Hi Developers,
As most of you know, the social element of our platform is central to the Roblox experience. In fact, looking at the top 1000 games, players spend 30% more time and 20% more Robux per session when they play with friends.
In order to allow players to more easily join their friends in game, we will be making some changes to how we fill up game servers soon. More specifically, we will be replacing ‘Preferred Player Count’, which is a confusing setting, with a new set of Server Fill options. By default, we will now reserve a certain number of server slots so that players are more likely to join their friends immediately instead of having to wait to join full servers. Developers who wish to fill their servers completely or specify the number of slots to reserve are able to opt out of this default.
This change will start with a simple formula to determine how many server slots to reserve while accounting for smaller vs larger server sizes. In the future, we plan to vary the number of slots reserved based on information such as how many of your friends are available to join you in game at that moment.
See the new configuration options below:
Here’s a more detailed description of each option:
- Roblox optimizes server fill for me: Roblox will reserve a number of server slots to optimize for the best social gameplay experience. We will never fill your server beyond the Maximum Player Count.
- Fill each server as full as possible: All game servers will fill up to the Maximum Player Count if possible and leave no room for others to join. Choosing this option may cause you to lose out on the benefits of enabling your players to play with friends.
- Customize how many server slots to reserve: Specify the number of server slots to reserve yourself instead of having Roblox decide. You will be able to choose a number from 1 to your Maximum Player Count.
If you have any feedback or questions regarding this update, feel free to ask them here!
Best,
Caelestene.
FAQ:
Q: Will this change the matchmaking algorithm?
A: No, the matchmaking algorithm is separate from these changes.
Q: Does this include existing games?
A: Yes, existing games will be affected. You can easily opt out in the Configure Start Place page.
Q: When will this change happen?
A: This change is now live. All existing games and any new games should use the new default (Roblox optimizes server fill for me)
Q: Will this fix the issue where my game servers aren’t getting filled up to Preferred Player Count and new servers get spun up?
A: No, since we are not making any matchmaking changes. All of these options are dependent on our matchmaking algorithm, which takes many factors into account. For example, if a user might have a terrible, laggy experience in a server, we may not put them in that server even though there is space. So you could still still have some servers that don’t get as full as you would like.
