Are ARK Official Servers a FAIR PVP/PVE Environments? Compared to other MMO/FPS

[CrackerJackx13]

Are ARK Official Servers a FAIR PVP/PVE Environment? Compare to other FPS and MMO games?

Please Provide feedback on why or why not.

[ShadowLexi]

I suppose that depends on how you define 'fair,' and then whether we're going to include the conversation of the minority: Trolls. Trolls are always and forever unreasonable -- that's why they've adopted the name: Troll. But short them, I'd consider PvE fair. PvE can't really be unfair... you're not in competition with anyone other than wild creatures.

When we get to wild creatures, it's not about Official Servers so much as ARK as a whole... and that's a completely different conversation.

PvP... there's a lot wrong with ARK on the PvP-end. I don't think it's restricted to Official Servers... but I think Officials are 'fairer' than most Unofficials if for no other reason than there isn't a demigod admin able/willing to support tribes they want to see win.

[CrackerJackx13]

1 hour ago, ShadowLexi said:

I suppose that depends on how you define 'fair,' and then whether we're going to include the conversation of the minority: Trolls. Trolls are always and forever unreasonable -- that's why they've adopted the name: Troll. But short them, I'd consider PvE fair. PvE can't really be unfair... you're not in competition with anyone other than wild creatures.

When we get to wild creatures, it's not about Official Servers so much as ARK as a whole... and that's a completely different conversation.

PvP... there's a lot wrong with ARK on the PvP-end. I don't think it's restricted to Official Servers... but I think Officials are 'fairer' than most Unofficials if for no other reason than there isn't a demigod admin able/willing to support tribes they want to see win.

in regards to Official PvP servers comparative to other PvP games(call of duty, battlefeild, etc) is it a fair, mostly bug free, dup free, glitch free, doss free stable game that give all players equal chance?

[Harrist14]

5 minutes ago, CrackerJackx13 said:

in regards to Official PvP servers comparative to other PvP games(call of duty, battlefeild, etc) is it a fair, mostly bug free, dup free, glitch free, doss free stable game that give all players equal chance?

Mm not particularly, but no game that is so dependent on what you have is going to be. A game like ark and a game like COD, battlefield, or PUBG are so incredibly different that they'll never be "fair" in the same way. I consider PUBG to be one of the most "fair" games, the only real variables are skill and luck. You start with nothing, everyone has the same stats, it just depends on what you find and how good you are. Games like ark are dependent on how many people are in your tribe, how long you've been playing, your level, RNG loot and dino levels, etc etc etc, without even getting into cheating like duping and DDoSing, so just at a base level, it'll never be as "fair" as a generic shooter. But that's just a difference in game type. 

[ShadowLexi]

It gives all players equal choice in the regard it mechanically, at face-value, allows them all to put points into the same stats if they so choose, and gives them an entire arsenal full of skills they can use... all the same across all players.

However, the games you're referencing there, don't. CoD and Battlefield are FPS games which give you a very finite number of ways to defeat your opponents. Guns, grenades, and sometimes melee weapons, all of which are given to you at the beginning of the battle and disappear the minute the battle ends (Which is usually when a final goal is achieved; whether that's last-player-standing, number of kills, flags captured, timers, or something completely else). They're instanced games, not dedicated gameplay games.

ARK is one of the first of its kind in the regard that it's a construct-and-destroy ad-infintium game. It's not instanced in the traditional sense, and doesn't have an end-instance goal. Survival of the Fittest wipes every... I think it's month? To keep that end fresh/competitive, but wiping alone isn't enough because even just a day can give a dramatic advantage.

So as far as 'equal ability,' ARK is entirely fair, because there's nothing in anyone's reach (On official servers) that can't be obtained by literally anyone else on the server. In terms of treating people equally regardless of the amount of time they've been on the server, not so much... but then... should it? Offline raid protection being implemented in its entirety is a great starting point for smaller tribes because now everyone can be offline and log in to a base the next day. It's a start, but it's far from the whole story.

Survival of the Fittest isn't the whole story, either, because in order to have a reasonable time in a SotF server, you almost have to start at the beginning of a new wipe. Why? Because time is the 'point and purpose' of ARK right now. It's a grind-fest, rather than a difficulty-based system. Numbers matter more than anything else in ARK. That's the same reason SotF wipes don't matter so much. Generally people have tribemates they continuously partner up with over and over again, reset-after-reset. So they keep working together and build up quickly. They get into a routine. They've done it before and are doing it again.

ARK's mechanics are so much different from any other PvP-enabled game, because MMOs, FPSs, RTSs, and any other traditional PvP environment... they all either have designated combat zones, or they're all instance-based. Neither of which is anything close to what ARK is. The games you're referencing - and the ones like them - don't allow building of bases. Thus, if you die, it doesn't matter in those games. Why? Because you respawn with all your items and you've lost nothing.

ARK, on the other hand... if you die, you lose your stuff because someone stole it. More than that, if the people that killed you are close to your base, they might also be able to destroy your base (Depending on how well-defended it is). End result: You lose even more.

These mechanics aren't things that have been explored previously, at least not to the extent ARK needs them to be explored. However, as I mentioned in a different thread, this is a question that's going to have to be answered over time for these great-in-some-areas games to have a long-standing lifespan and reach a wider audience. ARK and games like it are fantastic in a lot of ways... but 'balancing' PvP simply isn't possible in their current incarnations. They're going to have to find some way to introduce a Noob Cannon equivalent that can't do so much damage that everyone just ends up using that.

[CrackerJackx13]

13 minutes ago, Harrist14 said:

Mm not particularly, but no game that is so dependent on what you have is going to be. A game like ark and a game like COD, battlefield, or PUBG are so incredibly different that they'll never be "fair" in the same way. I consider PUBG to be one of the most "fair" games, the only real variables are skill and luck. You start with nothing, everyone has the same stats, it just depends on what you find and how good you are. Games like ark are dependent on how many people are in your tribe, how long you've been playing, your level, RNG loot and dino levels, etc etc etc, without even getting into cheating like duping and DDoSing, so just at a base level, it'll never be as "fair" as a generic shooter. But that's just a difference in game type. 

What about World of Warcraft or Elder scrolls Online then? There administrators and debuggers are more ontop of in-game issues would you not agree? compared to other mmo or fps games, what would u rank the quality at?

[CrackerJackx13]

10 minutes ago, ShadowLexi said:

It gives all players equal choice in the regard it mechanically, at face-value, allows them all to put points into the same stats if they so choose, and gives them an entire arsenal full of skills they can use... all the same across all players.

However, the games you're referencing there, don't. CoD and Battlefield are FPS games which give you a very finite number of ways to defeat your opponents. Guns, grenades, and sometimes melee weapons, all of which are given to you at the beginning of the battle and disappear the minute the battle ends (Which is usually when a final goal is achieved; whether that's last-player-standing, number of kills, flags captured, timers, or something completely else). They're instanced games, not dedicated gameplay games.

ARK is one of the first of its kind in the regard that it's a construct-and-destroy ad-infintium game. It's not instanced in the traditional sense, and doesn't have an end-instance goal. Survival of the Fittest wipes every... I think it's month? To keep that end fresh/competitive, but wiping alone isn't enough because even just a day can give a dramatic advantage.

So as far as 'equal ability,' ARK is entirely fair, because there's nothing in anyone's reach (On official servers) that can't be obtained by literally anyone else on the server. In terms of treating people equally regardless of the amount of time they've been on the server, not so much... but then... should it? Offline raid protection being implemented in its entirety is a great starting point for smaller tribes because now everyone can be offline and log in to a base the next day. It's a start, but it's far from the whole story.

Survival of the Fittest isn't the whole story, either, because in order to have a reasonable time in a SotF server, you almost have to start at the beginning of a new wipe. Why? Because time is the 'point and purpose' of ARK right now. It's a grind-fest, rather than a difficulty-based system. Numbers matter more than anything else in ARK. That's the same reason SotF wipes don't matter so much. Generally people have tribemates they continuously partner up with over and over again, reset-after-reset. So they keep working together and build up quickly. They get into a routine. They've done it before and are doing it again.

ARK's mechanics are so much different from any other PvP-enabled game, because MMOs, FPSs, RTSs, and any other traditional PvP environment... they all either have designated combat zones, or they're all instance-based. Neither of which is anything close to what ARK is. The games you're referencing - and the ones like them - don't allow building of bases. Thus, if you die, it doesn't matter in those games. Why? Because you respawn with all your items and you've lost nothing.

ARK, on the other hand... if you die, you lose your stuff because someone stole it. More than that, if the people that killed you are close to your base, they might also be able to destroy your base (Depending on how well-defended it is). End result: You lose even more.

These mechanics aren't things that have been explored previously, at least not to the extent ARK needs them to be explored. However, as I mentioned in a different thread, this is a question that's going to have to be answered over time for these great-in-some-areas games to have a long-standing lifespan and reach a wider audience. ARK and games like it are fantastic in a lot of ways... but 'balancing' PvP simply isn't possible in their current incarnations. They're going to have to find some way to introduce a Noob Cannon equivalent that can't do so much damage that everyone just ends up using that.

H1z1, Conan Exiles, Light and Dark, Day Z, star citizen and other mmo fps if you compared in game security and debugging quality how would you rank and compare this game to those?

[ShadowLexi]

2 hours ago, CrackerJackx13 said:

H1z1, Conan Exiles, Light and Dark, Day Z, star citizen and other mmo fps if you compared in game security and debugging quality how would you rank and compare this game to those?

M'okay. Let's start with the fact ARK isn't an MMO... and it's not technically an FPS as much as it is an FP/TP-camera RPG without quests, a robust storyline, or the existence of mythical creatures...... um. Well. Mythical creatures I guess... but the other two things. It simply masquerades as an FPS the minute you grab a bow or gun. That doesn't make it an FPS.

In none of the mentioned games, other than perhaps Conan Exiles (Haven't played it, but hear it's similar to ARK), can you obtain NPC beings who're like 25x your character's height to fight for you and/or use them as mounts.

Let's move to debugging:

H1Z1: Daybreak, formerly Sony. Long-standing game creators, have created -numerous- titles... of course they know the ins-and-outs of debugging and have a long history of practice with it, an unparalleled set of teams working on all the different parts who've all probably worked together before, and even if not, they knew how to get people to learn one another a lot faster than an actual startup.

Conan Exiles: Funcom. I mean, really... it's bad enough you bring up a Sony reinvention that maybe people could overlook as actually being Sony, you want to bring Funcom to the table? Really? Everything about H1Z1 times infinity... screw that noise.

Dark and Light (Not Light and Dark): Available on exactly one platform: Windows. Far easier to debug when you specialize. No console versions, no other computer-OS.

Day Z: Bohemia. Developer of at least 34 previous titles, all of them Windows-based and only one of them with PS/XB versions. Current state of DayZ: Windows-only. Of course they know how to develop on Windows. And yes, they're working on PS/XB versions, but haven't even announced a launch date for those. Even when they come out with those, they'll have worked out all the kinks on the one platform they specialize on so they won't have to do as much debugging to know what's right and what's not. Plus they won't have to manage two or three codebases during development, because first-wave development has already been completed.

Star Citizen: Wouldn't know. I'm not an Alpha Tester for them, so can't really say how well their debugging's going. What I can tell you is that it's apparently been in development since 2011, so they've had at least 6 years to develop and polish it. From what I can tell it's exactly what you said: An FPS. What that basically means is that nothing is intended to change about the environment or what it 'is.' Thus so many simple optimizations can be utilized for the simple fact that everything's static, other than the animations they know are capable of being animated - which they can also optimize reasonably easily.

Not to dismerit Star Citizen, because although it looks like an open-world environment as a Mass Effect clone with different appearance, it does look like something of interest. Give Wildcard another 4 years and they'll probably have something more interesting to look at, too.

By comparison... ARK's been around two years, Wildcard as a company hasn't released a game prior to ARK, and is trying to balance five platforms. Which basically means they're maintaining a minimum of three codebases, but the way they operate between OSes, I'm betting they maintain four. Which is bad, because they could reduce it to two... one if they really wanted to be optimal, but I don't make those decisions, so they'll do whatever they want.

So, let's move on to the conversation about security:

I mean... do we even need to discuss security any differently than debugging? Experience and previous titles mean a lot when dealing with technology of any kind. A game as robust and complicated as ARK isn't even in the technical league as most of the games you mention... the others by comparison are largely vanilla. Sure, they each have an amazing gimmick and great features all their own, but you're forgetting just how much data is being shifted around behind the scenes in ARK compared to the other games.

It wouldn't surprise me if, after all things are spawned in, and the player gets to be a high enough level and is doing 20 different tasks at the same time (Crafting, riding, opening and closing inventory-related items, taming, etc) that a singleplayer game shifts more data around in ARK than a medium-population MMO's three-sector busy area. ARK isn't 'simple' by any stretch of the imagination, and they've literally just started working on improving it. Yes, it's in rough shape, but that doesn't by any means mean it pales in comparison to any of the games you've listed. -All- of those games have had more time in development than Wildcard's even been alive, and -all- of those games, with the possible exception of Star Citizen (Not sure about that one) have long-standing teams that know the ropes every-which direction.

If you're going to compare ARK to games, at least pick games in the same league with similar or less time spent on them.

[Voidstar]

4 hours ago, ShadowLexi said:

I suppose that depends on how you define 'fair,' and then whether we're going to include the conversation of the minority: Trolls. Trolls are always and forever unreasonable -- that's why they've adopted the name: Troll. But short them, I'd consider PvE fair. PvE can't really be unfair... you're not in competition with anyone other than wild creatures.

When we get to wild creatures, it's not about Official Servers so much as ARK as a whole... and that's a completely different conversation.

PvP... there's a lot wrong with ARK on the PvP-end. I don't think it's restricted to Official Servers... but I think Officials are 'fairer' than most Unofficials if for no other reason than there isn't a demigod admin able/willing to support tribes they want to see win.

actually the demi god admin keeps the server ok so that competition can grow. on officials no1 keeps it and there s guys of 90+lvl 1 shotting new players in spawn..

[ShadowLexi]

3 minutes ago, Voidstar said:

actually the demi god admin keeps the server ok so that competition can grow. on officials no1 keeps it and there s guys of 90+lvl 1 shotting new players in spawn..

Depends on the server... I've been to more where the demigod tends to like to spawn random, vicious things in and give weapons to their golf buddies... um. ARK lacks golf, so I guess it'd be fishing buddies? ... More than I have 'peacekeeper' demigods.

[Voidstar]

Just now, ShadowLexi said:

Depends on the server... I've been to a handful where the demigod tends to like to spawn random, vicious things in and give weapons to their golf buddies... um. ARK lacks golf, so I guess it'd be fishing buddies?

oh damn.

Well in my opinion the only sane solution to official PVP servers is a wipe and a rearranging of servers - Cluster-wise, 4 servers containing the 4 maps[each server 1 map. a cluster of 4], transfer only possible between those 4 [servers in the cluster] maps [center rag island and SE]

[LilNastyGurl]

On 6/22/2017 at 9:29 PM, CrackerJackx13 said:

in regards to Official PvP servers comparative to other PvP games(call of duty, battlefeild, etc) is it a fair, mostly bug free, dup free, glitch free, doss free stable game that give all players equal chance?

Why beat around the bush? Just say you dislike alphas and megatribes like the rest of the people who bring up balance on officials.