Harvest performance issue, what causes it and possible solution. Tested everything

tl;dr - the number of objects you have placed in your garden affects the fps you get during mapping after clicking the seed cache because the garden is an extension of the map, not a different zone. The more objects you have in your garden, the lower fps you will have in the map.

Video prooving how the fps changes with a 100% full garden layout: https://streamable.com/unxg92

Hello. My first goal for Harvest was to have a 100% completed optimized garden so thats the first thing I did after the launch.
I ended up having:
451 storages
200 pylons
12 collectors
30 dispersers

All was good and well until my maps started lagging very hard. At first I thought it was the gateway, I switched it, same thing. Other people told me that they are lagging too so i thought it was the servers in general having a bad day. Turns out it was not the case.

Turns out that i was lagging in the map only after i clicked the seed cache in every map.

Now to explain what causes the performance issue.
When a player clicks the seed cache in a map, we, players on console experience a 1-2 seconds freeze. Then a portal to the garden opens up. That freeze happens because the game is loading the garden layout and the objects which are in it.
Now, because the garden is an extension of the map ( not a zone of its own like a vaal side area for example ), the map will continue to have very low fps for the entire remaining time you spend in that map. Why? Because the map now is loaded with the objects you have placed in the garden.
Think of it like a 100% deliriuous map where you have 500 items on the ground.

I tried playing for 2 days with low fps but i couldnt take it anymore, so i decided to destroy my garden step by step to see the breakpoints of the big lag spikes to know how much exactly i can have in my garden without bricking my entire league gameplay.

So here it is:
Full garden setup - 3 second freeze when clicking the cache. Game is unplayable, most of the time i lag 1 second between actions.

300 storages and connections needed for them - 3 second freeze when clicking the cache. Game is unplayable, i still lag between actions.

150 Storages - 2 second freeze when clicking the cache. Game is somewhat playable. This seems to be the breakpoint between playable and unplayable.

100 Storages - 1-2 seconds freeze when clicking the cache. Fps drop starts to be almost not noticeable, however, i can still feel it.

0 Objects - 0.5 seconds freeze when clicking the cache. Mapping is smooth, no fps drop.

Suggestion for solving this issue so we can still play Harvest League at its full potential:
#1
Give us the option to upgrade the storages at the cost of lifeforce. I personally dont want free storage upgrades. Let everyone upgrade as much as they want, as much as their playstyle permits them.
If im a no-lifer i will spend 500k lifeforce to upgrade tanks to be able to store 60k lifeforce from a t4 harvest.
If im a casual player, i will spend 20k lifeforce to upgrade tanks to be able to store 8k lifeforce from a t2 harvest.

#2
Untie the garden objects from the map. I dont know if its technically possible, but this would work aswell.

+1, there needs to be some way to store life force without having literal hundreds of storage units, it is destroying game performance.

Great work Doc. This makes alot of sense and something thats quite apparent now that you point it out. I did notice how leveling in maps ona new character it felt much better. They entire time I wasn't procing the garden due to lvl 80+ seeds and only getting lvl 68-69 from tier 1 maps. So this, on-top of dynamic culling is whats killing performance this league. Hopefully we get some communication on this and see a patch. If not well I know ill just be skipping out on the rest of the league

I already skipped League and went to scssf. Kinda having a blast, though i cant say that i dont get blue screens or lags. Delirium mirrors are in softcore too lol.

At this moment i dont really care how they are going to change drop rates of seeds or if they change storages. League is not fun/too tediuos, maybe i got burnout, but yet again i started playing ssf. Just think it this way: what kind of item you are looking for which would make you want to go in and out to plant those seeds every 5to10maps?

Same things happened with other leagues if anyone can remember. Pc got metamorth organ picking changes before christmas, so i was running uberlab for few weeks during holidays.
Blighted maps were lagging/unplayable during blight league so we were without end game content, but once they put it in pc version they reduced monster quantity so it could be playable on console after the league...
Start of delirium league was really good. All acts were smoothest of all leagues, but lagged during mapping. Map load times became longer and i think they still dont address the problem. Load times became as long as if there was no ssd at all.

Not to discredit TC, but I get horrible fps in alch'ed maps with conqueror influence or delerium even before clicking the seed cache.

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oldwolfsoul wrote:

Just think it this way: what kind of item you are looking for which would make you want to go in and out to plant those seeds every 5to10maps?

Uh have you seen some of the items that have been made with this type of crafting?

uh Have you seen any of these items in your stash tab?

Most of those crafts were communities projects or very lucky crafts and it took a lot of grinding to achieve it (we are talking about 150h played). Yet again, it was before patch. I have no idea what's the situation now, so go ahead, tell me i am wrong.

Edit: Every league has it's own OP/crazy crafts.

Wow, thanks for the heads up. Guess I'll be doing my gardening before I leave my maps for the time being.

Always thought it was weird I could see the horticulture stations from maps so I can see how the stuff always being there would mess things up.

More loading zones incoming, I'm guessing that would be the only solution. Just like you said the Vaal area's do.

Lol I was wondering why my fps seemed to be ever worse than least league even without delirium , and I only have 160 storage tanks and 30 collectors. I can only imagine how bad it must be for you.