Yes Performance will get better.

Anhedonie · April 2020

You have not the slightest idea on the topic you're touching.

puupaa · April 2020

Poplocked Grey Host on PC EU was working relatively great at prime time for hours after maintenance. Big fights where you could actually cast skills and abilities. I wasn't there, but apparently some time later the usual server lag returned.

Other than bad code causing server performance to degrade over time, there are two reasons why this might happen as far as I see. Server resources were taken away from Grey Host to support increased demand in other parts of the game, or accounts no longer playing on Grey Host somehow still consume Grey Host server resources.

Charon_on_Vacation · April 2020

Thevampirenight wrote: »

How you might wonder, well here is the thing about the performance.
Its clearly very bad, and efforts to curve it have not really helped much they have helped in ways but have not fixed the issue or even in cases made it worse for the player base.
The servers are suffering because they have to much data on them, not only data but also to many calcuations they have to perform. They are boggled down with so much data on them that performance is very bad.

The Pet Changes will help a little, but I don't think it would be as noticeable the reason because there is so much data on the servers. So many accounts with so much data on them many or most of them years old.
The Aoe changes I do think will help the server as well but again I don't think it will be as great of a change.
I do think the performance will go up when New World comes out as many might bail from Eso and go to that. That will help and if you are going to quit the game for good. Please delete everything in your crafting bags delete all your mail and delete as many characters as you can. This will help the performance for the rest of us. New World will likely help out Eso by just coming out.

The biggest thing that I do think will be the game change for game performance and will be an actual fix and make the other fixes that don't seem to be helpful and worth it is the Account Cold Storage.
The Account Cold storage is like another server just for storing inactive accounts. Why this will be the game changer is because so many accounts are most likely inactive ones that players either quit, or got banned or for other reasons and they never came back.

That data is still on the servers all their achievements, characters, mats, inventories collectibles are still there taking up space on the servers. By moving that data off server to another cold storage server. That would clear off so much space on the servers. It would clear up so much to the point that a lot of the calculations would be able to have more memory space to do what they have to do and the game server performance will go up and because of this the game itself will be so much better with performance.
There is likely millions of inactive accounts with so much data on them they are making the Account Cold storage to get that data off the servers. That will indeed be the game changer. I could be wrong but I do think it will be the game changer to the whole performance debacle.
Now don't expect much in improvements with Greymoor. Or anything until they finish up the Account Cold Storage.
Once that is in then we will see the true performance improvements. Anything done before Account Cold Storage is done to help with things but won't fix the problem.
The Account Cold Storage will be the true performance improvement change.

so, your theory is, if you have less stuff in the kitchen drawer, you will cook faster?
thats not really how it works.
if you think account cold storage will be the true performance improvement, i will sell you socks that keep your ping below 10.

ThePedge · April 2020

The laggiest place in the game is Cyrodil, which has no non-combat pets.

So I'm not sure what they are trying to achieve here.

redgreensunset · April 2020

My lack of faith in ZOS being able to fix this is entirely rooted in the fact that not only did the first two steps in the plan not improve much of anything, they went disastrously wrong.

Step 1: Rewriting Activity Finder.
Now this didn't improve its ability to find a group in any way it actually made it so the servers got wonky when it was put under the least amount of stress and when actually put under stress it burned the server down. Took them over three months to fix it enough that it no longer burns the server down when put under stress but it is still a buggy, wonky mess that doesn't work half the time.

Step 2: Major rewrite of the game's code.
Ooooh boy, where to even start here. Well for one thing it was supposed to decrease loading time which um, yeah okay it did for some but others have seen an increase of loading times and even or those who saw an initial improvement it has been wearing off in the more recent weeks to the point where loading screens are several minutes long. And of course it introduced the "much beloved" desync and input lag issue which they have clearly no idea what is causing it and less idea how to fix it. Those who have tested Greymoor on pts say the issue persist there so there's no fix incoming to this any time soon, guess we'll be lucky if they have any sort of fix for it with U27 which will likely be in, what, sometime August?

So can they fix it? No idea, maybe yes, maybe no. Whichever the case the road to getting there will be filled with bumps and pitfalls and performance will on the journey range somewhere between bad and atrocious which would be a lot more tolerable if we could be certain that the end result would be a marked improvement, but we can't. And what's come out this far lends little in the way of confidence that things will be better.

NeillMcAttack · April 2020

ZOS themselves that the cold storage change would help with load screens, they never mentioned they would assist in performance. I don’t believe the same servers that perform calculations are the same ones that store data. Even the net code for the live servers would be different than those that just store player data.

But you are not wrong. But only because better than this should be easy being that the bar is so low.

Elsonso · April 2020

EmEm_Oh wrote: »

The redownload of the client WAS supposed to be THE beginning of improvements.

No. It is actually the second quarter of updates. Update 25 got a lot of attention because that was where they updated the patcher and did a lot of asset rework that forced everyone to download the game client. Performance improvements were mainly client-side. While this sort of stuff is not going to rock everyone's world equally, I have not seen people complaining that the client stuff is worse. Maybe they are eclipsed by the ability desync discussions.

mairwen85 wrote: »

Account cold storage will only improve performance under the assumption that every man and his dog logs in at exactly the same time. If that were the case we'd only see a 5minute lag spike once per day.

That is not true. I think that one of the big problems that ZOS has right now is that their database systems cannot keep up with the constant demands of the players logging into and playing the game. The player and character information is stored in a database, possibly the same database. Today, the game stores around 15 million players, and at least as many characters.

Each additional player and each additional character makes the database and database indexes larger and queries a little slower. For a single player, doing a single database query, the difference is so small that it is hard to even measure. When you multiply that by how often that single player is making database requests while they play, and then multiply that by the thousands of players on the megaserver at the same time, you start to get into the place where you can measure this stuff.

This is not only something that will improve performance, it is something they probably should have addressed a long time ago.

Is this going to rock our low-ping socks? Probably not. However, this should be an incremental performance improvement. All of the things that ZOS is doing falls under the incremental improvements category. No one thing is "the" fix.

Ri_Khan · April 2020

As long as they continue to shovel hot garbage onto the dumpster fire, it will continue to smolder and performance will continue to degrade. The servers clearly can't handle the load.

Mumbles_the_Tank · April 2020

Considering the current track record of improvements - cold storage will likely just make half our characters inaccessible and half our inventories disappear.

The OPs optimism in face of the reality we experience in this game is certainly fascinating.

technohic · April 2020

I'm glad you can see the positive side. They have been trying to improve it since launch when I started, and yet it gets worse every update. They don't even just fail, but the direction is bipolar.

-the issue is with excess creatures. Remove deer. Turn around and add other NPCs

-Need to spread people out. Add AP boost to delve bosses. Turn around and add a hammer which encourages stacking

-The issue with destructible resource towers. Remove doors, make resource towers indestructible. Add destructible bridges and gates

-The server is doing too many calculations. Rework skills and standardize to reduce calculations. Move sprint and block to the server.

Yeah, I have been here since beta. I just can't be positive because I already feel like an idiot putting up with it as long as I have.

Lysette · April 2020

Veirdra wrote: »

If enough people actually leave ESO for New World to make a difference on performance, then it's entirely possible that the opposite of what you're saying could happen. Less revenue means server maintenance, development, and support could suffer.

no it wouldn't - those who are interested in new world are just a tiny part of the eso community - it doesn't matter at all in regards to revenue, because once they are gone others can enjoy the game more and they will fill the gap easily. More people online who don't have much yet and need everything is the target group - so pvp vets leaving is good for the game not bad.

ku5h · April 2020

When the next step down is total collapse, yea it can go only up.

Pinja · April 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

EmEm_Oh wrote: »

The redownload of the client WAS supposed to be THE beginning of improvements.

No. It is actually the second quarter of updates. Update 25 got a lot of attention because that was where they updated the patcher and did a lot of asset rework that forced everyone to download the game client. Performance improvements were mainly client-side. While this sort of stuff is not going to rock everyone's world equally, I have not seen people complaining that the client stuff is worse. Maybe they are eclipsed by the ability desync discussions.

mairwen85 wrote: »

Account cold storage will only improve performance under the assumption that every man and his dog logs in at exactly the same time. If that were the case we'd only see a 5minute lag spike once per day.

That is not true. I think that one of the big problems that ZOS has right now is that their database systems cannot keep up with the constant demands of the players logging into and playing the game. The player and character information is stored in a database, possibly the same database. Today, the game stores around 15 million players, and at least as many characters.

Each additional player and each additional character makes the database and database indexes larger and queries a little slower. For a single player, doing a single database query, the difference is so small that it is hard to even measure. When you multiply that by how often that single player is making database requests while they play, and then multiply that by the thousands of players on the megaserver at the same time, you start to get into the place where you can measure this stuff.

This is not only something that will improve performance, it is something they probably should have addressed a long time ago.

Is this going to rock our low-ping socks? Probably not. However, this should be an incremental performance improvement. All of the things that ZOS is doing falls under the incremental improvements category. No one thing is "the" fix.

I wouldn't flat out dismiss his conjecture. Computers don't keep an active directory of the entire hard drive in a memory cache, it's why when you search a hard drive it takes time. When a storage address is given the the system does a quick search of the location, if it exists its loaded. Given a full hard drive will make requests to the hard drive slower. Zos would have to keep the active hard drives at say 70% to see improvements which they could just do buy buying more hard drives. Which is a performance investment they haven't talked about.
The directories don't necessarily make searches they process requests. Granted the address data gains extra bytes the more layers of locations you add, slowing it down. Depending on the coding structure, however, the bytes may stay the same. Thinking on it you'd really need beyond trillions of hard drives for that to make a significant difference.

So what am I saying in summery?
Cold storage wont necessarily lead to the reduction in hard drive request time. Maintaining a lower storage capacity will. If you fill the active hard drives to the brim even with Cold storage, your not going to see a difference in performance. The accounts are still going to take up the same amount of space. If you're already filling hard drives to the brim then you'll need to get more hard drives to optimize, and if they're not filled to the brim, at say 70%, then we wont see a performance increase because the hard drives are already optimized. Pretty much all it does is allow the company to cut some corners if they fill the inactive hard drives to the brim...

Now what @mairwen85 was saying applies (In addition to a few other things out side his hyperbole) if and only if you optimize the hard drives. Which is different then cold storage. Can cold storage be a means to optimize, yes but it's the same as adding more hard drives, but now you've categorized them.
Logging in is the biggest load the hard drive has to request & is the only load, outside of guild stores, that encounters significant delay.
Optimizing the hard drives may reduce issues, like not being able to log in. If say the servers had to write to the drive before your online status updates, because of a delay transferring data keeping it active. But I doubt it works that way because I receive this glitch at times when there is a high call volume, suggesting it's only the server hamster coming of the wheel due to the load of requests.

ZOS_FalcoYamaoka · April 2020

Greetings,
We had to remove some posts due to violating our rules involving baiting. Please keep your posts constructive and civil. If you have any questions about the actions being taken, please take a moment to review our community rules here.

preevious · April 2020

Ruder wrote: »

I love how people who don't have a clue how Server-Client relations work, explain how freeing HDD storage will improve performance OMEGALUL.

There are 2 bottlenecks to the performance:
1) Server Compute Resources (NOT STORAGE CAPACITY)
2) Network bandwidth and network hardware limitations (on the server side but not as likely as the Server Resources)

I mostly agree.

However, client issues can also play a role.
If your system is too weak, your imputs might not be taken into account, and your client won't be able to render what the server tells it to render. This also causes misfires, lags, short freezes and sudden death.
It happened to me when I was playing AoC. It was unplayable untill I swallowed my pride and lowered my settings. Was just fine, right after.

If some, not all, people have issue, the problem might be in the client.

That's why the first thing to try, before anything else, is to lower the gaphical settings. Some of those can be heavy, not just to the CGU, but also on the proc.
A high-end CGU will not save you if your processor or memory is lacking.

If it does not change anything, then, it can be a server problem.

worrallj · April 2020

I find it extraordinarily unlikely that cyrodiil performance has anything to do with year old player records in the database.

None of us actually know how they have things set up, but presumably all the active players are loaded into some sort of cache when they enter the zone.

Elsonso · April 2020

worrallj wrote: »

I find it extraordinarily unlikely that cyrodiil performance has anything to do with year old player records in the database.

Not everything related to performance is about Cyrodiil performance, though.

Sarousse · April 2020

We've been waiting too much already. Many years (it started exactly when the lightning patch came in).

It might become better, one day, but we'll be gone on another MMO that cares about its pvp playerbase.

We're still here because they have no concurrence today, period.

worrallj · April 2020

Elsonso wrote: »

worrallj wrote: »

I find it extraordinarily unlikely that cyrodiil performance has anything to do with year old player records in the database.

Not everything related to performance is about Cyrodiil performance, though.

Yeah, but outside of cyrodiil, in my experience, the main problems are full on glitches and client performance. I think server performance really is more of a Cyrodiil issue.

worrallj · April 2020

puupaa wrote: »

Poplocked Grey Host on PC EU was working relatively great at prime time for hours after maintenance. Big fights where you could actually cast skills and abilities. I wasn't there, but apparently some time later the usual server lag returned.

Other than bad code causing server performance to degrade over time, there are two reasons why this might happen as far as I see. Server resources were taken away from Grey Host to support increased demand in other parts of the game, or accounts no longer playing on Grey Host somehow still consume Grey Host server resources.

Interesting. Might not be the accounts themselves though, could just a memory leak or something? Some process that gets called at certain times but then never gets properly shut off? Or parameters somewhere in the code that were optimized at startup get out of wack over time?

Raammzzaa · April 2020

At this point anything that actually fixes game performance in ESO I can get behind. However, after ZOS finally released a "performance improvement patch" only to make performance actually worse - I'm going to need to actually see an improvement to believe in one.

MEBengalsFan2001 · April 2020

Veirdra wrote: »

If enough people actually leave ESO for New World to make a difference on performance, then it's entirely possible that the opposite of what you're saying could happen. Less revenue means server maintenance, development, and support could suffer.

New World is not atm going to console; just PC. ESO will continue to have revenue from PS and XBox players.

L2Pissue · April 2020

Cool story bro, we'll first see the game playable then spend money on it

Alucardo · April 2020

justaquickword wrote: »

Before you get shot down in flames by the angry hoardes I'd just like to commend your bravery.

Great, and now I'm laughing too much to be angry. I'll return later.

TineaCruris · April 2020

Can the OP, or anyone else, point to any evidence that Zenimax is even addressing the performance issues?

Because the only evidence anything is even being worked on at this point is that things are getting worse, so they must be messing with something. That's not a valid or good assumption for anyone involved.

Elsonso · April 2020

TineaCruris wrote: »

Can the OP, or anyone else, point to any evidence that Zenimax is even addressing the performance issues?

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/58045?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/487396/official-discussion-thread-for-esos-performance-improvements-plan

xaraan · April 2020

Considering I'm still paying a sub for this game, I hope you are right. But realistically every patch that's been about the performance of the game I've seen performance get worse.

The fact they have some of the bugs they do, the charming ones people say are funny like running on horse, concerns me. Those are things that should not be happening and if they are it means something isn't coded right and means that probably more things aren't coded right that we don't see. The fact some fans try and treat it like it's ok is crazy to me. It's only funny the first couple times, after that you just see another blatant bug going unfixed.

Maybe they will tweak whatever caused those issues and also some of the things OP is hopeful about will bring about that improvement. But at this point I don't think zos deserves my benefit of the doubt. I think they should be the ones selling the game to me, not other fans or streamers trying to blow smoke and tell me 'soon'. I've been paying for this broken game for months now, and watching performance get worse with every 'performance' patch. In what world is that ok? In what job would you perform like that and have your boss keep giving you chances? If you had an appliance that worked as well as this game, you'd be chewing out the store every day to get it fixed and you wouldn't be like, well, next month will be the time the service guy finally figures it out! I'll happily keep giving them money and great reviews when asked about it. I get the bias, I love ES world and want to love the game, but in the end, either it's working well or not and no amount of my desire to have this game be good will change that.

Vicinia · April 2020

madman65 · April 2020

Cold storage sounds great, I agree. I`ve been tolerating this game for around a year with the performance issues, desync`s and lag. I`ve bought a 256gb ssd drive and i`m going to wait for Greymoor to come out to install the game on it. If the game still has issues I will probably stop playing the game and take a vacation from it due to limitations of my tolerance. So cold storage may be the future for some players, Thanks for the idea.

MartiniDaniels · April 2020

Ruder wrote: »

I love how people who don't have a clue how Server-Client relations work, explain how freeing HDD storage will improve performance OMEGALUL.

There are 2 bottlenecks to the performance:
1) Server Compute Resources (NOT STORAGE CAPACITY)
2) Network bandwidth and network hardware limitations (on the server side but not as likely as the Server Resources)

Well, you know it depends of particular server, but overloaded storage is like good 75% reasons of server problems, at least from point of view of engineer who maintains this servers. There is system and sub-systems and those sub-systems might have their own sub-systems and all of them usually have some logical partition of hard drive capacity (of course it's not one hard drive, but whole stack of hard drives, which are mirrored, inter-connected and so on), and while one of those hard drives can burn, system might remain stable due to reservation, but overload of logical partition can cause whole ton of problems, from which reduced performance is not the worst situation. Sometimes entire system can go down if one of the seemingly un-important storages will be out of free space. Of course under normal conditions such things shouldn't happen and there are multiple software protections to avoid such situations... but as in any complex system, something might go unplanned...

So while we don't know how ZOS account storage is implemented, messing with it or optimizing it might have both good and bad consequences.

TL;DR - if one of important LOGICAL storage partitions is short of space it might collapse / stall entire system and this happens daily many times all around the world due to human mistakes, complex barely comparable systems, modern way of creating software and so on.