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Don't Play Ark PvP If You're Solo/Small a Tribe


Crows

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Solo on a PvP server can be fun, but you're extremely limited in playstyles and activities. You don't get to raid like other tribes, and you don't get to defend like other tribes. Most of your PvP will come from hunting people down and taking their stuff.

The upside is, the trollier your base is, the better. If I'm rolling solo, I usually have 5-6 "bases," and one hidey-hole. Most of the "bases" are just elaborate booby traps made to farm weapons and armor. Spike pits, aggressive frog rooms, arthros, dimos...great stuff to have in a place like that...but doing any of that on official servers would be a HUGE pain due to the grind. 

If you're looking to solo-PvP,  your best bet is finding a higher-rate unofficial server. That can be a whole lot of fun.

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8 hours ago, SmokeyB said:

It depends what you count as winning,  if a tribe attacks me they will lose more tames and stuff than me over the next few days,  so technically they will take more losses but my small Base will still get wiped. 

Mega tribes don't waste time attacking solo players,  they target alphas and other mega tribes,  most would rather have a few solo players on the map to keep the server active 

What a load of crap! Most alphas WIPE THE WHOLE raptorING SERVER!! Regardless of how many in your tribe. They will rock up with 70+ players, hold all the slots while the wipe everything usually on a weekly basis once they get really bored and have nothing better to do.

 

And to those saying make a 2v1 base and stay hidden LOL!!! Any good player on recon has his settings to low so they can see your base before anything else renders in..... this game is such a joke, there are so many options to making the game fun for solo players in a open pvp environment, but it looks like the devs are hell bent on making the game impossible for solo players and want to drive them off official servers. Proven by the fact they keep implementing mechanics that make it even easier for the bullly to remain the bully. So much for rock paper scissors, its just alpha has all the toys, anybody else is just fodder - no point in even playing - great game strat devs!

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4 hours ago, BroJob said:

What a load of crap! Most alphas WIPE THE WHOLE raptorING SERVER!! Regardless of how many in your tribe. They will rock up with 70+ players, hold all the slots while the wipe everything usually on a weekly basis once they get really bored and have nothing better to do.

 

And to those saying make a 2v1 base and stay hidden LOL!!! Any good player on recon has his settings to low so they can see your base before anything else renders in..... this game is such a joke, there are so many options to making the game fun for solo players in a open pvp environment, but it looks like the devs are hell bent on making the game impossible for solo players and want to drive them off official servers. Proven by the fact they keep implementing mechanics that make it even easier for the bullly to remain the bully. So much for rock paper scissors, its just alpha has all the toys, anybody else is just fodder - no point in even playing - great game strat devs!


The game isn't impossible for solo players...it's just exponentially harder. As well it should be. There is no reasonable justification for the devs to tune an online multiplayer game around the success of a solo player. It's not going to be easy and that's the point of it, at least as far as my experience goes. You roll solo for the challenge and the lulz, not because you think you'll succeed. 

Ultimately, if you want to take on the world bare-knuckled and shirtless, that's on you...but in a multiplayer game you're going to be at a devastating disadvantage. A fun one though.

 

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18 hours ago, natman said:

well, we both cant tell what will happen in the future, and i admit that there of course might be some cases where a small tribe can avoid being wiped, but i think the overall picture is how i stated it. I just need to look at the game mechanics to know that what i wrote is the typical developement of things under these conditions

Everyone gets wiped in Ark even alphas. But I have lived the exception to your rule. I have been the smaller tribe and won vs larger ones.

Key Tips:

Even small tribes should have several small bases on several servers.

Don't join low pop servers they are usually low pop for a reason (Join med pop)

 

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2 hours ago, johnm81 said:

I have lived the exception to your rule. I have been the smaller tribe and won vs larger ones.

"smaller" and "larger" are very vague terms. i speak about small tribes (less than 10 members) against really big tribes and, as i said, there might of course be exceptions.

But what really interests me is if u (and others) think "my rule" is true overall/in most cases.

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On 10/11/2017 at 10:48 AM, Deathwaits said:

I would have to disagree.

I am also seeing some conflicting statements in your post. You complain about pvp when it affects you, but then claim by joining a big tribe it turns the game into a pve game. So if that is the case then those big tribes aren't raiding if you think it is a pve only game once you join one. 

Honestly though, there are plenty of ways to play this game and have fun as a single player or even a small tribe. Yes you will be killed and even wiped from time to time, but guess what even those big tribes run into that issue... it might happen less for them, but it does still happen. That is the nature of this game. If you think they are only going to wipe you while you are offline then you could join one of the ORP servers that are out there. Sure, it has it's own drawbacks, but it means you will always be online when a raid happens.

The thing is PVP will happen on a PVP server. So I am not sure why people get so surprised when it does. Nothing is save EVER. You know that going in and you also know that all the time invested in gathering and building can be wasted in the event you are wiped. That is just how this game is designed. 

You seem opposed to forming alliances, so I am just assuming you want to hide in the shadows and raid people. That is fine and is also a fun way to play the game, but don't be upset when you are discovered and killed as others will be looking to do the same thing and some of those tribes will have much better resources as their disposal.

In the end you just need to enjoy playing the game. Building up a big base is fun, taming dinos and romping around on them is fun, getting wiped can be discouraging, but the journey to rebuild is fun again.

This is a great post. Everyone gets wiped. 

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On 10/10/2017 at 9:05 PM, Crows said:

I strongly advise you to not bother even playing on any official PvP server as a solo player/small tribe. Just don't bother. Save yourself the time and energy. There's too much grinding and effort involved. 

Ark's focus is extremely heavy on big tribes when it comes to almost everything. You can waste a week building "hidden" even on a huge map like Ragnarok, playing smartly, farming all of that metal to smelt it simultaneously in a few forges while risking yourself and your tame (if you have tamed anything by then) to farm the rare resources to make a fab, generator, cables, outlet, gasoline, turrets and then ammo, after spending maybe 15+ hours in that 1 day just farming and then the alpha/local tribes of the server will find your base while you're offline (it's always while you're offline), soak your turrets and wipe you for everything you've got, leaving you back at square one and then you can either join the big tribes and PvE (tame, raise dinos, build, help allies out, do boss battles, caves, bla bla) or stay solo/small and question why you're even playing Ark because as a solo/small tribe, you're going nowhere. If you do get anywhere, you're lucky/are great friends with the alpha. That is all.

do you communicate with people? probably not.

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6 hours ago, natman said:

"smaller" and "larger" are very vague terms. i speak about small tribes (less than 10 members) against really big tribes and, as i said, there might of course be exceptions.

But what really interests me is if u (and others) think "my rule" is true overall/in most cases.

Ark is a big game. And it has many different meta styles of being played. If you play standard meta with small base, some dinos, slowly build kibble chain...

Then yes 'most' of the time you will lose to a much larger tribe.

If you build griefer build strat then you will win far more than lose 'most' of the time. Its just a lot of people hate the griefer build strat.

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I enjoy the challenge of being in a small tribe and not allied with the alpha. I was able to build a metal base with about 6 turrets and 50 plants before I was discovered. The alpha came and destroyed everything. I replaced the structure, but they come back everyday.

Now I just put stuff in there just to make them go in and destroy it, wasting everyone's time lol.

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Long time was alone or with 1 teammate. Make small bases in different places on map. Once allow a group of players to connect to tribe, but were betrayed. Since that have tribe of two and not huge but pretty big base.

All came with experience. For example 4 months ago i`d never make such base but now i understand that its possible even for 1 man tribe.

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No amount of tribe size or alliance restriction will save you or your server when 50+ people from a mega tribe show up to wipe the server.  Even if the mega tribe were broken down into 5, 10 man tribes.  Quite simply, the ability to bring vast amounts of tames (gigas, griffens, quetzals, bullet soaks) and resources (c4, rockets, high level gear) into a server over a short amount of time is an insurmountable advantage.  

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4 hours ago, Akira11622 said:

No amount of tribe size or alliance restriction will save you or your server when 50+ people from a mega tribe show up to wipe the server.  Even if the mega tribe were broken down into 5, 10 man tribes.  Quite simply, the ability to bring vast amounts of tames (gigas, griffens, quetzals, bullet soaks) and resources (c4, rockets, high level gear) into a server over a short amount of time is an insurmountable advantage.  

Agreed, it was the server transfers that really soured the ARK experience for me. First it was zerging Chinese which united a single server against the invaders but it soon became apparent that resistance was futile. What did the devs learn from this? They rolled it back and then re-implemented it leading to the alpha zerg fest we have now.

Again resistance is futile so whats the point in playing! Game was so much more fun when it was just server politics and a server (if annoyed enough with an alpha could group together to take him down). What we have now...... did I mention resistance is futile...... (they will ddos you off the server, lock all 70 slots on your server and proceed to wipe all your hard work with no challenge at all).

 

HOW CAN THE DEVS NOT SEE HOW BROKEN THIS IS!

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3 hours ago, BroJob said:

Again resistance is futile so whats the point in playing

It's the journey that counts not the destination. Everything comes to an end eventually. It took me a long time to realize that everything you tame and build on a PVP server will eventually disappear. Even alpha tribes come and go. Just have fun playing the game. If you are playing for maximum longevity then a private server or PVE might better suit your tastes. If you like the thrill of PVP then just go in with the expectation that everything is expendable. You get wiped? Rebuild and become stronger, recruit others and get better. But know it will all come to an end eventually, so just have fun along the way.

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3 hours ago, BroJob said:

Agreed, it was the server transfers that really soured the ARK experience for me. First it was zerging Chinese which united a single server against the invaders but it soon became apparent that resistance was futile. What did the devs learn from this? They rolled it back and then re-implemented it leading to the alpha zerg fest we have now.

Again resistance is futile so whats the point in playing! Game was so much more fun when it was just server politics and a server (if annoyed enough with an alpha could group together to take him down). What we have now...... did I mention resistance is futile...... (they will ddos you off the server, lock all 70 slots on your server and proceed to wipe all your hard work with no challenge at all).

 

HOW CAN THE DEVS NOT SEE HOW BROKEN THIS IS!

I wouldn't necessarily call it broken, it's a natural mechanic of a survival game with tribal wars. For something to be "broken," one must assume there is a fix, and I don't see much of a fix to what you're describing. If you're getting killed by a tribe of 50 players and Wildcard reduced the tribe limit to 10 players, 5 allied tribes would kill you. Everyone in the game has the same chances of survival, what they do with those chances is up to them. 

That said, I too had an issue with the unregulated nature of Official servers. I still play on them occasionally, but my gaming experience has vastly improved since I moved to unofficial servers. Moving to better regulated servers with active admins meant a lot of the stuff that bothered me about officials was no longer an issue. Sure, I could have begged Wildcard to change the official experience to better match my expectations, but it seemed kind of pointless to do that...at least to me.

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  • 5 months later...

I've been playing solo for a few months now and have been wiped repeatedly and had all my dinos slaughtered but you learn from all of that. My best advice I can give to a solo player is tame up as many purlovia as you can, even the lowest of levels are useful as hidden storage. If you can't get ahold of a purlovia the second best hidden storage option would be hiding small storage boxes in your foundations. I do this on all my bases and it works everytime. Just make sure you use the middle foundations incase the outer ones are blown up in a raid. Hiding storage chests in the sea beneath coral reef is always a safe bet too.

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You just gotta realize people are going to be a jerk pretty much no matter what you do. I once left my tames on passive and my base empty with doors open and a larger tribe still wiped me down to the foundation. Those dodos and dung beetles were a real threat apparently. It sucks too because I  just like farming/growing stuff/trading but I never really get to do it. I would do PvE but space is always locked down by pillars. That and people on PvE never lose anything so they don't really ever need to trade. I've tried to barter/plead my case that I just want to trade but it never works. People just wipe you for kicks. It's truly not fun. I left official servers for unofficial and have never looked back.

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