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How to fix the lag (Trials, Battleground, & Cyrodiil)

Pinja
Pinja
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So I’m starting college for Computer Science, taking my first class on computers this summer to help fix the lag. But before I get into it, my unprofessional eye noticed something with the coronavirus pandemic. The lag got worse. Then I thought to myself this always happens when there’s a high demand by players. Happens at the launch of popular games. And you know what they do?
They buy more servers.

Now this is an MMO you're supposed to see plenty of people, but even then there are multiple instances. Open world is surprisingly low pop, except at the launch of dlcs, where they then lag and as I remember I got my character stuck in Orsinium.

Open world isn’t as bad as the zones where the action happens.
So that begs the question... Why do small instance battlegrounds & trials lag?
While in other large heavy combat instance games, like Battlefield, don’t lag.
So why does ESO?
Well Battlefield's rule of design is one instance, one server.
I’m going to bet, ESO doesn’t follow this design model and is hosting multiple battle heavy instances on one server.
The easy fix for battlegrounds and trial lag is, buy more servers.

What about Cyrodiil, which is one large single instance server +delves?
Well I have a lame suggestion, but it’ll work.
Divide Cyrodiil into three synchronized server zones. On the gates…

400px-ON-place-Alessia_Bridge_02.jpg

Daggerfall Territory, Ebonheart Territory, and Aldmeri Territory.
While it’ll end gate farming for certain Pvpers that love to play on the gates, it will fix the lag.
If redesigned beyond a basic entry way, into something more like the Imperial city side district & sewer doors, where either side can walk through and spawn up top. Then you have a chance at interesting pvp if you build it like an arena at every gate & bridge. Load time immunity till you move or drop, ect.
The Cyrodiil map will still display all the information from all three servers so you’ll know if you need to change position on the map.
Some of my best Pvp has been leading groups in 15v15 battles at 4:00am. We were the only people doing anything on the map and the gameplay was good. With my suggestion other player activity can be on the map without affecting performance.
I’ve had other genuinely good guild masters refuse to lead primetime because the lag is horrendous.
Will my solution fail if one alliance gets pushed back into its territory by both alliances, probably. But you’d have optimal conditions most of the time, and the lag would probably drive one invader to the otherside of the map.

Any thinkers or takers?
Pinja for Dual Wands.
Pinja's three server solutions:
  • Dracane
    Dracane
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    Of course, investment would be required to fix these things. You can only do so much on your software side. Zenimax is trying alot on a software level, but they are quite hesitant when it comes to hardware. Because hardware costs alot and needs to be maintained as well.

    I am sure Zenimax receives good money thanks to ESO. There are so many players. But I believe ESO is already pretty much on a cash cow level. Most new things are reskins or copy pastes. They do not want to invest anymore for some reason. Neither in new content nor in hardware. Instead, so I believe, they invest it into their other projects they believe are more important.

    There are so many players. ESO deserves an upgrade and alot of love and attention and most importantly (please): Passion!

    Auri-El is my lord,
    Trinimac is my shield,
    Magnus is my mind.
  • Tandor
    Tandor
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    Other MMOs have individual servers which each carry a certain number of players, so that when the population rises they add more servers while when it falls they merge servers - and that creates problems for both individual players and guilds in respect of duplicate names and houses.

    ESO attempts to get round that by having single regional megaservers per platform, which means an unlimited number of players because each megaserver comprises multiple individual servers which count as one so far as the players are concerned but which can be increased or reduced according to demand.

    The system works well in most respects, but there are questions over the difference between hardware and software causes for the performance issues some experience, and there is increasingly a question over whether Frankfurt is the best location for the EU server given both network considerations and German internet infrastructure standards relative to those in say France or the UK.
    Edited by Tandor on April 25, 2020 6:26PM
  • Pinja
    Pinja
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    Dracane wrote: »
    Of course, investment would be required to fix these things. You can only do so much on your software side. Zenimax is trying alot on a software level, but they are quite hesitant when it comes to hardware. Because hardware costs alot and needs to be maintained as well.

    I am sure Zenimax receives good money thanks to ESO. There are so many players. But I believe ESO is already pretty much on a cash cow level. Most new things are reskins or copy pastes. They do not want to invest anymore for some reason. Neither in new content nor in hardware. Instead, so I believe, they invest it into their other projects they believe are more important.

    There are so many players. ESO deserves an upgrade and alot of love and attention and most importantly (please): Passion!

    Thank you for your insight. It would be a shame and a mistake to not dedicate resources back into ESO. It should be the companies biggest focus.
    Commander keen isn't particularity appealing to my demographic, and TES VI doesn't require near as many resources since it's a local game. I:E it doesn't require servers, paid subscriptions, or quarterly combat changes.
    ESO probably makes the most money between it and Fallout.
    With next generation consoles around the corner most of their client side issues(except memory leaks) can be powered out.
    All they need to do is fix the server and there's opportunity for great performance.


    Tandor wrote: »
    Other MMOs have individual servers which each carry a certain number of players, so that when the population rises they add more servers while when it falls they merge servers - and that creates problems for both individual players and guilds in respect of duplicate names and houses.

    ESO attempts to get round that by having single regional megaservers per platform, which means an unlimited number of players because each megaserver comprises multiple individual servers which count as one so far as the players are concerned but which can be increased or reduced according to demand.

    The system works well in most respects, but there are questions over the difference between hardware and software causes for the performance issues some experience, and there is increasingly a question over whether Frankfurt is the best location for the EU server given both network considerations and German internet infrastructure standards relative to those in say France or the UK.

    I was also pondering the difference between software and hardware issues, and while I don't have a full scope of the situation, worry that they may be shortening the server code to account for more players. Causing bugs, and eliminating key communication steps between the client and server. Going for bulimic code rather then something healthy.
    And I'm suggesting add more of those individual servers to the megaservers and assign them instances.
    Pinja for Dual Wands.
    Pinja's three server solutions:
  • Ignis_Irae
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    Totaly agree with Author of this topic. . nothing more to say. most of us... MOST PPL WHO CAN CODE can fix such a lag problems in the game. i work with such problems with med stuff im surgeric 500 ppl interact video during surgeey and we can do it with small machines. so how Zenimax cant buy good enough servers to fix that?. devide and synthetise rule. pls go back toIt studies Zenimax. it is golden rule .. u will learn how to fix lags in megaservers
  • Pinja
    Pinja
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    So I've browsing the forums and seen people argue that it's an increasing issue with the code. I thought on what @Vaoh said about lag getting incrementally worse.
    My solutions fixes the worst type of lag, server lag, but I'll address a potential source of client lag.
    The growing load on RAM space is lowering performance. It's a simple google search to see the correlation between it and the CPU. I'm sure systems are being tested as xbox one's are at there limit sometimes in cyrodiil. Next gen will fix this for consoles. The prime issue for highend systems is nothing more than server lag.
    Why is everything getting worse patch after patch? One reason may be that your adding more abilities and effects, who's graphics, animations, and sounds have to be loaded to the RAM in order to play correctly. Cumbersome as it may be, I'm not saying to stop developing new stuff, but I'd test both: Running the game with a lower RAM payload, and putting a lower demand on the servers.
    Are there more problems in the code, probably, but I see what I see.
    Once the servers are fixed and next Gen comes out and runs smoothly, then you can have the faith of the community to suggest to them upgrades for their systems.
    Edited by Pinja on April 26, 2020 2:41AM
    Pinja for Dual Wands.
    Pinja's three server solutions:
  • AndyMac
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    I don't want to be too negative, but is Cyro even fixable now?

    I've been ignoring Cyro for the last few months due to performance. I logged back a couple of times recently in to get enough AP for a transmute geode and - O.M.G - that is literally unplayable.

    Performance has never been good in Cyro since I have been PvPing - that goes back to 2015. But the performance has recently seriously fallen off a cliff. Playing Cyro rn is just a literal waste of pots.

    Idk how you fix that, but it would likely involve more money than ZOS wants to spend on a sideshow in an RPG game.

    Andymac - Magicka DK - EP Grand Overlord - Flawless Conqueror
  • Nairinhe
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    Ignis_Irae wrote: »
    Totaly agree with Author of this topic. . nothing more to say. most of us... MOST PPL WHO CAN CODE can fix such a lag problems in the game. i work with such problems with med stuff im surgeric 500 ppl interact video during surgeey and we can do it with small machines. so how Zenimax cant buy good enough servers to fix that?. devide and synthetise rule. pls go back toIt studies Zenimax. it is golden rule .. u will learn how to fix lags in megaservers

    That's so wrong, it's funny. Have you seen their code? Dependencies? Architecture? Level of spaghetti-ness? If not, you cannot know what needs to be done to fix lag in this case. If you have been successful with some bunch of code doesn't mean you can now say anything about any other code you've never seen. You're some kind of computer psychic or what?
  • Dracane
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    I am afraid Bethesda/Zenimax does not take all that much care of their games. Or not as much as they would deserve. Elder Scrolls Blades Developement is very slow as well and only small changes are being made once every few months.
    Fallout 76 is the same.

    ESO is obviously just like that as well. They appear to only want to gain but not invest time and ressources into their projects apart from the very necessary ones. I have this heretic thought in my mind that it would actually be better for the game was it sold to a new company. But I like the team alot and would not want to miss them.

    So here is to hope that something changes. (a hope I have since 5 years or so)
    Edited by Dracane on April 26, 2020 11:56AM
    Auri-El is my lord,
    Trinimac is my shield,
    Magnus is my mind.
  • Luckylancer
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    "servers costs money" is not an excuse. What happens to new players' money? Whoever have the final say in this topic is trying to minimize spent while trying to game run at minimum.

    They can have better game that they can sell more if they fix this problem.
  • Pinja
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    Did some more thinking based on briefs in other threads, and found another aspect of performance design. I'm sure someone's already looked at it. One solution would be to decrease packet size. Not necessarily the calculations the server is processing (though the prime concept of this thread stands).
    This can be done by assigning the shortest and most basic outputs of the server. Substituting ability names with values, ect. The more players & NPCs the more data is sent and the packet stream increases. As data transfers from one connection type to the other the packets need to be broken up into smaller packages which takes incremental time to process causing lag.

    I'm designing another solution to this problem, and will get it here soonish.
    Pinja for Dual Wands.
    Pinja's three server solutions:
  • Pinja
    Pinja
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    So I been paying attention to two videos.
    One by Isth3reno1else, which is very detailed:
    https://youtu.be/_aXxvNHRNjU?t=251

    And another video in which it's just obvious: (start 7:44)
    https://youtu.be/VdaNo4AR2lQ?t=473

    But, except in one case, players are not teleporting around, just there abilities are being cancelled. I think this is do to attempted desync fixes causing a reverse desync. Plainly what it looks like when an archer spams arrows to have the server cancel them all to avoid a desync. They spam moves to have the server cancel their abilities.
    I had written the theory in a different thread.
    Pinja wrote: »
    I looked at some clips and it looks like the work put in to prevent desyncs is timing out player abilities, and canceling them. Or the server is overloaded and not registering them, but one person said they were playing in low pop. I don't know what work put in with the desyncs makes it happen but in order to stop them the ability either needs to be canceled, or the receiving client needs to be given extra time to respond before the death calculation. Causing players to appear to take no damage until it registers for them (as we've seen in the past,) or their abilities being canceled (as we see now.) Which didn't fix desync in some patches, meaning they're trading devels.
    Not waiting for an opponents client to respond, just going off the servers timer that gives fair connections a moment to input may be the best option.

    What it means is Zos may want to undo there attempted fixes.
    Edited by Pinja on April 28, 2020 11:24PM
    Pinja for Dual Wands.
    Pinja's three server solutions:
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