Performance issues: Forced to delete data to improve lag

[Migas]

Hello, as you may know, due to the major flux of new players into the server, we are experiencing some performance issues.

After gathering with all the Senior Admins, we have decided that the best option would be to ask the community for what to cut out from the server.

It is something that is inevitable and must be done in the next 6 days. Some of the options will free up more space than others, so depending on the results, we might have to adopt multiple of the measures shown above.

Please vote on the poll above and give your opinion below on why it should be.

I'm sorry if this causes any incovenience.

DEADLINE = [countdown=3,31,2020,23,00][/countdown]

[Eagler1997]

Imo the options that affect gameplay the least are dynmap and minigames.

Dynmap does not update with the amount of players we have gotten in the last few weeks. So beside hunting it will not affect that much. And hunting is being a headache for staff so I see no negatives for this option.

Minigames is a harder choice but also does not affect regular gameplay. Also feel like not many people are playing it.

I just hope that a backup can be made and maybe these features readded in 1.16 when mojang finally decides to fix the performance issues

[Oplegoman]

I see that it is sad what we are going to have to take drastic action to help improve the server?s performance and this is going to be by removing things from the server. So I am going to put my opinions down on all the options and if I think of any, alternative options.
McMMO reset ? see that this would reduce the massive amount of data files which would have to searched through or even be loaded into memory. I would be upset by a reset but it would not negatively affect my gameplay on the server and for most skills this would be easily obtainable again. (we might see someone else take No.1 for a day or so!)

Towny reset ? It is this basically factory setting the towny plugin again? I see that this could be useful in reducing the number of logs and files for old or abandoned towns. As I have seen would this reset everyone money on the server? I can if this does reset this it would clear massive amounts of space. If it does reset money this would be rather frustrating for myself and other players (I can see it would not be all players) as they have worked hard to get such money through shops and other player to player trading.

Removing Minigames ? This would be one of my preferred options on what should be removed, as it would be a shame to lose the minigames on the server but we all know that minigames are usually less played than the other game modes we have available; the most popular being survival.

Remove Skyblock ? This would be my second preferred option, I know that many of the regular players do not play skyblock, and for many players this would not be a loss to them. I can see this would be the removal of a game mode others have only played.

Remove Dynamic map ? Love the map and would be really sad to see it go for some time, but if more people want to save the other game modes, I can see their reason why.

Reducing player limit to 20 ? I see that we have recently increased the player limit from 50 to 65, couldn?t we reduce this down to 50 or even 40 as this seems to be when things start to go even slower. At this time I think we would all be moderately happy to deal with the lag (as major improvements can be seen with the transition to Paper for 1.15.2).

Reducing server from 24/7 to 12 hours a day ? this surely is a joke? This would rip the community in half with quite a lot of players unable to play upon the server, this also seems counter productive given we have a dedicated host for the server?
I know you probably have thought about this, and discussed it in length, but someone is going to say it, I thought I would beat everyone to the punch. Would it not be possible to upgrade the server host to help with the increased performance needed, by moving to a host with a faster CPU or one with a larger amount of install memory?  I know this couldn?t happen instantly and the main overall point is the cost for this. I know the server is run on donation and doesn?t have a large pit for such options to be available.
I would also be happy to help wherever I can with any of these outcomes and would like to thank you for your persistent support for this community and it would not be anything like it is today without our senior admin team.

[EMULATOR]

Imo the options that affect gameplay the least are dynmap and minigames.

Dynmap does not update with the amount of players we have gotten in the last few weeks. So beside hunting it will not affect that much. And hunting is being a headache for staff so I see no negatives for this option.

Minigames is a harder choice but also does not affect regular gameplay. Also feel like not many people are playing it.

I just hope that a backup can be made and maybe these features readded in 1.16 when mojang finally decides to fix the performance issues

i agree with eagler and i think both of them should be deleted it is very sad to see amazing features of server go i think the others have huge affect on server and towards its community and dynmap alone or minigame alone wont fix all the lag even though i hate to say i think migas should remove both (just a opinion)still my vote goes to minigame

[Sarge_Snow]

As first i must say that the decisions are very hard because every option is removing one of the main characteristics of the server .
The dynamic map isn't that much of an emergent thing as players rarely use it for its purpose,and that is why i picked to remove the dynamic map.players can still use item maps in-game if they want to see their builds etc.

Next one is if i had to pick 2 things that would totally be M.c.m.m.o. reset for everyone.Yes people did work hard but refreshing it will give the game more fun trying to start over,i know many people that wouldn't agree as they have over 5.000 levels which takes years to collect,but i don't think it's much of a hustle to reset M.c.m.m.o.,some players already dropped all of their M.c.m.m.o.during name changes,and got back.I am sad tha :/?t this is inevitable,but what must be done must be done,my opinion is here.

Also i would like to talk about the 12 hr thing.As Op Lego man said,it would literally rip half of the community (if the 12 hours would be in exact time every day aka from 00:00 GMT to 12:00 GMT,which would give half of the world no time to play.but we could do something like time shifting if that would be necessary.

 Sky-block would destroy some people's work as some players still tend to play Sky-block rather than survival.But the majority of players start off with survival.

With the Town-y cut, i don't really understand what will the ,,only plugin removal'' do,i suppose it will just reset the claims and towns?and leave the world untouched?Well that wouldn't be much of a problem if players could revive the town in a few days (if the money plugin wouldn't be cut off).

Next up , Mini-games aren't that active (saying from my perspective) as i rarely find anyone who plays it.As i see it the only big hole in the bag would be mob arena as everyone used to grind their skills there.

I think this is all i can say about the current inevitable event,hope we get back to normal with no issues.Personally i would withstand an full restart from my side,but i am thinking about how would other people react . Eagle r said that there will be performance fixes in 1.16 which is true,but i personally don't think we will move to it soon as it would result major replacements of the nether world (as i think) as moving from 1.14.4 to 1.15.2 was a move with less major changes in the game itself.I would like to see 1.16 asap and who wouldn't,but the fact is that just-released versions are not stable for multiplayer servers.And i want to appoint that 1.16 is not even officially out in the game itself.That's finally all from me as i said everything i needed to say

[MGMB]

I don't mind any of that except for the 12 hours a day thing, i really hope it stays 24/7

[Creepy_Crawlers]

Here are my opinions over all the options

McMMO reset for everyone- This could be good because it would give the new players some hope that they could actually be in the top 10 or 20, instead of the very bottom.

Towny reset for everyone (not the world, only plugin)- I don't know how this would help but if it could, it seems like a good option.

Remove all Minigames- I feel only new players play minigames. I don't normally ever see regulars playing in the minigames. They are always in Towny or Grief Prevention for the most part. Sometimes Skyblock.

Remove Skyblock Plugin & worlds- I don't think this is a good option. There are multiple of us that play skyblock because it's more of a challenge.

Remove Dynamic Map- Who still uses dynmap besides for hunting? It would just make hunting more of a challenge. Some people use it to look for things but those could always be found differently.

Reducing player limit to 20- I don't think this is a good idea. The server could never expand. And most likely, there would be enough staff and upper donators online to cap this or come close so no mid/lower donators or below could join. That would deter so many people.

Reducing server availability from 24/7 to 12 hours a day- This is probably the worse idea out of all of these. That would prevent people from joining at all at certain times, which isn't a good idea.


My opinion is that Dynmap and minigames should be deleted if anything. Those are not popular ideas. Also, as Oplegoman said, I may have brought this up before but if it was possible to increase the RAM (I know that comes at a cost that some donators have already said they would be willing to cover if the server could have the players and better performance.) that would help without actually deleting anything. (Side note: There may be additional reasons why we can't increase the RAM that I don't know about. I don't know of any reasons why we can't so if there is any, I am sorry for suggesting that time and time again.)

[charactername111]

I Agree with what Eagler has said. As nice as it is to have a 3d view of all the worlds to help find your way around I think we'll survive without it. O

Minigames are nice and all but they aren't as major a loss as the other options. O

reducing server limit might help some but 20 feels a bit too low maybe back to 50 or 40 like Oplego said. O

Towny reset, I would think, would be troublesome for the people who put a lot of work into their town. X

I for one still am playing skyblocks and still enjoying it quite a bit. X

McMMO reset would mean I have to spend several sleepless nights grinding alchemy again so I'd rather we don't >.> X

24/7 to 12 hours shouldn't even be an option. No one wants that. X

[Aatif]

I agree that there aren't much players who use dynmap and minigames.

I, myself have used dynmap just once or thrice. TBH it isn't having any major use rn in the server. If it would get deleted, probably no one will be affected.

There are some players who search for servers with minigames. Ofcourse we've got some good minigames but except some of the new players, no one much plays minigames

Skyblock is a thing that most of the old players and others who are much bored of towny and grief prevention. It has got challenges which are good for passing time. So if this would be deleted, I'll be very sad.

Nowadays, the server's got around 40-50 players most of the time. If we reduce the capacity to 20, we'll lose many players which isn't good.

Towny reset is kind of ok if the world would be untouched and only the town's plot and all gets reset.

I kind of don't like the idea of resetting the mcmmo skills. Players have worked hard to earn the levels for those skills.
Players like Joel have put most of their time in grinding for those skills and I don't think they should be removed.

So, over-all my opinion is that you can remove towny plugin thing, the dynmap and the minigames.

[Nick The Builder]

In my opinion the option of resetting the McMMO is probably better, even though some are already have high levels on it i think it's better than remove or reducing things on the server.

The Towny plugin reset is kind of still in question on how it will impact the server. In my understanding if this is only affect the things like claim area and the system of the towns then i'd say it's even better than the McMMO reset because we'll just need to re found our town, rezone our town's area, set up the town hierarchy again, and abandoned towns will be gone since they are not founded again. But the "still in question" part is just like what Oplegoman said, would this reset everyone's money on the server?. Resetting everyone's money is a pretty important thing, i don't need to explain why, and even if there is a plan to just give everyone's money back to their correct balances i'm sure it's going to be heck of a work to do.

Removing all minigames
For me it's pretty okay since i don't really play them but for the many players i'm sure it's not so good. There is still some times where players plays in the minigames and even new players usually asked about the minigames first even though they will go to survival or leave the server since no one else is playing with them. But i do say we shouldn't remove the minigames if we can.

Remove skyblock plugin and worlds
Now i don't play that much on the skyblock either but many players spent their time more on Skyblock than survival, removing Skyblock is like removing a different survival world that will end up with players loosing everything that they have gather on the server. I say we need to keep Skyblock, it's an important feature of the server.

Remove Dynamic Map
Ok about the Dynmap. I know that many people is not using it, which is a shame. But dynmap is a very good thing to have on the server. Dynmap makes planning easier from build planning to claim area planning, it also makes it much easier to find a nice, unpopulated areas for new players to build their home. When i come to this server, i didn't know about dynmap, i go to survival world and just try to find a place to settle in. After i found a nice place to settle, i poured my time and resources there, building many things. A month pass by and i just realized that the place is pretty much populated, i can't claim more land to build more things, i've made a huge mistake. Not only that, seeing my place on dynmap i also realized that it's kinda close to the spawn which explain why there's many griefing happening in the area. The only thing i can think of to achieve my goals is find a new place, move out. With the help of Dynmap i found a really nice place for me to build and i even just found out that there's world border. At some times i even help new players find their place for home that is not already populated with abandoned buildings. Another use of Dynmap is finding biomes, sometimes the biomes near spawn areas are just depleted, i fortunately find a dessert biome not far from my base that still have cactus with dynmap.

Why don't just use regular map? It's annoying and time consuming, i'm waking down hill and when i look down there's a huge map blocking my view, making them is a bit time consuming and the information you get is just not as complete as dynmap.

Well i've reached this point of defending dynmap but i do feel that it will be the one being removed which is really unfortunate and i'll probably feel kinda blind after it's removal. I won't be able to plan my build easily, found out that someone is waiting on my roof to kill me, find biomes with unique things, get an overview of my and my neighbor's build so i can detect a potential griefing, share the progress of my build to my friend through my phone, it's just sad for me.

Reducing player limit to 20 and reducing server availability to 12 hours a day is just not acceptable, it feels like a huge downgrade for the server.

So my point on my opinion is, the "reset" options are better than the "remove" or even "reducing" options since the reset options, even if it means the reset of progress of players specially in the McMMo option is because you can achieve this progress again which is not that much of a deal than restarting from the beginning after your island is gone, this bring some kind of replayability, a new set of goal while playing on the server. It feels better than the removal of your favourite games, your floating island, your daily used pairs of eyes on the sky, or even the limiting of your playtime on the server or even chance to play on the server at first.

[EpicEliza]

McMMO reset for everyone.

I think if we reset the mcmmo skills again, this would impact a lot of people negatively. If McMMO's high levels and skills are the problem, resetting wouldn't help because people are still able to grind it up to high levels again and we'll be at square one again. Moreover, some people, as shown from Chara's, won't be happy with resetting skills and having their effort lost again. I think we reset mcmmo skills before a while ago, I don't think it would be beneficial to do it again.

Towny reset for everyone (not the world, only plugin).

What I assume by towny reset is that towns and nations information would get wiped. Like Code, Tranquila, CT would get wiped clean and we'll have to start inviting towns and members into our towns again from scratch. Whilst this might be a slight annoyance, if this could clear the lag it might be one of the few with the lowest detrimental side effects.

Remove all Minigames.

There are people who enjoy playing the minigames like parkour and mob arena, so I don't really want to remove all minigames. Maybe we can remove the minigames that aren't frequented by people a whole lot. Mob arena and parkour also gives players tools, food and other necessities that can be used in the towny and survival world. This means they won't have to necessarily mindlessly grind, which can get a bit boring and tiring.

Remove Skyblock Plugin & worlds.

This is a very hard no for me. The skyblock plugin has became one of our most populated plugin where a handful of players today are still playing skyblock. By removing skyblock from Sentinel, we could be losing a good number of our player base.

Remove Dynamic Map.

Dynmap is useful in a way that players would be able to scout out areas before they settle down. It could also help players find materials or biomes, like a warm ocean or a mesa. Based on the choices given here, dynmap being removed would be the one that affects players the least.

Reducing player limit to 20.
Reducing server availability from 24/7 to 12 hours a day.


I placed them both in the same category cause I have the same argument for them. Both of these choices would hurt our server severely in terms of activity and I sincerely hope that this would not take place. If we reduce player limit to 20 this means only a handful of players can join. Whenever I'm online, in normal times, we hit about 16 players? 20 ish players? In my day time. That's already a full server. I know that when I sleep and when the NA parts of the world is awake, it could be up to 30-40 players. That's way too much for 20 players.

The 12 hour option also reduces the chances of players from every timezone to play in sentinel. Not a lot of people are going to wake up at 3am to play Sentinel. Even if we alternate between all timezones, it won't give everyone a chance to play. Sentinel has helped me gain a lot of friends from different parts of the world, I would be severely saddened if I can't talk to them anymore.

Conclusion: If I had to pick anything from the choices, Dynmap and town seems to be the safer choice. It won't affect any old players all that much and we can still maintain the safe and tight knit community that Sentinel is special for.

[BrendaxNL]

Towny reset for everyone (not the world, only plugin).
What I assume by towny reset is that towns and nations information would get wiped. Like Code, Tranquila, CT would get wiped clean and we'll have to start inviting towns and members into our towns again from scratch. Whilst this might be a slight annoyance, if this could clear the lag it might be one of the few with the lowest detrimental side effects.

Conclusion: If I had to pick anything from the choices, Dynmap and town seems to be the safer choice. It won't affect any old players all that much and we can still maintain the safe and tight knit community that Sentinel is special for.

Towny
Wow Eliza, just because you're not a mayor doesn't mean you have to encourage this idea - think about your friends?
It's not only inviting members to my town again, it's also the claiming of the town and the permissions per plot - this is a lot of effort and seems unnecessary to me. Besides this, Eli and I have 3 million in our town bank - we wouldn't want to lose that? It's money we worked hard for!
Would you'd like to do all of these annoying things for me if that option gets chosen? Perfect opportunity for you to join Tranquila - would like to hear from you soon!

On that note, please allow me to voice my opinion on the different possible outcomes.

Skyblock
I think this one should go. For real. I am tired of explaining how a cobblestone generator should be made and how to invite friends to your islands. If they want to play skyblock, why don't we create a sweet arena in survival where they can have fun on a few blocks of dirt in the air - in my opinion, this doesn't add as much value to our server. Joel won anyways.

Minigames
Removing it all doesn't seem like a good idea, how about we get rid of some? Mob arena - Moon can fly to the moon, platform PvP can be recreated in survival. Fly pvp should stay, I love killing Migas with a bow to the best of my ability.

McMMo Reset
Hard no on this one, even though Joel is on top of everything I worked quite hard to try and touch his feet. Didn't work out, wasted too many hours on alchemy, wouldn't want to see this go to waste. No.

Dynmap
How about reducing some maps - alpha/end/nether can go, this way it will be an extra challenge to find loot! Also getting rid of the 3d form of all the others, only keep the one of spawn. I like that, gg Migas.

Reducing limit
Tbh reducing the limit of players to 20 for MEMBERS sounds like a good idea. Less admin stuffing more bullying Migas. I vote yes. Unlimited access for SOME SM+/D+ (gotta exclude a few for being bad bios)

I have spoken, excited to see what happens. Take care everyone!

[HvPanda]

 :/?  :/? :/? I vote all members gone! Only admins. Oh and all members must donate.

[Eli]

Towny reset for everyone (not the world, only plugin).
What I assume by towny reset is that towns and nations information would get wiped. Like Code, Tranquila, CT would get wiped clean and we'll have to start inviting towns and members into our towns again from scratch. Whilst this might be a slight annoyance, if this could clear the lag it might be one of the few with the lowest detrimental side effects.

Conclusion: If I had to pick anything from the choices, Dynmap and town seems to be the safer choice. It won't affect any old players all that much and we can still maintain the safe and tight knit community that Sentinel is special for.

Towny
Wow Eliza, just because you're not a mayor doesn't mean you have to encourage this idea - think about your friends?
It's not only inviting members to my town again, it's also the claiming of the town and the permissions per plot - this is a lot of effort and seems unnecessary to me. Besides this, Eli and I have 3 million in our town bank - we wouldn't want to lose that? It's money we worked hard for!
Would you'd like to do all of these annoying things for me if that option gets chosen? Perfect opportunity for you to join Tranquila - would like to hear from you soon!

On that note, please allow me to voice my opinion on the different possible outcomes.

Skyblock
I think this one should go. For real. I am tired of explaining how a cobblestone generator should be made and how to invite friends to your islands. If they want to play skyblock, why don't we create a sweet arena in survival where they can have fun on a few blocks of dirt in the air - in my opinion, this doesn't add as much value to our server. Joel won anyways.

Minigames
Removing it all doesn't seem like a good idea, how about we get rid of some? Mob arena - Moon can fly to the moon, platform PvP can be recreated in survival. Fly pvp should stay, I love killing Migas with a bow to the best of my ability.

McMMo Reset
Hard no on this one, even though Joel is on top of everything I worked quite hard to try and touch his feet. Didn't work out, wasted too many hours on alchemy, wouldn't want to see this go to waste. No.

Dynmap
How about reducing some maps - alpha/end/nether can go, this way it will be an extra challenge to find loot! Also getting rid of the 3d form of all the others, only keep the one of spawn. I like that, gg Migas.

Reducing limit
Tbh reducing the limit of players to 20 for MEMBERS sounds like a good idea. Less admin stuffing more bullying Migas. I vote yes. Unlimited access for SOME SM+/D+ (gotta exclude a few for being bad bios)

I have spoken, excited to see what happens. Take care everyone!

Brenda was too soft with her claim of 20 members max. I think we should make server SM+ only while figuring out this problem.

Also, I agree with my wife. This seems like a good solution for the time being, happy to see you join Tranquila, Eliza! I'm sure Pau is proud of us, nation chat will be amazing!

[EpicEliza]

I wasn't really encouraging town wipe, just stated my opinions on that option. Out of all of the options, this and dynmap are the best to me.