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Community Crunch 134: Small Tribes Servers, Upcoming Structure Changes, & More!


Jen
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people have already reponded to this post by creating a 3x ladder, 3x pillar over a fence founndation structure to protect resource spawns, unless you remove structuresup to and including the basic survivor 1x1 hut this has already made the change irrelevent and simply another annoyance for players.

Edited by Azmeaiel
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one of the worst changes for structures you are forcing the players to make them more resourceful for protecting their building space and area. With this change you will be causing players to build small bases and kill their spawning areas. This is no solution pillars are necessary evil in ark, you should have resolved this in early acces and not after months the game is released! By implementing this change you do not resolve anything you just make it worst like the first pillar change.... By now i have made 1by1 structures around my area and wil see til someone comes with a better solution after the patch, like i said you just made it worst with this announcement.

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That first picture, is perfectly fine, and should stay like that. Whoever put those pillars there is protecting the beaver spawns. Those are good pillars.

Whoever put those there in Hidden Lake, thank you. Beaver dams are rare on Island, not enough to go around to all the tribes.

4 hours ago, Aphy said:

Pillars are used to protect resource spawns.

This. This is a good use of pillars. The problem with pillars is not the pillars, it is the player who uses it, which can be used for good... or bad. That first picture, is a good use of pillars imo. A little messy looking, but good. Still good.

 

If Wildcard doesn't like the look...

4 hours ago, Aphy said:

Create no build zone for these resource spawns.

As far as pillars that protect player bases, please give Fence Foundations protection range. I had to pillar around my base because if I didn't, players could build next to, or inside my base.

My Suggestion:

How about give us players a new structure item! An item that will look nice too! Maybe make expensive to make*, or maybe locked behind a high level. The item would prevent others from building, but not block spawns. Limited amount, like how you limit turrets or signs. And increase that limit depending on how many players/dinos are in a tribe. Please dont make it require Tek. As far as the timer on it, make it practical for the good builders. 4 day timer is practical for me. 12 hours is not. Perhaps make it so it will not auto-demo, just in case I miss refreshing it for whatever reason, which is rare for me with a 4 day timer, but there have been times, lost greenhouse walls.

 

*not Tek. I dont have any Tek on my main server. I am waiting for stable boss fights before I take in my rexes.

 

My Experiences:

I am a solo player, on Official Legacy PvE. I have been on 323 since 2015. I have at least two large areas to house my 530** dinos (about 200 or less dinos each area, due to the lag if I have more than that in one place). I need enough pillars to protect my walls that sit on Stone Fence Foundations (because people I play with, they hate dino gates for walls), plus some more pillars protecting the rare resources I protect (a metal mountain, east of the volcano). And please make the CD at least 3 days, preferably four.

As a solo official player with two different tribes and three+ bases, I cannot upkeep a 12 hour despawn, or even a 24 hour timer. But I can upkeep a 4 day timer (thank you for the greenhouse update! I can finally use these pieces to make pretty builds). I have a checklist to make sure I am around to refresh the pillars protecting a rare resource (metal). Protected for the sake of the whole server, so someone doesn't build there and block off this rare and necessary resource.

There have been countless times over these last three years, either with my friends, or myself, where someone was able to build in such a way, that it hurt/destroyed my plans for building, or cut off rare resources. I use pillars to protect my base, and rare resources.

When the 12 hour timer was added to pillars, you killed several of my friend's interest in this game. They were good people. They no longer play (or play unofficial only). That day, they quit. The last straw with them, had enough with how the game was being handled. The area they were protecting, was now taken over by someone else. It was too much, and they moved on to other things. I miss playing with them.

** working on culling it to under 500, and one tribe, instead of two. This is a heartbreaking process for me, but I am working on it.

 

 

I understand Wildcard needs a way to help servers police themselves without GM intervention. There is a fine balance of what can be used for good, but can also be used for bad. Please think carefully about what you add/change/remove. Think about the good that good players can do, but aware of the bad that the bad players can do.

It's not about a pillar being bad or good, it is the hand that places them that makes all the difference.

 

I am a good respectful pve player. I need tools to help me protect the rare spawns for the needs of the whole server. Take away my protection, you may just as well take away the metal from everyone on the server. Please give me tools to protect these rare and limited resources from the bad guys. Thank you for listening to the community.

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I think all problems must be solved by that way that first step is to figure out what is real problem and then solve it. Current your solution is just changeing pillars more and more looking like houses so in one point you see that there is spam of houses but it is argueable is that house with functionality or just cool thing or something else. That solveing path leads into dead end and makes problem even more worse.

First step should be collecting ideas why players spamming with pillars not makeing pillars spam impossible.

 

Resource location problem:

  • Someone just build into valuable resource spawning area and resource is gone for everyone.

Pillars as resource protection solution:

  • most rare resources have spawn area protection by default. For example no one cant build anything in rich metal, crystal etc area.
  • tribes have special structure what dont affect spawning what tribe can put forr protect resources to avoid building. That structure is limited for example every tribe can build only 10.

 

Territory problems:

  • Someone build something so close to my base as game allows and after that i cant build anything even exactly next to my base wall.
  • Lag and crash issues if too many are going to build lots of stuff too close to each other.

Pillars as territory protectionsolution:

  • make that foundations and pillars claim some area to us. That territory what they claim for us is depending on number of foundations what we own that area.

 

Pillars as protecting roadssolution:

  • makeing into game paths where players cant build anything.
Edited by urmas
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Well it seems that I came here to say what everyone else came here to say... but I'm going to say it anyway, 'cause more voices etc etc...

 

Yes, pillars can be used to spam. But far more often, they are used to protect valuable routes and spawns, to provide a bit of a buffer around a tribe's base to prevent someone building literally on your doorstep (and often blocking a valuable route in the process), and to prevent spawns (dinos, trees, rocks etc) within a tribe's base. The first of these is, imo, the most important - it will now be, it seems, impossible to protect important metal/crystal/obsidian spawns, and major routes, and those will quickly become blocked off by trolls. You might say that we can submit tickets in those instances but 1) that can take weeks, 2) what we consider an important route (eg the only land route from our base) might not be what you consider an important route, 3) spawns etc are clearly not protected or they would be made no build zones, as a very few of them have been (eg metal spawn in Jungle Mid on Center, ruins on Barnji Plateau on Ragnarok etc) and 4) it was kind of nice that servers could work together to protect their important resources from trolls, by maintaining neat little pillars for protection (I'm sure this wasn't the case on every single server but just look at these comments - clearly most servers were using them in this way). 

Please, please, rethink this. We had an issue in Legacy where we hadn't pillared around our base, trying to be nice, friendly and trusting, and a troll tribe built right next to us, blocking our only route out and completely prevented us taking land dinos any further than about 100yds from our base. It wasn't reportable because we weren't 'blocked into our base', nor was it a major route in terms of the whole server, but we were completely barred from using any large land dinos that couldn't be flown out with our quetzes. It was pretty crappy and will be a common occurrence if people can't protect their bases. Or, people will be forced to building huge ugly structures all over the map, blocking even more spawns. Neither of these is an ideal scenario. 

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11 hours ago, Jen said:

Structures which do not meet this definition will rapidly decay resulting in the ability to either destroy them by hand or have the server automatically destroy the structures when they are loaded/leave stasis.

Would you please make it so they wont auto-decay (for several days after the change)? Maybe show something on the structure (temporarily) when a tribe member is near it, so they can see if it doesn't meet the requirements. Giving players enough time, and the info they need to update their structures to comply to the changes.

It's an inconvenience to ask someone outside of my tribe to check the timers on my structures.

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Who will be in charge of this code of conduct upgrade? Because there has been no response to quite a few tribes and people I know with regards to people who have been going against the code. For example this weekend , your breeding event wasnt exactly playable because our servers were all taken down due to ddos , sometimes we had 3 different ddosers come in during the day and take the server down. We report the issues , submit tickets and nothing is done about it. We ran alpha Ascension 2 weeks back and mid way we were ddosd , server went down we lost all. This is with regards to ark official PS4.

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The spamming of foundations is more of an issue than the spamming of pillars. At least with pillars they still allow important resources and dinos to spawn and they protect people from building/griefing you at your doorstep. My solution is to allow a longer decay timer on pillars around resources and around a certain radius of your base. 5+ days of decay seems like a reasonable amount of time to work on the upkeep of these pillars and placing new ones if need be. Pillars/foundations that are random/serve no purpose or enemy tribe pillars/foundations near your structures should have a quick decay timer of 6-12 hours. I hope WC sees all these comments and doesn't jump the gun on this structure change.

I would also like to know the time the new small tribe servers come up. The announcement doesn't mention one.

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56 minutes ago, GreenRoc said:

That first picture, is perfectly fine, and should stay like that. Whoever put those pillars there is protecting the beaver spawns. Those are good pillars.

Whoever put those there in Hidden Lake, thank you. Beaver dams are rare on Island, not enough to go around to all the tribes.

This. This is a good use of pillars. The problem with pillars is not the pillars, it is the player who uses it, which can be used for good... or bad. That first picture, is a good use of pillars imo. A little messy looking, but good. Still good.

 

If Wildcard doesn't like the look...

As far as pillars that protect player bases, please give Fence Foundations protection range. I had to pillar around my base because if I didn't, players could build next to, or inside my base.

My Suggestion:

How about give us players a new structure item! An item that will look nice too! Maybe make expensive to make*, or maybe locked behind a high level. The item would prevent others from building, but not block spawns. Limited amount, like how you limit turrets or signs. And increase that limit depending on how many players/dinos are in a tribe. Please dont make it require Tek. As far as the timer on it, make it practical for the good builders. 4 day timer is practical for me. 12 hours is not. Perhaps make it so it will not auto-demo, just in case I miss refreshing it for whatever reason, which is rare for me with a 4 day timer, but there have been times, lost greenhouse walls.

 

*not Tek. I dont have any Tek on my main server. I am waiting for stable boss fights before I take in my rexes.

 

My Experiences:

I am a solo player, on Official Legacy PvE. I have been on 323 since 2015. I have at least two large areas to house my 530** dinos (about 200 or less dinos each area, due to the lag if I have more than that in one place). I need enough pillars to protect my walls that sit on Stone Fence Foundations (because people I play with, they hate dino gates for walls), plus some more pillars protecting the rare resources I protect (a metal mountain, east of the volcano). And please make the CD at least 3 days, preferably four.

As a solo official player with two different tribes and three+ bases, I cannot upkeep a 12 hour despawn, or even a 24 hour timer. But I can upkeep a 4 day timer (thank you for the greenhouse update! I can finally use these pieces to make pretty builds). I have a checklist to make sure I am around to refresh the pillars protecting a rare resource (metal). Protected for the sake of the whole server, so someone doesn't build there and block off this rare and necessary resource.

There have been countless times over these last three years, either with my friends, or myself, where someone was able to build in such a way, that it hurt/destroyed my plans for building, or cut off rare resources. I use pillars to protect my base, and rare resources.

When the 12 hour timer was added to pillars, you killed several of my friend's interest in this game. They were good people. They no longer play (or play unofficial only). That day, they quit. The last straw with them, had enough with how the game was being handled. The area they were protecting, was now taken over by someone else. It was too much, and they moved on to other things. I miss playing with them.

** working on culling it to under 500, and one tribe, instead of two. This is a heartbreaking process for me, but I am working on it.

 

 

I understand Wildcard needs a way to help servers police themselves without GM intervention. There is a fine balance of what can be used for good, but can also be used for bad. Please think carefully about what you add/change/remove. Think about the good that good players can do, but aware of the bad that the bad players can do.

It's not about a pillar being bad or good, it is the hand that places them that makes all the difference.

 

I am a good respectful pve player. I need tools to help me protect the rare spawns for the needs of the whole server. Take away my protection, you may just as well take away the metal from everyone on the server. Please give me tools to protect these rare and limited resources from the bad guys. Thank you for listening to the community.

Let me get this straight, you are a solo player with 530 tamed dinos? No wonder players are always complaining PVE servers are full of lag...

Edited by ForzaProiettile
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27 minutes ago, ForzaProiettile said:

Let me get this straight, you are a solo player with 530 tamed dinos?

Yes, and I keep them in different areas on the map, this is a collection of my dinos and my retired tribemates' dinos from numerous servers, moved into here due to the kill list killing off our other servers. I am working on reducing the numbers, but it is difficult, mentally difficult, but I am making progress.

If I find my base has an FPS drop, when I have added something, I work on moving some dinos to another base, and/or removing structures.

Most of the dinos I have, are to make eggs for kibble. If the kibble didnt require specific eggs, I'd have half the dinos I have now. The other non-kibbling half are working dinos, breeding to get better stats, as well as spares in case others die. But mostly, I am a sentimentalist, love my dinos, had many of them for years. I cry, literally, when they die.

 

If Ark had a storage system for dinos like Pixark has. I'd store most of my dinos in there, if that was a thing.

So 1) Wildcard needs to rework kibble system

or 2) Wildcard needs to add dino storage like Pixark has

Both of those, either of them, I'd be willing to cull/store half of my hoard.

Edited by GreenRoc
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The problem is, it will impact gameplay negativly for a lot of people with a low snapped structure limit. It will be byby for most crab traps including the expensive catapult wich usually requires a few snapped pillars and a foundation.

It will despawn all 'pillar walls' used to build enclosures that do not despawn the resource inside and just about all base builds that do the same. All small structures like fishing areas will be affected .

huts are going to be built on every resource on the map negativly effecting play on entire servers - on every server, both deliberatly and to just grief and deny resource.

none of this new change also adresses the real problem , in that most servers pillared in this way are UNPLAYABLE DUE TO DINO CAP anyhow, how about fixing this before despawning a few structures on servers that are almost unplayable anyway?

and like i said before,  all this change will do is make people spam 1x1 boxes, gates or 2-3 high pillars covered in ladders regardless of how many structures you limit a 'small building' to. it will just cover the servers in laggy structures rather than a few pillars while ruining gameplay mostly for smaller tribes. 

either way, the problem of these pillared servers and the dino overcap problem affecting noobs is always a white elephant that is never adressed, the ammount of noobs who's first experience of this game is a capped , unplayable server is outrageous.

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Please reconsider the structure change. While I totally understand pillaring/foundations is highly abused it's also used to control bad aspects of the game that shouldn't be possible to begin with. For example as people said.. people building structures on top of valuable spawns. Also we have to place foundations inside our water pens/bases unless we want to be overrun with spawns. AB is a huge problem as well because it's so narrow with no flyers and many pathways would be completely blocked without pillaring.

Cap on PVE servers is a much larger problem for both new AND old players. Island/Ragnarok are particularly the problem and far more servers of those should be created than Center/SE/AB since those ones don't cap anywhere near as easily. You can't bring many species to AB so impossible to main, SE has horrible spoilage time/sandstorms etc and center is awful for element with not much reason to play there other than better spawns of certain dinos, it's also very buggy compared to other maps(we're forced to main center as all rag servers are capped).

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This is adding insult to injury first devs make a ban rule for kitting wild dinos so they could take down pillars that are being used to protect resources, paths, hunting grounds, so basically they gonna kill their game in one sausage move even before they have released the last dlc making ppl that bought season pass worthless. Troll gonna have fun now on PVE for the very simple fact both parties have to accept war to have PVP between them, like there is none at the moment trolling already and support of this game is waiting for your complaint to act right away cause last time to fix something real easy just took more than 3 weeks for 1st reply and one more week of waiting to fix which gm dint because he decide it i should had more random foundation inside my base so no dino spawn inside (fun fact, devs wanna destroy the solution that a gm offer).

PS, wasent enough to poop on your entire legacy players that support your game all this time so you have decided to had piss to it

Edited by FOX8619
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8 hours ago, Andy95 said:

For the Small Tribe Servers for the Ps4 or all platforms do you have to start from scratch or can you transfer your character and  equipment over. ? 

you will haft to start from scratch and you can not transfer into the server only out. This makes it fair to new players not getting retked by alphas

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I, For One, Welcome Our New Mega Pillar Overlords.

I love that the developers solution to the pillar problem was to force the player to use even more pillars,
So now instead of endless forests of metal ladders on lone stone pillars, we'll have endless forests of metal ladders on two stone pillars on stone fence foundations with a sign on top.

/slow clap.

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I don't like this structure changing that could be implemented, I feel like this is due to the amount of submitted tickets to land grabbing of resources, and tribes not settling there own differences. 

I understand where it is coming from but I hope they know if people can't claim there own land more and more tickets will be submitted.

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This is nuts they are trying to revert the game so anyone can build up ANYWHERE so the lag and #of tribes go up while tame cap just stays the same. We use pillars on the map too keep noobs from taking spawns majority of the time, while other times people use the pillars as a safeguard so the crappy server lag is reduced.

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This pillar change is most likely one of the worst things that could possibly happen. There has already been a change long ago that literally did nothing to prevent players from pillaring except making them build pillars with ceilings (that prevented spawns) until we found out that pillars+ladders also works. The only thing that will change this time is that there will be either small houses that block everything or 5 high pillars with multiple ladders attached. Hello lag. It WILL NOT keep people from pillaring/claiming land, especially not established tribes that have the resources to do whatever is necessary.

- pillars are used to protect resource spawns. Which, sadly, is necessary because you CAN build on these spawns and people do it - on purpose (we've had multiple issues with tetris tribes building on metal spawns just to block them), or just because they're noobs that don't know better. When I started playing, I knew nothing about foundations blocking spawns. There was one tribe that had pillared off all resource spawns to keep people like me from blocking them and preserving them for everyone, which is a good thing.

- pillars are used to protect base areas and the area around them. I've had one guy build a 1x2 thatch hut INSIDE my fenced in base area before because I hadn't pillared there. On SE, we didn't pillar around the base and one guy built his ugly ass gates-only dino prison cube RIGHT outside our gates when there was PLENTY of building space left all over the map, just to name a few examples. It really means more lag, being unable to expand, having to travel far for resources (like stone, wood, meat) that would normally spawn just next to you and in some cases that you have to swim or make a long way around neighboring bases. 

- pillars are used to claim land for future building projects. Often there is no way you can stomp out a whole base within a day or two, so you have to pillar. People build just anywhere, and if the place they like is JUST outside the "enemy range" of your foundations where you were going to build your fence, they WILL build there.

- noobs tend to whine that there is NOWHERE to build on a server when really they'd just have to step off the beach to find there's plenty of space left. I see that every day on the island server. Just because the nicest places are taken (after half a year, I mean what do you expect?) and beaches are pillared to preserve paths and spawn points/areas so noone gets stuck in foundations, does not mean there is nowhere to build. Servers where there is "nowhere to build" are capped too anyway so why even bother building a base.

Pillars are not an issue. The issue are people who block resources that are not pillared and people who have no brains to not build RIGHT NEXT to someone elses' base or block paths (we wouldn't even need pillars if these didn't exist).

But just because there's some greedy people out there who abuse them to pillar off whole maps (like on our Aberration server where 3 tribes have pillared 90% of the map), it's being made harder for all of us. It's always the same. Some whine, some misbehave, EVERYONE gets punished. This is not how you make your community happy ?

Edited by Eanaya
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I've said it with the last update and I'll say it again about this update:

The only way this is going to work is if the enforcement team is actually gonna get their poop together and start banning people that clearly grief. 

Stop with the lazy fix's that is not going to solve anything at all. You guys have proven yourself over and over that coding something into the game that actually will work because of its complexity is something you can NOT do. Stop trying... seriously.. All you have to do to fix this problem is have a 1 week banning marathon on all pillaring assholes and put it in the code of conduct and than actually enforce it. Stop wasting time in developing failed mechanics and start using it usefull to actually solve the problem. 

@Jen You know what I have to say as I've said it before to you and now I won't say it again. If you don't know it by know, you'll never know. 

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hello devs i think it would be a great server idea where you can have people play as animals along side people in tribes, but say everytime you pick a new creature have the levels reset, mabye have it so you have to tame animals and place them in some kind of clone chamber(for example)for you to unlock the animal to play as?¿?¿?

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