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Ideas for Dealing with Lag

1491408916

Edited 1491533093
Matt
Plus
My campaign is lagging hard every time I open it. For many players it takes 3-5 minutes or more to load. Simply rearranging abilities on sheets can cause the whole game to red-banner. Now, I have a very good idea why this is, but I was wondering if people had any helpful suggestions as to what I could do. First, a little background info about my campaign: We have multiple GMs (currently 18?) that run games whenever they can/feel like it. Some of these may be new adventures, some may be adventures that they have run before and are now doing with a new group of players. These games could be one-shot stories or part of a larger arc, each with their own maps, monsters, handouts, etc. We have a LOT of games: in the past 14 days, we've run about 26 games, ranging from "short" (3-4 hour) combat missions to "lengthy" (6-8 hour) immersive story-based missions, with player characters ranging from level 5 to level 20. We have a LOT of players: the current number is around 145. Players can show up to any game for which they have a character of the correct level and roll against other players to get into that game. This means that our players and GMs can have flexible schedules and still get to play D&D. Additionally, each player can have two to three characters, each with its own journal, token, macros, the works, so they can play different adventures at different levels. To avoid completely overflowing, we purge completely inactive players every two months, but we fairly consistently have between 50 and 100 active players. We are always actively recruiting. If I had to guess, I would say we were likely the largest or most active game-running 4e community on roll20, but I really don't know. We have a LOT of resources for players to make things as streamlined as possible: help threads, checklists, a census, a reference index, rules lists, Skype and Discord group chats, and even video tutorials so that even a complete noob can build a 4e character, fill out a journal sheet, make macros, and play with us, regardless of previous D&D or roll20 experience. In short, between the GMs' maps (something like 550 of them), the player character journals (hundreds), the monster journals (probably over 1,000), the handouts, splash screens, decks, tokens, rollable tables (including a custom-built in-house treasure generator), and a whole bunch of other things, there are a crapton of assets in the campaign. I have no doubt this is causing the lag (and causing just opening the table to consume well over 1 GiB of RAM). What I'm wondering is: What we can do to alleviate the lag without eviscerating the campaign? Is there some roll20 functionality that we are not thinking of that can help us? We've considered moving all the stuff we're not immediately using into a copy campaign and then transmogrifying all of it over as it's needed, leaving the original campaign where the games take place as lean as possible in terms of active assets. Issue: unless I am mistaken, the only person who can use the transmogrifier is the campaign creator, and I do not want to spend all day every day shuffling assets from one campaign to another, and I don't want my GMs to have to rely on my to copy their stuff if they want to run an impromptu game (which happens very frequently). We've considered doing pretty much the same thing as above, but moving ONLY monster journal entries to the copy campaign. Then, any GM with Supporter subscription would be able to Vault their things back over. This would potentially remove thousands of assets, hopefully helping with the lag. Issue: n ot all my GMs have Supporter subscriptions. [Edit: I realize now this is not necessary in a game owned by me, Thanks, Scott C!] Additionally, transferring characters over through the vault removes the carefully structured folder organization of the journals (e.g. Matt's Adventures/The White Tower Part 1/Encounter 2/Monsters). This also doesn't really address the issue of the large number of maps, handouts, and other assets that are nonmigratory. Archiving Stuff: Almost all of the maps in the campaign are archived unless needed just for organization, but the roll20 people have informed me that archiving things just means you don't see them, it doesn't mean that they're not loaded. In other words, archiving stuff and pulling it out will have no effect on the lag. Other ideas include splitting the campaign based on GM or character level, but these would be organizational nightmares, as most players have characters of multiple levels and play with several GMs depending on who runs games when they have time to play. For those of you who have never tried to wrangle 150 D&D nerds (of various ages, experiences, nationalities, egos, and language proficiency) and get them to read and follow directions, trust me when I say it would be awful. So, Is there anything else we can do that will not just fracture the whole campaign? Bribe the developers for more bandwidth? Make the transmogrifier work for all the GMs? Human sacrifice to the tech gods? I look to you, roll20 community, for your helpful suggestions. Thanks very much!
1491411329
Scott C.
Forum Champion
Sheet Author
API Scripter
Compendium Curator
Matt W. said: We've considered doing pretty much the same thing as above, but moving ONLY monster journal entries to the copy campaign. Then, any GM with Supporter subscription would be able to Vault their things back over. This would potentially remove thousands of assets, hopefully helping with the lag. Issue: not all my GMs have Supporter subscriptions. Additionally, transferring characters over through the vault removes the carefully structured folder organization of the journals (e.g. Matt's Adventures/The White Tower Part 1/Encounter 2/Monsters). This also doesn't really address the issue of the large number of maps, handouts, and other assets that are nonmigratory. This isn't quite true. Anyone can export characters to their vault, no subscription necessary. In order to import a character from the vault to a game, that game must be created by a plus or higher subscription member or be based on a module with the vault enabled. So this would actually work for you. Archiving Stuff: Almost all of the maps in the campaign are archived unless needed just for organization, but the roll20 people have informed me that archiving things just means you don't see them, it doesn't mean that they're not loaded. In other words, archiving stuff and pulling it out will have no effect on the lag. Yep, unfortunately archiving is an organization archive, not a memory archive. Sorry, I don't have any other suggestions for you.
1491411345
Tetsuo
Forum Champion
You may try clearing the Chat Archive (note: not clearing your current Chat Log ), or Archiving unused pages and sheets. If you have a substantially large collection of character sheets within the campaign, the large amount of attributes may drag the game down as well.
Franky H. said: You may try clearing the Chat Archive (note: not clearing your current Chat Log ), or Archiving unused pages and sheets. If you have a substantially large collection of character sheets within the campaign, the large amount of attributes may drag the game down as well. We clear the chat archive about once a week, and archiving sheets does nothing for memory but I appreciate the suggestions. We actually moved away from the built-in sheets because they had too many unnecessary attributes so now we use blank journals with the bare minimum of attributes for chatacters.
1491411672

Edited 1491421881
Matt
Plus
Scott C. said: This isn't quite true. Anyone can export characters to their vault, no subscription necessary. In order to import a character from the vault to a game, that game must be created by a plus or higher subscription member or be based on a module with the vault enabled. So this would actually work for you. Sorry, I don't have any other suggestions for you. This is actually quite helpful. I will look into this. Still not ideal but it could be something.  I appreciate any and all helpful suggestions. Cheers.
Still looking for help from an expert on pro accounts and capabilities of anyone has any other suggestions. If not, we shall suffer on.
Don't know if this would work for you, but have you considered making multiple campaigns, maybe one for each GM with a combined character/monster vault, so PCs could pull their characters into a game they want to play in, and the GMs could pull in the monsters they need?  Maybe the campaign could be broken up by geographical area, or by GM?  You would just load the maps and resources needed for that particular campaign, and it would free up some space in the main campaign as well.  Maybe make one general campaign that is just a landing place for initial character creation and all the rules stuff, and maybe for game scheduling, then just transmogrify the maps and handouts that each particular GM or geographical area would need.  I know you said you didn't want to have to unload and transmogrify maps as you need, but this would be a one-time deal.  Then, if the players wanted to play a game in "The Megadungeon of Doom," they go to that campaign, which has only the assets needed for that dungeon. One possible difficulty is that characters don't "sync" in the vault, so any changes in the character would need to be sent to the vault and re-imported whenever the player wanted to use it again, but this could be a responsibility given to the player.
1491482939
Andrew C
Marketplace Creator
I have a smaller project running that could hit the same problems. The core thought is this. Campaign 1 holds just Characters, Handouts for creating characters and world info that players would know and a bit about stuff for the GMs. other modules are all in their own game. Players are transmogrified or at worst case manually moved.
Gozer the Gozerian said: Don't know if this would work for you, but have you considered making multiple campaigns, maybe one for each GM with a combined character/monster vault, so PCs could pull their characters into a game they want to play in, and the GMs could pull in the monsters they need?  Maybe the campaign could be broken up by geographical area, or by GM?  Matt W. said: Other ideas include splitting the campaign based on GM or character level, but these would be organizational nightmares, as most players have characters of multiple levels and play with several GMs depending on who runs games when they have time to play. For those of you who have never tried to wrangle 150 D&D nerds (of various ages, experiences, nationalities, egos, and language proficiency) and get them to read and follow directions, trust me when I say it would be awful. and please remember that the goal is: Matt W. said: Is there anything else we can do that will not just fracture the whole campaign? which breaking it up by geographical area would do pretty soundly. Gozer the Gozerian said: One possible difficulty is that characters don't "sync" in the vault, so any changes in the character would need to be sent to the vault and re-imported whenever the player wanted to use it again, but this could be a responsibility given to the player. Yes, this idea is terrifying for me, because I honestly do not trust players (or even GMs) to remember after a six-hour session that they now have two different versions of their characters and they need to do organizational juggling to fix that. Andrew (Halfling Gypsy) said: I have a smaller project running that could hit the same problems. The core thought is this. Campaign 1 holds just Characters, Handouts for creating characters and world info that players would know and a bit about stuff for the GMs. other modules are all in their own game. Players are transmogrified or at worst case manually moved. This actually was an idea we had as well (using a "Hub" campaign), but it runs into the same issues as Gozer's suggestion (which re-reading it may be the same suggestion?), in that there will be multiple versions of characters bopping around. Additionally, 1. Not all GMs have access to transmogrifier, 2. Not all games are part of an over-arching story arc, so they aren't really separated into discernible "modules," and 3. The current campaign has a LOT of assets in it for adventures that GMs will run again, so starting a whole bunch of new blank campaigns and then transferring the stuff over (or making a copy campaign and deleting the stuff we don't want in there) will be incredibly time-consuming. One of my GMs actually wrote up a paper on potential split options, their advantages and drawbacks, etc. that includes much of the discussion we've been having. Good brainstorming ideas all around. I'm sorry if it seems like I'm shooting them down, as I really do appreciate the effort you put into thinking up stuff for my sad (not-so) little campaign, but logistics is a painful mistress.
Yeah, there's just not much of a way around it.  If you want to have all of those resources immediately available, it's going to cause lag.  I don't know what the 4e sheet is like, but with 5e I use the Shaped sheet, which has a ton of customization abilities, but also takes up a lot of resources.  Character sheets loaded is the big culprit for lag in that campaign, and I'm involved in one multi-GM campaign that has split geographically, and by story arc for precisely that reason. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.  Let us know if you come up with some brilliant, never-before-thought-of solution!
1491527170

Edited 1491527208
Matt
Plus
Gozer the Gozerian said: Yeah, there's just not much of a way around it.  If you want to have all of those resources immediately available, it's going to cause lag.  I don't know what the 4e sheet is like, but with 5e I use the Shaped sheet, which has a ton of customization abilities, but also takes up a lot of resources.  Character sheets loaded is the big culprit for lag in that campaign, and I'm involved in one multi-GM campaign that has split geographically, and by story arc for precisely that reason. Sorry I couldn't be of more help.  Let us know if you come up with some brilliant, never-before-thought-of solution! We actually use a blank journal with only bare-bones attributes (STR, CON, INT, DEX, CHA, WIS, AC, Reflex, Fortitude, Will, Half Level, Hit Points, Healing Surges, Temp HP, Surge Value, Passive Perception, Passive Insight, and that's about it for starting journals) to avoid issues with the built-in character sheet requiring a different attack and damage bonus for each ability despite the fact that they are all the same 95% of the time. We do the same thing with monster sheets, but eventually the straws will break the camel's back. I will keep you updated and I appreciate the suggestions.
1491528365
Silvyre
Forum Champion
The high number of Attributes (provided by the high number of Characters) is the primary issue. Matt W. said: Issue: not all my GMs have Supporter subscriptions. As a subscriber, your Game has the All Access Vault . This is the premium level of vault access. It allows anyone ( including players in the game who don't have a subscription ) to export Characters into the game. GMs of the game can also export characters (or NPCs, monsters, etc.) into the game. As such, my primary suggestion is to make players responsible for: Understanding that, going forward, player Characters will be regularly deleted , and that the Character Vault is their only hope of salvation. Importing their up to date Character to their Character Vault. Deleting their out of date Character versions from their Vault. Exporting their up to date Character into the Game before each session. For those of you who have never tried to wrangle 150 D&D nerds (of various ages, experiences, nationalities, egos, and language proficiency) and get them to read and follow directions, trust me when I say it would be awful. When given an ultimatum (learn to use the Character Vault or consign the Game to unplayability), you may suddenly find you have a great number of intent students. The alternative is to use Characters with a minimal number of Attributes (i.e. not using a Character Sheet). Or, largely abstaining from using Characters.
Definitely use a Hub server with a heavy reliance on the Character Vault as Silvyre suggests.
1491533752

Edited 1491577390
Matt
Plus
Silvyre said: The high number of Attributes (provided by the high number of Characters) is the primary issue. As such, my primary suggestion is to make players responsible for: Understanding that, going forward, player Characters will be regularly deleted , and that the Character Vault is their only hope of salvation. Importing their up to date Character to their Character Vault. Deleting their out of date Character versions from their Vault. Exporting their up to date Character into the Game before each session. One of the big issues we have is that the Player Characters are just a drop in the bucket (maybe 200 sheets) compared to the GM assets (probably over 1,000 monster/NPC sheets + 550 maps + handouts + decks + rollable tables, etc.). Even when we do our bimonthly purge of the group (getting rid of about 50% of the people and PCs/sheets), performance is not affected in a substantial way. This is why the transmogrifier only working for the owner, as opposed to all GMs in a Pro-owned game (the way everything else, like Dynamic lighting, All Access vault, API scripts, marketplace assets, ads, etc. work) is a real disappointment, as it would very easily solve all our problems by allowing the GMs to move their (much more capacious) stuff into the campaign only as needed. Silvyre said: When given an ultimatum (learn to use the Character Vault or consign the Game to unplayability), you may suddenly find you have a great number of intent students. Fair enough. We manage to get most people (about 60%) to follow instructions on making sheets and macros before they can play, and with some video tutorials and guides thrown in, this would likely not be disastrous. The alternative is to use Characters with a minimal number of Attributes (i.e. not using a Character Sheet). Or, largely abstaining from using Characters. Matt W. said: We actually use a blank journal with only bare-bones attributes (STR, CON, INT, DEX, CHA, WIS, AC, Reflex, Fortitude, Will, Half Level, Hit Points, Healing Surges, Temp HP, Surge Value, Passive Perception, Passive Insight, and that's about it for starting journals) to avoid issues with the built-in character sheet requiring a different attack and damage bonus for each ability despite the fact that they are all the same 95% of the time. We do the same thing with monster sheets, but eventually the straws will break the camel's back. I will keep you updated and I appreciate the suggestions. Thanks for all the help/suggestions. I'm going to continue to examine options, but what will probably end up working best is splitting the campaign in two (e.g. lvl 5-10 missions, lvl 11-20 missions), as then people won't have to move around too much, and most of the hassle will be on the GM end rather than in the hands of the players. Either that or I will dig through roll20 to check if it's a violation of the TOS to give my GMs my account password so they can transmogrify their own crap in and out XD.
1491552945
Natha
KS Backer
Sheet Author
API Scripter
Just for my information, archived maps are still loaded in players' browser memory?
If giving out your password is not going to give TOS trouble, make sure you backup to a duplicate copy.  It will only take 1 fool to push the red button.....
1491571755
Silvyre
Forum Champion
Natha said: Just for my information, archived maps are still loaded in players' browser memory? Only the Page that is currently being viewed by a given user is loaded for that user.
Grant said: If giving out your password is not going to give TOS trouble, make sure you backup to a duplicate copy.  It will only take 1 fool to push the red button..... Ha! Yes. Solid advice.