It was Carnival last start of week here in Brazil, so I took a little time to rest and enjoy it with my family. Still, I worked quite a lot, both on my main job and on MSA. Here is a quick summary of what was updated this week (not necessarily in order):

Infrastructure and monitoring improvements

I pushed several infrastructure and server monitoring improvements. Good news: server is running beautifully, light, stable, and extremely fast. Performance is looking very solid (Ill continue monitoring and keeping you guys updated!).

Match history (initial version)

Some of you may have already noticed - I shipped the first implementation of Match History this week. For now, it is simple: you can see a list of your most recent matches. Soon I will add: win-rates and filters (more metrics for those who enjoy numbers).

Discard window

The discard view window will no longer close while you are checking your opponent’s discard pile. Yes… finally!

Combat resolution order adjustment

When I fixed the Peacemillion issue, I accidentally introduced a problem in the combat end trigger resolution order. That should now be correctly handled. If you notice any inconsistencies, please let me know.

Quick return to your ongoing match

Another nice suggestion from Discord... If you are currently in a match, a link will now appear on the home page so you can quickly return to your game and avoid keeping your opponent waiting.

Join us on Discord

Speaking of Discord - come hang out with us. https://discord.gg/BRMwz2WX3s

The community is growing slowly and steadily. It is very welcoming, especially if you are just starting and have questions, suggestions, or bug reports.

Thank you all for the feedback, support, and for playing.

Happy Friday! Cheers, Doug!

Since Friday, January 30th, day of GD03 release and new ranked season, I started to see a massive increase in activity on Mobile Suit Arena. Our average daily concurrent users jumped from around 200 players to over 400... and that was just the beginning.

By Saturday 31th, I was noticing the first signs of performance degradation. On Sunday and Monday, I started a series of optimizations to improve performance and handle the load.

These optimizations were deployed successfully - but at the same time, player numbers continued to rise, reaching 600 users and peaking over 800.

At that point, upgrading the server was necessary. However, the massive amount of users introduced new technical challenges that could not be solved by upgrade alone.

Throughout the week, new performance issues appeared. In parallel, I released additional optimization packages, improving different parts of the system to handle the new scale.

By this past Friday, things were finally stable. However, each day, exactly at midnight, the server began to experience sudden instability and occasional crashes. This had happened before, but with the new higher player base, it started occurring every night.

After extensive investigation and testing, I identified the cause: infrastructure-level network events from the server provider. When they perform network maintenance, re-routing, or restart network equipment, all connected players get disconnected simultaneously. When everyone reconnects at once, it creates a reconnection storm that temporarily overwhelms the server, causing instability that can last for about 15 minutes.

This issue is still being addressed, and I am actively working on strategies to make the system resilient to these events. The good news is that, now (Monday afternoon), the server has been running smoothly for two full days without any performance issues. I am still monitoring, and I am confident that this problem will be fully resolved during this week.

I have also additional optimization packages and fallback mechanisms ready release. If needed, I will deploy them immediately, otherwise, they will be released alongside upcoming features I am currently finishing (spoiler alert: match history).

Thank you to my Supporters!

With the increase in players, I also saw an increase in Patreon Supporters. I want to sincerely thank all of you! Your support is making it possible for me to dedicate more time to improving the platform.

As part of that, I’ve started a new weekly series called Meta Monday, where every Monday supporters receive a snapshot of the current meta, including the most popular decks and their performance.

For Master-tier supporters, I’ll also be sharing an extended version later this week, with deeper insights and detailed card-by-card usage statistics.

You may also have noticed that Master supporters are now listed on site. Some of them have links associated - if you have chance, please, check them out. Many of you may already know creators like Egman on YouTube and the fantastic resources from AIBO Academy.

Thank you all again for playing, for your patience during this scaling phase, and for supporting Mobile Suit Arena.

Future looks very exciting. Cheers, Doug!