The Megaserver Technology is Smart but Maybe It's Causing Long Load Screens Too

nTranced

I watched Sherman’s Gaming recent video and it was interesting looking back at what the devs had in mind for the game back in 2012. Most of the people commenting here are focusing on the PVP changes but what caught my attention is when Matt Firor talks about the megaserver technology he says:

“The game is smart about where to put you, it puts you in game spaces with your friends with your guild mates, it's a way to be connected with everyone and the game figures out where to put you.”

If I understand this right the game is checking to see where my friends and guild mates are so that we end up in the same instance/shard on the megaserver. The system described by Matt Firor was from the time of Veteran Ranks when the number of other players at your level was considerably smaller than today; since One Tamriel though we’ve been able to group with anyone.

I have a couple dozen players on my friends list and I’m in 5 guilds, that’s well over 2000 other players. I hope they are only checking for players who are logged in and not everybody as is the case with the guild roster issue. If this system is still in place it’s no wonder loading screens are so long when switching zones.

Elsonso

nTranced wrote: »

I watched Sherman’s Gaming recent video and it was interesting looking back at what the devs had in mind for the game back in 2012. Most of the people commenting here are focusing on the PVP changes but what caught my attention is when Matt Firor talks about the megaserver technology he says:

“The game is smart about where to put you, it puts you in game spaces with your friends with your guild mates, it's a way to be connected with everyone and the game figures out where to put you.”

If I understand this right the game is checking to see where my friends and guild mates are so that we end up in the same instance/shard on the megaserver. The system described by Matt Firor was from the time of Veteran Ranks when the number of other players at your level was considerably smaller than today; since One Tamriel though we’ve been able to group with anyone.

I have a couple dozen players on my friends list and I’m in 5 guilds, that’s well over 2000 other players. I hope they are only checking for players who are logged in and not everybody as is the case with the guild roster issue. If this system is still in place it’s no wonder loading screens are so long when switching zones.

The game does place you with guild members and people you know. I am sure that this can contribute to long load screens when moving into a new PVE zone. It has to go through all of the instances of that zone to find out the best one to put you in. As server population increases, the number of instances increase, and the amount of time to do that search also increases.

zaria

lordrichter wrote: »

nTranced wrote: »

I watched Sherman’s Gaming recent video and it was interesting looking back at what the devs had in mind for the game back in 2012. Most of the people commenting here are focusing on the PVP changes but what caught my attention is when Matt Firor talks about the megaserver technology he says:

“The game is smart about where to put you, it puts you in game spaces with your friends with your guild mates, it's a way to be connected with everyone and the game figures out where to put you.”

If I understand this right the game is checking to see where my friends and guild mates are so that we end up in the same instance/shard on the megaserver. The system described by Matt Firor was from the time of Veteran Ranks when the number of other players at your level was considerably smaller than today; since One Tamriel though we’ve been able to group with anyone.

I have a couple dozen players on my friends list and I’m in 5 guilds, that’s well over 2000 other players. I hope they are only checking for players who are logged in and not everybody as is the case with the guild roster issue. If this system is still in place it’s no wonder loading screens are so long when switching zones.

The game does place you with guild members and people you know. I am sure that this can contribute to long load screens when moving into a new PVE zone. It has to go through all of the instances of that zone to find out the best one to put you in. As server population increases, the number of instances increase, and the amount of time to do that search also increases.

Yes, is also has to do other stuff like loading the status on zone and make sure various mounts, gear and costumes players are using show up.
So yes it causes load screens. It also don't always works as well. very visible if multiple in craglorn join for pug trials.

On the other hand it so insanely better than having 50 servers its idiotic.

Vapirko

It’s a great idea as you say but who knows what other issues are caused by it? Is PvP a lag fest because of something to do with this system? We’ve had many instances where people appear to be invisible and shouldn’t be, or flash in and out of “existence.” It does raise some questions.

zaria

Vapirko wrote: »

It’s a great idea as you say but who knows what other issues are caused by it? Is PvP a lag fest because of something to do with this system? We’ve had many instances where people appear to be invisible and shouldn’t be, or flash in and out of “existence.” It does raise some questions.

Cyrodil don't use megaserver as it is. Here you queue for named instances like Vivec who is an physical server and stay there until porting out. And yes it might been an idea to use stronger servers than the standard zone ones because large fights who require lots of calculators.

Merlight

lordrichter wrote: »

The game does place you with guild members and people you know. I am sure that this can contribute to long load screens when moving into a new PVE zone. It has to go through all of the instances of that zone to find out the best one to put you in. As server population increases, the number of instances increase, and the amount of time to do that search also increases.

That'd be the wrong way to do it. As the number of instances grows, the probability of finding friends/guildies in any of them decreases. Search the player's social circle, not the world.

spoqster

The megaserver architecture is far better than having separate servers. The question is though if they could optimize loading times by lazy-loading some assets or by simplifying the checks that are done to determine which shard is the best for you.

For example upon logging in, they could load me into the shard that is quickest, then do further checks in the background, find the best shard for me, reserve a slot there and prepare everything in the background, and then just move me over to that shard on my next port - just as an example.

Also there are proven cases of ZOS messing up in terms of doing unnecessary checks which cause performance issues. Most recent example was the discovery by a player that if you set a filter on your guild roster in Cyrodiil, the game has considerably more lag, because setting that filter prevents the game from doing zone checks on your guild mates. If they messed up this big on one feature, it's more than likely that they have messed up in a similar way with respect to the shard picking.

Alinhbo_Tyaka

It doesn't explain the long loading times for me as I have nobody in my friends list and belong to no guilds. I suspect the long loading times have more to do with what data is passed around as you cross shards. This is the type of code that historically was considered performance path but the folks with skills to do this type of work well are becoming fewer as folks use better hardware as a crutch.

Elsonso

Merlight wrote: »

lordrichter wrote: »

The game does place you with guild members and people you know. I am sure that this can contribute to long load screens when moving into a new PVE zone. It has to go through all of the instances of that zone to find out the best one to put you in. As server population increases, the number of instances increase, and the amount of time to do that search also increases.

That'd be the wrong way to do it. As the number of instances grows, the probability of finding friends/guildies in any of them decreases. Search the player's social circle, not the world.

They might do it that way, if all they use is the player's social circle. The reason I describe it as finding a place in the world, vs finding where your social circle is, comes from a scheme they talked about early in the game development to group players who had similar demographics information. My basic assumption starts with the premise that the system is still there, but just not being used like that. If so, it would search the world, not the social circle.

Given the observation that larger zone populations tend to show increased load times, it is not unreasonable to think they are looking for a place in the world rather than a quicker, and more consistent, search of the social circle. The increased time could be due that that, and other factors, or maybe they are searching as you suggest, and it is all other factors.

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

It doesn't explain the long loading times for me as I have nobody in my friends list and belong to no guilds. I suspect the long loading times have more to do with what data is passed around as you cross shards. This is the type of code that historically was considered performance path but the folks with skills to do this type of work well are becoming fewer as folks use better hardware as a crutch.

They do a lot of things when changing zones, not all of which we are aware of. Zone loading times are due to of a handful of tasks that have to complete, including tasks happening both server-side and client-side. Some of these things are related to "megaserver" and some probably have nothing to do with that. My feeling is that there are enough of these things going on to be unable to say that any one of them is the cause of long zone loading screens across the entire player population.