It was widely hoped that the server transfer that was done last week as part of the patch would fix raid lag - it is evident that wasn't part of what what into this data transfer, much to our chagrin. This isn't an individual or two lagging, it's all 54 members of a raid force sharing the same lag: 5 or 10 second spell gem refreshes, inability to fire AA abilities (it may take several button pushes to finally fire), raid mechanics not even happening: no adds spawning, no or less AEs firing due to lag. I didn't see parses last night but I suspect the tanks weren't taking on very much damage as well. I must confess (I'm guilty!) a few of us clicked pet swarms, which is really frowned upon at the start of a burn due to the lag they cause. But you know what? Isn't part of my class power tied to those pets being out? Swarm pets should not be breaking raids, if they are - maybe it's time for us to all just have 1 pet a piece that does the same dps. Or! Fix the server lag, maybe? Is there any effort being placed into raid event lag? It's pretty defeating and it's making the game not fun. We as a player base really don't need to break TBL events mechanics with lag. We defeated these raids just fine with 5 less levels, 5000 or so less AA's and lesser gear and augs.
we be clear and honest. Eq game engine is limiting factor here, as add all kewl synergy proc, weapon proc, and spell/AA mods, the 1999 engine can only happen so much. Is the answer to combine some of procs into lesser ratio to clear any bottlenecking of server information being processed? IDK It feels like old question every so often, rebuild it, remake, reclear it, but that old ars engine is only what is it. Cheaper to replace it that rebuild it, is my theory, and all know replacement is epic fail. __ so my answer or suggestion is less is more. Please clear the fluff and lets us swing clear and free. LESS is More.
I believe a lot of this lag is tied to them doing to many real-time calculations each "combat round" (IE calculating your offense and defense values each ROUND. Same goes for pets, likely for swarm pets too) If they weren't knee-deep in the current xpac bugfixes I'd be bugging some of the devs about this (again). I really do think that (mostly responsible IMO, and it can be fixed. These things only need re-calculated when they CHANGE, not every swing) and the number of reactive and proc effects that have to get checked each round have simply added up to more work then the zone server can handle and it just starts falling behind.
I agree, there's just too many calculations they're trying to perform for each combat round. I don't know see them fixing this issue though. The modern game has constructed class mechanics around procs, and they all tie in together. There are a lot of fluff procs that aren't needed, but they piled on so many procs that it'd take a massive amount of work.
It's more than just procs. What Zanamar is saying is the calculations for every single melee round, not just procs.
Yup! procs and reactive abilities likely can't be streamlined too much more then they have been... but fixing the unnecessary and quite frequent re-calculations that happen. Read THIS post by Dzarn (and this note by niente) and you'll see what I'm on about. Its a LOT of work! These values should be computed when you zone in, and when something changes them.
Things that don't change like AC most likely are calculated/cached at zone in / event change, but the actual combat itself has to happen live because many effects are rolled / randomly calculated and thus can't be cached, e.g. focus effects, DI (1-20), rolling for hit/miss, defensives, strikethroughs, stuns, special attacks (slay/decap/headshot, etc.) The problem is that things like this add up VERY quickly: So let's say in a raid of 54 people they all cast 1 spell. That's 54 spell casts. Now assume that everyone has an average of 6 procs (counting AA/Spell/Worn) and that they get an average of 3 procs per cast. Now you have 54x4 = 216 spell casts. Now assume a 50% twincast rate (not every class can do it) on a burn and you have 216+108 = 324 casts a second. Now assume that 10 of those casts are AE heals that hit the entire raid. That's 54x10 = 540-54 = 486+324 = 810 spell casts. Now assume there are 3 swarm pets per player on average. Now you have 54x3 = 162 x 10 = 1620+810 = 2430 spell casts. Now assume there are 100 spell effects (I'm assuming that EQ has optimizations and doesn't check all 550ish SPAs for every spell) and that's 2430x100 = 243,000 calculations minimum for spells per second. Now do all of the above for Melee Combat. Now add in all the pathing calculations for 162 swarm pets' pathing. Now add in NPC/Zonewide AEs hitting the entire raid. This is why we lag. It's a combination of: Procs, Swarm Pets, AEs, and an ever expanding list of SPAs that need to be checked for each of the preceding things on this list. And I'm sure the above is a super simplified version of what is really happening because EQ is really old and really, really complicated.
The "Computed Defense" is calculated every round. I know since I asked one of the dev's specifically. I agree a lot of other bits have to happen in real time; but that not just being calculated on updates and stored is a lot of repeated work for no gain. (and if you start to think about how often per second it comes into play on a raid with pets, swarm pets, proc pets, melee.. it feels like a weak link to me) I really hope once they get everything sorted one of them has a chance to take just that value and try calculating it (say just at zone to test with, on test ofc) and see what difference it makes. I'd be willing to bet my lifetime sub that its noticeable with a raid doing their thing.
I wish they would simply add all proc dps into 1 AA line, that we can activate. Negating how many other procs an checks that would normally be associated with 3-6 procs per raider.
The bad thing about swarm pet, they also get luck from the owner, normal damage + double their luck as well.
At least we got to see that infamous lag trick of an army of pets getting caught in a death loop for a few minutes yesterday
Can't be sure of that without profiling. A memory access can be slower than a simple calculation on values already in cache.
Not quite double. For combat Luck is only rolled when you get a critical. No crit, no luck roll. Of course, on a burn pretty much everyone has 100% crit rate so it's going to roll a luck check and then roll the luck amount, so 2 extra rolls per spell mostly.
@Beimeith: and let's throw in a zonewide aura changing hp, mana and endurance values of every single player and pet every 1 sec - and we get the wonderful Mearatas Lag 1.0
This is the biggest issue with the game ATM. If you lose a dps check or a raid due to server and game performance, it cost 54 people 10-20 minutes of real time, this is not cool. Serge and alliance heals can't help things, they need retooled to work differently.
Yes exactly, and the guilds failing the dps checks are also not creating that much lag in the first place.
Or they are, but just not to the same degree. Imagine what some of these fights would be like lag-free............. holy crap, it would be a glorious display of pwnage.
