Lag, Or Something Like It - (Assumed) Lag/latency Issues

[Dran]

* Disclaimer: This post was originally written in MS Words, with me being in an unpleasant mood. The post might not be as organized as it should, in form as well as contents. I apologize for any difficulty while reading.

 

*Note: I am uncertain of the cause of the problem – be it latency or desync or netcode…etc, so throughout this post I will address it as “lag”

 

 

Short version:

Since around Update 9, I have been experiencing extreme lag while joining online matches. Invisible enemies, standing dead bodies, cannot pick up loots, doors that won’t open…etc. It went from annoying to downright unplayable, and seemingly the lag has gotten worse along with each major updates.

 

Needless to say, this problem has been utterly discouraging to my Warframe experience. I LOVE the game, but with each update I find myself gradually forced down to only able to play the game solo.

 

Hence, I’m making this post to rant off my frustration, to seek sympathy, and ultimately hoping that the information I can provide may help our developers in some way to better Warframe.

 

 

 

Detailed version – The things I wish no one else have to suffer:

 

 

For the last few months, my warframe experience has been like this:

 

 

1. Upon joining a mission – one or more of these possibilities will occur:

• -  I start out as a generic Excalibur, holding no weapon (My go-to frame is Rhino)
• -  I start out as a Rhino, but without any customized appearance (default colors)
  • This state will persist through the entire mission 80% of the time
  • Occasionally I will be headless as well. I assume due to Vanguard helmet not loading like the rest of the customizations. This however does not persist for more than a minute.
  • None of my Powers are unlocked in this state. My shield, hp and radar indicate that my mods are still functional, however.
  • My Gear tab is empty in this state – no Codex scanner, no ammo, nothing.
  • If I’m lucky, somewhere along the mission, my customizations, gears and powers will load up (all at the same time). This happen most often when there are few/no enemies around.
•   If I joined an in-progress mission, often will I be holding my primary, secondary and melee weapon all at the same time (all 3 models clumps up into my frame’s hand) – I’m unable to use any of them in this state.
  • This often last for no more than 30 seconds. However, afterward I won’t be able to switch weapon and is stuck with primary weapon. The 2 issues might be related 
•   All 3 environmental hazards will appear: infestation, fire and ice, though none of them seem to have any effect (no burning while standing in fire, shield is not halved)

 

2. During the mission – what happens when playing under heavy “lag”

 

• Immobile teammates: I often find my teammates running in place, shooting furiously, and I see exp numbers popping up from a distance. Then they suddenly “teleport” to another place, usually rooms ahead. Extreme rubber banding?
• Invisible teammates: Many times I can’t even see my teammates at all. I however can still see their sentinels. These sentinels also follow the “teleporting” pattern. (Example: Objective is completed, I’m approaching the Extraction. I see no Tenno, but 3 floating sentinels while the game says 3/4 players are waiting)
• Immobile enemies: more common in maps with a thinner enemy density. Enemies would behave much like the immobile teammate cases: rooted in place, shooting/attacking, then teleport away in a super rubber band manner. They can be damaged/killed normally (target practice mode)
• Invisible enemies: Similar to invisible teammates, except much more annoying/frustrating. In maps with high enemy density (def, mdef and surv), the entire map would feel like a ghost town: No enemies on screen, no enemies shown on radar, yet occasionally exp numbers still pop up from team kills (not all of them, only a few of them shows up). Imagine playing a Kappa mission and not see a single grineer for the entire duration of the event.
  • AoE abilities can detect and affect these invisible enemies. If I use Rhino Stomp even when I don’t see anyone, a circle of exp numbers would still pop up around the area, showing that my Rhino Stomp did kill enemies. There are no bodies, however.  
  • Occasionally, one or two enemies would actually show up as immobile enemies or standing dead bodies (described below 
• Standing dead bodies: I believe this has been happening for many players: enemies that were obviously killed (damaged until exp number pops up) do not play their death animation or disappear. Their bodies simply stood still, blocking projectiles, line of sight and causing confusion. This coupled with the immobile/invisible enemies makes it even more frustrating. The only way to differentiate them from living enemies is to…shoot them. If after enough damage has been dealt and no exp numbers show up, it’s a dead body, and vice versa, which is ultimately pointless. (I developed the habit of memorizing which ones I’ve killed, but that doesn’t make it any more comfortable)
• Cannot pick up loots: Or to be more precise, cannot pick up loots when there are lots of “stuffs” going on. Loots would often hang mid-air during laggy missions. None of them can be picked up initially, Carrier sentinel do not seem to recognize loots for Vacuum either. But when all enemies have been killed, one-by-one the loots would slowly become lootable, Carrier also starts recognizing them and starts collecting them. However, even when everything is cleared, some of the loots remain unable to be picked up (quite nerve-wrecking seeing 10 modules floating in mid-air that you can’t grab)
  • Note: When in the colorless, powerless state, I cannot see my Energy (HP and shield shows regular). This leads to another issue: Carrier won’t stop picking up energy orbs. If it was a crowded mission, I’d often find myself with several energy orbs floating above my frame 
• No Mission Rewards: This “bug” is new – it came with Update 11. During many extreme lag missions, NONE of the rewards would register: Weapons exp, credit, mods, resources – everything that was acquired during the laggy missions would simply disappear, making the 10-15 minutes of going through Lag Hell absolutely pointless. There are 2 cues for knowing when this happen: First is when during extraction screen, the “experience gained” window on the left would be empty – no frame/weapon exp bars are shown. Second is when instead of the normal screen, the bugged Reputation menu shows up.

 

 

3. Major FPS drop when hosting missions

 

• Prior to Update 11, my FPS is stable at 30-40 when hosting missions. Even Kappa, Xini, T3 void def…etc did not drop my fps to lower than 30. People did mention there was lag, ranging from insignificant to major.
• After Update 11, my FPS when hosting any kind of mission drop down to 10-15, regardless of mission types or numbers of enemies nearby (even in empty maps). Friends and clanmates who previously had no problem with my host are now reporting major lag issues, some similar to what I described above when I join others’ sessions.
• I have noticed various reports of the similar issue from other players, particularly related to weapons and elemental visual effects. That was not my case, as I did not see anyone using melee weapons with unusual visuals.

 

 

These are so far all of the issues that I can remember off the top of my head. I will edit and add in additional information if I come across them in-game.

 

 

 

All questions are welcomed as long as they are/can be related to what I have described.

 

 

 

Thank you for reading

Dran.

[Jector]

Everything under 2 except for the "no mission reward" issue sounds like the normal desync issues that are rampant. The stuff under 1 and 3, however, are a bit odd.

 

Though I should add that the we've encountered the change of one player going from having no issues hosting/joining to suddenly and chronically being a bad host/joiner.  Mortis and I have no problem hosting or joining each other and he's 3 states away. When Displacedone is hosting, we have about all of the standard desync issues when joining him and he has them when joining us.  He lives 50 miles from me and it never used to be an issue.

Edited November 28, 2013 by Jector

[Garompa]

This happens to me always, I can't play.

 

But if I'm host I get problems from point 3, but none of the problems from point 1 or 2.

[sanj66]

same issues except i think for 3, my fps at the bottom fluctuates from 60-75