What Servers Do You Like? Lets talk about it.

[GingerTheGreat]

I'm trying to gather some info from all of you in the Ark community. I want to figure out what is the most popular maps, rates, and things that make you join a server.  I run a few servers and i'm curious on peoples thought processes when selecting a server to play on. Lets have a discussion about this. I'll give you a brief intro: I've been playing Ark extensively for about a year. I have played on all maps, sometimes super boosted, others close to official rates. I played on official no tame servers and on PS4 dedicated servers before the PC hosted ones. When PC hosted ones came about I instantly jumped on board and bought my own servers. They have had their ups and downs all the way through, it's been a great ride. I have advertised my servers as long term player servers and as boosted PvP servers. I'm just trying to get into the heads of the Ark community and see what people want to find in a server. Hopefully I get some responses on this post.

What maps do you typically search for? (Island, Center, Ragnarok, Scorched Earth, or Aberration)

What type of rates do you look for? (1x - 10x - 20x - 50x - etc) 

Does the title of  the server influence you? Would you rather have a server title that is unique or one that is generic that shows the rates?

Does having a good community matter to you? 

Do you look for a server you can stay long term or just a server to play around short term?

Does having a cluster of maps interest you?

[BaldBudgie]

I'm looking for a Aberration ORP pvp server WITHOUT modded dino or player stats (modded weight would be ok). This is apparently impossible to find. 

I would prefer harvest between x1 and x10

taming x5 - x10

raising x5+

Dino lvls 5, 10, 15... --> 150

Admin commands of any kind, except wild dino wipe, is a no go. 

Edit: transfers from other servers is a no go as well. 

[Cesious]

I've been playing with one other since the initial release on PS4, and at the official launch with a few more. Most of them have quit for the time being because there's almost nothing out there besides boosted rates, RP enforced or limitation based servers, or abusive admins. From the PS4 launch we had a decent home server that kept us on it for 1-2 months until the host closed it off, then a second.

We're strictly Primitive players, we hate having things like guns, C4, rockets, and all the tek tier pieces.

Ragnarok is our preferred map because after the desert expansion it covers every biome. And who knows, they might expand it downwards to include an aberration style world eventually.

Low rates all the way, there's a distinct lack of quality ones out there. We were dedicated to our 1x rate server, with no events to boost it. You feel like you need high quality tools or underused tames to gather, and there's a challenge to it where you need to struggle to live. Having everything handed to you, speed leveling straight to late game saddles, etc is boring and cuts out an important part of the game. We even played on a 0.5x rate server after our other ended which was fantastic until the host decided to raid using admin commands.

Another feature we'd love to see explored more is no flyers. The sheer size of the maps, much less Ragnarok, rarely get land exploration as it is. The challenge of being unable to fly, and while most people want to ride dragons, we find it bland and boring. Give me a good Paracer platform house struggle through the Murder Murder Snow with 4 friends any day of the week.

I feel like the server name being reflective of the rates and PvP indication is most important, especially due to the lack of a way to view rates without testing each server yourself.

The cluster isn't important, personally I feel that it sort of dilutes the number of players by spreading them out.

[Cesious]

Adding on to my previous post, with Rag getting the desert update on PS4 most likely this week, it's the perfect time for a rekindled server. We've jumped through 4 servers in the days since I've posted, each one had its own issues:

Overbuilding by tribes causing extremely bad lag.

Level 300 dinos ruining the balance that the 150 cap applies, due to stat scaling on increases.

Boosted rates and/or stats. It ruins so much of the game that I insta-exit and unfavorite each of these, never to play again.

Admins who spawns themselves items.

[GingerTheGreat]

24 minutes ago, Cesious said:

Adding on to my previous post, with Rag getting the desert update on PS4 most likely this week, it's the perfect time for a rekindled server. We've jumped through 4 servers in the days since I've posted, each one had its own issues:

Overbuilding by tribes causing extremely bad lag.

Level 300 dinos ruining the balance that the 150 cap applies, due to stat scaling on increases.

Boosted rates and/or stats. It ruins so much of the game that I insta-exit and unfavorite each of these, never to play again.

Admins who spawns themselves items.

I've got a few servers myself. One of them is a Ragnarok server that had a large community of players at one point. After all the PvP wars and tribal problems happened it became my home base for all my servers. What I have been doing is opening up other PvP servers and going to war. No transfers into the server but can transfer out to my Ragnarok server. A lot of people have liked the idea of being able to keep their mutations, items, etc before the end of a server wipe. Our community is a pretty good one but there is the level 300 dinos. I have always liked the ARK grind and don't like the admin abuse. I especially hate it when people say I spawned something in when my tribe worked their ass off for it. You're more than welcome to come try my servers. Nothing is too boosted in my opinion.

[GingerTheGreat]

Lets hear some more opinions on this discussion. Tell me about the servers you typically join.

[StormedDread]

I would be interested in a ORP PvP server with a 10 to 15 minute cooldown (so you cant just log out to avoid getting raided)

 

With dino level cap set to around 30 to 40 and rates set to 2x.

 

Limit what sort of build tier you can go to. For example no auto turrets or c4, even reducing down to a stone age for an extreme setting.

 

No fliers as i feel they ruin the exploration and adventure (been loving abb for this).

 

And setting a limit on the number of tames tribes have too. Max of say 50 creatures (allows for rafts etc).

And it being reset every month or two to give a fresh feel to the server. Like the extinction servers. With say a map change each reset would be ideal.

[Symonator]

On 1/13/2018 at 12:25 PM, Cesious said:

I've been playing with one other since the initial release on PS4, and at the official launch with a few more. Most of them have quit for the time being because there's almost nothing out there besides boosted rates, RP enforced or limitation based servers, or abusive admins. From the PS4 launch we had a decent home server that kept us on it for 1-2 months until the host closed it off, then a second.

We're strictly Primitive players, we hate having things like guns, C4, rockets, and all the tek tier pieces.

Ragnarok is our preferred map because after the desert expansion it covers every biome. And who knows, they might expand it downwards to include an aberration style world eventually.

Low rates all the way, there's a distinct lack of quality ones out there. We were dedicated to our 1x rate server, with no events to boost it. You feel like you need high quality tools or underused tames to gather, and there's a challenge to it where you need to struggle to live. Having everything handed to you, speed leveling straight to late game saddles, etc is boring and cuts out an important part of the game. We even played on a 0.5x rate server after our other ended which was fantastic until the host decided to raid using admin commands.

Another feature we'd love to see explored more is no flyers. The sheer size of the maps, much less Ragnarok, rarely get land exploration as it is. The challenge of being unable to fly, and while most people want to ride dragons, we find it bland and boring. Give me a good Paracer platform house struggle through the Murder Murder Snow with 4 friends any day of the week.

I feel like the server name being reflective of the rates and PvP indication is most important, especially due to the lack of a way to view rates without testing each server yourself.

The cluster isn't important, personally I feel that it sort of dilutes the number of players by spreading them out.

When you say primitive, are you talking like it used to be on legacy?

As in smithy tier weapons, which means basically cross bows as the top tier weapon?
Plant x for turrets

and to raid people it's like trebuchet and cannons? and stone / adobe is the top kind of structures?

[GingerTheGreat]

On 1/23/2018 at 4:53 AM, Symonator said:

When you say primitive, are you talking like it used to be on legacy?

As in smithy tier weapons, which means basically cross bows as the top tier weapon?
Plant x for turrets

and to raid people it's like trebuchet and cannons? and stone / adobe is the top kind of structures?

What about you Symonator? What servers do you tend to play? 

(That CCDP cert is tough, props for sticking it out! Looks like we're in the same field )

[Cesious]

On 1/23/2018 at 3:53 AM, Symonator said:

When you say primitive, are you talking like it used to be on legacy?

As in smithy tier weapons, which means basically cross bows as the top tier weapon?
Plant x for turrets

and to raid people it's like trebuchet and cannons? and stone / adobe is the top kind of structures?

Actually, I preferred legacy Primitive by far to Primitive Plus, especially because DLC engrams would be active alongside Ragnarok. But either would be a viable option.

But yeah, smithy tier tools/weapons, trebuchet and ballista only, Plant X and tame defenses (Imagine Thorny Dragon turrets, Purlovia mines, etc). With stone/adobe for top tier which can be taken down easily enough, but is possible to defend through proper builds and defenses.

I lived on legacy Primitive and was sad to see they discontinued that line, then they went and stopped giving real Prim Plus updates, and stopped giving us NA Prim Plus servers entirely.

And by far no flying mounts is the most fun thing to handle, there's a struggle and sense of fun when you explore or start building an outpost. I doubt many people have walked across Rag's desert, instead opting to fly and ruining the experience of it.

[yekrucifixion187]

I have just started looking at unofficial. I think my ideal settings would be;

Cluster

I'm torn between PvP and PvE. I feel like a PvE section (almost like a town) would be good. a place the PvPer's could come to form alliances, shop for dino's/materials, have games and people who specialize in the breeding type of game play. However outside the city limits it is fair game even against the PvE type of players so they have to go out to tame dino's to trade, do cave runs to get BP's to trade, etc. and it adds an extra element of danger. This would make it beneficial to them to make alliances with the PvP tribes to provide protection. The PvE players could kill to defend themselves but if found to participate in a raid/unprovoked attack they are expelled from living in the town. 

I think 3x harvest and xp sounds good

I think maximum of 2x maturation. These OP dino's should take some effort/time, with occasional special events. 

If possible a different system of imprinting other than just cuddles, walks, and kibble. 

Normal tame times. 

24/7 no ORP outside of city not sure if you can designate an area an ORP section or not

No cave flyers

Wild dino pick up allowed

No strict rules for PvP. Kill who and what you want. Take what you want. Destroy what you want. (outside of city) Turret limits only if it is indeed found to help reduce lag on a server. 

I think max 150 wild is perfect as well. 

I think very much a slight boost would accommodate a vast majority of player base. 

One caveat could be you provide vacation/holiday time so somebody can shut it down/pause their dino's/base decay/etc. for a week or two. They have to give you 2 weeks notice. 

I haven't really put a ton of thought into it and I'm not done with official yet. I'm still trying to decide what my next step should be. Unofficial or single player (I like to trade so that makes unofficial more appealing if clusters are involved), PvP or stick with PvE however if I do decide to come unofficial these are they type of settings I'd look for as far as rates and abilities go. 

 

 

[Thatguy553]

39 minutes ago, yekrucifixion187 said:

I have just started looking at unofficial. I think my ideal settings would be;

Cluster

I'm torn between PvP and PvE. I feel like a PvE section (almost like a town) would be good. a place the PvPer's could come to form alliances, shop for dino's/materials, have games and people who specialize in the breeding type of game play. However outside the city limits it is fair game even against the PvE type of players so they have to go out to tame dino's to trade, do cave runs to get BP's to trade, etc. and it adds an extra element of danger. This would make it beneficial to them to make alliances with the PvP tribes to provide protection. The PvE players could kill to defend themselves but if found to participate in a raid/unprovoked attack they are expelled from living in the town. 

I think 3x harvest and xp sounds good

I think maximum of 2x maturation. These OP dino's should take some effort/time, with occasional special events. 

If possible a different system of imprinting other than just cuddles, walks, and kibble. 

Normal tame times. 

24/7 no ORP outside of city not sure if you can designate an area an ORP section or not

No cave flyers

Wild dino pick up allowed

No strict rules for PvP. Kill who and what you want. Take what you want. Destroy what you want. (outside of city) Turret limits only if it is indeed found to help reduce lag on a server. 

I think max 150 wild is perfect as well. 

I think very much a slight boost would accommodate a vast majority of player base. 

One caveat could be you provide vacation/holiday time so somebody can shut it down/pause their dino's/base decay/etc. for a week or two. They have to give you 2 weeks notice. 

I haven't really put a ton of thought into it and I'm not done with official yet. I'm still trying to decide what my next step should be. Unofficial or single player (I like to trade so that makes unofficial more appealing if clusters are involved), PvP or stick with PvE however if I do decide to come unofficial these are they type of settings I'd look for as far as rates and abilities go. 

 

 

Honestly Dude i run a server and i tried something close to this 10x not 3x but still maybe 5 people joined over the course of a week? so we couldnt do that because we are spending 100 dollars for a EPS lag free server with 50 slots we want to fill alot of those slots to get our moneys worth

[GingerTheGreat]

On 2/2/2018 at 1:29 PM, Thatguy553 said:

Honestly Dude i run a server and i tried something close to this 10x not 3x but still maybe 5 people joined over the course of a week? so we couldnt do that because we are spending 100 dollars for a EPS lag free server with 50 slots we want to fill alot of those slots to get our moneys worth

I feel you ThatGuy. I've tried having successful servers for 6 or 7 months and it's hard. A lot of money spent and it's impossible to cater to everyone's wanted settings. I stopped trying to have a successful server about a month ago and its given me a lot of time to do other things.