Funcom told us that the thrall cap is being done because if they added mounts and everyone had 400+ thralls the server would lag too much. I railed against this, but like everyone else I accepted the explanation and prepared for the change.
Once the patch hit my clan was super busy moving bases, leveling new thralls, trying to figure out a use for the mounts (none so far), etc. I didn’t think much about this logic, just began to prepare for the grace period to end.
But today I had an epiphany. My clan has culled a few thralls and pets, but not a great number. In addition we’ve deployed about 85 or so new ones. I doubt we’re the exception rather than the rule, so currently in game across the board there are probably more thralls (and mounts) than existed before.
Shouldn’t the servers be bursting into flames? They don’t seem too different to me.
If they were so worried about a large number of thralls existing alongside mounts, shouldn’t they have rolled out the leveling system, then activated the limit, then dropped mounts once we were all down to cap?
i dunno what platform ot nets u got, but lags a nightmare on old ps4 w regular lil net. but they also said the update came w client side optimizations, so there. 8]
There are a ton of factors here that you arent thinking about, how populated is your server, what platform you are on pc/playstation/xbox, official or private server mods running or no mods. It isnt as simple as “my server no lag and I have lots of thralls so what is problem” there is a lot more to it than that . Keep in mind this game is played on many different gaming systems, many different server types, and only official servers are run by Funcom.
So pretty much this is not a valid argument until a lot more information is provided from you?
The server and your machine might not be lagging but for weaker machines and consoles 50 thralls on a small space lags a lot. Much worse 400 thralls.
Also future proofing, if they intend to ever improve the AI they are already cuttimg on the quantity of AI on the server, to be able to affort a more complex AI in the future.
Thralls where made morr powerful with the intent of having less deployed with morr value as defense also.
Let me reiterate, I’m not saying that I don’t experience lag, nor that just because my server isn’t lagging more than usual then no servers are lagging more than usual.
What I am asking is:
If the thrall cap absolutely needed to be added in order for the servers to handle mounts, as stated, then wouldn’t it need to be activated prior to mounts being added?
Given that most clans have probably not culled as many legacy thralls as they have deployed new thralls, wouldn’t the overall thrall/pet/mount population be higher than previously, so that while some underpopulated and empty servers might not have an issue the ones that they are trying to stabilize using the thrall cap would be currently unplayable?
Think about it, if the combination of mounts + no thrall cap would be too much of a load, then many servers would be insane lag fests right now, because the thrall pop has risen and mounts are now in the game. I would think as much as people tend to voice issues on the forums that some thread would pop up about “My server is lagging to much to play”, with many responses from others having the same issue. At that point I would accept the answer that since there are so many thralls on the server it is causing problems, and those servers should begin the process of cutting down to the cap to avoid issues. But other than the usual disconnects and bugs that typically follow a patch I haven’t seen one post with anyone complaining about having more lag than usual. Basically we’re all playing the game with mounts and without a thrall cap, plus a number of players have returned to try out the update (and deploy more thralls) so the population is probably higher than normal, but I don’t see any indication that it’s such a huge problem.
Like I said, maybe my clan is the exception rather than the norm, maybe on every other server across all platforms the clans have cut down to the limit and no longer have any legacy thralls, but with so much that most needed to do plus the scramble to deploy and level replacement thralls, I doubt it.
Yeah and that the thrall cap limit or when it will come, was never even addressed in anyway during the stream yesterday…
@Agnusthemagi Funcom does not care about client side lag… Its about server side lag. Lightsources are only massive problem for the client. Not the server…
What they originally stated was their methodology would be to begin with a 55 follower cap and work upward as performance permits. Clearly they have slowed their roll in a more than conciliatory gesture when @Tascha says “the cap won’t be implemented in 2019.”
Inevitably, it leaves half the people who have resolutely boyscouted their overindulgence problem to feel cheated a bit because they’ve already culled an unSetly number of followers. One guy I know (it’s not me, I swear ) has already culled more than 145 at this point.
Even though your tribe may have set out more thralls recently, if half the people as I suspect are actually culling, the impact on the servers has already been reduced. I’m hearing reports that abandoned thralls are being clipped as well, which has a big impact on the numbers of objects in the world. I suggest watching your DebugHUD from week to week to see the numbers of placeables, etc., which on even my sedate server have diminished greatly in the last three days.
You know, people keep saying that, but so far I haven’t seen anyone from Funcom categorically state that the follower cap is absolutely indispensable for the servers to handle mounts.
They said it’s for performance reasons, because AIs put strain on the servers. They said that improving that was part of the work needed to handle mounts properly. But I’ve never seen them say it as strongly as people keep repeating.
We don’t really have any good insight into how many people are riding their mounts concurrently. I wonder what it would do to the server to have to simulate 600 followers (across the board) and 20 mounts at the same time.
I can imagine an even worse situation: have big clumps and throngs of thralls or pets all over the map, and then have 10 players ride their horses all over. Every time a horse comes to a new clump, the server has to “load in” those followers, i.e. start the simulation and send all the info to the client. But the horse is moving fast, so very shortly you’re already past one clump and approaching another. It would result in a potentially horrible churn.
Again, this is all speculation and that’s part of my point: just because some of us aren’t seeing some of the problems, doesn’t mean that we have enough info.
That’s basically why I made this post, it just hit me that if it was such a burden to have so many thralls and also have mounts, you would think they would have staggered the two, and since I hadn’t seen a single post of severe server lag I’d put it out there to find out if maybe a huge majority were just suffering in silence.
Or again, maybe my clan is in the minority when it comes to culling vs deploying, it’s certainly on the to-do list to get rid of the old thralls but much lower priority than a lot of other things that we had to do to adjust to the recent changes.
Rendering lag is client lag. They specifically stated that unlimited followers degrade the server performance.
However, you’re right that they didn’t state that “if they added mounts and everyone had 400+ thralls the server would lag too much”. That’s a result of taking several parts of their separate statements and mashing them together into something they didn’t say
Not really, but when the culling takes place, it is supposed to be more stable and lagfree than now and before.
The server can handle all those thralls and maybe even more, but is not optimal, neither practical for them and us.
At least that what we expect, it has yet to be seen.
Server lag looks and feels different from client lag. Before the update it was possible to just overwhelm the server in one location with thrall, so they would become unresponsive. My guess is that they just limited allocated server memory/cpu for NPC AI, and it was possible to just overwhelm it.
After the update I don’t think that is possible, some serious optimization was done for both client and the server.
For example after update I’ve seen a clan with thousands of thrall/npc around their base, during RT hundreds of Thrall’s/Animals will charge at me. They will chase after me etc.
Still thrall limit is a necessary thing even with this optimizations.
. Keep in mind this game is played on many different gaming systems, many different server types, and only official servers are run by Funcom.
) has already culled more than 145 at this point. 
