Split PoE into Several Modules - Possible Solution to Late Game Performance Issues?

[Aron Times]

Hey folks, I was thinking about how PoE is different from other RPGs in that you can freely backtrack and finish earlier areas that you skipped. During my previous run, I went back to Act 1 to deal with a minor bad guy after learning a very significant secret late in Act 2. The weird thing is that the dialogue in this quest line assumes that I hadn't discovered the abovementioned secret yet, and I don't get to confirm a wizard NPCs suspicions about the current plot (which are accurate, even if she doesn't know the details). Also, my character talks as if he isn't a very experienced with his unique abilities yet, even though I've had two acts to get used to my special abilities.

 

Anyway, the fact that all of this data is still available even very late into the game suggests to me that the late game performance issues might be caused by the game keeping track of too much data. Could the solution to performance be to make the game more linear, i.e to split the different acts into separate modules? It's how it was done in Neverwinter Nights 1, where each chapter of the OC, as well as SoU and HotU were entirely self-contained modules. They were, in essence, separate games that your character gets imported to.

 

In PoE, there are four (five if you include the tutorial) plot bottlenecks. The references are intentionally vague to avoid spoilers:

 

0. Tutorial Campfire

1. Haunted Castle

2. Baldur's Gate

3. Trial of the Century

4. Leap of Faith

 

I'm thinking that maybe, after you clear the Haunted Castle, or maybe when you reach Baldur's Gate (since it takes very little time to reach Baldur's Gate after leaving the Haunted Castle), that your character is transferred to another module. Basically, you start over with a new game that starts at Baldur's Gate, as opposed to the first module which started at the campfire. All the irrelevant data left over from the previous act is gone. You'll still be able to backtrack to the first village, but it's not the same village from the previous module, and there might be changes based on your actions or lack thereof.

 

Alternatively, you can't backtrack, and each module is self-contained. This alternative might result in better performance in longer games as opposed to the first option.

 

What do you think?

[Mechalibur]

If it's keeping track of too much data, wouldn't one potential solution be getting rid of a lot of the data most players don't even care about?

 

Take buyback data for example. I've literally never used the buyback feature, but over the course of the game, yet it's probably keeping track of hundreds of sold items across a dozen or so merchants. Even if people like the option to buy stuff back, could we maybe only limit it to unique gear or something? I don't want to scroll through 20 fine arbalests when I'm going through a merchant's inventory :/

[pi2repsion]

What do you think?

As I haven't noticed any performance issues impeding my play, I personally don't see the need and am wondering what performance issues you are thinking of.

 

Just what is the problem you are trying to address?

 

Are you referring to how loading and saving takes longer time over the course of the game as more data accumulates? (And if so, just how long times are you battling with that you consider this an issue?)

 

Something else?

 

 

 

EDIT: Just to be clear, I am not dismissing that you or others might be suffering from performance issues.

Edited September 16, 2015 by pi2repsion