Online almost unplayable, again, again, and again

[Blackhawk_FR]

There is nothing much to say.

 

Almost all servers can't run correctly when they are full. Lags, crash, etc. 

There is an exception with TAW (it rarely crash) but I don't know how. May be they have a super powerfull computer that counter the bad software of the game. 

 

When a map is changing, most of the time we are kicked out of the server. So everybody try to rejoin, but it's like having one small door for 80 peoples. After 20 attempts i'm seriously pissed off to be kicked to the menu after the map loading, counting on a miracle to connect. 

 

We could also write a list of bugs. The grey respawn button to start, one of the most annoying, cause you need to leave the server to solve it (if server is full, it's probably the end for you). 

 

 

It's great to have new toys, Dora, Mustang, Tempest, 262, etc.... But seriously, we don't care about them if we CAN'T have a correct online experience. 

Please, do something about it !!!!

 

[peregrine7]

100% agree, honestly can't agree enough.

BUT this doesn't belong in the general discussion forum. If you haven't already condense this down and put it in the feedback section of the site.

[TWC_Ace]

The funny thing is that in patch release notes it says MP is optimized. In fact its worse than before....much worse...

Netcode should me a priority for fixing.....if it can be fixed...was always a weak part of this great sim....

Edited November 25, 2018 by blackram

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

It may be partially related to this: 

 

If updated (advanced) vehicle damage models require so much additional compute power, that current number allowing to enter server or spawn had to be significantly reduced than Im not sure the benefit of such change for flight sim is worth it for the price to pay. I know it maybe will matter some day for Tank Crew guys, but for a flight sim up until now vehicles were just fine.

[Sunde]

19 minutes ago, =362nd_FS=Hiromachi said:

It may be partially related to this: 

 

If updated (advanced) vehicle damage models require so much additional compute power, that current number allowing to enter server or spawn had to be significantly reduced than Im not sure the benefit of such change for flight sim is worth it for the price to pay. I know it maybe will matter some day for Tank Crew guys, but for a flight sim up until now vehicles were just fine.

This 1000 times, i dont care if i can blow the wheels off a truck, not if this is the cost.

100% not a worthy trade... 
Also MP is definitly in a bad state now, i hope they work it out. 

[Willy__]

1 hour ago, peregrine7 said:

BUT this doesn't belong in the general discussion forum. If you haven't already condense this down and put it in the feedback section of the site.

 

Anything but the General Section of the forum get forgotten, if OP had posted there almost nobody would see the topic

[Matt]

It's tough the test MP performance durining beta testing, because we don't have 80 beta testers that can join a server simultaneously.

 

I kind of doubt that the new vehicles mechanic has a massive impact on this, after all, TAW uses probably three times as many vehicles as KOTA or WOL and it doesn't seem to suffer (as much) from this.

 

The AI for planes also saw an update, in which there are less likely to crash in to the ground (and probably avoid collisions in general). I'm pretty sure that WOL and KOTA use AI planes and based on Cocunuts posts, he does as well.  So i think that it might have more to do with that instead.

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

12 minutes ago, Matt said:

It's tough the test MP performance durining beta testing, because we don't have 80 beta testers that can join a server simultaneously.

 

I kind of doubt that the new vehicles mechanic has a massive impact on this, after all, TAW uses probably three times as many vehicles as KOTA or WOL and it doesn't seem to suffer (as much) from this.

 

The AI for planes also saw an update, in which there are less likely to crash in to the ground (and probably avoid collisions in general). I'm pretty sure that WOL and KOTA use AI planes and based on Cocunuts posts, he does as well.  So i think that it might have more to do with that instead.

TAW had same issue today, WOL & KOTA in general don't use AI planes or very rarely on WOL. Those lagging usually happen after mission in played for some long time.

[CountZero]

WoL has AI only when enemy bomber flys over base that is for spawning only and not target base, so it prevents that behavior of some ppl bombing players on spawning and taxiing, and only 4-6AI fighters at time show up. Thats happends once or twice in 3h, and AI lands fast after bomber is down or moves away from base.

 

On berloga i can clearly see better improvments to MP that devs say they did, so its not like devs didnt fix MP problems they say they fix in update, berloga with 50ppl yesterday in small area of 30km was smood and good to play as never before since i play a game, and was joy to play compared to WoL after update. 

 

 

Edited November 25, 2018 by 77.CountZero

[HR_Tumu]

I agree.

After patch seems online experience is worst.

[Sunde]

13 minutes ago, 77.CountZero said:

WoL has AI only when enemy bomber flys over base that is for spawning only and not target base, so it prevents that behavior of some ppl bombing players on spawning and taxiing, and only 4-6AI fighters at time show up. Thats happends once or twice in 3h, and AI lands fast after bomber is down or moves away from base.

 

On berloga i can clearly see better improvments to MP that devs say they did, so its not like devs didnt fix MP problems they say they fix in update, berloga with 50ppl yesterday in small area of 30km was smood and good to play as never before since i play a game, and was joy to play compared to WoL after update. 

 

 

Agree, Berloga was a joy to play on, better than ever.
Missions for some reason are not doing well. 

[Guest deleted@83466]

Ok, so it's not just me that percieved some "less than smooth" behavior the last couple of nights during dogfights...

 

I think the title "Almost Unplayable, again, again" is quite exaggerated, and unnecessarily provacative, and not the most productive way to go about it.  Come on man, the situation isn't nearly that bad!

 

However, yes, since the update, I too seen some warpy type behavior on both WoL that I haven't seen in quite a while that was noticeable enough to be annoying, and it wasn't always happening on packed servers or big furballs.   To clarify, seeing warpy, twitchy behavior from guys that have high pings is not all that uncommon, even before the update, but it did seem a little more frequent.  I can't say for sure it's not on my end, but since others are reporting it, well,  I thought I'd mention it too.

Edited November 25, 2018 by SeaSerpent

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

9 hours ago, SeaSerpent said:

I think the title "Almost Unplayable, again, again" is quite exaggerated, and unnecessarily provacative, and not the most productive way to go about it.  Come on man, the situation isn't nearly that bad!

This ship is only half sank, c'mon man, its not nearly as bad, the other half is still floating! 

And Im not sure whats provocative about words almost unplayable when those are true for some ? 

 

Sorry, it is that bad for me. It takes up to 20 min to enter server alone, then there are all kinds of spawn issues and kicking issues. Chances are after entering you wont have spawn and you will get kicked for inactivity. Then you spawn and from the moment of take-off you enjoy on servers like KotA or WoL lag and stutter. Guys are warping right next to you. You get killed and you cant start again cause spawn button is grey for some mysterious reason. And thats just for me. Now try to fly with a squadron buddies, when we wait for each other and try to coordinate. God forbid someone disconnects or crashes ...

There are better hours, for sure, but peaks are around CET - GMT evenings, when I fly as well. And thats my experience since last week. 

Now, there are servers like TAW that seem to handle better but even those are not free of trouble. Only clearly improved server so far is Berloga. 

[1PL-Husar-1Esk]

21 minutes ago, =362nd_FS=Hiromachi said:

This ship is only half sank, c'mon man, its not nearly as bad, the other half is still floating! 

And Im not sure whats provocative about words almost unplayable when those are true for some ? 

 

Sorry, it is that bad for me. It takes up to 20 min to enter server alone, then there are all kinds of spawn issues and kicking issues. Chances are after entering you wont have spawn and you will get kicked for inactivity. Then you spawn and from the moment of take-off you enjoy on servers like KotA or WoL lag and stutter. Guys are warping right next to you. You get killed and you cant start again cause spawn button is grey for some mysterious reason. And thats just for me. Now try to fly with a squadron buddies, when we wait for each other and try to coordinate. God forbid someone disconnects or crashes ...

There are better hours, for sure, but peaks are around CET - GMT evenings, when I fly as well. And thats my experience since last week. 

Now, there are servers like TAW that seem to handle better but even those are not free of trouble. Only clearly improved server so far is Berloga. 

 

Seriously all those issues can't happen at once  ;), extremely unlucky if in preparation to one sortie . But yes I know all of those unfortunately

[Guest deleted@83466]

OK, fair enough, Hiromachi.  I''m not experiencing most of the problems reported here but I believe you.  I'm sorry to hear that the issue is that bad for you, but I think it is actually good news that as a tester, you're likely in a much better position than anyone else here to appropriately flag the issue to the people who can fix it.   I'm confident that whatever is going on, it will be fixed.

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

27 minutes ago, 307_Tomcat said:

 

Seriously all those issues can't happen at once  ;), extremely unlucky if in preparation to one sortie . But yes I know all of those unfortunately

Oh, not all at once, but the same evening. I had that on Wendsday and Friday, so when I flew KotA / WoL. Fortunately TAW is better, though entering takes time as well.

 

24 minutes ago, SeaSerpent said:

I'm sorry to hear that the issue is that bad for you, but I think it is actually good news that as a tester, you're likely in a much better position than anyone else here to appropriately flag the issue to the people who can fix it.   I'm confident that whatever is going on, it will be fixed.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not a tester for almost a year now. Someone was in such a rush to remove me that he didnt even bother to remove badges. But I'm sure they already are aware of the issues.

[LLv34_Temuri]

14 hours ago, Matt said:

The AI for planes also saw an update, in which there are less likely to crash in to the ground (and probably avoid collisions in general). I'm pretty sure that WOL and KOTA use AI planes and based on Cocunuts posts, he does as well.  So i think that it might have more to do with that instead.

No.

 

In my test, I had no AI planes, just moving tanks and trains. If the price of more detailed damage modeling for ground objects is that you can add only about 60% of the previous amount of ground objects, then I will happily take less detailed DM. It's a flight simulator, after all.

[coconut]

Personally I welcome more detailed damage models for ground objects, all the fight taking place in the air is in the end about being able to attack ground targets.

 

What I would like is the following things:

1. Don't ever drop players to the server selection screen without providing a detailed error message about what went wrong. DServer should have a log that can be used to investigate connection issues. At the moment, both players and server admins are left in the dark
2. Document what the graph in the DServer console shows. It's pretty clear the yellow line is the tick delay / CPU usage, but I've never seen an explanation of what the gray area is
3. If there are additional resource limitations to consider beside CPU usage, show them in the graph, and let us know how different mission objects affect these

We can't maintain and improve servers if we lack monitoring and analysis tools.

[THERION]

23 hours ago, =362nd_FS=Hiromachi said:

It may be partially related to this: 

 

If updated (advanced) vehicle damage models require so much additional compute power, that current number allowing to enter server or spawn had to be significantly reduced than Im not sure the benefit of such change for flight sim is worth it for the price to pay. I know it maybe will matter some day for Tank Crew guys, but for a flight sim up until now vehicles were just fine.

 

I think generally this is going the wrong way - a jack of all trades thing ("Eierlegende Wollmilchsau"). IL2-Sturmovik - Great Battles is or was supposed to be a combat flight simulator.

The majority of this community is committed in flying war planes, as most realistic as possible, in most historical environment/world/theatre as possible and of course with the newest techniques available today. Great!

 

Now, some of this community (including myself) like armor/tank simulations too and were very happy, when they gave us 2 tanks to play around. With this, the idea of building a brand new tank simulation came up and most of us were thrilled and very happy to see a bright future in tank battles. And of course, with the renowned work and quality of the dev team, our hopes rose even higher! Great!

 

But now we start to see some inconveniences appearing on the horizon:

 

- Tankers need a new map with more detailed landscape, more complex damage model for the environment and of a smaller scale

- Flyers want to fly on the tankers map for some tank busting at the same time

- Some insatiable morons already scream for infantry, mounted infantry, ground personnel and old Russian grandmas to populate some villages

- etc. etc. etc.

 

all of this packed in one engine, powerful enough to sustain all that load?!? I don't think it is feasible at the moment or at least not without some drawback.

 

Just some personal thoughts.

 

Cheers

Edited November 26, 2018 by -IRRE-Therion

[CountZero]

On 11/25/2018 at 8:19 PM, Matt said:

It's tough the test MP performance durining beta testing, because we don't have 80 beta testers that can join a server simultaneously.

 

I kind of doubt that the new vehicles mechanic has a massive impact on this, after all, TAW uses probably three times as many vehicles as KOTA or WOL and it doesn't seem to suffer (as much) from this.

 

The AI for planes also saw an update, in which there are less likely to crash in to the ground (and probably avoid collisions in general). I'm pretty sure that WOL and KOTA use AI planes and based on Cocunuts posts, he does as well.  So i think that it might have more to do with that instead.

 

Yesterday on WoL mission MamaevKurgan42s works just fine with 80 ppl, then mission MalayaZemlya43k starts after it, and only 20-30ppl can join from start rest try for long time and are kicked to DF lobby or not able to spawn, ppl have selection of airplane delayed, after take off gps is also delayed, airplanes hits are delayed, and messages of server overload shows up 1h in mission with only 45-50ppl on server then, and server switches/or crashes 1h30min in mission, and MamaevKurgan42s mission starts again, no problem again all ppl join with no problems , 70+ ppl now all works fine no delays, and mission ends when red side finishes all objectives. This all happends on server in span of 4-5h. 2xMamaevKurgan42s all ok, 2xMalayaZemlya43k same problems.
Only differance is one mission overloads server while other dont, so to me there has to be something that is wrong in mission that made them heavy for server in 3007. Both missions run ok in previous patches.  

 

regarding testing MP they can ask ppl like CloD TF ask ppl to join at some time and help them test, only server was on new patch, ppl joining didnt have to be on new patch , and theyy can get good look on how its is when things are maxed out.

 

 

I reported on WoL forum what missions run with problems what not, and sugested to them either to remove problematic missions from rotation or reduce some objects and see if that makes them run better, if they try nothing , ppl will just stop playing on them.

Also TAW doesent use moving vehicles/tanks WoL uses moving ships tanks trains a lot for objectives, WoL missions are more demanding then TAW from what i see.

Edited November 26, 2018 by 77.CountZero

[VBF-12_Snake9]

10 minutes ago, VBF-12_Snake9 said:

agree the "fix" just made things double worst.  2 flights, one disco, next plane falls apart 3 mins after making a pass on a bomber.  Game locks up while in shoot, for 5 mins, then unfreezes itself.  

 

Really bad now.  hope for a new patch, I guess I should have waited on buying that new 47. 

From Taw, Just listing it here also.  

[=EXPEND=CG_Justin]

I have also experienced pretty much everything that has been listed here, lag, warping, grey start button, difficulty joining servers on both WoL and KOTA. I have not flown any in the new TAW yet though. Very frustrating when I only have a precious couple hours to fly. I have a suspicion that the new damage models for ground units and clogging up DServer with a lot of extra data on complex missions with lots of tanks/cars/trucks etc. I'm no expert though, and as coconut mentioned, it's hard to tell of you have no tools to observe it with.

 

 

[SAS_Storebror]

Just for the record, at FAC we're making excessive use of AI ground and air units, and we don't suffer from any of the issues listed here.

But we're not that single crowded server either.

Maybe it's just that, maybe the maximum number of simultaneously connected players is lower with the new patch (with other factors joining in of course).

 

But frankly, given the title of this thread I won't expect any dev to even consider taking a look at it at all, and I don't think anyone can blame them for it.

 

Mike

[BurBur]

On 11/25/2018 at 9:53 PM, SeaSerpent said:

 

I think the title "Almost Unplayable, again, again" is quite exaggerated, and unnecessarily provacative, and not the most productive way to go about it.  Come on man, the situation isn't nearly that bad!

 

 

[CountZero]

3 hours ago, SAS_Storebror said:

Just for the record, at FAC we're making excessive use of AI ground and air units, and we don't suffer from any of the issues listed here.

But we're not that single crowded server either.

Maybe it's just that, maybe the maximum number of simultaneously connected players is lower with the new patch (with other factors joining in of course).

 

But frankly, given the title of this thread I won't expect any dev to even consider taking a look at it at all, and I don't think anyone can blame them for it.

 

Mike

 

Joined today and played around 1h with 47 on it, and stay on server when mission switched, and all was ok, but it was only me playing and rip just sitting on runway most of time. Would be nice to try on it with atleast 20 players.

[Angus]

At BoX the biggest construction site is the multiplayer mode !!!

It is still not possible today with up to 100 pilots.........otherwise the servers explode.

I hope that something will change soon

[SAS_Storebror]

2 hours ago, 77.CountZero said:

Joined today and played around 1h with 47 on it, and stay on server when mission switched, and all was ok, but it was only me playing and rip just sitting on runway most of time. Would be nice to try on it with atleast 20 players.

Yes CZ that would indeed be nice, but I doubt that at any time 20 players would choose something else but the usual crowded servers.

It's quite like a self fulfilling prophecy that players keep trying to join only that single server that doesn't let them play.

 

50 minutes ago, III./ZG1_Angus said:

It is still not possible today with up to 100 pilots

Maybe it's just me but I think you can easily have the same or at least almost the same fun with "just" 20 players online.

If it was my money that goes into development, raising the bar for maximum player number playability would probably not be the top priority as there's plenty of alternatives available, so this wouldn't have to be an issue at all, if - but only if - players would not insist... well, see above.

 

Mike

Edited November 27, 2018 by SAS_Storebror

[Sunde]

1 minute ago, SAS_Storebror said:

Yes CZ that would indeed be nice, but I doubt that at any time 20 players would choose something else but the usual crowded servers.

It's quite like a self fulfilling prophecy that players keep trying to join only that single server that doesn't let them play.

 

Maybe it's just me but I think you can easily have the same or at least almost the same fun with "just" 20 players online.

If it was my money that goes into development, raising the bar for maximum player number playability would probably not be the top priority as there's plenty of alternatives available, so this wouldn't have to be an issue at all, if - but only if - players would not insist... well, see above.

 

Mike

Yeah who needs servers with more than 20 people on them

Screw the optimization devs, just restrict the player numbers to 20

I mean there are plenty of alternatives right?

Sigh

[=362nd_FS=Hiromachi]

Thats not what he said mate. 

 

Though while I agree that you can have fun with just 20 players, there are certain things you cant get with such a small number. In the old days I remember playing Wabirds S3 events with up to 200 or 300 players ? And that was like what ... 15 years ago with much inferior hardware ? Heck, even Cliffs of Dover on Storm of War or ACG offered fairly large formation flights within various squadrons, focusing on intercepting or defending bomber formations over Ramsgate, Gatwick or wherever they were coming from. 

I feel like in last 15+ years online experience has only been degrading as now we are denied large air raids online. BoX mostly revolves around ground pounding and fighter skirmishes, but no large air battles happen. And BoBp is not going to change that, despite fighter planeset is perfect for such high altitude operations.

So yes, to get a certain kind of experience, you need more than 20 players. Significantly more. 

[SAS_Storebror]

What I'm trying to get across is that if, at any time, you have at most let's say 120 players flying at the same time, and you have like 20 servers available but only two of them are populated, and only one of them, 100% full with 80 players, is giving issues... then it might just not be the issue that scores top marks on the priority list.

Of course it'd be nice if these issues could be solved, but in the meantime, instead of wasting all your precious time to get on that single server with all those issues... what's so wrong about giving a chance on another one?

 

Mike

[coconut]

The number of players is not the issue, as far as the issue of being dropped back to lobby after loading the mission is concerned. I’m running two servers. Of the two, it was the least popular that nobody could log into. 

[SAS_Storebror]

Well that's good to know. Hope it will not get drowned in the other noise going on about this.

I definitely support the request for meaningful logs both on Client and Server side, because currently we seem to be almost blind on such kind of issues.

 

Mike