As players, we don't know how exactly how their backend works, but there are some important bits that can be inferred by observing how the game behaves.

One important clue is what happens when an instance crashes. You're booted back to the login screen, and if you log back into that character, you'll find that you're no longer in the instance, that the instance has been destroyed, and that everything that happened recently never happened--i.e., what players describe as a "rollback". Items that you looted? Not in your inventory. Quest stages completed? Not any more. Achievement earned? Not there.

Another thing that we can observe is that fresh newly-created characters have shorter load screens when loading into a zone, when compared to a character that's been played for years and years.

So what can we infer from this sort of behavior? What this suggests to me is that when a player loads into an instance--a dungeon, for example--the data for that character--their inventory, achievements, quest progress, etc.--is retrieved from the database for the instance to access locally. This is why new characters--with very little character history--load more quickly. And things that happen to the character in that instance--loot, quest progress, achievements, etc.--are updating that local copy of that character, not the copy in the main database. And then when the player logs out, changes instances, or just periodically, that local copy is synced back to the main database.

This is consistent with what people observe when an instance unexpectedly crashes, before that local data can be beamed back to the mothership. And it makes perfect sense from an engineering perspective and is the right thing to do: you don't want to hammer the database with frequent small updates.

But what does this mean for performance? It means that IT IS HIGHLY UNLIKELY THAT THERE ARE ACTIVE PERFORMANCE GAINS TO BE HAD FROM ACCOUNT-WIDE ACHIEVEMENTS. Because you're not actually accessing the database all the time.

The key word that I want to highlight here is "active", as in it won't affect combat, questing, or anything that you are actively doing with your character.

Think about it: With or without AWA, there will be a local copy of the player's achievements that the instance will load in. The only difference is whether that data is copied from the accounts database or from the characters database. Once you're in the instance--let's say a dungeon or Cyrodiil--you're not accessing the database to update your "Kill 500 Evil Doodads in Veteran Someplace" achievement (or Nightblade Slayer achievement, if you're hunting those pesky things in Cyrodiil) every single time you score a kill, so any improvements to the database performance won't affect that. I.e., there's ZERO impact on active gameplay. The only potential difference is when that data is synced back to the database or when that data is loaded from the database. I.e., load screens.

And to be clear, this is exactly what ZOS said in their Q&A: "may manifest itself in faster load screens and improved performance on other database-heavy operations". Load screens and other database-heavy operations. So... guild bank access times, guild store searches, loading up names on the trials leaderboard. That sort of thing. Not exactly the sort of thing that people complain about on a regular basis. And I suppose if the server comes up after an extended maintenance during prime time, the crush of players all trying to log in at the same time could be lessened somewhat, but those are uncommon, isolated incidents.

Combat performance? No change. Lag? No change. Desyncs? No change. Responsiveness of abilities? No change. FPS? No change.

Just shorter load screens. How much shorter? Well, the problem here is that load screen time is a combination of both server-side and client-side performance. For example, when you reload your UI, that load screen time is 100% local: how fast is your computer, how many addons you have, how much data are those addons loading and processing, etc. And on the server side, not all of that is associated with database operations--some of it is spinning up a fresh new instance, for example. But I can tell you that right now, I get load screen times are almost always under 10s--often under 5s--when zoning between existing instances (i.e., not having to wait for an instance to be created), so that establishes some bounds on just how much database changes can do. We're talking something on the order of a few seconds at best.

And, returning to what I wrote earlier, my oldest characters do have longer load screen times than a fresh new character. But first, achievements are just a small portion of that (which ZOS themselves admit). Think about all the quest completion/progress information for the thousands of quests. Think about all the dialog choices. The lorebooks that have been read. The thousands of recipes and furnishing plans that could be learned. There's a lot there. And frankly, I imagine that for players who have invested that much time into a character, that they wouldn't mind a somewhat longer load time for that character, if it means that it preserves the history of that invested time. I certainly wouldn't mind.

SirBedevere wrote: »

They could just as easily do the Star Trek script thing and <insert tech speak here>, and it wouldn't be any less satisfying to hear.

The red shirts are our alt toons

Saieden wrote: »

Mephit wrote: »

I’m still a bit confused, and apologies if this has been raised before.

I believe CLA are copied to AWA as and when characters are logged in… so I assume they delete the CLA for that character at that point.

If (like others have mentioned) I only log in one character after this implements (to retain CLA) then presumably all my other toons just sit there with their character level achievements.

So questions…

The one toon I do log in will become the baseline for my AWA, presumably with a like for like copy of CLA > AWA. The database doesn’t get smaller.

If I log no other characters in then those retain CLA… and the database gets no smaller.

This will be the same for all unplayed accounts / characters…I assume there are a large number of these.

Many accounts (I read somewhere) also have only one character, so the database can’t get smaller as a result of those.

So will there come a time when ZOS are forced to do a CLA purge?

Or maybe I am confused

The order you load characters only matters for quantative achievements (eg kill x mobs) and meta-achievements (eg grand master crafter). Whichever character gives you the achievement account wide upon loading them in will be credited.

This means it is very likely that it will be impossible to have every achievement on one character without loading it first and completing every unearned achievement that your other characters already have before logging in with them for the first time.

For other achievements you've already earned, it will stick to whoever did it first. If you did DC msq/zones clear on your main, then AD on an alt, and AD again on your main, AD will be on your alt no matter what. If you did EP on another alt, and with no other characters, it will probably get Caldwell's gold after you've logged in with your other toons and then log in with that toon.

My question was about database size.. which is supposedly what is helping performance…

remosito wrote: »

Mephit wrote: »

I’m still a bit confused, and apologies if this has been raised before.

I believe CLA are copied to AWA as and when characters are logged in… so I assume they delete the CLA for that character at that point.

If (like others have mentioned) I only log in one character after this implements (to retain CLA) then presumably all my other toons just sit there with their character level achievements.

So questions…

The one toon I do log in will become the baseline for my AWA, presumably with a like for like copy of CLA > AWA. The database doesn’t get smaller.

If I log no other characters in then those retain CLA… and the database gets no smaller.

This will be the same for all unplayed accounts / characters…I assume there are a large number of these.

Many accounts (I read somewhere) also have only one character, so the database can’t get smaller as a result of those.

So will there come a time when ZOS are forced to do a CLA purge?

Or maybe I am confused

they'll just shift them to cold storage.. chances are they already are.. they did that a while back afaik...

In my case it will be 10 active chars - > 1..

Do they do it per account or per character?

heaven13 wrote: »

remosito wrote: »

Mephit wrote: »

I’m still a bit confused, and apologies if this has been raised before.

I believe CLA are copied to AWA as and when characters are logged in… so I assume they delete the CLA for that character at that point.

If (like others have mentioned) I only log in one character after this implements (to retain CLA) then presumably all my other toons just sit there with their character level achievements.

So questions…

The one toon I do log in will become the baseline for my AWA, presumably with a like for like copy of CLA > AWA. The database doesn’t get smaller.

If I log no other characters in then those retain CLA… and the database gets no smaller.

This will be the same for all unplayed accounts / characters…I assume there are a large number of these.

Many accounts (I read somewhere) also have only one character, so the database can’t get smaller as a result of those.

So will there come a time when ZOS are forced to do a CLA purge?

Or maybe I am confused

they'll just shift them to cold storage.. chances are they already are.. they did that a while back afaik...

In my case it will be 10 active chars - > 1..

Pretty sure cold storage works by account, not character.

even if it was per account. chances are they''ll do it per char now..as far as achievements are concerned..

if I'd do it I' ll actually push all per char achievements into a separate db. create a new per account one and augment the per account new one from the per char old one whenever a char is logged in the first time...
(edit.. or dump achieves into per account or char files and load those in.. doesnt really matter.. what matters is to get perf gain from smaller db from day one and not successively as players load their chars over time)

but in the end.. my guess is as bad as yours...

nightstrike wrote: »

That's not how databases work, and that's not how achievements are implemented. First, they are loaded when you login and updated with events, not every time you open the window. Second, it is infinitesimal compared to all the other data that moves around (hello guild sales!)

Hello traits learned
Hello riding lessons taken
Hello recipes learned
Hello motifs learned (not style pages which are already account based)
Hello clothing/outfits owned
Hello skill points allocated
Hello champion points

I'm probably missing things here...

The exact wording is:

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.

I know what a load screen is, but what is an example of database-heavy operations?

newtinmpls wrote: »

nightstrike wrote: »

That's not how databases work, and that's not how achievements are implemented. First, they are loaded when you login and updated with events, not every time you open the window. Second, it is infinitesimal compared to all the other data that moves around (hello guild sales!)

Hello traits learned
Hello riding lessons taken
Hello recipes learned
Hello motifs learned (not style pages which are already account based)
Hello clothing/outfits owned
Hello skill points allocated
Hello champion points

I'm probably missing things here...

motifs are kind of a weird case

they kind of already ARE account wide unlocks

learning a motif unlocks the OUTFIT style account wide for use at the outfit station
caveat with this is that only the character(s) that learned the actual motif can use it at a crafting station

• motif outfit knowledge is acct wide
• motif crafting knowledge is per character

newtinmpls wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

motifs are kind of a weird case

they kind of already ARE account wide unlocks

learning a motif unlocks the OUTFIT style account wide for use at the outfit station
caveat with this is that only the character(s) that learned the actual motif can use it at a crafting station

I was considering "motifs" as separate from "style unlocks" despite the fact that use of a single motif page can unlock both.

i figure when most people are mentioning account wide motif unlock they mean more for the crafting side of things

but also wanted to put out there that if you only need it for an outfit unlock, that technically is acct wide already

Khajiit expects queues will progress much faster, with fewer waiting in line.

Kesstryl wrote: »

.

karthrag_inak wrote: »

Khajiit expects queues will progress much faster, with fewer waiting in line.

Sure, when you factor in all the people who said they are leaving over AwA, and the many more who will get the bomb dropped on them when this hits live in this form.

Don't worry, the time spent "in game" will be recouped a thousand times over without all the players that do alt dungeon achievements, not to mention the vastly reduced need for transmutes.

Likely no meaningful performance increase. It doesn't affect the real time combat event resolution logic.

I'd imagine this is a command handed down from microsoft for some reason to conform with the rest of their stuff.

Maybe they are anticipating some unified platform for all of their newly acquired game studios.

kojou wrote: »

The main impact (if any) is that our characters will load faster. At one time characters with less achievements loaded faster than those with more, but I haven't noticed that impact recently (I think there were already improvements that fixed that issue).

If they can decrease the table sizes, and reduce the amount of data the database has to sift through then that can have an impact on the amount of CPU cycles required and the amount of cashed data required by the database to have to keep for a query (i.e. character load). If you look across the whole live system over the span of a week then you may see the impact this is having.

All that said, will this specific change have an impact that we the players will notice? Probably not, unless you are measuring your character load times before and after with a stopwatch, even then it may not even have an impact beyond the margin of error.

At least that is my understanding based on the patch notes and my own knowledge.

The proper way to reduce the amount of data the server has to sift through is to reorganize, both logically and physically. That's why libraries have a coding system for topics/genres rather than listing every author alphabetically from one side to the other. And there are far more possibilities and ways to optimize a database than there are for a physical documentation system.