Community Crunch 180: Memory Optimizations and Contest Winners!

[StudioWildcard]

Hey Survivors! Welcome to the latest edition of the Community Crunch! 

On: Memory Optimizations!

There are times when gameplay engineers make improvements to game systems that are aimed specifically at increasing performance as we have done in our recent PC patch. These changes are often invisible to the player but are immensely helpful with things such as server lag. Although we try to outline these things in the patch notes, we wanted to take the time today to explain in detail the changes and how they impact the game.  

When it comes to the multiplayer experience, the term replication in games is one that is commonly used. Simply put, it's how the server communicates with you, or the client. Replication and server authoritative actions are important in multiplayer games for a multitude of reasons. It's how all the clients (players) all see the same things while playing in-game together. As you can imagine, there are lots of things to replicate with a game like ARK. Not only are the items themselves replicated, but a lot of the variables (like health, position, colors) are also all replicated as well. This results in tons of information being sent every frame from the server to you--the client. This frame is what corresponds to your FPS (Frames Per Second). The constant flow of information being sent back and forth every frame is what uses lots of server resources.

There are times when that information doesn't need to be sent every frame or the information doesn't need to be sent at all. If you've ever heard stasis in relation to ARK it's referring to a technique in which something purposefully isn't communicating with the server - thus saving server performance. Recently we realized that snap points on structures were being replicated for every single structure and they didn't need to be and we've now changed this. Snap points are simply a list of connecting points for any given structure. That information doesn't need to be replicated by every structure because it's defined by the class--where all of the structures inside that class have the same "genetics". This can explain why every individual wall doesn't need to store that information.

A change like this has saved us 2-4 gigabytes of data on our servers (and will save on your server if you choose to run the applicable command line  "-structurememopts"), and more memory means a smoother performance!  We look forward to bringing you more updates and insight into our optimization efforts, as well as bring these memory optimizations to console in the near future.

Egg Painting Contest Winners!

Thank you to all of the survivors who submitted their beautiful painted ARK eggs for our holiday event this year. We were thrilled to see even more painted eggs than when we ran this competition last year. We had many incredible submissions, all of which can be seen in the combined image above.

Today we're announcing that we've chosen the winners, and here are the three winning eggs!

WrenTea's Eggcellent Adventure Eggs!

MitralMechanoid's Blue Wyvern Egg!

hansolo86's Colorful Mutation Rex!

As always, we love to see your creativity! To our three winners, please reach out to us via our email: [email protected] to co-ordinate your prize.

Social Roundup!

The Social Roundup is geared to showing you some of the social activity you might be otherwise missing. Here we will highlight some of the posts that happened on our various social platforms. Topics might range from existing bugs to questions about events or future content. 

ON SINGLE PLAYER RESOURCE SPAWNS

ON REAL MONEY TRANSACTIONS

ON EVENT SCHEDULES

ON STARTING GAME DEVELOPMENT

ON BRING BACK THE RAGNAROK MAP

ON CONSOLE MAPS

Game Suggestion Roundup!

Here is a roundup of the current top suggestions, as well as some of our commentary on the topics for this week.  We'll comment on ideas that are trending or being upvoted but we are looking at everything internally.

ON PRIMITIVE+ ITEMS BEING INTEGRATED INTO THE MAIN GAME

For those that don't know what Primitive+ is, it's a unique way of experiencing ARK in a mostly primitive environment.  No electric or TEK and many modern conveniences have been removed.  There are certain items that have been requested to be added to the main game.  Our first priority is getting Primitive+ in an enjoyable state on all platforms. From there, we will look and see what the possibilities are for integration.

ON SHOWING THE RANGE OF TROUGHS

Great idea!  We'll look to add this at a future point!

ON MAKING GRIFFINS BREEDABLE

Because Wyverns and Griffins are meant to be strong, end-game tames, a change like this might require a rebalance to make sure they don't become too powerful.  There are no immediate plans to implement this change but we will keep the community request on the radar.

Sponsored Mod Applications Open!

Hello survivors, last week we announced the new sponsored mod projects and it caused a bit of surprise within the modding community as it became pretty clear that more projects have a greater probability of acceptance than ever before, and now sponsored mod program applications are once again open!

We'll be collecting applications until June 5th, so you still have time to prep your projects and design documents.
You can apply for the sponsorship program here:

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/modding/apply-for-sponsorship/

Happy modding!

Evolution Event!

Survivors on all platforms will be receiving a special Evolution Event perk this weekend! It will be active from Friday the 10th of May at 1 PM EST until Monday the 13th of May at 3 PM EST. All Official Servers across each platform will be undergoing this evolutionary change which includes:

• 2x Harvesting Rates
• 2x Taming Rates
• 2x EXP Rates

That's it for this post!

As always if you’ve got anything to share you can find us at:

Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110
Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

All the best,
Studio Wildcard

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[daniel91parker]

Please give us console players access to the full structures plus mod.

 

[Tattare]

Whens auto decay going to be re added?

[Vincenta1367]

okay, bybye Ascension scorched earth, bybye patch light.. LOL game suggestion for doing what? really so sad!

[Jae12]

Loved the Easter event and excited for more like it but when is console getting new servers? I feel like new servers are so needed and it would be nice and fresh if we do get new servers. 

[invincibleqc]

4 hours ago, StudioWildcard said:

On: Memory Optimizations!

It definitely makes all the difference. The server I'm playing on used to lag and crash a lot since the Homestead update and now is back to running smooth again with that update. Thanks for the hard work!

[Airomezi]

Hey when will Classic PvP come to Xbox and PS4 it's very popular on the PC you should add it in on the Xbox, I'm waiting for that classic PvP it's way better than normal ark, no Tek, back to where ARK was great(don't get me wrong I love ARK)

 

Edited May 7, 2019 by Airomezi

[Malak]

Quote

We always look for new mod maps to come to console. I think we have a pretty good track record of working with the mod community

I laughed when I read that, last mod map worked on was Ragnarok and thats got a be over 2 years now. The question was in regards to specifically consoles getting new maps and no. What we have gotten from the mod community is hardly a scratch on the surface. Water downed s+ mod and and flex pipes and wires woah... And stack and item pickup , which should have been standard. My nitrado expires soon and then they won't get anything from me til I see content.

[Zadira]

Truly, Ark people are the most creative people!  All of the eggs are so gorgeous! 

Thanks again for the fun Easter event! I love all my Easter colored dinos! 

[callawsomelance]

Null

 

Edited November 16, 2023 by callawsomelance

[Level4Gaming]

30 minutes ago, callawsomelance said:

There needs to be saddles for griffs n wyverns there way to squishy or just some built in amour on wyverns and a day longer raise. But also you have the rock drake that needs a damage buff aswell that shoots out feathers or something cause they are useless off abb againt flyers or manas

 

You know, with the current meta, it may not be that bad of an option. I think that it should be a low armor value though so it will not hurt the non meta tribes. I also agree, drakes are far too weak and do need a damage buff.

[XandrewZ]

I’m still waiting on any announcements whatsoever with duo servers

[Willistor87]

When can we expect the optimizations on console?

Also, as a Switch owner, I would love to get Ark for it, but, the game just feels like it was a quick cash grab, and now you guys don't care about it. You guys really owe them some sort of compensation, or one massive update. I understand it's a smaller community, but it's a community that trusted you enough to buy the game, and you guys have failed them. 

[Malak]

20 minutes ago, Willistor87 said:

When can we expect the optimizations on console?

Also, as a Switch owner, I would love to get Ark for it, but, the game just feels like it was a quick cash grab, and now you guys don't care about it. You guys really owe them some sort of compensation, or one massive update. I understand it's a smaller community, but it's a community that trusted you enough to buy the game, and you guys have failed them. 

After Extinction, every move has been a cash grab

[Willistor87]

Nothing has been sold since then has it? They have at least been giving updates and trying to fix issues on PC/Xbox/PS4. The switch was release and completely abandoned, except to remove servers (which wouldn't be needed if they fixed the game).  

[Nuggie]

Thank you very much for working on optimizations. This is greatly appreciated. I hope the Lord's work continues in this manner.

[Scuff3d]

1 hour ago, XandrewZ said:

I’m still waiting on any announcements whatsoever with duo servers

Doubt it will happen, even though it’s the only thing that would save their game. Jens talked about it before and said it’s on the radar but no promises 

[Weapon14]

the memory optimization, has it hit console??? cause i definitely cannot tell if it has lol

 

[Lowly]

There were 3 categories for the eggsellent eggventure paint an egg, pc, console and real life and all 3 winners came from real life?

There will be three competitions with a prize to the winner of $100!

• PC Egg Painting
• Console Egg Painting
• Real-life Egg Painting

Edited May 7, 2019 by Lowly

[Rossh3000]

Week after week I wait for news about new content coming to console, mainly servers. Some of us have been waiting for “fresh servers” to come since the release of the first “fresh ones” probably about a year ago now. ( wasn’t that supposed to be a monthly basis thing?) I waited for  news from you guys for so long thinking you will release some next week. Never came. Even now pc has classic and console have to YouTube to experience it. What a joke tbh. Am I crazy or stupid? Probably both. The game is stale.

F it. After 4600 hours you have lost me. Not that it matters. At all. 

Edited May 7, 2019 by Rossh3000

[Willistor87]

1 hour ago, Weapon14 said:

the memory optimization, has it hit console??? cause i definitely cannot tell if it has lol

 

Not yet. It'll probably hit in the next big console patch, whenever that may be.

[Dugas]

1 hour ago, Rossh3000 said:

Week after week I wait for news about new content coming to console, mainly servers. Some of us have been waiting for “fresh servers” to come since the release of the first “fresh ones” probably about a year ago now. ( wasn’t that supposed to be a monthly basis thing?) I waited for  news from you guys for so long thinking you will release some next week. Never came. Even now pc has classic and console have to YouTube to experience it. What a joke tbh. Am I crazy or stupid? Probably both. The game is stale.

F it. After 4600 hours you have lost me. Not that it matters. At all. 

I'm right there with ya man. I was patiently waiting for conquest on Xbox... Came and went. Now classic is out and there is never a mention of the timeline for console release, very disappointing but not surprising

[lilStrange_theJackalbaby]

1 hour ago, Lowly said:

There were 3 categories for the eggsellent eggventure paint an egg, pc, console and real life and all 3 winners came from real life?

There will be three competitions with a prize to the winner of $100!

• PC Egg Painting
• Console Egg Painting
• Real-life Egg Painting

I agree that easter contest doesnt add up

[Wikus]

So this latest memory patch will do nothing to improve performance in SP ? Especially on Xbox , game has been unplayable on XB1 for months now in SP with constant crashing within minutes on any map.

[voldrafix]

5 hours ago, callawsomelance said:

There needs to be saddles for griffs n wyverns there way to squishy or just some built in amour on wyverns and a day longer raise. But also you have the rock drake that needs a damage buff aswell that shoots out feathers or something cause they are useless off abb againt flyers or manas

 

In the Dev kit there is a model for a wyvern tek saddle and the devs them selves have made mention of adding tek saddles that do different features than just shooting like a tek gun. that post was over a year ago when they specifically called out the wyvern as recieving a tek saddle that will do something different but i imagine its about balancing and finding a particularly different feature for tek saddles that are both desirable for people to actually farm and use and not be over powered.