Hey everyone,
My first post here jay!
So i have some questions about levels/map size in multiplayer games. After some googling, checking the forums and reading some documentation i still could not get a good grasp of this. I found some posts that discussed similar problems so i apologize if this is a common topic and i am just bad at searching.
My problem is that i am not trying to make a classic open world level but more like a big castle with several floors for about 4-6 players. My initial take on it was to simply create different levels for each floor. However i encountered several problems with servertravel since i want the player to be able to be on different floors at the same time and i am not planning to use a dedicated server. So my first thought was to make the entire castle in one level but i feel like this is too greedy and a way too easy solution. I also want the player to be able to fall down several floors wich would be easy with this solution since i wouldnt have to load a new level in this case.
I feel like games like skyrim and fallout have huge maps that are loaded at the same time but they are singleplayer games wich i imagine effects performance alot. Although my level design is more akin to Darksouls since the players would be in a castle all the time so the view distance will never be far. These games also do not use Unreal wich might be why they are able to have huge and detailed worlds at once.
So some of my thoughts/questions:
Does the view distance effect performance alot?
How much would for instance Floor 1 effect performance when all players are on floor 10?
If it effects performance too much, could a solution be to “spawn” most of the actors on a floor when players enter that floor?
Should i divide the castle in “Acts” of for instance 5 floors and have the players start a new game for each act?
How much does 4 players in the map effect performance in comparisson to a singleplayer game?
I know the answer to all of this will be “it depends” as always in game development 
But i appreaciate any thoughts or help so i get a directon for how i should tackle this. Would hate to spend 6 months creating everything only to find it way too demanding.
Thanks in advance!