Key Response, or the LACK OF IT, tested out

JimFord047 · August 2

I have over the past while noticed that what I press on the keyboard is not what I get in the game!!! And Initially Blamed ME for not pressing the correct key!

So, A lot of times a person Dies because I did not heal them as the healer, on me! But I am 99.9999% sure I DID, in fact Several Times sometime 10+ Key presses to get 1 working heal. Or I die because i cannot heal myself, or I do not kill something because I did not press the key or pressed the wrong key, and I look down to make sure my finger is on the correct key and pressing it, only to find out I am dead because i did not move!!!

So instead of being a poor workman Blaming his tools, I gave it enough time to be sure, I am Definitely Pressing Keys, they are just not working, So Toughly tested my Corsair K95 Keyboard with Cherry Blue Mechanical keys and it came back as fine, but take no chances, bottle of Isopropanol and cleaned Every Key, and then re lubed them to be sure…. DID NOT HELP, So I blamed the Key Response! And thought I will get a better one for Gaming….

OK Now we are on a Corsair K95 with Cherry Speed Silver Keys, with every trick in the book to make them more responsive, you litterly LOOK AT THIS THING, and it presses keys repeatedly! Makes doing things a pain in the butt, as you brush the key, and it responds… Did Not help!!!!

OK Get with the times!!! Move it all over to a Corsair K100 Keyboard, New Computer Build, now it has to work better!!! NOPE…. Speed test and check the internet, 1Gbps, it’s all fine, OK so it MUST BE ME, between the age, the eyes and the disabilities, things must be coming into End Stage… But wait, I do other things. And I do not have a problem, this is the only problems, on all parts.

Time to get to the bottom of things,

Stand in front of Dummy. Press 12345 and get 1245, or 1345, or 135 or worst 15. Then the same with the next Keyboard, and the next All varying results, Try adding spaces, between the key presses, sometimes it worked other times It will not!
Ok one common factor aside from myself, they are all Corsair Keyboards, this is a plus point, as they all work with ICUE, and in there I can write a macro that will do the keypress at exact times. Now as far as I am aware, the system will “stack” keypresses in cache, it has to or rotations will not work! Especially with mouse presses in between.
The MACRO, was used as it does not rely on the keypress, instead it actually sends the ASCII Code response of the key being pressed, Aside from the G1 key, it takes the keyboard and the User out of the loop, sending Specific Instructions at a specific rate, and can if needed be looped , you would expect the exact same Specific result every time….

But anyway, onwards to the testing!
So Macro, very simple, as I am not wanting anything aside from the Supposed Result to be the exact same!!!

Key Press 1 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 1 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 2 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 2 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 3 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 3 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 4 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 4 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 5 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 5 up
Wait 634ms
(Note, on the Down – Wait #, this is actually sending MULTIPLE Keystrokes on repeat, or a single on No Repeat, tried various Settings here as well)

IN Word, 1 2 3 4 5, in Notepad 1 2 3 4 5, in Cyberpunk 1 2 3 4 5, in every application I tried, press G1 and the exact thing happened,
Come into Elder Scrolls Online, and NO It did not work!!! But sometimes it did???? It was a variance of between 1 and 11 keypresses of then G1 key to actually get 1 2 3 4 5

Tried varying the Wait from between 50ms to 2999ms , no difference , sometimes it does, other times it will not, it just depends on god only knows what…

So I have now Bought 3 Really Good Keyboards, Not Cheap!! and in comparison and old £8 keyboard that the cat uses As a Scratching post, Worked Just as well.
Therefore, it’s not Just “Key Lag!”, or bad connection as is the normal “Blame” used by everyone, it looks more like the Server Response , the server is Just not seeing the keystrokes coming into it. Or the server Response is set to a specific input to prevent macros like this, or to actually hinder the rotations. Either way its frustrating!!

AND PS, no I am not going to use it in game, as I would have to write one specifically for each of the Toons, with Each of their rotations including specific times and keypresses , which is not logical because you do not know if You are going to kill it before the end of the rotation, or another has killed it first hit, Hard to do for 1 toon , let alone the 17 I use All the time.

But just thought I would put up the observations, and give you peace that IT IS NOT YOU, nor your equipment, its god only knows what!!!

BlackRaidho · August 2

JimFord047 wrote: »

I have over the past while noticed that what I press on the keyboard is not what I get in the game!!! And Initially Blamed ME for not pressing the correct key!

So, A lot of times a person Dies because I did not heal them as the healer, on me! But I am 99.9999% sure I DID, in fact Several Times sometime 10+ Key presses to get 1 working heal. Or I die because i cannot heal myself, or I do not kill something because I did not press the key or pressed the wrong key, and I look down to make sure my finger is on the correct key and pressing it, only to find out I am dead because i did not move!!!

So instead of being a poor workman Blaming his tools, I gave it enough time to be sure, I am Definitely Pressing Keys, they are just not working, So Toughly tested my Corsair K95 Keyboard with Cherry Blue Mechanical keys and it came back as fine, but take no chances, bottle of Isopropanol and cleaned Every Key, and then re lubed them to be sure…. DID NOT HELP, So I blamed the Key Response! And thought I will get a better one for Gaming….

OK Now we are on a Corsair K95 with Cherry Speed Silver Keys, with every trick in the book to make them more responsive, you litterly LOOK AT THIS THING, and it presses keys repeatedly! Makes doing things a pain in the butt, as you brush the key, and it responds… Did Not help!!!!

OK Get with the times!!! Move it all over to a Corsair K100 Keyboard, New Computer Build, now it has to work better!!! NOPE…. Speed test and check the internet, 1Gbps, it’s all fine, OK so it MUST BE ME, between the age, the eyes and the disabilities, things must be coming into End Stage… But wait, I do other things. And I do not have a problem, this is the only problems, on all parts.

Time to get to the bottom of things,

Stand in front of Dummy. Press 12345 and get 1245, or 1345, or 135 or worst 15. Then the same with the next Keyboard, and the next All varying results, Try adding spaces, between the key presses, sometimes it worked other times It will not!
Ok one common factor aside from myself, they are all Corsair Keyboards, this is a plus point, as they all work with ICUE, and in there I can write a macro that will do the keypress at exact times. Now as far as I am aware, the system will “stack” keypresses in cache, it has to or rotations will not work! Especially with mouse presses in between.
The MACRO, was used as it does not rely on the keypress, instead it actually sends the ASCII Code response of the key being pressed, Aside from the G1 key, it takes the keyboard and the User out of the loop, sending Specific Instructions at a specific rate, and can if needed be looped , you would expect the exact same Specific result every time….

But anyway, onwards to the testing!
So Macro, very simple, as I am not wanting anything aside from the Supposed Result to be the exact same!!!

Key Press 1 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 1 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 2 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 2 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 3 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 3 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 4 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 4 up
Wait 634ms
Key Press 5 Down
Wait 634ms
Key Press 5 up
Wait 634ms
(Note, on the Down – Wait #, this is actually sending MULTIPLE Keystrokes on repeat, or a single on No Repeat, tried various Settings here as well)

IN Word, 1 2 3 4 5, in Notepad 1 2 3 4 5, in Cyberpunk 1 2 3 4 5, in every application I tried, press G1 and the exact thing happened,
Come into Elder Scrolls Online, and NO It did not work!!! But sometimes it did???? It was a variance of between 1 and 11 keypresses of then G1 key to actually get 1 2 3 4 5

Tried varying the Wait from between 50ms to 2999ms , no difference , sometimes it does, other times it will not, it just depends on god only knows what…

So I have now Bought 3 Really Good Keyboards, Not Cheap!! and in comparison and old £8 keyboard that the cat uses As a Scratching post, Worked Just as well.
Therefore, it’s not Just “Key Lag!”, or bad connection as is the normal “Blame” used by everyone, it looks more like the Server Response , the server is Just not seeing the keystrokes coming into it. Or the server Response is set to a specific input to prevent macros like this, or to actually hinder the rotations. Either way its frustrating!!

AND PS, no I am not going to use it in game, as I would have to write one specifically for each of the Toons, with Each of their rotations including specific times and keypresses , which is not logical because you do not know if You are going to kill it before the end of the rotation, or another has killed it first hit, Hard to do for 1 toon , let alone the 17 I use All the time.

But just thought I would put up the observations, and give you peace that IT IS NOT YOU, nor your equipment, its god only knows what!!!

Every PVP player know that, server response is terrible and sometimes, easy task didnt work as intented, like... Break free for example.

Sluggy · August 2

Like BlackRaidho says above: This is pretty common stuff for some of us. I can often find myself going five or so seconds at a time at random points in a fight with half of my skills, ultimates, and potion not able to be used at all. Usually, the more that is happening the more likely it is that certain skills simply won't work. But lately it has seemed more obvious. Like even when wandering around in overland I can often find days where one out of every five or six actions simply never register.

Tenthirty2 · August 2

Forget other players, latency is your biggest enemy in Cyro.

I've gotten in the habit of rapid mashing the use potion button in combat and usually after 5-6 presses it will actually consume the potion. As others said this applies to skills and nearly everything you do in Cyro.

Except keep doors, rapid mash on those and you get sucked into a loop of going in > going out > going in > going out > going in > going out...

It's really a shame because I've gotten to experience brief moments sometimes where the latency, for whatever reason, is super low and the experience is night and day.

If only it could stay that way, or even just consistently one way or the other.

BlackRaidho · August 2

Sluggy wrote: »

Like BlackRaidho says above: This is pretty common stuff for some of us. I can often find myself going five or so seconds at a time at random points in a fight with half of my skills, ultimates, and potion not able to be used at all. Usually, the more that is happening the more likely it is that certain skills simply won't work. But lately it has seemed more obvious. Like even when wandering around in overland I can often find days where one out of every five or six actions simply never register.

Bar swap... My god... I use charge and need to swapbar, 70% of the time it wont work.

Calastir · August 2

50% of the time my keys don't respond and the other 50% of the time I'm getting stunned and insta-killed.

BlackRaidho · August 2

Calastir wrote: »

50% of the time my keys don't respond and the other 50% of the time I'm getting stunned and insta-killed.

True state of of PVP experience.

katanagirl1 · August 2

Yeah, something has been wrong with keypresses not registering for a long time, you can look at your skill bar and see the button get depressed right on the UI and nothing.

Sluggy · August 2

Tenthirty2 wrote: »

It's really a shame because I've gotten to experience brief moments sometimes where the latency, for whatever reason, is super low and the experience is night and day.

That effect has been mentioned by others for years and is actually a known thing. We like to call it 'The Magic Connection'. And when you get it suddenly you can bump from from mid-tier to sweaty 1vXer just like that.

JimFord047 · August 2

lmao, i WAS ONLY IN THE HOUSE.... DO NOT LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO TEST IN CYRODIL LMAO

reazea · August 2

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Yeah, something has been wrong with keypresses not registering for a long time, you can look at your skill bar and see the button get depressed right on the UI and nothing.

This. You push the button. You see the box for the skill you're pressing blinking at you, but the skill never fires off. Then you can't bar swap, then the bar swaps at the wrong time and you end up using the wrong skills. It just never ends if you're in Cyrodiil, and it's not so great in vet trials either. And if we're lucky, this is all we have to deal with because at least we haven't been disconnected.

Chaos_Demon_69 · August 2

I feel you.

I didn't dole out $200 on an optical gaming keyboard, to have all my games respond beautifully, except for the one I spent the most time on

Literally every other game works fine. Heck, even Starfield didn't lag like this and that barely worked at all!!!!!

It honestly puts me off this game so much....And it's only been in the last year or so it's gotten so fricken bad.

FIX IT.

Tsuriel · August 2

Quite amusing (not really) when you do proceed to try other games whose server response are far superior and sensitive to ESO's. It was quite an issue when I used to be active in Guild Wars 2, skills even queued up on that side compared to ESO.

EdjeSwift · August 2

JimFord047 wrote: »

IN Word, 1 2 3 4 5, in Notepad 1 2 3 4 5, in Cyberpunk 1 2 3 4 5, in every application I tried, press G1 and the exact thing happened,
Come into Elder Scrolls Online, and NO It did not work!!! But sometimes it did???? It was a variance of between 1 and 11 keypresses of then G1 key to actually get 1 2 3 4 5

It's almost like sending data over the internet and have it processed by a remote server and then bounced back is going to possibly have issues vs a closed system like on a PC.

ghastley · August 2

The answer is simple: you just need to connect to the server without using the internet. Then it will behave like a single-user game played directly on your PC.

Of course, you will have to plug in directly to the login server, then directly to the character selection server, then directly to the zone server. . .

tsaescishoeshiner · August 2

This is amazing testing lol. I often feel that with ground-targeted abilities (where you pick the area) like Arrow Hail, Winter's Revenge, Boneyard, the skill casts twice despite the button being pressed once. I have my quick-cast setting turned to ON always, so that I only have to hit this button once to cast the ability, not one time to aim and then a second to select the area.

Did your testing find anything incorrect about ground-targeted abilities casting twice?

I would bet ping matters more than your internet speed. That could also be tested by seeing if your ping is vastly different on NA, EU, and PTS, and trying it out there.

Anyway, good finds.

JimFord047 · August 2

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

This is amazing testing lol. I often feel that with ground-targeted abilities (where you pick the area) like Arrow Hail, Winter's Revenge, Boneyard, the skill casts twice despite the button being pressed once. I have my quick-cast setting turned to ON always, so that I only have to hit this button once to cast the ability, not one time to aim and then a second to select the area.

Did your testing find anything incorrect about ground-targeted abilities casting twice?

I would bet ping matters more than your internet speed. That could also be tested by seeing if your ping is vastly different on NA, EU, and PTS, and trying it out there.

Anyway, good finds.

THE PINGS VARY OVER THE DAY, BEEN TESTING ALL DAY LOL, but there does not seem to be a difference with the key press... unfortunately...

After you said that, i actually put in 2 ground effect things, and they did not play, it either ignored effect, and assumed that it had been overridden, or it did not fire lol... going for the second here... but the Templar ground effect things did on ocassion work, but then they did not, think its back to the miss again.

I still think this is a server sided issue, the only thing that would make sense, as if it were down to a routing issue, or a switch issue, then your more likely to completely drop off rather than still being able to move.

if this was in the good old days, you would probably first increase the (Files=255) (Buffers=255) , but with 64 bit systems, this is not used anymore lol

katanagirl1 · August 3

EdjeSwift wrote: »

JimFord047 wrote: »

IN Word, 1 2 3 4 5, in Notepad 1 2 3 4 5, in Cyberpunk 1 2 3 4 5, in every application I tried, press G1 and the exact thing happened,
Come into Elder Scrolls Online, and NO It did not work!!! But sometimes it did???? It was a variance of between 1 and 11 keypresses of then G1 key to actually get 1 2 3 4 5

It's almost like sending data over the internet and have it processed by a remote server and then bounced back is going to possibly have issues vs a closed system like on a PC.

I think this is essentially why the Cyrodiil problems won’t get fixed. When ZOS does testing they have a dedicated server and a direct plug in to it with no internet.

Was that what you were saying, with some sarcasm?

EdjeSwift · August 3

katanagirl1 wrote: »

EdjeSwift wrote: »

JimFord047 wrote: »

IN Word, 1 2 3 4 5, in Notepad 1 2 3 4 5, in Cyberpunk 1 2 3 4 5, in every application I tried, press G1 and the exact thing happened,
Come into Elder Scrolls Online, and NO It did not work!!! But sometimes it did???? It was a variance of between 1 and 11 keypresses of then G1 key to actually get 1 2 3 4 5

It's almost like sending data over the internet and have it processed by a remote server and then bounced back is going to possibly have issues vs a closed system like on a PC.

I think this is essentially why the Cyrodiil problems won’t get fixed. When ZOS does testing they have a dedicated server and a direct plug in to it with no internet.

Was that what you were saying, with some sarcasm?

Not just that, they probably run a purely vanilla client with maybe some ZoS made tools. It's possibly why they say "disable add-ons" as a solution, cause from their testing, everything is fine.

ShadowGendalf · August 3

Damn, this data is terrible. But yes, when I'm restrained, it takes me 2-3 seconds to break free while my opponents get up immediately. Damn, that's not fair! There's no equality! We live in a world where distance from the server and the quality of the hardware matters. I feel like I'm being cheated and where's the equality in that?

Elsonso · August 3

ESO has had problems with Attention Deficit for years.

I have heard it suggested that ESO using UDP internet packets means data can be lost in transit across the internet, but I just think the servers get dis … oooh, donuts!

JimFord047 · August 3

Elsonso wrote: »

ESO has had problems with Attention Deficit for years.

I have heard it suggested that ESO using UDP internet packets means data can be lost in transit across the internet, but I just think the servers get dis … oooh, donuts!

UDP is the most common Protocol for gaming, and comms, it is pretty bad at the best of times as its simply a data stream, with No verification. Simply put on a server farm that's clustered the server you start on may switch several times , since there is no packet flow control or verification, then the data may arrive on different servers at different times and out of order.

Hence the Multiple hit "2" 6 times to get it once then after its all over you may get another 4 "2's" out of nowhere. A better protocol to use would be TCP which has a start signal and an end signal, and can also have a verification CRC, downsides to this are larger data packets (more Comms Cost), lockups until the end transmit is verified, there is nothing that will truly solve the problem !

you Could, run it over a VPN, then there would be a reduced X-Talk, and packets would carry verification, but you traffic would increase and the response would technically be worse with the additional processing time introducing LAG

or

You could lock the traffic down to Specific UPD Ports and Lanes which though would improve connection, now you going to bottleneck certain ports due to traffic.

This is not a FIX problem , but more of a manage Problem, it cannot be fixed! but increasing the server numbers and/or connections would improve the responses, down side there, is server replications / cluster swapping / Load balancing which All will contribute to traffic, and bottom of the pile are the UDP transmissions, so your still ferked.

TCP is better, but you need software changes, as well as Server Changes and as said, your technically going to be slower... I am all for this one, I would prefer Guaranteed responses a few milliseconds slower , than hitting a key 10 times for nothing to happen

JimFord047 · August 3

AS a SaVE for ESO....

the ports may be restricted at Your end on the Router, or in Windows Firewall.

If you check Bethesda have always been open about the ports, and suggest that you open the outbound ports in the router and firewall.

you could try it

All Platforms
TCP / UDP Ports 24100 through 24131
TCP / UDP Ports 24500 through 24507
TCP / UDP Ports 24300 through 24331
TCP Port 80
TCP Port 433

Steam
TCP / UDP Ports 27000 through 27015
TCP / UDP Ports 27015 through 27030
TCP / UDP Ports 27014 through 27050
TCP / UDP Ports 27031 through 27036
TCP / UDP Ports 27036 through 27037
TCP / UDP Ports 4380

In addition to the above, some more-specific ports are required for consoles.

Xbox Ports
UDP Port 88
UDP Port 5060
UDP Port 5062
UDP Port 6250
UDP Port 3478 through 3479
UDP Ports 12000 through 32000
UDP and TCP Port 53
UDP and TCP Port 3074
TCP Port 80
TCP Port 433

PlayStation Ports
TCP Ports 10040 through 10060
UDP Ports 50000 through 60000
UDP Ports 12000 through 32000
UDP Port 6250
UDP Port 5060
UDP Port 5062
UDP Port 3478 through 3479
TCP Port 80
TCP Port 433

might help, might not, its a try it and see situation

twev · August 3

Agreed.
It's been documented on video.
Fengrush and many other Twitch streamers have been calling this out for years.

It's just another issue that hasn't been fixed, and drives knowledgeable vet players away from the game.