For me, lag had improved some from the last patch (a couple weeks ago), it would seem to impact the enemies just as much as me, so once it passed, things would return to normal questing, and I would generally survive the lag. In Partycrashers it is different, it lag locks every single time, and there is no escape, you will die.
Partycrashers - Hard Lag Lock / Wipe Every Time
- Thread starter Greywolf
- Start date
Blunt Hackett
Well-known member
Interesting. They cleaned it up earlier to reduce lag, especially since it caused a lot for anniversary parties. I wonder if it needs more cleanup. I ran it recently just fine, but it was on Moonsea at a good time.
I can confirm there is a locking issue with 'Partycrashers'.
On four occasions (the last four times run each life) it has shown this issue, at the room with the stairs to upper level, filled with illusory purple sprites and the Mark of Shadow (MoS) in central recess.
The first two were total locks and I rerun the quest, also experiencing severe lag in the same location.
The third time, I did not run past the purple sprites to reach the MoS but destroyed them as I moved. As each one fell, the lag lessened.
The fourth time, these sprites were engaged as soon as they became hostile and apart from a minor stuttering the quest had no serious issues.
My conclusion is there is an issue with these mobs.
I recommend destroying them as fast as possible when encountered.
@J1NG, for information, two other issues with this quest in recent times:
1. Entering the quest did not put myself and other party member in first room, loaded both chars into second room, the first one with MoS.
2. The illusory scorpion did not reveal the MoS upon death.
Both of these were one time occurring and the retry had no issues (with purple sprites destroyed ASAP).
On four occasions (the last four times run each life) it has shown this issue, at the room with the stairs to upper level, filled with illusory purple sprites and the Mark of Shadow (MoS) in central recess.
The first two were total locks and I rerun the quest, also experiencing severe lag in the same location.
The third time, I did not run past the purple sprites to reach the MoS but destroyed them as I moved. As each one fell, the lag lessened.
The fourth time, these sprites were engaged as soon as they became hostile and apart from a minor stuttering the quest had no serious issues.
My conclusion is there is an issue with these mobs.
I recommend destroying them as fast as possible when encountered.
@J1NG, for information, two other issues with this quest in recent times:
1. Entering the quest did not put myself and other party member in first room, loaded both chars into second room, the first one with MoS.
2. The illusory scorpion did not reveal the MoS upon death.
Both of these were one time occurring and the retry had no issues (with purple sprites destroyed ASAP).
Rusty_helmet
Teh_troll’s Fluffer
Any quest or raid with spawn triggers really hits lag hard.
Aeromach
The Best
Same, Last 3 times (that I can recall) I ran the quest in a group & locked up for at least 5-10 minutes at same place.
Visual events appear delayed and happen is slow motion.
Twice in Epics, last time in heroics. Both Shadowdale, and at least once on Thrane (Epics).
I survived but multiple party members died to lag each time.
I just ran Partycrashers EE, and at this specific location of Mark Encounter, it did start to lag, I took your suggestion and destroyed the mobs as soon as I could rather than going strait for the Mark. There was still some lag, but it was manageable, and once enough of the illusionary creatures were gone, it smoothed out.
J1NG
I can do things others can't...
This has been my experience as well; unable to replicate. Which is annoying.
I suspect there's an entirely different issue that's causing the problem, but without knowing all the variables, it'll be hard to track.
Personal suspect would be
1. Display issue. We don't know what each user is running thier DDO client under, whether it is Windowed, Windowed Full Screen, or Full Screen. But an OS like Windows has background draw functionalities as well that remains on under certain ways of running stuff. If a user is running DDO on bare bones to get as much FPS as possible, but Windows 10 or 11 for example is trying to draw something in the background of the desktop with more advanced functionality, there could be a conflict that causes the lesser priority service (DDO) to be terminated rather than Windows falling over itself. DDO is old enough where it could have conflicts with it.
There's ways to disable and prevent the OS like Windows from using such features, but it varies by display device and what account previleges you have, so there's no simple way to show how to do that to test.
2. Insufficient storage. One very common isssue is users overload their storage drives. This is fine if there's nothing else going on behind the scenes and you have enough RAM as well, but if Windows is attempting to do something silently behind the scenes and there's not enough storage, things can again topple over. Or of course, if DDO ends up needing to swap anything out of memory to a page file, and there's insufficient space, DDO can again topple over.
This could have a sub issue where if sudden change of many enemies and uses more resources that the system doesn't have on hand, then also another reason to crash and topple.
3. Driver issue. Out of date drivers that haven't had their "issues" patched up yet is on the system and so when DDO calls up something, performance drops hard then crashes. And incidentally, sometimes an updated driver has something patched out, causing problems too.
---
It's unlikely to be purely a network issue, since it should be replicatable more easily at that point with 1-6 players who are in contact with each other and observing their systems (different network locations). Or on my single / multi-box runs (same network location).
But each of the ones above have enough variation where diagnosing is not a simple matter.
J1NG
Aeromach
The Best
Really? ***? We are talking about Partycrashers - right?
It happened to *me on 3 separate occasions, on different servers, at different times, with 3-4 different other people.
Other people are reporting the same exact issue.
What you are talking about *might affect 1 single person, not an entire group.
I have run the quest plenty of times before and it only recently became a problem. Its not a graphics setting on the client.
J1NG
I can do things others can't...
Yes.
And neither rabidfox, myself, and some others I managed to rope in were able to replicate this. What does that say? Nothing at all, other than we were unable to replicate it and others have experienced it.
Because at no point in this entire thread has anyone said "everyone in the group" crashed. Players have instead reported that players lagged hard together, enough where players got taken out - much like the old Baba raid issue, which would be a server issue then, not a local one, which would be what one of my earlier posts would have postulated as a server being busy.
But then players continued to report that they were able to replicate it at the same points. So rabidfox, myself, and others have attempted to replicate it, since if it's a specific location and condition that's repeatable, it 100% MUST be replicatable. But we were not able to. So there 100% MUST be a variation between our setups (Between those that are not experiencing anything and those that are) that are different that helps contribute to the issue (which I postulated in the post you quoted), OR, it's simply a server busy lag and you are all playing during the busy period and got caught up.
Now, we do have posts in this very thread that some were able to get through the quest after different attempts and on different servers too. This would suggest the server being busy rather than a local difference, but again, fellow gamers are reporting experiencing increased lag during certain conditions that are not consistently replicatable except for themselves or the group they find themselves in. To which the common denominator is themselves.
We all ran without issues with the Stencil Shadow options a while back without choppiness too, then suddenly there was issues. We all ran without pixel lighting being an issue without pixelating the screen, then suddenly there was issues for different hardware.
Both were caused by DDO, the first affected everyone, the second affected users of different hardware (initially). So there is precedence for impact variation without necessarily being "it's affecting everyone", even if it's replicatable for some consistently. The key thing is to have access to all the variations to be able to diagnose.
But this currently is not a simple replication, and without knowing more about the variation, given the information here, what would you say is more likely to be where the initial cause of the issue is?
J1NG
Aeromach
The Best
This is a solo clip from tonight. My first time posting video so take it as it is:
This is on Shadowdale, Epic R1, solo. ~6:30AM EST.
I could have easily destroyed the mark and avoided the lag, but I purposely did not so you could see the way it lags.
Also notice the bizarre behavior of the butterflies - they hardly move until I die. The elves are lagged but do move slowly and fatally.
This is on Shadowdale, Epic R1, solo. ~6:30AM EST.
I could have easily destroyed the mark and avoided the lag, but I purposely did not so you could see the way it lags.
Also notice the bizarre behavior of the butterflies - they hardly move until I die. The elves are lagged but do move slowly and fatally.
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J1NG
I can do things others can't...
Thank you. This provides much more replicatable information.
And I can confirm that this particular part is noticeable in lag if you leave the enemies alive.
I can confirm that it is not a local graphical setting that alters things for the better in this instance having gone through the entire list of options.
Looking at the network icon, I can see that this is not the same as other lag either, as the typical server not responding lag shows no response back from the servers. This is not the case here, so it's not likely to be the traditional form of server lag.
Theory: Lighting effects. I noticed that these Sprites happen to have per user lighting. Turning off lighting effects does not have an appreciable benefit to the performance, but I wonder, if this is why the Devs disabled the player side dynamic lighting (from the Archon on the FvS for example). As if these Sprites are all generating dynamic lighting on the server, even if we turn ours off, it's still being processed by the game server and might be chopping harder (especially during busy time frames).
And, the geometry of the room there is likely something that the Devs have been trying to eliminate as a cause of pathing and server load increase as enemies try to calculate ways to confront the player.
As others have expressed, removing the Sprites improves the performance of the room after. Further implicating the Sprites as the cause of the problem.
J1NG
J1NG
I can do things others can't...
A tiny bit more testing done.
Dragging the Sprites down from the upper level without activating them into enemies, does not produce the type of lag experienced when they are enemies. Despite still having dynamic lighting; the Sprites follow you without issues.
This would suggest that it's a pathing issue with the Sprites, given their removal pretty much ends the experienced choppy lag. Likely one of the cadidates for adjustment that the Devs have been talking about.
J1NG
:: edit ::
And tiny bit more testing done more, I was able to drag the Sprites without issues (other than the 1/2 to 1 second delay before they respond) to the Mark of Shadows without triggering the fight and there was no issues with their lighting or their pathing.
This would then suggest that it's something in their combat scripting (after being activated as enemies), possibly trying to do something that also requires distance/facing checks and then causes that instance to chop hard as they are unable to complete it or stuck in a loop about it.
Dragging the Sprites down from the upper level without activating them into enemies, does not produce the type of lag experienced when they are enemies. Despite still having dynamic lighting; the Sprites follow you without issues.
This would suggest that it's a pathing issue with the Sprites, given their removal pretty much ends the experienced choppy lag. Likely one of the cadidates for adjustment that the Devs have been talking about.
J1NG
:: edit ::
And tiny bit more testing done more, I was able to drag the Sprites without issues (other than the 1/2 to 1 second delay before they respond) to the Mark of Shadows without triggering the fight and there was no issues with their lighting or their pathing.
This would then suggest that it's something in their combat scripting (after being activated as enemies), possibly trying to do something that also requires distance/facing checks and then causes that instance to chop hard as they are unable to complete it or stuck in a loop about it.
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woq
Well-known member
The little shadows present in Baba / some Vecna quests / Night Brigade seem to generate similar pathing lag at times.
J1NG
I can do things others can't...
J1NG
I can do things others can't...
And yet more testing.
Eliminate all bar 1 Sprite, and the little thing was then able to move around without issue.
Whilst they were all grouped up together at the entryway to the room however, they were "stuck", unable to calculate a way forward to attack the character I had their aggro on. Until I eliminate over half of them, when they started to be able to path again (and lag improved). Leaving just the one, virtually no lag was experienced as shown in @Aeromach video at that point, although it was already pretty much non existent by the time there was but 4 left. :: edit :: Interestingly moving into their physical space, they were still able to attack as normal and react without issues.
I also noticed that one of them was a Champion and the crown was sitting nowhere near the Sprites visual head, instead sitting on what I would assume is a transparent enemy with the Sprite Avatar being the face only. In which case, this could still be a (dynamic) lighting issue. Largely because there's a known issue in DDO with transparency and when lighting needs to be calculated, although in the case here in Partycrashers, it's done on the server due to it being dynamic lighting.
Will see if I can't find the same experiences with the others in a bit when I have more time.
J1NG
Eliminate all bar 1 Sprite, and the little thing was then able to move around without issue.
Whilst they were all grouped up together at the entryway to the room however, they were "stuck", unable to calculate a way forward to attack the character I had their aggro on. Until I eliminate over half of them, when they started to be able to path again (and lag improved). Leaving just the one, virtually no lag was experienced as shown in @Aeromach video at that point, although it was already pretty much non existent by the time there was but 4 left. :: edit :: Interestingly moving into their physical space, they were still able to attack as normal and react without issues.
I also noticed that one of them was a Champion and the crown was sitting nowhere near the Sprites visual head, instead sitting on what I would assume is a transparent enemy with the Sprite Avatar being the face only. In which case, this could still be a (dynamic) lighting issue. Largely because there's a known issue in DDO with transparency and when lighting needs to be calculated, although in the case here in Partycrashers, it's done on the server due to it being dynamic lighting.
Will see if I can't find the same experiences with the others in a bit when I have more time.
J1NG