Lag has killed my desire to play

[janave]

Sorry not trying to pad my post count, but i felt like this one deserves a separate one.



How many times players have to go thru multiple public areas, that needs a full load in, just to zip from A->B->C, ONLY to reach a quest entrance?


Shadow Walk! One of those misfit spell effects that seems to be largely ignored during general gameplay, it is part the debilitating noise it makes and also because it is mostly a lesser effect to invis and displacement and haste.

New Function: Shadow Walk enables a player to pass through a public instance without loading in i) other players, ii) interactable objects, like mailboxes, auctions... of course using doors/entrances to other public areas has to maintain the spell on the player. i*) could be modified to include the players we are in a party with.

Could add an Airship NPC to the main deck where we can buy a 5-6 minute Shadow Walk cast, for some platinum, price should be allow most players to buy in easily, but also function as a long term plat sink. Casters and UMD players can of course keep casting the spell. Consider also selling a BtA clicky with 2 uses of Shadow Walk/ rest.

[myliftkk_v2]

Shadow Walk! One of those misfit spell effects that seems to be largely ignored during general gameplay, it is part the debilitating noise it makes and also because it is mostly a lesser effect to invis and displacement and haste.

Why SW isn't cast has nothing to do with noise or effects, but the shunting back to non-SW state when attacking/interacting. Also, many players never understood how to use it when it was very useful.

My pure healer healed tons of raids while under the SW effect the entire raid, as healing spells don't break it. When raid healing was a thing that is.

[myliftkk_v2]

Quick Question.
If Reaper Trees were found to be the primary cause of the lag and the only way to fix the lag was to abolish the entire Reaper system.

This suggestion doesn't make any sense. The net effect of a reaper tree only needs to be calculated one time, upon quest entry, and re-calced upon exit (one can't change it in quest). The actual machine time required to do this is so trivial it's not worth mentioning and whatever net processing change to calc and apply those values would be easily done during quest/public transitions, not causing any lag within a quest.

How do we know this isn't the problem? Look at the supposed lag fixes they attempted to implement, "we found multiple instances where the same buffs were attempted to be applied 'endlessly' (my phrasing, they said, 'many, many, many times') instead of just being applied once". As I've pointed out before, they have a problem with looping constructs and/or state machines. It's the equivalent of someone infinitely trying to hand a new copy of something to another person after they've already given it to them the first time and there's no justification to do so a second time, but the giver has no memory of ever having attempted it before, and no evaluation skills to say, hey, why am I doing this again?

The problem isn't reaper trees. It's how they technically botched the things they did build to the point they've got the machine doing things that have no logical development justification other than they they are bad at development. That's an important distinction.

In discussions they've mentioned that effect processing is a problem. Is it a problem because they are already highly efficient processing effects and there are simply too many to process now, or are they simply very bad at effect processing and don't understand how to efficiently process effects they do have and their incompetence finally outstripped the hardware's ability to save their behinds?

[Knightrose]

It's been said but begs repeating: SSG is not focusing on the game and its problems they are focusing on adding content that encourages store purchases. I hate to see a player quit over the lag but I as well am finding it a complete drag. It kills the desire to play. That coupled with horrendous customer service and a complete lack of attention from the company to fix bugs that have been around for years is just exhausting. It certainly doesn't deserve my continued monetary support. It really is a clear and negative message to the customer when the company will hotfix any bug that effects the in-game store overnight - BUT - will completely ignore other bugs that could also be fixed over the course of YEARS. It really feels like DDO is a backburning investment for some suits rather than a worthwhile endeavor produced and developed by passionate entrepreneurs.

[Jaxtan]

It's been said but begs repeating: SSG is not focusing on the game and its problems they are focusing on adding content that encourages store purchases. I hate to see a player quit over the lag but I as well am finding it a complete drag. It kills the desire to play. That coupled with horrendous customer service and a complete lack of attention from the company to fix bugs that have been around for years is just exhausting. It certainly doesn't deserve my continued monetary support. It really is a clear and negative message to the customer when the company will hotfix any bug that effects the in-game store overnight - BUT - will completely ignore other bugs that could also be fixed over the course of YEARS. It really feels like DDO is a backburning investment for some suits rather than a worthwhile endeavor produced and developed by passionate entrepreneurs.

It is starting to feel like DDO and Lotro are getting harvested, like the old workhorse that just can't pull the plow effectively anymore. It's ailments can't be cured and cloning is too expensive, so squeeze any last benefit out of it without further expense. Does that truck pulling up out front say something about glue on it?

[mikarddo]

Another raid night turned sour by stutterring through fights in VoD and LoB including a few longer full freezes - with some lag in MA and THTH. A few people logged off early because its just not fun with that much lag even if we win - everyone having a lot less fun than intended.

Taking literally 8 seconds to call a healing wall at some points makes for a .... reason to not play DDO. And that wasnt the worst moments tonight.

[dennisck2]

I think that someone at SSG is watching this thread and paying attention. I just worry about how much. This is the biggest deal breaker in the game, and not just for vets. It's more important than all of the other things mentioned in the OP. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is more important than fixing the lag in this game. I really hope it gets moved to the front of the line for things to work on for SSG. We (many of us, and I think most) don't care about anything extra. Keep the events/new raids/cosmetics/level cap increases/anything else you have planned to yourself until you take care of the lag. Please.

And as I always say, the only reason I'm so passionate about this is because I love this game. Please don't push us away from it.

[mikarddo]

Yesterday, not very long after the server downtime.

Ran 5 raids - THTH, PN, VoD (usually lots of lag in this one), MA and LoB.
Very, very little lag. It was an actually enjoyable experience, something I havent had in that many raids in a row in a long time.

I dare say this shows that its not the "standard play code" that is the issue but either something that accumulates like a memery leak or some specific action that bugs the server down.

Now, if SSG could bring the servers down and up again in say 15 mins I would suggest 3 such downtimes every week to make the game enjoyable more often than is now the case.

[myliftkk_v2]

Yesterday, not very long after the server downtime.

Ran 5 raids - THTH, PN, VoD (usually lots of lag in this one), MA and LoB.
Very, very little lag. It was an actually enjoyable experience, something I havent had in that many raids in a row in a long time.

I dare say this shows that its not the "standard play code" that is the issue but either something that accumulates like a memery leak or some specific action that bugs the server down.

Now, if SSG could bring the servers down and up again in say 15 mins I would suggest 3 such downtimes every week to make the game enjoyable more often than is now the case.

Actually, no one knows if the server downtime is related to resources, or just less players on the server in the near term period after downtime (or cleaned up and closed connections of afk players (we know some players leave their connections up extremely long periods of time due to the in game support catastrophe).

It wouldn't surprise me that many players who encounter a down time simply don't come back until much later. When one opens and closes a business with very little public warnings, there's usually a similar drop in traffic as customers get confused about accessibility and eventually stop giving a **** enough to care.

If the answer to "why is there less lag immediately after downtime" is "less players", then nothing has been solved at all by restarts, you're just playing on an empty box (it's possible that the player audit could assist in answering this question).

[mikarddo]

Actually, no one knows if the server downtime is related to resources, or just less players on the server in the near term period after downtime (or cleaned up and closed connections of afk players (we know some players leave their connections up extremely long periods of time due to the in game support catastrophe).

It wouldn't surprise me that many players who encounter a down time simply don't come back until much later. When one opens and closes a business with very little public warnings, there's usually a similar drop in traffic as customers get confused about accessibility and eventually stop giving a **** enough to care.

If the answer to "why is there less lag immediately after downtime" is "less players", then nothing has been solved at all by restarts, you're just playing on an empty box (it's possible that the player audit could assist in answering this question).

If the "afks" degrade performance in such a matter then forcing logouts regularly would be a decent option. Staying online for hours or days despite being afk is not worth supporting. That is iIgnoring any CS issues.

[myliftkk_v2]

If the "afks" degrade performance in such a matter then forcing logouts regularly would be a decent option. Staying online for hours or days despite being afk is not worth supporting. That is iIgnoring any CS issues.

The easiest way resolve that is an "are you here" check, that auto-exits upon a dispositive response.

Now is it truly AFKs that degrade performance, or does the current average player load, given all the machine is asked to do, just outstrip the capabilities of the current hardware stack and codebase. If that's the case, having less players during a period will show an improvement in performance. We kind of know they're at that inflection point anyhow since the number of players has slid downwards over the last decade, although more or less stablized in recent years, while the amount of "features", most poorly coded, have gone up and up.

[superevbully]

The easiest way resolve that is an "are you here" check, that auto-exits upon a dispositive response.

Now is it truly AFKs that degrade performance, or does the current average player load, given all the machine is asked to do, just outstrip the capabilities of the current hardware stack and codebase. If that's the case, having less players during a period will show an improvement in performance. We kind of know they're at that inflection point anyhow since the number of players has slid downwards over the last decade, although more or less stablized in recent years, while the amount of "features", most poorly coded, have gone up and up.

Im chiming in after a session filled with spikes freezing and mashing of hotbars over and over again FIX THIS GARBAGE ,,,,,,,,,,,,,load screens too

[kanordog]

We are aware of your reports, and will be continuing to look into things we can do to improve your game experience.

Thanks in advance.

This was two weeks ago, any news?
I'm bored with not being able to log out, rubberbanding, hanging in the air, not registering my hits and the loading screen.

Thank You.

[mikarddo]

Yesterday, not very long after the server downtime.

Ran 5 raids - THTH, PN, VoD (usually lots of lag in this one), MA and LoB.
Very, very little lag. It was an actually enjoyable experience, something I havent had in that many raids in a row in a long time.

I dare say this shows that its not the "standard play code" that is the issue but either something that accumulates like a memery leak or some specific action that bugs the server down.

Now, if SSG could bring the servers down and up again in say 15 mins I would suggest 3 such downtimes every week to make the game enjoyable more often than is now the case.

Tursday evening Euro time - ran 5 raids. Worse than Wednesday. Some minor lag, a few slightly longer lags spikes in particular in VoD. Also noticeable "loot lag" which we had very little of Wednesday.

Wednesday we ran at 5-8 pm CET. Thursday we ran at 2-4 pm CET.

[mikarddo]

Another raid night - while not unplayable it was nowhere near as fun as playing without lag. Lots of very noticeable lag throughout 4 raids.

Patience is growing thin on the ground I am unhappy to have to report.

[TitusOvid]

Made a thrower. BIG mistake. Any bonus that needs to hit to be activated like rapid throw doesn't work half of the time. Not fun.

Titus.

[dennisck2]

Guild ran THTH normal this morning. It was a miracle we completed. 30 second lag spikes. In a raid, especially a raid like this, this is unacceptable. As AirborneRangers said earlier in this thread, I would love to see the devs complete this raid on any normal server. I would love to just see them attempt it. Maybe then they will know 100% what we are talking about.

[Sam1313]

Lag was severe this morning between 6am and 8am. I don't know about after 8 as I logged out in frustration after wiping a Raid that I was 3 manning with other guild members.

[dennisck2]

Now I can't even finish out of quests. Fix your garbage. It's getting really old.

[mikarddo]

Another raid night turned ... less fun .. due to lag.

THTH - completely lagged out.
THTH again - some lag, a few major spikes, but we won
LoB - most of the time a 2 second delay on spells landing. Some rubberbanding. We won but called it a night as it just wasnt fun.

The guys I run with a logging in less and having less fun when they do. This is not at all tolerable.

If you cannot fix the root then take the servers down 2 or even 3 times a week so we atleast get a little time of reasonably non-laggy play!