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  • Community Crunch 223: Genesis Transfers, Fixes and On The Horizon

     

    Greetings Survivors!

    In this edition of the Community Crunch, we’ll cover the details of opening Genesis Transfers on our Official Networks, the Dupe Protection System, Meshing detection, Third-party software, hardware upgrades for our servers, player dedicated servers for console, Mac, Linux, and we’ll touch on what we’ve been working on recently along with an overview of our focuses over the coming weeks.

    Before we dive into that, we’ll take a brief pause to acknowledge these unprecedented times for all of us - our team, our players, our families, and yours - things are tough right now and we could all use some support and camaraderie. Now, more than ever, activities like gaming allow us to stay connected and engaged with our community, particularly for those of us practicing social distancing, often in isolation. As a small gesture of appreciation for our extended ARK family, we will be continuing to run 2x rates for the foreseeable future. As we continue navigating our way through these extraordinary and challenging times together, our heartfelt thoughts are with all of you. Stay safe Survivors!

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    Genesis & New Official Servers Transfers 

    We’ll be opening full transfer of items and dinos into Genesis on May 15th, 2020 with two notes. The first note is that Extinction Titans will be restricted from transferring and the second is that Managarmr will be marked as unrideable. In the case of the latter, this decision was made in relation to their close-to-flyer status and their ability to dash through certain missions. We have opted to allow Gigas as they serve as a counter to tanking dinos, and Rockdrakes, as they bring some utility whilst being less mobile than Manas.

     

    New Server Transfers

    These were the latest servers added in tandem with our free weekend. Similarly to Genesis One servers, on May the 15th, they’ll also have their transfers enabled:

    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland705
    EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter706
    EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland707
    EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter708
    EU-PVE-Official-Ragnarok709
    EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok710
    EU-PVP-Official-Valguero711
    EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland712
    EU-PVE-Official-Valguero713
    EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter714
    EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok715
    EU-PVP-Official-Valguero716
    NA-PVE-Official-TheIsland717
    NA-PVE-Official-TheCenter718
    NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland719
    NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter720
    NA-PVE-Official-Ragnarok721
    NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok722
    NA-PVP-Official-Valguero723
    NA-PVP-Official-TheIsland724
    NA-PVE-Official-Valguero725
    NA-PVP-Official-TheCenter726
    NA-PVP-Official-Ragnarok727
    NA-PVP-Official-Valguero728

     

    Server Upgrades

    We’ve also been recently working on upgrading the last of our servers to new hardware. A lot has already taken place across all platforms, these were our most recent that took place over the last week:

    PC
    EU-PVE-Official-Aberration222
    NA-PVE-Official-TheIsland339
    NA-PVE-Official-Extinction502
    EU-PVE-Official-Valguero526
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland198
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland43
    EU-PVP-Official-Ragnarok189
    EU-PVE-Official-Ragnarok397
    LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer262 (on Nitrado)
    EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland333
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland343
    EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter349
    LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer272 (on Nitrado)
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland346
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland347
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland344
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland395
    EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter396
    LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer263 (on Nitrado)
    EU-PVE-Official-Valguero523
    EU-PVE-Official-Valguero525
    LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-OfficialServer265 (on Nitrado)
    LEGACY-EU-PVE-TheCenter633
    EU-PVE-Official-Ragnarok389
    LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-Isolated-Ragnarok60
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland78
    EU-PVE-Official-GenOne661
    EU-PVE-Official-GenOne662
    EU-PVE-Official-GenOne663
    LEGACY-The-EU-PVE-Ragnarok59
    EU-PVE-Official-TheIsland705
    EU-PVE-Official-TheCenter706
    EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland707
    EU-PVP-Official-TheCenter708
    EU-PVE-Official-Valguero518
    EU-PVE-Official-Valguero519
    OC-PVE-Official-Ragnarok208
    NA-PVE-Official-Ragnarok383
    EU-PVE-Official-Valguero516
    
    PS4
    Asia-PVP-PS4Official-TheIsland557
    Asia-PVE-PS4Official-Valguero1116
    Asia-PVE-PS4Official-Valguero1117
    
    Xbox
    NA-PVE-CrossPlayOfficial-Valguero1169
    

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    Mac & Linux

    Late last week we were able to push out fixes for both the Mac and Linux versions of the game, which should allow those clients to play on the latest servers, with all the latest content. We appreciate your patience and will be working on improving our pipeline to get these out to you in a quicker and more stable state.

     

    Player Dedicated Servers


    We’re still in the process of iterating on getting Player Dedicated Genesis Servers working on the standard Xbox, PS4 and PS4 Pro. The reason it’s taking longer than expected is due to the fact that Genesis introduced a lot of new underlying systems to ARK, primarily related to the Mission System. This led to an increase in how much memory is required to host a Genesis server. Currently, our engineers are working on optimizing the server so that they’re less intensive on memory usage to see if we can get them under the necessary threshold to allow the other consoles to host them too. It’s on an ongoing process and we’ll keep you updated as we get further along.


    Live Game

    Over the past couple of months, we’ve shifted our primary focus for our regular patches between balance/quality of life and bugs/exploits. The past few weeks have been primarily dedicated to bugs and exploits in this regard. We’ve also been working on various crash fixes. We plan to pivot back to further balance and QoL improvements soon, including a pass on breeding to improve player’s experience and further tweaks to mission rewards and crates on Genesis.

     

    Anti-Cheat & Exploit Measures

    The last time we spoke about our efforts to combat cheaters, we unveiled our work on our Anti-Meshing systems which focused on detection and prevention. After rolling out the system entirely, we saw a 90% reduction in overall meshing cases across the board. Since then, we've continued the fight against the various ways that underhanded survivors try to cheat on the ARK, and we'd like to give you an update on that fight.

     

    Meshing

    Our Anti-meshing Detection System is proving effective and we’re continuing to see a vast decline in incidents. Like all exploits/cheats, this is an ongoing battle and here's our latest progress:

    large.1049416346_MeshHitsOverTime(3).png

    As you can see the battle against meshers is not over, but cases remain low and will continue to decrease over time. Some of the additional changes we've been working on have included:

    • Improvements to the Anti Meshing detection system. This has involved being able to detect meshing in new areas of the map, as well as eliminating false positives and refining the system where edge cases could slip through. 
    • Level Design changes across all maps which focused on filling in holes and ensuring that collision has been set correctly to prevent players from entering unintended playable areas of the map
    • Tackling mesh-methods head on to prevent players from being able to get into the mesh in the first place
    • Initial rollout of the Anti Mesh Biting solution on all platforms, to prevent creatures from attacking through the mesh. Still early days so far, but a lot of the primary methods of mesh biting have been eliminated and we’ll be continuing to monitor for new methods and reports to squash them too!

    We really appreciate and want to thank the ARK community for the reports and support, as the information provided helped us to improve the system overall. Keep it coming guys! ❤️

     

    Duping

    Similarly to meshing, this has been another hot topic that has plagued the game. In one of our most recent updates, we were able to release a system to identify duped items (in some cases retroactively), as well as prevent many instances of duping from occurring in the first place. It's still early days, but so far the results have been outstanding, as we're sure some of you have seen. The system is still being monitored by our team and we'll continue to iterate on improvements where possible whilst having our enforcement team dish out harsher punishments. 

     

    Exploits & Bugs

    Fixing bugs and exploits has been the main focus of our most recent patches. We’d intended to push out some patches focusing on balance but they were put on hold whilst we address what we consider to be more pressing issues.

    Examples exploits we’ve fixed recently include: 

    • Fixed an exploit with the Rock Drake
    • Fixed an exploit that allowed mission creatures to be used in unintended ways
    • Fixed an exploit which allowed certain creatures to attack structures through walls
    • Additional server-side protection against exploits
    • Fixed an exploit with turrets and ziplines
    • Fixed an exploit with meshing and the cruise missile
    • Fixed an exploit that allowed you to get under the map.
    • Fixed a mounting exploit with Magamasaur

    And there’s definitely more if you go through the rest of the patch notes, as well as a whole host of bug fixes!

    We know that the patch notes regarding exploits aren’t super detailed. We typically just reference the object surrounding the exploit and that is because we prefer to hold these cards close to our chest, especially to prevent these methods from being exploited on unpatched Unofficial servers.

     

    Player Reports

    We recognize that some of the auto-responses on tickets could be worded in a more precise manner so as to mitigate confusion and we’ll be working with our GM’s to update them. Something we’d like to clarify is that an auto-response with the ticket being closed does not denote that the case isn’t being investigated. It means one of the following: 

    • Enforcement action has taken place
    • An investigation is ongoing
    • No further information from the reporter is required. 

    Our enforcement team (GM’s) does not disclose the outcome of player reports for player privacy reasons but rest assured that if a reported player or tribe is found in violation of the Code of Conduct, the enforcement team will be taking the necessary action against them.

    For those wanting to report a player for breaking the Code of Conduct on an Official Server, it can be done so here.

     

    Third-Party Software (Aimbot/ESP etc)

    Over the past few months, we’ve seen a spike in our CCUs across the platforms, which usually leads to a spike in cheaters too. In particular, on PC and Crossplay servers, we’ve witnessed a rise in aimbot reports and the team has been working hard with our partners to combat the use of third party software. 

    For some additional insight into the cycle of fighting against aimbots, this is usually what happens: We notice an increase in the number of aimbot reports, we work with our anti-cheat partners to identify and detect the new software and once that has been done, we’ll issue a ban wave and punish cheaters accordingly. Following this, we’ll see a slight dip in the frequency of aimbot reports on our Official Networks, until either new software is released or older software has been updated, and then we repeat the process again of identification, detection, and punishment. This cycle can be as long as a few weeks, or as short as a few days. It’s a constant cat and mouse and our team is working diligently with BattlEye in order to detect new third party software and keep our officials as safe from cheaters as possible. In addition to that, we have also ramped up our enforcement measures, including, not only player bans but full wipes of tribes associated.

    In regards to Crossplay specifically, we’ve recently implemented and improved our systems & heuristics to identify those using malicious third party software and it is proving effective. Over the past week, our enforcement team has wiped multiple tribes and banned a large number of players on our Crossplay servers with more to come very soon. We’ll continue to enforce hard against these cheaters.
     


    Eggcellent Painting Contest

    sjzXkF4.png

    As a reminder, the Eggcellent Painting contest is ongoing.  There will be two competitions with a prize for the winner of $100!

    • In-Game Painting
    • Real-life Egg Painting

    The entries will be judged by our community team. Submissions are limited to three eggs per survivor, so choose your best egg. You'll have the month of April to enter, with April 30th being the final day to enter. Submit your images in the comments below, and we look forward to seeing your creativity!

    Click here for more details and enter your painting for a chance to win


    On The Horizon

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    Along with continuing to squash bugs, improve performance, and address any exploits that may arise, we will be working on planned balance and QoL for the Live Game. Some of the team are busy working on the upcoming Crystal Isles map and a unique new creature. We’re excited to release Crystal Isles on our Official Networks in the not too distant future!


    ARK is On Sale on PS4!

    PS4_Summer_Sale_ARK.jpg

    Grab a copy of ARK for PS4 on the Playstation Store

    Steam Sale: Explorers Edition (75% Off)

    b66d23ff436b6041e2ba8327e0c585ea.jpg

    Want to introduce your friends to the world of ARK?  Right now, the ARK: Survival Evolved Explorer's Edition Bundle is available for 75% off on Steam! The Explorer's Edition gives you access to the base game as well as the Scorched Earth, Aberration, and Extinction Expansion Packs.

    Go grab your copy now!


    EVO Event

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    As mentioned above, we've enabled 2x XP, taming, breeding, and harvest. We'll continue to run these rates for the time being as a gesture towards our community as we all deal with the isolation and stress during these tough times.

    That’s about it for this Community Crunch. Stay safe and take care!

    Studio Wildcard 
     

    Twitter: twitter.com/survivetheark
    Facebook: facebook.com/survivetheark
    Reddit: reddit.com/r/playark
    Instagram: instagram.com/survivetheark
    Twitch: twitch.tv/survivetheark
    Steam: steamcommunity.com/app/346110
    Youtube: youtube.com/survivetheark

     

     


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    Good job Wild Card. Also, Some PVE servers have alpha boss Genesis mess up. Would be nice if you looked into that. Also Great job on the patches. Though the fight most continue lol

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    now with 2x breeding always on, this also means that alot of servers are high ping, which brings other nasty problems, abover 120ping the fertilized eggs are not reaching the ground when dropped from a female and egg incubation timers are totaly out of sync and surprise hatching on you all the time.

    can you please fix these ?

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    can u guys please fix a problem on ps4 official pvp when im uploading my stuff to my ark data some items wont show up in my ark data i lost lots of tames due to this bug pls fix it.

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    any word when duping prevention systems are coming to official PVE

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    So you are going to ruin genesis with gigas and op rexs coming in. This game was a challenge but now it will simply be easy and pointless. Don’t be surprised when players stop playing this game altogether. So much for something new. 

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    Thanks for fixing Linux version (waited for 2 month to be able to play after Gen release).

    But genesis is unplayable in lunar biome. White screen...

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    @Dollie to be fair i really hate to read this open transfers. This never should have happened. Not only you will make the missions a faceroll, also the whole experience of Genesis is gone... I have never seen such a letdown from a gamers perspective in my 10.3k hours of ark. I really think you should reconcider this enabling of transfers, at least for dinos. I would just let it be able to transfer X-dinos or Genesis-specific dinos, but never allow to get any dino in this map. All the people who did the effort to get 168 missions must have had fun, but also feel stupid now. Genesis will become a face roll map. 

    There is so much more that people can experience, but you take it all out. Now we will not only have laggy servers, where missions are less possible to do, but we also have gigas, rock drakes,... Might aswell let tek suits enabled... flyers enabled etc. It doesn't really matter to be honest... A dark day for the ark community

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    1 minute ago, mogrot said:

    @Dollie  公平地说,我真的很讨厌阅读此公开转账。这永远都不会发生。不仅您可以轻松完成任务,而且《创世纪》的全部体验都消失了……从我的10.3万小时方舟游戏中,我从未见过如此令人失望的游戏玩家。我真的认为您应该重新考虑这种转移的实现,至少对于恐龙而言。我只是希望它能够传输X-dinos或Genesis特有的恐龙,但绝不允许在此地图上获取任何恐龙。所有努力完成168个任务的人都一定很开心,但现在也感到愚蠢。创世纪将成为一张脸谱图。 

    人们可以体验到更多的东西,但是您将其全部拿走了。现在,我们不仅将有无法完成任务的服务器,而且还有大型演出,岩龙等……也许还可以启用tek套装……启用传单等。老实...方舟社区的黑暗日子

    Super agree

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    Thank you thank you thank you.

    THIS is what a community Crunch should be.  Everything informative and straight to the point with clear information given out.  I love this one so much.  Thank you for the time it took for you to get all the information together and lay it out in a clean and efficient way.

    So glad dinos that can be tamed off server are able to be brought over to genesis.

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    THANK YOU WC! 

    I am SO SO happy with this crunch. I love genesis and I've been waiting for the transfers! I personally am THRILLED Gigas will be allowed, they are my

    all time favorite dino. 

    Thank you for all of the hard work and time you are putting into this game. And thank you for the x2 to keep us occupied ❤️

     

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    55 minutes ago, BossPaco said:

    Seems I can exit to main now with my XB1X. I’m happy. Now to see if I can get on extinction without being DCd in wave 4 on my first ever OSD. Not being able to reconnect with my passive set wyvern was very stressful. Funny that this game causes me stress when I play to unwind. 
     

    Thanks for fixing what you can. I do appreciate it very much. 
     

    EDIT: Logged into extinction, looked around, went back to my shack so I could grab a bite and when exiting to main I got booted to xb home screen. I was able to leave Ragnarok and go to Extinction without trouble. Unsure if this is helpful at all. I rock a XB1X and this is obviously after today’s download. Hope you can find some relief soon. 

    Just so I'm clear, you're also seeing a crash after going to the main menu when exiting while on Extinction using an XB1X?  FWIW I'm seeing that as well.

    I have no idea if it's related, but also on our nitrado cluster my character has gotten duped 2 out of the 10 or so times I've transferred between extinction and valguero on our cluster.  :(

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    @Dollie

    We seriously need to look into removing hatch frames from platform dinos. These are used to block turrets from hitting the dino, mostly used on the Paraceratherium and Quetzal. This makes it difficult to defend any base against essentially an exploit. See videos below.

    https://streamable.com/ts3wvd

     

    https://streamable.com/x44tda

     

    https://streamable.com/ugh3wb

     

    Please consider removing hatch frames from Platform saddles. Thank you. 

    Edited by TES

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    Haters always complaining without thinking first gigas on genesis alphas mission they not OP try for yourself and will be shredded, you should be tanking devs for lasted great decisions 

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    LOL, Gensis is supposed to be a simulation (not real). No tranfers should be allowed.

     

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    Was like most on here who were hoping that dino transfer's would not happen on Genesis, seeing how they said "we cranked the difficulty way up" but yet there are plenty of people/tribes offering alpha runs of master controller for weeks now. There is no need for transfers of dinos all that will happen is it will become another ragnarok or extinction map A.K.A Dino storage lot. And these servers are plagued with crashes/kicks/rollbacks/1-2 min server saves and frequent lag spikes wanna-be breeders flock to rag and ext for the easy meat farming and gathering element.

    I'd like to know what dino is so tanky that it needs the giga as a counter part in genesis, cyro podded dinos don't have cryo sickness anymore so you just have to toss out a few more dinos. The gigas will just make genesis a joke I haven't raised a giga since 675 melee and I solo purple drops without cheating with offline billboards or spike walls (its against CoC).

    Would have been nice to actually have some server stability with the limited dinos on there wouldn't have every person trying to bring dinos there that should never be there in the 1st place. Prime example mana's allowed but not rideable so we can see a bases with 200 manas sitting there please don't get me started.  Just to breed their c#@p on [gen-one insert server number] and trade/sell said dino. Because people are already bored with Genesis with its lack of things to do and farming mats is so easy. 

    Should have been a lot more dino restrictions like on aberration, than to just allow almost all the dinos just turning Genesis servers into a chit show performance wise because the ark gluttons/hoarders won't limit themselves to a reasonable size base nor dino count.

    If anything just blue prints should be the only thing transferable in not dinos. 

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    Ps4 beginners na needs fixed lv cap is at 24 with chibi 29 server never wiped on March 24th I'm the only person with certain saddle bps pt sarco etc. Also grenade BP large crop plot and op Christmas event bps. Servers need attention asap.

     

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    Ngl it has made me really happy that they have finally started to fix all these bugs and glitches and that meshing is so low now. Such a shame they couldn’t of done this sooner when the player base was much bigger but I would like to thank the devs for doing something and opening up to the fan base more. Keep it up

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    So the end of challenging simulation is announced! The challenge is over.
    Why dont allow only species that exists at Genesis? 

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    For everyone containing of open transfers, there is this amazing thing players can do. They can rent server spaces and design the setting how they choose, including the transfers. And if you can't afford it, there is probably a server already made, you just have to look

    Edited by Nitrozeus2289
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    Thoughts on an aberration revamp like the island? Thinking maybe a cool underwater cave system that would house some larger underwater creatures like tusos, plesis, and mosas? Also maybe allowing snow owls on the map but leaving them as unrideable like the manas will be on genesis? Owl pellets are annoying to transfer and it could make it nicer for us ab mains. 

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    5 hours ago, Grandta said:

    Will we ever see the day when upload timers are removed?

     

     

    Agreed. Upload timers were added as a solution for duping, and all it did was make dupers more patient. It never actually solved anything. Getting rid of the timers is the right thing to do.

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    4 hours ago, Duckhunter1030 said:

    So you are going to ruin genesis with gigas and op rexs coming in. This game was a challenge but now it will simply be easy and pointless. Don’t be surprised when players stop playing this game altogether. So much for something new. 

    Enabling transfers did not ruin SE, aberration, ragnarok, extinction, or valguero. Nobody is forcing you to use them, you can play with your crappy dinos all you want.

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    6 hours ago, Sharksaur said:

    Should've left giga's out of the transfer, they'll just take out all the fun in doing the missions. 

    for all of you saying this, you realize you dont have to use a giga right ??

     

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