Raise the NPC Limit -please-

[SinisaNikolic]

The current limit of placable NPC-s is in my opinion too low.

Please raise this limit in a future update to a more reasonable limit if a limit is needed.

[Hoshkar]

Were pets ment to be NPCs? When I go to place my pets I can put 3 down, then I get the no more room to place NPCs.... I figured that was there for vendors or dancers or what not... Not pets I have 20 some odd pages of pets I really wanted to toss all over my new place....Seems that is not an option! I was able to cram a good 80 large mounts into my place oddly enough, but little pets NOPE! Edited August 19, 2014 by Hoshkar

[Darth_Wicked]

I believe James_Divinus said it best:

Please remove the limit completely.

 

Over 180 pets ingame.

Over 15 creature mounts.

Over 15 NPC variations.

44 companions.

 

Roughly 5 new pets are added to the game each month. Having any kind of limit seems pointless. There was no pet limit before and it was a joy to decorate. Such a huge restriction only kills enthusiasm imo.

[Lecivius]

This did not get much response in PTS, I doubt it will here. Too bad, too. I think this will screw up a lot of plans.

[XiamaraSimi]

Were pets ment to be NPCs? When I go to place my pets I can put 3 down, then I get the no more room to place NPCs.... I figured that was there for vendors or dancers or what not... Not pets I have 20 some odd pages of pets I really wanted to toss all over my new place....Seems that is not an option! I was able to cram a good 80 large mounts into my place oddly enough, but little pets NOPE!

 

Creature MOUNTS count against it as well, so if you want to display your bantha/dewback/rancor/veractyl/bird thing mounts et cetera, they go against the NPC limit as well ;(

 

(Yes I checked, I was able to put down vehicle mounts just fine, but any mount that was "alive" it told me I reached the NPC limit)

Edited August 19, 2014 by XiamaraSimi

[EricMusco]

Hey folks!

 

I know the NPC limit is certainly something many of you would like to see raised so I wanted to explain why it is in place currently. As most of you suspect already, it is a performance issue. Without going into too much detail, if someone's Stronghold begins to load a large amount of NPCs it can create issues not only in your Stronghold, but in others as well.

 

As with all things we will continue to monitor this limit and raise it as we can. We want to give you the opportunity to place as many NPCs possible, but we also want to ensure you have the best experience in your Stronghold as well.

 

Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

 

-eric

[Lotharofxev]

I call it the "My rule of dating # 1"

 

If there are more CATS than HANDS in the house - she's officially entered "crazy cat lady" territory.

[paspinall]

surprising the fleets of course have way more, and that neither myself nor those i chatted to in PTS saw any issues at all, but yeah sure, issues for all the strongholds.

[Darth_Wicked]

surprising the fleets of course have way more, and that neither myself nor those i chatted to in PTS saw any issues at all, but yeah sure, issues for all the strongholds.

 

I guess it is most likely related with the number of instances generated or something. Fleet is open world.

[Oneirophrenia]

Hey folks!

 

I know the NPC limit is certainly something many of you would like to see raised so I wanted to explain why it is in place currently. As most of you suspect already, it is a performance issue. Without going into too much detail, if someone's Stronghold begins to load a large amount of NPCs it can create issues not only in your Stronghold, but in others as well.

 

As with all things we will continue to monitor this limit and raise it as we can. We want to give you the opportunity to place as many NPCs possible, but we also want to ensure you have the best experience in your Stronghold as well.

 

Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

Eric, if the NPC limit is tied to the "potential" of having 70 visitors coming into your stronghold which when combined with more than 25 NPCs could then creat a performance issue, then the solution would be simple. Lower the visitor limit by half.

 

A 35-40 visitor limit can accomodate 3 op groups which should be enough for even guild events/parties. I was in one of the largest guilds on my server with regularly planned events and it was extremely rare for us to gather more than 30 people at any given time.

 

Personal strongholds are not world zones, there is little for the visitors to do except to gawk at your trophies and decorations. Even if it is in a social gathering setting, people will get bored and leave rather quickly. So unless you are in an exceptionally large guild with an abnormal number of active players who like to hold large parties at your place, the probability of a personal stronghold ever hitting the 70 visitors mark is extremely slim to say the least. That slim probility is certainly no justification to limit the NPC options for everyone elses strongholds.

Edited August 19, 2014 by Oneirophrenia

[siegeshot]

Hey folks!

 

I know the NPC limit is certainly something many of you would like to see raised so I wanted to explain why it is in place currently. As most of you suspect already, it is a performance issue. Without going into too much detail, if someone's Stronghold begins to load a large amount of NPCs it can create issues not only in your Stronghold, but in others as well.

 

As with all things we will continue to monitor this limit and raise it as we can. We want to give you the opportunity to place as many NPCs possible, but we also want to ensure you have the best experience in your Stronghold as well.

 

Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

No Musco, it doesn't make sense. What would have made sense is if this would have been addressed 2-3 weeks ago when we initially brought it up. Instead you forum wipe and ram it down our throat unaddressed with everything else on 2.9.

 

How about a slider scale where we can narrow down how many people can enter our stronghold and ramp up npcs?

How about drop the framerate if we get too many?

How about a sight range for people with lower end PC's?

 

No? Instead it gets forced to us, and we get told to suck it up and "thanks."

 

No. You don't get to thank us for our understanding. I don't understand any of what you said. The only thing I understand is we got thoroughly ignored and forum wiped.

 

There's 200-300 npc pets in the game, 50'ish companions, 200-300 speeders... and you came up with the 25 number and no workarounds. I know the engine Bio's using is on it's last legs as far limitations but this's getting ridiculous. We either need workarounds or a solution.

 

I'm so sick and tired of struggling through this game's engine limitations. It's really really wearing on my nerves. Every time we turn around we're running into another pathetically low tech limitation......... Just freaking make it work or I can't see the game being around in two years.

 

I'm only going to have 2-3 people in my house ever, I could care less about having a player limit higher than that, so give me a freaking break.

Edited August 19, 2014 by siegeshot

[TheSeventhJedi]

Eric, if the NPC limit is tied to the "potential" of having 70 visitors coming into your stronghold which when combined with more than 25 NPCs could then creat a performance issue, then the solution would be simple. Lower the visitor limit by half.

 

A 35-40 visitor limit can accomodate 3 op groups which should be enough for even guild events/parties. I was in one of the largest guilds on my server with regularly planned events and it was extremely rare for us to gather more than 30 people at any given time.

 

Personal strongholds are not world zones, there is little for the visitors to do except to gawk at your trophies and decorations. Even if it is in a social gathering setting, people will get bored and leave rather quickly. So unless you are in an exceptionally large guild with an abnormal number of active players who like to hold large parties at your place, the probability of a personal stronghold ever hitting the 70 visitors mark is extremely slim to say the least. That slim probility is certainly no justification to limit the NPC options for everyone elses strongholds.

 

OR - how about if too many players enter at once, NPCs begin to disappear, starting with pets?

[Kremsau]

Without going into too much detail, if someone's Stronghold begins to load a large amount of NPCs it can create issues not only in your Stronghold, but in others as well.

 

Personally, performance > NPC count for me.

 

I can't imagine the banter we'd be hearing if there was excessive lag related to others creating a phalanx of Imperial guards. Let us hope things progress smoothly and they determine it can be "safely" raised down the road.

[Jerba]

As most of you suspect already, it is a performance issue. Without going into too much detail, if someone's Stronghold begins to load a large amount of NPCs it can create issues not only in your Stronghold, but in others as well.

Thank you for responding to us! (though I do agree we should have gotten a response weeks ago in the PTS thread)

I totally accept that response, and hope that your data will show that the engine can handle more than 25 NPCs, since that is very restrictive to anyone interested in pets and housing.

 

surprising the fleets of course have way more, and that neither myself nor those i chatted to in PTS saw any issues at all, but yeah sure, issues for all the strongholds.

I went into a little more detail in the PTS thread, but as far as I can tell, this has nothing to do with the number of NPCs/PCs on screen. The engine can handle showing 100+ NPCs on screen with 30+ FPS just fine. The problem is that all those NPCs need to be spawned when the stronghold is generated (= every time the first person enters a stronghold).

This is basically the same issue as when KDY first launched. Back then, every time someone started the flashpoint, the game had to spawn hundreds of NPCs at once, which caused a one second lag spike for everyone else doing the flashpoint.

Because of that, the solution I first proposed in the 2.9 PTS thread (lowering occupation limit) will not solve this problem. Player characters enter the stronghold one-by-one and don't cause much lag, but NPCs all need to be spawned at the same time.

 

Just quoting my post from the PTS thread in case they delete the PTS forums and the link no longer works.

The animations and graphics associated with NPC's/Pets/mounts are all client side, so there isn't any overhead for BW to be generated from these decorations. ~ so there wasn't any reason for this limit to be imposed.

 

I'd like to see a confirmation that this limit of 25 was an unintended change, that it will be undone in a future patch to the PTS.

Rendering is all client side ~ it doesn't cause any issue for the game servers no matter how many there are.

The fact that they added an error message, and translated this error message into German and French makes me think that this was a deliberate, albeit undocumented change. From all the speculations I've seen, performance reasons make the most sense on why such a limit was added.

 

That being said, we don't know if it is a rendering issue -- the game engine has no problem rendering 100+ NPCs or PCs just standing around, doing nothing (e.g. Fleet). Only when these objects start moving or using abilities does the FPS decrease (e.g. Ilum PvP oder other large-scale WPvP battles).

Therefore, I am thinking more and more that this is more of an NPC spawning issue. I'll just quote what I wrote in the other thread in case not everyone saw it:

I'm thinking it is not so much "number of NPCs/PCs drawn by the client at once", but more like "number of NPCs spawned upon phase creation". Remember how laggy Kuat got everytime someone started the flashpoint? Back then, the developers explained that the lag spikes happened because every time someone entered the flashpoint, they had to spawn hundreds of NPCs at once. I'm thinking that the same thing may happen here. Strongholds are not loaded in memory, but need to be created every time the first player enters it. Therefore, all NPCs need to spawned as well. For the client, rendering 100+ NPCs at the same time is not too much of a problem, since all of the NPCs are staying in place and not using abilities, but the server may be a bottleneck because it has to process all the NPCs.

 

Anyway, that's just my explanation on why your solution may potentially not be working. Nevertheless, I also think the limit of 25 NPC decorations is way too low. I already sent a PM to Musco so he can ask the GSH team about it, but he probably won't see it until Monday, so we'll need to live with the limit for a while when 2.9 launches, and just hope that the engineers will find a way to increase the limit without impacting performance.

 

Someone wrote on Reddit how the devs really seem to be very careful with server performance now, and I can only echo that statement. No one wants the lag spikes we got in the Czerka daily area, the Kuat FP or the Operations group finder when it launced. I'm perfectly fine with setting limits a little bit too low and gradually increasing it over the next few weeks, instead of causing severe lag spikes to the whole server.

And even though I was the first one to propose reducing the occupancy in the 2.9 thread, if my suspicion is correct, I think reducing the occupancy won't solve the problem at all. Players enter the stronghold one-by-one, but NPC decorations need to be spawned all at once when the phase is created.

Nevertheless, I'm hoping we'll get an official response on this, and that once 2.9 launches, the devs will have enough metrics to judge how much the NPC decorations impact performance, and whether it is possible to increase or lift the limit.

 

Edited August 20, 2014 by Jerba

[MaximusRex]

surprising the fleets of course have way more, and that neither myself nor those i chatted to in PTS saw any issues at all, but yeah sure, issues for all the strongholds.

 

And there are what, maybe 4 instances of fleet going at any one time, compared to potentially 100's of Strongholds. There were no issues with 16 man Group Finder ops on PTS either, but we see how that went when that went live.

[Comradebot]

Wait, pets and creature mounts count towards the limit?!

 

But, but, but...

 

 

I was gonna have a zoo... I spent million of credits getting as many mounts and pets as I could for it.

 

:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(:(

[Ktejj]

:(:(:(:(:( Really Really Sucks! I spent so much on upgrading and opening rooms and now I can't put anything in them. Not happy!

[siegeshot]

And there are what, maybe 4 instances of fleet going at any one time, compared to potentially 100's of Strongholds. There were no issues with 16 man Group Finder ops on PTS either, but we see how that went when that went live.

 

It all circles around to bad engine decisions years ago that we had/have no control over. So either they develop a workaround or start on a new engine. We pay money for a complete game... current-gen hardware experiences... and it's just... so unfulfilling.

 

I seriously don't care about other people's experience in my stronghold..... I know, shock. SHOCKING!

 

Is my stronghold some how affecting other people's???????

Edited August 20, 2014 by siegeshot

[Kulyok]

I'd rather the developers addressed the current issues, though. The strongholds were lagging last night - I felt it very keenly when I was taking items off GTN/adding to GTN/even moving stuff in my inventory. Plainly, it sucked. Maybe it's "the first night on Nar Shaddaa" kind of thing, but I suspect it will keep happening. I really don't want to relocate to my ship.

[chillshock]

Simple Solution:

 

Add a slider to the stronghold settings:

 

Visitor-limit <-------------------------- | -----------------> Placeable NPC

 

You can set your visiter limit to 1-5 if you want and instead place 100 NPC.

Or you can set the visitors to 50 and place 50 NPC.

 

(numbers just a figure, insert what the system can take).

[Toweleeeie]

Hey folks!

 

I know the NPC limit is certainly something many of you would like to see raised so I wanted to explain why it is in place currently. As most of you suspect already, it is a performance issue. Without going into too much detail, if someone's Stronghold begins to load a large amount of NPCs it can create issues not only in your Stronghold, but in others as well.

 

As with all things we will continue to monitor this limit and raise it as we can. We want to give you the opportunity to place as many NPCs possible, but we also want to ensure you have the best experience in your Stronghold as well.

 

Hope that makes sense. Thanks!

 

-eric

 

Alpha hero engine strikes again. Now how about inceasing the draw distance of grass or even everything?

[slafko]

:(:(:(:(:( Really Really Sucks! I spent so much on upgrading and opening rooms and now I can't put anything in them. Not happy!

 

This.

 

I was merrily unlocked all Nar Shaddaa rooms and set out to decorating only to be slapped in the face by yet another pointless hard cap.

 

Please add a refund or a realestate vendor so I can sell my rooms back and decorate a smaller stronghold. If any.

[BobaFaceroll]

NPC limit

Companions being holograms when different classes visit

No 'armor dummy' to display gear

Did I mention the NPC limit?

 

Housing is a huge let down for me. It has the potential to be so much better, and it's tantalizingly close. Sadly it's going to turn in to primarily a huge credit sink, with a side of "rerun old content ad nauseum for a chance at a decoration" to keep us busy until the expansion.

 

I am disappoint. It's mostly because of the NPC limit though. I'd deal with everything else if my housing could feel alive. The limit will ensure that it's mostly static.

[Malastare]

No Musco, it doesn't make sense. What would have made sense is if this would have been addressed 2-3 weeks ago when we initially brought it up. Instead you forum wipe and ram it down our throat unaddressed with everything else on 2.9.

 

Wake up call: This was being developed months ago. By the time it hits PTS, they aren't doing any more system design. They are testing/tweaking server performance and addressing whatever bugs they have time for.

 

How about a slider scale where we can narrow down how many people can enter our stronghold and ramp up npcs?

 

From what I can see, NPCs and players are not treated the same. I would guess that a lower player limit might reduce some load and free up time for more NPCs, but there's no reason to assume its a 1-to-1 relationship.

 

How about drop the framerate if we get too many?

How about a sight range for people with lower end PC's?

 

You're missing the point. The problem isn't the load on your GPU.

 

It all circles around to bad engine decisions years ago that we had/have no control over. So either they develop a workaround or start on a new engine.

 

I've never seen anyone with any knowledge of development suggest this as a non-humorous solution. A new engine is a new game. At this point, they'd never replace the engine. They'd just make SWTOR2. However, the fact that you're blaming the engine without any actually knowledge of the engine... or the game structure... or how software is made... makes it hard to take your complaints as anything more than frustration.

 

Is my stronghold some how affecting other people's???????

 

YES!!!

 

If you understand anything about the structure of the game --or if you'd simply listened to what Musco said-- that would have been obvious.

 

Strongholds are run as detached instances. Thus, just like every other instance-set in the game, performance issues on one instance can affect the others... because all of the instances are running on the same set of hosts. That means that last night while Ebon Hawk was running at VERY HEAVY, there were probably a couple hundred instances of the Nar Shaddaa stronghold running. If you test it out with a group, you can actually see your group member's location in their stronghold while you're standing in yours... because its all one instance, with everyone's stronghold ("virtually") laid on top of each other. You see your stuff, but the server is simultaneously showing a hundred other people their stuff.

 

NPC items take up far more processing power than static furniture. Imagine a server with 100 stronghold instances. If everyone has 25 NPC items, the server has to track 2,500 items. If just one person placed 100 NPC items and everyone else placed 25, the server would probably be fine. It's only tracking 2575 items, a 3% increase. It's not a big change. If everyone placed 100 NPC items, it would struggle. It would be tracking 10,000 items, for a 300% increase.

 

When you're making systems like this that generate linear (or more likely: geometric) growth in server load, you want to start at a conservative number. It's better to annoy people with restrictions and decent performance than to let the load kill performance for everyone and possibly take down the host. Once you have a stable load and statistics to show normal use and expected variance, you can start playing with the numbers to generate more load. Before that point, picking the perfect number or calculating the resulting server load is simply impossible.

 

When you find a perfect solution for this problem, let the world know. We've been looking for one for 40 years.

[CommanderKeeva]

NPC items take up far more processing power than static furniture.

 

This is what I don't understand why. It's fine for animated NPCs, but how are Republic and Empire Guardsman different from any lamp or console or chair? They don't move, they don't make noises, they don't do anything. Can't they just remove the animations from NPCs and treat them as static decorations? Just make them unclickable objects like everything else in the Stronghold.

 

They can keep the NPC limit for vendors, companions and dancers for the time being, but it should really be removed from pets, mounts and guards.

 

Also, why do animal mounts count as NPCs when mechincal mounts count as objects? That's just stupid. I collected every animal mount (ok, lies I didn't get the Giradda rancor ) over the past few months for the purpose of putting them on display in my house. Now it turns out you can't even do that without cutting into your measly 25 NPC limit. Furthermore, why is the ST-7 Recon Walker considered an NPC when every single other mechanical mount isn't?

 

EDIT: As someone suggested in another thread, they could make animated and inanimate versions of the pets, mounts, vendors and guardsmen. Then you could select which one you want to count agains tthe limit.

Edited August 20, 2014 by CommanderKeeva