Can we fix the lag instead of just "addressing" it?

As a magician, I know COH is unable to be casted in certain zones. I wonder if raid instanced zones could disallow the casting of swarm AA (such as Host of Elements for magicians and whatever one Bards have, for example) but still allow them to be used in group zones. I know those classes (and others) should not be using mass swarm AA... but not everyone remembers or changes their hotkeys, or they just do it out of old habits.

As far as the proc thing goes, while I agree that there is so many that it could result in raid lag... I also don't want to penalize the player that takes the time to obtain six proc augs compared to the player that only has one. Linking them together where only the current expansion procs work over prior ones creates more equality among players instead of recognizing the time and effort some get into getting most/all. If there was a way to have two procs per toon as far as augs go (one melee, one caster) but have that aug work almost like an evolving item where it improves as you get more augs... that could help reduce the amount of procs on a raid while still rewarding the player who has all the augs over the one who does not.

From what I understand Mages depend on the number of pets including swarm pets to maximize their DPS and this would impact their DPS.

procs augs.. the only aug that should be proc are one that don't do damage/heals. such as runes, snare, or root sure. the rest should be setup so that instead of doing their own damage spell they increase the current spell proc on the weap by x %.

Fix the lag? Why would they do that? The lag seems to be working really well!

Thanks. As a magician main for 22 years, I had zero clue our "of Many" spell line was dependent on the number of pets that are on the target mob in question.

Or on a more serious note, the devs could adjust the number of pets that are on the mob for "of Many" to fire at its max amount. Also note I am only referring to the AA swarm pets; the spell swarm pets (RS for mages, for example) are still fine. And Sancus can correct me if I am wrong, but you need 14 pets on a mob to max out "of Many". So on a raid with 2-3 mages, 2-3 necros, 2-3 beastlords... throw in some spell swarm pets for them, and you should be able to get to 14 pets on a mob w/o the need for AA swarm pets like Host

True. You probably don't need Host to reach the limit. We should just get rid of all those AA swarm pet abilities. It's a good idea.

Or just change the "of Many" line to not require pets at all. (Entirely random idea) Make it a counter debuff on the mob that eats a counter each time the mob receives damage, doing some additional damage each time. Basically an alliance type thing but not limited to any specific class.

As a tank, I wholeheartedly support the removal of all swarm pets. I hate them with a passion.

And yet I never called for the elimination of swarm AA. Just disable it in raid zones.

Your hatred and animosity of magicians and pet classes is cute, though. Keep fighting the good fight!

This reduces DPS in raid zones.

How about we just change swarm pet AAs to be one swarm pet with the dps of the entire swarm and the ability to survive dying five or so times. In other words, when the swarm pet 'dies', it is 'reborn' again with full HP, until all five (or whatever number of pets the AA now gives) are gone. Each time it 'dies', the dps can be reduced by 1/5 (or whatever number of pets instead of the 5 in the 1/5).

I never, never, never understood why every class was given a bunch of swarm pets in the first place. I was like, "Don't the devs play this game and know that this will create lag?" But someone at SOE thought it was a good idea.

Isn't it the pathing that causes the lag with mobs? Could they disable mob pathing for mobs not near any players in instances? Would that help, vs. the extreme examples of outright removing things? I'm not a fan of "regress the game to the old times and force everyone into contested content" idea. Obviously insanity like the Cactiikkii instance with hundreds of mobs pathing everywhere should be avoided.

Only tangentially related to lag, I think the game has a massive problem of ability bloat with some being useless or nearly so.

From what I was told some swarm pets are worth more than others, but there should not be tons of useless abilities that when combined add 5% or even less to total DPS for a player. Optimal play has become hilariously overly complex for some classes, and for the ones that can use a smaller subset of abilities the solution is not to "balance" everything into near uselessness to require doing 100 things for marginal gains.

Would hugely more powerful procs that proc less often reduce lag? I remember being low level with my shaman meleeing with a velium staff, and every proc was a noticable drop in mob HP. It wouldn't surprise me if procs are less than 1/1000th of normal mob HP these days.

Reducing the number of AA swarm pets is a good goal, as is reducing the number of procs. Right now with a number of classes spawning 10+ swarm pets and 54 players in the raid, there are literally hundreds if everyone uses theirs at the same time. That's just clearly unnecessary. Limiting swarm pet usage in raid zones is one approach; another would just be condensing swarm pet AAs to one pet in most cases.

There would definitely need to be additional balance adjustments following any changes. Proc reductions would disproportionately hurt Wizards (who have Fury of the Gods), and a reduction in swarm pet volumes to no AA swarm pets would require some compensatory adjustments. A good solution to maintain viability of Of Many would actually be to make sure that Bst/Nec swarm pets are viable in raids; they often are not because base swarm pets (including RS pets without Theft of Essence) have very low ATK relative to raid AC values.

I do think it's important to take this issue and suggestions to fix it seriously; it's a shame that some people do not.

The amount of DPS a swarm pet AA does is negligible (sp) in the grand scheme of things on a raid. Raids do not depend on swarm pet AA DPS in order to win.

I am also strongly against changing them into one mob, because swarm pet AA does have many applications in the group game. As a personal example, when I box with my bard and I do a burn and use both mage Host AA and bard swarm AA, I easily generate the 14 pets required to max out Of Many. Changing those AA to make it one swarm pet means I cannot get to 14. Which relegates Of Many to only raids, which I am not sure is a good idea. There is also minor off tanking applications, buying a few extra seconds to do something else. Point being, I am against fundamentally changing the swarm AA because of the negative implications in the group game.

But disabling them in raid zones? That would eliminate player accidental mis hits of the AA, reduce swarm pets, and maybe that helps contribute to better lag.

One huge point is that while the lag problem continues they need to stop designing as if it doesn't happen. I saw the problems with Aten Ha Ra and Oubliette coming a mile away. I should have been more vocal about the risk during beta, and probably only mentioned it once. I'm not sure if it's been fixed or there's just less server load than earlier in the year. Aten Ha Ra has definitely improved.

If they reduced them they would have to change "of many" spells. Barring them in raid zones would just lead to the huge problem of "one size fits all" design, punishing magicians in guilds/raid forces with less pet classes.

None of this solves the standard server lag with chats, invites, bazaar, vendor interactions, etc.

Is there a negative with changing "of Many"? To reduce it down to, say, 10-12 pets instead of 14? And then change the other levels as well?

Barring swarm AA could potentially help with some lag issues. You then adjust "of Many" (which is fine) based off of a standard normal expected raid force. And I have to ask, how many primary pet classes are normally on a raid? I would guess 5-10. If those pet classes have their pet up and are utilizing their swarm pets (which Sancus earlier states need some improvements, so that can happen as well), there should be no reason why a raid cannot get to 14 pets (or 10-12) based off of those primary pet classes.

Now, maybe I have just always been blessed to be on raid forces where there is consistently 5-10 pet classes on every event. And maybe most raids are closer to 3-5 pet classes. I just think removing pet swarm AA *only* in raid zones ALONG WITH changes to "of Many" and non mage pet swarm spells would help with some of the lag issues.

The damage threshold is in "buckets" for number of pets on hatelist. The top bucket was originally 10 pets. Then they added a new bucket for 15+.

https://www.raidloot.com/spells?name=of many&effect=&class=&level=&view=

I'd guess there was a design reason from changing from the original way the spell data was, but maybe that had to do with old SPAs and having 7 buckets, or else they were trying to boost damage in raid vs groups (give many a higher max damage for raids where its unlikely to have enough pets to hit it in group). That top bucket of damage is waaay higher than the 10 pet threshold.

Instead of removing 90% of everything that takes up a pixel or packet, there are good suggestions here to be implemented on a piecemeal, a la carte basis.

Test swarm pet reduction effects on raid lag on Test Server over a span of 3 months. Invite major guilds to test and provide feedback.

Granted, this is all easier said than done. We have seen/heard about under-the-hood, behind-the-scenes efforts to reduce lag.

I am not sure removing swarm pets from raids would do that much of a fix and raiding guilds can easily ask their members to not use them to see if it helps.