Stop releasing updates/expansions/new content and focus on the lag problem

[MacMc]

Yep, too much lag and the occasional random crash and I already canceled the VIP. Moving forward. This is the only MMO where this is an issue, not even GW2, New World, SWTOR, WoW, none of those games do I have issues with, zero, but this game, entirely different story.

I haven't played this game in nearly ten years, come back, sign up for the VIP, throw some coin into the cash shop, it's simply not worth the investment, or payment at this point. Maybe some day they'll figure some of this stuff out, although highly unlikely at this point.

[LuminasND]

I stopped playing this game soon after Dol Amroth update, and returned last month regarding issue with canceled Amazon MMO, and that Rings of Power thing(never dared to watch it anyway), etc.
I'm now Lv 117, and the landscape contents after Lv 105 are much better than those boring late WB Games days, I believe.
But these lags have gone way too far now.
In Eryn Lasgalen, I almost couldn't play game because of severe lag... I'm tired of slow motion and my viewing angle turn more than 60 degrees as I click A, D button only once...
If the class of my highest Lv character was not minstrel and was some other ranged/light armour class, the game won't be playable for sure.
Mini has high single target/AoE burst damage and instant heal/shield bubble to deal with this terrible lag but other classes are not.
Most of them are strong but originally designed to need more time to judge the situation properly and execute than this, as I recall those days.

I was sure that I will purchase Gundabad expansion and before the shadow expansion until the day before yesterday, however I am reluctant now.

[MacMc]

They figured it out already. That they don't have to fix the lag because people will still give them money and defend them no matter what.

As much as I enjoy sarcasm as the next person, there is some truth to that. If people choose to be ignorant, and think it's going to be fixed, let them. Their roadmap supposedly mentions a fix is on the way, I won't wait to find out, if they fix it, great, if not, business as usual.

I was already hesitant playing this game after returning from a long hiatus and finding out the combat animations are just as generic as they were years ago, and arguably the worst in any MMO on the market currently, but figured I'd get used to it, which I did. It's a dated game, combat and graphics didn't need to be the best.

I'll put this into perspective. In the three short weeks I played this game, I spent $50.00, VIP and some coin to purchase conveniences from the cash shop, not a lot of money, but it benefited myself, along with the company providing the service, so why not. I don't want to even know how much I've spent on conveniences in other MMO's I've played, such as FF14 and SWTOR, but it's well over a thousand throughout the years, not including subs. I was about to purchase the latest expansion here, but with all the lag, I saw no reason to pursue this venture any further.

My hypothesis at this point regarding this game, is that it's possibly on life support/maintenance mode, even with the recent expansion, due to the Lord of the Rings series that released a few months back, and the company wanted to see how much more it could squeeze from the player base before it closes, I'm probably wrong, and hopefully I am. I haven't been around long enough to determine that, only going off of an outsiders perspective with specific bugs and lag not being addressed. For the remaining players here, I do hope things get fixed, having less MMO's on the market is never a good thing. Get it fixed though, this company just lost a customer. You have to spend money, to make money.

[Solar16]

My hypothesis at this point regarding this game, is that it's possibly on life support/maintenance mode,

They're planning a full graphics update of the game to modernise it, at least according to their shareholder meetings, so I don't think the game will be closing anytime soon. But if they don't fix the lag as part of that then they probably will struggle to retain new players. A little more communication to players would be lovely though.

[MacMc]

They're planning a full graphics update of the game to modernise it, at least according to their shareholder meetings, so I don't think the game will be closing anytime soon. But if they don't fix the lag as part of that then they probably will struggle to retain new players. A little more communication to players would be lovely though.

I hope you're right, having more options for people in the MMO world is always good. I was having a lot of fun playing this game, but the lag and occasional crash was too much to continue. Even though I played LOTRO years ago, I was pretty much a noob again and the lag was the deciding factor. Having new players experience this is a huge red flag. Address the lag, and overall this is still a very good game. The open world is some of the best I've seen in any game, and the background music is great.

[Guidorocker]

Dude, when you point 1 finger, *THREE* fingers point back at YOU!

Think about that for a second....

...and then fix your own computer. It's not lag from the server, it's your own computer, dude. Sorry to tell you the truth, but look at your PC.

[MacMc]

Dude, when you point 1 finger, *THREE* fingers point back at YOU!

Think about that for a second....

...and then fix your own computer. It's not lag from the server, it's your own computer, dude. Sorry to tell you the truth, but look at your PC.

I don't know if that's towards me or not, but I'll entertain it, it's not my PC, it's this game. It's not a coincidence many others are having the same issue, and this company has mentioned lag issues being addressed down the road, and have been addressed prior. This is also the only game where lag is an issue, and a noticeable one. Common sense can be hard to comprehend some times.

[Guidorocker]

Okay, I don't understand then, because I don't see lag.

1. What server are you on that you see lag?

2. Where are you that you see lag?

[Esgalad]

They're planning a full graphics update of the game to modernise it, at least according to their shareholder meetings, so I don't think the game will be closing anytime soon. But if they don't fix the lag as part of that then they probably will struggle to retain new players. A little more communication to players would be lovely though.

Is that confirmed by the devs recently? Hoping you're not quoting the same press release that claimed the game was preparing for a console release years ago.

[Shazzbot]

Okay, I don't understand then, because I don't see lag.

1. What server are you on that you see lag?

2. Where are you that you see lag?

Many of us do unless you're on the legendary servers. I suffer no lag there but on the rest of the main servers I do.

[MacMc]

Okay, I don't understand then, because I don't see lag.

1. What server are you on that you see lag?

2. Where are you that you see lag?

I already stopped playing this and went back to a much better MMO, but again, I'll entertain this, it's early and I'm sipping coffee before I head into work, so why not. Google Lotro devs address lag and see how many hits you get from players. You can also find where the developers of this game have mentioned lag issues in the past, and in 2023, are supposedly going to improve the engine, which 'should' result in overall performance.

To answer your question, which server, Arkenstone. The zones in which I experience most of the lag is just after the starting zone and leading up to around level thirty. I don't remember off hand, Breland, and whatever comes after that. The Warden class is one where some of the lag is even more noticeable, due to their combo system, aka gambits. Class was irrelevant though, it's when abilities aren't firing after pressing a button, or anything pertaining to what is normal lag in a video game, notably MMO's.

Regarding your statement of not seeing the lag, it's irrelevant to others that are, including the developers of this game who have addressed the issue. Do you understand that, or are you one of those people that if I tell you the sky is blue, you're going to argue it? Fix the lag or this game will continue to be a subpar MMO, which has dated and terrible combat animations, decent gameplay, great background music, good class variety, beyond mundane leveling, but overall, it's the lag issue. Most people can live with this game's faults, but not the lag.

Edit: Just saw the post above mine about the Legacy servers, hypothetically, lets say there's some truth to that, that there isn't lag on those servers, but only on the rest. What kind of service is that from a company? If I'm trying to sell something to a customer, or trying to draw more customers into my store, I'm not going to put the best items for sale tucked away somewhere in the middle of the store, there's a reason when you walk into stores, there are displays or end caps filled with sales and more commonly used items, it's to try and attract more clientele.

[Weilan]

I already stopped playing this and went back to a much better MMO, but again, I'll entertain this, it's early and I'm sipping coffee before I head into work, so why not. Google Lotro devs address lag and see how many hits you get from players. You can also find where the developers of this game have mentioned lag issues in the past, and in 2023, are supposedly going to improve the engine, which 'should' result in overall performance.

To answer your question, which server, Arkenstone. The zones in which I experience most of the lag is just after the starting zone and leading up to around level thirty. I don't remember off hand, Breland, and whatever comes after that. The Warden class is one where some of the lag is even more noticeable, due to their combo system, aka gambits. Class was irrelevant though, it's when abilities aren't firing after pressing a button, or anything pertaining to what is normal lag in a video game, notably MMO's.

Regarding your statement of not seeing the lag, it's irrelevant to others that are, including the developers of this game who have addressed the issue. Do you understand that, or are you one of those people that if I tell you the sky is blue, you're going to argue it? Fix the lag or this game will continue to be a subpar MMO, which has dated and terrible combat animations, decent gameplay, great background music, good class variety, beyond mundane leveling, but overall, it's the lag issue. Most people can live with this game's faults, but not the lag.

Edit: Just saw the post above mine about the Legacy servers, hypothetically, lets say there's some truth to that, that there isn't lag on those servers, but only on the rest. What kind of service is that from a company? If I'm trying to sell something to a customer, or trying to draw more customers into my store, I'm not going to put the best items for sale tucked away somewhere in the middle of the store, there's a reason when you walk into stores, there are displays or end caps filled with sales and more commonly used items, it's to try and attract more clientele.

I also stopped playing LOTRO after leveling my 1st character to 140. Now I play on a Vanilla WoW private server and it's ironic that a private server running a client from 2004 has better client performance, UI scaling and smooth server performance all out-of-the-box and a game like LOTRO that has received 15 years of updates only keeps getting worse.




The client and server problems are not going to be fixed unless they invest in better servers, because even their website and forums load so much slower, it's like I'm loading websites from North Korea or something.

As for the client, they either have to modify and modernize their game engine so that it makes use of modern hardware, because no matter how much power you throw at LOTRO, the game engine just doesn't care and treats your computer like Pentium 3 from 2001 or something.

If they can't modify and modernize the engine, they need to move the game to a new engine.




If they don't do any of that, the performance will keep getting worse as they keep releasing new content.

[Celebrawn]

Yes, no more new content please. Great business model, should definitely keep level capped people interested.

[Weilan]

Yes, no more new content please. Great business model, should definitely keep level capped people interested.

I'm at the level cap with my first character, the others are just created and never played at level 1. So me being at the level cap, I am not looking forward to a level cap increase, I'd much rather sacrifice that for better game client performance and better server performance. Even without that, I am still not interested in running end game content either way, so what's your point?

I enjoy leveling and exploring new places the most, but when that is hampered by poor performance of both client and server, then even that is not fun anymore. So I'd rather be stuck at 140 for as long as it takes so that performance is fixed then I would gladly level up another 10 characters to 140 simply because it will no longer be a painful experience.


What you're saying is that it's perfectly fine to providing content for level cap players, but ignoring everything else with the game, even despite the fact that simply adding new content to the game makes the client and server perform even worse.

[Hierona]

I'm at the level cap with my first character, the others are just created and never played at level 1. So me being at the level cap, I am not looking forward to a level cap increase, I'd much rather sacrifice that for better game client performance and better server performance. Even without that, I am still not interested in running end game content either way, so what's your point?

I enjoy leveling and exploring new places the most, but when that is hampered by poor performance of both client and server, then even that is not fun anymore. So I'd rather be stuck at 140 for as long as it takes so that performance is fixed then I would gladly level up another 10 characters to 140 simply because it will no longer be a painful experience.


What you're saying is that it's perfectly fine to providing content for level cap players, but ignoring everything else with the game, even despite the fact that simply adding new content to the game makes the client and server perform even worse.

Okay, there is time to do that, but not after a whole year of nothing. Let's first get 2 years of content to forget the boredom that was 2022 and than we can draw back from content a bit again and focus more on game performances. Let's see if the questfix will do it.

[Elmagor]

I also stopped playing LOTRO after leveling my 1st character to 140. Now I play on a Vanilla WoW private server and it's ironic that a private server running a client from 2004 has better client performance, UI scaling and smooth server performance all out-of-the-box and a game like LOTRO that has received 15 years of updates only keeps getting worse.

Doesn't matter if you use private server or any other server, it's same client and WoW throw millions and millions $ into that. SSG simply don't have such amount of developers and money

[ilikemeatballs]

Hhmmm

[Ejinn]

I certainly agree that a big priority for SSG should be fixing the lag issues.

Years back before I hardly ever saw this kind of lag happening, Bree Town was a fun place to go, especially at the end of having done some content before logging out... now? Sadly, I can barely get through the place without stuttering, getting frozen, etc - and I'm seldom willing to put up with it anymore, so I now avoid the town often.

Apart from lag, I find it odd that years ago using a system much less capable than my current one, I was getting better fps and faster load times than I do now. A Kin member told me that it's likely the 64-bit incompatibility issues...

The game itself and content is great, I'm very much in favor of the end game content they've made, but man I wish they would find a way to clean up the play-ability of the game.

[Ratharim]

There are many issues with LotRO but the lag and stuttering are two things that really take away enjoyment from me.
Sure, every online game will have some inevitable level of lag, bit in LotRO it's the worst I have ever experienced. And in the higher tiers of group instanced content is very often a death sentence when you get totally frozen for 3-4 seconds. If what we are told that game is expected to be maintained and content released for many, many years than two things are a MUST:
[1] Improving server-side code and netcode to minimize the lag
[2] Refactor the game engine so it finally starts to use many threads and fully use modern GPUs.

I can't imagine that they plan to put more content and systems without doing [1] and pushing content with richer graphics without doing [2].
FFS, I'm sometimes getting lag when there are less than 100 people on the server and I'm in some remote part of mid-level zone when I'm probably the only player in the whole zone. This. Is. Ridiculous.

[Starbuck1771]

How about NO! The lag issue is because of foreign nationals raiding U.S. servers. The Russians raided Brandywine my home server years ago forcing all the U.S, players to transfer now they have spread to others. Short of finding an E.U. company willing to run servers SSG doesn't have much they can do since all game servers are currently hosted in the U.S. I myself haven't had any lag lately so maybe your internet provider is throttling your service.

[SophieTheEnchantress]

For some weeks now, I experience more 'lag' than usual on Landroval, in groups and solo, at all times, day and night. The game never becomes unplayable for me but I definitely notice the freezing and skill delays and stuff. This morning, at about 11am server time, I lost 4 Mithril Coins because of it. I should have been more careful since the game was stuttering all morning, but so it goes. I thought it might be my computer but immediately after losing the Mithril Coins, reduced awareness popped up.

[Aranaan]

Just ignore Guidorocker claims that is your computer fault.
He trolls every forum post about lag with this claim, despite even SSG have admitted the fault lies with them.

[Starbuck1771]

For some weeks now, I experience more 'lag' than usual on Landroval, in groups and solo, at all times, day and night. The game never becomes unplayable for me but I definitely notice the freezing and skill delays and stuff. This morning, at about 11am server time, I lost 4 Mithril Coins because of it. I should have been more careful since the game was stuttering all morning, but so it goes. I thought it might be my computer but immediately after losing the Mithril Coins, reduced awareness popped up.

Because Russia has chosen it as the next server to plague. It has become the new Brandywine. https://forums.lotro.com/forums/show...-The-ARDA-band