A game by Core-Series
Dec 18 2023
Client version 1.63 has been released, if you are using the Wine or Linux client you will need to download the latest version manually.
Dec 01 2023
Ho Ho Ho! Santa has been spotted in RetroCores, carrying a huge sack full of goodies and presents. Have you been nice or naughty this year?
Nov 22 2023
Client version 1.62 has been released, if you are using the Wine or Linux client you will need to download the latest version manually.
Nov 21 2023
Client version 1.61 has been released, if you are using the Wine or Linux client you will need to download the latest version manually.
Nov 14 2023
Solera is now back online!
Cheaters
| Info | Req Level | Started | End |
| You can only vote once per account and IP address | none | February 7th 2023, 10:26 CET | February 9th 2023, 23:59 CET |
Make fluids/runes stackable to solve peformance issues?
Intro
RetroCores is a long term game, our model isn't to be a "seasonal" game that resets every now and then like many others.
Unlike many other games, RetroCores never truly dies.. the activity varies from season to season but it never really dies down.
And that's the way we like it, we want our players to be able to invest time into RetroCores without losing all progress.
And many already have, we have many dedicated players who's been in RetroCores for many years.
To keep this functioning, it means we need to adapt a little from time to time, to make the game more friendly for long-time playing.
content for higher levels and more things to do is released few times each year, pushing the "level roof" as far ahead as we can.
Time and content breed quite high levels of characters, and that's not a bad thing.. it's actually a very good thing.
Because if there's many high levels you can be sure you wont run into level 100 and then get stuck with nothing to do!
Oh no, in RetroCores you can keep having fun and facing challenges even at level 500!
And that's how we like it, playing should feel comfortable investing their time into RetroCores knowing that if they push one roof, we move it forward so you can keep having fun!
Our general goal
We want to keep RetroCores as retro as possible, honoring the retro-mechanics.
However we do need to adapt for the problems we may face as we go on, year after year.
All our problems wouldn't exist if RetroCores wa the type of game that resets few times every year.. but we don't.. we keep going without resets which in turn breed problems as time flies by and we need to face them and ensure that the game can keep going but still keep it as classic as we possible can.
Pointing out
I'd like to point out that it was never my intention to turn to stackables like this.
After days of working on performance, analyzing all worlds and expecting future results.
I gathered a few of the dedicated players that's been around for years to have a chat about the issues and solutions.
To my surprise many was accepting the solution and the discussion changed to the problems and solutions of the solution itself.
As the agreements was met, this poll was created to see how this topic would work out on a larger scale.
The problem
The problem we're facing is quite simple to understand.
As players reach higher levels, they need more supplies to continue doing whatever they like.
And out problem is when higher levels are restocking, they're not buying 20 items... they're literally buying thousands of items.
It's not uncommon for a level 500 to buy 2,000 items at once, to go out for a hunting session and returning later to buy another 2,000 items.
Some high levels prefer stock supplies in their houses, so they go and buy 8,000 items during a short period of time, often much more than 8,000. (8,000 items is 1 bp, filled with bps, filled with bps, filled with supplies).
Buying so much items, causes performance issues on the worlds.
Because for each item, the game must use resources to create that item and place it on the character, quite simple really.
But when you're going up to a few thousands, everyone in the world will notice laggs and freezes as someone is resupplying.
Sometimes the freezes can last up to a few seconds, scaring every player that's hunting at that time and even cause some to get disconnected and even die due to it.
This have been a serious issue of late, that's been angering a lot of players.
And it's not like it happen once a day or so, no.. it happens pretty much whenever a high level is going for resupply, which can be once every hour for ONE player, but now there can be 50 high levels online in one world, resupplying every now and then.. so you might feel freezes every few minutes as high levels take turns resupplying themselves.
Tried to solve the problem by optimizations
I've spent the last few days, debugging the worlds and working on performance fixes and optimizations to make the games smoother.
But as the supply-laggs keept going, I ran into a wall.. there's not much more to do there.. each items created still need a minimum resource and we're still talking about thousands, tens of thousands of items, purchased at same time.
Even if I were to remove everything possible that uses resources when the items are created, it would barely do any difference.
Things such as checking so player have cap, that the player have space, where the item should be added and so on.
Even if all of those checks were to be removed and make everything anarchy.. it would barely save 20% of resources and a 1 second freeze would still end up as a 0.8 second freeze which for most isn't even a noticeable difference.
Solutions that wont work
Many have quite nice suggestions on how to solve things, however most of them are in vain.. they're more like "putting the problem under the rug" instead of fixing the underlying problem.
For example..
-Limit buy limit to 100 items per turn:
Wont work.. because the players still need their supplies.. just because limit is 100 doesn't mean they'll buy less.. they'll be spamming "hi, 100 mana fluid, yes" over and over which will also cause laggs, since again, all the items must be created.
It doesn't matter in this situation if the items created is spread out over time, because they still need to be created, and if multiple players buy at same time (which is quite more common if everyone is stuck at npc longer because more strict limits) it's going to either cause same amount of laggs, or laggs that last for much longer. (instead of a 1-2 second freeze.. you'll experience taking 1 step.. freeze, take another step, freeze and another step.. over and over until the players are done resupplying)
-Making it possible to buy supplies in Bps:
That wouldn't solve the problem, it would only add to it honestly.
for every 20 items, you'd now get 1 extra, the bp..
Which means that allowing players to buy bps of supplies would make the laggs about 5% worse and generally do nothing good.
Because after all, in bps or not, the items has to be created at the same time in large amounts.
-Remove runes from NPCs:
Wont help either, even without runes in NPC, players still need mana fluids.. and if they can't get runes it's more likely they buy much more mana fluids to create their own supplies.
Also removing runes from NPCs would just make life more miserable for higher levels and they'd be less interested in investing their time to play.
A high level player might need 500 bps of runes to get 1 single level.
Which means 10 of those high levels wanting to play a little, would need more runes that a fresh rune-making world could supply in a single day, assuming that NOBOY but the top 10 get the runes and everyone else just have to sit around doing nothing but mana sitting.
We don't want such game, there a high level would need to stack up supplies for 5 weeks, to go hunt 1 day, that would completely defeat the purpose of RetroCores allowing players to keep investing time into the game.
Solution
Making vials and runes stackable would solve all our problems overnight.
Stackable supplies would make everything 100 times smoother, buying 2,000 items would be like you buy 20 in terms of performance.
And this would eliminate 99.9% of all performance issues we're facing today.
What solution will automatically solve
Problem with Solution
The main problem being pointed out would be that players would "abuse" stackables in ways that would make the game much easier.
Such as putting stacks of mana fluids of the floor while hunting, to easier refill the mana.
Or a player that's being smashed hard would throw a stack of UH's below him and spamm away to survive.
Proposed Solution
A solution to the "abuse" would be to make an exhaustion for stackable supplies.
If you are in fight (have the classic PZ-cross) and use supplies from the ground, you'd only be able to use a supply once every 10 seconds.
This wouldn't hurt those who like to buy large amount of manas on the floor to create runes quickly..
But it would solve the problem of people who'd use supplies while hunting in ways that's not intended.
Staying Classic
Of course, we're not changing anything with looks, prices or gains.
The mana fluids will still look the same, give same mana and cost just as much as it does now.
Same goes with runes, everything will be the same, the only difference is that they'll be stackable.
However, to compensate that you wont need Bp's for every 20 runes, the runes weight will get little bit higher.
But a bp of runes will weight the same while stackable.
Non stack: 20 Hmms + Bp = 42 oz. (each rune is 1.2 oz + 18 oz for bp)
Stackable: 20 Hmms * 5 charges = 100 Hmms.. 100 Hmms = 42 oz. (each rune is 0.42 oz, no bp needed anymore)
So, to the question of this poll:
Would you agree to turn supplies into stackables, with an exhaustion limit of 10 seconds per usage if you're in fight-mode and using supplies from the ground?
(no limits, while being used from inventory/containers)
RetroCores is a long term game, our model isn't to be a "seasonal" game that resets every now and then like many others.
Unlike many other games, RetroCores never truly dies.. the activity varies from season to season but it never really dies down.
And that's the way we like it, we want our players to be able to invest time into RetroCores without losing all progress.
And many already have, we have many dedicated players who's been in RetroCores for many years.
To keep this functioning, it means we need to adapt a little from time to time, to make the game more friendly for long-time playing.
content for higher levels and more things to do is released few times each year, pushing the "level roof" as far ahead as we can.
Time and content breed quite high levels of characters, and that's not a bad thing.. it's actually a very good thing.
Because if there's many high levels you can be sure you wont run into level 100 and then get stuck with nothing to do!
Oh no, in RetroCores you can keep having fun and facing challenges even at level 500!
And that's how we like it, playing should feel comfortable investing their time into RetroCores knowing that if they push one roof, we move it forward so you can keep having fun!
Our general goal
We want to keep RetroCores as retro as possible, honoring the retro-mechanics.
However we do need to adapt for the problems we may face as we go on, year after year.
All our problems wouldn't exist if RetroCores wa the type of game that resets few times every year.. but we don't.. we keep going without resets which in turn breed problems as time flies by and we need to face them and ensure that the game can keep going but still keep it as classic as we possible can.
Pointing out
I'd like to point out that it was never my intention to turn to stackables like this.
After days of working on performance, analyzing all worlds and expecting future results.
I gathered a few of the dedicated players that's been around for years to have a chat about the issues and solutions.
To my surprise many was accepting the solution and the discussion changed to the problems and solutions of the solution itself.
As the agreements was met, this poll was created to see how this topic would work out on a larger scale.
The problem
The problem we're facing is quite simple to understand.
As players reach higher levels, they need more supplies to continue doing whatever they like.
And out problem is when higher levels are restocking, they're not buying 20 items... they're literally buying thousands of items.
It's not uncommon for a level 500 to buy 2,000 items at once, to go out for a hunting session and returning later to buy another 2,000 items.
Some high levels prefer stock supplies in their houses, so they go and buy 8,000 items during a short period of time, often much more than 8,000. (8,000 items is 1 bp, filled with bps, filled with bps, filled with supplies).
Buying so much items, causes performance issues on the worlds.
Because for each item, the game must use resources to create that item and place it on the character, quite simple really.
But when you're going up to a few thousands, everyone in the world will notice laggs and freezes as someone is resupplying.
Sometimes the freezes can last up to a few seconds, scaring every player that's hunting at that time and even cause some to get disconnected and even die due to it.
This have been a serious issue of late, that's been angering a lot of players.
And it's not like it happen once a day or so, no.. it happens pretty much whenever a high level is going for resupply, which can be once every hour for ONE player, but now there can be 50 high levels online in one world, resupplying every now and then.. so you might feel freezes every few minutes as high levels take turns resupplying themselves.
Tried to solve the problem by optimizations
I've spent the last few days, debugging the worlds and working on performance fixes and optimizations to make the games smoother.
But as the supply-laggs keept going, I ran into a wall.. there's not much more to do there.. each items created still need a minimum resource and we're still talking about thousands, tens of thousands of items, purchased at same time.
Even if I were to remove everything possible that uses resources when the items are created, it would barely do any difference.
Things such as checking so player have cap, that the player have space, where the item should be added and so on.
Even if all of those checks were to be removed and make everything anarchy.. it would barely save 20% of resources and a 1 second freeze would still end up as a 0.8 second freeze which for most isn't even a noticeable difference.
Solutions that wont work
Many have quite nice suggestions on how to solve things, however most of them are in vain.. they're more like "putting the problem under the rug" instead of fixing the underlying problem.
For example..
-Limit buy limit to 100 items per turn:
Wont work.. because the players still need their supplies.. just because limit is 100 doesn't mean they'll buy less.. they'll be spamming "hi, 100 mana fluid, yes" over and over which will also cause laggs, since again, all the items must be created.
It doesn't matter in this situation if the items created is spread out over time, because they still need to be created, and if multiple players buy at same time (which is quite more common if everyone is stuck at npc longer because more strict limits) it's going to either cause same amount of laggs, or laggs that last for much longer. (instead of a 1-2 second freeze.. you'll experience taking 1 step.. freeze, take another step, freeze and another step.. over and over until the players are done resupplying)
-Making it possible to buy supplies in Bps:
That wouldn't solve the problem, it would only add to it honestly.
for every 20 items, you'd now get 1 extra, the bp..
Which means that allowing players to buy bps of supplies would make the laggs about 5% worse and generally do nothing good.
Because after all, in bps or not, the items has to be created at the same time in large amounts.
-Remove runes from NPCs:
Wont help either, even without runes in NPC, players still need mana fluids.. and if they can't get runes it's more likely they buy much more mana fluids to create their own supplies.
Also removing runes from NPCs would just make life more miserable for higher levels and they'd be less interested in investing their time to play.
A high level player might need 500 bps of runes to get 1 single level.
Which means 10 of those high levels wanting to play a little, would need more runes that a fresh rune-making world could supply in a single day, assuming that NOBOY but the top 10 get the runes and everyone else just have to sit around doing nothing but mana sitting.
We don't want such game, there a high level would need to stack up supplies for 5 weeks, to go hunt 1 day, that would completely defeat the purpose of RetroCores allowing players to keep investing time into the game.
Solution
Making vials and runes stackable would solve all our problems overnight.
Stackable supplies would make everything 100 times smoother, buying 2,000 items would be like you buy 20 in terms of performance.
And this would eliminate 99.9% of all performance issues we're facing today.
What solution will automatically solve
- With stackable supplies, we'd never have to experience laggs/freezes because someone is restocking supplies.
- We'd see a much better performance of houses, because 90+% of items in houses tends to be supplies.
(Solera "cheating world" experienced crashes and houses being wiped clean because they often pushed more than 100,000 runes into their houses with extreme amount of rune making bots, a problem we never saw coming but solved after a few weeks of re-creating the house systems). - We'd see much smoother login/logout of high levels characters that store crazy amount of supplies in depots.
- You'd experience as if item limits in depots vanish because you're not using as much space anymore.
- You'd experience floor limits in houses to vanish for same reason, you'd not use more than a fraction of the space as before.
Problem with Solution
The main problem being pointed out would be that players would "abuse" stackables in ways that would make the game much easier.
Such as putting stacks of mana fluids of the floor while hunting, to easier refill the mana.
Or a player that's being smashed hard would throw a stack of UH's below him and spamm away to survive.
Proposed Solution
A solution to the "abuse" would be to make an exhaustion for stackable supplies.
If you are in fight (have the classic PZ-cross) and use supplies from the ground, you'd only be able to use a supply once every 10 seconds.
This wouldn't hurt those who like to buy large amount of manas on the floor to create runes quickly..
But it would solve the problem of people who'd use supplies while hunting in ways that's not intended.
Staying Classic
Of course, we're not changing anything with looks, prices or gains.
The mana fluids will still look the same, give same mana and cost just as much as it does now.
Same goes with runes, everything will be the same, the only difference is that they'll be stackable.
However, to compensate that you wont need Bp's for every 20 runes, the runes weight will get little bit higher.
But a bp of runes will weight the same while stackable.
Non stack: 20 Hmms + Bp = 42 oz. (each rune is 1.2 oz + 18 oz for bp)
Stackable: 20 Hmms * 5 charges = 100 Hmms.. 100 Hmms = 42 oz. (each rune is 0.42 oz, no bp needed anymore)
So, to the question of this poll:
Would you agree to turn supplies into stackables, with an exhaustion limit of 10 seconds per usage if you're in fight-mode and using supplies from the ground?
(no limits, while being used from inventory/containers)
| Results (106 votes) |
| Yes, I'd love this idea! 62.3% (66 votes) |
| Yes, but only to get rid of the issues. 26.4% (28 votes) |
| No, I prefer laggy servers over stackables! 11.3% (12 votes) |
| I don't mind either 0.0% (0 votes) |
| Fake Votes (82 votes not included in the real result) 43.6% of the votes were faked! And below you can see what they tried to push for their own agenda, or missclicked. |
| Yes, I'd love this idea! 56.1% (46 votes) |
| Yes, but only to get rid of the issues. 24.4% (20 votes) |
| No, I prefer laggy servers over stackables! 17.1% (14 votes) |
| I don't mind either 2.4% (2 votes) |
