Ark Gets Old With Age

[Ardeth]

As with any living being, what was once beautiful in many ways has now grown old, non-functional, worn-out, broken, and simply ugly. The same can be said is true of ARK. The older it gets, the uglier, more broken, and less-functional it gets, causing new and old players like me to stop caring and start hating the game. Once a beautiful concept, now simply an ugly waste of time. Here's why:

1. Framerate/Lag: The greatest and most commonly annoying problem (sometimes detrimental) in the game from early on is, has been, and continues to be a problem to this day. As stated to me by a moderator on here long ago (who was informed of Wildcard Studio's plans), this has never been a focus of the creator's plans. Their primary and almost only focus has been the addition of new content, and while agreed this is important and necessary, having a game run smootly is equally as important, creating lasting, enjoyable gameplay without frustration, errors, loss, and endless complaints. It's gotten so bad just playing for a few minutes makes my eyes and head hurt. It's like having a non-ending spas attack and it's not even caused by your health. It's miserable, causing eye strain, loss of progress and action in the game, and sometimes even the death of yourself and dinos, losing valuable, hard earned items and hard earned, often hours spent taming and raising dino companions. What's worse, the devs even once stated that a player could build as big and as high as they want to, and while this is true, the lack of ability to load enormous structures in the game because of over-taxed servers and processors is blatantly obvious. Walking or (god forbid) flying over these will inevitably cause you to freeze to wait for them to load, often leading to disconnets and frustrating lag, leading to unpredictable movement and action and need for recovery immediately after a disconnect or pass-over. This has not changed hardly at all from day 1 (yes I was there). What has changed is the abudance of super bases and construction. Time has allotted the building and construction of these "no fly zones," and they are as ever as present as the land itself, which leads me to my next point...

2. Lack of Space/No build Room: As stated before, time has allowed the building and development of structures and bases, and there is no lack of them being present. New and old players alike will be hard pressed to find a new place to build, as 99% of maps are now owned/controlled by players and their existing structures. If lucky, a player might find an open spot in the most dangerous places on the map, but these places will often lead to disaster and ruin. What makes this so much worse, also, is that the devs delete inactive servers to try to prevent the servers from being over-taxed (which they already are anyway). Thus the missing server numbers listed on the "Join Ark" menu of listed servers; so no one can find a new place to build there either. Lastly, there is no limit to the amount of space a player can occupy and no limit to placeable structures, meaning if a person had time and the ability, because no one was already there, they could pillar an entire map without restaint. All of these factors lead up to one major unaddressed problem: new players and old alike have no place to build, go, and play if they didn't secure one long ago. New players will find they have spent money on a game that they can barely play with little to no hope of ever progressing to the final stages of the game, as a base is a fundamental part of ARK and one of the most enjoyable parts of owning the game.

3. Dominance/Kiting: If you are ever fortunate enough to own a base, you will be forced to face to severe problems: Kiting on PvE and Attack by raiders or an Alpha on PvP. Find yourself in a disagreement with a player on a PvE server and you could likely be facing a very large dino capable of mass-destruction to your dinos and base, as a talented player can use a flyer to piss off a giga or titano and get it to follow him/her all the way to a players base... and don't even get me started on PvP. My cousin used to love the idea of fighting and torturing other players by locking them up in a cage, but after many, many tries of constructing a base of his own and having it raided or attacked by a larger tribe and repeatedly destroyed, what choice was there but to give up? Frustration without end...

4. Getting Stuck: The maps are littered with holes and other "stuck spots" and what's worse is that if you are fortunate enough to own just a few dinos yourself, you won't even have to get stuck in a hole to be trapped or stuck, as the dinos are missing definitive "barrier zones" and feature "phase-through" zones on their body. What this means is place two or more of them near each other, like in a pen (and as stated room is very, very limited and who doesn't store their dinos together?) and you will inevitably get stuck; whether it's riding and manuvering around them, or simply walking around them or getting on/off them you will snag, float, and "pop" back and forth between them like a pinball in a pinball machine. This is unbelievably frustrating, believe me.

5. Resource Control: There is an obvious lack of no-build zones on major resource areas and around the obelisks, meaning a player can build, de-spawn, and ultimately decide when and if another player can have access to these vital areas. This goes without statement to be a problem, as these are vital and necessary to gameplay.

6. Parameter Adjustments: Spend a lot of time pumping stats on a dino to make it what it is? Why bother? There's a good chance the devs will alter the settings so stats will be locked to a limit. Most recent example is the reduction to flyer stats.

7. Several other problems I forgot to mention. Yes I know games always have bugs and other problems, but add them on top of what I already mentioned and they become even more of a nuisance and problem than usual. It's the cherry to top off the **** pie.

In other words, what was once a pretty decent game with a great concept is now one that only a specific few will still be playing, probably because they already have and don't want to lose; other than that, it's getting uglier with age, and a game most will want to stop playing (if they even start) and look elsewhere to enjoy. As for me, I'm done till the mountainous pile of B.S. I mentioned gets fixed of at least majorly improved. Thanks WildCard. It was once a beautiful idea, but like a living being, it has gotten old.

 

 

 

[ThzNutz]

i really do hate to say it, but the game is still in development, and content will be the focus until that phase is complete. then it goes to Beta (bug fixing), which should be sometime this summer (fingers crossed) and then full release sometime after that. i get it can be frustrating, is for me too sometimes even after almost 3300 hours, but that is part of opting in to play during development. its perfectly fine to not play if it is too frustrating, or wait for a little while, or if its that bad for you just wait until full release. things will be much more polished and optimized after they have a few months to fully focus on that aspect of development.  

as far as kiting, that may be an issue even after release, maybe not.

PVP is just that--expect no quarter

if you find a spot that you get stuck in, search for the topic or create a new thread and give coordinates and it can be fixed. 

dinos, mechanics, etc are subject to balancing while under development

[SirPeter]

@Ardeth being totally serious, but it sounds like you are wanting to play single player? Have you tried that? The majority of your complaints would be solved. Just an idea or you could look into hosting your own server if you wanted and you could control how everything plays out? The rest of it though, like @ThzNutz said... It's in development and really should be expected. Good news is that we are getting close to Beta and much of the lagging and map issues should hopefully be addressed in that stage.

During the terrible lag times which seems to be weekends I have started playing Horizon Zero Dawn. Super fun game. It saddens me to play something else but I can't play when it gets so laggy the only outcome will be losing dinos, gear, both, more, who knows what because the problems get crazy sometimes and I refuse to risk it sometimes.

Good luck, hope it works out for you.

[SexyBeast]

1 minute ago, SirPeter said:

@Ardeth being totally serious, but it sounds like you are wanting to play single player? Have you tried that? The majority of your complaints would be solved. Just an idea or you could look into hosting your own server if you wanted and you could control how everything plays out? The rest of it though, like @ThzNutz said... It's in development and really should be expected. Good news is that we are getting close to Beta and much of the lagging and map issues should hopefully be addressed in that stage.

During the terrible lag times which seems to be weekends I have started playing Horizon Zero Dawn. Super fun game. It saddens me to play something else but I can't play when it gets so laggy the only outcome will be losing dinos, gear, both, more, who knows what because the problems get crazy sometimes and I refuse to risk it sometimes.

Good luck, hope it works out for you.

I love singleplayer I mean I wish I could play PvP and get rekt by alphas start an uprising making an alliance with all the small guys getting rekt again and again until we've all finally gotten to the point we can take em down. Hiding from them with a small little base hidden in the most obscure spots and dark spots. I wish I could do everything that people complain about, I mean like they complain about PvP being PvP. But definetly try singleplayer you really can make your own fun. On the island I turned herb island into and arena and train Dino's to put on agressive unclaim em and I got a fight with a spear wood shield and a pack of three sabers. I get to do target practice build literally everywhere. Design. Rafts. Adventure. I can't do mods but like if your on PC mods. Taming. Farming. Breeding. Brewing. Painting. Hunting. I could go on but too much to say

[Lockjaw]

I'm actually seriously considering going back to single player. In addition to fixing some of the problems listed here, it would allow me to actually play on my own time instead of planning everything else in my life around a stupid video game.

[Ardeth]

Thank you all for your input and advice, I appreciate it. I have actually been considering single-player for a little while now. Only problem is there's no one to interact with... Also, I have always wanted to get as far as possible on an official server, because on single player, as mentioned, you can alter parameters and rules to your advantage, meaning to me it's like using cheat codes in a sort of way... I have pretty much always wanted to play and conquer games without cheating. For my own satisfaction and pride. I know for most it's not that big of a deal. I guess I'm just serious like that. It's who I am. Finally, I thought the "Officially Licensed" update meant the game was now fully released. The fact it's still in development makes some room for understanding, but doesn't change the fact the problems are there, though, and really, really suck for existing players. I will simply hate the game until they get fixed (at least the lag/framerate problem and "snagging" on dinos problems).

[Cymas]

The thing with SP is that the "rules" go both ways--you can make the game as easy or as hard as you want for yourself. Not everyone uses SP to cheat themselves to victory. I use mine to do challenge runs fairly often, helps me learn new aspects of the game even with nearly 4k hours of experience.

The problems are there because the game is in development. We are still in alpha phase, which means primarily adding content. We still have at least 2-3 major content patches to get everything in, and then the TLC pass and overhauls for older animals and features. Then once the game enters beta phase we'll see all the big bug fixes and optimizations that are the root of many of your current concerns.

It sounds like you may actually want to just take a break from the game for awhile and wait for it to get further along in development. Then once the issues you have the most problems with have been addressed you can come back and enjoy the game again. There's absolutely nothing wrong with leaving the game if you're not enjoying it anymore.

[Chrisdavid42]

I truly believe that the best way for a working adult to enjoy ARK is on a private server with friends. It sucks to pay $50 every three months, but I can go to sleep at night and not worry that someone is destroying my hard work. The map has plenty of room because there is more often a fewer more dedicated players, and you can customize rates to address the grind. There is no way that I could hunt, tame, and breed (some of my favorite parts of ARK) if I had to play with official server rates. So, I would suggest you try out a couple of the private servers. You might find one you like that matches your play style.

[SexyBeast]

On 5/4/2017 at 9:27 PM, Ardeth said:

Thank you all for your input and advice, I appreciate it. I have actually been considering single-player for a little while now. Only problem is there's no one to interact with... Also, I have always wanted to get as far as possible on an official server, because on single player, as mentioned, you can alter parameters and rules to your advantage, meaning to me it's like using cheat codes in a sort of way... I have pretty much always wanted to play and conquer games without cheating. For my own satisfaction and pride. I know for most it's not that big of a deal. I guess I'm just serious like that. It's who I am. Finally, I thought the "Officially Licensed" update meant the game was now fully released. The fact it's still in development makes some room for understanding, but doesn't change the fact the problems are there, though, and really, really suck for existing players. I will simply hate the game until they get fixed (at least the lag/framerate problem and "snagging" on dinos problems).

So I get the no interaction aspect thats why I'm hoping for a bush ppl mod to be added but there are other things to do that don't have interaction yet do like on the singelplayer group on facebook you got just competitions whenever ppl feel like it. Such as raft building, herb island builds 3 story 3x2 build or anything ppl suggest doesn't always mean building. There is a lot of fun stuff you can do. I play on Xbox as well so I find ways to make it fun alone but on xbox were lucky in the fact that grab another controller and  you can do a lot ppl comeover and want to play or just use controller two to make a base and raid yourself or anything you want.

[mighty]

I agree with a lot you say but point 2 is rubbish there is always places to build just go through a few severs and u will find places to build no problem as I have started on a fair few servers and with a bit of looking u can find a good spot .And point 3 can be avoided on PVE if you plan and build your Base properly.