Turret Changes: A Technical Talk about why.

[wimthetim]

At 20% the resources that's a laugh! Plus I don't even have a grinder all I have done since the server started is grind to a defensible base and tame a select few dinos.

I'm sure many players who have followed a similar path with feel equally cheated.

[Inigo]

4 hours 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.

4 hours ago, Olivar said:

I believe he is referring to the gathering from the swinging, it's a method that has been used to crash servers before. While the rendering of the tailswing itself is clientside  and causes no server lag etc.  A single bronto in a densely packed area with  material that can be harvest, can cause the server to stutter from a single tail swipe due to having to calculate melee damage, and % of each berry gathered in relation. If multiple brontos are deploy in this manner simultaneously  it can crash a server.

Attackers have also successfully used this method to create server lag so suicide bombers could get inside a turret perimeter without being shot. Its a thing.

[Eli]

6 minutes ago, Inigo said:

I believe he is referring to the gathering from the swinging, it's a method that has been used to crash servers before. While the rendering of the tailswing itself is clientside  and causes no server lag etc.  A single bronto in a densely packed area with  material that can be harvest, can cause the server to stutter from a single tail swipe due to having to calculate melee damage, and % of each berry gathered in relation. If multiple brontos are deploy in this manner simultaneously  it can crash a server.

Attackers have also successfully used this method to create server lag so suicide bombers could get inside a turret perimeter without being shot. Its a thing.

You guys may be confusing the passive dino tail sway idle animation with active harvesting attack animations, as from the very start of this thread people have been saying to "get rid" of it. And the former is the one that's been said as having no real effect to server performance. Removing the bronto's attack animation would not yield any result if the radius of what it can harvest remains unchanged.

[Inigo]

2 minutes ago, Eli said:

You guys may be confusing the passive dino tail sway idle animation with active harvesting attack animations, as from the very start of this thread people have been saying to "get rid" of it. And the former is the one that's been said as having no real effect to server performance. Removing the bronto's attack animation would not yield any result if the radius of what it can harvest remains unchanged.

You are correct, the terms people using are getting mixed up. The passive tail-swing from just watching them sway back and forth is what Jat was referring to as being client side and causing no server lag. A lot of that was misinterpretted with the actual lag causing tail-swing that gathers.

[LouSpowells]

Solution:

Step One: Set a hard turret cap preventing tribes from placing more than XX turrets.
Step Two: Increase metal and tek structure health
Step Three: Get hell from the group of players who always have a conniption fit over anything that has or or hasn't changed

A lot of people are saying Wildcard should communicate with the playerbase more. At this point I have to disagree. Wildcard should do what needs to be done to fix these framerate issues and NOT listen to the borderline psychotic chunk of the community who lash out irrationally over game performance, only to then lash out irrationally over the mere mention of the solution to poor game performance. 

[powerstuck]

And, December 10th, players and devs all together figure turrets were not the reason for huge lag spikes. 

[ThreeLoadsKenyon]

I'm really glad this discussion of turret changes has come up. I was just thinking about this the other day. The grind for good defenses is a fun drive, but I hated the concept that it took crafting and placing so many turrets to feel like you are actually adequately defending your base from anything. It isn't hard to get the materials, but just the constant thought of, "When will it be enough turrets that I can feel safe". It really didn't require strategy, just sheer ungodly numbers. So I think it does make complete sense to create a limit of turrets, maybe not as significant as only 100, but maybe only 100 in a bit of a smaller range. If this helps a lot with frame rate and your performance of servers, I'm all for it and it needs to happen, but I think theres a more creative answer than just smashing that number count down and half heartedly giving the turrets a little damage boost.

I haven't read every single comment/post of everyones suggestions, but one thing that did really stand out to me is multiple kinds of turrets. Perhaps just varying turret strengths, but maybe even different kinds. I saw mention of things like Cannon turrets, maybe different bullet type turrets like a larger gatling gun turret, maybe a sort of long barreled sniper cannon style turret, more powerful per shot but slower. Simply things that might add strategy, more thought and creativity, and more intentional building. You guys are implementing S+ building in to the core game soon right? Maybe turret changes like these could be brought in with that as to allow specific build designs that could cater to lesser turret count. 

One thing that would certainly be helpful would be some extreme notice rather than a rouge update. Maybe almost to the extent that changing the volcano on the island was. It was very loud and known that you were warning players about building in that zone as it was going to change. If we could have notice like that about turret change, we could at least coordinate to pick up a large amount of turrets we might have placed and store them as to not lose what we spent time crafting.

Overall the above comments are right. If it includes Plant X count, that makes a royal blow to our average defenses, as most people easily have a basic few hundred Plant X consuming their entire turret count, and makes us totally vulnerable to being VERY easily walked right through within the first few days of changes (assuming that they will just disappear to adjust to a new limit). Maybe we could have more traps, mines, slowing devices/bombs that function somewhat like the Plant X does. Consider that having good defense on ark is one of the biggest assets to the core game as players want that sense of security that they don't have to worry 24/7. So I think you would be doing yourself a huge favor to create a vast new array of aggressive defensive options. I think you would find even more players stoked and spending tons of time around their fort and keeping people away.

I honestly hate that the meta is bring in a Stego and soak bullets. It takes the entire potential of Pvp and wraps it in to one silly little agenda.. It would be a blast if things need to be way more thought out than just that, let alone the fact that a dino can just be dropped from extreme heights, not die, and begin soaking bullets. Maybe you can nerf the way the stage functions and create a sort of dino that actually acts in a "supportive" role of providing a shield of sorts in a pvp, attacking sense, but has some sort of weakness that can be exposed. Something that is actually meant for this and not just a "well this dino happens to take reduced damage this way, so throw it at that turret and we win".

I think this turret change can be easily justified with not just a change in strength of turrets, but in varying kinds. Maybe like another person suggested, the ability to even have an upgrade feature that increases its health and range and damage, maybe even makes it look cooler . Just help give us more of a reason for this to be a bit of an easier/fun transition that won't allow average mega tribes to abuse this update for them to take over more land/servers because they will. And then sadly the actual player base will only be troll-ish mega tribes who own entire maps. No one sadly will want to play anymore and you'll find your only solution to be to wipe a server, and then rinse and repeat as they do the same thing over again. 

Thank you for all you are doing to make this game even more awesome. It's easily my favorite and you've done a great job.

[invincibleqc]

1 hour 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?

1 hour ago, wimthetim said:

At 20% the resources that's a laugh! Plus I don't even have a grinder all I have done since the server started is grind to a defensible base and tame a select few dinos.

I'm sure many players who have followed a similar path with feel equally cheated.

Not necessarily, like Olivar suggested, you could always grind them and get back some resources or you could always recycle them into strategically placed turret towers around your base. In addition, TheRightHand mentioned in the other thread that the new turrets will most likely use the same ammo so you won't have to farm for that. Also, I'm not entirely sure how much resources you get from grinding them, but you can always manually "Demolish" and gets back half the initial crafting cost.

1 hour ago, LouSpowells said:

A lot of people are saying Wildcard should communicate with the playerbase more. At this point I have to disagree. Wildcard should do what needs to be done to fix these framerate issues and NOT listen to the borderline psychotic chunk of the community who lash out irrationally over game performance, only to then lash out irrationally over the mere mention of the solution to poor game performance. 

By involving the community, they ensure that they are aware of everything such change implies for the players resulting in a better balancing once pushed. Like they mentioned, they cannot know how thousands of players are playing the game and how this will affects every one of them and want to make sure every points has been taken into consideration.

[LouSpowells]

22 minutes ago, invincibleqc said:

By involving the community, they ensure that they are aware of everything such change implies for the players resulting in a better balancing once pushed. Like they mentioned, they cannot know how thousands of players are playing the game and how this will affects every one of them and want to make sure every points has been taken into consideration.

There's a difference between informing/communicating with the community, and the recent Ark customer definition of "communication." In this case Wildcard has informed the customer base of the problem, communicated potential solutions, and requested customer input. That last part is what makes the angry people angrier. People get it stuck in their head that their solution - if not implemented to exacting specifications - was ignored by Wildcard because Wildcard doesn't care about them.

In this case Wildcard just needs to fix the problem. Inform of the problem, communicate the solution. Skip the input part. Ark's most outspoken critics aren't capable of understanding that "doing exactly what I want them to do" is not the same as "communicating." These folks start believing that "Wildcard never listens to customers" because Wildcard didn't implement what they wanted, and the more times they are told their input matters, the more offended they act when that input isn't used. That is why I say, Wildcard should ask for input on as little as possible, and never in cases where the input involves quality of life improvements or fixes to problems like reducing turrets to MASSIVELY increase game performance.

 

[Teddansen]

I said it in another thread and maybe it's already been implemented but what if you take away the turret animation ... They still do the same thing but just don't move around ,  I know it helps to see which direction they were firing but if it means your system doesn't have to simultaneously move heaps of turrets wouldn't that  cause less stress on the FPS

[Olivar]

6 minutes ago, LouSpowells said:

There's a difference between informing/communicating with the community, and the recent Ark customer definition of "communication." In this case Wildcard has informed the customer base of the problem, communicated potential solutions, and requested customer input. That last part is what makes the angry people angrier. People get it stuck in their head that their solution - if not implemented to exacting specifications - was ignored by Wildcard because Wildcard doesn't care about them.

In this case Wildcard just needs to fix the problem. Inform of the problem, communicate the solution. Skip the input part. Ark's most outspoken critics aren't capable of understanding that "doing exactly what I want them to do" is not the same as "communicating." These folks start believing that "Wildcard never listens to customers" because Wildcard didn't implement what they wanted, and the more times they are told their input matters, the more offended they act when that input isn't used.

Devs are listening.
Just not to everyone

[Ranger1]

1 minute ago, Teddansen said:

I said it in another thread and maybe it's already been implemented but what if you take away the turret animation ... They still do the same thing but just don't move around ,  I know it helps to see which direction they were firing but if it means your system doesn't have to simultaneously move heaps of turrets wouldn't that  cause less stress on the FPS

I'm reasonably certain those animations are handled client side, so it wouldn't really affect anything if that's the case.  I could be wrong though.

 

[LouSpowells]

1 minute ago, Olivar said:

Devs are listening.
Just not to everyone

Precisely. It's a sad truth that a LOT of people are a tremendous waste of time to listen to...especially when it comes to things they believe they are entitled to.

[VIKAS]

Maybe it's time to add another types of auto-defensive turrets. I mean something that you think a little before going into them.

Regards.

[wimthetim]

1 hour ago, invincibleqc said:

Not necessarily, like Olivar suggested, you could always grind them and get back some resources or you could always recycle them into strategically placed turret towers around your base. In addition, TheRightHand mentioned in the other thread that the new turrets will most likely use the same ammo so you won't have to farm for that. Also, I'm not entirely sure how much resources you get from grinding them, but you can always manually "Demolish" and gets back half the initial crafting cost.

By involving the community, they ensure that they are aware of everything such change implies for the players resulting in a better balancing once pushed. Like they mentioned, they cannot know how thousands of players are playing the game and how this will affects every one of them and want to make sure every points has been taken into consideration.

So how about you log in to my account and spend the next couple weeks grinding, and re building the Turret mess that surrounds my base. All while running the very real risk of being wiped off the map. I've explained why I feel aggrieved by the proposed change and think I have a valid reason to be feeling this way.

Kinda reminds me of the months spent breeding ptera in my pve days before they nerfed them into the ground.

Or how about months of 255 + ping on an official PVE eu ragnarok server. Yes PVE.. No turrets. Yet horrendous performance. Fancy being stuck inside your base because everytime you try to open the door you get teleported back 5-10 seconds.

For the record the performance on the current ragnarok pvp server with all the turrets around my base has been mostly good.

I'm pissed because time and time again I feel like my time...  a precious resource irl... Is being wasted playing this game.

This is my experience playing ark

[Teddansen]

15 minutes ago, Ranger1 said:

I'm reasonably certain those animations are handled client side, so it wouldn't really affect anything if that's the case.  I could be wrong though.

 

Yeah someone else mentioned that in the other thread. I was just thinking that might help as I've noticed plant species x no longer sway like they used to 

[LouSpowells]

27 minutes ago, wimthetim said:

So how about you log in to my account and spend the next couple weeks grinding, and re building the Turret mess that surrounds my base. All while running the very real risk of being wiped off the map. I've explained why I feel aggrieved by the proposed change and think I have a valid reason to be feeling this way.

The fact that you are "feeling this way" (aggrieved) is 100% irrelevant to that fact that the solution to server lag exists and will be implemented. Players have been demanding a solution to the abysmal performance on official servers for a long time now. Not only have Wildcard devs figured out exactly what the issue is, they've found that the issue is eating up twice as many resources as the rest of the game. Whether you like it or not, Wildcard is going to be changing turrets. 

[djpiomax]

I say ONLY DEVS STOP BROKE MORE YOUR GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

NO 100capTURRETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We buy game without LIMITS!!!!!!!!!!!

[wimthetim]

It's not just about server performance though is it?

What about balance and satisfying the player base...  It's not guaranteed that everything they said is correct. Your basing your opinion on everything the devs have stated being acutely accurate. They have got things wrong in the past so I don't hold such blind confidence in there ability to balance the game while delivering acceptable performance.

Either way the change is severe and could be done in a less hack and slash manor. They have shown time and again they don't care about the wills and wishes of the people that play the game

[Ranger1]

42 minutes ago, djpiomax said:

I say ONLY DEVS STOP BROKE MORE YOUR GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

NO 100capTURRETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We buy game without LIMITS!!!!!!!!!!!

No, you didn't. 

Every piece of software you have ever purchased (or ever will) has limits. 

Every game has limits, even the most open ended sandbox style games ever made.

ARK has always had limits wherever they are necessary to make the sandbox be able to function. 

Should this limitation have been in place from the beginning?  In a perfect world sure, but as the saying goes hindsight is 20/20... and the dev team didn't foresee turret use getting this out of control.  Be that as it may be, turrets will need a fairly major rework if the game is to become fully playable for many again.  A rework that will likely include several things (in addition to the turret cap) that are aimed at solving the issue while preserving your defensive capability.

[wimthetim]

3 minutes ago, Ranger1 said:

No, you didn't. 

Every piece of software you have ever purchased (or ever will) has limits. 

Every game has limits, even the most open ended sandbox style games ever made.

ARK has always had limits wherever they are necessary to make the sandbox be able to function. 

Should this limitation have been in place from the beginning?  In a perfect world sure, but as the saying goes hindsight is 20/20... and the dev team didn't foresee turret use getting this out of control.  Be that as it may be, turrets will need a fairly major rework if the game is to become fully playable for many again.  A rework that will likely include several things (in addition to the turret cap) that are aimed at solving the issue while preserving your defensive capability.

Tribes have been spamming turrets since their inclusion in ark. Just check years old base build videos on YouTube. This is nothing new

[Ranger1]

Just now, wimthetim said:

Tribes have been spamming turrets since their inclusion in ark. Just check years old base build videos on YouTube. This is nothing new

I'm well aware of turret use throughout ARKs development (both as captured on YouTube and in game), it has grown exponentially over the last few months in comparison to the population as a whole.  Completely aside from personal experience these facts are easily verifiable, and those statistics have already been made available to you. 

If you choose to disregard those facts and rely on anecdotal evidence, that's your choice.

[Blobert]

Keep turrets the same, nerf everything else.  That way we can wake up with all our stuff instead of wiped by the alphas.

[wimthetim]

5 minutes ago, Ranger1 said:

I'm well aware of turret use throughout ARKs development (both as captured on YouTube and in game), it has grown exponentially over the last few months in comparison to the population as a whole.  Completely aside from personal experience these facts are easily verifiable, and those statistics have already been made available to you. 

If you choose to disregard those facts and rely on anecdotal evidence, that's your choice.

In comparison to the population as a whole... You mean more players are playing ark at any given time than ever before? I thought the max player count on servers had not changed. Why would players spam more turrets now compared to what they did say 6 months ago?

[wimthetim]

Sometimes statistics are plucked out of thin air to support the whims of those in power.