Loss of sound when large battle happens in Cyro

natefiaccob14_ESO · October 2017

Lately sound has been dropping when a large battle is happening in Cyro. On Vivec server everyone is complaining about it. Is this just a bug?

Kaeriz · October 2017

At this point, it's a feature.

HoloYoitsu · October 2017

This has got to be like the 3rd of 4th time this exact bug has been brought back over the last few years. At this point I think ZOS should get an achievement or something.

Reverb · October 2017

Doesn't even have to be a large battle, any skirmish will do. Actually, it doesn't have to be combat, several times recently sound cuts out when an enemy group gets close to a keep. It's like an early warning system

pzschrek · October 2017

I'm guessing they lowered the threshold at which sound disappears to try and improve performance, it happens with a lot fewer people fighting than it did before.

During that epic 3-faction fight at chal on Vivec last night I think we fought without sound for like an hour.

Asardes · October 2017

It simulates shell-shock. Or Coldharbour Ballista shock

natefiaccob14_ESO · October 2017

pzschrek wrote: »

I'm guessing they lowered the threshold at which sound disappears to try and improve performance, it happens with a lot fewer people fighting than it did before.

During that epic 3-faction fight at chal on Vivec last night I think we fought without sound for like an hour.

Yea I was there lol. It was def about an hour without sound. It sucked.

Lucky28 · October 2017

heard using the 64-bit launcher fixes it.

Morgul667 · October 2017

Happens to me too in big fights, before and after CWC

NBrookus · October 2017

Lucky28 wrote: »

heard using the 64-bit launcher fixes it.

I use the 64bit launcher. Doesn't fix it. One bar across in Shor tonight and had a lot of fights without sound. And everyone had no sound/sound return at the same time, so it's not a client side issue.

It seems to be getting worse.

Sarousse · October 2017

I really hope it'll be fixed in today's patch.

We're loosing sound even in medium scale battles...

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

Can we have some input on the date for this fix ?

Thanks.

Feanor · October 2017

Combat cues always work like a charm, right @DDuke ?

NaysaSimone · October 2017

working as intended

Zer0oo · October 2017

It is the game telling you to stop playing it.

Delimber · October 2017

I don't feel so bad about not pvp'ing the last few weeks lol

Berenhir · October 2017

Our team finally managed to crown the second EP emp on PC EU Vivec last night after 8 hours of creepy and permanent silence. We had occasional sound effects though, like once every hour for 5 seconds.

Sarousse · October 2017

Nothing about this in today's patch notes.

It's so sad.

Could we get at least an official answer on this problem ?

Cernow · October 2017

This has been happening for a long time now. Some patches it gets better, some patches it gets worse. A lot of things to do with PvP have got worse with the CWC patch, this included.

The 64-bit client does not fix it. Isn't everybody using 64-bit client by default now anyway, the 32-bit client is being sidelined soon.

Seems to happen the most often for me when the zerg surges into a confined space, like inside a keep. I guess the amount of sound effects overwhelms something and it just cuts out into a rather spooky silence. Sometimes the sound returns of its own accord when the battle calms down, sometimes it doesn't without a relog.

Agrippa_Invisus · October 2017

I can confirm that this has been happening more and more lately. It used to be reserved for laggy keep fights, but now I get it in the open field constantly.

It's also disorienting as hell. Humans rely very heavily on audio cues for things in life and that translates in game.

dennissomb16_ESO · October 2017

I used to get the sound loss bug only in the very largest of fights. Now it can happen at any time there is more then 10 players total in an area

Reverb · October 2017

Zeni hasn't acknowledged that they're aware this is a big problem again. Are we allowed to call that out, or is that the kind of communication expectation that makes the community "negative and toxic"?

ZOS_CaseyCoffman · October 2017

Hey folks,

I have a few questions for those of you experiencing this problem:

1) Roughly how many combatants are in the fight when you experience this? 5? 10? 50? 100?
2) In which areas do you experience this problem? Just in keeps, resource points, or bridge choke points? Or anywhere there seem to be enough people fighting?
3) What other performance issues do you note occurring, if any, while this happens? IE does the game also lag, do you notice any missing visual effects, etc?
4) After leaving combat does your audio return to normal? If not, what sounds seem to not return as you would expect?

Sotha_Sil · October 2017

My guildies have reported that issue in PVE raids as well.

Arthg · October 2017

ZOS_CaseyCoffman wrote: »

Hey folks,

I have a few questions for those of you experiencing this problem:

1) Roughly how many combatants are in the fight when you experience this? 5? 10? 50? 100?
2) In which areas do you experience this problem? Just in keeps, resource points, or bridge choke points? Or anywhere there seem to be enough people fighting?
3) What other performance issues do you note occurring, if any, while this happens? IE does the game also lag, do you notice any missing visual effects, etc?
4) After leaving combat does your audio return to normal? If not, what sounds seem to not return as you would expect?

Thanks for popping in.
From my experience on PC/EU Sotha Sil (windows 7, nVidia GTX680m with latest drivers) :

1) 20+, sometimes just against mobs in keeps, and no enemy players around.
2) Anywhere, as long as there are a lot of fighting people around.
3) No other issues apart from sound loss.
4) Sometimes just taking a few steps away from the fight gradually brings the sound back. It sort of fades back in.

Darethran · October 2017

I suspect the issue is simple; the maximum "voices" for the sound processing code is being exceeded. The typical range in games is a limit between 32-128 individual sounds being processed. If the number of individual sounds exceeds that, your typical game would have some sounds simply not be processed.

Now, I've only seen that behaviour in games that use DirectSound, as Creative's Alchemy software allows you to modify the maximum number of concurrent sounds. But I wouldn't be surprised if there's some hard cap in the sound processing for ESO.

The sound bug often occurs in sieges between two max groups, with AOE spells and siege being in abundance. When the bug occurs, first the music and sounds not played by your character are cut. If the fight begins to drag on for more than a couple minutes, sound may very well cut out entirely until one of the groups wipe (i.e, combat ends).

I've experienced this issue primarily in keeps that have their outer wall demolished, as that's when the two groups get into close quarters; footstep sounds, skill sound effects, and character grunts in abundance.

Also experienced this in max group combat at the gates near the elder scroll temples.

This issue can also occur outside of Cyrodiil, such as at dolmens with two groups farming the same one. Again, I suspect it's due to there being too many players in the same vicinity, each of them playing footstep sounds, grunts, and skill sound effects.

Out of curiosity, how parallelized is the sound processing code in ESO's client? Sound processing is one of the things that naturally lends itself to multithreading, evidenced by any DAW (Cubase, Studio One, Reaper, etc.) worth it's salt. If the client is cutting out the sound in order to stop a single core from being overwhelmed, the solution is to parallelize the sound processing.

BohnT · October 2017

ZOS_CaseyCoffman wrote: »

Hey folks,

I have a few questions for those of you experiencing this problem:

1) Roughly how many combatants are in the fight when you experience this? 5? 10? 50? 100?
2) In which areas do you experience this problem? Just in keeps, resource points, or bridge choke points? Or anywhere there seem to be enough people fighting?
3) What other performance issues do you note occurring, if any, while this happens? IE does the game also lag, do you notice any missing visual effects, etc?
4) After leaving combat does your audio return to normal? If not, what sounds seem to not return as you would expect?

1) Everything above 6 Players fighting kills Sound on PC EU completely sometimes even without any enemies around you don't have any sound.

2) It doesn't matter where you are there is no restriction i experienced it in keeps, resource Points, choke Points and open field.

3) The game lags much more since the update launched in PvP. The FPS varies between 60-100 even in big fights but the lag is horrible 999+ is nothing Special (when Morrowind dropped I haven't had that for 3 months, it came back when HotR launched but only when 2 destro zergs were fighting on the map.
Since CWC the lag is always above 200, before that my latency was between 30-60 when 25 non-organised Players fight each other (non organized means, no coordinated ultimate usage etc.).

With the current lag you can't use Meele skills, the Server notices the skill, you see the Animation, lose resources but no dmg is dealt and your char just starts shivering and Fails to complete the attack.

On the other side dmg seems to be stored for 3 seconds and then released in 1 burst killing you with no time to react.
You see that damage is dealt to you both with addons and the ingame notifications but your health doesn't decrease but after 3-5 seconds your health Drops rapidly even if you healed all the time.

My combat text said i healed for 30k over 7 seconds, the damage that was dealt to me was only 26k over the same Duration but i still died instantly going down from 100% to 0% health in .1 seconds.
I healed with: vigor, Rally, and templar ritual meaning i got the heals all the time during the fight it wasn't burst heal. The damage was dealt by poison injection, burining embers, burning Talon/ burning Talon dot, and suprise attack. The highest I've been hit for was 5k suprise attack making it impossible that my enemies bursted be down.

4) The Sound doesn't come back after leaving combat, it doesn't even return when you respawn in the main base reliably.
Sometimes it perfectly Returns after fights but then it doesn't come back after 10 minutes.
Also there is no consistency which Sound effects return or not.

This was the same through all classes and all time of the day from 1 bar each faction to Pop locked. Although it wasn't the same for everyone in the same area. Played with 2 friends and it was different for all of us, sometimes only 1 had no Sound, the no one had Sound and it returned only for one of us after leaving combat

Agrippa_Invisus · October 2017

ZOS_CaseyCoffman wrote: »

Hey folks,

I have a few questions for those of you experiencing this problem:

1) Roughly how many combatants are in the fight when you experience this? 5? 10? 50? 100?
2) In which areas do you experience this problem? Just in keeps, resource points, or bridge choke points? Or anywhere there seem to be enough people fighting?
3) What other performance issues do you note occurring, if any, while this happens? IE does the game also lag, do you notice any missing visual effects, etc?
4) After leaving combat does your audio return to normal? If not, what sounds seem to not return as you would expect?

1) At least 10+, usually 20+.
2) Anywhere that the requisite number of players is reached. I've seen sound cut out just as an enemy was arriving without yet initiating combat, or only initiating combat with NPCs (in this example, it was a large force of enemy players hitting guards at a keep, no friendly players yet engaging them).
3) Most commonly it's FPS performance reduction combined with the sound drops. Skill delay and lag occurs at times, too.
4) Typically for me as soon as enough of my enemies die or I respawn elsewhere the sound returns within a minute or two.

As an aside, it's super disorienting to hear /nothing/ at all. Combat sounds typically cut out first. The battle music will last a little longer, but it too will cut out when the load is heavy enough.

Yngol · October 2017

ZOS_CaseyCoffman wrote: »

Hey folks,

I have a few questions for those of you experiencing this problem:

1) Roughly how many combatants are in the fight when you experience this? 5? 10? 50? 100?
2) In which areas do you experience this problem? Just in keeps, resource points, or bridge choke points? Or anywhere there seem to be enough people fighting?
3) What other performance issues do you note occurring, if any, while this happens? IE does the game also lag, do you notice any missing visual effects, etc?
4) After leaving combat does your audio return to normal? If not, what sounds seem to not return as you would expect?

Anywhere from 10 onwards.... also, this happens in trials now, as well. Like ALL THE TIME

Zaldan · October 2017

ZOS_CaseyCoffman wrote: »

Hey folks,

I have a few questions for those of you experiencing this problem:

1) Roughly how many combatants are in the fight when you experience this? 5? 10? 50? 100?
2) In which areas do you experience this problem? Just in keeps, resource points, or bridge choke points? Or anywhere there seem to be enough people fighting?
3) What other performance issues do you note occurring, if any, while this happens? IE does the game also lag, do you notice any missing visual effects, etc?
4) After leaving combat does your audio return to normal? If not, what sounds seem to not return as you would expect?

1.10+
2.all areas with enough people
3.everything can be fine (well as fine as it gets in lagodiil) sound always goes first
4.don't even need to leave combat, sound will come back as soon as enough players die

Tyvarra · October 2017

That can't be right. ZOS improved performance, there are no issues!

Jokes aside. Gina said there will be campaigne adjustments when update 16 goes live. No informations about that until today but many many many new bugs.

No sound is the most annoying. But seriously ZOS do something about the population imbalance. On Vivec EP is always low and on Sotha its AD and DC while EP is locked (speaking for EU). Its no fun for either party. We are complaining about this for years. DO SOMETHING FFS before all long time players leave. Plainly speaking the system is *** at the moment.

Hecker777 · October 2017

ZOS_CaseyCoffman wrote: »

Hey folks,

I have a few questions for those of you experiencing this problem:

1) Roughly how many combatants are in the fight when you experience this? 5? 10? 50? 100?
2) In which areas do you experience this problem? Just in keeps, resource points, or bridge choke points? Or anywhere there seem to be enough people fighting?
3) What other performance issues do you note occurring, if any, while this happens? IE does the game also lag, do you notice any missing visual effects, etc?
4) After leaving combat does your audio return to normal? If not, what sounds seem to not return as you would expect?

1) Between 10-20 ESPECIALLY when all 3 factions converge.
2) Anywhere enough people congregate but most inside the outer wall but outside the inner of keeps
3)Everything lags in cyro when you get more then 10 people in a fight so It's hard to know what's related.
4)The first thing that returns are sound effects from siege and the environment, then abilities, then music and ambient noise in that order.