In the midst of a mighty battle, why does it take soo long to load or respawn? Why has this been such a detrimental thing for so long? This seems to happen always at the most crucial moments and then you don't actually lose to your opponents you lose because your mermaid sent you to the nether instead of your boat.
Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.
Depends how powerful your PC/console is. At times it depends on the server itself too if you have high ping or the server has been up for a long period of time.
I kinda wish we had an option to disable Ferry of the Damned and if you die, you respawn back on your ship (screen still black) and just have a countdown.
This way, when the countdown ends you can go straight back in. Because currently more time is spent on loading screens than it is on the ferry. And it's stupid
@ottyman8687 That would be an interesting fix, kinda like it was on arena.
And no Im not on xbox and usually don't have loading issues whatsoever. My crew and I each had a couple very very long black screens
@deathvessle That's due to the game loading more stuff in and putting more strain on the server. If its a critical situation it probably means people are dying, cannons are flying, particles are everywhere, waters rising, etc.
But nah long blackscreens wont be intentional beyond maybe a minimum blackscreen duration on PC to account for loading times on Xbox One. I believe a similar occurrence happens when loading into a lobby. The animation of waking up in the tavern was added to make up for Xbox One players not loading in.
@itz-majman even with powerful hardware there are occasional just long black screens. But yeah generally black screens are a hardware issue.
Everyone keeps saying it's hardware based...I've literally seen streamers with the tippy top best hardware on the market have blackscreen problems after walking through the ferry doors.
I have a Series X and a gaming PC and have Gig speed internet and still have ridiculous blackscreen times sometimes...and the best is when you're sitting there after you've walked through the doors on the ferry and you can just hear what's going on on your ship while you twiddle your thumbs.
This is not just a hardware issue.
@sweetsandman I'll be using this reply as an answer to the whole post.
Yes it is a hardware based issue.
However what they don't tell you is that it's a combination of hardware issue and server stability.
Not only that but you also gotta take in count the fact that you might have some other players around too, which considerably increases the waiting time.@lovelocc said in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
@sweetsandman I'll be using this reply as an answer to the whole post.
Yes it is a hardware based issue.
However what they don't tell you is that it's a combination of hardware issue and server stability.
Not only that but you also gotta take in count the fact that you might have some other players around too, which considerably increases the waiting time.Translation: If you don't have good hardware, we'll blame that. If you do have good hardware, we'll blame other stuff.
@longbeardfellow said in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
Why spend money on improving servers when we can make more cosmetics to stick in the Emporium. Capitalism folks.
Was thinking this exactly.
Obviously people don't get hired as 'game dev' and instead are hired as 'networking' or 'modelling'.
But why did they not focus on servers before everything else? I'm sure they've hired a load of marketing people and modellers instead of networking people.
Capitalism indeed
@sweetsandman sagte in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
This is not just a hardware issue.
True, got this once also in the middle of the shipraid while another ship was nearby...it seems when there is too much going on around your ship, mostly another player ship and one other event (skellie ship, meg, kraken) it takes much longer...
On my SeriesX I have a blackscreen for about 2-3 seconds, but in this scenario I spawned in when my ship despawned, heard it filling with water and everything else around for over a minuteBut I guess this would need a complete overhaul how the game loads stuff in...so I don’t know if this is even fixable...
Anyway, hardware can still help make this better...a SSD or a SeriesX makes the overall experience better...and it seemed to me, that when I delete the Cache before playing SoT, the loading screens got even better...never got into a situation like the one I mentioned after doing this, so I can't tell if it get's better while so much is going on
@sweetsandman said in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
Everyone keeps saying it's hardware based...I've literally seen streamers with the tippy top best hardware on the market have blackscreen problems after walking through the ferry doors.
I have a Series X and a gaming PC and have Gig speed internet and still have ridiculous blackscreen times sometimes...and the best is when you're sitting there after you've walked through the doors on the ferry and you can just hear what's going on on your ship while you twiddle your thumbs.
This is not just a hardware issue.
I think most of the time it is hardware (older SKU XBoxes/PCs trying to load textures from a 5400rpm/7200rpm drive) but it's also a network/server performance issue. The server tells your client what it needs to load and if packets are lost or need to be resent because something has changed (like your ship taking new damage), it maybe gets stuck in a loop of loading until it gets to the point where the game says 'ok, enough has loaded that you can spawn now'.
Without seeing exactly how it works, it can be hard to tell exactly what is going on but having quicker loading drives (like an SSD) will fix a lot of the black screen issues leaving you with the occasional network based problems that exist underneath everything.
@d3adst1ck I don't disagree that legacy hardware makes up a large percentage of the extended post-ferry black screen problems. However, it is undeniable that it is not 100% of the problem...far from it.
The point of my post was to call out the folks that point to a hardware issue being the root problem and leaving that as their response.
@sweetsandman said in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
Everyone keeps saying it's hardware based...I've literally seen streamers with the tippy top best hardware on the market have blackscreen problems after walking through the ferry doors.
I have a Series X and a gaming PC and have Gig speed internet and still have ridiculous blackscreen times sometimes...and the best is when you're sitting there after you've walked through the doors on the ferry and you can just hear what's going on on your ship while you twiddle your thumbs.
This is not just a hardware issue.
It's exactly this.
I feel like a bulk of them are fixed via hardware but I still experience extended blackscreens on a 3900x/3080ti/and gen 4 nvme drive all paired with gigabit internet that is hardwired. There is definitely something that makes the server side "hang" while trying to bring a toon back to the world.
My example was to just highlight how even some of the best hardware still hangs.
Though I can remember putting a USB 3.0 ssd on my xbox one x and it was a game changer for load times.
with the number of times it does not happen I would say it's a server issue for me. This is considering I have a high end Pc, well high end 2 yrs ago lol. I don't have this issue very often or at all. But when I do, everyone in my crew has the issue during the same session even on multiple servers. Therefore, with the sample size of my brig we can conclude that what we were experiencing was on the server-side.
I feel your pain… for the longest time, I was on Potato Box (original XB 1) and any engagement where I died essentially meant the death of my boat as well because of the black screen of death.
I did however recently upgrade to series X and OMG does it make a difference… I can go from main menu to in a game in 10 seconds, merm teleports are instantaneous and ferry respawns take less than 4 seconds in heavy combat.
So if I were you, I’d just bite the bullet and invest in your hardware, it does go a huge way to mitigating load times!
@kamikaziotter Im sure nothing is better than my samsung evo 970 plus for loading times. What I was experiencing was server side 100% This is not to say that others have not felt this problem because of their hardware.
Lol at hardware issue notion
This happened this morning...the clip could have been double the length and it would have still been a blackscreen.
I wonder if it's a server issue or if it's a problem created by whatever they implemented to prevent backspawns 🤔🤔🤔
@sweetsandman Lol it spawned him when it sank. When it comes to an equal match of skill and boat size you commonly lose to just simple bad luck.
@ssolutionss said in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
@sweetsandman Lol it spawned him when it sank. When it comes to an equal match of skill and boat size you commonly lose to just simple bad luck.
Welcome to Sea of Thieves 🤣🤣🤣
@schwammlgott ssd doesn't make a difference lul. I mean maybe it does, but it doesn't fix the core issue. Also is there even anyone not using an ssd these days
@liljimothy2306 said in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
@schwammlgott ssd doesn't make a difference lul. I mean maybe it does, but it doesn't fix the core issue. Also is there even anyone not using an ssd these days
Yes, there are plenty of people who are not using SSD. When I was playing the game on my OG Xbox One the loading screens could take 45-60 seconds. Once I added an external SSD and moved the game over it was a HUGE improvement. The load times are even better on the new Xbox to just a couple of seconds or less.
If there are server side issues we have little control over that. We can either advise people to upgrade their setup such as using a SSD (not a huge investment) or we can just shrug and tell them it is sometimes a server side problem. I’ve hardly ever had a problem with black screens after upgrading my hardware. Before I did? Yes, all the time. But the difference was so drastic.
@sweetsandman I too am on a Series X with a hardwired connection (but not Gigabit Internet), and I typically experience longer load-in times whenever my ship sinks. I believe this is done intentionally by the system after a certain "cut-off" point in order to avoid back-spawns.
@galactic-geek well yeah AFTER a ship sinks... we're (at least I am) talking about BEFORE your ship sinks.
Beardageddon's example I listed above is just that. There was easily another 30+ seconds before that clip started that was also a black screen.
I'm wondering if whatever "fix" they put in place to prevent backspawns is creating this problem. Kinda like how fixing X-bucketing seems to have brought us bucket-reg...now we're getting spawn-reg 🤣🤣
@liljimothy2306 sagte in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
@schwammlgott ssd doesn't make a difference lul. I mean maybe it does, but it doesn't fix the core issue. Also is there even anyone not using an ssd these days
It does make a difference, actually a huge one!
About 90% of the XBoxOne users I'd say don’t use a SSD@ghostpaw Having an ssd is basic PC knowledge of decreased loading times. Having an SSD won't fix the long load wheel issue is what I meant.
@liljimothy2306 said in Why are long Black screens / Loading screens still a thing.:
@ghostpaw Having an ssd is basic PC knowledge of decreased loading times. Having an SSD won't fix the long load wheel issue is what I meant.
1)It is not basic knowledge. Especially for console players who typically do not realize they can hook up an external SSD to their older Xbox. This is why we have to keep telling people and why so many people insist it won’t work… until it does.
2)Yes it does fix the long loading wheel. Why are you so invested in this? What you are saying is absurd to anyone who has seen the difference for themselves.
3)Are you under the impression that us suggesting most players use an SSD means Rare won’t address the much less frequently seen server side issue with loading times? They are doing what they can to address it, but the server side problems with loading are much less frequent than the ones caused by people using lower end hardware. Not everyone has the funds to upgrade beyond the basics.
I am not going to,discuss this with you further. Too many of us have seen this for ourselves.
@ghostpaw "it fixes the bad loading screen" - then explain why 3k SSD pc's have this issue. No I'm just making a point that the issue isn't 100% hardware related.
Beardageddon - Game's fine
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