Defense Spawn Problems

[[DE]Glen]

I have a theory to add to the mix. She was playing on a laptop that was significantly overheated by that time. Perhaps she was hosting(?). It was tough to tell. There was no host migration, as it was just the two of us, but does Warframe taper spawns down when the host computer is struggling? Perhaps it's a semi common occurrence that host computers are slowing down/ overheated at the 20-something wave of defense. Just a thought. 

 

It shouldn't matter, no, and if you're only facing 3 enemies at once it's gotta be easy on the frame-rate.

[-.SP.-G43riel]

we've suffered a lot of enemy re-spawn problems in void defense missions

we kinda stopped doing them now... it's way better to go survival if you have stay 5-10 min in a single wave because it's spawning only 2-3 creatures at time, boring as hell

 

[Scottie_Auren]

EE.logs would be the most help, I imagine. Try sending them in support tickets ASAP. Again the next time it happens, right after, for more accuracy.

 

Actually, come to think of it, since it's just two of you and you can probably replicate the conditions... if you can, try to do exactly what you did last time, say something in squad chat if/when the bug hits, quit as soon as possible, and immediately close client/send the EE.log in C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\Warframe.

 

 

It shouldn't matter, no, and if you're only facing 3 enemies at once it's gotta be easy on the frame-rate.

 

Her laptop has a dedicated graphics card, but it's three years out of date. It's not the enemies that are the framerate issue. Just rendering the environment is enough to overheat the computer. It happens slowly, but alt tabbing out for 10 minutes ever couple hours of play seems to do the trick. We didn't want her to alt tab out and be labeled as afk and kicked, as we were 26+ waves in with tasty loot. We ended up losing the loot anyway since we aborted, so we can try cooling her computer down next time.

 

As for replicating it, yea I think we can do that. Thanks for the tip, FelisImpurrator. I don't think we'll have time tonight, but tomorrow for sure. [DE]Glen, would you mind weighing in on what the most useful set of EE.logs would be? Should we quit immediately upon noticing the waves slowing down, or wait until it's spawning one by one?

 

Something else to add: the slowdown seems to be related to the scaling of the enemy types. It's first noticeable by a gap between the trash spawning (Corrupted Lancers, Crewmen, Shield Drones, Ancients) and then the MOA brigade shows up, and then the heavies (Heavy Gunners, Bombards, Nullifiers), and then a short while later it's an Eximi dogpile. This seems to be the start of the issue, with larger and larger gaps between the sub-waves, until there are gaps in the sub-waves themselves, until it's one to three spawning at a time.

[egregiousRac]

Her laptop has a dedicated graphics card, but it's three years out of date. It's not the enemies that are the framerate issue. Just rendering the environment is enough to overheat the computer. It happens slowly, but alt tabbing out for 10 minutes ever couple hours of play seems to do the trick. We didn't want her to alt tab out and be labeled as afk and kicked, as we were 26+ waves in with tasty loot. We ended up losing the loot anyway since we aborted, so we can try cooling her computer down next time.

 

As for replicating it, yea I think we can do that. Thanks for the tip, FelisImpurrator. I don't think we'll have time tonight, but tomorrow for sure. [DE]Glen, would you mind weighing in on what the most useful set of EE.logs would be? Should we quit immediately upon noticing the waves slowing down, or wait until it's spawning one by one?

 

Something else to add: the slowdown seems to be related to the scaling of the enemy types. It's first noticeable by a gap between the trash spawning (Corrupted Lancers, Crewmen, Shield Drones, Ancients) and then the MOA brigade shows up, and then the heavies (Heavy Gunners, Bombards, Nullifiers), and then a short while later it's an Eximi dogpile. This seems to be the start of the issue, with larger and larger gaps between the sub-waves, until there are gaps in the sub-waves themselves, until it's one to three spawning at a time.

 

 

If you want to know who is hosting, open the squad readout (default key is Z), which shows player names and health below your health bar. The player numbered 1 is always host.

[Hybridon]

This looks like a different issue -- to be clear I'm not chasing a few stuck AI preventing the wave from finishing but rather something that makes the spawns come in smaller and smaller squads until each wave takes an extremely long time because you're only fighting one enemy at once.

 

Raids seem to have the same issues, suddenly on a few of the Raids, both Normal and Nightmare, enemies stop spawning, or spawn in really little numbers.

 

While it can be good to help us complete the mission, on the last part against Hek it messes up with bomb carriers. where sometimes they will take up to 10mins to spawn.

[[DE]Glen]

As for replicating it, yea I think we can do that. Thanks for the tip, FelisImpurrator. I don't think we'll have time tonight, but tomorrow for sure. [DE]Glen, would you mind weighing in on what the most useful set of EE.logs would be? Should we quit immediately upon noticing the waves slowing down, or wait until it's spawning one by one?

 

When you notice it get bad best thing to do is go to squad chat and send a message I can scan for in your log

 

"Spawns slowing down"

 

"Spawns down to 5 at once"

 

So I can look for "Spawns" and find where in the log it is. If you've got it down to "obviously broken" you can just abort or alt-f4 -- should be fine at that point.

 

Host log is the only one that matters (ie: the player who is labelled 1 in the HUD).

 

If it's bad enough to be a confirmed repro I'd like your log (send to support please, mention my name and I'll get it) and I'd very much like to know the full loadout used by your team.

 

Thanks!

[Scottie_Auren]

When you notice it get bad best thing to do is go to squad chat and send a message I can scan for in your log

 

"Spawns slowing down"

 

"Spawns down to 5 at once"

 

So I can look for "Spawns" and find where in the log it is. If you've got it down to "obviously broken" you can just abort or alt-f4 -- should be fine at that point.

 

Host log is the only one that matters (ie: the player who is labelled 1 in the HUD).

 

If it's bad enough to be a confirmed repro I'd like your log (send to support please, mention my name and I'll get it) and I'd very much like to know the full loadout used by your team.

 

Thanks!

 

Will do! I'll run it with just the two of us, so it'll be no problem to include all loadout details. It'll be tomorrow evening pacific time at the earliest though. Thanks for all your work hunting this down! 

[Scottie_Auren]

~snip~

 

If you see this bug moving forward one thing to do is pull out your Codex Scanner and look around; I'm wondering if some Warframe power is ending up putting the enemies into geometry or letting them fall through the floor and they're stuck under you somehow.

 

 

Another theory. Although it doesn't fit with some of the data.

 

I've always been a frost sitting on the top of the cryopod. The radial 'push' from snowglobe could be forcing enemies down through the floor. I know that before the change from (impact+frozen=instakill) to (=%damage), I noticed that casting snowglobe from a high position such as the cryopod would shatter enemies inside the globe. My assumption is that was impact with the floor.

 

This theory doesn't seem to fit with the above thread though, because the waves were still able to be completed even after the slow down. Progressing waves would mean even the hidden enemies were killed, and reset the count of hidden ones. :/

 

But, just thought I'd throw that out since it's something you're investigating. (and it's something that's only post frost rework)

Edited August 19, 2015 by Aurentus

[[DE]Glen]

Another theory. Although it doesn't fit with some of the data.

 

I've always been a frost sitting on the top of the cryopod. The radial 'push' from snowglobe could be forcing enemies down through the floor. I know that before the change from (impact+frozen=instakill) to (=%damage), I noticed that casting snowglobe from a high position such as the cryopod would shatter enemies inside the globe. My assumption is that was impact with the floor.

 

This theory doesn't seem to fit with the above thread though, because the waves were still able to be completed even after the slow down. Progressing waves would mean even the hidden enemies were killed, and reset the count of hidden ones. :/

 

But, just thought I'd throw that out since it's something you're investigating. (and it's something that's only post frost rework)

 

I thought so too but

1) People say it happens without frost

2) People say it happened before Frost 2.0

3) I stress-tested snowglobes this morning and couldn't cause a problem.

[[DE]Glen]

Thank you for your help folks but I think we're pretty close to a fix; we're still not sure what's causing the problem but we know what it is. I don't think we'll need logs right now -- just your loadout if you get it again.

[InoxMaximus]

Tuhh tuhh !

[FelisImpurrator]

Thank you for your help folks but I think we're pretty close to a fix; we're still not sure what's causing the problem but we know what it is. I don't think we'll need logs right now -- just your loadout if you get it again.

Any clarification here as to what it is? Just for those of us who were still wondering.

[ZizWing]

Any clarification here as to what it is? Just for those of us who were still wondering.

I too would like to know what was going on.

[[DE]Glen]

I'll tell you after it's fixed :) We don't want people trolling before we can fix it...

[reedknoll]

Hi glen, it happened to us once, but it was before you changed the spawn rate. (But you already announced your initial plans of tweaking the spwn rate during that time). We didnt reach wave 35 because it took too long for enemies to spawn (spent more than 1 hr in wave 31-34 alone).

No host migration, but initial game was laggy

4 man team- frost, mesa, forgot the other 2.

T3 def.

I have played t3 def a lot of times but this happned only once, and it was before u17

[FelisImpurrator]

I'll tell you after it's fixed :) We don't want people trolling before we can fix it...

Ah, so it's something that can be triggered intentionally?

 

Well. That, at least, is good to know.

[ZizWing]

I'll tell you after it's fixed :) We don't want people trolling before we can fix it...

Alright, I can live with that :) Just let me know if there's any more testing you need help with.

[Scottie_Auren]

Thank you for your help folks but I think we're pretty close to a fix; we're still not sure what's causing the problem but we know what it is. I don't think we'll need logs right now -- just your loadout if you get it again.

 

{ We did encounter it again: Frost Prime (Latron Prime, Lex Prime, Dakkra Prime) and Mag Prime (Dread, Lex Prime, Orthos). }

 

Alrighty! Good luck with the fix. Let me know if you need something tested player-side. Thank you for all your work chasing it down. I'll be very curious when you can share the information.

[[DE]Glen]

Bonus hype: this effects all game modes (I'm excited because in some cases it might improve Survival spawn flow as well).

[Sibernetika]

Bonus hype: this effects all game modes (I'm excited because in some cases it might improve Survival spawn flow as well).

yay no more waiting around for 3 minutes waiting for something to spawn THANKS GLEN /)

[ZizWing]

Now I'm starting to wonder... The only thing that immediately comes to mind for all modes would be the AFK-timer since you turned it off during your testing. Could it be this sometimes causes the spawns to mess up?

 

Whatever it is... it better be fixed after this :P

[FelisImpurrator]

Bonus hype: this effects all game modes (I'm excited because in some cases it might improve Survival spawn flow as well).

If it stealth-nails the weird Survivals I was having, awesome.

 

Although, if it's all game modes, will it do anything for, say... the high level Excavation runs where enemies spawn at absurdly high rates for a solo player? I was running Triton before popping into your stream, and I have to say, it's extremely difficult to deal with a wave full of Nullifiers and spawn counts appropriate to roughly a two or three player squad as solo Equinox. Had to quit those runs.

[InoxMaximus]

Bonus hype: this effects all game modes (I'm excited because in some cases it might improve Survival spawn flow as well).

NOW i´m excited too !

[Eracat]

Now I'm really curious to see what the issue might have been!

[Poke007]

So now that the issue has been fixed, what exactly caused the problem?