Jump to content

Which map???


scmelik

Recommended Posts

I have been working my way through the island for a few weeks now and am slowly getting a little bored. I’m still progressing working on getting my kibble farm setup and everything in place to start heading out to get my boss fight Dino’s. I’m thinking about diving into starting another map but I’m not sure which one to go with, scortched earth, ragnrock, aberration?

 

pro/cons of each map?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

abberration can be tricky because u cant just freely transfer there and back, if ur planning on moving ur character instead of starting from scratch (ur charatcer might get trapped on this map)

se is good for desert drops some different scenery than the island (good map for people that dont like trees)

rag is just a massive map, probably most peoples favorite (makes the center look like garbage)

 

 

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Out of the 3 official maps SE is my favourite for getting boss rexes, there's a great spawn not far from green obi, if you get a decent wyvern you can just fly in a large circle over the area killing off the low level ones until you get a good one to spawn, pretty much like lava island on the centre with a never ending supply of rexes. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If your rushing to get to end game, Rag will probably extend that time frame further than you'd prefer. The map is so large and spawns are so spread out, often from even your own base location, that it makes transportation twice as painful as other maps. This includes drops, farming for boss materials, tames, resource materials, etc. You may find a Rex worthy of taming at the opposite side of the map, limiting you to spend 30min walking it over to your base or flying at turtle speed while carrying it on a quetz platform for example. 

As others mentioned, Abb slows progression down three fold. From dying twice as much, not being able to fly, walking to gather resources until you can get a glider (drake) which is a tedious task in its self, your progression will slow tremendously on Abb. That and its far more difficult to transfer to and from the map. 

SE is probably your best option for progression although everywhere having desert topography can get visually boring.

It wouldn't hurt to have a base on Rag though so your able to tame griffins in due time. 

If you don't mind the tediousness of transportation (time involved) then go on Rag. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know you didn't mention the center but it is a nice step up from the island, basically all the same stuff as the island but with a more interesting geography. SE is my preferred map because of the easy access to rare materials,  the lower server populations(meaning you can build where you want)   and it's easy access to loot drops. Good map to level up your character and get lots of high quality gear and BP. I stay away from Rag due to the high server population and the large amount of dino capped servers. AB is a great map, but it has a bit of a learning cliff. If you feel the game isn't challenging enough then this is where you should go. SE used to be rather difficult to survive in but they have filed the sharp edges off so now it's like most other maps, not Aberration though. Gathering resources is very difficult in AB (when you first start) and it takes a long time to really get up and running on that map. Still it is a lot of fun to explore and it has a lot of unique features that make it enjoyable.

 

                                                                             Hope that helps, GL

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ragnarok is by far the most diversified map. It's a mix of all the maps at once on a much larger scale.

Everything on Rag is amplified. You will find a huge amounts of metal nodes all very close from each other, it's a paradise to gather resources.

The downside is the size, it's really big but if you find a proper place to build, you won't have any issue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I forgot to mention I’m playing solo no pvp or pve. I don’t mind the slow play at all I just tend to bore easily after a bit and want a change for a little while and then I’m good to go back to it. After grinding hard for days trying to build my permenant base and kibble farm but not quite being in a position to get into the higher level cave and end game Dino’s I feel like it’s getting a touch stagnant right now. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, scmelik said:

I forgot to mention I’m playing solo no pvp or pve. I don’t mind the slow play at all I just tend to bore easily after a bit and want a change for a little while and then I’m good to go back to it. After grinding hard for days trying to build my permenant base and kibble farm but not quite being in a position to get into the higher level cave and end game Dino’s I feel like it’s getting a touch stagnant right now. 

Maybe Aberration then, it's a nice change of scenery and will keep you busy for a week or two getting built up then progressing into the blue and red areas, get some drakes and reapers etc, I do prefer to play it separately from my main character though instead of going over once I'm levelled up quite a bit and being able to unlock a lot of stuff straight away I'd rather start at level 1 and go through the grind on there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ok since you play solo any will probably do, although I'd recommend looking for a PvE server if you don't want to get bored easily and still want to play peacefully (better to look for unofficial servers), anyway, regardless of servers here we go:

 

My personal recommendation is ISO Crystal Isles (Only available to PC for now), it's a very big map, in fact it's as big as the engine allows, and it has many biomes that are very unique (including some awesome caves like the honey cave) and very different from the island, it has everything from both Scorched Earth and Aberration and will probably also have items and dinos from Extinction in the future, you can do all the bosses except Rockwell and there's even a wild gamma broodmother (Non-tameable) you can kill for element (as well as crystals that give you element shards), it also has every dinosaur in the game except Ice Wyvern and Reaper Queens (which will be added in the future) as well as zombie wyverns, 3 different crystal wyverns (smaller but faster, and you can also level up their speed), Crystal Griffin and also liquefied versions of dinos like Gigas, Stegos, Wyverns, Quetz (they look badass) and it's also full of very beautiful spots to build in.

Furthermore if you ever get tired of your base locations you can always move somewhere else, it's full of very beautiful places you can build in.

The only cons would be that it's not kind to low performing graphic cards and that it's not finished yet, only biomes left are the snow biome near the blue obelisk, the brown bog on the southeast and ISO is planning to make an underworld area.

You should definitely check it out.

 

If you don't want to look for mods in the workshop however there are quite some maps that you may enjoy:

 

If you want a complete change of style over The Island I'd recommend either Scorched Earth or Aberration.

Scorched Earth is very good if you like the desert, it's a good map with good drops and some awesome base locations aswell, your main enemy, apart from the fauna, will be the heat, in fact you'll find yourself struggling with water quite a bit at the start, but it also makes choosing a base location even more important as water is an important resource here. It's a very good map but the only downside is that it only has 1 biome pretty much. it gets visually tiring and you'll eventually get tired of it, also maps like Crystal Isles, Rag (which we'll get into later) and many other maps often include a desert biome, although smaller in size.

Aberration however is a different story, in fact you'll be living underground, but don't worry, it's not gonna get too dark, in fact I think out of all the maps it's actually the brightest at night, even because you can tame and upgrade a light pet which means you'll never need a torch or gamma in here. Aberration is quite challenging to play at first both because of the fauna, the shrooms and the lack of metal in the early area and it has a lot of verticality to it, the first time you go there you'll get lost quite often too. You can also build on cliffs on this map thanks o the cliff platform. The biggest cons of Aberration however is that it gets very monotounous after some time as you only have 4 biomes, the green area (starting area) which is big but lacks important resources like metal, you won't be spending much time here and it's also very monotounous after you spent enough time here to know the general direction of stuff, then there's the bioluminescent biome or blue biome which is quite big and full of metal (although it looks different than the normal ores) and it's probably also the most aestethically pleasing biome in Aberration, it's also a very hard biome to live in due to it's fauna, spores and areas, and everything looks very similiar so it's easy to get lost while walking, there are some very good base locations here, next there's the radioactive area (or red area) which is relatively small, this is the area where you'll get black pearls, drake eggs, reapers, element ore and tons of oil (although you don't really need a lot of oil on Aberration), it's also impossible to live here unless you have a TEK shield generator because this area is radioactive, it also has no source of water but there's a way to provide water to your base (check nooblet's channel). it's also worth noting that not every dino can go here without dying because of the radiation. The last biome is the surface, which you can only visit by night and you cannot build here because as soon as the sun comes out everything burns. It's small and you only go here for drops.

Lastly, if all you want is diversity, go with Ragnarok, it has everything the Island has aswell as a desert, t's a very big map, you can find metal nearly everywhere and you have access to SE dinos (except the phoenix) and items too, it has the Ice Wyvern and Griffin as unique dinos and also has two "mini" bosses. The only bad part I'd say is the huge amount of lag, that it's full of players so it's hard to find a good base spot and that it's a big pangea-like land mass, there are no rivers similiar to The Island and it seems like a map designed to be very easy, if you like to play in the ocean and have your sea creatures have a purpose this map is not for you, the center is, not only the Center is made up of many islands (and is very similiar tgo The Island) but it also has 2 underwater bubbles with oxygen where you can build.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ragnarok is my favorite for the sole fact that if i get bored playing in one area of the map i can leave stuff at one base move to a completly different biome and start a new base in that area. For example you can go from a beach style area like the island (viking bay) to the desert area like scorched earth in the south Or a plains map with volcanoes and redwoods in the northeast or a large swamp area in the west.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks everyone. I ended up starting on both maps. SE I hate I haven’t been able to stay alive more than 10 min thanks to stupid raptors. Aberration has been okay, I’ve managed to get setup decently, trained a carno, lost a carno. Trained a 135 dire bear, lost a 135 dire bear, trained a 120 raptor lost a 120 raptor all to a damn ballisk that decided to spawn in the area. Now I’m trapped. Anytime I try to leave my little area I either get killed by the damn ballisk or the ravager pack that’s the other direction 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, scmelik said:

Thanks everyone. I ended up starting on both maps. SE I hate I haven’t been able to stay alive more than 10 min thanks to stupid raptors. Aberration has been okay, I’ve managed to get setup decently, trained a carno, lost a carno. Trained a 135 dire bear, lost a 135 dire bear, trained a 120 raptor lost a 120 raptor all to a damn ballisk that decided to spawn in the area. Now I’m trapped. Anytime I try to leave my little area I either get killed by the damn ballisk or the ravager pack that’s the other direction 

Welcome to Aberration!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I personally like Aberration and the Island the best. 

The Island: Easily the best endgame, so much content to discover, spawns are evened out, nicest looking map as well in my opinion. Lots of nice spots to build, and doesn't feel SO obviously unnatural like Ragnarok. There is a point to exploring, great map design, nice progression system. The original and best ARK IMHO.

Scorched Earth: I have had a lot of fun with this map, and I'd say it's probably the hardest. I do like the progression, but there's not a whole lot to do after you've gotten a wyvern.  Rock elementals are just ridiculously hard to tame solo, which I was. Sure, you can kill a deathworm, but... then what? There is no point in exploring the map. The only places worth branching out to are the badlands for oil, and maybe at a stretch the oases for water. It can be fun to explore but the terrain can get a little boring. 

Aberration: My other favorite map, the progression is a lot better in this one. Spent a lot of time in the green zone, the only thing I went to the blue zone for was a megalo for the red zone, and then I got a drake and thought, now what? I guess I'll get more eggs ?. Aberration also definitely contends for the most beautiful map, but the green zone can get a little reptitive. The red zone on the other hand, is just freaking earth shattering!! Trouble is, you don't often have time to spare to enjoy the beauty. But my main problem with Aberration is the fact that YOU CAN'T BUILD ON HALF THE MAP! Sure, the Surface isn't a whole lot of the map, but the freaking red zone is! To have to get tek to not be constantly repairing/crafting a hazard suit is just ridiculous.

The Center: Nice map, just doesn't really add anything new to the table. I do like the map, but the constant raining and thunderstorms decrease the ambience a little (yeah idk what I'm saying either lol). I guess it's ok, but nowhere near as good as the official story maps. Also probably the worst endgame because half the Tekgrams are unavailable and the bosses drop pitiful amounts of element for the trouble you have to go to for beating them.

Ragnarok: Meh.  Feels very unnatural to me. I just don't understand all the people saying, "ragnarock is the best map lots of content definitley try it cool ruins!" A lot of content, and some pretty cool ruins (I especially like the one in the waterfall with the statues). I just don't really like the feel of it for some reason. I've watched videos of the boss fight and the arena looks pretty cool, but again it feels a little unnatural. I think it's a cool map, but it's also way bigger than feels comfortable to me. Griffin is cool, again just a bit overrated. All in all, I think it's cool, but feels a little empty. 

Order: Best The Island, Aberration, Scorched Earth, Ragnarok, The Center Worst

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, SeaRex said:

I personally like Aberration and the Island the best. 

The Island: Easily the best endgame, so much content to discover, spawns are evened out, nicest looking map as well in my opinion. Lots of nice spots to build, and doesn't feel SO obviously unnatural like Ragnarok. There is a point to exploring, great map design, nice progression system. The original and best ARK IMHO.

Scorched Earth: I have had a lot of fun with this map, and I'd say it's probably the hardest. I do like the progression, but there's not a whole lot to do after you've gotten a wyvern.  Rock elementals are just ridiculously hard to tame solo, which I was. Sure, you can kill a deathworm, but... then what? There is no point in exploring the map. The only places worth branching out to are the badlands for oil, and maybe at a stretch the oases for water. It can be fun to explore but the terrain can get a little boring. 

Aberration: My other favorite map, the progression is a lot better in this one. Spent a lot of time in the green zone, the only thing I went to the blue zone for was a megalo for the red zone, and then I got a drake and thought, now what? I guess I'll get more eggs ?. Aberration also definitely contends for the most beautiful map, but the green zone can get a little reptitive. The red zone on the other hand, is just freaking earth shattering!! Trouble is, you don't often have time to spare to enjoy the beauty. But my main problem with Aberration is the fact that YOU CAN'T BUILD ON HALF THE MAP! Sure, the Surface isn't a whole lot of the map, but the freaking red zone is! To have to get tek to not be constantly repairing/crafting a hazard suit is just ridiculous.

The Center: Nice map, just doesn't really add anything new to the table. I do like the map, but the constant raining and thunderstorms decrease the ambience a little (yeah idk what I'm saying either lol). I guess it's ok, but nowhere near as good as the official story maps. Also probably the worst endgame because half the Tekgrams are unavailable and the bosses drop pitiful amounts of element for the trouble you have to go to for beating them.

Ragnarok: Meh.  Feels very unnatural to me. I just don't understand all the people saying, "ragnarock is the best map lots of content definitley try it cool ruins!" A lot of content, and some pretty cool ruins (I especially like the one in the waterfall with the statues). I just don't really like the feel of it for some reason. I've watched videos of the boss fight and the arena looks pretty cool, but again it feels a little unnatural. I think it's a cool map, but it's also way bigger than feels comfortable to me. Griffin is cool, again just a bit overrated. All in all, I think it's cool, but feels a little empty. 

Order: Best The Island, Aberration, Scorched Earth, Ragnarok, The Center Worst

Thats a pretty good explanation and rating. The reason people like Ragnarok the best is because it's got all in one. You can have the biggest bases, farm a lot of resources everywhere (including usually rare black pearls), tame high levels of any tame in existance and once you get established, use the Tek efficiently while getting the highest element rewards for the bosses. In short, its a progressing tribes' dream map. 

 

I also share your opinion about the island. I love the hard caves, the multiple bosses and balanced ecosystem. It's a shame it does so poorly with a bunch of people on it, with its limited "good" build spots. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...