Turret Changes: A Technical Talk about why.

[TheRightHand]

Just now, Rofelo said:

Is it possible to make up the difference by having on game server per physical machine?

If so then the issue would be money?

Currently, the architecture of the version of Unreal we started building on is single-threaded. That means it will only use one CPU thread in order to do all of the stuff it does.

A while back, we added paralellized networking and paralellized networking to our build, so that networking actions and animation rendering could both take place on multiple threads, increasing the number of total threads used by the server to 2. This was months of work.

While we're investigating what else can be done for paralellization, the machines that about 70% of our servers run on are custom built baremetal machines with 8 core, 4+ghz processors, and we run 3 instances per machine, with 64gb of RAM per machine.

This means that at most, all 3 servers are using 6 cores + 2 cores for our reporting, metrics, operating system overhead, etc.

We pay an ENORMOUS amount of money for our servers. It's not that the servers are weak or cheap. It's that the game is just... expensive. It has to do a lot of stuff, all the time.

[ashy63]

having played from ground zero, I have over the years built been raided re built re raided etc ..you get the idea..now I'm in a poisiton where all my teams hard work is about to go up in flames again, 100 turrets to defend a large community base, where we have multiple tribes (allied) working together to build a better server, how do we now defend against even small troll teams? 

you will destroy this community.  we wont have the ability to cover multiple tribe bases, we wont be able to offer new players a safe haven, we wont be safe (ish) 

 

even at this moment we are in a constant battle against small troll tribes, who bring in soakers to slowly drain the turrets we have,  every day we have to refill!!! 

these guys (tribes) have worked hard to get to a position of safety, hours in your game surporting. PLS surport us!! pls don't just flick the switch use the community to try and fine the answer.

turrets in low numbers are not effective..hence large numbers, if your going to do this then increase turret dps a lot more, give us a chance

 

[Goaty]

2 hours ago, Helta said:

We had exactly the same bases in legacy even bigger. Main reason was because most of the Megatribes where dupers.

Just an example the F.B.I base on 777 legacy had a million turrets and even when like 200 where shooting at the same time at us the server run smooth af

on top of that i heared that this stuff you mentioned above was tested by running a bronto into a lot of turrets what means you guys tested shooting turrets not standby ones. But that alot of firing turrets cause lag is nothing new to us neither has anyone ever complained about it.

No they didn't test that. They came on server 160, ( I was there, part of the mega tribe) and they got the server capped, and then restarted it. They removed all turrets from the server, and the lag was actually a bit better, at capped players. They then rolled the server back to have turrets.

The devs I saw were jat and panda, we all even went to blue obilisk and saw him.

[invincibleqc]

4 minutes ago, HighDBoom said:

its pretty much unfair to make such big game breaking changes after the game is official launched.

I would beg to differ, here. I mean, this is not really a "game breaking change", but more of a "new official rule". If you play on an unofficial server, and the server owner decide to add a mod you don't like, does that means the game is broken? Not really; that simply means the server rules just no longer suit your taste or how you want to play so you can move to another server configured differently, host your own with the settings you want, or move to something else. The reality is that thousands of turrets in the same area is causing performance issues and it needs to be addressed. Don't take me wrong, I fully understand that it can be problematic for the game-play and this is the main reason why they are creating that kind of thread so that players can share ideas on how they would see things to be balanced while also limiting the amount of turrets so that servers can run smoothly for everyone to enjoy. This is no secret that officials are having a large amount of traffics and this is no surprise that it would come to some more nerfs/limitations and I'm fairly sure they analyzed carefully all what was possible to optimize or implement in order to gain performance but such critical data seems really hard to counter-balance.

2 minutes ago, Rofelo said:

Can you nerf Armor as a whole and nerf the tanking of bullets meta?

Turrets should simply be piercing damage and totally ignore armor of players/dinos (much like therizino claws).

[Evil9t]

2 minutes ago, Goaty said:

No they didn't test that. They came on server 160, ( I was there, part of the mega tribe) and they got the server capped, and then restarted it. They removed all turrets from the server, and the lag was actually a bit better, at capped players. They then rolled the server back to have turrets.

The devs I saw were jat and panda, we all even went to blue obilisk and saw him.

If been depending last Week in an Center Server with 100000 of turrets and the Server was still fine 4 EVERYONE! i would das keep the Game like it is like 80% of the Most activ Players, the guys Why Build from ground 0 too an Mega Tribe! I speak 4 basiclly everyone when i das: KEEP THE GAME HOW IT IS WE DONT CARE ABOUT THE LAG!!! THATS ARK!!!

[Fallarmy]

So, right hand, ure company make x2 permanent on Official, before u release dif 5 and imprint. Also now we still have new x2 weekends 

Every this change/features increase resource farming. And, now, u complain about "to much turrets" 

After u release transfer u FORCED ppl make monstrosity bases cuz ppl TRY DEFEND what they have, and now if u decrease turrets amount u will see how ppl will spam bronto and dino gates around bases. 

Imagine what will be after 4-6 months if in 2 month WE MAKE U SERVER running like poop. 

 

Sry for eng. 5500+ pvp hours. 

 

 

[Goaty]

Just now, Evil9t said:

If been depending last Week in an Center Server with 100000 of turrets and the Server was still fine 4 EVERYONE! i would das keep the Game like it is like 80% of the Most activ Players, the guys Why Build from ground 0 too an Mega Tribe! I speak 4 basiclly everyone when i das: KEEP THE GAME HOW IT IS WE DONT CARE ABOUT THE LAG!!! THATS ARK!!!

I don't really know what your trying to say here.

But I'm still against this turret change, 100 turrets isnt enough to defend a base, 1 stego and bam your base will be gone lol.

[HighDBoom]

@invincibleqc  you probably didnt farm 15.000.000 Metal Ingots and other stuff to understand it... you cant simply just change stuff like this during the active "season".... all the bases are build... to rebuild stuff will take more months and you will be under heavy attacks to. so that not fun at all.

 

I am talking about the current official pvp server. I played 7.000 hours ARK.... i am not just a "casual" who wanna play on unofficial and build greenhouses.

[Mifivestone]

Reality is Wildcard can try and justify with as many stats as they want why they have just woken up and decided to make this drastic change to turrets and turrets only but if it is made the already massive disparity formed between mega tribes and everyone else will widen to a point where the game will be unplayable and  lose a vast majority of players. Since we are dealing in facts and figures here are some i see.

1/ Turrets and the like are the only defence available to players to protect their hard work when they are not online and now you want to take that one tool away without a single reorganisation of the attacking dinos or mechanics. Stegos, armour, targeting, lack of available defence tools are all needing a revamp long before you strip the one tool tribes have to at least slow the invasion of larger tribes. With the share amount of resources and people on 24/7 it is the small to medium tribes that will just be rolled into the ground with nothing to protect them.

2/ Dont you design a game for its players ? While you no doubt need to rejig and balance the system this is just another WC easy fix just like the flyer nerf with zero actual player input and just a totally incorrect approach to fix a problem that did exist but needed more finesse and again community input. You lost a huge player base off officials after the flyer screw up that was needed no doubt but was completely done wrong. Pretty clear the community is speaking again and this time knowing the cluster that is about to happen after the last big "changes" you have made.

3/ Everytime pvp gets unbalanced you take tools away from the players rather than balancing or fixing the items to work as they should, platform mounted turrets, platform mounted plant species, flyer speed etc etc rather than make useful but not overpowered easier to turn off or remove. Reducing turrets to the level set at the moment is effectively removing them as they will be next to useless without the rest of the game balanced around them.

Your facts about all of a sudden overbuilding and massive increases of turrets is complete rubbish, As long as i have been playing ark the bigger the tribe the more turrets there are and every base well built i have been involved in or seen has whole sides and whole towers of turrets that has never changed. Of course as tribes built up more turrets were installed and made more lag but that would have been exactly the same as when the legacy servers were created. The difference is you have cut corners on the amount of servers for players on official launch cutting costs on servers and wouldnt suprise me if you cut corners on quality of hosting as well as the amount, you need to do alot more than just limit turrets to even attempt to balance "lag" which to be honest if thats the sole reason you have decided to do this then is being done for the wrong reasons anyway.

You implement this with no other alterations and kiss your player base and community good bye as alot of players wont put up with you breaking the game they put thousands of hours into on a whim again.

[invincibleqc]

7 minutes ago, HighDBoom said:

@invincibleqc  you probably didnt farm 15.000.000 Metal Ingots and other stuff to understand it... you cant simply just change stuff like this during the active "season".... all the bases are build... to rebuild stuff will take more months and you will be under heavy attacks to. so that not fun at all.

 

I am talking about the current official pvp server. I played 7.000 hours ARK.... i am not just a "casual" who wanna play on unofficial and build greenhouses.

In theory, you can pick-up your turrets and take back the ammo so you are not losing the resources you farmed. True that now 100 turrets might not be enough to defend your current base but... this is EXACTLY what they are asking you in that thread... what balancing would be needed for your base to be protected with a reduced amount of turrets?

[ashy63]

can I ask will it be tribe limited or area ltd?

[Lewiatan]

How on the Earth can servers run with 1 Hz and after band-aid fix 4,5 Hz tick rate to begin with? This is unplayable completely. For example BF3 severs tick rate is 10Hz and that's a game from 2011. To have any fair pvp experience there must be 30 Hz server at minimum. EA learnt about it in hard way during BF4 premiere.  

However, what makes me irritated a lot that everything had to reach this severe situation to get any reaction from WC. This game crossed the line what can be achieved on current hardware long time ago and it blew my mind up,  game was not designed keeping those limitations in mind. 

Also, you cannot fix reduced level protection of bases by increasing turret damage. You have to redesigned a lot of things at once to compensate reduced amount of turret only. DPS of turrets, tamed and wild dinosaurs HP, special damage reductions of trikes, turrtles or stego. This cannot end up like (in)famous Flyer Nerf,  which only scratched the surface of the problem.

This high time to create experimental branch of the game you talked about to test such drastic changes. 

[Jayke]

Reducing turrets if it's proven it increases server performance is something we can accept. What we cannot accept is removing our ability to protect our base. 

A stego can tank up to 40 turrets. So you are reducing requirements to raid a base drasticually, you don't need more then 3 stego's to clear a base 37 foundations big.

Also bear in mind that Alpha Trabes have farmed for 1000's or hours with a large group of tribemembers to have those turrets and the millions of bullets that go in them. 

You designed the game, we just play it and now our work gets thrown away because your servers cannot handle the popularity of your own product.

Please change your payment plan to a monthly subscriber cost in stead of a 1 time payment. If you continue to base your business on initial purchase, you will indefinetly be developping new content (DLC) to get new money in. If you can count on a steady monthly income you can stop focussing on new content and improve your base game mechanics. You will have the money to get better perfroming servers that can handle 100.000 turrets. You could focus on implementing changes your community has been crying for in stead of yet another dino.

 

[GmOcean]

It says only 100 function in a given area at a time. So what if i have 200 turrets in that area. And the 100 functioning ones are drained of bullets, will my second set of 100 turn on to compensate?

Will we be able to actually "see" the limiting area? How is the area determined? Is it a set area like structure limit, or is it based off of the first turret placed down? These are all questions that need to be answered.

Additionally, with this "nerf", and the ability to see how many turrets are in range, you NEED to let us see a faint 'colored' box surrounding the affected area. Just make it a toggle-able feature like turning on or off HUD display in game. 

[DrunkMunki]

For all you complaining about the millions of turrets on your base, the limit is USEFUL... and the turrets are a response to a limitation with the game.

i have run 10+ servers over the years, and the popularity of bases covered in walls and walls of turrets are cancer to servers but it has become a necessity.

@TheRightHand you guys/gals also need to think outside the box; reducing turrets is a good start but you need to implement additional defence systems, which can be used in combinations.

e.g landmines, biological warfare (virus spreads killing attacking dinos, or spreads to the attachers base after returning ... getting players sick), gravitational defences, e.g a blob gun shoots a bubble encasing dinos for a period of time, allowing them to be killed....

Tar pits ... traps .... items players can place around that can be hidden to non tribe members ....

 

 

[l4m3r]

Solution for make Autoturrets working correct so that they not useless.

 

Make Ammo who pircer Armor for Autoturrets

Make Autorocketlauncher what can destory Structuturs.

Make the Targetsystem of Turrets faster so that you cant outrun them with Dinos/Players.

Remove the Griffin from Game its far OP in all if it belongs to PVP. (OR Give him 1/4 HP und 1/2 Stam and Reduce basespeed by 50% )

Maybe make some Flamethrower or soming so that you can defend Entraces.

Lower the Hp of all Dinos by half HP make Amor max 50% dmg reduction.

Make Traps not expolde by Allies.

 

[lashton]

needed to be done, just will need to be smarter for a base build lol RIP aplha good way to clean servers also WC, allow small players to play while the alpha get screwed finally!

[Zederia]

4 minutes ago, lashton said:

needed to be done, just will need to be smarter for a base build lol RIP aplha good way to clean servers also WC, allow small players to play while the alpha get screwed finally!

small players will STILL get screwed

[Zatutic]

ok so other then some somewhat extreme cases generally the density counts i see around are 800-1200.. If you want to target a drop to 100 you're gonna have to increase the effectiveness of these 100 to about the current level of 1000. effectiveness in this case is the dps applied on any given target.

make a second type of turret. 10x hp 10x dmg 10x cost. while yer at it, add a bp that can convert 10 normal turrets into this upgraded one so people have an upgrade path. obviously you'd make a second type of ammo for said turret, again 10x what normal adv bullets are.

people will still have to juggle a little to ensure los is covered but you get the reduction you want, and we don't have to deal with the risk of ya'll trying to re-balance literally everything else in the game.

super dense turrets are required due to the hilarity of how powerful soaker dinos are and the dps required to slow them down. but again it's a balance between the two. if you make soakers weaker, then people will raise and bring whatever # of them to compensate. then you have just moved the issue from turrets to too many dinos. ya'll changed turtles, did the players only thing on turrets and then for some reason, made stegos the way they are..

sure some of the ss's kicking around with 2500 turrets in range will get a kick in the teeth (and ya need to keep in mind that those 2500 are unlikely to be able to shoot at the same single point.) but for the most part this would be workable with most bases without massive overhauls in structure layouts. and significant changes in armor, dinos saddles, dino hp, player speed, the list goes on.

[Zederia]

@TheRightHand How about some feedback on individual ideas? It certainly feels more like you're just ignoring everyone

[Froggahzz]

3 minutes ago, Zatutic said:

ok so other then some somewhat extreme cases generally the density counts i see around are 800-1200.. If you want to target a drop to 100 you're gonna have to increase the effectiveness of these 100 to about the current level of 1000. effectiveness in this case is the dps applied on any given target.

make a second type of turret. 10x hp 10x dmg 10x cost. while yer at it, add a bp that can convert 10 normal turrets into this upgraded one so people have an upgrade path. obviously you'd make a second type of ammo for said turret, again 10x what normal adv bullets are.

people will still have to juggle a little to ensure los is covered but you get the reduction you want, and we don't have to deal with the risk of ya'll trying to re-balance literally everything else in the game.

super dense turrets are required due to the hilarity of how powerful soaker dinos are and the dps required to slow them down. but again it's a balance between the two. if you make soakers weaker, then people will raise and bring whatever # of them to compensate. then you have just moved the issue from turrets to too many dinos. ya'll changed turtles, did the players only thing on turrets and then for some reason, made stegos the way they are..

sure some of the ss's kicking around with 2500 turrets in range will get a kick in the teeth (and ya need to keep in mind that those 2500 are unlikely to be able to shoot at the same single point.) but for the most part this would be workable with most bases without massive overhauls in structure layouts. and significant changes in armor, dinos saddles, dino hp, player speed, the list goes on.

Best suggestion so far.

[Meshi]

1 hour ago, Goaty said:

I don't really know what your trying to say here.

But I'm still against this turret change, 100 turrets isnt enough to defend a base, 1 stego and bam your base will be gone lol.

 

58 minutes ago, invincibleqc said:

In theory, you can pick-up your turrets and take back the ammo so you are not losing the resources you farmed. True that now 100 turrets might not be enough to defend your current base but... this is EXACTLY what they are asking you in that thread... what balancing would be needed for your base to be protected with a reduced amount of turrets?

 

47 minutes ago, Jayke said:

Reducing turrets if it's proven it increases server performance is something we can accept. What we cannot accept is removing our ability to protect our base. 

A stego can tank up to 40 turrets. So you are reducing requirements to raid a base drasticually, you don't need more then 3 stego's to clear a base 37 foundations big.

Also bear in mind that Alpha Trabes have farmed for 1000's or hours with a large group of tribemembers to have those turrets and the millions of bullets that go in them. 

You designed the game, we just play it and now our work gets thrown away because your servers cannot handle the popularity of your own product.

Please change your payment plan to a monthly subscriber cost in stead of a 1 time payment. If you continue to base your business on initial purchase, you will indefinetly be developping new content (DLC) to get new money in. If you can count on a steady monthly income you can stop focussing on new content and improve your base game mechanics. You will have the money to get better perfroming servers that can handle 100.000 turrets. You could focus on implementing changes your community has been crying for in stead of yet another dino.

 

So what all you say and constantly repeating is that stegos (or soakers) are problem with new turret change. Because they are soaking bullets. So what if stego plates will not act as invisible wall and hole in between plates will be penetrable. What if turents will be piercing armor? What if we will have reasonable land mine species Y who will not die after few hours and will be able to dismount player? Lets think outside the box what we can do to mitigate stegos issue instead whining about turrets.

[ta66744]

3 hours ago, waterKeeper said:

If anything, buff the turrets way more than u think, and scale them back afterwards if its too op. Don't let everybody's stuff get lost just for haphazard testing purposes. You can always change turret damage later but you can't replace any fallen bases.

They can replace the fallen base but they won't ?

[Krysa]

15 minutes ago, Zatutic said:

ok so other then some somewhat extreme cases generally the density counts i see around are 800-1200.. If you want to target a drop to 100 you're gonna have to increase the effectiveness of these 100 to about the current level of 1000. effectiveness in this case is the dps applied on any given target.

make a second type of turret. 10x hp 10x dmg 10x cost. while yer at it, add a bp that can convert 10 normal turrets into this upgraded one so people have an upgrade path. obviously you'd make a second type of ammo for said turret, again 10x what normal adv bullets are.

people will still have to juggle a little to ensure los is covered but you get the reduction you want, and we don't have to deal with the risk of ya'll trying to re-balance literally everything else in the game.

super dense turrets are required due to the hilarity of how powerful soaker dinos are and the dps required to slow them down. but again it's a balance between the two. if you make soakers weaker, then people will raise and bring whatever # of them to compensate. then you have just moved the issue from turrets to too many dinos. ya'll changed turtles, did the players only thing on turrets and then for some reason, made stegos the way they are..

sure some of the ss's kicking around with 2500 turrets in range will get a kick in the teeth (and ya need to keep in mind that those 2500 are unlikely to be able to shoot at the same single point.) but for the most part this would be workable with most bases without massive overhauls in structure layouts. and significant changes in armor, dinos saddles, dino hp, player speed, the list goes on.

+++

[Josker]

pls dont let Turrets and Plants count the Same way

thats not good in m opinon, pls set the Turret place thing up to 200 and make them seperate from the plants