Game Performance Improvements and Feedback

[mikarddo]

Server: Ghallanda.
Location: Denmark, Europe, CET = GMT+1

At 8pm (gmt+1) ran LH Tempest Spine with 6 man, me on a level 30 monkcher. One 3 second lag spike throughout, nothing otherwise.
At 830pm (gmt+1) ran LH Shroud with 6 man, me on a level 30 warlock. A few 1-2 second lag spikes + the usual 5 sec spikes when you finish a phase and run out into the open. Nothing important.
At 930pm (gmt+1) ran EN Defiler of the Just with 5 man, me on a level 30 warlock. Several minor lag spikes, 1-2 seconds each. A 3-5 second lag spike when the Wurm died.
At 10pm (gmt+1) ran EN Mark of Death with 3 man, me on a level 30 warlock. A few minor lag spikes, 1-2 seconds each.

When it lagged it was everyone in the group - as noticed in voicechat. Guild run so we had a keen eye for all lag to make this report.

Otherall, it was actually enjoyable to play DDO again for the first time in a long time. There is still room for improventment, definitely, but running the above raids with 3-6 man was playable to a degree where we had fun.

[Kristii]

About one hour before this post, on Cannith server:

Full 12-man DoJ, because if we're wanting to evaluate lag, we should be evaluating it with the full party a raid is meant to have.

Several heavy lag spikes effecting the entire party, making us unable to move. Failed because we couldn't get to archons in time to save them.

Haven't tested this in a 6-man party, but as I said, if it's unplayable the way it was meant to played, you need to keep working.

[Silverleafeon]

Khyber

Completionist type toon, during level 29
Deep Gnome Pure Fighter
Avoided lag type situations such as cleave, pets, auras, etc...

Location SE USA

Time: Noonish to 4 PMish ; 3/29 ; after shutdown of world


Runs:

Extreme Farming of Ann Event CR 35
Mostly six party members

2X Spies EN
Six party member


Complete emptying TR cache


Lag issues:


1 run of Ann Event, game data would not load propery, completely lagging me out, but less than the typical overflooding of data, moving into end fight was fine, just had to hold back and died in a few places till network caught up

1 run of Ann Event, end fight ghosts placed acid fog that stuck to toon and lagged out badly, this was after many, many runs. restarted clinet which fixed issue

Spies was a typical good day, jumping was fine, etc..

Rest of Ann Event runs were pretty much lag free or no noticeable lag, most death attributed to CR 35, not lag, a few complaints about lag but less than previous weekend from other players.


Emptying of TR cache took less than 15 minutes and was very brisky for TR cache banking, compared to the 2 and 3 hours spent twice previous weekend emptying TR cache this is a significant improvement.


Enjoyed new changes to intimidate, please keep them. Much more useful.


Did not do any raids, saw several raids LFM, but hit level cap and wanted to do last deep gnome PL.


Overall, the game feels a big improvement from the weekend and better than the last fix which was a huge improvement from before that.


Recommendation to restart all worlds every Wednesday morning whether they need it or not as stated in the past, however DDO might have reasons not to that I don't understand.

[Splunge]

I decided to give Deathwyrm a try again today. The lag wasn't bad. There were a bunch of short lag spikes (several seconds), but nothing crippling. The one thing I noticed is that every single time the lag started, a guild renown message popped up a second or two later. It seems like there's either a problem with the renown being given out or with killing the mobs that give the renown. Other than that, the run was smooth.

edit:
I forgot to mention, it was EH deathwyrm on khyber. We had a full party by the time we reached the end fight. I didn't join until the bone guardian, so I don't know what happened with the lag before that.

[Cableman]

29 March 2016, 4:00pm to 8:00pm CST Sarlona Server

Ran Heroic Shroud Elite with 12 characters, no issues, just usual loot lag

Ran Heroic Vision of Destruction Elite with 8 characters, no issues

Ran Heroic Hound of Xoriat Elite with 12 characters, no issues

So far the fix has done a tremendous job on fixing the lag.

[AlcoArgo]

Name: Alco
Server: Argo

Running shadow crypt and the choppy lag made it near impossible to navigate a maze

[horriblescarz]

i logged in shortly after the restart, in eveningstar. i had mail and to get from the bank to the mail box took me almost 5 mins. once i got to the mail box it took me 6+ attempts to access the mail. once i got it opened i could not collect my item. i afkd'd for a few min and when i got back the item was in my inventory. i exited the game.

2 hrs later i log back in and did the rubberbanding dubstep for a few mins in eveningstar & exited the game.

i walked the dogs and did some yard work & decided to try and play the game. i managed to get to the druids deep quest givers, it took a lil bit to get the quests bestowed, but moving around the public space was slightly laggy.

i started outbreak on EE & aparently died in the 1st hall after rubberbaning into the hall and back to the entry point.. i was about to give up on the game but all of a sudden i was alive next to the npc (no death listed on xp report) the lag apparently gone i decide to recall and reset to EH.

back into outbreak on (ugggg) Epic Hard (i think of en/eh as what bads need to run b/c they are the bads) so i start being a bad and attempt to buff up..... after a few faild but consumed wand/scroll uses (umd51 on Jillad) i decided to trudge on b/c buffs on eh??? LAWL

it was non stop lag once the mobs spawned. i decided to trudge on and cleared the 1st hall. cured 4 & went to the right hall.... more lag, fortunately i had auto attack turned on & after a lot of frustrating lag i cleared that hall. trying to heal the 5th was very frustrating and it kept consuming charges with no efect on the npc.
deciding to get the ingenious bonus.... cost me 11 thieves tools to disable 5 traps (disable skill of 82). finally on route to the end fight.. dd was not a issue, but once i went through i was lag frozen for a few mins & when i recovered i was swarmed with mobs & dangerously low on hp... after a 10 min end fight (should of taken me less that 30 seconds) i finally got my xp. looted left chest without issue, right chest i finally gave up on. recalled 6x and finally exited the quest.

cannith @ 6:30pm PST
soloed with a lvl 26 pure rogue, mech with op / twink gear
/loc gave me nothing and i gave up after several tries.
my physical location: Vancouver BC Canada
internet connection DUAL 100MB commercial grade connection using 5ghz linksys ap's
laptop is gaming quality and fully optimized / de-bloated running win7 pro.

what ever you did to cannith made it worse. imho the server i prefer to play running the content i enjoy (forgotten realms epic elite) is unplayable and not fun.

when i read there would be a few different configs done to the servers i was all 'LOL 3 variables??" clearly you have no clue what the issues are nor do you have even the slightest clue on how to fix it.

i suggest that you try and hire competent people to manage your servers because the current batch of clueless sloths is clearly not working out and they are costing you players that pay.

Since i cant play the game i think i will troll the nice people in cannithtrade until i tire of their buthurt & baw.

tl;dr cannith is laggier than before.. your fix made things worse.

[Propane]

Hello- Sarlona 8-10 PM central time

Run EN runs of Fire on Thunder Peak (I was on a pure Fighter)

1st run 12 man - started smooth - lag started when fight started, got worse as more MOB were active... 75% of the raid was very choppy - 1 sec move, 1 not, 1 move, 1 not etc...
Several people claimed lag deaths - some do to healer having issues, some do to lagging during self healing. Large spike before XP rewarded ~ 8-10 sec.
A few people logged in discuss

2nd run 11 man - very similar as above - maybe slightly better

Summary

A large improvement from just after the data center change - there was no way we could have done this a few days ago. We are still WAY more laggy than during before the move. My gut feel is that if before the move was a 5, after the move was a 1, we are currently around a 2+...

Keep tweaking things - making progress, but have a good way to go...

[hp1055cm]

Thelanis: Trial of the Archons chain on HE (3 quests)

Party of 5-6: Sorc, Rogue, Warlock, Pal, Hireling.

Sporadic choppy lag and some studdering. Enough to notice and make some mobs fights more difficult. I did not notice any stop lag.
2-3 second delay at times when switching gear/weapons. Spell visual effects sometimes do not render (or were not casted because of lag?)

Able to complete all quests, though more than a few deaths partially the result of lag.
*Also noticed delay of 9-10 seconds at quest completion in Demon Assault between picking up the codex page and XP awarded. Not sure about other 2 quests.

[acdcrocks]

Did some level 4 and 5 quests today.. no Lag so far but constant packet loss throughout. Delayed actions. An improvement But not fixed By any means..

btw this is on sarlona EST 8 to 10 pm approx. Solo play on a caster pure druid.

[FifthTime]

Thelanis - 8 pm to 10:30 pm MST

Various low level quests with groups between 1 and 4 people.

Stuttering, delayed effects, rubber banding, and short freezes (1 to 5 seconds)

There doesn't seem to be any improvement in game play from yesterday.

[BrokenButton]

We have made changes throughout the worlds that we hope will improve things. Please make sure to include your server in all feedback related to lag, and let us know how things are going.

Cannith, 29 Mar, 1830 - 2230 CDT, playing from Minneapolis, MN.

LN TS, 12 man: Lag seemed a bit better overall, but still had 5-10 sec lag spikes during mob spawns and after killing chest mini bosses. Any mobs that moved around a lot (Drow, etc.) were very difficult to kill as melee because we were constantly a split second behind where the game server thinks they are. Finished, but not very fun.

LN Shroud, 12 man: Started off good, seemed to be an improvement in lag for first three phases, then got laggy during Phase 4 and 5 with all the mobs. Also, 10 sec lag spikes while players were trying to loot chests at end of phases. It took 20-30 seconds to move from chests to portals, with lots of freezing and rubber banding. Finished, but not much fun.

LN MOD 11 man: Again, started off better, seemed to be an improvement in lag, but as more mobs spawned we started getting lag freezing and delays, including the delayed warning on infernos. Finished but not fun.

LN DOJ 8 man. This started off better, but honestly I think it was more from us trying to short man it. The lag was better but we didn't have enough DPS and failed. We tried again with 12 man but the lag was atrocious and we gave up.

I dunno, feels like there might be a tiny bit improvement overall but that may well be just the dwindling server population easing the server load.

Thanks to Halamushish(sp?) for running all the pugs tonight for testing.

[Seikojin]

Sarlona, march 29th around 8pm pacific to 10:30 pacific.
Ran tangleroot after 30 minutes of idle time in a pug. Grew to 5 man, had a npc hireling for a bit.

During that time, the game became increasingly laggy in the last 45 minutes. I noticed the more the warlock in the group used chain attacks, the worse the lag was.

[Enoach]

Khyber 6 PM to 10:20 PM PST

Ran 3 Raids. Cleric in EA with Aura of Menace

Started with Legendary Hound 12 man Legendary Hard
Lag stutters but nothing bad. 1 to 2 seconds and not consistent. However, LAG of about 60 seconds once the Hound Died

Next Legendary Tempest Spine Legendary Hard
Lag stutters of 1 to 2 seconds.
At Drow Boss Room we had 3 Red bosses, LAG of 30 seconds after each boss death.
End fight no lag

Next Legendary Shroud Legendary Hard
Phase One - bad lag, so much so we ended up recalling and doing Legendary Normal
----
Legendary Normal
Stutter lag on entrance of part one. Lag Spike 10 seconds on Scout Death and first portal spawn. 20 seconds of lag at completion of Phase one
very little lag almost not really noticeable for parts 2 to 5.
We started with 11 but were down to 7 by part 3 - We had bad luck breaking crystal on part 2 as we had the Cat and a small timing problem we finally worked out.

[FestusHood]

Not saying it's the only thing causing lag, but there is definitely some correlation between being awarded random guild renown from kills and lag spikes. It happens every time, 100% reproducible. The more people in the group, the longer the lag spike lasts.

Argonessen sever

Ran DoJ with 11 people on normal. Soon as we went in it hit me there would be problems because so many of the mobs in there are named, and more likely to award renown when killed. Lag wiped. Tried later with just four people and the spikes were much shorter. Didn't quite get finished but i can say it wasn't specifically due to lag.

I would suggest maybe disabling the random awarding of renown from kills till you figure out why it does this.

[ddo.rsmo.pt]

If you are continuing to see poor in-game performance, then any information you can provide is helpful.

• Past Experience?
  
  • I have been playing DDO since 2009
  
  
• Location
  
  • I am located in Portugal, Europe
  
  
• When did you start experiencing lag?
  
  • I hardly ever had any lag, despite being quite far. I started having poor gaming experience since the recent data center move.
  
  
• Which server you on? Any particular class/race combo?
  
  • Argonnessen server, any class/race combo.
  
  
• What is your lag experience?
  
  • I play many times solo, or with another friend. Although lag has always been in the game, we only felt it usually during large events (Mabar, for instance) and it was widespread, so not related with our connections.
  • Recently, playing *any* quest, I can reproduce lag, even during low-activity quest, as Korthos Island Chain.
  • The lag currently being felt has variable intensity - we can play with almost no problem for 10-15 minutes, then attacks miss landing even when we are close to the mobs, or spells don't proc their effect, but the mana is spent. Some more acute issues are not being able to move/jump, although I can see monsters moving about. The stops last for around 5-10 seconds.
  • Client input is not an issue - setting the toon to autorun still causes it to stop at certain points, during the more acute times.
  • After a while, without leaving the area, the probs eases off gradually, and it's back at the normal function with just slight hiccups.
  
  
• Any particular raid, quest, wilderness?
  
  • I have been leveling a toon from 1 since the data move - I can safely say that the lag is independent of content, although I have not raided in a while.
  • Doesn't appear to be related to a specific "doom" instance (like i2049, or whatever), as determined by /loc
  
  
• What is your connection type?
  
  • I have 100Mbps fiber connection. I don't have problems with games which are more ping-dependable (BF4, CS:GO).
  • My ping (in-game app) without lag is around 120ms. My ping during lag is 120ms...
  • My drop rate without lag is around 0%. During lag, I can see it rise slightly, but mostly below 2%
  
  
• Did you test your ping / tracert
  
  • Yes I did. My round trip is around 100ms, and tracert reported around 15 hops before reaching destination.
  
  
• What is your play time?
  
  • My play time is usually between 4pm-7pm EST (converted from local GMT, for your convenience)
  
  
• Any additional information?
  
  • Nice for you to ask, yes there is:
  • Instead of us trying to figure which "any information you can provide is helpful", I think you should develop your own questions for us to answer, like I tried to do here.
  • If you want us to help, can you please tell us the IP addresses of at least 1 or 2 servers on the new data center, and 1 or 2 address from the old data center. We can then relay latency, jitter, etc to you, if you deem it worthwhile.

Carry on.

[Autopsibiofeeder]

Server: Sarlona
Time: Between 17:00 and 21:00 CET (11:00 and 15:00 New York time), Tuesday 29.
Location: Finland
Quests: The level 6 quests in Jorasco and Kundarak, as well as Gwylan´s stand and Tear of Dhakaan
Difficulty: Heroic elite
Class: Warlock
# players: 1, just me, no hires or pets (but a summoned fire elemental companion)

I had a virtually lag-free experience. Twice I froze for a fraction of a second, but nothing noteworthy otherwise. In comparison, in the days between the server move and the maintenance of past Tuesday I would freeze for 5 to 30 seconds several times per hour (when soloing and when grouped).

Hope this helps, good luck solving the issues at hand!

[Roudie]

Some friends and I did the Chronoscope raid on Orien and the lag was horrible, it really made things difficult and there were a lot of deaths as a result, just thought I would pass that along so perhaps you maybe able track down whats causing this issue. Thank You for taking the time to fix the game, such an awesome game deserves the attention oh and Happy Late Easter . See you in game!

[Anaximandroz]

March 29, night.
12 man run EE
Lag wipe.
Started in the bank part, coming and going with the waves of mobs. After winning the encounter, with only 4 or 5 not dead, a few people was finishing the opts and the the others headed to the steam tunnels then lag wipe after 5 min of lag.

Also experienced lag in Curse the Sky EE, ToEE part1 EH and walking on the marketplace.

No Lag on Shroud HE.

[NXPlasmid]

I was soloing Spawn of Whisperdoom last night (03/29) around 6:30ish PDT on Khyber and was in Mumble with 2 other guildies, none of us are in the same city, none in the same group or instance. Almost every major lag spike hit us all simultaneously. If it was just a little stuttering then sometimes one of us was hit harder than the others, but the freeze frame spikes that usually lasted from 20-60 seconds hit us all and ended at the same time for all 3 of us.