Over the past two weeks we’ve seen an uptick in performance issues for a portion of players, and we want you to know we’re aware of it and laser focused on finding a solution. Our data confirms a small but meaningful dip in some of our services starting right around two weeks ago that hasn’t returned to baseline.
We’ve got some strong leads, including some database query issues that surfaced after recent marketplace product launches added new categories and data to the compendium system. We’ve also been checking other possible causes to make sure we’re not missing anything. We’ll follow up once we’ve confirmed that any of these fixes have brought performance back to previous levels.
We know some of your game nights are being actively hurt by these issues, and we’re sorry for that. Our team is closely looking at this, and we’re throwing every resource possible at the potential causes to make sure we get to the bottom of it quickly.
Longer Term Performance Work
While we’re on the topic, and completely separate from this recent spike, I wanted to share with you other upcoming performance work. We’ve had a much larger performance overhaul in progress for months, and the first piece starts rolling out this week. This one is focused on our D&D Sheet services, and is being broken into 2 primary phases.
Phase 1 is in extensive testing now and about to start rolling out. We rebuilt the sync protocol so the sheet only sends what’s actually needed, cutting payload size by up to 90% with no loss of data or accuracy. Less bandwidth, way less browser repainting, lower RAM across the board. You’ll feel this phase most if you keep sheets open in two places at once, or have slow internet speeds.
Phase 2 is where things get noticeably snappier. The phase 1 updates will allow us to directly target performance on initial load times, editing, sending rolls to chat, and more. It kicks off right after phase 1 ships successfully.
There’s more performance work happening on the compendium and VTT services too, which all work together to create your complete game night experience. More on that in a followup post.
Thanks for bearing with us.