I’d like to open for discussion this topic to address an unusual problem with performance on an official server.
To begin with, here are some fundamentals.
- The ping time is consistently between 50 and 60 ms, which is good.
- Server FPS shows 30 most all of the time, which is good.
- Issues experienced by me that other players are not apparently affected by (enough for them to notice).
- It does not matter whether there are 2 or 36 players on the server, the issues are always present.
- It does not seem to matter where I am on the map, in a populated or barren area.
- Started playing on this server many months ago, and selected it due to its low ping yet higher player activity level.
- The issues are the same just before and directly after a scheduled server restart.
- Play on 3 different other official servers in the same region has not presented any of these symptoms.
- Play on several private dedicated servers does not present any of these symptoms.
Symptoms:
- Stamina seems to take 1-2 seconds to update either going down or replenishing.
- Similarly you could observe the health bar, food status, or other HUD display items not reflecting what is going on with your character 1-2 seconds.
- Items in all containers take a long time to render in, even if you have been standing next to the container for a while. The speed at which items render in, is on a fraction of a second per item level, but still it feels like a bottleneck of communication.
- Fighting any NPC involves them warping around the screen not in harmony with the local game client. This makes even routine combat very difficult, as you practically have to wait for them to attack you and reveal their location, then counter-attack before they warp to a new position.
- Harvesting a plant which yields fiber, the plant disappears for a moment and then re-appears requiring it to be harvested additionally (by hand)
- Sounds sometimes take seconds to load, such as when placing a item with the construction hammer, the associated sound of the item being placed could happen seconds later.
- I would imagine that PVP character combat would be nearly impossible on this server.
- I do not experience rubber-banding.
The asset count on this server is: 2,300 buildings, 15,000 placables, and 7,000 AI items.
The server runs The Exiled Lands.
So, for the discussion portion…
Why would the apparent performance of this server differ for some player and not others?
Is there any local component of our game install that would affect the perception of responsiveness with an online server? I have checked and don’t see any files that are server specific, such as a mysql cache db or anything like that.
Is there any course of action that one could take, other than leaving this particular server and playing someplace else or not playing anywhere new?
What is happening between the game server and client with regards to the slow to update stamina and other status indicators? Has anything recently changed in the game design which would route these items through the hosted server? Why would this not be proportional to the latency or bandwidth of the game server, as I know that playing on a server hosted in someone’s home is far more responsive, despite the higher ping.
Is there any way to capture details that might be useful for anyone administering this host?
Note, I’m not calling out the specific server here, as that seems to be not relevant to the discussion. Funcom has invited players to report concerns about official server performance to them using their in-game email based mechanism, which is awaiting a reply.