Ok, so today I installed GameXP, which is a program that alters all my PC settings to optimise it for gaming. I kept CCC installed, but upon loading up MWLL, noticed the graphics had taken a major drop in terms of looks. I imagine this program somehow forced this change as a design to improve FPS issues. Upon running the game, I noticed no immediate FPS increase, even though the quality of visuals was definitely lower, and my CPU and GPU temperatures were clocking in at about 10 degree's less than with previous CCC visuals in play. This indicates to me that my overall CPU and GPU activity is lower, and thus, considering the lack of difference in FPS when the server started to fill up at the 18 player mark, I can only conclude that this drop in fps isn't related to any difficulty my CPU or GPU is having processing this number of players.
Back in 0.2 I wouldn't join the BOSS server because I had these similar FPS issues when playing in servers with 30 ppl. Now I can't play in servers with 18 ppl without experiencing some severe FPS problems (at times). It seems like the more assets on the field the worse it gets, and its not small incremental drops either, its huge.
I can run mirage with 4 ppl on the server at over 100 FPS. As soon as the player count starts to max out, my fps plumets to sub 30. All I can think of is there's some kind of memory issue going on which is leading to increased crashing and server failures.