Hey all! Last week we shared an update on the performance issues we were managing across our services. Since then, we have deployed multiple updates that resolve a large portion of them. We are seeing clear improvement, with more on the way to bring everything back into normal territory. And we’re still pushing out updates to make your play even better.
Here is a peek behind the curtain at what shipped since our last post.
Where things stand
I’ve been personally working with many players and GMs who have reported problems, as well as watching our Help Center and public channels. I’m happy to share that nearly all of the reported sluggishness has been resolved.
There are detailed descriptions of our work in the previous posts, and plenty more happened behind the scenes. While most of the solutions were focused on D&D sheets, there were also fixes to the data itself, the way that sheets use that data, and to the service that provides the data regardless of game system.
While all these updates have been found, diagnosed, and fixed by multiple people on three distinct teams, others have been working on improving performance. Next week, we’ll get to hear from them.
Releases since last week
Once the service was stable, we could dig into the specific trouble spots as they were reported in individual games. That let us isolate the combinations of options where performance fell off.
- Problem: Rolls are slow from click to Chat – We found some character builds carry significantly more data than other, nearly identical builds. Processing all of that data made a roll take so long to resolve. We’ve revamped the way the sheet was sending that data, and that has resolved the delay between sending a roll and seeing the results appear in Chat.
- Problem: Opening a sheet took a long time – We launched a fully systemic fix for calculation delays on Token bars.
D&D sheet performance, Phase 1
Phase 1 of the rollout we outlined in our earlier post is done. As of Tuesday morning, 100% of games are running these updates.
This work reduces the amount of data transferred between the sheet and our services. On its own it is not something most of you will notice at the table, but it is the groundwork Phase 2 requires. We released it incrementally so we could watch the effect of each step closely, and we saw the improvements we expected. Reports from players and GMs lined up with the rollout schedule, which tells us the fix is doing its job.
What is coming next
- Phase 2 of the D&D sheet performance updates, planned to release in the coming weeks. This is where we expect the most optimizations you will actually feel while playing.
- A new Compendium Service, further out on the roadmap, which will speed up the multiple services connected for game system data.
- A data cleanup process to clear unused data stored on individual sheets, plus later work to process rolls without sending the extra data at all.
Some of these issues were very visible from the “30,000 foot” view. However, the individuals who have helped by sharing their own experience and unique character builds have shed light on issues that would only be apparent from the “on the ground” view. I’m sure there are more improvements we can make, and so if your game night is still being disrupted, please open a support ticket so we can make sure we resolve those too. To speed things along, include:
- A link to the game
- Any specific pages where you are seeing issues
- Any sheets or tokens that are lagging Everything above covers the Character Sheet and Compendium systems. The team behind the Virtual Tabletop will be sharing another big chunk of work on VTT systems soon.
Thanks for all the feedback, the patience, and the help hunting these down.