Pyr0xyrecuprotite wrote: »

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

More precisely, it's either an outright lie or -- more likely -- a confession of staggering technical ignorance or incompetence.

They mention "over 1 billion achivements" over the course of the game. Well, each of those achievements requires on average a few bytes of memory to track. So they might save perhaps 3 gigabytes of disk storage by making this massive change. That's not per player; that's 3 GB ACROSS THE ENTIRE PLAYER BASE. That's so trivial that even ZoS wouldn't care.

But even there, a few hundred data fields per character are a triviality to load in any halfway sensible database architecture.

I'm not convinced of a billion achievements, but this game is big enough that it's well over a thousand achievements by now, possibly heading for 10k?

THEY OBVIOUSLY WERE REFERRING TO ALL PLAYERS, CHARACTERS AND ACCOUNTS, NOT JUST ONE.

That said, the bigger issue is that each achievement requires tracking a LOT of data, in a system that had to be designed from the start to be able to add more achievements.

Consider skyshards alone - we're at around 40 zones, with a total of 501 skyshards. Since the skyshard achievements are not fixed (more can be added), this is not a simple binary number to track them. Instead, you need a database with (at minimum) fields like an index field, a key identifier for the account, a character identifier, a zone identifier/index, plus some field per skyshard (have you got it or not), plus at least one reference identifier/index for the database which tracks achievement names/types etc. So, since it's a 64-bit system, this is at minimum something like 501 records per character of 6 bytes (64 bits each), times an average of maybe 5 characters per account (guessing). So, 15kB times 20 million-ish accounts would be 300GB-ish? (much of this is split across different megaservers/platforms of course). Let's assume that the Skyshards achieve is unusually large and make the average total storage needed per achievement closer to 100GB instead. Multiply by 1000+ achievements, and we're into hundreds of TB already; heading into Petabyte range if there are more achievements (and there are always more achievements with each new DLC) or more characters on average per account.

YOU SEEM TO BE ASSUMING A NORMALIZED RELATIONAL SCHEMA IN YOUR SKYSHARDS EXAMPLE. BY WAY OF CONTRAST, IN CASSANDRA OR HBASE ONE COULD COME A LOT CLOSER TO 1 BIT PER SKYSHARD. AND OF COURSE, ONE CAN DENORMALIZE WHEN USING A RELATIONAL SYSTEM AS WELL.

THE SAME WOULD BE TRUE OF SOME OF THE OTHERS PEOPLE ARE MOST UPSET ABOUT -- DOLMENS, DELVES, ETC.

ANYHOW, THE NUMBER OF SKYSHARDS, DOLMENS, DELVES, STRIKING LOCALES, AND SO ON IN THE GAME IS SOME HUNDREDS, AND EVEN IN YOUR PREFERRED DATABASE DESIGN THEY COULD BE HANDLED IN ONE RECORD EACH. MOST OTHER ACHIEVEMENTS TRULY ARE MEASURED IN SINGLE NUMBERS, BOOLEAN OR COUNTER AS THE CASE MAY BE.

Being able to cut this amount of data by 75%-ish (would be 80% if there are an average of 5 characters per, but let's assume it's not entirely clean) seems appealing in terms of managing, indexing, searching, storing/retrieving and backing up that data etc.

I think you may be off with your estimate by a few orders of magnitude. I might be too, of course - I have no clue how ZoS actually implemented this feature.

THE QUESTION IS MORE HOW THEY SHOULD HAVE IMPLEMENTED IT. (I SHARE @DarcyMardin's GUESS THAT THIS ALL HAS A LOT TO DO WITH A SYSTEM REDESIGN.

ALSO, AS NOTED ABOVE, I THINK YOUR EXTRAPOLATION TO ALL ACHIEVEMENTS FROM A PARTICULARLY DATA-INTENSIVE WAY TO IMPLEMENT SKYSHARD ACHIEVEMENTS WAS FLAWED ANYWAY; THERE ONLY ARE A LITERAL HANDFUL OF ACHIEVEMENT TYPES THAT SHARE THE CHARACTERISTIC OF COVERING MANY LOCATIONS PER ZONE.

Kiyakotari wrote: »

"With the database’s overall footprint reduced, it will more performant across the board, which may manifest itself in faster load screens and improved performance on other database-heavy operations."

Your editors are slacking.

gddanielb16_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno

I pay a portion of your (collective) salaries. I’ve spend $000’s on ESO these past years. I have a dozen Notable houses; more than a dozen house guests; 5 assistants; over 100 mounts; countless pets (near 150 exotic alone) and so on. I’ve purchased all mundus stones; and buy too many crown crates. Heck, I’ve even invested in armory slots to flip between Vamp/WW and Normal on all 18 of my characters. One can judge me harshly for that, to be sure, but ESO is most of my entertainment in retirement.

Importantly, I’m NOT the best ESO player, by any reasonable definition. With near 300 latency and 7-25FPS (at near-zero Graphics settings), some achievements are exceedingly difficult. That said, I’ve played since beta, and my /played on my main account materially exceeds 2 full years. There are 97 titles on my main character and near 35,000 achievement points (also far shy of many folks, I’m well aware). On all 18 characters , my achievement points collectively exceeds 253,000 and each individually is well over 10k.

ON ALL 18 characters:
• ALL slottable skills & morphs have been unlocked and maxed. Namely: 10 in all Class Skills; Weapons; Armor; Fighters Guild; Mages Guild; Undaunted; Psijic; PvP Assault&Support; Vampire; & Werewolf.
• I’ve earned ALL my souls back (so Cadwell Silver or Gold).
• All have skill level 20 in Legerdemain.
• ALL are 9 trait crafters (which has literally taken years, given expansions of Wardens and Necromancers) and while only one is Grand Master Crafter, the other 17 are only short the 50 motif “True Style Master”.
• ALL have 250-437 skill points (287 average).

I've read (and share), the concerns of many about the satisfaction of multiple-character achievements. While it matters dearly to me, it's not my underlying concern.

While I could care less about sharing achievement titles across all characters, I care DEEPLY about the investment I have in the select achievements that I’ve invested countless hours accomplishing. Specifically those that make my characters unique, and arguably “better”/more skilled. Such as those that accompany the unlocking of guild skills … whether Mage, Fighter or Psijic. Those that unlock Assault/Support, Vamp/WW, or Undaunted skills. I’ve read the Q&A and see no reference to this; and have searched the 70+ pages of feedback and not seen how this is handled (nor can I go to PTS, given that all characters have unlocked everything).
1. If every player who has completed the Undaunted skill line on one character suddenly has those skills and passives available to all characters, my enormous past efforts have been wasted.
2. If every player who’s unlocked the Alliance War ultimates on one character suddenly has them available on all, my past investment history with the game is nullified. Same with Fighters Guild, Psijic, Mage guild, Vamp, WW, etc.
3. If every player with a single Grand Master Crafter in the game suddenly has EVERY character able to attain massive numbers of Master Writs, my past efforts have been reduced to meaningless.

We DO share a desire to improve server performance. I’d love nothing better than reduced zone load times. I’d love to be in Cyrodill facing a “ball group” and not be near-instantly disconnected. Heck, I’d just appreciate not facing 1v1 a person who can hit me for “at least a screen full” of death recap strikes before I can even light attack in return. Yes, my PC & internet is sub-standard … but the point is that “integrating achievements” WILL NOT make things fundamentally better for myself or similar customers.

While I’m NOT a programmer, I have fairly extensive experience in the design and testing of massive scale Enterprise Wide Information Systems. This proposed change will NOT fix the issues players face. You could just as easily update achievements “only on login” … or even “during weekly maintenance” for all I care (ideally “on achieving the achievement”, but that’s probably optional too). THIS would just as easily reduce server load, if this is indeed a major contributing factor (I have to point out that your Q&A specifically says “may improve” performance … not “WILL”).

As I said initially, I help pay your salaries. I suspect I’m not alone, since “more casual” players would never spend real dollars the way I do (and correctly so). I don’ t complain often; and generally don’t post in the forums, so please weigh this as well.

Please don’t mess this up. You simply can’t invalidate years of effort without consequences. I truly hope I'm misunderstanding. At the VERY least, please update your Q&A.

Silufadumar wrote: »

Could they not have moved the relevant character/achievement data to be saved locally, on our pc's and consoles?

I know very little about how such things work, just a thought.

Kesstryl wrote: »

Hotdog_23 wrote: »

For me personally I welcome the change. I don’t need some type on a screen to reflect how I view my characters and their personal journey I have created in my own head. FYI, I have played for 7-8 years or however long it has been out on PlayStation. In fact, ESO is the reason I first purchased a PlayStation.

Have 18 characters and would have more if ZOS allowed more per account. Never deleted a character and never intend too. Each has their own story, history, and journey. Nothing ZOS does can change that. Little white text on the screen does not change that fact for me. For those that are upset and angry by this I am truly sorry you must go thru this.

PVP reward is nice to see. What is the Tel Var Stones cost going to be? Since it says it is bound to your character does that mean each different character needs to unlock and purchase them to wear the new outfit style. Or once purchased can any character on that account wear it?

The Deconstruction Assistant - Can fillet fish be added to the decon assistant? Pretty please with sugar on top.

Question non-related to article. Since you are in the process of rewriting some of the base code any chance you could add the ability to use add-ons for the consoles? After all Skyrim does allow add-ons for consoles.

Stay safe everyone and Happy Hunting

Be prepared to have game sound turned off, and voice acted dialogue too, because it's not just little white text, but how the game world NPCs react to you as you walk by them. If you don't care about that, then, be prepared to be locked out of any quests tied to achievements on alts. Someone on PTS found the main quest in Stros M'Kai is not able to progress on alts due to this. We don't know how many more quests like this are broken.

Christerra wrote: »

Personally, I'm really happy with this upcoming update. I am curious to know if skyshards will be part of the account-wide achievements. Fingers crossed that they are! No more running around getting skyshards on thirty-four toons would be amazing!

Lauranae wrote: »

This is the second game which decided to mess up with players and ruin a game. FIrst one on Feb 15 2022 and eso soon too.

The other game lost already a lot of subs. They did exactly as ESO (or ESO did exactly as them) and revamped the game in their view, but in fact destroyed it.

Both games took arbitrary decisions, ignored the PTS, and vague of unsubs. (the first game delivered a patch with a list of bugs longer than a patch notes) and it seems that ESO is doing the same.

So i understand, less data = more space on servers BUT with all the subs you have and the crown store sells, are you telling us that you are short on money to add more server ??? and that the only solution is to cut on the fun of your players ??

Dont you see the ridicule here ? you want more players, though you are making the game less appealing.
When the new players will have replaced those who quit, and they will realise there is not reason to create alts, what will happens ? They will take more and more break from the game and only come back for a new expansion.

Well done!!

Oh and i forgot!!! my advice to all those who spent their time testing on the PTS, stop testing, that will change nothing.

---

as a lot of us, i have several account (3) and i enjoy all my characters. Some are only crafters and i dont want them to appear in game as Hero. They are simple people. Some have their own story in your story .

So you are actually advertising the game as it was before https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/discover, when in fact half of the promess on that page are now a total lie.

If i was tempted to stay, that would mean for you : 1 sub, not 3. No new outfitting, no new houses, no new mount needed, nore pets. One character does not need more as i would not play the other characters at all.

---

Now that i think about, did Microsoft acted with Zenimax Media and enforced those changes ?

WiseSky wrote: »

So Sad to see that my level 2 mule char will be greeted as the hero by all the NPCs!

Would it be possible to have a Check Mark next to the Achievement that makes it possible to Check it or UnCheck it so that NPCs can react accordingly ?

FrancisCrawford wrote: »

Kiyakotari wrote: »

"With the database’s overall footprint reduced, it will more performant across the board, which may manifest itself in faster load screens and improved performance on other database-heavy operations."

Your editors are slacking.

Not badly. The word "be" is missing, but "performant" is a legitimate term that has been widely used for quite a while.

alberichtano wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

alberichtano wrote: »

Cominfordatoothbrush wrote: »

There has to be another way to improve performance. What about all of these server upgrades ZOS was talking about earlier? We can't at least see if that allows for character specific data to be kept? Where does all that subscription money go; you can't maybe use that to improve the game's database performance in a way that doesn't destroy the most important aspect of a role playing game?

I may be wrong here, but I believe those were mentioned before Microsoft bought ZOS. MS might not be so interested in spending more money on their purchase, but rather see profit come in from it. But again, I may be mistaken.

Wouldn't MS just tell them to migrate from AWS to Azure?

Sorry, I have no idea what Azure is. But I guess it depends on the costs involved?

Tandor wrote: »

Christerra wrote: »

Personally, I'm really happy with this upcoming update. I am curious to know if skyshards will be part of the account-wide achievements. Fingers crossed that they are! No more running around getting skyshards on thirty-four toons would be amazing!

Of course they're not, if they were there'd be no reason for anyone to buy them for their alts in the Crown Store. Seemingly, the only achievements that impact on database performance are those not involving the Crown Store.