Thread: Volan

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  1. #1
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Unhappy Volan

    So I finally went to the Volan event last night.

    I might get a lot of crap on here for this, but it was one of the most negative experiences I've ever had playing an MMO.

    When I got to the area with my guildies, it was pretty amzing. I hadn't read anything about it, talked to anyone about it, just knew that it was supposed to be amazing. Just seeing him for the first time was pretty awesome. I thought that Trion had seriously outdone themselves. And to be honest, the story, the action, the phases are all pretty brilliant.

    If anyone had more than 1 FPS that is. You all knew that this was coming. I understand the load that the server is under, combined with my computer struggling with the hundreds of players and effects, but come on. This is ridiculous. If you are going to put an event that will attract so many people, surely you should make sure that it's kind of smooth. Even 10 fps would have been a drastic improvement. Not to mention that so much damage can get dished out in the course of your frame lag, I spent a lot of time running back to my body the whole time.

    I turned all my settings to low, low rendering, etc, and do you know how much it improved? Not at all. Not even 1 FPS. I know people will say get over it, etc, etc...but this is as bad as the Ilum fiasco in SWTOR. A huge and important event in the game is practically broken b/c the game and PCs can't handle it. We even managed to break the boss for 5-10 minutes, where after the first or second phase he just stood there doing nothing but emoting.

    If that wasn't bad enough, somehow my autoflag for PvP kept enabling itself. Which was pretty convenient considering a handful of douches go there with their flag on, just to hope someone hits them and then the grief them until their flag wears off. After the first phase of Volan I got several achievements, one of which was for killing another player. Which is odd, since I didn't use aoe and surely couldn't have beat someone on accident. Unless of course the server 'saved' all the commands I was trying to do on Volan, then he 'died' and it auto selected the nearest hostile and unleashed all my abilities on them. It's the only explanation I can think of.

    So yeah, sorry to just blast something that is clearly supposed to be incredible...but I can't even imagine what kind of computer is needed to make it the least bit enjoyable. I loathe when it happens again, knowing that the rewards are too good to pass up, but then again I can't really damage the boss so I doubt it's even worth it.

    *frustrated*

    PS- Still loving the game though. Just subbed for 6 months, since I know I'll be playing for a while.

  2. #2
    Herald of the Titans theWocky's Avatar
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    In my opinion, and a few guildies I spoke too, I feel they should make a change to world bosses.

    Have the event occur, BUT have a portal appear at a random position on the map. You run to it and the first 40 x lvl 60 people (2 full raids) that manage to get there first get to do the boss in an instanced version of the zone. The second you walk through the portal and are accepted as one of the 40, you are then locked to the boss for a week. Have it spawn once a day like it currently does.

    The idea is great, but there is no way in hell you can enjoy the experience with all the lag. There were over 300 people doing it the the other night on Icewatch.

    Do the same for Zone Event bosses. Make the preliminary event zone wide, but the spawning location must be random. The advantage of this is that you then have a fight with a few more tactics and an overall, less laggy and much better experience. Make it so that you have a maximum of one hour to get him down each week.
    Last edited by theWocky; 2013-01-14 at 02:38 PM.

  3. #3
    Yeah, I missed it, but guildies were talking about it and saying there were over 300 people in their DPS Meter on Deepwood. I went one time, and it was pretty bad, 5-10 FPS, but that was a while back, and I do not think quite as many people were there, "only" 100ish. Even still, in Conquest, which is about the same number of people, especially when you have a tie and are at the final boss, I never got as bad as 1 FPS. Usually 5-10. Sadly, this game requires a good computer, especially when it comes to these packed event and/or conquest.

  4. #4
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by theWocky View Post
    In my opinion, and a few guildies I spoke too, I feel they should make a change to world bosses
    I like your idea. If they increased the rewards and had you timered for a week, it would increase the enjoyment of the experience while still being mostly fair to everyone. There are several drawbacks to this, which is why they will probably not do it.

    1) Cuts down on the 'worldness' that this game thrives on. Sharply veering from how their game is designed, with open world events and so forth, starts to take the game down a path I'm not sure everyone would want to go.

    2) Instead of fostering the cooperative spirit they have nailed, they would start making people fiercely competitive with eachother. Can you imagine the frustration of trying every day to get to Volan and not getting in once? That would be absolute shit.

    I'm sure there's a solution, but I don't know what it is.
    Quote Originally Posted by Lathais View Post
    Yeah, I missed it, but guildies were talking about it and saying there were over 300 people in their DPS Meter on Deepwood. I went one time, and it was pretty bad, 5-10 FPS, but that was a while back, and I do not think quite as many people were there, "only" 100ish. Even still, in Conquest, which is about the same number of people, especially when you have a tie and are at the final boss, I never got as bad as 1 FPS. Usually 5-10. Sadly, this game requires a good computer, especially when it comes to these packed event and/or conquest.
    I am on Deepwood. I don't know how many hundreds were there, but it was enough to break the boss. I would guess 300 is a good number. I just can't imagine the level of upgrades that would be required to make this run between 15-20 fps. Probably i5 with a top end GPU...idk...something so vastly out of range of the majority of people. I mentioned Ilum because it really mirrors the technical limitations the game has in presenting something so large.

    Rift's engine is great for the game, but not as much for the players it would seem. It admittedly isn't very well optimized compared to many other games, but I do like how they use it for the most part. I know we talked a little about fps problems in the other thread. I can only imagine they would want to add more events like this, so I guess I need to start developing a purchasing strategy for parts this year.

  5. #5
    Deleted
    Turn autoflag for pvp off in the interface menu and that problem will be solved :>
    As for the fps thing, either wait a few weeks and people will get bored with the event or upgrade your pc. I get around 15-25fps during the Volan fight with i5 3570k and gtx 680.

    But even a better computer wont solve the server lag :/

  6. #6
    So basically remove the zone events and instance the entire area lol.. yeah no thanks. These are the first times they are having these events in prime time AND LITERALLY the entire server is showing up.

    My lag was not nearly as bad because I take advantage of keyibinding in "hide other players" which dramatically reduces the lag. Ember Isle invasions were like this and then they kept making improvements and then they stopped lagging so bad.

    @Kitty Also need you to list off some pc specs here too see if any improvements can be made. I am running a gtx 570 and it was not too bad.

  7. #7
    Deleted
    Constructive Discussion I made about this earlier,

    Me and the Wocky discussed this last night, but I decided to keep the discussion on this issue on the official forums for hopefully some dev input, we have slightly different idea's on how this would work, but you can read mine in the link above ^^

  8. #8
    Herald of the Titans theWocky's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Seatin View Post
    Constructive Discussion I made about this earlier,

    Me and the Wocky discussed this last night, but I decided to keep the discussion on this issue on the official forums for hopefully some dev input, we have slightly different idea's on how this would work, but you can read mine in the link above ^^
    Yaaaas, that would be best... time to compose thoughts too. Just hope it isn't derailed by negatives.

  9. #9
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by paxx0r View Post
    Turn autoflag for pvp off in the interface menu and that problem will be solved :>
    Already said that it kept turning itself on for some reason. I have deactivated it in the past and when I looked it was magically checked again.
    Quote Originally Posted by Puremallace View Post
    @Kitty Also need you to list off some pc specs here too see if any improvements can be made. I am running a gtx 570 and it was not too bad.
    I've already posted some in another thread. Lathais and I have talked about it. Sure I could upgrade my CPU and GPU, but games shouldn't require i5's at this stage of gaming. That's just kinda ridiculous. Most people can't drop $200-$300+ on each component in their build.

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-14 at 10:28 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by theWocky View Post
    Just hope it isn't derailed by negatives.
    Like this moron:
    Whats the problem with lag? Volan is a fun encounter, as every event. If there ist a lag, live with it. Beeing the top-dps is useless. There is no enrage-timer. You died, because of no heal? Just run to your corpse and play again. It's just a few meters.

  10. #10
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by theWocky View Post
    In my opinion, and a few guildies I spoke too, I feel they should make a change to world bosses.

    Have the event occur, BUT have a portal appear at a random position on the map. You run to it and the first 40 x lvl 60 people (2 full raids) that manage to get there first get to do the boss in an instanced version of the zone. The second you walk through the portal and are accepted as one of the 40, you are then locked to the boss for a week. Have it spawn once a day like it currently does.
    So something like a Raid I guess?

    So the last 8-10 years of MMO design are one big circle jerk? That is interesting.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    Most people can't drop $200-$300+ on each component in their build.
    It's more like $100-150 per part, possibly excluding video card depending on how crazy you want to go. You don't get into those $200+ prices until you start looking at i7, which you know my thoughts on already. Can't remember which thread it was in and CBA to look honestly, but PM your specs again and I'll show you just how cheaply you can upgrade into an OC ready i5. In some cases, it can be done for under $300-400 total, depending on video card, case and HD needs. If you can recycle your case and HD you can get a CPU+Mobo+RAM in the $300 range, then drop a Video Card in there and your gold.

    ---------- Post added 2013-01-14 at 10:55 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Diocassius View Post
    So something like a Raid I guess?

    So the last 8-10 years of MMO design are one big circle jerk? That is interesting.
    Yeah, instancing world events is a pretty bad idea IMO. The point of it is to have 200-300 people out there. Makes it feel much more epic, as long as the server and client can handle it. I think if they could find a way to borrow some of the CPU power from each player there, spread the load around a bit, it would help. That kinda goes against their server side technology philosophy though. Hopefully, they can find ways to optimize the code and beef up the servers a bit more. However, doing that would almost be a waste, as stated, pretty much everyone and their brother, mother and everyone else is going to Volan right now. Once it has calmed down a bit there will be less people and it will be ok.

  12. #12
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lathais View Post
    It's more like $100-150 per part, possibly excluding video card depending on how crazy you want to go. You don't get into those $200+ prices until you start looking at i7, which you know my thoughts on already. Can't remember which thread it was in and CBA to look honestly, but PM your specs again and I'll show you just how cheaply you can upgrade into an OC ready i5. In some cases, it can be done for under $300-400 total, depending on video card, case and HD needs. If you can recycle your case and HD you can get a CPU+Mobo+RAM in the $300 range, then drop a Video Card in there and your gold.
    Looking at a performance chart for the CPUs currently available, the AMD FX higher end does pretty well at a significantly lower cost than i5-7s in the level of quality I'm looking at. Plus I already have a mobo that fits the AM3+ so wouldn't have to upgrade that. Really the best solution for me is to slam as much money as possible into the cpu and gpu. My current CPU was @ 3k on the chart. The FX for $199 is over 9k with 8 cores. Granted that specifically won't help now, but I'm tired of having something stop being effective 2 years later.

    I imagine gaming will start to take much more advantage of threading with 4 core being fairly standard and 8 core becoming wide spread.

    Thanks for that thread over there Seatin. I am on the fence about changes to the event. Even though Dio lacks any sort of tact in presenting his view, I agree (like I referenced earlier) that just turning this into some instanced/raid like thing ruins a large part of what Rift is.

    Hopefully they can work on their end to at least eliminate the server lag, so that we are left to our own devices with FPS. I'm assuming it would be a priority for them, especially if they want to continue adding epic events like this. (and they should)

  13. #13
    Rift is a fairly hefty game to run.

    I still contend that few can run the game on Ultra during a Water Rift Raid.

    PC gaming.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    Looking at a performance chart for the CPUs currently available, the AMD FX higher end does pretty well at a significantly lower cost than i5-7s in the level of quality I'm looking at. Plus I already have a mobo that fits the AM3+ so wouldn't have to upgrade that. Really the best solution for me is to slam as much money as possible into the cpu and gpu. My current CPU was @ 3k on the chart. The FX for $199 is over 9k with 8 cores. Granted that specifically won't help now, but I'm tired of having something stop being effective 2 years later.

    I imagine gaming will start to take much more advantage of threading with 4 core being fairly standard and 8 core becoming wide spread.

    Thanks for that thread over there Seatin. I am on the fence about changes to the event. Even though Dio lacks any sort of tact in presenting his view, I agree (like I referenced earlier) that just turning this into some instanced/raid like thing ruins a large part of what Rift is.

    Hopefully they can work on their end to at least eliminate the server lag, so that we are left to our own devices with FPS. I'm assuming it would be a priority for them, especially if they want to continue adding epic events like this. (and they should)
    You would think, but you cannot base your opinion on benchmarks alone as games usually only utilize 2 cores, so 8 core systems are a waste. You most definitely want the stronger individual core power that Intel offers. For a really good budget build you can even still go with a solid dual core intel and OC the hell out of it with a cheap aftermarket cooler and do better than a Eight Core AMD. This will not show in most benchmark software however as the benchmark software utilizes all eight cores.

    From memory here, so may be wrong, I think the best you could get out of your MB is moving into what I have, which is the Phenomx4 965 Black Edition. This is old technology now and people that have it, like myself, are looking at upgrading out of it. I would not recommend anyone upgrade into it when you can get an Intel 3220 system on the cheap that will outperform it and be upgradeable into a 3570k later.

    Also, the other thing to remember, is if you are not needed to push beyond mid-range in the graphics settings, you may not need to upgrade your GPU. An easy way to think about it is CPU determines min FPS, GPU determines Max. So if all you are concerned about is getting up into the 15-30 range, you do not need an expensive GPU.

    For a quick example, if you wanted to upgrade just your CPU/MB, I would recommend RAM at that point as well, and re-use all your other parts you could do one of 2 things:

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

    CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
    Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Amazon)
    Memory: Corsair 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($37.99 @ Amazon)
    Total: $317.97
    (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
    (Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-14 12:08 EST-0500)

    or, going for a cheaper CPU:

    PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

    CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($109.99 @ NCIX US)
    Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Pro3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($89.99 @ Amazon)
    Memory: Corsair 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($37.99 @ Amazon)
    Total: $237.97
    (Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
    (Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-01-14 12:09 EST-0500)

    The first option is much more future proof, could easily add a video card and some aftermarket cooling and the OC it a bit a year or so down the road and keep it rocking along for the nest 4-6 years easily. The second option leaves you with possibly needing to upgrade the CPU again in a year or so, along with the other upgrades mentioned.

  15. #15
    The first time I did it, it blew my damned mind. It's a super fun fight and the concept behind it is wicked cool.

    The biggest issue is that it's rough on like, 90% of setups. For a game that already chugs along on many setups, tossing a hundred+ people in a small area with all their spell effects firing off at a single target is absolute hell. The 10ish fps I was getting was painful, but I can overlook it for the overall grandeur of the fight.

    On the one hand, I totally support the idea of turning him into a quasi-instanced fight either with a lockout, or with multiple versions going on at once to accommodate that many people. It solves the problem of people computers shitting themselves (mostly), and still can give a great large scale experience. But on the other, it kinda defeats the purpose of an open world zone event boss, which makes me kinda sad : (

  16. #16
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lathais View Post
    You would think, but you cannot base your opinion on benchmarks alone as games usually only utilize 2 cores, so 8 core systems are a waste. You most definitely want the stronger individual core power that Intel offers. For a really good budget build you can even still go with a solid dual core intel and OC the hell out of it with a cheap aftermarket cooler and do better than a Eight Core AMD. This will not show in most benchmark software however as the benchmark software utilizes all eight cores.
    I did read that the single core performance suffers compared to the i5's, but we are going to be running some minor rendering, programming applications, and a lot of recording software on top of our gaming. It was that specific extra need that was making me consider going with the AMD FX line. In single thread testing, the FX 8120 was still slightly better than all phenoms except for AMD Phenom II X4 B65.

    I was under the impression that you could force Rift to utilize all the cores through editing the cfg. Some people have said this actually causes lower performance. Since this is still kinda on topic, since I'm trying to make my entire Rift experience better through my pains with Volan, can you or other people attest to whether the Main thread cpu thing has any benefit? Or should it be left at the default setting?

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Kittyvicious View Post
    I did read that the single core performance suffers compared to the i5's, but we are going to be running some minor rendering, programming applications, and a lot of recording software on top of our gaming. It was that specific extra need that was making me consider going with the AMD FX line. In single thread testing, the FX 8120 was still slightly better than all phenoms except for AMD Phenom II X4 B65.

    I was under the impression that you could force Rift to utilize all the cores through editing the cfg. Some people have said this actually causes lower performance. Since this is still kinda on topic, since I'm trying to make my entire Rift experience better through my pains with Volan, can you or other people attest to whether the Main thread cpu thing has any benefit? Or should it be left at the default setting?
    I did not think you could make it use more than 2 cores and if you could, yeah, it will slow down the game. The thing you can do, I think, is tell it which cores to use. So by making it use the last 2 cores instead of the first 2, which are already in use by Windows, Browser, whatever else you have running, you can gain some speed, but not much.

  18. #18
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    Maybe auto scaling like amazon does for their server, bit too ignorant to be sure it would work for them.

  19. #19
    The Unstoppable Force Kelimbror's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Diocassius View Post
    Maybe auto scaling like amazon does for their server, bit too ignorant to be sure it would work for them.
    I mean I am also too ignorant about the specific subject, but when things like this start to become a common problem for a game company....can't they just upgrade their servers? I know Rift is small cheese compared to WoW, but I know WoW has upgraded servers many times over the years.

    If Rift is really looking to push their business this way...which they totally should...wouldn't much higher performing servers be of benefit?

  20. #20
    I'm actually amazed at the fps I had on my Volan fight, afternoon on Icewatch and I had a steady 15!!. But I agree, it was a complete mess because the ability lag was CRAZY. I heard they don't get that on US servers, hope Trion takes a look at this. Wockys suggestion seems like a good idea with max amount of people. But I don't think it should be necessary.
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