MHWiki:Current events/Archive/2019/October

News

Partial Scoreboard Recovery

3 October 2019

Some scoreboards recovered from backup

Some Scoreboards Recovered

Greetings once again hunters. We have another update on our efforts to restore scoreboard data that was lost during last week's infrastructure problems with the game.

Yesterday afternoon, after some more research, we were able to recover some scoreboards in their entirety. Although the scoreboard data backups were corrupted, we discovered that each scoreboard in the backup was either entirely lost or entirely present. This means we are able to restore a few of the scoreboards as they were on September 21.

Scoreboards we were able to recover

• Relic Hunter: Treasure Maps Completed
• Relic Hunter: Season 3 Treasure Maps Completed
• Relic Hunter: Season 4 Treasure Maps Completed
• Relic Hunter: Season 5 Treasure Maps Completed
• Iceberg: Best Run
• Living Garden: Ultimate Charm Catch Streak
• Sunken City: Farthest Distance Traveled
• Fort Rox: Highest Monster of the Meteor Catch Streak
• Queso Canyon: Nachore Mined

These scoreboards should now appear as they were on September 21 and will actively update as hunters contribute to them.

Rebuilding Mouse Scoreboards

Scoreboards that track the number of times hunters have caught a specific type of mouse can technically be rebuilt by using hunters' catch statistics. This data was effectively being stored in two places, meaning we can use that redundancy to repopulate scoreboards for specific mouse catches.

We're a bit stretched for developer resources while working on infrastructure stability and wrapping up work on the upcoming Valour Rift release. However, once the Valour Rift is released and the infrastructure upgrade work is completed, we'll be looking into repopulating these mouse scoreboards.

Restarting Other Scoreboards

The final decision to make is what to do about all other scoreboards. We can either restart these scoreboards from scratch or retire them from the game. This is a decision we're looking for feedback on, so please let us know your thoughts in the comments section. If we were to restart these scoreboards, we would most likely place an asterisk next to those boards and note the date at which the scoreboards started on.

Some hunters may also view a subtle difference between scoreboards which may be worth feedback and discussion. Some lost scoreboards tracked one off "feats" while others tracked an accumulating stat over time.

Example: Sunken City: Highest Dive Catches tracked a "best record" of sorts from a single dive, while Oxygen Canisters Depleted tracked an accumulating stat across all dives. Due to their nature, re-obtaining the best record is feasible while accumulating stats will technically always be inaccurate.

If restarting some scoreboards is something you're in favour of, let us know if you think both feats and accumulating stats should be restarted, or if only feats should be.

Once again, we want to thank everyone for their patience and understanding while we work through this unfortunate loss of scoreboard data. We've taken the positive comments and constructive feedback to heart and going forward will endeavour to build a better scoreboard system for this amazing community of players.

Stability Issue Update

2 October 2019

Scoreboard and team changes

Update on Recent Stability Issues

Greetings, MouseHunters. We've been working through problems caused by the infrastructure issues we faced last week and would like to share our progress and results.

• Lost Scoreboard Data

The infrastructure issue last week primarily affected the server we use for tracking scoreboards. The data became corrupted and upon attempting to restore from a backup we noticed the backups were also corrupted. Our technical research into restoring from a corrupt backup had mixed results. We were able to restore some of the data, however, due to the nature of scoreboards only having a partial set of data is not useful.

For the time being, we've taken down these affected scoreboards, which are unfortunately the majority of scoreboards in the game. The scoreboards which remain are: Points, Gold, Catches, Library Points, Map Clues Collected, and Scavenger Hunt Hints Collected. These scoreboards will automatically update the next time you contribute to them. For example: If you're currently unranked for Map Clues Collected, finding a Treasure Map Clue will place you back on the scoreboard with your total number of clues found.

We'll be continuing work to reinstate other scoreboards in a way which will minimize the chances of similar instability occurring in the future. Unfortunately, any other scoreboards we bring back aside from the ones mentioned above will come back in a reset state, meaning hunters will have to compete again from scratch. The scoreboard system needs an extensive overhaul to make it easier to maintain and scale better with a large number of active scoreboards.

• Lost Team Trophy Data

The collection of Tournament Trophies and Badges earned by a specific team was unfortunately lost. We've replaced the section on team profiles to instead show the total collection of Trophies and Badges held by current team members. This means the trophy and badge count will change when players join or leave a team.

We've also removed any restrictions on unlocking new team slots based on trophies and badges collected. Instead, all teams will now be able to add the maximum number of hunters without first earning trophies or badges.

We've restored as much team tournament history as we could from the corrupted backup and new tournament scheduling will resume soon.

• Difficulties Remaining Logged In

The same infrastructure used to host scoreboards is also used to keep hunters logged in. Before the instability we were already in the process of refactoring this system to not use scoreboard infrastructure. The infrastructure issues certainly boosted the priority of this project. We've completed refactoring, however, with the scoreboard infrastructure now stabilized we'll be allowing ourselves more time to do testing to ensure a smooth transition.

Understandably the loss of scoreboard data is upsetting and further more, our inability to restore from a backup is disappointing.

We've made the difficult decision to leave several scoreboards removed to make sure that when we rebuild the system we create one we can maintain with the limited resources our small team has and provide the type of scoreboard system hunters deserve.

iOS 13 Issues

After some more technical research, we have identified the issue causing some buttons in the mobile app to be unresponsive or register as a double tap on devices running iOS 13. The update was recently approved by Apple. Keep an eye out for version 1.84.0 (or higher) in the App Store.