DUCKSIDE News

Quack.

I will just start saying Quack instead of Hello Everyone.

100k DUCKS!

We have just crossed 100,000 sign-ups for the beta! To think this was all April Fools, eh?

GAME PERFORMANCE (silky smooth)

These are incredible numbers and way beyond our expectations. Thank you for sticking around through the turbulent server-restarting-wiping-crashing weekend. Yesterday's wipe and player density tweaks have actually helped server performance drastically. As of the moment of making this post, we are seeing smooth performance across the board.

WIPE SCHEDULES

While the servers are fine right now, we cannot accurately predict when issues start emerge. We are monitoring numbers of entities on servers to see where the breaking points are. The team is working hard on server-side optimizations. So right now the wipe schedule is TBD. Unless we get serious performance issues, or a game update that actually requires a wipe, you should be good for now.

UPCOMING FEATURES WOO

I got a chance to sitdown with the team today and talk about the upcoming pipeline and priorities. Some of these will be more immediate than others, and our aim is to get as many updates as possible during the beta. So here is a bulletpoint list of things we're working on, in no particular order

- Network optimization. It is vital we get the servers to transfer less data in an optimal way.
- Base upkeep / decay. We're working on a system that requires you to put FEATHERS into your IDOL that if drained will make your base decay. This will help with abandoned bases just standing around there. It will also allow for interesting heist opportunities from decayed bases so new players have a chance of hitting it big on a recently decayed base.
- TIER1 visual rework. Right now our visual for tier1 feels too "safe", so it can be annoying when you feel safe, get a few workbenches in and someone with a hatchet busts through your wall. The solution we are aiming for is gaps in the tier1 building blocks, so light shines through, other players can see through, and it's visually obvious you're not safe. We are also playing with the balance of melee tools to tier1 building objects.
- Map size. We are working on adding more zones to the map. This will be a fine balancing act of player density at spawn, points of interest, and zones where players can feel safer and build up.

These are just a few things out of a long todo list alongside bugs, exploits, etc that the team is working tirelessly on.

Can't thank you all enough for the support.

for the flock!

- Alex & team tinyBuild

A good day to everyone in the flock!

We are initiating the second wipe at around the time of this update. Yesterday's wipe helped us identify a few core issues.

If you experienced lag, in a nutshell the reason for it is a combination of 3 factors: too many players, too many bases, and too many active NPCs. One of these at a time the servers handle no problem. When you have 2, it becomes a slight issue. When you have all 3 - that's when the game becomes unplayable.

The fixes for these 3 are fairly straightforward and require a bit of development time, which the team is working on right now.

A temporary fix to the issues is reducing player density. This is what today's wipe will achieve. We've received a lot of feedback that high pop servers are a bit too much chaos, so we hit 2 ducks with one stone here. After today's wipe, the max player count will be slightly reduced.

- Bases and loot will be wiped
- Blueprints WILL NOT BE WIPED. You keep your blueprint progression.

Through the upcoming week we will be working on client fixes to optimize traffic (so that NPCs and players don't strangle server performance) and we are working on figuring out base decay. The issue we have now is that abandoned bases do not despawn, so I appreciate the community coming together yesterday to "clean" servers from dead bases. There will be a system to address this issue, most likely in the form of base decay.

Please let us know on DISCORD or on the forums what you think about the new player density, and we will see you in-game!

Keep up to date with all things DUCKSIDE by following us on social media:

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We'll see you in the skies!

- tinyBuild Riga

Greetings from the flock!

First off an enormous, heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who joined the beta so far. We have over 85k players right now. This is way beyond our expectations.

On Thursday we had to panic increase the amount of game servers. By about 5 times. That was a fun night.

We did a couple of hotfixes to both the server and the client. There's an enormous backlog we're working on.

Today we wiped all servers. The goal of the test was to see stability of game servers, understand what kind of issues we get at scale. This was the reason to wipe said servers, because we finally reached the critical point in terms of the amount of buildings on any given server. Usually persistent world games like this have a wipe schedule, which we couldn't anticipate going into the beta. So today's wipe will help us understand how the map size works with player density, alongside the max player cap per server.

Immediate points of focus are:

- Network optimization, so you players experience smooth movement when servers fill up with more players
- Exploit fixes, i.e. clipping through walls and getting loot
- Balance fixes, such as not all players understanding that tier1 is actually easy to raid. Yes, much like many of you I've seen a lot of bases with tier3 workbenches and not upgraded walls. A simple solution here is to decrease the damage done by melee weapons to tier1 walls, and also make tier1 walls "look" much less safe, i.e. have see-through gaps.

We are seeing and gathering all the feedback provided. The simplest way to report issues / share feedback is right here on the Steam Forums or on our super active DISCORD.

Thank you
- Team tinyBuild

Hey everyone

We have just released another update to address some of the more common reports we've received since launch.

Changelog:

• Found and fixed issue with control of bases being lost. Existing bases will not be recoverable, new bases should no longer experience this issue.
  
• Added additional logs to track and rectify server crashes and instability
  
• Fixed the ability to loot through the walls
  

The devs continue to work their way through your feedback and we will have more updates to address your reports soon.

Thank you all for your assistance in helping us identify and resolve these issues.

Have a great weekend everybody!

- tinyBuild

Hey everyone!

Thank you all for your reports and feedback so far, we’re working our way through everything and will shortly be releasing our first update to resolve one of the prominent issues reported since launch.

Changelog:

• Resolves an issue where the server crashes upon character initialization.
  

We appreciate your patience and understanding while we work to identify the cause of and resolve your reports. We’re going to do everything we can to address as many of them as possible over the coming days and will keep you updated in our efforts.

Keep the feedback coming!

- tinyBuild