Ark pvp is dumb. It's just offline wiping all the time.

[Crows]

Saying "go on Offline Raid Protection servers then?" is a typical response. Other 'official' modded servers like ORP are just band-aid solutions. In fact, I don't even like ORP servers after seeing how they can be exploited to make your loot untouchable, and allow players to snoop around inside your base to study defenses, weak spots, tames, etc.

At the end of the day, Ark PvP isn't really PvP simply because of offline raiding. The end.

[Deathwaits]

Here is the problem,

People want to play on a pvp server without much risk to their base. They are use to other pvp games where when you die it is just you, you keep your items, your base, everything is intact except you need to respawn.

Ark is not that kind of game. It is brutal, you adapt and learn or you die over and over and have your bases destroyed. That is the truth, it is a survival game so in a pvp world that means you need to be either really powerful or creative to fend off and survive. There are too many people who get upset because they were raided when there is a simple solution called PVE. Dieing, having your base destoryed, your loot stolen, and your dinos killed is all part of the game once you select the PVP options.. that is how it is meant to be. Some people and tribes will be more powerful than you, some you will have very little chance against... this is no different than how it plays out in real life. You adapt. You learn. You get stronger. If you cannot do one of those 3 things you will perish along with everything you own.

For the non-vocal majority this is fine and working as intended. So remember while it bothers you and you feel the game is broken you are in no way the reflection of the great population you are part of a vocal minority who comes to these forums to vent. So try to put things into perspective.

[PyroMancer]

8 minutes ago, Crows said:

Ark PvP isn't PvP for the most part, no. Our 7 month old base on official servers got wiped by a tribe of 20+ while we were offline. It had 250+ turrets, towers all around the perimeter with tek behemoths, etc. I logged in and found a few scattered tames like 3 squids and an argy, and just gave them away to an ally and then logged off for good. 

ALL of those months spent preparing for raid defense. All of those months wasted over one night.

This and the whole thread in general reminds me of ShadowBane. It was an old MMO that flopped quite hard a few months after release. It was based on the premise you and your guild could build your own city and lay siege to other people's cities. They teased that fully built up cities would need to be sieged for a week in order to be taken down. Well after a little over two months from release top two guilds on my server both had maxed cities and one decided to attack the other while most of their members were offline.

As with ARK a bunch of angry players returned to find their city completely leveled so what did they do? They retaliated of course and leveled the other guild's city while they were mostly offline. After that those who didn't just quit in disgust that months of work could be lost in one night ended up going around sacking every other city on the map they could, which was easy to find since they show up on global map as soon as they are founded as a way to help promote PvP. The game started hemorrhaging players and never really recovered as it toiled in obscurity after that and being taken up by some hard core fans who bought the source code or something and ran their own servers.

The problem with these types of PvP is that the majority of the content becomes raiding bases and when you raid you want to take every advantage you can which means that not having to worry about other players running around while you attack is the best option which means hitting them when they are not online. Which given the time zone differences and relatively low pop of most servers isn't too hard to manage.

The other problem is power gap between players. Unlike PvP in say an MMO or similar setting where PvP in arena/battlegrounds can be done in Tiers based on your level so it should be a reasonable fair fight. You get mega Tribes with nothing to do other than tear down would be upstarts to ensure they never grow to threaten them. And those would be upstarts looking for some action themselves tearing down smaller less defended setups. Because you can lose everything in a night there is no incentive not to foundation wipe a base and in fact there is incentive to do it because let them live and they might do the same to you one day if they get stronger.

The result is this perpetually cycle of top dogs picking on the little guys by leveling their bases over and over while they are offline. And it might not even be intentional offline stalking it could just be they play in different time zones. And ORP I don't think will really do it as honestly I can't think of a good way to handle it since you'll just end up with the PvP version of what happens in PvE by having someone Pillar large areas with an alt they only login with the refresh pillars and the back out so they can't be touched.

However if you could actually save your progress somehow I think it would go a longer way towards improving things than an ORP system. The default gear is a joke compared to what you can get with Master Craft and Ascended. The problem though is you need to find though BP and when you do you need to "KEEP" them. The alpha tribes get their hands on them and since they pretty much never get wiped they have a high advantage while people trying to claw their way up keep going back to square 1. It's like in PvP on an MMO where even though the players are the same level one has legendary raid gear and the other has low quality NPC bought gear. It's not even close to a fair fight and it's guaranteed win on better geared player side. Which isn't a fun match of the low geared player and unless the high geared player is someone who likes picking on underdogs they probably didn't find it fun either as they were looking for a challenge. Which is why mostly only jerks who like curb stomping weaker players end up becoming the main player base.

The game needs a long term storage option. One that you can upload your Dinos to for safe keeping, spare BP, extra gear, and so on. The current upload only saves for 24 Hours is rubbish and only handy for transferring things. But being able to have a backup pair of your top breeders, extra BPs, and some gear so your not totally naked when you come back would go a LONG way to helping with this issue. Sure your base would be gone but at least you wouldn't be back to being naked on the beach and starting with nothing just like a new player. After all coming back to finding you have NOTHING left in the game to show for months of work is a GREAT stopping point for most people to just say SCREW IT and leave. And quite frankly it's kinda hard to sell all the DLC expansion stuff they have planned to people who quit the game is disgust and are likely to never return.

[Gromo]

To all the people who are saying "you just need to get better at base design and defense" you really don't have a clue how it is to play on official theses days. You must be part of an alpha tribe to think that your survival has anything to do with how many defenses or how many triple layers walls and traps you set in a base. 

If you are not part of a cross ark mega/alpha tribe there is only one way to play this game. Build about 10 small 1X1 or 2x1's hide them as well as you can. Tame a ptera on a double tame day (or try your best to get kibble). Make a long neck, get oil right off the shoreline on the south west corner, make grenades, and raid. harass everyone, show no mercy destroy and take everything. There is no point in building up your base or working on taming and breeding, it just makes you a bigger target and easier to find. 


I admit i have a lot of fun playing this way, but it is sad you really can't experience most of the games content because of how poopty the raiding mechanics are. 

[Zenos]

I saw lots of posts how ORP can be exploited. But here is a new perspective to that. Yes there is room for exploitation with ORP. Ghost tribe protection, running and hidding offline when being attacked. But consider the exploitation of Offline raiding that has been occuring. ORP puts the aggressor at the disadvantage. People who like to fight will still be able too since you can't remain offline forever. Every post for ORP are people wanting a fight, not for hidding. They want to be given the chance to defend what is there. To me people against ORP are not wanting it because they don't want to lose their stuff fighting an online foe, when they can offline raid a base with little risk. So question...which coward is preferred? One who offline raids unopposed or one who is attacked and logs out with tail between their legs which can be attacked later again. After all a coward dies a thousand deaths. And as far as ghost bases.....they have to come out eventually.

[Bobo1234]

Build a better base. Build in better locations. Learn to build defenses and invest more time into the game. If you do not like offline raiding then go to a ORP or ORP 2 server. 

[Bobo1234]

2 hours ago, Gromo said:

To all the people who are saying "you just need to get better at base design and defense" you really don't have a clue how it is to play on official theses days. You must be part of an alpha tribe to think that your survival has anything to do with how many defenses or how many triple layers walls and traps you set in a base. 

If you are not part of a cross ark mega/alpha tribe there is only one way to play this game. Build about 10 small 1X1 or 2x1's hide them as well as you can. Tame a ptera on a double tame day (or try your best to get kibble). Make a long neck, get oil right off the shoreline on the south west corner, make grenades, and raid. harass everyone, show no mercy destroy and take everything. There is no point in building up your base or working on taming and breeding, it just makes you a bigger target and easier to find. 


I admit i have a lot of fun playing this way, but it is sad you really can't experience most of the games content because of how poopty the raiding mechanics are. 

Regular officials are pretty much for 10+ player tribes. You will get wiped pretty easily with anything less than that. If you want to play Official without mega tribes then go to a CrossArk. You can become alpha with 4 people. 

[reidmarc]

4 hours ago, Deathwaits said:

For the non-vocal majority this is fine and working as intended. So remember while it bothers you and you feel the game is broken you are in no way the reflection of the great population you are part of a vocal minority who comes to these forums to vent. So try to put things into perspective.

QFT.

[reidmarc]

6 hours ago, Obbu said:

I think most people, if given the option to resurrect a key tame by deleting their character and starting afresh would do so gladly - and I think that's telling about the state of the game, with regards to progression lost.

I don't think you are in a position to talk for 'most people'.

I can safely say that having to raise and imprint my dinos (because the new char would lose the imprinters bonus) and then acquire the tek engrams again, would be more hassle than just dealing with having loss of a single dino.

 

[LouSpowells]

In Ark (and many online multiplayer games), it really boils down to this: If you don't have the time, you need more people. If you don't have the people, you need more time. Everyone who plays Ark has the same advantages and disadvantages as everyone else. If you want to be competitive with the other tribes then there are certain things you have to do, and if you're unwilling or unable to do those things then you won't be as competitive.

Video games throughout history have had one thing in common: The more you play, the better you get. A no lifer is going to be a more successful gamer than a family man. This is a universal concept that you can see in every multiplayer online game. If you have less responsibilities, you have more free time. Devs could make all the mechanics changes in the world, but short of Wildcard instituting a "max hours played per week" limit, nothing will change the fact that there will always be players with an advantage simply because they have less life responsibilities. 

If you're dead-set on not getting offline-raided in multiplayer, you can either get better at making a base to withstand offline raids, play with more people, move to unofficial, or play a different game. The fifth option is to quit your job, abandon everyone you love, and sink your life-savings into becoming a professional Ark player. If option 5 doesn't sound like a good plan, revisit options 1-4.

So here's my point: Don't be so entitled that you demand a game developer retune and rebalance their game to accommodate the time you can commit to it...especially when there are 2 game modes that allow you to do that yourself.

 

 

[PyroMancer]

2 hours ago, LouSpowells said:

In Ark (and many online multiplayer games), it really boils down to this: If you don't have the time, you need more people. If you don't have the people, you need more time. Everyone who plays Ark has the same advantages and disadvantages as everyone else. If you want to be competitive with the other tribes then there are certain things you have to do, and if you're unwilling or unable to do those things then you won't be as competitive.

Video games throughout history have had one thing in common: The more you play, the better you get. ...

Yeah but the accepted trade off in most games is that you actually improve in skill and get better at the game in the same way someone who does something professionally, like sports, poker, or etc. spends a lot more time doing that activity compared to someone who does it as a hobby on weekends. In the case of ARK and other similarly lazily designed mechanics it doesn't matter how good you are at the game, the game requires you to be logged in and ready at all hours of the day as if you have no life outside the game. A lot of the mechanics, such as imprinting, are setup in this way to reward being able to login rather than being skilled at the game itself.

With the current setup it doesn't matter if you are an FPS all star who can no scope head shot people from max render distance, while also being superb in math and coding to the point you wrote your own breeding programing to calculate the best odds for maximizing stats, and so on in pretty much every other area of the game. If you and your tribe can't be on 24/7 then someone will offline base wipe you. It's not fun or engaging for the players that get hit as they come back to find months of work gone.

[Zoopshab]

I actually like the fact that you can be fully wiped in Ark. This is the problem with games like WoW; it's only a couple months until everyone is 60 and then what? Soooo much of what the devs put into developing the game, the level progression from 1 to 60 and all the zones and content, is basically made obsolete. 

What I have a problem with is the fact that is happens offline on a Monday and is therefore not actually PVP. There is no direct player vs player interaction in this.

Anyways I'm glad I started this thread because I got people talking about it. But I might like to try to put forward some imperfect solutions for the devs.

I think what would be handy, would be some form of placeable bubble, that is tribe owned and maybe upgradable to expand the radius. Each tribe only gets one and so it cant be used to protect pillars on metal spawns or some such. Within that bubble you can set the structures and dinos to take 90% less damage when everyone is offline but only during 2 out of 3 eight hour tours. So you can have your ORP from 12am to 8am, 8 am to 4pm, but you will be open to attack from 4pm to 12am whether online or not. If anyone comes online at any time ORP turns off. It should be possible for other players looking at your tribes structures to immediately identify when your unprotected tour is. Changing your timeslot should have a very long cooldown, on the order of week so it cant be exploited by rapid switching for tribe convenience. Finally as mentioned above there should be a 20min grace period after everyone logs off when your structures will still be vulnerable.

However, this is exploitable with alts, single man tribes and alliances. So maybe some kind of decay timer that doesn't reset when you come online for 3 seconds. Something that needs to verify that you are playing that character as your main. They would also need to scrap the alliance system to stop tribe member form forming single man offshoot tribes to get their own bubbles. 

At least this is better than nothing at all.

 

[Cronics]

On 10/2/2017 at 5:08 PM, johnm81 said:

Some of the ORP mods did work just like that. But regardless you stating how that one works is just as bad. It has HUGE abuse potential. How can you not see that before posting. In just the few seconds after reading I can see, being the defender, how I would abuse the crap out of it. 

Lets first address your first point of not having advanced warning. IF you are even marginally competent in setting up forward turret towers or xplant creep spread you would have a lot of time from the the first attack to when they are pushing upon your base walls. I don't know if you have much experience in pvp but if you do try it out against well designed bases then you would find out it can take HOURS to go from attack start to breaching walls.

And now to the abuse part. I would have dumby tribes in an alliance so upon attack I would have my crew join that tribe and they would defend while my immunity timer starts ticking. Now lets say the ORP mod you are using is smart enough to now begin the count down until all allies are logged off as well. Then I would put a few guys in covered sniper towers so they would be safe from my turrets and then have them de-tribe and fight back the enemy with sniper fire till the ORP kicks in.

Open is an understatement. But by all means tell me [specifically] how you would change it so that it can't be abused like a red headed step child?

That will not work every time when your structures take damage it resets the timer LOL

[LouSpowells]

45 minutes ago, PyroMancer said:

Yeah but the accepted trade off in most games is that you actually improve in skill and get better at the game in the same way someone who does something professionally, like sports, poker, or etc. spends a lot more time doing that activity compared to someone who does it as a hobby on weekends. In the case of ARK and other similarly lazily designed mechanics it doesn't matter how good you are at the game, the game requires you to be logged in and ready at all hours of the day as if you have no life outside the game. A lot of the mechanics, such as imprinting, are setup in this way to reward being able to login rather than being skilled at the game itself.

With the current setup it doesn't matter if you are an FPS all star who can no scope head shot people from max render distance, while also being superb in math and coding to the point you wrote your own breeding programing to calculate the best odds for maximizing stats, and so on in pretty much every other area of the game. If you and your tribe can't be on 24/7 then someone will offline base wipe you. It's not fun or engaging for the players that get hit as they come back to find months of work gone.

If that's what you've concluded, there's no reason for you and I to continue discussing it. It sounds like we've had two vastly different experiences in the game.

[Zoopshab]

Quote system mistake

[Zoopshab]

9 hours ago, Deathwaits said:

Here is the problem,

People want to play on a pvp server without much risk to their base. They are use to other pvp games where when you die it is just you, you keep your items, your base, everything is intact except you need to respawn.

Ark is not that kind of game. It is brutal, you adapt and learn or you die over and over and have your bases destroyed. That is the truth, it is a survival game so in a pvp world that means you need to be either really powerful or creative to fend off and survive. There are too many people who get upset because they were raided when there is a simple solution called PVE. Dieing, having your base destoryed, your loot stolen, and your dinos killed is all part of the game once you select the PVP options.. that is how it is meant to be. Some people and tribes will be more powerful than you, some you will have very little chance against... this is no different than how it plays out in real life. You adapt. You learn. You get stronger. If you cannot do one of those 3 things you will perish along with everything you own.

For the non-vocal majority this is fine and working as intended. So remember while it bothers you and you feel the game is broken you are in no way the reflection of the great population you are part of a vocal minority who comes to these forums to vent. So try to put things into perspective.

Its not that any of those things are happening. Its that theyre happening offline and thus this is effectively player made PVE. Consider if you had 2 tribes of equally skilled people, who had the same gear, same tames, etc. If one plays in a different time zone and raids the other while they are offline it has nothing to do with them being stronger or better players. 

[Clarizzacole]

Only one side to the story. These oh woe is me sob story's have to be taken with a grain of salt. So many oh I did nothing to anyone posts are falsified and actually they likely deserved it. In the end though official PvP is not for small tribes or those who live in stone weeks after release. When the map is cluttered with players who don't even put up xplant or turrets many servers often purge them as they just take up population slots and lag. In the case where an alpha rules a server they say who stays or goes. Alliance based servers are similar as well usually holding a vote. If dedicated everyday players can't log in because of sticks and stones bases and such who can't get their base together after weeks of playing then meh wipe em I say. PvP isn't for them. Plenty of other options to play in like dedicated and PvE, cross ark etc. Either build back up, find a tribe, or move on to an easier setting for your time and skill level. 

[raaazboy]

On 10/3/2017 at 4:59 AM, Brayn said:

I scour the map with Troodons.  Purlovias cannot hide from the Troodon.

i kill your troodons. troodons cannot hide from the giga

 

 

although i do use troodons they're great and underused arent they? i just kill them so there is no competition hehehheheehe

[raaazboy]

1 hour ago, Zoopshab said:

Its not that any of those things are happening. Its that theyre happening offline and thus this is effectively player made PVE. Consider if you had 2 tribes of equally skilled people, who had the same gear, same tames, etc. If one plays in a different time zone and raids the other while they are offline it has nothing to do with them being stronger or better players. 

you both have the chance. take it

[Cronics]

12 minutes ago, raaazboy said:

you both have the chance. take it

He does have a point that is not player-versus-player if you call that player-versus-player it's a complete joke and anyone who believes that are a joke too it's player-vs-player built prop that's it

[ForzaProiettile]

On ‎3‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 3:59 AM, Ulta said:

Many people have lives you know. Sometimes they have something more important to do than logging onto ARK. Like going to their job, or taking care of a demanding baby, family obligations, doing stuff that a normal person of society needs to do to LIVE in the real world.

Ark's PVP isn't PVP. I agree with the OP. Offline raiding shouldn't be a thing, and yet WC thinks giving the bullies who like to kick down sandcastles their ego trip through this game is 'fun'...if I was online to defend myself it maybe would actually be legit PVP AND dare I say, fun! But it isn't...hence why I don't touch PVP mode with a 10 foot pole on officials.

If ARK didn't have a PVE mode or a modding community, I'm pretty confident it wouldn't be as well liked or played as much as it is now.

Well that's why your a PVE player who knows little when it comes to PVP...

[ForzaProiettile]

On ‎3‎/‎10‎/‎2017 at 4:07 AM, MandaBear said:

I agree. When I first started playing, I built with the intention to be able to fight while being raided. I built a ton of balista turrets and not near enough auto and plant. However after 2 years I realize that if someone wipes one of my bases, it will be within a few hours at about 6am my time when not even the Australians in our tribe are online. At the end of the day most people will use whatever method possible to get the best edge against you and try to make sure that you won't be back around to retaliate. At least that is the way it is with big tribes and bases. Unfortunately there is no fix against it since every solution that anyone can think of will just create a butterfly effect that will lead to unexpected consequences. Only thing you can do is just build with the thought that you won't be around when an attack goes down. 

The issue could be partly solved as I've said many times by implementing a partial Offline Raid Protection system. By partial I mean that your base can be still be attacked and damaged when you are not online but that the incentives for doing so are far far less then they would normally be. I would recommend that for instance when offline turrets do 2-3x more damage output and structures have 3x the HP. This would at least create some incentive for most tribes to wait till your online or else result in a rather expensive raid.

That said none of this would mean much to ARK's 70+ mega tribes that run around on servers doing what they do. Even the best raid protection can't make up for broken mechanics and poor design decisions by the developers. How on earth they can conclude that 70 players in 1 tribe is "fair and balanced" is quite remarkable. I have to honestly question how long they have actually spent playing on Official PVP servers since it definitely seems they are well out of touch with reality.

 

[Ulta]

17 minutes ago, ForzaProiettile said:

Well that's why your a PVE player who knows little when it comes to PVP...

You didn't really accomplish much to the thread by saying that ya know.

But sure thanks for reminding me of what I do that's actually fun.

[scenestr]

i see no problem with offline raiding. i have been raided while  offline many many times, and the raids i have done, some have been while players have been offline ( not intended  we were just ready to raid at these times. ) offline raiding is a strategic move, in survival games people use what ever strategies to survive and get ahead.  if you want to take all the gamertags of your server and raid them the moment they log off i commend you, you have made a strategic move to make your raid easier and to ensure you survive on a cutthroat official server.  i believe ORP is not true PVP. i see people arguing that raiding offline is not pvp, well let me tell you right now that is it PVP. an online player is attacking something that you set up while you were online at some point. Meaning everything you own and your structures are player involved and player made, someone attacking said base is PLAYER VS PLAYER. this guy is not attacking some stone ruins. he is attacking a base that was put there intentionally by another online player in the hopes this base would not be found/well defended with turrets. the player vs player aspect is, you are outsmarting his base layout, he has to co ordinate between your defenses drain bullets/ out pace plant x turrets all while finding a way into your base to loot you. now tell me in this situation, if this base was not purposely built by another player this interaction would not take place and the raider would be stuck with only the environment to raid. SINCE such base has been erected and offers a challenge this is indeed PVP and more often then not the raider dies while the defender sleeps.

for people that think PVP is only exclusively face to face combat how to you explain words with friends or any other turn based game where a game can last multiple days while players take there move, they are never face to face and mainly do their moves while there opponent is offline but this is still a player vs player game  because even though nobody's on, the challenge is there. 

[Deathwaits]

14 hours ago, Zoopshab said:

Its not that any of those things are happening. Its that theyre happening offline and thus this is effectively player made PVE. Consider if you had 2 tribes of equally skilled people, who had the same gear, same tames, etc. If one plays in a different time zone and raids the other while they are offline it has nothing to do with them being stronger or better players. 

It is not PVE. It is what is called a PERSISTENT pvp system. That means you are NEVER safe. You cannot just log out and have your character vanish and be safe from all the pvp going on in the world.

That is the problem. People expect this pvp system to be like all the others. This isn't an MMORPG like say wow. This is an ACTUAL pvp system where you are never safe. The only safety you can gain is through the creativity in your base design that makes it too much of an investment to be worth raiding.