Persistence to be disabled on next stable update

[Beizs 186]

So, just read the status report and, forgive me if I'm wrong, but it appears that persistence is to be disabled for the next patch.

I'm kind of left scratching my head with this bit of news as persistence really is a huge part of this game - and the implementation of a CLE to stable without persistence is just going to give a false impression to everybody who does not keep up with development. Not only does a Central Loot Economy really kind of need persistence to work properly, but the fact that persistence will be disabled is going to piss off a whole lot of people, especially when compounded with the disabling of zombies. I feel like it really is getting to be a perfect case of one step forward, two steps back.

So, I just have to ask, what is everybodies thoughts on this? I have been really, really looking forward to .57 and had been loving the .56 experimental branch. However, with the latest update and look at .57, as well as the news that persistence is to be disabled (and the constant crashing I have been experiencing on exp, though I'll assume rather optimistically that that won't be an issue on stable), I'm starting to feel like I might need to just sit this one out.

So... Opinions, everyone? I just don't see how the CLE can be implemented properly without persistence.

EDIT: And don't get me wrong. I'm not hating on the devs, or crying about the game. I do get why they're doing this an all. I just think that this move is counterproductive to the development of the game (slowing down the real implementation of a massive feature and cutting down on the amount of large scale testing that's done on said feature) just to avoid people complaining. Like when they went back to legacy loot last stable update. If a system doesn't work enough to be released without disabling larger parts of the game, maybe it just shouldn't be released until it does work.

It's like removing the first story of a building because the second story wasn't stable enough. The second story might be filled with awesome shit, but there's no freaking doors, now!

EDIT: I just want to make sure my stance is clear, though. I am not trying to hate on the devs or complain about the development of the game. I just don't think this is a good choice. If you are planning on posting in a way to bring it down to that level, please reconsider. I'd like to keep this civil and mature.

 

Quick points before you claim 'alpha' or that persistence isn't working.

• Loot Despawn and Respawn are part of the CLE, not persistence.
• The only reason items disappear on persistent servers other than on scheduled wipes is server crashes.
• In order for the CLE to work properly, persistence needs to be enabled. It will work completely differently with persistence enabled. Without persistence, it's almost identical to the current stable system with persistence disabled.
• This sort of thing, even in a public alpha, is what experimental is for. Pushing a broken feature to a stable branch, even in an alpha, is bad practice from a development point of view and even worse from a PR view. .55 was a perfect example of this, and they're repeating the same mistake, but worse this time. This will just slow down development.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[LoveAffair 329]

So again  after all this time waiting , Whats the point if a tent vanishes... Is this not ISSUE #1 with anyone but me ?  Adding barrels that hold 50 items,  Well they vanish too like the tents ? Whats the friggin point if nothing will stay.... Jesus Christ already with this... Fix the F'in problem !  F'in Years now.... My God already

Edited May 27, 2015 by LoveAffair

[Beizs 186]

So again after all this time waiting , Whats the point if a tent vanishes... Is this not ISSUE #1 with anyone but me ? Adding barrels that hold 50 items, Well they vanish too like the tents ? Whats the friggin point if nothing will stay.... Jesus Christ already with this... Fix the F'in problem ! F'in Years now.... My God already

I've not really had much of a problem with persistence other than on exp, where servers crash frequently. That's really the only problem when it comes to persistence.

My issue is that this sort of thing is, really, stuff that should be done on experimental. Isn't that why we have the two separate branches? So stable provides the most whole experience that can be thrown together, while the bug testing, refining and rollbacks can be done on a separate branch?

It's considered pretty poor practice to push updates to a stable branch of ANY software if it requires you to disable a feature even half as important. Same really goes for hordes & the disabling of zombies, honestly.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[Evil Minion 943]

Seems like item spawning/despawning does still run into long term issues. Now persistence off without any infected makes for a relatively poor experience so I will probably dodge the 0.57 stable version.

[Zboub le météor 250]

my guess is that they found some issues related to persistence, and they will work on it while 0.57 hit stable. same for zombies.

 

they are not stepping back, data collected with 0.56 and 0.55 stable will be used to rework CLE. i prefer that they turn off features that does not work and generate gamebreaking bugs such as 0.55 infected and persistence.

 

i'll try to find unicorn weapons when 0.57 hit stable, not sure i will find VSS or UMP as easily in 0.58 and further updates.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Zboub le météor

[cash81 506]

Seems like item spawning/despawning does still run into long term issues. Now persistence off without any infected makes for a relatively poor experience so I will probably dodge the 0.57 stable version.

I wonder if they knew this would be a big deal for the general public and did this major overhaul now during the summer knowing that there are lots of other things that people can be doing. Unlike winter where many are kept indoors more than usual.

[LoveAffair 329]

I've not really had much of a problem with persistence other than on exp, where servers crash frequently. That's really the only problem when it comes to persistence.

My issue is that this sort of thing is, really, stuff that should be done on experimental. Isn't that why we have the two separate branches? So stable provides the most whole experience that can be thrown together, while the bug testing, refining and rollbacks can be done on a separate branch?

I hope your right Beiz..3 months ago  they had the greatest DayZ i ever played on private servers , Like 6 rifles to be found a map, had to plant all your food  or fish , Or die.  But  i saw 4 kids yelled they found a smersh vest in an outhouse so they closed the gate and went back to legacy loot system that was so far back i can't even remember.. But as long as the kids are happy that is what counts. I hear there knocking all the walls down next :) Can't have anyone looking over them... Lob a grenade over next time you see someone on the opposite side of the wall as you. I'm 980 hours in SA. I think once have i been in a situation in Cherno were i was running around playing wall Grab ass with some 12 year old. I go back to looking out the window for next update PROBABLY

Edited May 27, 2015 by LoveAffair

[Beizs 186]

my guess is that they found some issues related to persistence, and they will work on it while 0.57 hit stable. same for zombies.

 

i'll try to find unicorn weapons when 0.57 hit stable, not sure i will find VSS or UMP as easily in 0.58 and further updates.

 

But persistence, for the most part, works just fine. The issue isn't with persistence, it's with the CLE and loot despawn & respawn. So, it makes more sense to fix the part with the issues, rather than disable the part working well to imitate the unfinished part working well.

 

I wonder if they knew this would be a big deal for the general public and did this major overhaul now during the summer knowing that there are lots of other things that people can be doing. Unlike winter where many are kept indoors more than usual.

 

Again though, isn't that why we have experimental? So people can choose whether to use the latest version or a version as feature complete as possible? The CLE is far less important than persistence. The old version of loot, while not perfect, worked a lot better than the current CLE with persistence on (can't say how it's working in .57 exp, as there's not been enough time for the initialization dust to settle). Persistence shouldn't be disabled just to shoehorn in an unfinished feature. Frankly, .57 has been a bit of a letdown for me. Granted, we're expecting to see 2 more updates to it before it hits stable, but the biggest part was the optimization for me and a lot of other people. After some testing I can pretty confidently say that, for me at least, the game performs about 5fps better at an absolute maximum.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[mercules 1290]

Do I even have to say, "ALPHA."?

 

We all know things are going to break, and break again. Old bugs will return as they add in new code. It's a given even for released games with patch updates several times a year, bugs come out in production that don't exist in a test server. 

[Beizs 186]

Do I even have to say, "ALPHA."?

 

We all know things are going to break, and break again. Old bugs will return as they add in new code. It's a given even for released games with patch updates several times a year, bugs come out in production that don't exist in a test server. 

 

Alpha isn't a valid argument for everything. It does not apply here. We have a stable branch and an experimental branch. Alpha is about getting the game as feature complete as possible. When you have a public (stable) branch, you provide the most feature complete experience you can on there and then do the experimental shit on the experimental branch. Disabling a major feature (persistence) that works fine to shoehorn in a new, unfinished feature is bad practice on any public branch, including on a public alpha.

 

This isn't about shit breaking. It's about pushing an unfinished  broken feature to a stable branch at the cost of perfectly fine, more important features.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

How many global wipes will happen between now and 1.0?

 

Your camp, your character, that truck.

 

Nope, nope, nope.

 

This is DayZen.

 

No attachment to gear, don't do it.

 

The amount of save data I've lost since 1981 is staggering and I don't lose sleep over it.

 

Even after 1.0... they will likely need to do wipes for dupe fixes or other such things!!

 

Now, should I begin to go into the unique challenge of building a game from the middle out and the degree at which that could produce bugs...?

[Beizs 186]

How many global wipes will happen between now and 1.0?

 

Your camp, your character, that truck.

 

Nope, nope, nope.

 

This is DayZen.

 

No attachment to gear, don't do it.

 

The amount of save data I've lost since 1981 is staggering and I don't lose sleep over it.

 

Even after 1.0... they will likely need to do wipes for dupe fixes or other such things!!

 

Now, should I begin to go into the unique challenge of building a game from the middle out and the degree at which that could produce bugs...?

 

I'm not bothered about wipes. That has nothing to do with it. Wipes are a pain, but they're not a big deal - those are to be expected, as loot distribution changes and anti-hack/anti-duping methods make it so that items acquired illegitimately are reduced and there's a more pure game experiece.

 

I'm talking about them completely disabling persistence. To shoehorn in a broken feature. Persistence works fine and is more important than the CLE. Your response, putting this as respectfully as I can, has nothing to do with the topic.

 

Persistence isn't just about hoarding.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[mercules 1290]

Alpha isn't a valid argument for everything. It does not apply here. We have a stable branch and an experimental branch. Alpha is about getting the game as feature complete as possible. When you have a public (stable) branch, you provide the most feature complete experience you can on there and then do the experimental shit on the experimental branch. Disabling a major feature (persistence) that works fine to shoehorn in a new, unfinished feature is bad practice on any public branch, including on a public alpha.

 

This isn't about shit breaking. It's about pushing an unfinished  broken feature to a stable branch at the cost of perfectly fine, more important features.

 

This is not the Alpha you are looking for. 

 

 

We are in Alpha, even the production server. We are not feature complete in any way shape or form. So many features a glimmer and nothing more in the distance it is funny. Persistence does NOT work fine. It is barely functional at all and ONLY because of the frequent wipes that allow it to reset. If you don't wipe weekly you end up with a server full of books, wrenches, small hammers, paper, and ruined clothing. Might find some painkillers.... 

[Beizs 186]

This is not the Alpha you are looking for. 

 

 

We are in Alpha, even the production server. We are not feature complete in any way shape or form. So many features a glimmer and nothing more in the distance it is funny. Persistence does NOT work fine. It is barely functional at all and ONLY because of the frequent wipes that allow it to reset. If you don't wipe weekly you end up with a server full of books, wrenches, small hammers, paper, and ruined clothing. Might find some painkillers.... 

 

That's not an issue with persistence, that's an issue with loot respawn & despawn. The literal only issue I have with the development of DayZ is their rollbacks to appease the crying children. That's it. Again, they're disabling a working feature to shoehorn in a broken feature. It's that simple. The CLE will not work anything like it is supposed to because of that, making the CLE implementation in this stable update all but pointless.

 

I know how software and game design work. I'm a computer sciences student and a large part of my course is game development. I'm not an expert, sure, but I do know, for a fact, that most programmers (the vast majority) would instantly tell you pushing a broken feature to a stable branch of software and disabling a more important feature to imitate a working system is just not good practice. At all. It's a terrible idea.

 

It sets you up for whining users when you do the initial push, then screaming users when you re-enable the disabled feature, completely changing how the new feature works. That, as well as decreasing the amount of reliable testing information, is just a recipe for disaster. On .55, they pushed a broken system and were forced to roll back. They're trying it again, with a (in my opinion) worse approach. We'll see how it goes, but simply crying 'alpha' isn't constructive here. It's just childish at this point.

 

In order to work correctly, the CLE requires persistence. Removing persistence to implement the CLE makes no sense from a logical or developmental standpoint. It makes even less sense from a PR standpoint.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[mercules 1290]

That's not an issue with persistence, that's an issue with loot respawn & despawn. 

 

Persistence is part of the despawn issue. 

 

You speak of persistence as if it only applies to tents. It applies to EVERY ITEM. Which means the despawn is part of the persistence, because if you only every respawn items removed from their spawn points you will either end up with spawn points plugged with useless items nobody moves, or piles of useless items near spawn points that do nothing but bog down performance as it tracks and renders every one of them.

 

Persistence has never worked because the items have never "timed out" and despawned correctly as they were supposed to when persistence was fist announced. 

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

I'm not bothered about wipes. That has nothing to do with it. Wipes are a pain, but they're not a big deal - those are to be expected, as loot distribution changes and anti-hack/anti-duping methods make it so that items acquired illegitimately are reduced and there's a more pure game experiece.

 

I'm talking about them completely disabling persistence. To shoehorn in a broken feature. Persistence works fine and is more important than the CLE. Your response, putting this as respectfully as I can, has nothing to do with the topic.

 

Persistence isn't just about hoarding.

 

 

Ok, cool.

 

So live out of a backpack for a few weeks maybe, oh well.

 

When weight and stamina effect what you carry, persistence, tents, and all will matter a lot more.

 

Without those factors, having the most amounts of slots you can have in game you can carry a massive majority of the items you require for survival and a small arsenal.

 

I didn't bother with camps and persistence until the last couple of patches because it was so broken and so many wipes were to follow.

 

Persistence is seemingly one of the most easily breakable factors in this Alpha as we have seen it come and go with varying degrees of performance thus far.

Edited May 27, 2015 by BioHaze

[Killawife 599]

Persistance working? When? I've never had a time where I could trust that the items I left in the world would be around on my next log-in. They could be, but they could also not be and thats not something I call persistance. The only thing persistance has given us so far is empty maps, lootsplosions and hoarding. None of these things add anything of value to the game except possibly some happiness at finding someones hidden tent. It would probably be beneficial to skip persistance and CLE for a while, work on it internally and release it once its working, just like they are doing.

 

It does however sometimes feel like we are traveling backwards in time. I tried the other day to explain to my friend what progress the game has had since he quit playing 6 months ago but once we got to the bugs it turned out ALL of them was still there, and then some.

[Beizs 186]

Persistence is part of the despawn issue. 

 

You speak of persistence as if it only applies to tents. It applies to EVERY ITEM. Which means the despawn is part of the persistence, because if you only every respawn items removed from their spawn points you will either end up with spawn points plugged with useless items nobody moves, or piles of useless items near spawn points that do nothing but bog down performance as it tracks and renders every one of them.

 

Persistence has never worked because the items have never "timed out" and despawned correctly as they were supposed to when persistence was fist announced. 

 

No, persistence isn't part of the despawn issue.

 

The despawn issue is important for persistence, but saying that persistence should be removed until the despawn issue is fixed then saying that the CLE should be implemented before persistence is perfect is just stupid.

 

Despawning is important for the loot economy. It's not important for actual persistence its self. The CLE shouldn't be implemented at all until despawning is working. Again, disabling persistence is just imitating a despawn system poorly and isn't going to be a good experience for anybody.

[Beizs 186]

Persistance working? When? I've never had a time where I could trust that the items I left in the world would be around on my next log-in. They could be, but they could also not be and thats not something I call persistance. The only thing persistance has given us so far is empty maps, lootsplosions and hoarding. None of these things add anything of value to the game except possibly some happiness at finding someones hidden tent. It would probably be beneficial to skip persistance and CLE for a while, work on it internally and release it once its working, just like they are doing.

 

It does however sometimes feel like we are traveling backwards in time. I tried the other day to explain to my friend what progress the game has had since he quit playing 6 months ago but once we got to the bugs it turned out ALL of them was still there, and then some.

 

In order for your claim of lootsplosions and items that don't despawn being a problem to work, persistence has to be working... Otherwise those issues could not exist.

 

The only issue with persistence I've seen (ignoring despawning, because that's not an issue with persistence, but the loot economy) is the fact that servers can claim to have persistence on, but not. Once on reliable servers that don't crash constantly, I've literally never had something disappear when it shouldn't.

 

Persistence works. Servers, however, are not particularly stable and, in the past (not sure if they can now) could lie about having persistence on. That's the only issue with persistence its self. The fact that crashes wipe it. How to fix that? Fix the servers. Not persistence.

 

The only reason they're removing persistence is so that they can push the CLE. The fact that they need to remove persistence in order for the CLE to work is a sign that the CLE is broken, not persistence. Again... They're removing a working feature (and it is working) to implement a feature that's not working. The feature they're adding requires the feature they're removing to work properly.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[Mookie (original) 799]

The amount of save data I've lost since 1981 is staggering and I don't lose sleep over it.

 

 

What, when your tape copy of 3D Defender for the 16K ZX81 was overwritten? :P

 

Seriously, this persistence/CLE thing is beginning to look like a bit of a mess. I get the alpha point, but it's really starting to put people off either getting into the game in the first place, or continuing with it.

[mercules 1290]

...but once we got to the bugs it turned out ALL of them was still there, and then some.

Fixing bugs is important, but we are still adding features that are very likely to recreate those very bugs they fixed. Fixing a bug for sound, for instance, and then ripping out and replacing the sound code means they might reintroduce the bug, or have fixed it only to remove the cause. Why not just update the sound code and see if the bug still remains? Does that make sense?

 

No, persistence isn't part of the despawn issue.

 

Correct... however despawn is part of the persistence issue. 

 

You say "persistence" and I think to you it means, "Does this item stay here?" and that is the end. What you fail to understand is that in DayZ given the database structure if every item remained forever the servers would rapidly(like a day or two) bog down. So the server has to clean things up. Part of that is the server knowing what needs to not be cleaned up(aka persistence) and what should be cleaned up (aka despawn) they are related and two sides of the same coin.

 

What it looks like PGI is going to do is to remove persistence and throw the CLE into the wild without to see if it really does spawn the right items in the right locations. Things will clean up rather than sit around for a week so that they can get an accurate measure of items spawning independent of the persistence/despawn issue. Once they are certain the SPAWNING works correctly then they can point a finger at the despawn being the actual issue and focus attention on that. 

 

 

This is a VERY logical and typical troubleshooting step. You eliminate variables. 

 

Say Outlook 365 crashes on start up? Do I immediately uninstall it and reinstall it? No, because that is a long process and it might be something simpler. My first step is to see if Outlook will start in Safe Mode. If it does then I start to look at the add-ins. I might even disable all of them and see if Outlook will start in normal mode. If so it is an issue with an add-in and I can slowly add them back in one at a time. What if I see a suspicious one and don't want to slowly add them back in? Well, I can disable just the one(like disabling persistence) and see if my assumption is correct. Then I can work on that add-in if a user needs it for something, maybe search the web for others with the issue or download a newer version of the add-in. 

 

 

By eliminating the variable they can then go, "OH! Things are not even spawning in properly. We looked through that code but now we can adjust some things in it and see what happens." or "Okay, the spawning works fine, we are going to focus on Persistence and despawning and see why that breaks the CLE. 

[Beizs 186]

Fixing bugs is important, but we are still adding features that are very likely to recreate those very bugs they fixed. Fixing a bug for sound, for instance, and then ripping out and replacing the sound code means they might reintroduce the bug, or have fixed it only to remove the cause. Why not just update the sound code and see if the bug still remains? Does that make sense?

 

 

Correct... however despawn is part of the persistence issue. 

 

You say "persistence" and I think to you it means, "Does this item stay here?" and that is the end. What you fail to understand is that in DayZ given the database structure if every item remained forever the servers would rapidly(like a day or two) bog down. So the server has to clean things up. Part of that is the server knowing what needs to not be cleaned up(aka persistence) and what should be cleaned up (aka despawn) they are related and two sides of the same coin.

 

What it looks like PGI is going to do is to remove persistence and throw the CLE into the wild without to see if it really does spawn the right items in the right locations. Things will clean up rather than sit around for a week so that they can get an accurate measure of items spawning independent of the persistence/despawn issue. Once they are certain the SPAWNING works correctly then they can point a finger at the despawn being the actual issue and focus attention on that. 

 

 

This is a VERY logical and typical troubleshooting step. You eliminate variables. 

 

Say Outlook 365 crashes on start up? Do I immediately uninstall it and reinstall it? No, because that is a long process and it might be something simpler. My first step is to see if Outlook will start in Safe Mode. If it does then I start to look at the add-ins. I might even disable all of them and see if Outlook will start in normal mode. If so it is an issue with an add-in and I can slowly add them back in one at a time. What if I see a suspicious one and don't want to slowly add them back in? Well, I can disable just the one(like disabling persistence) and see if my assumption is correct. Then I can work on that add-in if a user needs it for something, maybe search the web for others with the issue or download a newer version of the add-in. 

 

 

By eliminating the variable they can then go, "OH! Things are not even spawning in properly. We looked through that code but now we can adjust some things in it and see what happens." or "Okay, the spawning works fine, we are going to focus on Persistence and despawning and see why that breaks the CLE. 

 

Experimental works just as well for this without removing a core feature from the stable branch of your game.

 

This will not help troubleshooting at all. As the current system stands, the CLE respawns items once something is picked up (or should do). The items that are not picked up stay there, meaning that new loot is not spawned if nothing is picked up. Every now and then, they do a wipe to see if stuff is spawning where it should be on initialization (though an internal test will check this just as well. In fact, on internal tests, they can completely remove specific pieces of loot and test is much better). To see if stuff is respawning properly, they can look at the logs - anything that has been picked up should trigger an item spawning.

 

The way it'll work without persistence? Exactly the same, except it'll wipe every time the server restarts, preventing a proper economy from emerging and not checking dynamic respawns as well (not giving it enough time to respawn shit).

 

There's no benefit here. All it will do is cause shit when they disable persistence, then cause shit when they re-enable persistence, changing how the CLE works.

 

Disabling persistence will give them absolutely no more insight into how loot is respawning. None. At all.

Edited May 27, 2015 by Beizs

[blackberrygoo 1416]

Well I'm gonna sit this stable out , I greatly appreciate the work and bug identifying the devs and us exp testers have done but i can't play dayz without persistence , I remember before it was enabled at all I had many weeks where I didn't want to play at all because all I wanted to do was go into the woods or a nice house and make a persistence camp ! But it's for the better and I really hope there's experimental branches up during this stable with persistence and zombies enabled... Experimental save us !!

[☣BioHaze☣ 7337]

What, when your tape copy of 3D Defender for the 16K ZX81 was overwritten? :P

 

-snip-

 

 

When they pulled the plug on the high scores on the arcade machines.

[emuthreat 2837]

I'm really surprised at the number of people who don't recognize that the devs definitely have a reason to disable persistence for a few weeks.  My best guess is that they are suspicious of how much persistence was responsible for the lootsplosions that would crash your game if you got too close to the jail at VMB.  It also makes it very hard to identify how the loot economy behaves on a server, if the items persisting on that server came from someplace else.

 

Maybe they wanted to see how the NEW CLE works, unfettered by the side-effects of persistence.  It would greatly simplify the pile of data that they have to slog through to diagnose any problems.  Would you want to do all the work necessary to determine how many items on a public server were actually spawned on that same server?  I'd probably be inclined remove a HUGE variable, if it made it easier to find the cause of the issues at hand.

 

I am as guilty as they come, when it involves hoarding, and interdimensional salvage operations.  Maybe the servers are having problems baecuse of all the bags full of beartraps, extra clothing, food, tools, (do you get the point yet?) batteries I save from each spawn, various magazines and ammo stockpiles.  TBH, many of my stashes are eventually abandoned as my AO shifts.  I don't know about the rest of you guys/gals, but to avoid the hassle of creating and maintaining a bag drop spreadsheet, I just keep most of my shit on one server, and try to remember which trees I put it in.  What if a few dozen people all prefer the same server to keep their camps?  Persistence, combined with the common Public Hive, makes a terrible mess of the loot distribution data, and it is all my our fault.

 

So If I had to use logic alone, and withhold my contempt for taking away my favorite aspect of the game, I'd say they probably have a pretty solid reason for this decision.