Sometimes I wonder......

[Iwant_DiabloThree]

For well over a decade, we have begged and begged for the issue of server lag to be addressed.
I was there,in a group talking to Fernando on Lamania being told that it was our inferior PC and crappy internet..... and not DDO to blame.
Not terribly long afterwards, DDO anounced there was indeed some lag..... and it was all the fault of the Exploiter builds 18 ranger/1 rogue/ 1 monk 2WF Kopesh. We just kicked so much butt that the number crunching was causing the servers to lag..... and that nerfing them out of existence was the cure. It wasn't.
Then they added even more useless stuff, like pets.... to give the server even more numbers to crunch.
Then DDO was sold to Warner Brothers and we were told about how great things were gonna be now that a big company took over.... rejoice rejoice salvation awaits.
But the lag got worse not better. We literally begged them to make an update that did not give new content, but instead focused on game performance. But were ignored.
Since those days we were told over and over again about this being done and that being done to improve how the game runs. And yet not only is there still lag, it is worse than ever.
Nowdays, someone zoning in turns the game into a unplayable mess. A few days ago I was in quest heading to a fight and POOF, client crashed. I logged back in, all set to tell the guys sorry and when I did...... the whole parties client had crashed, not just me.
This game was created using software that was not even "cutting edge" at the time and a lot has changed since then. It is like trying to force an 8track to play on a cassette, using windows to run a DOS game.... it can be done, but it's not the best idea.
The foundation is weak and so the building is not strong.
Standing Stone needs to spend the time rebuilding the game on a modern platform, doing the tedious task of translating what they have into a modern, more efficient engine. A strong foundation makes for a strong building. The building we have now is crumbling, you cant help but see the bricks laying on the ground.
With a new, big budget D&D movie coming soon, the potential for a wave of new players is huge..... but the minute they figure out the issues DDO has and hear the veterans telling them the horror stories..... they will walk away before they become too vested into the game.
Sometimes I wonder if Fernando is still calling the shots like back in the old days. Him and his wife being offended by anyone daring to criticize their leadership, the unwashed masses believing they know better what the players want..... Fernando's body may be gone, but his spirit lives on.

[harmlesslarry]

IVe actually had little problems with lag the last six months. The only time it lags is when I log in, takes a few seconds to gear up, and when I get a window sometimes not appearing. IDK if they fixed anything or not, just my two cents.

[Jerevth]

I've noticed an uptick in lag lately- last night, running solo, not even in combat yet, I was hit by four-to-ten second freezes. They would hit every few seconds when I moved. It smoothed out after four or five of these but...
I have to agree- something stinks more than usual. For a while- again, for me- lag seemed pretty much unnoticed until a couple weeks ago. (*Cough* Crystal Cove *cough*)

[Steelstar]

I have to agree- something stinks more than usual. For a while- again, for me- lag seemed pretty much unnoticed until a couple weeks ago. (*Cough* Crystal Cove *cough*)

We have a potential lead on one part of Cove lag, and plan to tackle that before next time Cove runs.

[Dandonk]

We have a potential lead on one part of Cove lag, and plan to tackle that before next time Cove runs.

Oh, someone IS here. Nice. Now, what about the servers?

[Steelstar]

Oh, someone IS here. Nice. Now, what about the servers?

If I had info to give, I'd give it. Server lag is something we are constantly looking into. It takes many forms and has many causes, and not every fix is going to have the same impact on any given player's experience. People's lag frustrations are heard, and specific experiences are discussed and analyzed when brought to our attention.

[superevbully]

We have a potential lead on one part of Cove lag, and plan to tackle that before next time Cove runs.

hi how about servers?

[Jerevth]

We have a potential lead on one part of Cove lag, and plan to tackle that before next time Cove runs.

Excellent, and thank you.
Truthfully, I try to take my lag with a grain of salt- there's a lot between my computer and the servers so it could be any number of things causing issues on my side that aren't coding-caused.
(i.e. Window's forcing another rogue "optional" update through when I have updates paused.)

[AebroKomatme]

The lag issue is real.

I’m in a group that runs two simultaneous static parties (in reaper) every night, and every night it’s the same thing…

When one party zones in or out of a quest, the other party lags out for anywhere from 3-5 seconds (and even longer during EDT prime time) on Orien. This happens EVERY time one of our groups enters/leaves a quest area. It was pretty easy for us to figure it out since more often than not, both parties are in the same discord voice channel.

This issue started when the devs adjusted reaper to somehow do all its calculations on quest entrance and exit, but has steadily gotten worse as our group picks up more reaper points. I’ve got 145 reaper points on my main, and it now takes me anywhere from say 8-10 seconds to be able to move upon quest entrance, and that’s after spending at least that long in a loading screen. I can be first one to enter the quest, and the last one to be able to move by several seconds. Everyone else can be buffed and gone before I can even move. Meanwhile, everybody in the other party is getting upset because my load in lags them out.

I may have killed more of their party members than Miss Adventure.

Long story short, the lag is real, and I think that reaper mode calcs are a major source these days. I have to assume that our parties’ loads in/out aren’t just affecting each other, but every other active party on the server…well, at least the reaper parties.

[Elfishski]

The lag issue is real.

I’m in a group that runs two simultaneous static parties (in reaper) every night, and every night it’s the same thing…

When one party zones in or out of a quest, the other party lags out for anywhere from 3-5 seconds (and even longer during EDT prime time) on Orien. This happens EVERY time one of our groups enters/leaves a quest area. It was pretty easy for us to figure it out since more often than not, both parties are in the same discord voice channel.

This issue started when the devs adjusted reaper to somehow do all its calculations on quest entrance and exit, but has steadily gotten worse as our group picks up more reaper points. I’ve got 145 reaper points on my main, and it now takes me anywhere from say 8-10 seconds to be able to move upon quest entrance, and that’s after spending at least that long in a loading screen. I can be first one to enter the quest, and the last one to be able to move by several seconds. Everyone else can be buffed and gone before I can even move. Meanwhile, everybody in the other party is getting upset because my load in lags them out.

I may have killed more of their party members than Miss Adventure.

Long story short, the lag is real, and I think that reaper mode calcs are a major source these days. I have to assume that our parties’ loads in/out aren’t just affecting each other, but every other active party on the server…well, at least the reaper parties.

I hope this can be looked into.

I've always wondered if applying reaper points was causing general server lag as well as crushing client lag and you're providing some evidence of that.

I have to assume it's recalculating everything about the character for each individual reaper point in series, rather than packaging them into a single massive reaper buff then applying that. However it's doing it, I think it's becoming urgent to look into efficiencies as more people have more reaper points.

[erethizon]

The lag issue is real.

I’m in a group that runs two simultaneous static parties (in reaper) every night, and every night it’s the same thing…

When one party zones in or out of a quest, the other party lags out for anywhere from 3-5 seconds (and even longer during EDT prime time) on Orien. This happens EVERY time one of our groups enters/leaves a quest area. It was pretty easy for us to figure it out since more often than not, both parties are in the same discord voice channel.

This issue started when the devs adjusted reaper to somehow do all its calculations on quest entrance and exit, but has steadily gotten worse as our group picks up more reaper points. I’ve got 145 reaper points on my main, and it now takes me anywhere from say 8-10 seconds to be able to move upon quest entrance, and that’s after spending at least that long in a loading screen. I can be first one to enter the quest, and the last one to be able to move by several seconds. Everyone else can be buffed and gone before I can even move. Meanwhile, everybody in the other party is getting upset because my load in lags them out.

I may have killed more of their party members than Miss Adventure.

Long story short, the lag is real, and I think that reaper mode calcs are a major source these days. I have to assume that our parties’ loads in/out aren’t just affecting each other, but every other active party on the server…well, at least the reaper parties.

As others have suggested, Reaper points should default to being on. When you are in town, your reaper points should be active. It is only when stepping into a quest that isn't on Reaper that they should be stripped away (and I'm fine with them leaving them active for that too if they really want to tackle the lag).

[gorocz]

As others have suggested, Reaper points should default to being on. When you are in town, your reaper points should be active. It is only when stepping into a quest that isn't on Reaper that they should be stripped away (and I'm fine with them leaving them active for that too if they really want to tackle the lag).

I'd argue that the total of reaper points of people running quests at elite or less (don't forget this includes epics) is higher over any period of time, than there is of reaper points of people running reaper. You probably wouldn't guess that based on LFM or perhaps your stable group, but if I'm not very much mistaken, a large majority of people running solo, including casual players (which surprisingly make up a majority of players even in DDO), run on Elite or lower, but everyone has at least a couple of reaper points that would need to be removed then. And if the impact of removing x reaper points equals the impact of adding x reaper points, that would make the lag issue just worse.

Sounds like they are applying all the stuff point by point, so maybe they are going to refactor the system to add up all the bonuses and apply them at once. Trying to fix it so it doesn't matter how many points you have on quest entry should be the way to go, especially since your solution would need a refactor of the same system anyway and just swap one issue for another. And I am guessing that fixing it is exactly what they want to do - reaper entrances has been a known source of lag for some time now - **** just takes time.

[AebroKomatme]

You probably wouldn't guess that based on LFM or perhaps your stable group, but if I'm not very much mistaken, a large majority of people running solo, including casual players (which surprisingly make up a majority of players even in DDO), run on Elite or lower,.

Do you have anything to back that claim up? I’m only asking because most people I know that almost (if not) exclusively solo stepped up years ago to at least R1.

[Zafaron]

The lag issue is real.

I’m in a group that runs two simultaneous static parties (in reaper) every night, and every night it’s the same thing…

When one party zones in or out of a quest, the other party lags out for anywhere from 3-5 seconds (and even longer during EDT prime time) on Orien. This happens EVERY time one of our groups enters/leaves a quest area. It was pretty easy for us to figure it out since more often than not, both parties are in the same discord voice channel.

This issue started when the devs adjusted reaper to somehow do all its calculations on quest entrance and exit, but has steadily gotten worse as our group picks up more reaper points. I’ve got 145 reaper points on my main, and it now takes me anywhere from say 8-10 seconds to be able to move upon quest entrance, and that’s after spending at least that long in a loading screen. I can be first one to enter the quest, and the last one to be able to move by several seconds. Everyone else can be buffed and gone before I can even move. Meanwhile, everybody in the other party is getting upset because my load in lags them out.

I may have killed more of their party members than Miss Adventure.

Long story short, the lag is real, and I think that reaper mode calcs are a major source these days. I have to assume that our parties’ loads in/out aren’t just affecting each other, but every other active party on the server…well, at least the reaper parties.

Those reaper mode calculations must have a lot of nested loops going, or they are instantiating a ton of new objects for some reason. Performing many thousands of calculations per character should just take a few milliseconds. Allocating new resources or performing tens or hundreds of thousands of calculations is really the only thing that would explain the amount of lag we get when entering a quest. I suppose it could be that an entire new player object is created from scratch with the reaper bonuses applied. Whatever they are doing could use some cleaning up, that's for sure.

[Evean]

For well over a decade, we have begged and begged for the issue of server lag to be addressed…

They don’t even have a tool to measure lag. The only metric they have is “number of forum complaints.” By this I mean; When people stop complaining about lag, there’s no lag.

Until they can measure it, they’ll never be able to fix it.

And before they figure out how to measure lag, they’ll need to figure out why they didn’t bother asking themselves “How even do we measure lag?”