ZOS....buy more better servers

Ectheliontnacil wrote: »

Why is performance in pvp greatly improved during midyear mayhem then?

Sure they increased player capacity,
but maybe a big amount of that player capacity was used up by players who didn't play in a problematic way.
They just came into Cyrodiil to get their quests done and get their tickets, or just casually ride around with their guild to try Cyrodiil while it's double AP.
Not all of them were these supposedly problematic ball groups endlessly spamming aoes. And those groups may have split up to go into different campaigns instead of engaging each other which, according to what ZOS wants to test, would have intensified the problem.

Then when it's all over they leave because they weren't interested in PvP.
Leaving the people who play in a problematic way, in fewer campaigns because there's no need anymore for so much player capacity
because all those temporary people left.

So when people "had no problems" maybe they happened to be in a campaign at a time when there were no intense fights?
First few days the campaigns were crowded but you could see them start to thin out rapidly over time so that only the locked campaign was really the only one that kept busy.

*

I'm still curious why in our same group,
in the same keep with probably a few dozen people,
only SOME experienced lag or skills not firing (or long load screens just getting to the location)
but the rest were fine.

virtus753 wrote: »

caperb wrote: »

What is a DMV?

Department of Motor Vehicles, a state-run agency that issues driver’s licenses and license plates, handles vehicle registration, and provides a number of other services.

Ah thank you. Google search only gave some companies and strange websites over here, and since it's has been a long day for me the rest was just a wall of text. Understand it better now

LuxLunae wrote: »

Now I am going to sit here for about 15 mins thinking of a good analogy.

Ok, how about this one, I went to go renew my license at the DMV after like 12 years.

Back in the day, they would
1. give us a number and have us sit
2. call us up one by one no matter what the reason of the visit was.
3. We would go to whoever was available to take us at the counter.

This obviously led to unpredicatble and mostly long times at the dmv.

Fast forward to 2020.

Before we walk in we need to
1. register to a computer that is not controlled by a human.
2. it asks us what is the nature of the visit.
3. They assign us to sit at a certain part of the building. This is because they are splitting us up into groups of who need to have the similar things done.
4. Instead of calling us up one by one, they call a portion of the group up in 20s to go to the counter.
5. Then they split the 20 by 5 and have the smaller group stand at one of the 5 counters that were previously empty. These counters specialize in what our group needs to have done.

So once we are standing there it's about 5 minutes per person. Obviously, this data was taken over the years and created this system to make the DMV more efficient. No matter how much people flood in the wait times should be about the same for that specific group. It allows people to plan their time when they go to the dmv.

Note that this was the same DMV in the 12 yrs, they had the same amount of counters, the same amount of people at those counters, similar hardware, the building was the same size. The only thing that changed to make the dmv more efficient was the logic behind how to take in the people and process them.

So what does this mean? buying better servers won't solve the overall problem.

Yes, the DMV of 12 years ago could have invest in a bigger DMV, but then they will have to take more space, hire more people to fill in those new counters, buy more hardware to take pictures and signatures, oh yeah rebuild the whole DMV and have it close down for a while, buy more seats, more restrooms, etc. However realize, the problem was not fixed. The times are still wildly different. When the more people start coming in, it will still get jammed even though they expanded the size. You'll have people who could have been processed fast and easily out the door being behind people who need time to be processed. Just because they still wanted to keep the first come first serve motto for all processes instead of splitting the process into different types like the 2020 version.

This analogy is flawed, but honestly it is not possible for the community to come up with a decent analogy because the community is not aware of the actual problems with ZOS's software and hardware designs. We infer problems and bottlenecks from public statements made, but we don't actually know what is going on. But let's parse this out anyway.

The current revamp of sets and the proposed PVP tests offer a clue into one kind of bottleneck, which is the number of calculations on the server. Your DMV analogy suggests that by optimizing the processing of these calculations, that the efficiency of the service improves (which is what your DMV did). However, increasing the ability to do calculations quicker is also a solution (which would be hiring more people). Here's where the flaws are:

1. You assume that the same number of people are going to the DMV. ESO is an on demand service, so limiting people's ability to play when they want is not a feasible solution.
2. The perceived cost and effort of rebuilding the DMV is not analogous to renting/purchasing servers that have improved calculation capacity and efficiency. Yes, better servers would cost more, and there would be migration costs, but the incremental operating costs would be worth it if they have a sustainable player base.
3. The DMV must continue to function because it is a regulatory requirement. I can't choose to do something other than go to the DMV if I want to register my car. I can, however, stop paying for crowns and ESO+, and go elsewhere to play some other game if I no longer find ESO to be enjoyable. The economics behind both services have different constraints that guide the approach to optimization.

To strain the analogy: people are complaining about servers because many in the community find the solutions in the currently proposed tests to be unacceptable if they went live. So imagine that the DMV splits people into groups as you've indicated, but every 5th group needs to sit all packed together in the bathroom. Yes, it solves the problem, but it makes a subset of customers unhappy. People would stop going to the DMV if they were upset at the possibility of having to sit in the bathroom. Of course, they still have to go, so they would complain to the government and get the issues changed in a way that did not force them to sit in the bathroom.

And that's what people who complain about the servers are doing: they want to play ESO, they just don't want to be forced to sit in a stinky bathroom to do it when ZOS could just "hire" more "people".

I was sitting around an thinking... why doesn't zos let us cdhange our skills in battle?

Ok so what if they do this...They use some sort a map, queue whatever or something.

Now once we put our skills on the bar, they already load up the amount of space needed for that queue, or map or whatever.

Putting a hard limit on the list instead of letting it shrink or grown. Like up to 4 players are affected by such aoe or something.

This way zos is only adding and removing from an already existing memory associated with the player.

Now I also assume the skills work this way in cyro.

1. The keep is the main hub and there is some sort of list somewhere that ranks people who are closer or farther from that zero point.
2. When somebody puts down an AoE it uses an if (players are in circle range) so it goes to the list and chooses the players who are close to where the AOE was set. (wait if they do that they would just have to reference instead of making individual list for each skill.)

So wait, hold on.. i am still trying to guess this system...


ok we have a list that has all the players locations on it who is in the local keep space. (not the whole of cyro lol)

There are probably two or more lists.

1. Cyro friendly list
2. Cyro foe list
3. group list

when we put a AOE, it goes to the LIST LOCATION and applies it to those at that location.

so we have something like this uhhh (for simplicity i am using only 2d)

[0,0| Bob ] , [ 0,1| Ed ] , [ 0,1| carl ]

We don't care who bob, carl or ed is... we only care about those coordinates. and then apply whoever is in the coordinates the
AOE

The AOE says, if player is in -1,-1 to 1,1 apply it to them. (in this case Location x , location y + AOE size. I am using psudo math here not the real equation but just the idea we reference x and y as our center and apply the AOE around it to find its boundary at that location)

So now we have a location list and we just move players in the list corresponding to their actual location. TBH that moving seems like it would be very costly lol. Not only that, the list grid would have to split the keep location into the player size. That might make this list super large in data. However the location list would stay there for the entire time cyro is up so...

Would it be it be more costly to have a changing list of players who walk into the keep location? keep updating the position on a list of players and then asking the location to decide whether to apply the AOE?

Let me go back to thinking about this...clean it up a bit.

I know it might be a bad idea, but i like the idea of the location grid list and putting the players into that list based on their location.

Then having AoE apply their Heals or Damage on a subset of that list. A problem with this that no two players should be at the same location, but what if they are lol? I'd probably have to say, "don't swap when two players are at same location, keep at previous location or update once at next location"

what if 100 people sit on the same location? The grid can't be used. I just remembered we have no field and can meld into each other. So i'd be forced to make a list anyways for the location area to put multiple people on a same location. That just defeats the purpose lol.

Let me go think about htis more lol.

Khenarthi wrote: »

I just wish the EU server had its capacity increased. May be naive of me, but the NA one is less populated and has less issues (everything else being equal?), so rather than wish my fellow Europeans go and find another game, I would rather have a server with enough space for all of us.

They are increasing capacity as they mentioned a few weeks ago