Game Performance Improvements and Feedback

[Waaye]

Graphics are rendered on your PC. No "graphics" information is being sent across the web. This game works with real-time collision detection, when many other MMOs do not.[...]

That is good to know, Trudh, and it makes sense that the game world would be generated in the local machine. What confuses me is why I get, lag, stuttering, freezing, and rubber-banding when I am doing a quest solo with a hireling.

Earlier today I was unable to finish the Fleshmakers Laboratory with my L20 E0 archer and Klin Stegen. It went well until the room with five runes. My character was unable to target most of the elementals most of the time and they kept increasing in number until my character was blown down to the main level. After an hour of trying to operate all five runes I had to abandon the quest.

What information does my local machine need from the server to complete an ordinarly quest solo?

[Necromisiek]

Server: Orien
Time: 22-23 GMT Sunday April 3
Computer location: Poland, Europe
Quest/ raid: LHoX
Difficulty: epic Hard
Number of players in the group: 12

Party has been lagwiped twice.

[Sam1313]

That is good to know, Trudh, and it makes sense that the game world would be generated in the local machine. What confuses me is why I get, lag, stuttering, freezing, and rubber-banding when I am doing a quest solo with a hireling.

Earlier today I was unable to finish the Fleshmakers Laboratory with my L20 E0 archer and Klin Stegen. It went well until the room with five runes. My character was unable to target most of the elementals most of the time and they kept increasing in number until my character was blown down to the main level. After an hour of trying to operate all five runes I had to abandon the quest.

What information does my local machine need from the server to complete an ordinarly quest solo?

My Hypothesis or Observation. I've noticed that every time I encounter monsters with Blur or Displacement I can expect Lag. The number of Monsters with these active determines how long and how severe the lag will be. On my Archer I will creep up to a room and try to either take out or kite out just those with Blur or Displacement, kill them off first then I can rush into a room full of monsters and battle them with no problems with lag. /I've also done this in Raids but by using the Archers dispelling shot to remove their Blur and Displacement, once that has been removed it seems to curb the lag. But be careful as the rogues don't like you doing this as they claim it removes their "Marks"


Could it be that the Wind Elementals in Fleshmakers has the same code as Blur or Displacement?

[Edwardt]

Server - Wayfinder
Approximate Time - Saturday and Sunday, 5am edt to 11 pm edt with a lot of long breaks
Approximate location of your computer - europe (Frankfurt node)
Quests/raids run - Thunderholme wilderness, Wheloon, Stormhorns, Vale
Difficulties run - elite
Your character class - Paladin, FvS/Bard/Rogue, Paladin/Monk, Bard
Number of players in the group - 1 (Saturday), 2 (Sunday)

Last week i wrote a couple bug-reports with collections of loc data where and when lag occured, but right now it doesn't make sense. The lag starts on the ship, while using the bank, crossing the marketplace, teleporting to eStar, running into the wilderness areas (and rubberbanding from there) and so on.
In the quests (no matter which) the lag itself hits not as long from it's duration as before the friday changes, but way more often (2-6 times a minute).
Quests like 'friends in low places' bugged somehow. For example the force field around the crests didn't go down after clearing the area of the camps.
Over all the game is not fun to play when the actions don't kick in when I hit the key button. Streaking is more a game of pure chance than skill and knowledge.
My plans of getting two levels and TRing this weekend went down to do half a level and waiting for another downtime to get this issue fixed.

[Faltout]

That is good to know, Trudh, and it makes sense that the game world would be generated in the local machine. What confuses me is why I get, lag, stuttering, freezing, and rubber-banding when I am doing a quest solo with a hireling.

Earlier today I was unable to finish the Fleshmakers Laboratory with my L20 E0 archer and Klin Stegen. It went well until the room with five runes. My character was unable to target most of the elementals most of the time and they kept increasing in number until my character was blown down to the main level. After an hour of trying to operate all five runes I had to abandon the quest.

What information does my local machine need from the server to complete an ordinarly quest solo?

I don't know why you lagged in feshmaker's, or why you say the elementals increased in number when we all know their number is fixed, or how did you expect to operate all 5 runes alone without at least the help of the hireling. However, I can answer that last question.

You machine needs from the server what every client needs from the server when doing anything:
- monster locations and intentions (what spell/attack are they gonna cast or already casting)
- Your correct location (not the one your client is showing you at)
- effects happening in the quest (anything really) and their locations
- chat (general chat, effects, tells)
- Other player/hireling locations and what they are doing
- loot (chest openings, collectables, breakables, guild renown)
- any other event that may occur while you play (such as "now entering firewall"/"now exiting firewall" which is how you get the perma firewall bug if you miss the 2nd announcement)
And if all those are too much to send (like when other players are casting a ton of effects around you), you may get slight lag.

However, the server, to be able to send you what each monster does or how each effect affects each character/monster, it needs to decide on those things first and within a certain time frame (you won't wait forever till the server responds to your attack). If those things take more time to decide that this time frame, then the place will seem frozen while the server is calculating stuff. This means that the monsters are frozen as well. However, the server is not frozen all the time. It has brief moments when you can send in your actions and it will process them. But you have to send those actions through a connection and by hitting a button manually, while the monsters are already in the server. So, monsters will be half-frozen (meaning it will take them twice as much time to kill you) while you are trying again and again to register your action (which can range from fully frozen to one quarter frozen). And this is why some players say that monsters do not lag. But they do lag, just not as much as we do.

[Robbenklopper]

Server is Cannith

Time was about 16.00h to 00.00h GMT on saturday the 2nd of April.

The whole day with questing was fun and lagfree. Then i decided to run DoJ and it was a mixed Thing.
1st attempt: We were a Party of 8, 2 Warlocks. The lag for me came out of the blue at the questgiver outside when "Meeting" the other partymembers. Thought no bad and entered. It became more laggy from the when the raid locks on and weren´t able to prevent the fallen Archons be defeated.
2st attempt: Went in, felt lagging hard from beginning, recalled. Both warlocks left the party
3rd attempt. Went in, felt lagging hard from beginning, recalled.
4th attempt: Everything smooth! No lag at all and finished without any Problems.

My guess is that it matters what Server your instance gets in, coz the same Party once got hard and the other time not anyway lagged.

[Enoach]

Khyber
Saturday and Sunday - from 9AM PST thru 9PM PST

Legendary Shroud
Legendary Hard - Lag was bad in part one, couldn't find Keepers at times when they spawned

Legendary Normal - Lag got progressively worse, but this was part one where it got tougher as the weekend progressed.

[Grandern_Marn]

1. Server - Orien
2. Approximate Time - 6AM EST Monday April 5th
3. Approximate location of your computer - Tokyo, Japan
4. Quests/raids run - Breaking the Ranks, A Break in the Ice, What Goes Up, Haunted Halls of Eveningstar
5. Difficulties run - Epic Elite
6. Your character class - Paladin
7. Number of players in the group - 6
8. Anything else you think we should know - Full group running on EE. Persistent lag at a mildly annoying level. Only one member died to what they said was due to lag but overall playable. At one point in HHoE we did have a 1 minute lag freeze when we were in the zombie spawn area where you have to grab the crest but all members survived.

Until this point I have been focusing on playing smaller groups at lower levels as I TRed a character a couple weeks back. This was the first dedicated end game content run I have done in a while and I noticed there is still a difference in playability. The lag seemed different to what lag we would get before the server move. I would equate it to a mild form of the rubber banding you encounter after the first part of the Shroud. At some points mobs would be off screen and then suddenly snap into view and vice versa.

[Cordovan]

Thank you for the weekend reports. We're looking them over along with our own diagnostics and will be figuring out the next steps.

[Gratch]

Thank you for the weekend reports. We're looking them over along with our own diagnostics and will be figuring out the next steps.

Ghallanda: Playing a few hours on Tues,Thurs nights I noticed almost no lag - back to pre-data-center move. Playing Friday, Sat, Sun nights for a few hours things felt like they regressed heavily (all in group lagging, aka server performance). Did you decrease the server pool or did the Friday "hotfix" muck things up or was it just weekend server built-up issues? (All of this playing was at midnight EST to 2 AM EST).

Undo what you did to Ghallanda on Friday please. Or redo what you did last Tuesday.

[Starla70]

Argo Saturday night, lag was not all that bad. WE played from 3 until about midnight. My husband and I and 4 friends, ran the Lords of dust chain all 4, then did a VON 5 Eh then En. On hard there was more lag, the party was only 11, for Normal we had lost 2, so at ( it was pretty much only the brief lag, as in you miss a step and maybe go back a couple but it cleared quickly. Sunday the lag was worse, in anything we did it caused issues. Tried DOJ oh normal because of lag issues, it was so bad we could not complete again 94 out of 4 times in the last week). Tempest spine was rough at times, it happened even in corridors with few monsters if any. We did complete, but in about 20 more minutes then what we usually could do it, all lag related. Next we went to LHound, on normal since we knew lag was bad.

That was horrible, it started fine we had 10 in party. WE started to go around the outside, lag started, not real bad at firstm, but by the time we had the 5th stone, it locked up. We could all talk to each other, but no one was moving. It got so bad, even the monster lagged. After no one moving for about 15 minutes, we decided to release. One guy could not release because he had just died 5 times, no raises, no clue how that happened. We had a couple of people end up on their ships, I ended up in evening star, (I am bound to my ship) one ended up at the Hall of heros fate spinner, overall it was just weird. Several had to quit the game to get out. So most of us called it a night. It just isn't worth that.

[Waaye]

[...]Could it be that the Wind Elementals in Fleshmakers has the same code as Blur or Displacement?

Thanks for the pointer, Sam1313, it is good to know that dispelling buffs from the mobs can reduce some of the problems. As far as which code is common to what function I simply do not know. It has been many years since I coded anything and most of the details about DDO's software remain unpublished.

I don't know why you lagged in feshmaker's, or why you say the elementals increased in number when we all know their number is fixed, or how did you expect to operate all 5 runes alone without at least the help of the hireling.[...]

Oh no, my mistake, I did not clarify I meant Klin Stegen the hireling and not the real life person. Before starting on the runes Klin, his summoned Hezrou, and I first eliminated all of the elementals in the area. Then I directed Sten to operate the first rune while I operated two of the three at my end. After turning to face another rune I instructed Klin to get the other one at his end. Sadly, by that time more elementals had arrived over by the crystal pillars and one of them would always come over and blow my character off of the walkway, every single time. That always happened before I could operate the runes and there seemed to be no way to get back up to the upper level before the runes reset. At one point I was going to summon a Gold Seal Shadow in addition to Sten but then I realized that there was no chance we could defeat the boss at the end even if we got past the runes. So, I quit without saving and went to bed kicking myself for buying more TP with real money back in December. What was I thinking?

However, I can answer that last question.[...]

That is good and interesting information but where did you get it? Are you a DEV?!

[Silverleafeon]

First I would like to say that my original TRacert had a bad time out at #5 spot, and the Tech people eliminated that, giving me better lag situation than u29, for that I thank you.

Word on the street, if you want to Khyber doj, 6 man and before 2 pm is best attempt.


Some very late night Khyber flagging (was almost at level cap)
Time 2:30 ~ 4:30 am Sunday 4/3/16
SE USA
Build fighter 16/pally 4 US tank using cleave/LD attack cycles {deep gnome (last PL needed)}
EH DoJ flaggers
EH Madstone
EH Tor
HE Cannith flaggers
Typical party size = 5 players
Zero lag issues ~ was 0~3 other epic lmf during whenever I posted mine, took anyone.


Also emptied TR cache within 10 minutes which was very nice (quicker than typical)

[Silverleafeon]

6. Your character class - Druid
.

Curious, season's herald or melee wolf?

[Faltout]

That is good and interesting information but where did you get it? Are you a DEV?!

Um, no. I just answered the question:
"How can the client show us what is happening in the game and how can the client not cheat the server?"
As long as your answer is not "magic", by answering that question you logically arrive at how I said things work.

And of course it helps to also observe some extra details like the connection data when not fighting and when fighting, the rubberbanding and why it happens, some other bugs related to the connection (like the perma firewall bug or the bug when you click an ability and doesn't fire but goes on cooldown and then you click again when on cooldown and it goes off) and you get a pretty good idea how things work without needing to be a dev. Just observe and put the puzzle pieces together.

[azrael4h]

Ran some of the party today followed by a string of LN HoX, LN Shroud, LH TS. Khyber. Started about 5pm (when I logged in), gave up after 10:30.

Party (L24-25 characters running at L30) was fine. Little lag, but there's also little going on there. Made multiple runs before one of the members mentioned needing to run some raids. We had to flag another for LShroud, which we did by running Heroic TCtS and CD.

LN HoX was ran around 7, first run we lagged completely out and wiped. Went in a second time and managed with little lag. Most lag occurred when red/orange names spawned.

LH TS was next, probably around 8 or so. We had several severe lag spikes, notably when the red named Drow spawned in.

LN Shroud started around 8:30 or so. Maybe a bit later, I don't remember. On occasion we didn't lag. We started lagging when the portals spawned, kept lagging more when the portal keepers spawned, and yes, we even lagged when the next batch of portals spawned. As usual, we locked down when we tried to loot the chests. Then lag cleared up and we marched into part 2. There, we were fine up until we activated the red names. Afterward, we remained lagging out until we somehow, by accident I think, convinced the server that we were indeed hitting the crystal after killing the mobs. Part 3 was probably the best part, other than discovering that we had a few people who had never ran the raid before, even on heroic. Part 4 we gave up on. After the first round, whenever the idolators spawned, it basically became a slide show. I could watch them heal, but they wouldn't take damage but once every minute or so. By which time, Harry was back at full health again, and the blades were closing in. After 4 rounds, we simply ddoored out.

A common theme I've noticed is that mob spawns, in particular bosses and sub-bosses as well as those which have special effects going (such as the healing beams in part 4) cause the most lag. It is worse in Epic/Legendary, where there are more and more powerful effects going on.

During times of lag, I checked the network status icon to see if I was getting any packet loss. None ever showed.

[Waaye]

Um, no. I just answered the question:[...] by answering that question you logically arrive at how I said things work.[...] you get a pretty good idea how things work without needing to be a dev. Just observe and put the puzzle pieces together.

Thanks but there is large difference between human "logic" and the logic of the machine. A DEV would know the difference and their answers would probably be correct. Lay people, on the other hand, may assume human logic applies and give sensible sounding but completely wrong answers. Normally I give posts by system types more weight than lay opinions.

[Faltout]

Thanks but there is large difference between human "logic" and the logic of the machine. A DEV would know the difference and their answers would probably be correct. Lay people, on the other hand, may assume human logic applies and give sensible sounding but completely wrong answers. Normally I give posts by system types more weight than lay opinions.

Baaaah, I had a large answer writen but completely erased it because it's the wrong thread. Cliffnotes: completely wrong about human logic being different than computer logic. What do you mean "posts by system types"?

[Eth]

Baaaah, I had a large answer writen but completely erased it because it's the wrong thread. Cliffnotes: completely wrong about human logic being different than computer logic. What do you mean "posts by system types"?

"OR" is pretty different in human and and computer logic (with the human "OR" being what "XOR" is in computer logic).

[Cordovan]

If you are on Argonnessen or Sarlona, please tell us about your current game experience.