Please, convince me that Aberration is worth my time.

[Akherousia]

Before I get into this, I want to make a disclaimer and point out that I am not trashing the map nor questioning why other people enjoy it. I am simply listing my personal experience, why I struggle to find the motivation to really commit to this, and am hoping to be convinced otherwise. If you like Aberration, then that's awesome, but please take a bit of time and maybe try explaining to me why you like it so that I can try to see it from a different perspective.

Aberration is a gorgeous map that has almost nothing to offer me. I don't care for any of the new creatures, as their designs feel excessive and more like movie-monsters. The original creatures of Ark were always a bit inspired by creative license and a hint of customization, surely, and Scorched introduced some animals that simply never existed, but Aberration takes the whole thing to the next level and feels a little bit too much like it should be a separate game.

That being said, the scenery is absolutely stunning and I am stoked to explore the map. The primary reason I actually bought this DLC was to explore a map that clearly had a lot of thought, time, and effort put into its design. The thing is, I'm just struggling to get 'into it'. It seems like the meta for this game is rather linear and predictable. Get yourself a Ravager until you can make a saddle for a Spino, then get a bunch of Spinos and start exploring into the Blue zone. If you don't like Ravagers, well, tough luck, because they really are the best mount to get around, and your only other options are the obnoxiously frail Raptors, or the ultimately boring Carnotaurus; both of which you will have to stick with until about level 70.

There are multiple great 'mid-game' mounts, surely, but they're in pretty late-game areas. I, for one, am a big fan of the Baryonyx and it's my mount of choice even after reaching maximum level, but I have to go deep into blue to have a hope of getting one, and again, the safest way to get into there seems to be with a Spino, considering the threat of Karkinos, Megalosaurus, and Rock Drakes. Sure, the first two can be taken on with a decent enough pack of Ravagers or even Raptors, but the Rock Drakes? I haven't tried to take one yet, but I'm going to go ahead and guess the odds aren't in my favor.

So, I immediately feel isolated from a decent tame that I can actually 'click' with and enjoy, and pretty much have to wait 'til I'm 70 to get a Spino just to use that to get the tame that's supposed to be the 'progression mount' in between a Spino and a Raptor.

In addition to that, I find the terrain to be rather demotivating, too. I've been living out of a temporary base for 55 levels because I just can't find a decent location that really sticks out as being worthwhile. Sure, there's the cave that transitions between the surface and the underground, but it's also built 20 feet into the air, so you'd have to make an elaborate ramp system and/or elevator to access it. Otherwise, it's just a couple of generic, open areas. Cliffside and/or tree-based platform bases are very promising, but guess what? Platforms still don't have snap-points, so have fun messing around with that.

Ultimately, it's a stunning and fascinating map, but it seems to expect you to level up in the Fertile zone all the way to end-game levels before actually starting to dive in further and picking up anything worthwhile. The terrain is beautiful to traverse, but offers little in the way of interesting base locations, and the selection of tames is scarce to the point of utter boredom.

Has anyone else found this game difficult to want to commit to after picking up Aberration? How did you get through it? Or did you just go back to Ragnarok/Scorched/The Island?
What am I missing about this map? Am I just too casual? 

And if anyone wants to show off their bases and base locations, please do. I could use some inspiration. 

[BloodyHarvest]

The map was brutal for me until I got my spino, like you said. I don't know. I like the map, I went from building near the big open water area in the green biome to the swamps and now above the waterfall of that leads to the blue area.

[RainbowPuke]

First sorry for my english

 

That DLC start a raping hours or two for me

Ravager in a pack ? get Unicorned... Karkinos ? get Unicorned... basilisk ? you know what i mean

every thing is violent to me until i start to try some things new  the ravager's pack is nothing with 2-3 good raptor just bola the leader kill the other then the rest. after getting some ravager you can get to the karkinos and nothing bother you that much in the fertile zone... well... maybe the basilisk >_>

 

The map is beautiful but the landscape is strange and seem to be pretty annoying. when you start to go zipline you can do funny things. with the cliff platforme you can build nearly everywhere like it is a safe spot ! and god damn glinding suit !!! i love it

 

the rock drake aren't tough so you don't have to worry about them. they are more like a great mobility mount with a little of fight than a war machine like the wyvern is on scorched

 

I found that map really refreshing because it make me go outside of my confort zone in the way i play. stuning decors, amazing new tools, and a lot of "challenge" exploring the map. every zone is build like a miniature maze, not very complex but look a bite the same so i get lost some time.

 

the challenge of survival is not really hard on this map. the temperature is at ~28°c pretty much all the time. but the challenge is more in the radioactiv zone. when you must have an hazard suit and there so much arthropleura... 

 

I think the glowing pet is an very good mechanic to the game with the nameless/reaper and i think i can't gonna live without one even on the other map !

 

Hope "my way" of enjoying this map help you to enjoy it more  

[Wazzamaniac]

But you get a pewpew at the end that shoots through walls!!!

[LPTF]

I seems like your lack of interest stems from your lack of knowledge, yet you seem unwilling to engage enough to fill your knowledge gaps.

Ark is very much about the journey, as well as being many different things to many different people.

Why do you feel like someone owes you an explanation?

Play it or don't. Your choice.

 

[Thorium]

Do you play singleplayer?

I would not recommend doing Aberration on a fresh level 1 character. It's possible but it certainly is a challenge and you have access to much less stuff than on the other maps for a long time. Transfer one of your characters over. I don't know how to do it in singleplayer. Back in the day there was a "upload character" button on the obelisks, but it's gone since they made the new GUI.

Also from a story point of view, your character shouldn't be new to the ARK cluster but should have ascended to Aberration. Go in with a naked high level character and it will be much more fun.

Also don't bother taming a Barionyx as a mount. There is no kibble for it on Aberration and taming a high level with prime fish is pretty much a waste of time.

As soon as you have a spino and a light pet, go into the blue biome and build your base there. Thats the place you get significant amounts of resources easy.

[Sh4rk]

You are too concerned with the "obvious progression" rather than getting creative to progress with less. I set up a small farming base in mushroom forest to keep a doed and roll rat, to save up parts to move directly into blue. I didnt even get a spino until after I was moved into blue. Most of the time I still use ravager for zipline transit, spino i use mostly for farming poly and diving into the rad zone for gems. I still keep the mushroom forest base for a safe haven and to store a few tames to be useful up there.

Blue zone is not nearly as scary as people make it out to be, but you do want to carry a charge pet at all times. Ziplines will become your best friend once you realize the value in them (meaning the ability to get around without first having a strong fighter like spino or megalosaurus)

The reason aberration is so good, is because it pushes you to think outside the trendy meta of: tame dodos, tame ptera, tame argy, tame scorps, tame rex, tame quetz. There is a huge variety of ways to progress through aberration effectively without having to follow a linear path. The only real bottleneck is not being able to go into rad zones without a hazard suit, which you will find is not as troublesome to get as it may seem at first. 

I think the reason you are having trouble "getting into it" is because aberration strays far from the usual progression that it may at first seem overly complicated or difficult to achieve anything, but the reality is that it promotes the use of unused mechanics and thinking that got beat out by flyers and routing farming strats. I think once you wrap your head around that, you will have much more fun on aberration.

[GreenRoc]

I understand your concern entirely. Very good read, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I shall share some of my thoughts that your post inspired.

I play Ark for Eye candy mainly. I love to explore. I dont care too much for dinos being for early game or end game, as I like them to be useful at any level. I dont like my fav dinos only existing in difficult areas because I want to tame them NOW, not later. I never like losing any of my tames to game mechanics where you have no hope of survival (RIP too many tames to megas grabbing them).

When I first heard that abberation was going to be no flying, I stubbornly refused to get it, just for the simple fact that aberration seemed to really be shoving "flyer nerf" down my throat, when I hate that anti-flight attitude so very much. I LOVE to fly with the dinos, and am still waiting for the configs to reverse the nerf on my Singleplayer and private server. I want to remove the fly cap without a mod, and I am still waiting!

But then Abberation came out, and I watched some friends streaming it. I saw glowing dinos, and fell in love! My friend had offered to gift it to me days before, so I turned to him and asked something like "may I take my refusal back? I'd like to have Arberation now" and he gifted it to me (my finances are severely strained atm).

My primary playing field is Legacy PvE (played for years, Legacy is just a title slapped on to separate my main server from post-launch servers that are on a separate cluster). Dunno why, but something about it just feels far better than singleplayer. I looked up if there were any Legacy aberration servers, there were two PvE NA servers. I pikced the one with better ping.

I chose to spawn at "Easiest" lemme tell you, it is NOT "Easiest" from the simple fact that Basalisks spawn there and they can 1-shot you with a ranged attack, and have stupidly huge aggro range for players only (wild dinos dont aggro them until the wild walks directly over the hole they are hiding in). I dont care much for this lie in the word "Easiest". Go for the green zone to start off (not sure what the exact name is, but it is in the middle upper section of the map).

The majority of Portal room seemed to be unbuildable. This I was thrilled with! Big huge area where I could run around and harvest and not worry that someone built over spawn. I wish there were no hostiles there either (like a new player area where there is no chance of death) but sadly there are raptors, ravagers, carnos, and basalisks. I spent my time there leveling up, until i could make a wood foundation. Sure it took some time, but pretty much any legacy map does. I dont care for beginning game grind, but the awareness of what later game has to offer (glowing dinos) keeps me motivated to play through all the frustration. I also put up with the frustration and anger-inducing moments because it is slowly teaching me to put up with frustrations in real life. I am a super-sensitive person, who you might say gets angry over the drop of a hat... This game is testing me, pushing things onto me I hate, and slowly building up my tolerance. I am benefiting from getting pissed off... sometimes I wish I didnt have to deal with all of this stuff I dont want, but how else will I get access to the sweet delicious eye candy? There's no other way but to push through these anger-inducing game mechanics that I wish didnt exist and lead me into questioning "Wildcard, what the dilo are you thinking?!" A game is supposed to be fun, not rage inducing! But time and time again, they release stuff that has me questioning their direction with this game, where the dilo are they going?!

But it is all still so beautiful!

My progress on Legacy so far, I am a soloist so I am pretty slow in comparison to everyone else on the server with tribemates. I have a roll rat, pack of ravagers, iguanadons, stegos, lots of bulbdogs and xmas dodos, and a tiny skinny base in the tunnel just outside the no-build zone at portal, and I am happy as a clam! Metal is a ravager run away, and they hold things like doeds (wood, metal, thatch, stone, all weight reduced in half) they arent good fighters, melee seems to be poop, but they are good traveling mounts. The other traveling mounts I found are Iguanadons. Sure you get saddle at level 36, but I got to 36 in about 2 days time (16 hours in-game). Beginning grind is a pain, but it is on all servers. I dont have a spino, my meat gathering is a severe struggle, but I just tamed a carno last night, so just beginning to get more meat than is eaten. I have had a scorpion since early game but meat harvesting on it is in the negative (I use up more of his food than I am gaining, I get home from a meat run and he is half-starved). Bolas are a MUST when taming stuff, I dont leave home to go taming without a stack or two.

On the legacy server I play, we are unfortunately at the mercy of one tribe who has blocked off the only footpath I know of to get to the lower regions. He has a wall stretching from one end of the path to the other, with no unlocked doors. The sad fate of Legacy I'm afraid. Nothing we can do about it but put ziplines above his walls, which drastically limits the dinos we can go on past his walls to Ravagers and crabs.

Is it worth it? I still think it is. sure it is tough and difficult, but I find it easier than Scorched. I quit scorched, I hated the weather effects hindering my desire to build and harvest, making me cower in my base. I got sick of it and quit, after I got the dinos moved out to another server.

What I love about this map aside from it's eye candy, is the lack of certain species that I loathe. No pegomastic, no thylacoleo, no microraptor, no theiving birds, and many other species that I just HATE because of their special mechanics. Megas are probably the worst I have encountered so far but they are for the most part avoidable with a fast mount... most of the time. Lost my best Ravager to one of those things. I hate their death grip mechanic, you are not going to save your dino once they grab it. I never have, watching in horror as my dino is slowly killed. I hate it, I hate it I hate it and I dont know what the dilo Wildcard is thinking by putting that in the game, why do they think we WANT that?! I just dont know sometimes. It pisses me off.

 

If you arent playing for the simple fact of Ravagers being the goto-mount until you get a spino, then I dont suggest playing it, because that seems to be the case.

I dont have my own spino, cant use my roll rat yet because I dont have a behemoth gate made (trapped the rat inside my base until I can make a behemoth), but I am working on getting one. Ravagers are the mount I use to run around and get wood thatch and stone, they are better than doeds imo (but I have to repair my metal tools a lot). I have a pack of ravagers, because of how easily they can be lost when a mega grabs one, so I want more than enough so it doesn't hurt so much when I lose one (I wish I never lose them, but I have no choice but to lose dinos from time to time, if I want to survive in Ark).

I feel I would rather play on Ragnarok than Arberation, but due to 'upkeep' (chores, keeping things alive, fueled, etc) taking more and more time with all of Wildcard's changes to make upkeep take longer, I had given up Ragnarok in favor of my main servers, this was given up before Abberation. I have a couple ice wyverns and griffins (now just griffin lawn ornaments due to the nerf), so I dont need what Ragnarok has to offer anymore.

Abberation offers a whole slew of dinos that dont exist anywhere else. Every species in there that seems to have existed in other maps, is actually a new species, and they glow when it is dark! This is why I feel it is worth it to play: I want to tame everything.

I hope my thoughts help solidify your choice on the matter. To buy or not to buy, it's up to you.

  If you have any questions, or wish me to elaborate on any part of my experience @Akherousia, dont hesitate to quote or ping me. I'd be happy to help with my naturally long posts.

 

[GreenRoc]

I forgot details on my progression with what dinos...

Bulbdog, Parasaurolophus, Scorpion, Iguanadon, Ravager, carno.

I started with parasaurs. Lost at least four to Basilisks.

I harvested small dinos, mostly on foot to get meat for the scorpion (Bulbdogs and dodos). I used parasaur to get the narcoberries to make tranq arrows. I was on foot to ko the scorpion (level 95). Scorpion was slower than my human so it was pretty easy and I made the scorp tanky, put points into health. Tamed an iguanadon after that.

I tamed my level 95 wild roll rat when it was stuck in a mushroom tree thing. I got honey beforehand with several suicidal runs into wild bee hives, and saved it inside my Iguanandon. Didnt use the roll rat for a while, because it takes a lot of metal ingots for the saddle (400+), needed a ravager to help me with getting metal. Metal seems to mainly exist in the blue zone (otherwise I get one or two raw metals from every two or three stones).

I had tried to use an Iguanadon to tame a ravager, but my Iggy died to the bleed effect, so I grabbed my scorpion and bolas, and successfully tamed a level 40-ish ravager. I used the ravager to tame more ravagers. I used a ravager to ko the carno, and another player in the server supplied the meats. I consider the carno on loan from the provider of the meats, and I plan to give it to her after I get my own carno (which I dont have yet).

Ravager has been my primary mount for most of my experience so far.

As of the last time I was on earlier today, I still haven't used the roll rat, nor do I have a spino. My next step is to get a behemoth gate, and build a base big enough to house them, which I use the ravagers to get those mats. This is where I stand now.

Ravagers arent good meat harvesters imo, but good for traveling and carrying things (I pike things while riding on my ravager, seems to do more damage). I prefer to use Carno for meat eating now that I have it. Scorpions and iguanadons I used for pre-ravager mounts, Iggys preferred since they eat berries. The downside to Iggys is that they cant use ziplines, meaning that I cant get over that player's wall with them, so for our map, ravagers seem to be a must for traveling. Iggy is a close second to early game travel, due to their speed and not draining stamina when on all fours.

 

 

[SmokeyB]

I spend all my time on a bary too on the island, Megalosaurus that never sleep are the new baryonyx on this map. Get one and you will start having fun. They Unicorn crabs drakes and spinos. 

I started at lvl1 too so I feel your pain about spending ages looking for somewhere good to build. But when you move down to the blue zone it is nice there are plenty of good spots and farming is easy down there. 

I guess it's not really a map to live your whole ark life on, it's like scorched, fun challenge to survive, learn new mechanics explore a very nice map and then take all the goodies back too the island so your tribe can show off to the low tribes on the server.  

Crabs can throw two Stegos at a time so rip any form of base defence. 

The shoulder pets detect 150 tames and enemy players so trolls can't sneak up on you. 

Wing suits mean you will never get picked off your tame again. 

[DomiDarko]

I really, really hated it when WC introduced the Tek-stuff, but now I know that I was wrong - after reading explorer notes, etc. it all made sense. Because of this I really wanted to know more and more about the Arks and besides of that I HAD to try out the new gear, mechanics & creatures! Me and my tribemates all went in with new lvl 1 characters and we died a lot, especially me...  The first few hours are the best part of the game, as long you don't die to bullcrap. Only problem I still have is that I can't see the fungal spores until I'm in the middle of them, because of my bad GPU.^^ I played about 3-4 hours every day and haven't been further than the biolum-biome because we all feel underprepared, so now I'm into breeding and even got us a Paracer - a thing that I barely used on any other map.

[Akherousia]

Thanks for the responses, guys.
Our progression so far was pretty much as follows

1.) Built a compact 'starter base' out of wood on a safe ledge.
2.) Acquire and breed Raptors ASAP. Raptors aren't particularly tanky, but our theory was that their mobility and DPS would be a great help, and breeding them meant 30% damage buff plus damage reduction. Definitely helps.
3.) Picked up a few other random tames, too, such as several Ravagers, a high level Paracer, Roll Rat, and a mid-level Carnotaurus. 
4.) Have a stone base ready to drop whenever we figure out a location.
5.) Currently working on a ramp into the cave to the surface so that we can set up there for relative safety and access to metal.

Not sure what comes next, but it sounds like building in the blue zone isn't as scary as it seems. The only problem is my tribemates are a bit cowardly about it so it might take some time to convince them, but that's alright. We're going to set up in this cave and work out of it for a bit while we actually build up to metal tier. We should've been there ages ago, and were it any other map, we would have been, but we definitely struggled a lot on Aberration.

Everyone's probably right about Megalosaurus vs. Baryonyx, and I'm probably going to see if I can pick up a decent Megalo today since I've never been able to get myself one on the other maps. They seem a lot faster than I thought they'd be, though, so I'm wondering if it'd be wise to bring cannon-fodder raptors on passive for it to pick up and tank damage while I drop tranqs into it?

We haven't fully integrated into metal yet (but should be crossing over once we set up in this cave) so I don't plan on using tranq darts on it. How many tranqs from a crossbow do you guys reckon a high level Megalo will take?
 

13 hours ago, LPTF said:

I seems like your lack of interest stems from your lack of knowledge, yet you seem unwilling to engage enough to fill your knowledge gaps.

Ark is very much about the journey, as well as being many different things to many different people.

Why do you feel like someone owes you an explanation?

Play it or don't. Your choice.

I think this comment makes you look far more foolish than it does wise, as the mere fact that I am creating a thread in hopes of being convinced as to why others are drawn to the map shows that I am far from 'unwilling to engage enough'. Asking for advice is one thing, but I am not, I am asking for opinions and clarification of them. I'm not asking anyone to instantly fix my disinterest, but to try and see things from the perspectives of those who are having a blast on here. How that somehow qualifies as an inability to expand my understanding of this DLC is, to me, a hilariously baffling idea. It gives me the impression that you simply skimmed through my post and simply extracted what you wanted to perceive.

[zeroBurnAcidCool]

Not worth your time and i didn't read the thread at all, if you need encouragement you don't like to game or are bad..

If not bad, make a brand new toon and good luck finding a location now, unless you unofficial then you might get lucky, but then nobody takes your progress seriously cause its unofficial, just saying.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------

Black sheep  who's gonna be if i am not..

[LouSpowells]

On 12/25/2017 at 12:04 PM, Akherousia said:

Before I get into this, I want to make a disclaimer and point out that I am not trashing the map nor questioning why other people enjoy it. I am simply listing my personal experience, why I struggle to find the motivation to really commit to this, and am hoping to be convinced otherwise. If you like Aberration, then that's awesome, but please take a bit of time and maybe try explaining to me why you like it so that I can try to see it from a different perspective.

Aberration is a gorgeous map that has almost nothing to offer me. I don't care for any of the new creatures, as their designs feel excessive and more like movie-monsters. The original creatures of Ark were always a bit inspired by creative license and a hint of customization, surely, and Scorched introduced some animals that simply never existed, but Aberration takes the whole thing to the next level and feels a little bit too much like it should be a separate game.

That being said, the scenery is absolutely stunning and I am stoked to explore the map. The primary reason I actually bought this DLC was to explore a map that clearly had a lot of thought, time, and effort put into its design. The thing is, I'm just struggling to get 'into it'. It seems like the meta for this game is rather linear and predictable. Get yourself a Ravager until you can make a saddle for a Spino, then get a bunch of Spinos and start exploring into the Blue zone. If you don't like Ravagers, well, tough luck, because they really are the best mount to get around, and your only other options are the obnoxiously frail Raptors, or the ultimately boring Carnotaurus; both of which you will have to stick with until about level 70.

There are multiple great 'mid-game' mounts, surely, but they're in pretty late-game areas. I, for one, am a big fan of the Baryonyx and it's my mount of choice even after reaching maximum level, but I have to go deep into blue to have a hope of getting one, and again, the safest way to get into there seems to be with a Spino, considering the threat of Karkinos, Megalosaurus, and Rock Drakes. Sure, the first two can be taken on with a decent enough pack of Ravagers or even Raptors, but the Rock Drakes? I haven't tried to take one yet, but I'm going to go ahead and guess the odds aren't in my favor.

So, I immediately feel isolated from a decent tame that I can actually 'click' with and enjoy, and pretty much have to wait 'til I'm 70 to get a Spino just to use that to get the tame that's supposed to be the 'progression mount' in between a Spino and a Raptor.

In addition to that, I find the terrain to be rather demotivating, too. I've been living out of a temporary base for 55 levels because I just can't find a decent location that really sticks out as being worthwhile. Sure, there's the cave that transitions between the surface and the underground, but it's also built 20 feet into the air, so you'd have to make an elaborate ramp system and/or elevator to access it. Otherwise, it's just a couple of generic, open areas. Cliffside and/or tree-based platform bases are very promising, but guess what? Platforms still don't have snap-points, so have fun messing around with that.

Ultimately, it's a stunning and fascinating map, but it seems to expect you to level up in the Fertile zone all the way to end-game levels before actually starting to dive in further and picking up anything worthwhile. The terrain is beautiful to traverse, but offers little in the way of interesting base locations, and the selection of tames is scarce to the point of utter boredom.

Has anyone else found this game difficult to want to commit to after picking up Aberration? How did you get through it? Or did you just go back to Ragnarok/Scorched/The Island?
What am I missing about this map? Am I just too casual? 

And if anyone wants to show off their bases and base locations, please do. I could use some inspiration. 

If you have to write a long post asking others to convince you to like something you don't like, it's safe to say no one will convince you. I'll recommend what I recommend to a lot of people in your spot though: Give unofficial a whirl and play with some mods that seem fun. If that doesn't help, perhaps it's just time to move on to another map, or another game if the other maps aren't doing it for you. You can always revisit it later if you get curious...otherwise, there's not much of a point trying to figure out how you can like something that you don't like based on what other people like.

 

[MouldyZombie]

yeah didnt read the whole thread, but by the sound of it you juat need to get abberation and play it, everyones gaming experiance is different, everyones opinion is different, for the sake of £15 download it, yoi dont like it then no big loss

 

[zeroBurnAcidCool]

long:

I'll contribute to the thread..by title alone, i was NOT going to get Aberration and you know what out of all the other DLC's this one's difficult(or was at launch) and different.  I LOVED seeing 0 base's and having the opportunity to pick a locations for once, granted i didn't scout out a single bit in single player, i literally rolled the dice, spawned at beginners section saw some ugly messes after a bit and decided to move from easy to hard and that was the best choice i could've made.

The things that are different, quakes, the night is more dark than regular night, so blacker than black, supposed "stronger", dino types, the glowing bits is a nice different view and i enjoy it.  Haven't been to surface or any caves yet, dont want to burn content, (don't got rollrat,basilik,drake,or crab) but i enjoy the ravagers, the zip lining is a bit of fun and hanging upside down is pretty cool and being able to fall great heights and not worry is even better, however i do get the finger twitch and once or twice accidentally hit e in mid air very high, though managed to survive each time, once fell into water and once at around 2% hp had to make shift a quick parachute cause the ravager went further than i did.  Pretty interesting times.

t l d r ;

^There i contributed, but like zombie said, you can't go on other peoples say so.. have to make a choice eventually.

[Scrysis]

I play on a "gently" (i.e. not a huge number of mods) modded server that I host for myself and two friends on single-player settings (since there are only three of us).

 

You need to unwrap your brain around "no decent places to build".  The map very deliberately split resources around the map so that you're forced to travel to get them.

 

Personally, I think this map is MORE dangerous than Scorched Earth.  On SE, once you got used to a Jerboa, you just carried a tent with you every where and set up camp on the top of an inaccessible ridge with your flyer for sandstorms, and for everything else, you watched your water.  Suits take damage in the radiation zone, and mushrooms and spore zones disorient as well as kill you.  A badass dino won't save you if even one piece of your suit breaks deep in the radiation zone and you don't have spares.  Not even SE was that merciless.

All of us on my server started as level 1 characters, and it took us several hours just to get out of the portal zone.  We couldn't build, so we lost our supplies and our sense of security every time we died.  But man, that exhilaration when we finally made it past the basilisks and actually escaped!  Built three separate houses in a communal zone.  Then we started spreading out.  Now we're spreading out again.  One of us is settling more permanently in the Fallen Nexus, I'm going to a really lovely spot in the Luminous Marshlands, and the other is going to the Crystalline Swamps.  It's gorgeous, and it's dangerous.  Hell, unless I'm wearing full hazmat, which I avoid because it's not the cheapest to repair, I need to carry aquatic mushrooms with me -- in my BASE --, lest I die to hidden frost mushrooms.

We have a tradition now of seeing if you can jump off of a rock overlooking everything at the end of the River Valley and make it into the Rock Drake cave with a glider alone and steal an egg.  It's thrilling.  The Rock Drakes have a much smaller initial aggro radius, so it's fun to see how far you can get before they eat you.  

We have yet to get a successful impregnation.  It's intimidating as hell to stand before an angry queen, and hope that she grabs you before she breaks all of your gear, even in a controlled reaper trap.

I've used more dinos on this map than I have previously.  Raptors to get around early game, since my other ones were frequently murdered, then ravagers.  I'm used to being able to fight my way out of a bad situation, not so early on.  I still use a paracer and an escort when I'm taking the anklo out to mine stuff.  Still have to stop and murder stuff.  Rock drakes make life much easier, but there is that fear that you'll die and leave the rock drake alone to be murdered in the radiation zone.

 

I absolutely love this map.  I thought I would miss my fliers, but some how, the mechanics of this map are more thrilling.

[MirageUK]

On 26/12/2017 at 3:30 AM, GreenRoc said:

On the legacy server I play, we are unfortunately at the mercy of one tribe who has blocked off the only footpath I know of to get to the lower regions. He has a wall stretching from one end of the path to the other, with no unlocked doors. The sad fate of Legacy I'm afraid. Nothing we can do about it but put ziplines above his walls, which drastically limits the dinos we can go on past his walls to Ravagers and crabs

Platformed and ramped Paracers, over his walls and through his base

[Akherousia]

Yeah, so far, I've got to agree. Got a solid 'main base' going right now and picked up a mid-level Megalosaurus. Once I managed that, the map just got a hell of a lot more interesting. I've been spending a lot of time exploring the blue area and I just can't get over how gorgeous and interesting the terrain is. The map is seriously growing on me, and I think it was ultimately about just not having a decent tame to get around on. We had imprinted Raptors and Ravagers, but they're both quite squishy, so it was too easy to get into trouble taking them out. I also kind of like that it's less forgiving, too, because even though we have a few tames that we feel confident riding around on, you still have to be on guard because the environment itself could screw you over at any moment.

I've finally managed to get into Aberration and I think I will be enjoying the exploration for quite some time now.

Anyway, thanks to those who threw in their two cents, and a middle finger to those who simply wanted to use this thread as a means to try and be condescending based on their poor reading comprehension and baseless assumptions. No help at all, but didn't exactly hurt anything either, so that's something at least.

Now I just need to wait for the next patch so I can breed some proper Megalos. 

[Thorium]

On 12/26/2017 at 4:17 PM, Akherousia said:

5.) Currently working on a ramp into the cave to the surface so that we can set up there for relative safety and access to metal.

This is a bad idea. The surface is very dangerous, mining metal there isnt worth it. You can go there to hunt the drops but mining there is way to dangerous. You can get tons of metal in the blue biome. All the rocks with blue veins are metal stones. If i only farm directly around my base i get 15k raw metal on 2x harvest. Blue biome is the place to farm most resources. I wouldnt even go for element ore to the surface, it's easier to get in the drake area.

[MirageUK]

We farmed the surface last night - so long as you do it on days 7-8-9 you have plenty of time up there. 

We play PvE on our own server so we have just setup a couple of double chests on the edge of the drop from surface.  Using Ravs, stay mounted, bulb dog on your back and pickaxe in your hand you can easily mine a lot of metal just from the start section of the surface, unload into the cupboards rinse and repeat.  When cupboard full bring up more ravs to return it all to base - at any time of day as the sun doesn't go right up to the edge where we have our storage boxes.

We use the North East surface  - tried the North West but kept getting poisoned/tripping and had to turn back after using all the shrooms we had on us.  Is there another way to that one or do we just need to plan better so have a decent stacked supply of shrooms to prevent hallucination? - the obelisk at that one is literally over a land bridge from the cliff edge just past the cave to surface!

[MirageUK]

3 hours ago, Thorium said:

This is a bad idea. The surface is very dangerous, mining metal there isnt worth it. You can go there to hunt the drops but mining there is way to dangerous. You can get tons of metal in the blue biome. All the rocks with blue veins are metal stones. If i only farm directly around my base i get 15k raw metal on 2x harvest. Blue biome is the place to farm most resources. I wouldnt even go for element ore to the surface, it's easier to get in the drake area.

The surface has lots of metal and oil - but you're limited to Ravs and a pickaxe.  I guess you likely get way more from the blue biome as you can use an Ankylo down there easily?

[Thorium]

3 hours ago, MirageUK said:

The surface has lots of metal and oil - but you're limited to Ravs and a pickaxe.  I guess you likely get way more from the blue biome as you can use an Ankylo down there easily?

Yes you can use an anky there which makes it the top spot to mine metal, actually the whole biome is full of the blue metal stones. Oil is another story. If you want to mine it, there are only two places and the surface may be not to bad for that. However for metal you get so much more and quicker in the blue biome, it's kind of crazy. I have 100k ingots lying around and don't really know what to do with them. My metal base is pretty much finished.

[Thorium]

3 hours ago, MirageUK said:

We use the North East surface  - tried the North West but kept getting poisoned/tripping and had to turn back after using all the shrooms we had on us.  Is there another way to that one or do we just need to plan better so have a decent stacked supply of shrooms to prevent hallucination?

A hazard suite is protecting you against the spores.

[MirageUK]

Thanks for the advice.

I wan't aware the hazard suite protected against spores? Maybe I had not put my helmet on as unless I go to the surface or down into the deep blue towards the radiation I don't like the "gas mask" style restricted view.  I will try again this evening and see what happens, hopefully the haz mat will help if I have all parts equipped.