Community Crunch 284: Dedicated Storage Change, Evo Event, and more!

[StudioWildcard]

Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch!

This week, initially on PC, we rolled out a refactored version of the dedicated storage structure. Our impetus for doing so was optimization and performance improvements for dedicated servers. 

Previously, Dedicated Storages used to hold up to 1800 stacks of a single item. On a typical popular server, there are usually thousands of dedicated storage boxes across an entire save, many of which are filled with stacks. On some of our most populated Official Servers, we see save files with over 65,000 dedicated storages -- many of them full (these were PVE servers). As you can imagine, this is a lot of items, like... a lot, a lot. How does this impact our servers? In our worst case scenario, taking a server with 65,000 dedicated storages, let’s assume 70% of these are full; that means we’re talking 81,900,000 stacks, just from dedicated storage boxes alone. These all contribute to how well the server runs in terms of framerate, as well as the memory cost. Each ‘stack’ costs a little bit of both.

So a rework was necessary, and the results have proven to be great! This isn't a magic bullet and you won't suddenly see servers drop half their memory cost or double in performance, but we are seeing significant gains across our network on all maps. Some savings are as high as 10GB on memory usage, which is pretty phenomenal! Additionally, this change slows down the growth of memory usage on servers, as previously it would exponentially increase with additional dedicated storage boxes.
            
So here's how the rework 'works' under the hood:

• The idea of having 'multiple' stacks is no longer the case when using Dedicated Storages. When viewing your UI, you won't see the items on the right-hand side anymore, and it won't display the item slot count when looking at the structure.
• Instead, the dedicated storage box now contains a single item, and when you deposit items into it, we adjust the quantity of the said item. So instead of having 1800 stacks, you have one giant stack, if you will. Don't panic if you don't see items on the right-hand side, it is intentional! The items are still inside of the dedicated storage, it just works differently
• The good news is that you'll still be able to withdraw one regular-sized stack at a time, should you need to as the game can calculate what that number would be.
• As we've removed the 'items' from the storage, you can no longer interface with the remote inventory on the right-hand side. This means you can't split stacks inside of it, you can't drop items from it, etc. 
• The team is working to mitigate some of the changes, and one thing we've done and implemented is changed the  'Transfer All' function on Dedicated Storages to ignore your weight. Previously players could 'popcorn' items from Dedicated Storages (which is spamming the 'O' key, to drop them quickly) and then pick them up with a whip, but unfortunately that no longer works - which is why we've made this QOL change.
• We are currently working on some additional QOL changes, which will enable players to pull out 1,5, or 10 items at a time if an entire stack isn't needed (You can press/click these buttons multiple times to get your desired quantity).

We're still monitoring community feedback with the change as we knew it would be an impactful and necessary change to increase performance for dedicated servers. We also want to make sure that the structure still feels pretty good to use as we know how important it is to base/item management. We'll do our best to take in the community feedback and see whether we can act upon it!

We’re also working on getting all of these changes moved over to console as soon as possible.  This includes the quantity-display in different locations and fixing/improving the PlayStation version of the Dedicated Storage box so that you’ll be able to see the quantity of the items on the box itself similarly to the other platforms.
 

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An ARK Evolution Event is active until Monday the 20th with the following EVO perks on all Official Servers! 

• 3X Taming
• 3X Harvesting
• 3X XP

 

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Studio Wildcard

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[Cyberra]

I'd be more impressed with the dedibox changes if you'd let us place them on skiffs for easier moving things around.

Disappointed with the lack of breeding rates; I have projects to work on and the 1x cooldowns suck megapithicus ass

[elweasel2010]

9 minutes ago, Cyberra said:

I'd be more impressed with the dedibox changes if you'd let us place them on skiffs for easier moving things around.

Disappointed with the lack of breeding rates; I have projects to work on and the 1x cooldowns suck megapithicus ass

And that's a lot of ass.

[Pixbot]

I would like that by having the option "Remove stack" selected with the "E" key, ignore the weight of the player, this would make it much easier to remove the stacks from the dedicated ones.

[J3R3MY1337]

Another trash Evo event with breeding left out

[Lennyboi]

Disappointed with 1x breeding rates for the weekend. Make it 3x 

[elweasel2010]

I would really like to know how they decide the rate boost. Does WC have a big wheel they spin? Does WC have a custom 8 ball to tell them the rates? Does WC inhale volcanic gas to divine the rates from the gods? Does WC plan boost rates with dice?

[Entenkiller]

And again there’s enough of complaining!

3x XP and 3x farms! I think it's great because I can concentrate on ONE thing and don't have to work with the baby as well.
Thanks, WC!

[WildTacoBR]

Hey WC ik dedi box is important and all,but can we talk about GOD MODE MESHING KILLING YOUR GAME?

[Stompers]

I would often complain of various server issues, and more importantly lack of aknowledgment, even acknowledging issues and whats being worked on more regularly by community managers would help ease the frustrations. But this is a step in the right direction, thankyou for making improvements and sharing how this works! A little more communication would be welcomed. 😉👍

[PrinnyAntta]

30 minutes ago, J3R3MY1337 said:

Another trash Evo event with breeding left out

I really wish they had breeding. I couldn't get on my server at all and missed when they had breeding.

[doverbeach]

39 minutes ago, Cyberra said:

I'd be more impressed with the dedibox changes if you'd let us place them on skiffs for easier moving things around.

It might be too easy to abuse the fact that dedis can float.
Imagine placing a foundation on a skiff and snapping a bunch of dedis to it, flying the skiff to some destination, and then destroying the foundation, leaving floating dedis. Being able to strategically place a floating dedi floor to stage operations from could be a little op

[Crysis3108]

I would love if the dedicated tek storages had an option to withdraw the amount you want, like and option when holding E that shows a prompt in the middle of the screen (like when you claim a baby) and you put the amount of items you want and withdraw that amount. Maybe you can delete the inventory, so that it only has the options while holding E and you manage all from there. 

[Kizmiaz]

"We are currently working on some additional QOL changes, which will enable players to pull out 1,5, or 10 items at a time if an entire stack isn't needed (You can press/click these buttons multiple times to get your desired quantity). "

1, 5 or 10.  that is quite some low options ?   why not add an interface where you can choose how much of 'the item' you want to pull from the storage ?   just like for crafting where you can enter the amount to craft (give you got the resources) ?

And why can't we, the players, use the T key to pull a stack from ?  the radio button 'remove a stack' or what it's called, basically does the same.

[mr_xrayman]

Im not feeling the QOL with the new storage system, I was able to grab 2 stacks of ingots now can ony get 1, cant pick all them up with a whip sounds like a nerf

[Nenofera]

😍😍😍😍😍  20 - 30 days 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Decay time could be shorter, maximum 30 days !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

limit pillars on the map.
auto decay abandoned structures, scattered on the map.
destruction of loose structures shorter decay time.

[Kizmiaz]

8 minutes ago, Nenofera said:

😍😍😍😍😍  20 - 30 days 🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

Decay time could be shorter, maximum 30 days !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

limit pillars on the map.
auto decay abandoned structures, scattered on the map.
destruction of loose structures shorter decay time.

true.  a single pillar  (no attachments) is gone in 7 hours, an abandonned campfire or a spikewall stays forever and a day.

limiting pillars sounds good but is not feasible as some structures might eat a lot of them. so where to set the limit ?

[foliver69]

why there is no 3x for Breeding too??

 

[zsenden]

QOL suggestion for Dedi's: Maybe the standard interaction (e on pc) could be changed from "deposit all stacks" to "withdraw one stack"? Being that you can use a Stryder to deposit ans sort resources to all your dedicated storage's, I rarely deposit stuff directly into my dedi's.

[invincibleqc]

1 hour ago, mr_xrayman said:

cant pick all them up with a whip sounds like a nerf

Now you can simply use the take all button () and slot cap yourself instead of having to drop ~300 stacks, have them bounce everywhere losing a few in the process, whip them all, break your whip, etc. Before this update, you would max out at twice your max weight but now you max out at your slot limit so that is a pretty good change overall.

[Atlantis]

FYI WildCard, the Gen1 note fix didn't take. Relogged, respawned, they are still locked.

[Crystafox99]

Can you please fix Singleplayer Splitscreen on Xbox Series X not being able to play the ENTIRE RIGHT SIDE OF THE MAP. ITS BEEN LIKE THIS SINCE LAUNCH. It's not even a Singleplayer issue it's Splitscreen that is broke on Gen Pt 2. I say this because it is also crashing on Non-Dedicated Servers Splitscreen as well. Please fix this. I've pretty much lost hope at this point.

[GrognakTheBarbarian]

3 hours ago, mr_xrayman said:

Im not feeling the QOL with the new storage system, I was able to grab 2 stacks of ingots now can ony get 1, cant pick all them up with a whip sounds like a nerf

The popcorning was disabled because in pvp or even toxic pve you could use coordinated effort to popcorn a mountain of flint and wreck the framerate/lag out someone. If you're already having problems at the moment they do it you can DC.

[ImperialX]

maybe the worst update for dedis . il just farmed 90Kof metal and after ussing the demo gun on it , it left nothing , not even a bag.......

 

[slejo]

7 hours ago, WildTacoBR said:

Hey WC ik dedi box is important and all,but can we talk about GOD MODE MESHING KILLING YOUR GAME?

Meshing players and aimbot'ers in pvp just wiped me and turned me off from Ark pvp. No more ark pvp.