Flaws in the DDO Testing/QA for Raid Instances

[maddmatt70]

The raid quests and raid explorer areas are excellent and very fun this update, but there is a significant issue with their design and testing and that is the immense lag outs that occur on every run. In the raid instance for both new raids and the explorer I and the entire raid group have experienced crippling lag which has rendered the game unplayable for the entire raid group and led to party wipes. I have experienced this on both raids and the raid instance. All of these lag wipes appear to be related to monster spawns i.e. when a lot of monsters spawns a lag wipe can result. Every single raid or time that I have went in the raid instance this update with a full raid party a lag wipe has occurred at some moment or another during the run.

These update was not ready for release and should have been pushed back until the monster spawn issue is resolved. I blame Management/QA and to a lesser extent the developers for this. There should be more load/bandwith/etc. type testing on Lammania prior to releasing an update. I could feel the frustration in the entire raid party when we party wiped due to lag in the shadow dragon raid and the GM could/would not help us by rezzing the party or etc. At least the other raid allows us to re-enter if there is a party wipe due to lag.

[MadCookieQueen]

I agree the spawn induced lag is really annoying. Wheloon Prison anyone?

I get it...it's supposed to be end game. It's supposed to be "OMG This is Uber and Hard!"

However that shouldn't mean the only way to give us a challenge and really put our skills to the test is to simply...

Spawn. More. Mobs.

Why do we need 20 skeletons each with 12,00hp* when we could deal with 5 that have 50,000hp and negative energy burst for pure annoyance**. The fight would still be hard but without crippling my system.


*number made up
**this is not gospel...this is just an example


I'm sure the peeps at Turbine looked at this as feedback on LaLa Land but by the time the numbers started crunching it might have been too late to go back through and change it all and still meet their aggressive goals for this year.

Hopefully in another patch or update they can find a good balance that isn't going to cripple people with lag and still make the game challenging.


Soooo...who wants to hold their breath with me? ^^

[rest]

The raid quests and raid explorer areas are excellent and very fun this update, but there is a significant issue with their design and testing and that is the immense lag outs that occur on every run. In the raid instance for both new raids and the explorer I and the entire raid group have experienced crippling lag which has rendered the game unplayable for the entire raid group and led to party wipes. I have experienced this on both raids and the raid instance. All of these lag wipes appear to be related to monster spawns i.e. when a lot of monsters spawns a lag wipe can result. Every single raid or time that I have went in the raid instance this update with a full raid party a lag wipe has occurred at some moment or another during the run.

These update was not ready for release and should have been pushed back until the monster spawn issue is resolved. I blame Management/QA and to a lesser extent the developers for this. There should be more load/bandwith/etc. type testing on Lammania prior to releasing an update. I could feel the frustration in the entire raid party when we party wiped due to lag in the shadow dragon raid and the GM could/would not help us by rezzing the party or etc. At least the other raid allows us to re-enter if there is a party wipe due to lag.

If there were more people to test on their preview server, maybe some of this could have been seen. Fix character copy!!

Also, if they would actually listen to people when they report broken stuff, that might help too. And changing stuff after the close the preview server and before the stuff comes to the live servers without testing seems like a bad idea.

[arkonas]

i agree. they even need to separate the mobs more in the slayer. that are way too close together. i wouldnt mind so much the large groups but with 3 of them right there that is normally an orange alert. i agree i would rather have mobs with 15k hp then 30+ mobs

[JamnJD]

What worries me is that I believe that this is an old problem. One that has existed and has possibly been ignored for some time. I say possibly because maybe it has been looked at in the past and is not fixable.

For those sensitive to terms, this is not lag. It's a performance related issue. In older and similar threads on this problem, there was nothing but just silence from the devs/community reps. And so I'm worried because that silence speaks volumes to me.

<sad face>

But I hope it gets looked at and commented on by the powers that be.

...J

[Chai]

They have repeatedly explained to us they are aware of the fact that too many active mobs causes/contributes to massive lag. They even created the Dungeon alert system to penalize players for spawning too many active mobs and not killing them. Since then they have also created a sizable number of encounters that spawn quantities of mobs that go straight to DA.

Oh, the irony.

[MadCookieQueen]

It's a performance related issue.


Must...


Resist...


Urge....




to take this straight into the gutter ^^

[Catteras]

Yay, welcome back, Mabar! We missed you...

[JamnJD]

must...


Resist...


Urge....




To take this straight into the gutter ^^


l....ol!..!!!!

.. .j

[Hathorian]

The raid quests and raid explorer areas are excellent and very fun this update, but there is a significant issue with their design and testing and that is the immense lag outs that occur on every run. In the raid instance for both new raids and the explorer I and the entire raid group have experienced crippling lag which has rendered the game unplayable for the entire raid group and led to party wipes. I have experienced this on both raids and the raid instance. All of these lag wipes appear to be related to monster spawns i.e. when a lot of monsters spawns a lag wipe can result. Every single raid or time that I have went in the raid instance this update with a full raid party a lag wipe has occurred at some moment or another during the run.

These update was not ready for release and should have been pushed back until the monster spawn issue is resolved. I blame Management/QA and to a lesser extent the developers for this. There should be more load/bandwith/etc. type testing on Lammania prior to releasing an update. I could feel the frustration in the entire raid party when we party wiped due to lag in the shadow dragon raid and the GM could/would not help us by rezzing the party or etc. At least the other raid allows us to re-enter if there is a party wipe due to lag.

the scaling absolutely terrible for the thunderholme wilderness and it needs to be fixed asap. it is almost impossible to do anything in there with a full raid group because there are 100s and 100s of monsters. as it is now you almost have to flag using very small groups.

[Atremus]

the scaling absolutely terrible for the thunderholme wilderness and it needs to be fixed asap. it is almost impossible to do anything in there with a full raid group because there are 100s and 100s of monsters. as it is now you almost have to flag using very small groups.

Yeah. Less than 3 is perfect in the wilderness. More than that and death from lag is almost certain when you aggro 2 groups of mobs. I feel bad turning people down and it is a crappy solution to fix lag.

In the Shadow raid, that lag is just horrible.

Maybe patch 1 will cut down on spawns and make improvements in the lag. I would love to start putting up LFMs for the wilderness

[Seikojin]

I hope they patch things up to cut the lag down. I myself did not have lag issues during test.

[Yalinaa]

They didn't fix the wheloon lag, and it's there from the start of Shadowfell... I'm not expecting big changes, be uber, and just survive the lagmonster!:)

[JamnJD]

I hope they patch things up to cut the lag down.

I hope so too.

You know what I think would be helpful? If Cordo would order pizzas, round up the devs and engineers, grab their toons and form a raid party at lunchtime and go into the new content. On live. They will see what we're seeing for themselves, maybe come up with some ideas.

You have my permission to expense the pizza Cordo :)

...J

[mutilador]

And the most frustrating part is THIS HAPPENS IN EVERY SINGLE NEW PACK/EXPANSION...

[Seikojin]

I hope so too.

You know what I think would be helpful? If Cordo would order pizzas, round up the devs and engineers, grab their toons and form a raid party at lunchtime and go into the new content. On live. They will see what we're seeing for themselves, maybe come up with some ideas.

You have my permission to expense the pizza Cordo :)

...J

Honestly, that should be a daily activity. It makes professional sense.

[Icywave]

They have repeatedly explained to us they are aware of the fact that too many active mobs causes/contributes to massive lag. They even created the Dungeon alert system to penalize players for spawning too many active mobs and not killing them. Since then they have also created a sizable number of encounters that spawn quantities of mobs that go straight to DA.

Oh, the irony.

Plainly put, their coding sucks hard since it can handle only so little, or their servers are still on some 386 without a math co-processor.

[DogMania]

At least the other raid allows us to re-enter if there is a party wipe due to lag.

Unless they altered it in the patch you can re-enter the shadow dragon raid as I have done it

[maddmatt70]

Unless they altered it in the patch you can re-enter the shadow dragon raid as I have done it

Well true you can re-enter, but you can not re-complete the trap area if you did that so everybody has to complete the mario section again unless you get people killed and pocket soul stones to the shadow dragon fight. What I am getting at is that it is a lot easier to re-enter and get back to where you were at in the thunder montain raid then the shadow raid.

[Atremus]

Oh man the ability to re enter... Doh I wish I had thought of that after my last two lag wipes

[maddmatt70]

Plainly put, their coding sucks hard since it can handle only so little, or their servers are still on some 386 without a math co-processor.

Well this is where the devs should take some flack. Not just the coding, but also the dungeon design. If the servers can not handle it then why are the devs making raid quests with lots of mobs? Obviously fighting mobs is fun, but if the server can not handle it then it can not handle and the devs should make raids with less mobs goes without saying.

[DogMania]

Well true you can re-enter, but you can not re-complete the trap area if you did that so everybody has to complete the mario section again unless you get people killed and pocket soul stones to the shadow dragon fight. What I am getting at is that it is a lot easier to re-enter and get back to where you were at in the thunder montain raid then the shadow raid.
Hum you would be right if you went that way, we did the red/green light room and as all the mobs were already dead in it we had NP,

[maddmatt70]

Hum you would be right if you went that way, we did the red/green light room and as all the mobs were already dead in it we had NP,

You had to do either the mario room or the trap room on the raid I ran. Either or and if you did the trap room you could not re-enter through that way because the lever was already pulled and can not be pulled again.

[danotmano1998]

I have noticed a LOT of lag since the update.

At least a few times in a 2 hour period, I lock up and cannot move for approximately 30 seconds to just over 2 minutes.

This is a new behavior of DDO.
I did not understand where it was coming from until I entered Thunderholme with a couple of guildies. The moment a double spawn hits us, we are unable to move for extended periods of time as above.

If the raids have as many spawns as the explorer area does, it appears quite obvious what the issue is.
As long as the ridiculously large number of spawns continue, I expect the lag to continue.

Turbine, please reconsider the number of monsters in these encounters. With just a bit of scaling, things get out of hand.
It looks from this end like you guys have hit the performance cap of your servers and everyone is suffering from it.
(Yes, I've had many conversations with other folks in various parts of Thelanis. Yes, they all have lag at the same time.)


If this trend of non playability continues, I will reluctantly have to cancel my VIP subscription and take my game time and funds elsewhere. It will be a crushing blow to me, because there isn't another one like DDO out there. I know, I've looked.

Good luck Turbine, I hope you guys can get things squared away.
Thanks for your time.

[Icywave]

Well this is where the devs should take some flack. Not just the coding, but also the dungeon design. If the servers can not handle it then why are the devs making raid quests with lots of mobs? Obviously fighting mobs is fun, but if the server can not handle it then it can not handle and the devs should make raids with less mobs goes without saying.

You do have a very good point. Agreed.

[toaftoaf]

they have QA and test.

screenshot or it didnt happen

[Singular]

I never have lag. It muuuuuuuusssst beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee [backspace space type backspace] IIiiiiiiiIIIiiiiii nneeeeeeevvvv

(fade to black)

[blackdoguk]

Have ran 9 new raids since they went live. 2 failed due to complete lag out, one shadow dragon one in the thunder peaks. A third dragon wipe was saved by a prudent ddoor from a guildy.

The instances will no doubt be busy due to popularity. If the lag is the same in a month's time I think there's a problem, but I'm willing to give Turbine a few weeks "teething."

In groups I've run in we've left it down to individual people to get out. If it looks like we're about to lag out we've been happy to ddoor or fast recall, it doesn't always work but it's turned a few instances from wipes into re entries and I'd take the former over the latter any day.

[blerkington]

Oh, the irony.

Hi,

Not to nitpick, but that's not irony, it's just dumb.

Although it does tend to feed into my paranoia about the adversarial relationship some of the staff seem to have with the community.

Thanks.

[Catteras]

The instances will no doubt be busy due to popularity. If the lag is the same in a month's time I think there's a problem, but I'm willing to give Turbine a few weeks "teething." .

When my guild ran the mountain top raid, we got instant red alert with spawns and lagged out and wiped twice due to the red alert.

Sorry, but that isnt server load because of popularity. That is just plain bad game mechanics.