Time Trials: Gambling for a Good Instance

Kilnerdyne · March 2020

Server: PC EU
Location: Time Trials, Cloudrest & Asylum Sanctorium.
Ticket #ID: 200321-013790

When: At the start of combat in the trial.
Everytime?: Over 50% of the time during primetime raiding hours (7-11pm CET).
What happens: Latency in combat rises to 500ms-2000ms for the entire group. Enemies 'dance' back and forth, becoming desync'd and in some cases become impossible to attack.
Out of 10 how noticeable should this have been to your testing team: 100/10

Just to state immediately that this latency increase is NOT for a single player but for the ENTIRE GROUP.

Time Trials since Update 25, the performance patch, have been diabolical. Especially Cloudrest & Asylum Sanctorium.

Each instance is a gamble between a playable or bugged and unplayable experience. Except there are a lot more bugged instances comparatively. Latency remains in the 60-80ms range until combat begins at which point enemies begin to dance back and forth, mechanics happen out of sync and incoming damage and healing is delayed.

This is resulting in a lot of wasted time. Here's a clip from vAS+2 highlighting what players are experiencing in these broken instances.

https://www.twitch.tv/olibeau/clip/GorgeousTsundereHedgehogBuddhaBar

L2Pissue · March 2020

Aye Aye Aye
last I checked crown store works fine thus your issue is irrelevant

Kilnerdyne · March 2020

Same thing again tonight in Cloudrest. The whole group is experiencing jumps from 50-80ms to 200ms+ in some instances. We've just spent the first 40 minutes of the raid resetting attempting to find an instance that is stable.

What can we do instead of this to find playable gameplay? Go to PvP? I think not.

Princess_Ciri · March 2020

My guild have had the exact same problems in vMOL. The trial instance is sometimes so terrible it causes the first boss to bug out and do his mechanics in a strange order.

The worst part is that even if we get lucky and have a good instance, by the time we have reached the corridor before Rakkhat, the instance suddenly nose-dives in stability. I have seen Rakkhat do his threshing wings mechanic and about 3-5 seconds later it hits people, meaning you basically have to hold block for that additional time. I've seen tanks not receive the platform buff (nobody is stealing it from them, the game just bugs out), and half the group cannot even cast abilities.

So we moved to Sunspire to do gear farms since vMOL is not happening for us. So now we experience the problems in Cloudrest, adds spazzing out, spinning around in circles or not moving/casting abilities. We also were stood behind the statue on the last boss but still took full damage as if we weren't. We couldn't do anything to get around this because even if we stood behind other statues, they disappear as the fight goes on, so we would have wiped anyway.

We've all had times when ping has said it is at 80ms, but feels more like 500+.

I have submitted tickets in game about these issues but considering the last patch was supposed to improve performance - yet has done the exact opposite - I am increasingly losing confidence in ZOS to fix these problems.

Princess_Ciri · March 2020

Princess_Ciri wrote: »

So now we experience the problems in Cloudrest

This should say Sunspire, where is the edit button :pepehands:

Kali_Despoine · March 2020

some things never change
Do you still have mass disconnects as well or just the usual time stop?

Maxime · March 2020

In the past week I have been in vMoL, vCr and vSS and as mentioned above we had
- Latency in combat rises to 500ms-2000ms for the entire group
- Unexpected en non-standard movements from bosses and mobs
- Skills that can't be casted (or at least it feels like that)
- Unability to swap bars
- Occasional crashing of players

Time trials are impossible. it is already hard to run the vet trial smooth,

Pulsari · March 2020

That's what ZOS' European Data Center service provider states on their official website :

As expected, video and gaming consumption are higher globally as well.

Currently, our Content Delivery Network (CDN) is performing within normal ranges with no material issues. Through our constant monitoring, when we identify hotspots, we can manually move traffic to less congested routes and quickly increase capacity on commonly used routes.

Look. Manually. Move. When. Identify.
I believe we can help identifying. Their phone in Germany is +49 69 5060 8000 00 800 72 884 743.

Kilnerdyne · March 2020

We've started our 4th Godslayer progression in Sunspire tonight and what have you done here Zenimax? @ZOS_GinaBruno

Some skills delayed, some don't go off at all
Mechanics triggering instantaneously rather than having a cast-time
Mobs dancing around or resetting constantly when taunted or taking damage
Fire boss resetting over & over again, (it goes invisible after spawning then re-appears again).

This trial wasn't perfect but it wasn't unplayable like it is currently. Is this the state that time trials & PvP are going to stay in until you launch the Chapter? Because you can kiss goodbye to some of that Chapter revenue if the game remains in this state for another 2.5 months, people will find other places to spend their money.

betonidas · March 2020

Im experiencing those issues too, but for me it's not only trials - since ~2 weeks Im having massive ping spikes everywhere I go. Doesn't matter if overland or private house. My ping is 50 and then it jumps to 350-999 causing things like barswap, abilities and even mount summon to be extremly delayed. Please note that Im only having those problems in ESO. Other games work completly fine with low and stable ping.

themaddaedra · March 2020

Well we meant for 4th GS but we at least progressed for some online chess. It was a lot of fun trying to guess where the target was gonna be in 3-4 seconds later and applying rotation entirely with muscle memory without actually knowing if skills are out or not. An entirely new(lol?) and surprising challenge.

poe · March 2020

And please ZoS, dont blame this on corona crisis. This has been here since your great PERFORMANCE patch. Be a bit more humble and first acknowledge that you just fd things up, and secondly be transparent as what your plans are and give us an ETA. Can you at least do that ZOS? Can you?

onemoredragon · March 2020

betonidas wrote: »

Im experiencing those issues too, but for me it's not only trials - since ~2 weeks Im having massive ping spikes everywhere I go. Doesn't matter if overland or private house. My ping is 50 and then it jumps to 350-999 causing things like barswap, abilities and even mount summon to be extremly delayed. Please note that Im only having those problems in ESO. Other games work completly fine with low and stable ping.

Same here, random high ping spikes pretty much everywhere. Can't barswap normally, abilities are not firing. It started all of a sudden right after performance patch and not getting any better.

NeillMcAttack · March 2020

Doing vMOL last night the entire groups fps sat between 20-30 with dips to twelve very common, this was by the time we got to the twins. I closed the game and re-started and that sorted the issue for me. I'm guessing there are memory leaks again just as always. The longer you are in an instance the more the performance deteriorates. Saying that, we have also entered instances that are of poor quality and noticeable from the beginning, bosses running back and forth, synergies taking forever to pop and activate, etc.
These I believe are separate issues. But sadly both are game breaking, and I can't imagine zos are even aware, or even care, or even could fix it if they knew what the problem was. Outlook is bleak.

Cirantille · March 2020

I am supposed to heal but my bar is locked, it says I am busy.

Umh, I am busy healing people ya know???

Also my healing abilities cost stamina lol.

11k stamina trying to heal people.

Sanguinor2 · March 2020

I know the pain. Alltho my Group and I already had it happen before the "Performance" patch, exclusively in Sunspire tho. And the steadily dropping fps are incredibly annoying aswell.

Katahdin · March 2020

Yup same story here

VSS, VCR, VAS, VSO, even in dungeons now.

Its nuts

Beginning to think its a new feature to make the game harder so people stop QQing "Game is too easy"

Malkiv · March 2020

Cirantille wrote: »

I am supposed to heal but my bar is locked, it says I am busy.

Umh, I am busy healing people ya know???

Also my healing abilities cost stamina lol.

11k stamina trying to heal people.

This happened to me yesterday! I thought I was losing my mind! I was trying to use rapid regeneration, but I was desyncing horribly with things snapping all over the place, and then suddenly I cast it like 5 times and it completely drained my stamina bar, with my magicka bar being completely untouched. Granted, this was in Cyro, but I never sprinted or roll dodged. I blocked a couple times before I used rapid, but it shouldn't have been enough to use my entire stam bar. Beyond that, I still had the animation play like 5 times super fast, and the hot was on me with a FULL magicka bar after I snapped back to reality.

SirLeeMinion · March 2020

On the bright side, you can use these ping spikes to detect nearby enemy players in Imperial City during PvP. Whilst this has been a feature in Cyrodiil for some time, now even groups of five and fewer in the sewers can be detected by a helpful red "999+" next to your ping meter before you run into the players. Sadly you also get screen freezing and DCs when you fight the players... just like large groups in Cyrodiil.

poe · March 2020

Yesterday in vSS around 19.00 CEST. Mobs dancing around, not getting damage (!?!?), abilities not goin off, dying due to desyncs. In short, unplayable and frustrating.

Cirantille · March 2020

Malkiv wrote: »

Cirantille wrote: »

I am supposed to heal but my bar is locked, it says I am busy.

Umh, I am busy healing people ya know???

Also my healing abilities cost stamina lol.

11k stamina trying to heal people.

This happened to me yesterday! I thought I was losing my mind! I was trying to use rapid regeneration, but I was desyncing horribly with things snapping all over the place, and then suddenly I cast it like 5 times and it completely drained my stamina bar, with my magicka bar being completely untouched. Granted, this was in Cyro, but I never sprinted or roll dodged. I blocked a couple times before I used rapid, but it shouldn't have been enough to use my entire stam bar. Beyond that, I still had the animation play like 5 times super fast, and the hot was on me with a FULL magicka bar after I snapped back to reality.

Yes, exactly. At first you can not cast and look like your character is stuck then your stamina is fully drained...

Kilnerdyne · April 2020

Still having massive problems with high latency on PC EU from 7pm - 11pm CET (GMT+1) in Cloudrest, Asylum Sanctorium & Sunspire.

These trials are completely unplayable at the moment and nothing is being said or done about it. @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_SarahHecker @ZOS_KaiSchober

Kilnerdyne · April 2020

Our raids in Pathfinders Guild are Sunday, Monday and Wednesday from 8pm - 11pm CET. We changed to Hel Ra Citadel from Sunspire thinking that maybe we wouldn't suffer as much as we have been doing in vAS, vCR and vSS.

Nope.

Still having massive problems with high latency on PC EU from 7pm - 11pm CET (GMT+1).

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_SarahHecker @ZOS_KaiSchober

Kilnerdyne · April 2020

Our raids are now cancelled because Time Trials are completely unplayable at primetime hours and we're debating cancelling our pre-orders for Greymoor.

Thank you so much for your support @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_SarahHecker @ZOS_KaiSchober.

WrathOfInnos · April 2020

Agreed, and I’m on PC NA. Trials have been degrading since Harrowstorm released. It started as only minor issues, or the occasional bad instance. It’s now been over 2 weeks where Sunspire is unplayable. No amount of resets helps, every instance is broken. Desynced boss attacks, skills failing, ping spikes, adds spinning, can’t bar swap, block failing, dodge failing, can’t rez after a wipe, mechanics taking several seconds to work, enemies attacking behind them, and people randomly falling through the floor into the map. Other trials are having similar issues.

It’s ridiculous that things have been left to get this bad. We’ve been reporting all these problems for 5 weeks (or more since many bugs were observed on PTS as well). Communication has stopped again, after a month of “investigating, but no fix” statements every week. The free play event was a terrible idea, during a time when servers are clearly already overloaded. There wasn’t even maintenance or a patch today. Is anyone trying to fix this game or should we just give up?

code65536 · April 2020

Low-APM activities like writs work just fine, though.

Kingslayer513 · April 2020

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

ESO's player population just hit record highs. I think its fragile infrastructure is buckling under the load. This should be a wake up call.

Waseem · April 2020

Kilnerdyne wrote: »

Our raids are now cancelled because Time Trials are completely unplayable at primetime hours and we're debating cancelling our pre-orders for Greymoor.

Thank you so much for your support @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_SarahHecker @ZOS_KaiSchober.

For the forum readers who do not know who is Kilnerdyne:

1) Former of best PVE guild in PC- EU
2) The reason why tens of thousands of players has successfully completed a veteran version of a trial on the span of 5 years ( I am not exaggerating, it's literally tens of thousands of players.)
3) Huge efforts put along the years in order to preserve a competitive yet non-toxic raiding environment between many players and guilds of different nationalities even..
4) type LFM instead LFG ( would never forget that sentence! always advises us to be the ones who make the group to add more players, it was a decent friend-maker without us realizing it, directly promoting comfortable environment and knowledge for one another in the guild.

There is much more than I have stated indeed. almost anyone in PC EU knows him and definitely in a positive tune.

AND ZENIMAX DUDES decide to totally ignore him! even if we talk money, kilnerdyne is the reason many players stayed to play the game longer (and obviously spend more money) to the game
and they yet ignore his post, like any other post which discusses non-crown store or new DLC/Chapter stuff

And to clarify. my opinion is not biased or endorsed, almost everybody knows him as that..
as on a personal note(proof im not biased!) spoiler-drama

He had an influence that caused me to not be accepted and play in an advanced raid guild (scathing dragon or redeemed dragon or whatever dragon guild it was, when I definitely was innocent of the elitist vmol hm crime! i was reasonable, rational, not elitist!
so I should not like him,but i dont!

But back to the main topic, the environment ZOS devs try to spread as performance issues are non-existent triggers me as well, but I remember @ZOS_RichLambert reply to a guy who complained about performance issues some years ago: "You know you don't have to be here" So I dont play in this mess anymore.

It's a shame to ignore someone who assisted the largest sum of players in PC EU.
He was objective as well..

Vaoh · April 2020

code65536 wrote: »

Low-APM activities like writs work just fine, though.

I pre-crafted a week’s worth of crafting writ gear earlier. At the APM I was playing the skill gap is clearly too wide for crafting writs atm

Universe · April 2020

I will consider to join a trials guild when trials will be actually playable again...
You're just wasting time until they do...

BohnT2 · April 2020

Always those ungreatful people complaining about things like Felms not spawning until 50% in vAS+2.
I'm pretty sure this is only due to the people in those trials being high APM macro animation cancel weave bot hackers, they kill the fun for us real gamers who don't expect their characters to be a Mr.knowitallcandoitall?!!!!
We like the details that in order to use a "suprise attack" you have to make a plan and this has to take some time.
Like omg just be happy for the bosses now they don't have to deal with those weaving cheaters and can actually fight against them!!!!
Also don't forget the human eye can only see 30 FPS you don't need more but i guess numbers are everything for those ability spamming macro cancel high APM elitists!!!!!

please don't kick me Eddie