How to solve the problem of performance with China

[guiskj]

Thank you so much for your input @JonZone.

I certainly don't doubt the teams seriousness in wanting to address performance as part of All Under Heaven. I'm also well aware that plans for performance gain often don't work out as hoped.

Stellaris just went through a massive redesign primarily aimed at tackling late game performance. 4.0 came, and the performance got worse! The team there worked hard to work the myriad issues with 4.0, but we are now on 4.10 and you know what you won't find in the Stellar is forum? People celebrating how much faster 4.10 is than 3.*

I would have preferred a major patch before All Under Heaven that clearly tackles performance in a big way, and only after proven results, have a DLC that adds more lands.

 

[Metz]

Correct!

We won't cut any of our core game mechanics just to juice out some performance. We will not just shove half of Asia into the game without carving out performance in other areas. There is a lot of things we can do behind the screen.

The game is obviously very complex and demanding, otherwise we wouldn't be here - but rest assured that we understand that the playerbase wouldn't accept us just turning the end-user's computer into a thermonuclear device.

We're also discussing the DLC to death iternally, so you have absolutely gathered right.

Performance wise, do dead characters cause less of a performance hit than living ones?

Will courts in the rest of the world be smaller, as well as having less commoners, adventurers, etc. In exchange for adding characters to East and South East Asia?

 

[JonZone]

Stellaris just went through a massive redesign primarily aimed at tackling late game performance. 4.0 came, and the performance got worse! The team there worked hard to work the myriad issues with 4.0, but we are now on 4.10 and you know what you won't find in the Stellar is forum? People celebrating how much faster 4.10 is than 3.*

Yes, they're a super-talented team, but maybe that was a bit too overambitious. They are a super ambitious team though!

I would have preferred a major patch before All Under Heaven that clearly tackles performance in a big way, and only after proven results, have a DLC that adds more lands.

That's a very reasonable take! There are however some fixes we can do that we've already kind of explored for console performance though. I think people might be positively surprised. I don't know how much I can disclose, but imagine easier things, like deciding what is created when, or what is updated how. We're not "exploring unexplored territory", we're reducing the amount of work the already existing systems need to do.

Performance wise, do dead characters cause less of a performance hit than living ones?

Yes Characters are kind of like different stages of a "build-a-bear". Your neighbourhood fellow king subscribes to two-thousand more "news-letters" than a courtier. That courtier has eight more PO-boxes than a dead dude.

As for your second question, I'm actually a programmer that worked on Khans of the Steppe, I'm not too well versed in the exact design of All Under Heaven, but it's going to function as most of the rest of the world. We can get performance in other ways. If AI-characters are so expensive, it's better to work with the concept of an AI-character and maybe make sure that if they get a new trait - only the relevant data needs to be cached.

 

[Metz]

As for your second question, I'm actually a programmer that worked on Khans of the Steppe, I'm not too well versed in the exact design of All Under Heaven, but it's going to function as most of the rest of the world. We can get performance in other ways. If AI-characters are so expensive, it's better to work with the concept of an AI-character and maybe make sure that if they get a new trait - only the relevant data needs to be cached.

A bit off topic but related. I think the game should feature more minor noble “family units” as opposed to having a lot of commoners hanging around. Commoners come and go and only leave any sort of legacy behind if they are given a title above baron level. Having minor noble families would make more sense, especially for higher level courts as they would have their own ambitions (marrying into your family, council position, court position, getting an accolade, etc.) to grow alongside yours and other titled characters.

 

[JonZone]

A bit off topic but related. I think the game should feature more minor noble “family units” as opposed to having a lot of commoners hanging around. Commoners come and go and only leave any sort of legacy behind if they are given a title above baron level. Having minor noble families would make more sense, especially for higher level courts as they would have their own ambitions (marrying into your family, council position, court position, getting an accolade, etc.) to grow alongside yours and other titled characters.

I agree that this sounds like a dope concept!

 

[Slaughter]

The game is obviously very complex and demanding, otherwise we wouldn't be here - but rest assured that we understand that the playerbase wouldn't accept us just turning the end-user's computer into a thermonuclear device.

Let's hope so, yeah? Because Khans of the Steppe hasn't exactly sent us good signs in that regard.

It's been stated many times that they never meant the game to be a European dynasty RPG. It's all due to some fans imaging it must be the case when devs have repeatedly said no.

That waas the original design of CK and CKII, yeah. Only Christians were playable. You were, after all, a Crusader King, not a Ghazi Sultan.

Through by CKII, I suspect expanding gameplay to Muslims and Pagans was already something they planned from the onset, just took them awhile to add.

 

[ray243]

That waas the original design of CK and CKII, yeah. Only Christians were playable. You were, after all, a Crusader King, not a Ghazi Sultan.

Through by CKII, I suspect expanding gameplay to Muslims and Pagans was already something they planned from the onset, just took them awhile to add.

As long as the game feature the time of crusades, you can't really get away from all the major events in the Middle East. So from that point onwards it is already not just a game centered on Western Europe.

 

[DiabloDeVille]

As long as the game feature the time of crusades, you can't really get away from all the major events in the Middle East. So from that point onwards it is already not just a game centered on Western Europe.

If its about the crusader princes going to the holy land, and you give muslims only a few patches of content, if can still be centered on western europe

 

[ray243]

If its about the crusader princes going to the holy land, and you give muslims only a few patches of content, if can still be centered on western europe

Well the issue you'll end up creating is the fight against the Muslims feel very artificial as the Muslims would either not face challenge from their eastern and southern flanks, or they'll just be an off-map army spawn that keep sending troops from magic.

 

[Kvesir]

This whole thread is an exercise in futility. The devs already made China. They're not just gonna throw away a year's work because people are concerned about performance - it would be easier at this point to fix the underlying performance issues instead, as they've said they will do.

Besides, as others have posted here, the China mods work fine so this is a non-issue.

 

[Slaughter]

As long as the game feature the time of crusades, you can't really get away from all the major events in the Middle East. So from that point onwards it is already not just a game centered on Western Europe.

Yeah, but the protagonists are the Crusaders going there, not the locals.

This whole thread is an exercise in futility. The devs already made China. They're not just gonna throw away a year's work because people are concerned about performance - it would be easier at this point to fix the underlying performance issues instead, as they've said they will do.

Besides, as others have posted here, the China mods work fine so this is a non-issue.

Well, they said they will do it.
Now wherever they will do it or not is another question.
The performance state of Khans of the Steppe looks bad in that regard.

 

[strattonthebard]

It'll either run well or it won't. We can't really speculate on the details of what they're doing to address the issue and whether they are likely to work without information we don't possess. No reason to borrow trouble, imo, if it a serious issue when AUH launches you can bet there will be plenty of threads to complain about it then