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The true fix for Duping and Cross Ark Rebalance.


Sonoske

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We'll start off with duping. The only way i can see fixing it without disabling cross ark is to give every item and creature tamed a Unique ID that is setup a specific way.

To prevent accidental duplicate IDs across multiple servers start the ID off with the server number, timestamp then by a random generation of numbers and letters.

For Example.

C4 on Server 1106 made on Aug 30th at 21:31.

ID 11062131-7D89VM1950

C4 on Server 34 made on Aug 30th at 21:31.

ID 00342131-2Z961LB70P

This method of ID Generation would make it HIGHLY unlikely that 2 Ids would be generated across all servers. Then if someone happened to Dupe, the items then would be immediately despawned.

Each server will check their local IDs as well as the Shared Obelisk for duplicates. So if an item with the same ID exists in an Obilisk while also existing on any server both items will be deleted.

Each server will not have to communicate with each other as that would be a technical nightmare in its own. Instead each server searches for the ids of their local location as well as the Globally items placed in the Obilisk.

This would stop localized duping as well as trading dupes such as Duping a giga to bring to a different server.

Now onto Cross Ark...

The first thing needing changed is where player characters are stored and how they can move around servers.

I personally believe that all of your characters should be accessed from the main menu. They are saved not on one server but in a separate CHARACTER CLOUD with the location of what server they are located on at that time. If you then choose to move your character you can do so by simply joining any other server and clicking download survivor.

You would then get a prompt that you are being moved from another server and may lose any items in your inventory. Doing this would stop the loss of characters during transfers and allow you to easily move your character if all drops and Obelisks are blocked.

My final section is about a complete Rework of cross ark. It is rather simple but i feel it would better the game. Whether or not Wildcard wants to admit it but Cross Ark truly ruined the game and birthed tons if glitches and griefing methods.

A new take on cross ark would be Clusters. Each Server will be on a cluster with 5 or more of each map. For example Server 1, 2, 3 & 4 are all on a single cluster with the following maps Island, Center, Scortched & Ragnarok along with servers 5-20. This cluster allows full transfer of all dinos, items and characters. When new maps are addareto the game they can be added each cluster when released. You could still setup trades between the cluster so cross ark trading would still be thing.

I feel would be easier to manage in case of some sort of glitch came up. This would also stop the griefing of tribes following other to different server. If a tribe cannot stand to be around another and that tribe gets wiped they can simply jump to another cluster. This is also where the character storage changes come into play. It would be wise to allow characters to freely transfer to any cluster with a cooldown each time they move characters to another cluster.

All in all i feel these changes will ultimately make the game a better place.

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Would unique IDs take up more memory/data? If you ID the crafted items and dinos then you would need to ID the resources as they could just be duped instead (without penalty) and the good stuff will be crafted. How are you going to ID all that wood a dino gathers in one hit? Is each piece of wood IDed? Or each stack? A stack can just be kept at 99/100 to prevent IDs and be duped.

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It would not take up much memory at all. If anything the resources could generate IDs at a specific time after mined. In theory you could dupe resources if they were set up that way but honestly going out and mining metal only to try to upload it before the IDs reset would not be worth it as the time it would take to dupe a small batch wouldn't be worth it.

I think with that being said raw materials should not be allowed to be uploaded. Things like CP could generate when you get it or shortly after. But metal and other Raw materials could just not be uploaded.

As for stacks of items they could generate a stack ID from 2-100 losing the individual ID. Once they are split up they regenerate a new ID or hold their own. That alone sounds exploitable but once again as soon as it hits the Obilisk its IDs are logged.

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19 minutes ago, PaleoJoe said:

Would unique IDs take up more memory/data? If you ID the crafted items and dinos then you would need to ID the resources as they could just be duped instead (without penalty) and the good stuff will be crafted. How are you going to ID all that wood a dino gathers in one hit? Is each piece of wood IDed? Or each stack? A stack can just be kept at 99/100 to prevent IDs and be duped.

Harvesting already bogs down servers. Let alone the files that would need to be created and serial each item/resource and then have the server constantly polling them. No thanks lol

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There is one problem with deleting both items and its that it assumes the duplication was intentional. It is unfair to players when they are punished for unknowingly duping something. Duping became a huge issue when the Ragnarok servers first came online but it was mainly caused due to server instability, crash, and then roll back. If a player uploaded something for transfer then the server crashed shortly after the following roll back would reinstate the item. If another player then tried to transfer that duped item to the same server both items would disappear.

This mechanic can also be used to screw over other players. A player could sell the duped item to another player then transfer the other version onto the same server deleting both items. One player gets nothing and pays for it.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

The OP is right that unique IDs can be generated, that is viable. 

But the checking mechanism would require enormous efforts, and still not hundred percent foolproof... the problem is, you have to check ALL servers when a transferred item is manupilated. And that can be happened in every single miliseconds of a day (depending on the number of players and servers). 

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On 8/28/2017 at 9:45 PM, Sonoske said:

It would not take up much memory at all. If anything the resources could generate IDs at a specific time after mined. In theory you could dupe resources if they were set up that way but honestly going out and mining metal only to try to upload it before the IDs reset would not be worth it as the time it would take to dupe a small batch wouldn't be worth it.

I think with that being said raw materials should not be allowed to be uploaded. Things like CP could generate when you get it or shortly after. But metal and other Raw materials could just not be uploaded.

As for stacks of items they could generate a stack ID from 2-100 losing the individual ID. Once they are split up they regenerate a new ID or hold their own. That alone sounds exploitable but once again as soon as it hits the Obilisk its IDs are logged.

It would significantly increase load and calls to the dbs. Their best bet would be to focus on unique ids for dinos mainly to stop dino duping(esp since they supposedly already have an id). And focus on preventing the crashes. Alternatively modifying the save intervals would help. You will never completely zero cheating best you can hope for without screwing the rest of your users is mitigate to a more tolerable level.

 

As for Mats not uploadable.... that is a bad idea bc it would make some things almost uncraftable and solves almost nothing.

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