Selecting which Social Hub to load into

[wispy stone]

I am unsure if this is doable technically currently, but am curious about thoughts on adding the ability to choose which specific social hub server one can load into. Currently, it is random which social hub server you load into when you load in from the main menu unless you have joined a party, in which case you load into the party's social hub.

One of the things I enjoy most about SAR in general is running into people I know, or joining friends/people to do activities. Yet I've also noticed from comments here and also from personal experience that sometimes, activities which rely on being in the same social hub may be difficult to arrange and/or enjoy in their intended form. For instance, hamsterball races require everyone participating to be in the same social hub, yet because potential interested participants may be spread out across multiple hubs, the actual races end up having either noone, or only one or two others unless you're in a party. Pre-SAW, there were less activities to do, and there were also less servers running simultaneously for each mode, so this wasn't as notable IMHO.

I do note that the above concern can be mitigated by just being in a party- however arranging these can be somewhat difficult. Likewise if there's more than four people, then that distinction also becomes moot.

Personally, I feel being able to select which hub to join will help in potentially mitigating the issue highlighted above. However, I have yet to explore other perspectives or potential consequences yet, so this may not be the best and/or only idea.

[turbid basalt]

I agree this would be nice, but I’m assuming SAR servers are auto sharding rather than having a set amount of channels that players are being allocated to do correct me if I’m wrong though, I love learning

[solid plank]

Couldn't that be settled with it fetching information about current open channels when you try to access a menu, then displaying the active channels?

Maybe im wrong with that idea

[turbid basalt]

That would require for them to set up channels. Generally when servers go that route, the players are essentially locked to those channels and they can often die off from players no longer logging in, which eventually makes them have to merge channels, which can be a pain for them as well.

[solid plank]

You can set channels to be marked as closed and not show up on that menu no? And Instead of merging just not allow new players

Because currently there is a point wherw the instances are not accepting new players and are not joinable

[turbid basalt]

It's not that the instance isn't joinable... If it's shards, its all the same server, rather the instance blocks the amount of visible players, to save on processing power and reduce lag. Shards will have a player cap, and it'll automatically generate more shards to handle server player count, just the same as when the amount of players in a shard diminishes to a certain point it will no longer add players and wait for it to finish dying to close the shard. It does this to manage server loads and keep the most amount of players together without having designated channels with fewer joined but more options. Channels would also have a player cap and no longer accept new players just the same as shards.

Sorry, I'm trying my best to explain this after work has fried my brain today

If they were to switch to channels rather than shards (if they're not already), I think it would require more processing power for them as well as cost the company more to operate, since they would have to sustain X amount of channels at all times, whereas shards open and close as needed.

[wispy stone]

I've seen a hybrid form of this in the form of warframe relays where the shards open and close as needed, but while a shard is open and not full it is selectable.