Random seems broken on Crystal Isles (Spawns and Drops)

[singalty 17]

Edit: This post has been updated to use terms common in other posts about what is essentially the same problem.

 

It seems that whatever subroutine Crystal Isles uses to generate "random" content is insufficiently salted or sanity checked. This is hard to explain, so I will give some examples:

1. Loot crates deliver the same items over and over again, noticeably more than on other maps. We fixed this by correctly overriding the default loot crates with our own configuration so this problem is now addressed on our cluster - but its obviously not a fix for everyone, Add your feedback below.

2. Spawns groups seem to repeat or "overspawn" some dinos types, resulting in extreme "underspawn" of other dino types. E.g. mantis can be completely missing for hours in the desert. Alpha Crystal Wyverns are noticeably not ever respawning after they are killed, or not spawning at all even after multiple server restarts.

3. Dino spawns points lack sufficient sibling nodes for evenly distributing new dinos, e.g. two titanosaurs dropped from exactly the same point in less than ten minutes (player's giga killed  the first) Not sure if this point really fits under the "randomness" tag or is just rushed map design.

 

 

Edited July 8, 2020 by singalty

[zift92 0]

Here i noticed some of them you said about;

- Loot crates mostly gives trash.

- Wild dinos spawn inside each other (not always).

- When you get attacked, you might end up inside that creature and not able to move also that happens when you call your tame, it goes inside your character or it turns head inside you.

- Server save times are taking too much time and if you were on action while it is saving you may encounter some problems like crafting the same item x2 times or teleporting the location you safely passed but barely or more problems that i dont remember right now.

I dont mean to say its not a good game i like the game but that kind of problems could be annoying i left the mobile ark for too many bugs cheats hope i dont get that much on pc.

[singalty 17]

On 6/30/2020 at 3:39 PM, zift92 said:

Here i noticed some of them you said about;

Thanks.

 

On 6/30/2020 at 3:39 PM, zift92 said:

- Loot crates mostly gives trash.

This is true for most WC maps. But our cluster uses extensive loot modification in its configuration to fix this, and results are hugely improved on the Island and Rag - with a good mix of completely random items and bps - each balanced correctly by beacon colour. Our players really enjoy our improved drops, not too much and not too little - and very RANDOM. Its the RANDOM bit that seems somehow borked on Crystal Isles. The loot we get from the drop is correct, but repeats. For example almost every standard Red crate on our server will continually attempt to add Adobe BPs to the item mix - something rarely seen on our other maps for a red drop.  (update: fixed on our side)   If had to take a stab, I would guess ark's default loot drop selection is easily influenced by alphabetical order somehow, since adobe is early in the alphabet. It's a total guess.

 

But when considered with the dino spawn issues, it does seem that the Crystal Isles spawn lists are very "linear" when compared to other map behaviour on our cluster using the same exact global configuration. The difference is quite noticeable in fact.

I'm not a modder and don't feel like a quarter-tet DL for the toolkit just to start digging out what the exact problem could be. So I'm posting my observations here.

Edited July 8, 2020 by singalty

[zift92 0]

4 minutes ago, singalty said:

Thanks.

 

This is true for most WC maps. But our cluster uses extensive loot modification in its configuration to fix this, and results are hugely improved on the Island and Rag - with a good mix of completely random items and bps - each balanced correctly by beacon colour. Our players really enjoy our improved drops, not too much and not too little - and very RANDOM. Its the RANDOM bit that seems somehow borked on Crystal Isles. The loot we get from the drop is correct, but repeats. For example almost every standard Red crate on our server will continually attempt to add Adobe BPs to the item mix - something rarely seen on our other maps for a red drop.

 

But when considered with the dino spawn issues, it does seem that the Crystal Isles spawn lists are very "linear" when compared to other map behaviour on our cluster using the same exact global configuration. The difference is quite noticeable in fact.

 

I'm not a modder and don't feel like a quarter-tet DL for the toolkit just to start digging out what the exact problem could be. So I'm posting my observations here.

the adobe bps are really true story

Edited June 30, 2020 by zift92

[zift92 0]

I have to add another big problem here that i encounter why the game is always updating huge packages every day? am i the only one having this problem?

[singalty 17]

We have been able to address the shockingly-bad loot crate situation finally by expanding our configuration to modify scorched air drops.

 

But the dino spawns are still inconsistent to what is expected on our other maps. I really don't want to change too much from the "normal" experience of the map .. but this should raise eyebrows at WC quality control ..

 

 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2020 by singalty

[zift92 0]

I dont think they even care but hope someone care about those issues some day.

[singalty 17]

Several players are also noticing mass Tuso and Leeds beachings on CI. It could be related.

Edited July 7, 2020 by singalty

[singalty 17]

Update the Alpha Blood Crystal rarity appears to be intentional.

 

[zift92 0]

I m here to report one more next lvl sht   with the new update, i noticed the heir wyverns randomly fly away from the nest including alpha wyvern. They seem to go nowhere just fly forever i chased them they just fly away without reason.

[Obalic 2]

There are no dinos in the ocean. Dinos Spanws in the ocean don't work. They only work near the beaches; 
And in the snow biome there are very few dinos, both in variety and in quantity;
Icebergs do not have Kairukus;
No dinos appear in the caves of the Aphoteosis biome;
Eldritch Island was supposed to be the most dangerous spot on the map, with extremely dangerous and scary dinos, but it is always empty, there is no dinos on Eldritch Island;

Several SupplyDrops appear inside the mesh, making it impossible for the player to collect the items;

The items in the supplies are extremely horrible, they never provide anything useful;

[singalty 17]

7 hours ago, Obalic said:

Eldritch Island was supposed to be the most dangerous spot on the map, with extremely dangerous and scary dinos, but it is always empty, there is no dinos on Eldritch Island;

 

That's true. Eldritch Dinos are sparse, and mostly just Aberrant Carnos with a few Ab-Arthros crawling around. Karkinos are more common on the floating isles. For me the element shards are about as grindy as Ab - almost a two-man job to get to some of them, just for what 60 shards per on a boosted server with a good ank lol (pretty much a bob's way to get shards, I'm done - one decent boss fight and our tribes get countless thousands). I have the feeling that the lightning was originally intended to actually do something to make the environment more hostile as well, maybe as a replacement for radiation. Overall It's a cool thought but a weak imitation of actual Ab And maybe that's by design..

 

I should mention that Eldritch does have it's place for finding certain higher-level Ab dinos. A 140 featherlite flew right by me on the second day. A 135 on the third. It was the only Featherlite I saw that day tho haha.

 

I also agree the water biomes just all look and feel largely rushed. Our players pretty much ignore them on CI.

 

I am wondering if the overall sparsity of dinos has to do with the map size itself. CI is huge and already a pretty decent memory chunk off our cluster - increasing it's dino count might start to cause lag maybe..

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 17, 2020 by singalty

[foxyfoxtrot 6]

On 7/16/2020 at 5:35 PM, Obalic said:

Eldritch Island was supposed to be the most dangerous spot on the map, with extremely dangerous and scary dinos, but it is always empty, there is no dinos on Eldritch Island;

im not sure if it is just your server. i run on official crystal isles 850 and our eldritch island has tons of dinos. ive seen theri, rexes, tek rexes, boatloads of carnos, karks on the beach, seekers, argies, glow bugs, featherlights, scorps, sabers, and a handful of other things roaming around.

On 7/16/2020 at 5:35 PM, Obalic said:

Several SupplyDrops appear inside the mesh, making it impossible for the player to collect the items;

The items in the supplies are extremely horrible, they never provide anything useful;

i have seen the meshing thing a lot in the redwoods but it is consistent all over the map. most of them the height is a bit off and its sunk into a rock or hovering in mid air. some of them you have to destroy rocks or trees to get to them but others there is no way to access it.

the quality loot issue has also been a problem. i found a red drop. i was the first and only person who accessed the drop. i waited for it to land and when i opened it.. there was nothing inside but a primitive lance in it. i was highly disappointed

[singalty 17]

16 hours ago, foxyfoxtrot said:

im not sure if it is just your server. i run on official crystal isles 850 and our eldritch island has tons of dinos. ive seen theri, rexes, tek rexes, boatloads of carnos, karks on the beach, seekers, argies, glow bugs, featherlights, scorps, sabers, and a handful of other things roaming around.

 

Interesting. I was already wondering if some of this might be activity-dependent, the busier the server gets with players the more it tends to get more mixed with dinos. Our CI is pretty quiet so we get a lot of this (picture), dinos of same type clumping, the rest is pretty vacant:

 

[Harvel 0]

On 8/2/2020 at 1:41 PM, foxyfoxtrot said:

im not sure if it is just your server. i run on official crystal isles 850 and our eldritch island has tons of dinos. ive seen theri, rexes, tek rexes, boatloads of carnos, karks on the beach, seekers, argies, glow bugs, featherlights, scorps, sabers, and a handful of other things roaming around.

i have seen the meshing thing a lot in the redwoods but it is consistent all over the map. most of them the height is a bit off and its sunk into a rock or hovering in mid air. some of them you have to destroy rocks or trees to get to them but others there is no way to access it.

the quality loot issue has also been a problem. i found a red drop. i was the first and only person who accessed the drop. i waited for it to land and when i opened it.. there was nothing inside but a primitive lance in it. i was highly disappointed

The loot issue has been my primary issue also...mostly the meshing...but the thing that shocked me was getting attacked by a pack of no less 6 hogs...I've never had that happen before...the packs of dinos got stupid large for both the good (great for taming hogs wolves and sabers) and the bad (lag/framerate drops)