Please continue to optimize PA

I played 3 multi games today and in each one at some point the sim speed got down to 1fps and stayed there for a real long time, making the game almost unplayable.

When the sim speed & server fps gets that low that's a *massive* enjoyment killer and looking at all the various lobbies with 5+ planets and 4+ players, I can't help but think this must be incredibly common among your customers. It got me thinking...At those moments when the game was crunching along at 1fps, PA could have had:

- Fun orbital
- Balanced naval
- Beautiful biomes
- Unit cannon
- Multiplayer ladders

...And it would not have made one difference to my enjoyment (or lack thereof).

Are you guys monitoring your servers and logging how common it is for things to grind to a halt? If you're not maybe you should. Set up server notifications - something to drive home how crappy it makes playing a game with 1fps sim speed. How about a text message notification that says "These N people playing right now will probably not play another PA game again due to their poor lagfest experience".

</rant>

Thanks Sherlock, we never would have known.

No need to be rude about it.

Anyway, I'm sure they're still working on what you're talking about, and will continue to for quite a while.

I apologise if offence was taken.

But still, it's blatantly obvious that the devs won't suddenly start stop optimizing the game at some random point.

I know, isall gewd- brah.

Would never have known what? That the game routinely and under normal circumstances becomes unplayable/unenjoyable for a large number of people? And you're cool with that?

The point I made (if you do more than just read the title) was that optimization should be a higher priority than many other features, since the game routinely becomes unplayable regardless of whether those features are present or not.

Never.

It's playable for me, and for thousands of others.


But im sure you are more important then the majority right, we should yield to your direction, right?

Yeah um, no, that's your opinion, and I disagree that optimisation should take priory when features currently in the game haven't even been finished.

So, no.

I would think this is more an issue of the choose system.
Certain system designs favor stalemates. And stalemates can and will bog down the Sim Speed.

Just to reiterate:
THIS GAME CAN OVERLOAD EVERY COMPUTER ON THE PLANET!
It will propably still be able to do so when we enter the x128 Age. And no amount of optimisation can change that. It simply has such a possible scale.
"I managed to overload the server" is thus not exactly an archievement worthy of a post.

This is especially true if everyone just spams units and there is no unit attrition, wich happens with stalemates.

I need to make a post about designing a map that does not favor stalemates.

@igncom1 Do you have access to the server logs?

All I know is there are barely any people at all playing multiplayer (suggesting something is turning people away).
- I know that numerous people have complained in reviews the game is laggy.
- I know that my own experience has seen numerous slow/unplayable multiplayer games.
- I know when we do experience lag, all the other players aren't surprised/shocked. Apparently it's a common occurrence.
- I've read _numerous_ times on these forums about laggy games.

I'll bet that if Uber actually did capture stats from their servers, it would reveal a ton of people are experiencing 1fps sim speed multiplayer matches, adversely impacting enjoyment of the game.

I get it though....you do 1v1 500 radius planets only so that's all that matters right?

That's because the MP servers are the barest minimum of hardware to run the game.

Nothing to do with optimization, the hardware for Ubers servers are just bad.

Play LAN or wait for server hosting.

And it just so happens that the situations that lead to the sim dying are the exact circumstances the game trumps up as being major features! Large battles, multiplanet epic games...oh wait...sorry do you guys mind just doing 1v1 500 radius planets only pls...our poor server, you see.

You think the guy who doesn't read the forums cares about that? You think that's an acceptable excuse? Here's what he's thinking "F** this game, I'm never playing again". Wonderful. Way to build a thriving community right ign?

It's a reason, not an excuse.

It doesn't excuse themselves from having bad servers, it does explain the reason for the poor performance in MP.

And frankly, people like that aren't worth the time of day to win over, they won't be improving the community.

Hilarious! You're right @igncom1! The only people we want playing PA are the ones who continue playing despite not enjoying themselves. They're showing true character aren't they? Those guys who ***** out because the game is unplayably laggy - losers, good riddance to them. They just don't appreciate slideshows. Who in this day and age doesn't enjoy watching a slideshow game? Losers, that's who! Uber and the community is better off with 2 active MP games going during peak-time I say! Heck, maybe even just one game. Let's push the boundaries here.

Pretty sure the server is the limiting factor in larger games.

varrak (not tagging for the sake of his sanity) has been doing a ton of optimisation work. Client performance is pretty good. I recommend having a pretty good computer, the amount of people that try to play modern games on average hardware is incredible

Nice way to ignore my point and then drive it off a cliff just to prove yours.

The MP experience right now is based on the effectiveness of the server hardware.


Players who want to quit playing the game because they only enjoy MP, frankly, should. Or at least should switch to using tools to play over LAN. As you are quite right, they aren't enjoying the current experience, so yeah they really shouldn't be bothering.

But nice that you try to make me seem like the kind of person to call them losers or unfaithful, and then try to defend them like the opposite is in fact true, that those of us who enjoy the game are heretics.


Your "it's us or them" argument didn't slip past me, and its distasteful that you pull it.



The facts are, Ubers severs are limited, people aren't enjoying MP because of it, and so are leaving.

Your solution is to ignore the problem and to suggest dropping everything to optimise the game.

What they need to do is release server hosting tools, and to upgrade their own servers to handle medium sized games.

PA doesnt have that many active players.

But it has had, at least 2000 players.

So I don't know why you brought it up?

Even if we say it has 2000 active player, what is a pretty high amount, that would say that every other player besides you has no problems with it. You are exagerrating in hope that this kind of proves your point, but throwing around with false numbers wont do so.

I think its safe to say that more people quit because of the lacking optimazing than player that are
still around to defend the current state and direction of the game.
It is okay, since its a complex game that needs a lot improvement, but it would be a lie when i would state that id rather have offlinegameplay and savegames instead of a fluent ~2 hour game.