The Ark Devs HAVE to address the problem of Alpha/Mega Tribes ruining servers

[Dhalia]

There always seem a lot of debate on this subject. I have had the experience of various alphas at this point - English and Non-English speaking. Each came with challenges. I have found you have to speak to people. Not whine or anything, just act like a normal human being. It makes it possible to create some kind of relationship. I don't think numbers matter that much. An efficient & competent single player can easily demolish an alpha stronghold with enough planning. It is not strange that this game revolves about human relations. Same thing with hours spent on the game. If all your time on a PVP server is spent taming dinos and in no way defending them - you are just an easy target that forgot what game they decided to play. Be smart in your choice of location, don't just build where the new players are building in the less challenging areas. A balanced approach is needed in PvP game play. 

[StrangerDanger42]

I do not find mega tribes being super toxic at least on pc. Generally they are concerned about the long term health of their servers and the game so they leave smaller tribes alone unless provoked for the most part.  Dealing with an alpha can seem daunting, but mechanics exist that allow for completely wiping them such as gaining trust insiding etc.... Which is why pvp in this game can turn into the most toxic or rewarding game i have ever played.  The mega tribes i have dealt/played hate insiding someone much as I do.  Being insided 6 times in 7 days gets old.

However if the Alpha is toxic infiltrate, annihilate, and wipe them...on multiple servers.  They will learn, adapt, or people will keep screwing them over. 

[SlyGuy68]

24 minutes ago, Chewytowel said:

I think in part there are ways to combat a wipe.  You have Purlovia's now and those can help in long term hidden storage if they don't magically pop up randomly for no reason.  There are also perhaps going to eventually be reasons for these huge alpha tribe's to move on from other servers and spend more focus on upcoming expansions content (I'm thinking one might require ascension to access it).  Also, if you manage to perhaps hide your dino's on a large map like Ragnarok successfully and even breed to do bosses then you might have a chance.  The only downside is that being a smaller tribe means you likely have to have multiple bases across multiple servers, and even multiple hidden vaults or raft bases as well.  All of that can be rather exhausting if the servers you are playing on are very hostile.  That doesn't even include whether or not you actively pvp.  A lot of times from what I have seen if you do any kind of active pvp on a pvp server the whole server comes after you now.  So you're forced to live small and use what you can to survive anyway.  

There are servers where you can peacefully build up and maybe won't get raided that often on.  Even then transfers have opened up lots of rando's coming through and wiping bases across the map for sport.  And all of this I am sure you are aware of anyway, but I doubt the dev's are that out of touch as they actively talk with members of the community.  Many of whom also are very entrenched top tier pvp players.

The problem with gathering all your data from the "top tier" players is that's the info you get is grossly favorable to those who wish to remain in power. No matter how unbalanced that power actually is.

[Chewytowel]

5 minutes ago, SlyGuy68 said:

The problem with gathering all your data from the "top tier" players is that's the info you get is grossly favorable to those who wish to remain in power. No matter how unbalanced that power actually is.

I'm sure that does happen, but the point is that they aren't out of touch.  They have plenty of people coming to to forums everyday voicing their concerns in regards to pvp server issues that I don't doubt they have read.  At the moment I am a solo player in a tribe that has now been wiped almost completely, and I was upset about that as there was nothing I could do to fight back.  Yet, I had to adapt, do the same thing again, or give up.  Ark is a game that requires adaptation to some extent as well as building relationships.  

[Harrist14]

6 hours ago, Samammo said:

It's my guess that you just got wiped and you're salty.

but still, transfers make the game. Without them, a big tribe would just wipe everyone as soon as they build. But with server transfers, they can't waste any resources to do so, as they need to use them to defend against other servers.

Mm no. I like being able to trade and whatnot, but the game was more fun pre-open transfers

[Sumane]

The only solution to this is to form an alliance and take down the alpha.... there is no other way.

 

I personally would love to play on a pvp server, but unfortunately i know it would require either A) dedicating my life to it, B) joining a small tribe and always being in a state of worry that i would get wiped, or C) joining an alpha tribe. Either of those options requires the time and dedication that i dont have, so i play on pve.

[Blackninja]

21 hours ago, Jostabeere said:

"Please give me my safezone and ruin the fun of people who play longer and are better than me because I don't want them to be better than me. They are better than me and they abuuuuse it! Help me!"

I really have to laugh at you complaining about a player and insulting him as a "Russian Kid" because he played PvP on a PvP server.

Seriously. Why do you go on a PvP server if you don't want other people to play PvP against you?

PvP is a place where you HAVE to have MANY people or BE online ALL THE TIME. This is PvP. If it doesn't suit you, or you don't want to adapt it, try an Unofficial PvP or go to PvE.

This reply sums up the problem. There is no game mechanic fix that will correct the troubled mind of a grieffer. For you see, a grieffer is nothing but a broken husk of a human, lonely and abused perhaps, they take joy in ruining others ability to play and causing emotional distress.

I'm sure you went to highschool right? Well a grieffer is like that bully who picks on everyone because when they get home their daddy beats them. 

And I do agree. On every NA server I've played on, I get way more grief from Eurotrash playing on and ruining the latency of a NA server when they have hundreds of EU servers to choose from. I couldn't tell you how many times some eastern European brute had run up on me screaming his broken English through the mic before killing and destroying me.

 

This game should be used as a psychologic test of sorts. These constant grieffers should be evaluated for psychotic tendancies.

[lvirusl]

5 minutes ago, Blackninja said:

This reply sums up the problem. There is no game mechanic fix that will correct the troubled mind of a grieffer. For you see, a grieffer is nothing but a broken husk of a human, lonely and abused perhaps, they take joy in ruining others ability to play and causing emotional distress.

I'm sure you went to highschool right? Well a grieffer is like that bully who picks on everyone because when they get home their daddy beats them. 

And I do agree. On every NA server I've played on, I get way more grief from Eurotrash playing on and ruining the latency of a NA server when they have hundreds of EU servers to choose from. I couldn't tell you how many times some eastern European brute had run up on me screaming his broken English through the mic before killing and destroying me.

 

This game should be used as a psychologic test of sorts. These constant grieffers should be evaluated for psychotic tendancies.

You're asking for a safe place to play on a PvP server I think it is you not he that has the issues. If you don't want to see death stay out of the warzone.

[Blackninja]

Just now, lvirusl said:

You're asking for a safe place to play on a PvP server I think it is you not he that has the issues. If you don't want to see death stay out of the warzone.

I asked for no such thing? My post contains no desires or yearning for anything but a psychological evaluation on players that might consist of you judging by your lack of understanding. You must be the Eurotrash I speak of, unable to comprehend basic text or speech.

[Blackninja]

And by the war, a war consists of equallly armed parties and a backing for such death. When i get my stone house gets rocketed by some Eurotrash that doesn't understand my compliments about his griffin, that is not war. That is grieffing.

[SmokeyB]

On 20/06/2017 at 2:46 PM, Zacusca said:

You can have fun in this game without ruining others'. Or is that too hard?

Yeah mate its called pve.  Pvp is all about ruining others fun. The most fun you will get on a pvp server is when you ruin someone's hard work,  the harder they worked the more fun it is. 

[lvirusl]

6 minutes ago, Blackninja said:

And by the war, a war consists of equallly armed parties and a backing for such death. When i get my stone house gets rocketed by some Eurotrash that doesn't understand my compliments about his griffin, that is not war. That is grieffing.

Tell that to the Africans that fought hitler when he invaded Africa. Those spears and sword sure were equally backed and armed against rommels panzers.

[SmokeyB]

5 minutes ago, Blackninja said:

And by the war, a war consists of equallly armed parties and a backing for such death. When i get my stone house gets rocketed by some Eurotrash that doesn't understand my compliments about his griffin, that is not war. That is grieffing.

Yeah tell that too America when they blow up the Arabs stone huts. Very rarely is a war with two equally armed party's. Wars are about dominating and taking resources,  making your own rules just like in ark. America is the alpha tribe,  the earth is their server,  just like on ark you can join them,  alpha alliance,  or fight them and probably get wiped,  ark mirrors real life 

[Blackninja]

Just now, lvirusl said:

Tell that to the Africans that fought hitler when he invaded Africa. Those spears and sword sure were equally backing against rommels panzers.

Your lack of knowledge only backs my statement. By the way, North Africa, which was the part Hitler tried to invade, is mainly British/French territory. Hitler was not fighting indigenous African tribes, he was fighting other Europeans. And thank you for making Hitler your basis of how to live, it really shows your character.

[lvirusl]

12 minutes ago, Blackninja said:

Your lack of knowledge only backs my statement. By the way, North Africa, which was the part Hitler tried to invade, is mainly British/French territory. Hitler was not fighting indigenous African tribes, he was fighting other Europeans. And thank you for making Hitler your basis of how to live, it really shows your character.

You are only partially correct, first Italy was ordered to invade before the Afrika Corps of Rommel took over due to unsatisfactory results. Although they may have been French and british territories there are many instances of regional armies fighting with Nazi regulars utilizing primitive homemade weaponry at many places like El Alamein, Tobruk, etc... You want to pretend to know about war, come back to me when you have actually been there for those of us that have seen conflict know that fairness hasn't and never will be part of conflict. Vi per Concordiam

And no one made hitler the comparison to the how to live. You are simply misconstruing words to make you failing argument be forgotten. Do not stray into that which you do not understand young child for you may find yourself in the jaws of a monster.

[Chewytowel]

Pvp isn't griefing.  Blocking spawn zones with turret towers and walls is griefing.

[Sphere]

49 minutes ago, Chewytowel said:

Pvp isn't griefing.  Blocking spawn zones with turret towers and walls is griefing.

So is inviting people to your tribe, waiting for them to log out, putting 'em into cages, and then kicking 'em out of the tribe with hand cuffs and a cage. lul

[Pewpreme]

I think it is fine. There will always be "Alpha Tribes", you'll need to work together to get rid of them, but there will always be a new alpha.

[Chewytowel]

36 minutes ago, Sphere said:

So is inviting people to your tribe, waiting for them to log out, putting 'em into cages, and then kicking 'em out of the tribe with hand cuffs and a cage. lul

That's perfectly fine and not griefing. 

[VIKAS]

Hello Ark players,

I don't know how to say this to you without hurting your feelings, but it seems to me that all of you (whiners) are really hypocrite. I will try to explain myself better:

The people that are now in an "Alpha Tribe status" had all passed for the things your are talking about (2 or 3 days wipes, kill tames, negation of space to build into...) and you know what, they all were marvelous people like you (poor whiners) are now. 

But you know one thing, they fighted and worked together and suffered for it to be where they are now. And now you wanna to destroy them (another time) what you would think if you were in their position, I'm sure that all of you would think Oh poor newbie let's help that poor player becasue I remember that I was helped... wait no. raptor that noob Fire to him, his animal and his thatch pertenences (overdramatic, not so much)

I really think that the game should have better defenses cause you know, actually you have 0 automated defenses, automated turrets are ok but they are fragile, irresponsive and don't do so much damage in order to be effective as a deterrence object. Put more of them, bigger (more resources, more HP) put them twin, triple, quadruple barrels in it, heck put also hellfire missiles on the lateral of this quad chaingun. and know put them in the base, try to do what you normally do. Put the tortoise, is dead by the missiles, put the ocassional flyer trying to do spam cluster grenades in your house well, what about some specific air defenses only target air but they destroy air, and from a huuuuge range (that way you could no use the fly to the height limit in order to be safe).

I don't wanna say much more about this, but WC should not interfere between players, they only should provide the players with the tools to do this, but actually are the players who have to look for a workaround to this "problem".

It's only my opinion, as you are entitled to have your opinion and I respect that, please respect mine.

 

Regards survivors.

[DaGoodNamesWereTaken]

On 6/20/2017 at 6:10 AM, Zacusca said:

I am fine with raiding. You can't expect not to be raided on a PvP server, but you should at least have a fair chance. Ever since Ark allowed the transfer of tamed creatures and items, the game has been going downhill. Rude Alpha Tribes have always been a problem, because they can control a server and settle their own rules (I have even heard of an official server where the Alpha did not allow tribes to have more than 2 players), but the fact that these players can spread and control other servers is just broken. It has been 2 times so far that I have been absolutely destroyed by a Russian kid on a Wyvern for no reason whatsoever on an Official PvP Server. New players who cannot spend 7 hours/day playing or who do not have more than 4-5 active players in their tribe have absolutely 0 chance of surviving more than a few weeks if the server is ruled by a tyrant tribe.

A lot of people suggest that a wipe should occur on the release of the game, but in my opinion, that would simply a be a temporary solution, as those Mega Tribes could redeem everything back in about a month. A permanent solution needs to be found. Hopefully one that not only fixes the spread of the barbaric tribes, but also the domination of the Alpha Tribes on servers. I understand that players who have worked hard are going to be more powerful, but abusing that power ruins the fun for everyone.

 

*sigh*... I miss the days when Gigas and Wyverns did not exist and you actually needed a little effort to raid someone

Go play pve or mine craft. how do you even propose a fix should there be a check box names "can't raid" so you can build in peace? No, the simple fact is not every one can be alpha and unfortunately you fall in that category. You should be playing pvepvp and leave the hard stuff to the big boys 

[Bobbehyyc]

Most interesting post ive read all day

[Jostabeere]

4 hours ago, Blackninja said:

This reply sums up the problem. There is no game mechanic fix that will correct the troubled mind of a grieffer. For you see, a grieffer is nothing but a broken husk of a human, lonely and abused perhaps, they take joy in ruining others ability to play and causing emotional distress.

I'm sure you went to highschool right? Well a grieffer is like that bully who picks on everyone because when they get home their daddy beats them. 

And I do agree. On every NA server I've played on, I get way more grief from Eurotrash playing on and ruining the latency of a NA server when they have hundreds of EU servers to choose from. I couldn't tell you how many times some eastern European brute had run up on me screaming his broken English through the mic before killing and destroying me.

 

This game should be used as a psychologic test of sorts. These constant grieffers should be evaluated for psychotic tendancies.

You should drop your poopy mentality that an Alpha is a griefer. Just drop it and learn what a griefer is.

And drop that weak argument that he is a bully and his daddy beats him. This does not apply to ARK. It's an excuse by people who can't gid gud. IRL someone who picks on other for fun is a bully. He does not need to survive in an RPG and he does not need to secure his survival with the fall of others. Read up about the history of mankind or watch some animal documentaries. People and animals throughout history always fought others and killed them to ensure their own Survival. ARK isn't different. It's roleplaying primal survival. And Alphas become the Apex predator by killing any competition off. And they won't stay on top if they do not continue to kill their competition off.

ARKs PvP is about actually fighting and killing people that might become competition. Why can't people get this and have to be entitled to have a safezone in PvP?

[Mistborn10]

Here are my views on this. 

Alpha tribes and mega tribes, these things in themselves are NOT a problem. They are players who, through diplomacy or skill, have managed to dominate a server and have held a position of power above others. Players who manage to do this should be rewarded. Players who have worked harder should have a distinct advantage over those who have not. The game has to be that way or there isn't any point to it. 

In my view the issue is how easy it it for these alpha and mega tribes to attack people who are of no threat and who are on a different server. I am talking the server wipes for fun. I am talking people hopping servers and just griefing newer players. This is where the issue lies for me. 

Its so easy for a stronger tribe to just pick up whatever they have now and just jump to a new server, cost free, cause devastation, and then leave. And unless something goes wrong it is very difficult to even know what server they are from to fight back. 

So what is the solution. Cross ark transfer should cost you something to bring large quantities of anything. Whether its a "you lose x amount of resources that your moving" or a "your now stuck on this server for this long" or something completely different. But it should not be free to just smash newer players on a server you have not fought to control. 

This would allow people who just want off the server to take their character and go. Low/no cost. But if a more serious move was made then the cost would scale up. it discourages alpha or megatribes from just server hopping for the giggles and encourages them to find good targets with solid prospects of a reward worth the cost. 

I get the feeling the cost would have to be time or a lockdown of the character and items on that server. Its the one thing mega tribes CANNOT just grind out. 

 

trades would be possible as they can bring themselves and the single item/dino and the cost is minimal. However if people are doing large arms trades such as 10 wyverns or something like that then it would give rivals a chance to catch them in the act as they will be locked to that server for a while. 

 

All in all the power the tribes have earned is fair. The ability to take that power elsewhere to a server you have had nothing to do with, risk and cost free, is not fair. Earn your alpha status on any each new server. Winning a single time does not mean that you should automatically win every single time with no need to fight again. 

 

(that and defences could really do with a tune up. Attacking is so much cheaper.)

[CriD]

Are there other games like ark, with multiple servers, that allow you to transfer items n stuff into another server? I can't think of any but I'm an Xbox player.

Honestly if ark was like this when it started o wouldn't have bought it. Everyone's view of PvP is different. Some say PvP is kill on sight. Some like structured fights with both parties knowing what's coming. And some just accept like 100 members and zerg peoples offline bases n say its player vs player.

In arks infancy, there were nor transfers. So everyone could find a server that suited them. Aggressive tyrannical alphas would wipe their server get bored n try another, usually fail. Smart aggressive alphas would server hop and hide in plain sight while farming to take that server down.

That, my friends was PvP. Not this, let's invade a server at 3am n wipe everyone we can with dragons then dig in before people are online for the bigger tribes.

Then they implemented the cluster servers, which were awesome. One cluster had each map. Transfers allowed only for that cluster. You didn't know who was on the other two maps you weren't mainly on. It made things interesting. More PvP, less zerg. You knew which servers might hit you, you could scout n see every threat that could attack. 

Now, they opened the flood gates. If your not in a strong alliance, if you can't play for 5+ hours a day(lowballing) then you don't really stand a chance. Sure some might have survived, but its only a matter of time. Now your supposed to be ready at ALL times against tribes of 100+. Against multi server alliances.

Now I was never wiped, due to this transfer thing. We repelled attacks, but I quit due to the tremendous time now needed to maintain a safe base. The tribe I started is still there. Holed up well against any attack, but its like their job.

What happened to the glory days. The "this is our server, you want to PvP us come join the server n do it"

So, easy solution. Why not have stuff for everyone. Make a large cluster, I dunno like 1000 servers that are all connected by transfers. Then make smaller clusters. Maybe 1 of each map, 2 of each map..etc etc. It would make everyone happy. Literally. Ark devs, I imagine you have the money and a move like this would draw in a lot more new players and probably a lot of old players who quit.

How is that not the best, easiest solution for everyone? Solution found, arguing over? Please?