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Being accused for causing lag
clericalist
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 595 Arc User
As many are already aware, Tiamat and some other encounters have massive lag, so bad that it sometimes leads to failure in Tiamat. In the chat there are some that say its the fault of burning guidance, astral seal, knights valour and perhaps there might be others. Does anyone have data that can verify this, I am not talking about you heard it from a friend or you once had lag and saw somebody use astral seal, I am talking about proper scientific experimentation with controlled groups.
Its getting beyond annoying now when people are shouting in chat or even wagging their fingers in unfriendly (to put it mildly) tells. Its bad enough if we cannot use some of our encounters or dailies, but if it turns out to be burning guidance thats a pretty big problem, because one has to either respec or seriously cripple ones cleric to make sure no healing ever occurs. Before I do this, I obviously would like to know if this is true. I am not going to blindly change what I do without evidence, I have had Tiamat encounters where there was no lag, so it cannot only be my burning guidance doing this.
Its getting beyond annoying now when people are shouting in chat or even wagging their fingers in unfriendly (to put it mildly) tells. Its bad enough if we cannot use some of our encounters or dailies, but if it turns out to be burning guidance thats a pretty big problem, because one has to either respec or seriously cripple ones cleric to make sure no healing ever occurs. Before I do this, I obviously would like to know if this is true. I am not going to blindly change what I do without evidence, I have had Tiamat encounters where there was no lag, so it cannot only be my burning guidance doing this.
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seal causing lag is not a rumor.
you can just check NW history of lags relating to class powers and featsf.
mod2 HR's power causes lag (I forgot the name)
mod4 GFs are walking lagbots.
Yes it is. It was ninja-fixed in the Tiamat patch. Stop blindly parroting old information. Alternatively, make a video demonstrating it on heralds, where it used to be trivial to reduce everyone to 0.5 fps, and we'll be convinced.
BTW, it involves more than just Astral Seal. Your information is both out of date and incomplete
Also I heard KV may cause the same problem I don't know how though.
WTB Class Reroll please
Any bugs (such as the one that *was* caused by the Astral Seal (which only happened when a certain feat was used)) only add to the issue.
"LAG" is 75- 85% your own computer and connection. This is fact. In large areas with a lot of people (like PE on a busy day, or in WoD) then rest is server load. Your best bet: change instance to one with fewer people.
Luckily, players have the ability to educate KV users. If you're cursed with a GF using it, two or more people just need to stand in red/behind the red barrier for a few seconds. That will kill the GF very quickly, if he doesn't get a clue and turn it off.
I would have to agree with this. We have 3 computers hooked up to the same router in my house. I get less lag in Tiamat when I am the only one on the computer than when the other two computers are also in use. This is one of the reason we are switching from DSL to cable internet.
Of course, there is still that roughly 20% of lag caused by the nature of the Tiamat instance . . .
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
A single DC alone, can't cause lag for most ppl, not even a Virtuous DCs. But during Tiamat there is usually more than 1 DC in the instance and 5+ DCs with Burning Guidance can cause lag for most.
The FPS lag is not caused by DCs, that's caused by several issues affecting the game since mod 5's release, but what most ppl complain about is not an FPS lag, it's a network lag (1k+ ping, 10k+ received packets/sec).
Let me try to explain what's causing the problem experienced by most players, and how to solve it.
The problem is that Burning Guidance (BG) was designed for mod2 DCs, which had a lot less healing procs/sec. Since then, the number of heal procs/sec and the number of ppl using DoT builds have increased. In mod 2 you could proc on average around 2-3 BG ticks/sec/mob, which resulted in a pretty significant DPS increase for healer DCs without producing more hits/run then a GPF would do. In mod 5 they redesigned the DCs, allowing both Virtuous and Faithful DCs to produce a ton of small heals/sec, and since BG is proc'ed by heals the number of BG ticks have increased significantly.
During the last patch they lowered the proc rate from Shared Burdens, but left everything else unaffected, so the number of BG ticks/sec is still significantly higher than pre-mod5. BG is currently proced by everything that heals (encounters, feats, w/e).
Now to talk about what causes the network lag. The game has logging enabled by default, that means that everyone in a certain range will receive detailed information about everyone else's damage, heals, incoming damage. This is what allows for the game to have a log tab, to display on-screen other ppls damage, procs, etc, and ACT to function. The game also has a console command, which is required in order to log the above mentioned things to a file, which then is analyzed by ACT if one chooses to do so.
The problem is when you have a DC producing 1k hits/sec that's 1k lines of combat log everyone in your vicinity will receive, multiply that by the amount of DCs in your vicinity, add the hits produced by other players and you're already looking at 10k+ lines of combat log /sec with only 5 BG DC's in your vicinity. Even though a single line of combat log is less than 1 packet long, since they use compression, that's still a significant amount. With enough DC's and ppls with DoT builds in your vicinity that number goes up even higher to the point that it becomes a DoS (Denial-of-Service) attack. 10k+ packets/sec is more than what most consumer-grade networking equipment can handle, causing them to freeze.
Now imagine that everyone receives the same amount of packets/sec, that means that the backbones in-between you and the server can recognize it as a DoS attack, since they are receiving not 10k packets/sec, but millions/sec from a single source, so in order to protect themselves they throttle or drop packets. That's why client's of certain ISPs will have trouble playing the game at all, since the route they are being routed through is being throttled, causing lag, or is dropping packets, causing disconnects.
There are two quick fixes for this:
1. Add an ICD of .5 sec to BG / mob. This will return the BG procs to pre-mod 5 proc rate and dps. A healer DC's job is to heal not DPS, so it doesn't really matter.
2. Disable logging by default & retrospectively, so those who are interested can turn it on with "/CombatLog 1" just like now, while the others who never even checked the log tab, which is at least 50% of the player base, will not receive extra information, they'll just receive a summary log with enough information to update the HP bars and Paingiver/etc, instead of the detailed one that's just wasting resources for the most part.
Hope this helps understand the problem. Tried to keep it as simple as possible while still being informative.
Wow! What a seriously in-depth analysis. I love stuff like this!
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
Aelar Hawkwind - Archer
Karrin Feywinter - Mistress of Flame
Errin Duskwalker - Executioner
Darquess - Soulbinder
Ummm, NO.
I'll not insult you by stating the obvious.
'nuff said.
You are summarizing exactly what bajornorbert said in the over-analysis. Which is true (too many players a single instance). The Devs have to find a way to make server data exchange more efficient, primarily with all the whiz-bang graphics, which is the primary curse.
Too many people means the server must *manage* all that dynamic data and transfer it from and to every single player in the instance. Your computer must munch on all that data on top of actually drawing all those pixels that drastically change many times-a-second.
Drop in FPS: your computer is wheezing; Rubberbanding: the server (and connection bandwidth) is wheezing. Current best fix you have direct control over: Change instance. Fewer people in instance = (somewhat) better experience. (Unfortunately: RoT require 25 people per instance, but changing zone instances is where you can improve your own experience.)
The log data has absolutely minimal (if any) impact; it's nowhere near the primary problem. The primary problem is all those 3D polygons that create all the mesh that must be constructed, textured, and drawn in perspective, then 'atmosphered' (lighting, haze, fog, etc) every 60 times a second (60 FPS). Multiply that by 25, where the server must give all that 3D drawing information to each and every player about the other 24 plus NPCs, Mobs, environment, whiz-bang fireworks... that's the top 5% of the "processing load" list. Your computer can't keep-up, it sacrifices FPS to be able to continuously do all that. In the movie-making world it's known as "dropped frames" to maintain timeline playback.
Hence: FPS drop.
Your client tells the server where you are and what you're doing. Server takes that information and passes it to the next player so HIS client can see where you are and what you're doing, then the server takes his data and passes it to your client. Server only does this maybe once or twice every second. Predictive positioning means if the server sees you running north it will presume you are running north and tell other players you are running north.
But if you turn west, the next time the server connects to your client it updates your position to be west of were you were, not north then updates the other players. If there are too many players there is a larger gap in time between server/client updates - more chance that the predictive positioning will be wrong. In this case: to other players you just "rubber-banded" to different position. (Bandwidth latency causes the exact same issue, but in that case it's only the specific player and it's not the server's fault)
Now imagine server doing this for five players: that's four additional positional updates for each player, which takes server time to accomplish. Now imagine 25 players... you get the idea.
Hence: Rubberbanding.
Logs are analog text data. How long does it take for an email to go from Outbox to mail server? How long does it take for flashy-pixel-candy web page to load? How long does it take before a YouTube video starts to play? See the difference?
Analog text data is minuscule information for the server, client, and bandwidth to handle. To presume otherwise is laughable at best.
I specifically said healer DC.
Other than that. I get what you are saying, that's too true, but was mostly the case pre-mod5. The FPS drop due to too many things to draw is a problem too, but that's totally different from the issue described by me, the network freeze. If you turn on netgraph while your having serious issues playing, you'll see that you ping suddenly went from 100-200 to 3k+ and the incoming packets/sec from a few hundred to several 10k. The most i've seen was 150k packets/sec, even at 512 bytes /packet, which is less than an actual packet, that's more than 70MB of data being transfered per second, that's more then the bandwidth of the majority of players and 150k packets is certainly a lot more than a $.10 onboard network card or the average player's CPU can handle. That amount of traffic needs very high-end PCs and/or at least prosumer-grade equipment, which most players don't have.
I know that log is just data, but when you're trying to send way too much data / sec, the data will become the issue, since you'll stop receiving up-to-date data from the server to work with.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
I agree! My point is that the log data is less than 0.05% of ALL the data that has to be transmitted and constructed by each machine. (Okay: 0.05% is an exaggeration, just making my point! LOL)
All in all - I agree, and we all know the current iteration of RoT is a serious hot-mess and needs some genuine fixing: bugs and player-experience. I'm sure the studio has multiple Devs from multiple teams on this. And I get it: shouting out our frustrations as with this and other threads helps us to cope; because sometimes it just helps to feel a little better to 'talk about it".
But on a personal level, try using /unlit 1 in your chat bar to help against lag & rubberbanding. It's not the perfect solution, but it does help in intensive instances such as MC & Tiamat. Use /unlit 0 to return to normal afterwards.
Alternately, try turning off the damage/heal numbers so your screen isn't as cluttered.
These are just ideas to try to make sure that it's not simply your connection.
Not disagreeing with those above, as the issues are very real, nonetheless these would be the most common things to try first.
It's got nothing to do with the machine because what bajorn is talking about is netlag. You're talking about vidlag. Those two are different.
The lag that happens in tiamat is netlag, not vidlag.
If you know something to be broken, stop using it.
Otherwise, you've got no right to be speaking of 'balance.'
The zone-wide rubberband fest we all enjoyed as we began fighting the WoD HEs, which as pointed out was related to Burning Guidance, certainly was/is a network issue however.
It's certainly tricky to separate some of the issues players are experiencing because the average player calls anything from local ISP latency, poor WiFi connectivity or outdated/overheating hardware to actual client or server issues "lag".
And these should all be posted in "bugs" with system spec info, or tickets should be filed. Cause unless Sprite is wrong, there is no be all fix for it.
Fox Stevenson - Sandblast
Oh Wonder - Without You
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
- Dylan Thomas
Burning guidance on DCs is still causing lag, although they tried to fix it. Do everyone a favour and specc out of it; I did on my DC and it helps a lot.
I personally would simply unslot all spells that generate heavy DoTs or HoTs like Astral Seal, KV and sorts. Not sure it helps, but it's not like you absolutely need those in the instance. As GF I can say that KV has caused no issues so far for me personally at least, but something is as I just came out of a Tiamat fight where I literally couldn't move due to hardware lag starting with 1:00 left in every heads phase. That's called a pattern and they have to fix it on their end.
I'm glad to hear that astral seal was fixed. TBH, I didn't think that it was a problem; the lag I've experienced has been 'normal-horrible' for me in any Cryptic game that has a lot of action going on, whether I'm using Astral Seal or not. However, the one time I tried Bastion of Health, the instance just slowed to a crawl. Could be a coincidence because there were other DC's in the fight, and maybe there was Burning Guidance proccing all over.
Certainly *something* causes additional lag all over the instance. I was once standing in the center during the heralds fight, and couldn't walk from the fire to the vendor at all - after several rubber-banding instances the chat was filled with 'DC's just get out' and I actually got a tell from someone calling me names and telling me not to play the game anymore. I just changed instances, and the lag evened out.
I'm really hopeful that the memory leak patch today helps this issue. I find I get less lag if I completely turn off the computer (not reboot) to clear all memory after playing NW for any period of time. Also much better after I turned video post-processing. I'm going to try turning off the log and see if that helps as well, although the server drag will still be present, at least my data pipeline won't be clogged with unnecessary traffic.
Ignore them. There isn't a shred of proof against the DC powers in any of this trolling nonsense. The ignore function is your friend in regards to ignorant players and chat. I main a DC and have no issues even though I use every power the trolls claim to be the culprit.
But a few days ago there was a lot of lag caused by DC and prior to that was from KV(facts that were admitted and solved by devs). Now they are still in the collective mind and will take a bit of time to go away.
I remember when noone would invite me in a grp cause i was a GWF and all GWFs were bad by default.
If multiple DCs cast AS on the heads lag will get worse and worse over time. Especially in one fight I could directly connect the amount of AS's on the target to massive lag. I assume that the longer the head phase, the more DoTs and stuff trigger AS which is simply too much.
cause some complained about astral shield? (I find it very effective in tiamat)
that's just people parroting what they heard and they heard "AS+BG" causes lag and they figured people meant Astral Shield.
It was Astral Seal+ Burning Guidance + Shared Burdens. The dev's ninja fixed Shared Burdens and some of the lag issues went away, but not all of them.
Bajorn's post on page 1 perfectly describes what is happening and why you are having lag. However it is more complicated than just packets. The server itself isn't a magical box where everything is processed instantly. Each interaction requires cpu time to process, and if a single action on the client generates enough packets to slow down your network traffic just imagine what it's doing to duty cycles on the server's cpus.
I was just in Tiamat and got told by 3 different people (including one prat who made the comment "probably too stupid to understand") to stop using Astral Shield. Yes, that's right, Astral Shield, not Astral Seal (and I'm too stupid to understand
In another instance I got yelled at for using Astral Seal when there was some lag. The only problem was that I never actually used it.
I can believe that astral seal contributes to the lag in Tiamat. Along with all the other debuffs that also get cast on the heads, so I don't tend to use it as it isn't really necessary.
You really have to have a thick skin though - lol.