Turret Changes: A Technical Talk about why.

[zipain]

2 hours ago, ciabattaroll said:

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.

But the stuff you quoted from him, tells us nothing, other than they dont know how to make it better... There's no technical stuff in that post other than the engine runs 2 cores.

 

Just like the island server(was the same server switching between island and rag) as I said, were talking walls that are so stuffed with turrets that you can hardly see the wall. and this was 70players that played on the server, not just raiding, 70 players every evening on 1 map building and farming. Official have some nice and big bases, I play in a mega tribe and I have yet to see a rag to come anywhere near the rag from my unofficial days... Maybe these servers is not as great as they are telling us? Would be nice to ACTUALLY get some technical names on the hardware and not just some random, bob hardware description.

[Thul]

I hope they remove turret from the game.

[Toraxor]

whatever happens if you go through with that people will just build massive perimeters around there bases probably this will have even more impact on the servers

[isu]

I hope that you are also planning to boost TEK turrets, they should be way stronger than normal turrets.

[Heliastein]

5 hours ago, Eli said:

We're working on it.

You got to work on it BEFORE you nerf the actual turrets.
You cant expect us to suddenly replace 5000 turrets the day your crazy patch roll out.
It's half our bases if not all that we have to completely demolish to make them fit the new meta of less turrets more powerful.

+ we need to farm/craft those news turrets. So either release the new turrets asap or postpone this damn nerf until you can give us some time with the new turrets...

[Toni]

On 19.11.2017 at 2:32 PM, Pendrodor said:

THE BRONTO TAIL SWAY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SERVER PERFORMANCE ITS CLIENTSIDE 

Absolutely bs...   have a look at the server fps when you swing it... its going to 2.5 fps....

So yeah..the animation is client side... but anyway its causing server performance issues.

[Olivar]

4 minutes ago, Toni said:

Absolutely bs...   have a look at the server fps when you swing it... its going to 2.5 fps....

So yeah..the animation is client side... but anyway its causing server performance issues.

[invincibleqc]

5 minutes ago, Toni said:

Absolutely bs...   have a look at the server fps when you swing it... its going to 2.5 fps....

So yeah..the animation is client side... but anyway its causing server performance issues.

This is well known that the Bronto is costly. And this is normal because its attack cover a very large area which requires a lot of loops and checkups by the server to know what is getting damaged/harvested. I also remember they reduced its AOE by 30% I believe it was in order to gain performance but there is a limit to what they can do to optimize it. I also remember that they improved the way it was screen-freezing you when you were harvesting a lot of bushes in a dense area. But let me ask you a question, would you prefer the bronto to only harvest the first bush it matches even if the animation is swiping the entire area? Much like the anky that only harvest the first node even if its tail is colliding more? I don't think so. But anyways, like mentioned in other posts, we all know that there is others aspect of the game that needs to be optimized/improved and this is no secret for anyone. But the current one being dealt with are the turrets. The data proves they are very expensive and limiting them will result in 50-300% performance gains which cannot be neglected.

[Toni]

@TheRightHand

I recommend you to setup a new server and then do 2 tests.

Test 1:

- Spawn 5000 dinos and tame them --> Have a look at the servers fps

----> Will affect the servers performance heavily

Test 2:

- Spawn 1000s of turrets --> Have a look at the servers fps

----> Will affect the servers performance not so much

 

This test will show you that 80% of the performance is used for the calculation of the tamed dinos.

 

Solution:

---> Tribe can  have 500 tamed dinos. 100 of them "activated" (simulated)   400 of them set to "disable" (behavior like a structure // no calculations serverside at all).

 

Why does this solve your performance problems? Because tamed dinos are eating the most of the servers performance.

If you have an "Active NPC count" of 5000 now (Which generates performanceproblems on ALL servers out there, including your ones), then this "Active NPC count" will go down to 1000 when you implement my solution.

Active NPC count of 1000 + 70 players = Server fps of 20 - 30 ! ! !   Not server fps 4-5 like your actually wanna reach.

 

I'm hosting ARK since day 1 of the alpha and im absolutely sure about it ! !

 

An additional main problem of ARK dedicated servers:

1 player with a low ping (or other network problems) can completely bring an ARK server to lagg as hell (We have 1 player on our server which when he joins is throwing the servers ping to 255 and the fps to 4 -5.  

I'm running ?bRawSockets (UDP)...which is exactly designed to not have such problems.

Solution for this -->  New Server Setting ->  MaxClientLatency=100ms

[Toni]

4 hours 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....

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...

Exactly what im saying in my post on page 9....  the performance problems isn't caused by the turrets.

Profile it again... setup new servers....  add 1000s of tamed dinos --> see result  / add 1000s of turrets --> see result.

 

You will see that you will get other results than by profiling your officials....

[SatanicPopeye]

On 11/19/2017 at 12:11 AM, ooStuStu said:

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

well i'll be damn 

Incorrect. The lag comes from the gathering and world destruction calculations on the server, not idle animations.

[invincibleqc]

Just now, Toni said:

Exactly what im saying in my post on page 9....  the performance problems isn't caused by the turrets.

Profile it again... setup new servers....  add 1000s of tamed dinos --> see result  / add 1000s of turrets --> see result.

 

You will see that you will get other results than by profiling your officials....

I'm totally confident that they know what they are doing and that they didn't come to the conclusion turrets were expensive randomly. They are well aware of creatures being also expensive ence why they are limited to 9,500 server wide. Also, since you are hosting ark, like you said, this limitation doesn't applies to you because you can simply disable it on your servers. They profiled that they will gain performance by limiting them on their official servers, which they have all the right to do so just like you have all the right to not on your own cluster.

[Toni]

13 minutes ago, invincibleqc said:

I'm totally confident that they know what they are doing and that they didn't come to the conclusion turrets were expensive randomly. They are well aware of creatures being also expensive ence why they are limited to 9,500 server wide. Also, since you are hosting ark, like you said, this limitation doesn't applies to you because you can simply disable it on your servers. They profiled that they will gain performance by limiting them on their official servers, which they have all the right to do so just like you have all the right to not on your own cluster.

Yeah... but they should search for a solution which solves the performanceproblems (See the real solution on page 9)... which is here clearly not the case with this turret change.

Will you be happy when the ping (caused by server fps) goes from 255 to 200? I don't think so....   and exactly that will happen. It will make the performance a little better...but it won't solve the problems because they are not caused by the turrets mainly.

But you will see on 12/5/2017 ....

 

Each one of us has 100s of dinos... but 80% of them only for breeding purposes. If we would be able to deactivate such dinos (only 100 actives allowed), this would solve ALL the problems.

[ThEpEnGuInOfDoOm]

Personally I believe that you should change turrets to where you can only place one turret on one structure at a time. For instance, lets say you have a hatch frame, which is what is popularly used now in the current meta, you would only be able to place one turrent on that hatch frame.

[CODz]

Whats up with these people its not the turrets its the STONE BEHEMOTH GATES flew west side of the island towards snow and frame rate started to drop thought here comes a big base..... It was a 3x2x1 high stone building!!!! surrounded by 30 flipping gates or maybe they are right and it was the 3000 cloaked turrets he had? Have you tried the same tests with behemoth gates? lag on a 3x2x1 what was the issue if there's no turrets?

[Inigo]

6 hours 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....

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...

I hear this a lot, I got some friends who play unofficial and rave about how amazeballs it is, so I occassionally swing by and mess around and a lot of these servers are packed with insane bases and player counts and I've gotten no lag on private non-nitrado hosted servers. I honestly prefer Official for the massive warfare that goes on, that's the cup of tea I like to drink. But playing on Officials is like drinking a whole bunch of Cancerous Tea, stutters, lags, freezes, constant server crashes. 

You can get on a server that has recently been wiped from a war, no turrets, hardly any tamed dinos, few structures and be the only person on in the early morning, and it still lags and stutters. Honestly ARK needs to shop around and test out some new server providers.

[minuscipher]

So... RIP NoTameNoTek PVP; Plant X is the only thing we have in our limited arsenal for defense, what do we do then? 

[seanos]

What about different types of turrests. Fast weak ones to kill fliers. Medium damage for others. And slow shooting very high damage goid against brontos and rock golems and giggas

[CaptainValkrie]

One to Two turrets per structure. Game devs are saying the spamming of turrets is the issue, we players can easily fit 20+ turrets on a giant metal hatch frame. Or limit the ammount of turrets per structure depending on the structure. The meta will change completely due to having turret towers and a limited amount of turrets on the main base. mega tribes will only be the ones to survive as they can have players on at all time. Attacking a base was already much easier than defending it. 

[CorrEL]

Building a wall consisting of hundreds of turrets might be somewhat effective at dealing with Stegos and soakers, but outside of the grinding this takes no strategy or skill.  I prefer a game that causes me to think and if proposed change will improve server performance then I am on board providing that there exist some additional ways to counter Stegos and soakers to satisfy the masses.  Also to all the people whining and saying that a wall of a thousand turrets is the only way to stop a few stegos; you are wrong.  Instead of raging about everything the developers propose, how about finding ways to counter that already exist? learn how to place your turrets and how line of site works. Placing turrets above the stego rider is an effective counter.  Placing sloping speed bumps in conjunction with terrain to force stego rider into line of site of turrets also helps.  Additionally incorporate the use of of other dinos (especially turret mode dinos) into your defenses to deal with the soakers.  Learn how to use the terrain (cliffs, ridges, etc) to your advantage (to funnel, to conceal, etc) and stop building a giant box out in the open.  So many of you want easy mode on everything and aren't willing to think.   Please quit ruining the game for the rest of us.

I appreciate the explanation by Wild Card as to the reasons for this proposed change; while I would prefer the freedom of being able to place a thousand turrets, I understand that from a server performance or business cost perspective this proposed change makes sense.   Can someone please clarify what a "unit" is?  I have heard 65 foundations and I have heard 35.  Where can an official definition for a "unit" be found?  How exactly will this 100 turret range work?  (i.e. 10k units from last placed 100th turret or 10k units from a group of 100 turrets?)

btw: I am usually opposed to nerfs , as I am generally more in favor of new counters, but the flyer nerf was a great and much needed change to deal with all the easy mode flyer players.  I speak only from a pvp standpoint and so don't realize the impact this may have had on PVE.

Also, please do not nerf griffin. They have a unique purpose and ability right now. Please don't listen to all the people too lazy to find an effective counter. I have found several.  

[wimthetim]

3 hours ago, invincibleqc said:

I'm totally confident that they know what they are doing and that they didn't come to the conclusion turrets were expensive randomly. They are well aware of creatures being also expensive ence why they are limited to 9,500 server wide. Also, since you are hosting ark, like you said, this limitation doesn't applies to you because you can simply disable it on your servers. They profiled that they will gain performance by limiting them on their official servers, which they have all the right to do so just like you have all the right to not on your own cluster.

Just because he's hosting his own server doesn't make his information any less relevant. The devs are way off on this one both in their data and game balance. This change will solve nothing and infuriate most of the PVP player base. I have spent countless hours over months building up defenses as a single player on official. The proposed change is a slap in the face. Can't see my self spending countless more hours trying to redesign my base only to get smashed by a small tribe with some bullet soaking dinos.

And where is the middle of the zone where I can place my hundred turrets? How am i supposed to replace hundreds of plant x when I cant pick them up? 

Mega tribes bases will grow covering a much larger area. Alot More buildings... More area of the map claimed each area with the max number of turrets. Bases will grow to be arguably 10 x the size what they are now. How is this going to improve performance? 

It doesn't make any sense.

Please convince me otherwise

[wimthetim]

On 19/11/2017 at 7:32 AM, Yooper said:

This is Absolutely ridiculous, I agree putting a Limit on Turrets ect will help but not like this.. please Try to play PvP for a while like most of us do you will see why we are saying this won’t work... I’d rather have Low frames than low Defense.. Even than this won’t work, speaking from having. Small experience in a mega Tribe people will just expand Turret coverage so Weakend Tames won’t be able to get to bases, eventually maps will become fully covered by Turret Pill box’s An you will be Kill upon joining a server... I’m trying to say people will treat this range thing the same as Enemy foundations they will expand Turrets so it’s just barely outside this 10k range. 

 

Solution- Get rid of Dino Tail Swing. Reduce Environmental Graphics ect such as This Aid Rain that you cant see through. 

But doing this Turret thing for certain ranges especially at 100 counting Plant X also is going to Kill your game An put a even worse name on yoir company.. You really can’t expect people to be cool using 20 places x An 80 Turrets ect. I for one will tell you this Mega Tribes that are already untouchable An have Members on like 24/7 will be least effected, the maps they base on will be covered in Turrets On damn near every spawn. Thanks for reading this.. Find a better way to go about doing this.. make the Turret count more than 100 or individually count Turrets an Plant X, something. Thanks for reading.  

This makes sense. 100 is insanely low. I'm a tribe of one and play casual in my spare time. My turret count is about 300. I repeat a tribe of 1!

You could potentially be attacked by a tribe of 20 players with tames. It really wouldn't matter how buffed the turrets are 100 is not going to cut it.

[invincibleqc]

3 hours ago, Toni said:

(See the real solution on page 9)...

Where? I didn't see it, I must be blind. In all seriousness, you clearly missed the point. TheRightHand already confirmed that idled creatures only tick once every 4 seconds or so; they are NOT expensive unless you take 1k on follow, it should be fine. He also said that only the turrets, are taking twice the amount of resources everything else is taking on a caped server; which includes the dinos.

15 minutes ago, wimthetim said:

Just because he's hosting his own server doesn't make his information any less relevant. The devs are way off on this one both in their data and game balance.

It does, because he missed everything else that was discussed prior and didn't take into consideration the provided data.

 

16 minutes ago, wimthetim said:

This change will solve nothing

Seems like you missed some data too; they said servers will run between 50% and 300% smoother once the turrets limitation goes live. And in case you missed that too; they are working on implementing stronger turrets to compensate the DPS lost with the limitation:

 

2 minutes ago, wimthetim said:

This makes sense. 100 is insanely low. I'm a tribe of one and play casual in my spare time. My turret count is about 300. I repeat a tribe of 1!

With 100 of the new turrets linked above, you will have equivalent of 4-500 regular turrets ^.

[wimthetim]

16 minutes ago, invincibleqc said:

Where? I didn't see it, I must be blind. In all seriousness, you clearly missed the point. TheRightHand already confirmed that idled creatures only tick once every 4 seconds or so; they are NOT expensive unless you take 1k on follow, it should be fine. He also said that only the turrets, are taking twice the amount of resources everything else is taking on a caped server; which includes the dinos.

It does, because he missed everything else that was discussed prior and didn't take into consideration the provided data.

 

Seems like you missed some data too; they said servers will run between 50% and 300% smoother once the turrets limitation goes live. And in case you missed that too; they are working on implementing stronger turrets to compensate the DPS lost with the limitation:

 

With 100 of the new turrets linked above, you will have equivalent of 4-500 regular turrets ^.

So everything I have worked on creating over the last few months is worthless and I need to grind even harder for many more weeks just to hope I don't get wiped. How is that fair to the player base? This is a full release game and such changes should not be a thing. They may as well do a full wipe given the nature of this change. I won't be grinding it all out again as how do I know they won't pull another massive change that renders all additional grind once again worthless?

It's like designing a game where your save may be deleted at will. You should not sell an unfinished product at full price.

They had the alpha excuse previously but players will not be buying that no more

 

[Olivar]

4 minutes ago, wimthetim said:

So everything I have worked on creating over the last few months is worthless and I need to grind even harder for many more weeks just to hope I don't get wiped. How is that fair to the player base? This is a full release game and such changes should not be a thing. They may as well do a full wipe given the nature of this change. I won't be grinding it all out again as how do I know they won't pull another massive change that renders all additional grind once again worthless?

nah, toss the excess turrets in the grinder and use their materials to craft the new beefier ones.