Turret Changes: A Technical Talk about why.

[Inigo]

All the good arguments against it have been said on these forums and Reddit already. Can only wait and see the catastrophe play out.

[Mifivestone]

47 minutes ago, Fern said:

by going low with your first iteration of the problem, you are cursing many tribes to be wiped on the 5th. there will be destruction the likes of which ark has not seen in a long time.

 

 

Yep give it one week with this roll out and there wont be a single small to medium tribe left, megas wont instantly hit other megas they will steamroll every other med tribe for resources, and no surprise there wont be a single thing to stop them as the only tool had has been made useless,  balance is held currently through a fear or weighing of loss, how much will it cost gear/animal/resources/ time wise to raid a base currently turrets create a high barrier of loss to keep people out. No turrets, no loss, easy raids and welcome to rust.... Arks difference to rust is its time/base and animal investment and that needs protecting. take that away and theres no reason to play the game anymore

 

[Varanus8]

Here's my two cents on this topic. I play on an Xbox ragnarok server with an alpha alliance of about 4 large tribes some of which are members of much larger cross server tribes and some have multiple bases. Judging by imprint timers we lose about a fifth of our time at peak times  due to server lag and the disconnect issue is horrendous, this is not something that the devs can just ignore. 

The importance of turrets in the game is mostly to protect your base while offline but no matter how many you have they will never stop a prepared raid attempt (which is almost every raid attempt, nobody is dumb enough to attack unprepared) only defenders can stop a raid. But turrets still protect your base by doing two things 1. They buy you time to organize a defence especially if the raid starts while the defending tribe is offline. 2. They act as a deterrence stopping a raid from happening in the first place. So limiting turrets will do two things make tribes more vulnerable to offline raids and promote more raids happen as smaller tribes may be able to defeat larger tribes particularly if the larger tribe is not online to defend, large tribes will still be at the advantage while online because they usually have more members and better tames/gear.

There is a positive in limiting turrets to such an extent, now the base will be less of a variable in pvp potentially creating a more direct player vs player fight and the base advantage will be given to those who can excellently stratagize there defences rather than those who have the hours or members to mindlessly craft hundreds of them. This will probably be one of the only things in ark where skill beats time grinding. The turret cap will also stimulate more pvp, my base is scary enough that not one tribe has attempted to raid it so far which is something I look forward to as long as I don't get offlined, after all I chose to play pvp for a reason. 

This update I think will actually benefit the game in more ways than server performance as long as the issue of offline raiding is solved, ORP is still to exploitable in its current form I'd like to see an improved version of it along side the turret cap.

[invincibleqc]

https://twitter.com/arkjeremy/status/932447143859838976

 

[ducttapefixeseverything]

1 hour ago, invincibleqc said:

https://twitter.com/arkjeremy/status/932447143859838976

1 hour ago, invincibleqc said:

https://twitter.com/arkjeremy/status/932447143859838976

 

How about you do the smart thing and make it not Tek?

Otherwise, your feeble effort means nothing.

[Dama]

From what I read in the OP the problem is tribes bases with 10.000 if not more turrets. I'm okay with a limit but it shouldn't be as low as 100, I believe 700-1000 (anything higher than 100 is better) would be reasonable and would still increase server performance. 

With a higher limit like that you can still defend a large base properly. I think increasing the limit and adding those "Heavy Turrets" will improve the performance and people won't be as unhappy.

hint: make the heavy turrets a slight bit better cost/performance wise than the regular turrets, this way people are encouraged to use a few heavy turrets rather than spamming regular ones. Also make them unable to shoot rockets or players so regular turrets dont become useless.

 

 

[Daedros]

It's mostly a problem on Ragnarok, probably due to the Pearl Cave in Viking Bay providing massive amounts of easy Silica Pearls for mass manufacturing Electronics for Turrets.

23 hours ago, ooStuStu said:

So then everyone saying bronto tail swing causes server lag is a LIE!

well i'll be damn 

LMFAO. No, that's not a lie. Whenever i take my bred Bronto out to gather mass Berries, my tribemates immediately notice it, even if they're across the entire map. Every swing of the tail, and they start rubber banding and lagging, and the longer i do it, the worse it gets. Never fails. I seriously have to give them all a 3-5 minute shout-out warning before-hand just so they can get somewhere safe and hunker down throughout the lag storm.

[ooStuStu]

4 minutes ago, Daedros said:

It's mostly a problem on Ragnarok, probably due to the Pearl Cave in Viking Bay providing massive amounts of easy Silica Pearls for mass manufacturing Electronics for Turrets.

LMFAO. No, that's not a lie. Whenever i take my bred Bronto out to gather mass Berries, my tribemates immediately notice it, even if they're across the entire map. Every swing of the tail, and they start rubber banding and lagging. Never fails. I seriously have to give them all a 3-5 minute shout-out warning before-hand just so they can get somewhere safe and hunker down throughout the lag storm.

if you look a little further they answered that "swipes" do effect but i meant to say "sway" which does not ...

[Daedros]

6 minutes ago, ooStuStu said:

if you look a little further they answered that "swipes" do effect but i meant to say "sway" which does not ...

Lol, yeah. I got to the end of the first page and read the "So then everyone saying bronto tail swing causes server lag is a LIE!" and about spit water all over my monitor. Seriously though, every time i take my Bronto out i have to give a server wide warning. It's hilariously ridiculous. I might as well have to play this every time the Bronto is out.

 

[Knight0w1]

It is an interesting thing, watching these threads. The common response to anyone that talks about unfairness in game balance as it stands is generally treated to a fusillade of comments admonishing their whiny attitudes. "Go play PVE, if you can't handle it.", "Stop playing.", etc., etc. But when something happens that reduces the mighty few... My how the anger rumbles like a thunderstorm with threats of quitting, getting refunds, and prophecies of doom. Time after time, threads show up demanding fixes, but it seems the fixes have to occur without taking away something from the righteous fury of the players. And yet, it seems to me, that the problems that so often clutter up the forum is based not on the game, but other's abuse and exploitation of the game itself. The problem was not the turrets, as such, but the abuse of the turrets by human nature. Greed, power, paranoia, whatever motivates someone to feel the need to put turret after turret after turret up in order to stop someone else from abusing the game mechanics to get past turret after turret after turret is the motivation.  The fact will always be the people playing the game will inevitably consign themselves as the source of the problems of the game. No matter the code updates, fps fixes, no matter the upgrades in servers, the trolls, griefers, mega tribers, and alpha raiders, will always look past the game to the exploits that fuel them.

[Lurtz]

On 11/19/2017 at 2:24 AM, SmokuBroku said:

* make auto turrets have an upgrade feature that costs equal to another turret or more and doubles the damage so you have the same DPS output without the increase in turret calculations

I like the idea of "upgrading" or improving materials. I think you might want to look at this. As you can also use it towards maybe structures in general. If a tribe can have a "fully reinforced metal wall" which is 5x stronger than a normal wall. It might make the difference in reducing the number of turrets needed to defend such a base. You could also, perhaps. Make it so that players who level up the crafting speed skill, actually make more refined turrets in the fabricator (no blueprint) or if there WERE blueprints for higher quality turrets. (I.E use your existing method of apprentice, ramshackle, journeyman etc that you utilize for saddles and weapons and apply it to structures. Ramshackle metal walls, for example or ascendant turret BP) 

[Lurtz]

2 hours ago, Dama said:

From what I read in the OP the problem is tribes bases with 10.000 if not more turrets. I'm okay with a limit but it shouldn't be as low as 100, I believe 700-1000 (anything higher than 100 is better) would be reasonable and would still increase server performance. 

With a higher limit like that you can still defend a large base properly. I think increasing the limit and adding those "Heavy Turrets" will improve the performance and people won't be as unhappy.

hint: make the heavy turrets a slight bit better cost/performance wise than the regular turrets, this way people are encouraged to use a few heavy turrets rather than spamming regular ones. Also make them unable to shoot rockets or players so regular turrets dont become useless.

 

 

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with your tribe needing 600 turrets. They should be placed strategically and not be the end all be all spam about placemat they currently are. 

however, having heavy turrets or indeed just better turrets I think would be a good idea. 

[Lurtz]

It would be kind of neat if you were able to specialize particular turrets. Maybe by crafting different module pieces for them. They could do extra damage to fliers or heavily pelted animals (soakers) Maybe a critical hit chance and slightly longer range but slower firing rate or SHOTGUN TURRETS.  

[Pendrodor]

they could add different ammo types (explosive bullet,poison bullet,armor piercing)

[Crows]

23 hours ago, s3aHaWKS said:

But we are fine with 2.5fps like nobody cares

What the hell are you going on about? I care. The lag is pissing me off every single damn day, never mind this BS about "Oh we don't care, we love lag, pls pls" 

[Crows]

While I agree with the turret nerfs, there needs to be some serious work to how bases are defended in the first place. We need so many turrets because of how easy it is to raid a base...

Stegos, Brontos, etc. They are all too powerful, and bullets tickle them. 

Decrease turret size to 100, sure, but introduce new, powerful structures to help defend bases. PLEASE NOT TEK!

[Eli]

6 minutes ago, Crows said:

While I agree with the turret nerfs, there needs to be some serious work to how bases are defended in the first place. We need so many turrets because of how easy it is to raid a base...

Stegos, Brontos, etc. They are all too powerful, and bullets tickle them. 

Decrease turret size to 100, sure, but introduce new, powerful structures to help defend bases. PLEASE NOT TEK!

We're working on it.

[Daedros]

On 11/19/2017 at 1:18 AM, Jamage007 said:

will be telling my mates who are waiting for the windows 10 version

Windows 10 version? Lol, i've been playing it on Windows 10 this whole time, works just fine.

 

Introduce a new "Heavy Autoturret" that has higher Health. Then introduce several new rounds for it.

1. Armor Piercing Rounds. Let them have a slightly lower base damage than regular rounds, but be capable of piercing Armor, and thus having much higher damage against heavily armored targets (piercing both Saddle Armor as well as innate damage reductions such as Turtle Shell, Stego Plate, Trike Face, etc). Requires more Metal Ingots to make.

2. Explosive Rounds. These rounds have a small AoE effect, and can therefore shoot riders off of the back of even a Stego. They can also target and damage enemy structures (destroying metal boxes on the back of a Bronto/Paracer Platform Saddle that's protecting the rider, no more C4ing walls while inside the box for you). Requires more Gunpowder to make.

3. Cryogenic Rounds. These rounds deal very little damage, but have a medium sized AoE effect that will apply a slow to anyone hit by them. Even the speediest players slow to a crawl if hit by the AoE splash of these. Requires Absorbent Substrate to make.

4. Incendiary Rounds. Because why the hell not? Requires Sulfur to make.

Also, make most of these rounds work in the Minigun Turret, then add another new round just for it (or maybe for the Cannon), a Shockwave/Pulse Round. Creates an explosion in mid air that knocks flyers out of flight for 3 seconds if they're within the radius, which includes biological flyers (Pteranodons, Quetzals, Griffins, Wyverns, etc), Gliders (from Aberration), and Tek Jetpacks.

Edit: I see you're introducing an "Advanced Auto Turret"...

[zipain]

I think it's funny everyone talking about what turrets should be now, since devs don't understand the reason behind the turrets. In short, devs, you build many turrets to out DPS cake healing and to do quick and massive damage to push attackers back, not to make it take longer to drain.

 

Anyways to the topic, I'm more interested in what's gonna happen when this change actually don't do anything. Just like Dino cap didn't do anything, platform cap didn't do anything. Now turrets gets gutted and all here know it won't do anything. What's next? Remove Dino's cause they cause server load?

None of this will work, either some day this game is dumped down so hard that a mobile can run it, but a base can only be 1 Dino and 2x2x2 size. Or you guys actually go straight to the source of the problem, show people you care, and upgrade those damn servers hardware, run less boxes per server and get some ddos protection that actually works! (On a side note, punish the fkin aimbotters)

Untill that last part happens, your game just gonna get worse and worse. The game is already a no life game, with these turret changes, having anything dangerous to protect your base while you are offline, is gonna be zero. The only life that will matter will be the mega tribe life, that have people on 24/7.

[TranqRex]

41 minutes ago, Daedros said:

Windows 10 version? Lol, i've been playing it on Windows 10 this whole time, works just fine.

He means the Play Anywhere version due in December with Aberration that you get if you've already purchase the Xbox game. Not that the Steam version runs on Windows 10

[ciabattaroll]

4 minutes ago, zipain said:

I think it's funny everyone talking about what turrets should be now, since devs don't understand the reason behind the turrets. In short, devs, you build many turrets to out DPS cake healing and to do quick and massive damage to push attackers back, not to make it take longer to drain.

 

Anyways to the topic, I'm more interested in what's gonna happen when this change actually don't do anything. Just like Dino cap didn't do anything, platform cap didn't do anything. Now turrets gets gutted and all here know it won't do anything. What's next? Remove Dino's cause they cause server load?

None of this will work, either some day this game is dumped down so hard that a mobile can run it, but a base can only be 1 Dino and 2x2x2 size. Or you guys actually go straight to the source of the problem, show people you care, and upgrade those damn servers hardware, run less boxes per server and get some ddos protection that actually works! (On a side note, punish the fkin aimbotters)

Untill that last part happens, your game just gonna get worse and worse. The game is already a no life game, with these turret changes, having anything dangerous to protect your base while you are offline, is gonna be zero. The only life that will matter will be the mega tribe life, that have people on 24/7.

If you take the time to read this, you'd know that wildcard already uses some pretty serious machines, as well as a little bit of insight on how the servers operate.

[WittyTanks]

I don't think it's entirely down to turrets at all. We build the same big ass bases on Rag as we do on the Centre. I still think Ragnarok is too big and too vast for a console to handle.

I'm not saying Turrets don't cause lag, but it's not just them and i think the 100 turret cap is a bit too low.

[zipain]

24 minutes ago, ciabattaroll said:

If you take the time to read this, you'd know that wildcard already uses some pretty serious machines, as well as a little bit of insight on how the servers operate.

What I see is some incredible spare info and very short description, of nothing. 8core, 16threads, 64gb is the highest detail that post shows. But actually nice you brought this up. How are we supposed to understand this topic, when we on unofficial rag servers, have some absolutely insane bases with insane turret amounts, glass metal and everything and every base is build almost in eyes reach, 70players at peak and NO LAG AT ALL. Im confused how they can do it, if wildcard servers are this amazing....

Heres a picture of my ice cave on a unofficial server, it was the base with the least amount of turrets. there were 6, YES 6! other bases on this server that was absolutely massive, it was x10 so turrets were in the 5k plus per base. Some bases was so packed in turrets that they litterly made up for the wall. And despite the insane bases and constantly high population, this server had... no lag...

[ciabattaroll]

4 minutes ago, zipain said:

What I see is some incredible spare info and very short description, of nothing. 8core, 16threads, 64gb is the highest detail that post shows. But actually nice you brought this up. How are we supposed to understand this topic, when we on unofficial rag servers, have some absolutely insane bases with insane turret amounts, glass metal and everything and every base is build almost in eyes reach, 70players at peak and NO LAG AT ALL. Im confused how they can do it, if wildcard servers are this amazing....

It very much also says " The ARK Server also only uses 2 threads on the CPU. This is because the version of Unreal that we built the game on did not support multi-threading/paralellization. We have integrated Paralellized animation, and networking, so our networking overhead and cost of animation work are done on a 2nd thread. We're doing more work to try and thread more elements of the server, but it is incredibly complex and difficult work to do. Running 3 instances per server only takes up 6 cores at most. Having less instances per box would have no impact on the performance of each individual server."

As for how you have "no lag at all" that would very much have to rely on what your definition of "insane turret amounts, glass metal and everything and every base" is, because the image in the original post lists the names of the servers with the biggest performance issues, leaving it free for you to visit to see how bad things are for them.

[Crows]

2 hours ago, Eli said:

We're working on it.

Oh thank you!