Optimisation... when ???

"What we are working on" december 2K19.

No line about global optimisation, just one about memory usage on win7.

Playing since beta of the game, optimisation was something we could hope to come in, with some good surprise, but since long time now, it's just a desease in PoE : there is NONE.

I remember when playing in beta (and the first few leagues) : some heart beats going wrong when suddently that big boss over there was in fact in your back. When that door you couldn't pass was in fact open and you were in middle of the room surrounded by all the monsters...
I remember some bad lag while opening boxes, while playing "all ennemies gain X endurance/frenzy/charge every X seconds", some uber lag/fps drops with beyond + fracture zana maps...

Good old times. Bad fps on specific issues. Times to times. Bad computers, beta games... but was fun.

Then 2.0 arrives with lockstep, NO MORE DESYNC OMG WTF BBQ ROFLCOPTER I WAS HAPPY ! No desync no matter how bad was the connection, even with shared mobile phone connection it was pleasant to play.

Then Perandus happened : lot of mobs, very packy, very numerous, very specific effect, very dangerous, fps drops, lag increases, scrennnnnns away from the mobs... and all back to normal once they were dead... Took damn lot of patches to fix that. Took years to fix that in core game.

Next was prophecy, i liked it, no big deal about optimisation as far as i remember. But it was start of one good patch, one bad patch.

Because next was Essence... Ok not that bad in fact but i do remember the "get away i'm unleash the 5+ essence", that meant lag+fps drops due to boss + 6 mobs + 1543 effects casting aoe + projectiles, and deadly.

In fact Essence was good optimisation side, compared to Breach... the next one in line...

I was sick and stuck at home for long time during breach, and breach was excellent and fun... but... WORST EXPERIENCE EVER ! You don't die to mobs or difficulty, you die to fps drops / lag issue. All day long. Barely did that ligue, just the challenge, with lot of helps, and didn't enjoy it, because it was crash paradise. Ok my computer was not top notch, and my connection was "meh" at best, but it was just pure garbage to just crash and die and crash and die for no good reason.
And for the one good / one bad patch : each damn single patch the game changed to barely stable to pure crap again. Was it a hotfix, a big patch, steam client or stand alone, reinstalled dozens of times during this ligues... if there was a "good patch" the next one would bring back the issue.

During Breach i did improve some parts of my computer (including gpu and first SSD), i still wondering why at all.

Then come Legacy, free cake for eveyrone, no special event to spam your screen then no special effect to crash your computer, and had pretty good luck on keys and loot so... was a decent "nothing new but fun and no crash" league.

Harbinger league : oh hello, let's bring back lot of mobs packing together and make them spawn lot of mobs. Same issue, lots of patch before cleansing the problems.

Abyss league : oh hello, let's bring even MOAR mobs, in even small area with even moar bitching mechanics (hello, i'm big, i got 2 sword, and i'm invisible, check my path to you while you got 2 fps). Same as always, several patchs to fix most of lag/fps issues.

Bestiary : "calm" league, just never seen any big boss by myself. Not a lot of new ennemies, even when they do spawn stuff it's not 154 monsters with 354 different skins.

Incursion : Just In Time ! Exile. Calm if you don't do it, stressfull before lots of patchs if you entered the areas.

Delve : strange, one of the most dense place of the game, but not that crappy even in very dense+effects areas. Sure some fps/lag while you are a feet in the dark, a few disconnection on start/arrival, some bad luck/very dangerous events after 2 hours pushign the cart, and lot of balance to do later on. But hey, you did it : fun, lot of stuff, lot of mobs, and not crashing every damn meter ! Good job !

Betrayal : helloooooooooo again, let's present you big buffy mobs, that comes when they shouldn't, with invisible skills, mega aoe, lots of projectiles AND summoning adds most of times ! (and up to last league, probably still on : you can't STUN ! WHY WHY WHY can't we stun those guys while we can perma freeze them and stun even gods ???). So fun to have no crash, and less fps/lags issues... but if you still don't see the damn skill because they are not loaded correctly... seriously...

Synthesis : the last of the "calm league" (considering fps/lag) to date, i liked it, most people didn't, and taking 2 month to adjust the mechanisms probably didn't help...

Legion : ahahah. Let's add MOAR MOAR MOAR mobs, not only you have to load their frozen states, and all of them, but you have also to kill them twince then have them unfrozen animation then have a LOT of mobs doing LOT of stuffs in a "tiny" room considering the number. LOTS of patches to get them playable, still work to do...
Fun fact : i did change whole computer just before legion, imagine my pleasure to not being able to play poe in good condition while i could play recent game in full option+4K... And i did get damn good optic fiber connection just before too !
But at least, after, again, LOTS of patches, the game became stable, in the end only the 5 legions maps was a bit messy, but for the rest of the game lag/fps issue wasn't there anymore... on a quite good new whole computer §§§

Blight : choose
A) Hey people ! Guess what ? We found a way to add WAYYYYYYYY MOARRRRRRRRRRR mobs in same area, it's called blight maps, you got 10-25 portals spawning 25634 mobs with 2364 different skins, ofc they do use lots of spells, projectiles (especially boss), and it will be a gpu destructor for most of you ! Enjoy !
B) Hey people ! Guess what ? We buffed a lot (like A LOT) necromancers ! You know the class that suffered most of some unoptimised stuff with dedicated uniques or passives ? Now it got even MOAR unoptimised dedicated stuff and passives ! And it's so OP that half of the server will play it ! Enjoy !

For whome who played Blight, you know there wasn't a choice, it was A & B.
I started league doing an aurabot, long time didn't do one + several friend happy to play a lot on that league. My aurabot is still crying in fetal position in a dark corner of my hideout. Ended the ligue with a mega dragon (fire)ball miner, i couldn't see anything on screen, my teammate where bleeding from their eyes, but it was killing stuff 3 screens away, no need FPS when there is nothing to show.

======

And last to come Metamorph, with a big surprise : Conquerors of the Atlas !
First you think that league mechanic is quite cool : stuff only spawn when you want, where you want, generally after having cleared the whole area. And that's right, as long as you don't use the device, everything is cool.
But i wonder how people manage to stay next to the boss as melee... i personnaly cast the animation to release the boss, with some skill on ground ready to kill, and i run as fast as i could like 4 screens away. Then i come back and kill little by little because... a single boss that do 45 differents attacks spawning 45 differents types of projectiles / mobile objects / adds (hard to tell the differences), and that ressumon stuff every 25% life... especially if you get it down in seconds... that makes a lot of spawning stuff, and if you didn't get it yet, that what's the game is not good at.

If it was just that, ok, have to pay a lot of attention doing the league mechanic, at least i know where and when.

But no, this time they add the same problem to THE CORE GAME ! That's called The Conquerors. If just a boss spawn to talk two lines, his animations causes lag/fps issue. His mobs, even if now they are spawned altogether, make the same usual issue.

That's just pain to play that game. And it keeps going on and on and on. Each damn league you add spawn stuff and change barely nothing to optimisation. Oh yeah you added cool lights, cool water, cool sounds. But also removed the no shadow, the --preload, the 32 bit version, and other stuff i may forget.
We got cool presentation of "PoE 2", yeah i was most affraid of the video not starting fluid, it was a damn first show off ! And i didn't hear good words about global optimisation of the game or changes to core engine that would make that stuff you so like to add "spawning lots of mobs doing lot of things in tiny room".

I won't spend my money to improve my computer again, i can play all damn other games i got, most recent ones in 4K all options on, i reinstalled the games 3 times already this league, even on dedicated ssd, even on dedicated windows installation with NOTHING ELSE RUNNING. Can't upgrade more software. Can't optimise more stuff my side... Can't downside more option... (all is OFF and resolution halved !!!)

You just don't do your job at optimising your game. It's so frustrating not being able to play a game you like (A LOT) just because his developper don't consider optimising the game is more important than adding temporary content every 3 month. I'm not even hyped anymore about PoE 2 campaign because i'm cleary unsure it would be playable at all or just a fun experience on a stable game.

edit : fixed some typos and translations after "=====" i'll check more later.

Update : reddit post talking about deactivating some sounds in the ini files... Tested it, not perfect but GREAT gain in fps/lag... Still fit the same problem to me : more so nice sounds, break the game optimisation... Have to play without most sound to get a decent experience... shame.

Nothing to add perfect post !

100% On point

+1

+1 !

and I would like to add: massive lack of QoL features!

An excellent post, i wish that i had same memories about that game (or maybe not). I have walked away from the game so many times exact same reasons that you telling here. Imho the company just spitting on face to their costumers, why the hell you create such content if you know that the game engine cant handle it, its like we dont care, we just do something, you take it or leave it.
Do i hope that POE2 will fix these problems, no im not, im 98 prc sure that they will do some minor changes but all rest of the game will be same. POE2 will be like a bit bigger patch or league than usual, few new skill gems, couple of new gear pice, tons on MTX and thats it. Will see how it goes, i hope im wrong but its very very low hope its the 2 prc thats left from 98.

+1.

I know the GGG devs do care about optimization, but when does the company give them time to work on that?

New step on the "lets kill any optimisation", same computer, with some updates since last playtime (windows 10 & gpu drivers mostly) : league mecanic works quite good, ALL THE OTHER HAVE BEEN BRICKED.

Sometimes just a "simple" breach is a hellfest of fps drops / lag / missing texture... Open a breach, see nothing yet there is a ton of ennemies, but hey, no texture for like... 10 seconds !!!
Guess what, when you got a breach there will be breach monsters inside !
Open a legion, sure legion mobs will spawn... but no, texture not loaded before opening it...

And you want us to play with multiple leagues mecanics at once ? Proud to show delirium affecting legion, breach, abyss, essences... ???????

Why NO preload at all ? more and more "load on the run" texture, which the game is still not good at using at all.

The fog is no big deal for cpu/gpu/performance ? cool. Why all the rest suddently went FAR WORST than before ? WHY ?

I don't care having 30s more of loading area if i don't have to wonder if i will experience the very fun "10s of not seeing ennemy or 0 fps and spamming flasks/skill randomly"...

The fog itself, league mecanic "alone" and metamorph getting some colors are great improvement, but i hit my head on the desk each time i got the random few seconds with invisible ennemy skins >.<

+1

Btw whos idea was to turn the game into a black/white/gray vomit? I literally cant see whats going on. The mist just covers the ground effects and stuff. There are some serious FPS drops/feeze and the monster damage/hp is overuned AS ALWAYS. 1 month beta again.

Not for me this time.

Lets roll a new GD char i guess.

well, D3 have new season too... but they did their testing before "league" start :D

Nah man, in PoE lags, freezes and visual vomit are just features that make it more hardcore and extreme, you are just a filthy casual and don't get it. You are not suppoused to see anything anyway, what, you don't run a build that one-shots the entire screen before the enemies can do anything and phase switches bosses almost instantly? Casual indeed.
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