend more than $400 on a gaming device but the first thing they do is throw it in the most CPU and GPU intensive scenarios in the game and then complain because their $400 joke of a compute does operate like a $6000 Alienware.

So we have to pretend its a technical problem or software problem so they dont have a melt down. I cant wait for ESO to stop supporting PS4 as its a real limitation to everyone else who plays on other platforms.

I'm also on ps4, and have had none of those issues. Only the usual lag spikes and random crashes during dragonhold patch.

It also depends on other factors such as but not limited to:
1) What "model" of PS4
2) Upgraded from the stock HDD to a better HDD or SSD
3) How cool/clean you keep your console. AMD products run horribly when hot
4) How clean you keep your HDD.
5) Most importantly: How you play the game. I see people post vids of their horrible gameplay and crashing and they will be in a ball group in cyro with 20-30 other people all standing around using abilities for no obvious reason and another group of 10-20 enemies comes up to them and starts fighting and everyone crashes.

It is just a poorly designed outdated system. The PS5 "sounds" more promising. Maybe Sony learned its lesson. I dont think they planned on console gamers gravitating towards MMOs so much. Or maybe they thought MMOS would die because of mobile gaming. And they just didnt invest in a system that can handle playing MMOS. The PS5 looks like its better built for MMO system gameplay. But we will have to see what the final specs are when it hits the shelves.

Id still stick to PCs. Far better bang for the buck.

katanagirl1 · January 2020

Well you know this performance plan is not just for PS4, all platforms are having real problems right now.
Perhaps you can spec the top-end PC and avoid those but not everyone can.

I like PS because of the awesome exclusive games they have, I don’t want to play on PC.

Anotherone773 · January 2020

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Well you know this performance plan is not just for PS4, all platforms are having real problems right now.
Perhaps you can spec the top-end PC and avoid those but not everyone can.

I like PS because of the awesome exclusive games they have, I don’t want to play on PC.

The game does have issues, but you dont see PC and Xbox players on the forums constantly about how the game is broken to the point of unplayable. Its not the game that is so broken, its the platform. For PS4 the improvements are more of a defibrillator, for everyone else it is actually just improvements.

You dont need a $5000 pc to play this game and it run well and look good. I played it on a PC that was built in 2009 and cost $1000. I played it on that PC for an entire decade and it is still played on that PC and will be when PS5 comes out. That is 3 generations of PS and still it plays ESO fine. My current PC is in the mid $1000s but i added some other things to it i wouldnt normally buy for a gaming PC because i also use it for my business.

My wife has a 2015 laptop that cost $1200. It runs the game ok but not great. Those integrated graphics and sharing of memory murders performance on this game. Guess what PS4 has? A GPU that a joke of a CPU has to leech memory off of.

My $1000 PC from 2009 runs the game much better than the $1200 laptop from 2015. It isnt about how much money you put in it so much as where you put the money.

Also no one is making you play on PC?

I have played a lot of really great looking and great performing games on PS4, so that’s not entirely true.

That is great. If you saw those games on PC it would blow your mind.Its up to you where you want to play. You just cant expect PC performance on a $400 console.

katanagirl1 · January 2020

Actually, I do see a lot of threads from both PC player and XBox players here in the Bug Reports section.

Also, people here on PS4 are saying they aren’t having game breaking issues, but I guess that doesn’t support your biased mindset so you ignore them.

I bet you never actually owned a PS4 so you really have no idea how they compare.

vARTEMISv · January 2020

I am running a PS4 Pro with LAN cable and up until about 2 weeks ago never had any issues. And as I said I'm only experiencing this many problems in ESO.

I ended up doing a complete factory reset on my PS4 and while it has helped a bit I'm still experiencing severe issues. Textures and adds still not loading in. Video and audio lag. But I'm no longer running into walls of unloaded texture and getting stuck running in place so hooray?

Unfortunately now Cyrodiil is impossible to play in for more than 5 minutes at a time because anytime I go anywhere everyone and everything ends up getting frozen in place except me. I just run around stuck in a block animation unable to bar swap or activate any skills until it kicks me out because of network issues. I did an internet test on my PS4 after it happened for the 5th time in a row and my speed was at 96.4 Mbps.

vARTEMISv · January 2020

Also I am in NA server located in the USA, to answer your question @katanagirl1 .

katanagirl1 · January 2020

Yeah @vARTEMISv , I have been on 5 or 6 campaigns in Kaalgrontiid now and I seem to remember it always being that way. I have run past MidYear Mayhem events on another toon and it wasn’t like that. I worry about the event starting tomorrow - things aren’t any better than when they canceled it before, maybe even worse.

I do very rarely get the problem where the ground texture is very low resolution, sometimes I can travel over it and sometimes not. I believe it just happens when too many players are in one area.

There have been a lot of events in the last two weeks, so maybe just the servers are overburdened and that is why you are having more problems. Like you said though, something has definitely changed recently to make things worse and it is not always been like this. It all started going downhill for me when Summerset launched and the low, stuttering frame rates started. That seems to be much improved, so I am somewhat hopeful the performance improvement plan will help.

Hotdog_23 · January 2020

Honestly, I experience the same issues you are having as well on PS4 pro NA. Not to the degree you say you are having. One of the main reasons I was they would allow account transfers. Have a decent PC now but would spend the money for a much better rig if I could transfer to PC. Right now my only hope is the new PS5 when it comes out later in the year that it helps out tremendously.

Granicus · February 2020

FWIW, and being experienced on a PC/NA Intel I7, 16GB, GTX 1070 8GB PC, for the past couple of weeks I’ve had screen load times 3 to 4 times longer than ever before. Every screen load. Could be anecdotal, but I noticed a significant change after some recent patch. Not a PS4, but I just wonder if some global settings have been over-tweaked. I’ve also been getting a graphics stutter for a few seconds after mapping. Not always, but another recent new ‘feature’.

vARTEMISv · February 2020

I'm hoping that it's just the event right now that's causing all these issues. When I factory reset my PS4 everything seemed fine but recently it's gotten bad again.

Adds have a delay loading in, all audio keeps cutting in and out, characters show as black silhouettes. I'm getting stuck running in place in unloaded texture walls once again. Sometimes I can't bar swap for 15-20 seconds and when my audio cuts out while I'm using skills it just makes a weird 'woosh'-ing sound.

Also getting much more frequent random load screens and load screen times are significantly longer. Plus the inevitable blue screening every hour. And literally every time I get to any keep I get stuck in a 3 minute load screen only to come out dead every single time.

iidwack · May 2020

Let’s bring this back up because this is the current situation in cyrodiil on ps4

https://youtu.be/zRfBlu94DME

LeHarrt91 · May 2020

iidwack wrote: »

Let’s bring this back up because this is the current situation in cyrodiil on ps4
https://youtu.be/zRfBlu94DME

I swear that the Dodge Roll skill delay is now 5s with the current performance.