The latest on lag and game performance improvements

[LT218]

This past weekend had an above-normal amount of poor game performance, and is something we will be looking into. We are continuing to look into the various reported causes of lag, including renown gain. We would continue to caution that Defiler of the Just has issues outside of server-client latency, and is not a good test case for lag. We fully understand people's frustration in Defiler of the Just, and will be considering some options for that particular raid in the future.

It wasn't just this past weekend. The lag has been steadily increasing since the last server reboot. It's almost as if there were server side memory leaks that continue to grow.

It is also not just DoJ. Lag has been really bad the past week+ in DoJ, Deathwrym, Fire on Thunder Peaks, Mark of Death, Shroud, etc. Pretty much any end game raids with more than 4-5 people in them lags repeatedly now on Ghallanda.

We just wiped on an LH Shroud run earlier tonight due to lag + Portal Keeper spawn. All we could do was sit there and watch it fail while we were stuck in a massive lag spike. We were even short-manning it with 9 specifically in an effort to minimize the lag. The effort was in vain.

The game has severe performance and game-play impacting problems since the datacenter move and has not shown any signs of getting better in the nearly two months since. Mind telling us what sort of compensation you're planning to provide customers for this?

[Six_Gun]

This past weekend had an above-normal amount of poor game performance, and is something we will be looking into.

Well, that's one way to put it. By looking into it, do you mean restarting the servers and hoping the lag decreases to normal amounts of poor game performance? Because I've been asking for a server reset since the middle of last week in order to keep the worst of the crippling lag at bay. It's obvious that you guys aren't having much luck in finding a permanent solution to solving lag so why not just have several scheduled server restarts per week?

[Kompera_Oberon]

It wasn't just this past weekend. The lag has been steadily increasing since the last server reboot. It's almost as if there were server side memory leaks that continue to grow.

I hate to speculate without evidence. And I hate conspiracy theories. But I will have to say that the LAG does seem to improve after a server reset, and slowly seems to get worse as the uptime increases. I've seen a lot of comments about Guild renown rewards causing LAG. I can't say that I've seen this one way or the other. But that might be because Guild renown is awarded whilst in the midst of combat, and I'm usually rather distracted whilst I'm in the middle of combat.

But this past weekend I was in FoTP, Deathwyrm, FoT, L HoX, and DotJ raids, and LAG was a factor in all of them. In most of them we could have easily run on a higher difficulty level, just the fear of LAG prevented us from even trying. We failed a H L HoX run, and then succeeded in the following N L HoX run, and LAG was the primary gating factor since healing the HoX/Puppy tank is a fail when the healer(s) can't manage to get a spell cast. The tank can be killed so very fast on LH or above that it takes a non-lagging healer to keep them alive.

[Kompera_Oberon]

This past weekend had an above-normal amount of poor game performance, and is something we will be looking into. We are continuing to look into the various reported causes of lag, including renown gain. We would continue to caution that Defiler of the Just has issues outside of server-client latency, and is not a good test case for lag. We fully understand people's frustration in Defiler of the Just, and will be considering some options for that particular raid in the future.

Umm hmmm. Well, just be aware that from the observers side of things, DotJ has no different LAG issues than any other raid. LAG on fallen Archons spawn, LAG on Devil reinforcements spawn, this is the exact same thing which is seen in other raids. FoT: LAG on giant/dragon pair spawn, LAG on TO involvement after first acolyte dies. LAG when undead dragon/giant pairs spawn. Etc. No difference seen from the observers point of view.

So, please educate your player base. Tell us exactly how the DotJ LAG is different from the FoT LAG is different from the Deathwyrm LAG is different from the FoTP LAG, etc. Help us help you!

Your customers would love to have you explain the details to us so that we can focus on helping you fix the issues you don't seem to have a handle on. But really, for customer confidence to be boosted would mean that you might actually have to fix a LAG issue which you tell the player base that is an instance specific issue. Fix DotJ! If you fully understand people's frustration with DotJ, then why not just fix it?

[Atheok]

We are continuing to look into the various reported causes of lag, including renown gain

no no no no no no no ... dont look into it! .... remove it! ... take it off! ... slice it up! ... chop it off! ... break it down! ... punch it in the face! ...

we dont need the darn renown while questing, raiding, and its the MAJOR, PRIMAL, THE MOST IMPORTANT cause of lag in large groups.

remove it! ... take it off! ... slice it up! ... chop it off! ... break it down! ... punch it in the face! ...

we dont need new updates with op items, we arent kids crying out for candys... WE WANT LAG FREE EXPERIENCE

remove it! ... take it off! ... slice it up! ... chop it off! ... break it down! ... punch it in the face! ...

then look into it as many times u want ! but first : remove it! ... take it off! ... slice it up! ... chop it off! ... break it down! ... punch it in the face! ...

[LorentzRP]

5 man Tempest. 5 man Von5/6. The Lag was not very apparent in the raids. House J, lvl 11s prior to the raids, had a constant difficulty/lag increase. I would say it's difficult to determine the reason, but I'm no computer expert. It seems to vary for me, regardless of the mission, renown, quantity in the group, character classes. I'm thinking a new UI that scales a bit more for 4k would fix it.

[Psiandron]

3. Pathing, while not back to normal had improved. But this weekend mobs were running off cliffs in a loop, getting caught in corners, etc.

Definitely saw this.

First in DW we saw spiders try to take a direct route toward us and fall off into the void, which was tbh, pretty amusing. It was not so amusing later when in Garl's the Yuan Ti on the platforms in the large room with the levers started doing it and led to them almost entirely being on the ground floor and resulted in a red alert that was a genuine pain.

At the penultimate fight, the high priestess was happy as always to be drawn away from the central platform, but even when directly lined up with the party and the bridge managed to path off into the water and reset. She likely reset 20-25 times before we were able go to the middle platform and drag her back to the entry. The associated spawns in the center were constantly flopping into the water and resetting. Ofc, there was a fair bit of lag out on the central platform, as you might imagine.

Also noticed gnolls dropping from the top of the maze in Crucible to the main floor. Yeah, wasn't really sad to see that one, lol.

Anywho, not sure what was done that impacted pathing, and it certainly was not flawless before this. Mobs facing walls and doing aggroing on furniture haa been happing for a long time. However, it's been a while since I've seen such extreme suicidal tendencies.

[Ebondevil]

Today I was finally able to successfully log in my characters and not only that complete a quest without noticeable lag.

Let's hope whatever today's patch did stays helpful...

[Qhualor]

joined a group doing epic Stormhorns last night. there are certain lag spots in What Goes Up that were completely gone. the whole group had been commenting on it throughout the chain that these lag spots seemed to be fixed. even renown lag seemed to be better, but not completely gone.

[Qhualor]

just ran epic Wheloon and no lag in the usual old lag spots, only minor lag when running to one of the quests. we even had red alert. first Stormhorns and now Wheloon. hopefully this continues.

[Eth]

Played on Ghallanda yesterday for about 3 hours, doing the new quests.
Except for some FPS lag (which is only to blame on myself) only had one noticable lag spike during that time. Groups were ranging from 2 to 4 people. Guildies also reported a playable DoJ earlier. I have some hope.

[Kompera_Oberon]

Played on Ghallanda yesterday for about 3 hours, doing the new quests.
Except for some FPS lag (which is only to blame on myself) only had one noticable lag spike during that time. Groups were ranging from 2 to 4 people. Guildies also reported a playable DoJ earlier. I have some hope.

There was nothing in the U31 release notes which even hinted at Turbine implementing any LAG fixes. So why associate U31 with a reduction in LAG? What people are most likely seeing is a reduction in LAG due to a fresh server reset. Don't have some hope. Instead, watch and observe as LAG slowly increases across the next few weeks, just as it did since the last server resets around the mid-April time frame. There will be another server reset in the next few hours. If that is the last one for a few weeks or a month, then watch and see how LAG reports change over time.

Because after a server reset there is typically a bunch of "Horray, LAG is reduced!" posts, but then those fade away as server uptime increases and LAG increases back to the standard sub-standard levels.

[Eth]

There was nothing in the U31 release notes which even hinted at Turbine implementing any LAG fixes. So why associate U31 with a reduction in LAG? What people are most likely seeing is a reduction in LAG due to a fresh server reset. Don't have some hope. Instead, watch and observe as LAG slowly increases across the next few weeks, just as it did since the last server resets around the mid-April time frame. There will be another server reset in the next few hours. If that is the last one for a few weeks or a month, then watch and see how LAG reports change over time.

Because after a server reset there is typically a bunch of "Horray, LAG is reduced!" posts, but then those fade away as server uptime increases and LAG increases back to the standard sub-standard levels.

You are right that this was the case several times after server restarts. We will see what happens the next days/weeks.
I'm not saying all is fine. I'm saying yesterday was the most lagfree DDO experience I had in months. That's all.

Reports go both ways. I reported lag plenty of times on these boards.

[Bolo_Grubb]

1. Server: Sarlona
2. Approximate time: 1030pm Wednesday, 5/11/16
3. mixed group, no barbarians
4. 12
5. Legendary Normal Shroud
6. General experience: Several cases of extreme lag (freezing and stuttering) through out every part of the shroud every time monsters spawned.

[Tzenareth]

1. Wayfinder
2. 8-12 PM, EST (Georgia, USA) 11 May, 2016
3. Warlock, Wizard, Bard, Monk, Rogue, Cleric hireling
4. Five players, one hireling. All recently Reincarnated characters, level 1-3.
5. Korthos village, Korthos wilderness, Level 2 Harbor quests. All quests done on Elite difficulty.
6. Playing as a ranged rogue using a great crossbow. Personally i was experiencing a lot of lag, mostly in targeting, but especially while trying to turn to follow targets. Everything, including movement for me seemed to have a slight delay. The monk froze up completely once in Misery's Peak for about 3-5 seconds.

[Atheok]

These past few days, since U31 came out, the game performance has visibly improved. I can only hope its temporary, cuz there's still plenty of room of improvement, but on the other hand I can't even recall when I had my previous lag free DoJ. Was surely months ago. And I just experienced one within the first hours after the update was released - 8 ppl normal. The renown lag was nonexistent. Did some more runs today, 4 men, again very smooth runs. Although, 12 men hard L.Shroud, renown lag was again in place. Maybe not as annoying like it has been over the last few weeks, but once in a while would still get a 1-2 secs short freezes. It was a 12 men after all. I never take more than 10 ppl in a Shroud, but did it just to test the lag. I dont recall any lag after killing Arraetrikos in p4, that was smooth, but the small freezes after destroying the portals, just before you get cursed, were still there.
In conclusion, if a server reset was made or not, something was done, it improved game performance and gaming experience over the last few days. But i feel that the renown gain while questing or raiding still has a huge impact over a large group (>8). And if indeed a server reset was made, then it only means it will only get worse with time.
So my suggestion is again to remove the renown temporarily while u look into it, or completely, either way is useless.
The only alternative we have would be to drop guilds and post lfm with description "guildless only" ... and think about how fast those would fill up.

[icekinslayer]

These past few days, since U31 came out, the game performance has visibly improved. I can only hope its temporary, cuz there's still plenty of room of improvement, but on the other hand I can't even recall when I had my previous lag free DoJ. Was surely months ago. And I just experienced one within the first hours after the update was released - 8 ppl normal. The renown lag was nonexistent. Did some more runs today, 4 men, again very smooth runs. Although, 12 men hard L.Shroud, renown lag was again in place. Maybe not as annoying like it has been over the last few weeks, but once in a while would still get a 1-2 secs short freezes. It was a 12 men after all. I never take more than 10 ppl in a Shroud, but did it just to test the lag. I dont recall any lag after killing Arraetrikos in p4, that was smooth, but the small freezes after destroying the portals, just before you get cursed, were still there.
In conclusion, if a server reset was made or not, something was done, it improved game performance and gaming experience over the last few days. But i feel that the renown gain while questing or raiding still has a huge impact over a large group (>8). And if indeed a server reset was made, then it only means it will only get worse with time.
So my suggestion is again to remove the renown temporarily while u look into it, or completely, either way is useless.
The only alternative we have would be to drop guilds and post lfm with description "guildless only" ... and think about how fast those would fill up.

has anybody from the dev team even said they know for sure guild renown is a lag causer? because it seems like a couple forum people seem to have just glommed onto the next random thing and said it was definitely causing lag. next it's going to be "gaining experience points is causing lag, stop rewarding xp!"...seriously...

[Atheok]

has anybody from the dev team even said they know for sure guild renown is a lag causer? because it seems like a couple forum people seem to have just glommed onto the next random thing and said it was definitely causing lag. next it's going to be "gaining experience points is causing lag, stop rewarding xp!"...seriously...

Its not hard to figure out when you receive that small and insignificant number of renown while questing, based on the guild largeness (10, 13, 17, 25), suddenly you cant move for 3-5 secs and you hear or see at least 1 party member saying "laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag" that these two relate to each other. If its "the new thing", may be and for the good reasons. Can never have enough people to say it until its removed. And you can actually find some examples with videos ppl posted right in this thread to convince yourself. Furthermore, it can't be compared with gaining xp, as its a very insignificant number of renown being awarded and affecting the game. One we could be better off for the time being, until they "investigate/look into it" properly.

[Ebondevil]

Its not hard to figure out when you receive that small and insignificant number of renown while questing, based on the guild largeness (10, 13, 17, 25), suddenly you cant move for 3-5 secs and you hear or see at least 1 party member saying "laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag" that these two relate to each other. If its "the new thing", may be and for the good reasons. Can never have enough people to say it until its removed. And you can actually find some examples with videos ppl posted right in this thread to convince yourself. Furthermore, it can't be compared with gaining xp, as its a very insignificant number of renown being awarded and affecting the game. One we could be better off for the time being, until they "investigate/look into it" properly.

After the U31 Update/Hotfix, I managed to log on fine (which is rare these days), ran a couple of quests, got renown rewards with no lag at all.

Yesterday I was back to red X'ing connection lost to server. Feels like I can currently ONLY play on Patch day...

Renown might be causing some issues.

Nut I am more inclined to favour the idea that the servers start crumpling under the pressure over time, memory leak or the like.

It is possible that the Renown is the cause of the memory leak though.

[Ebondevil]

1. Server: Khyber
2. Approximate time: 3:30pm GMT - 3:37pm GMT
3. General class makeup and group composition: Favoured Soul
4. Size of party/raid group: N/A
5. Quest or raid run: N/A
6. General experience: After a 7 minute load, Red X and connection to server Lost

1. Server: Khyber
2. Approximate time: 3:37pm GMT - 3:55pm GMT
3. General class makeup and group composition: Artificer
4. Size of party/raid group: N/A
5. Quest or raid run: N/A
6. General experience: Stuck on Loading screen with no progress at all.