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New player getting stomped on small tribes (not a rant, asking for advice)


BremFM

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On ‎8‎/‎19‎/‎2018 at 10:13 AM, BremFM said:

That's so sad. I can really emphasize with that solo dude. It feels the same for me, I ain't giving up. I would also never join my opponents, lest they were real chill all along. Well, at the moment I'm just gathering metal in a 3x2x1 base. I'm going to either move out to a new location on The Island, or transfer to a The Center server. Not sure yet. What are pros and cons to TC? I was told there are a lot less "grieffers" on TC? But also that it's more laggy so idk 

Well it was tragic for him for sure but he chose his fate.

I have recruited many players over the years who were previously my enemies. Typically if we come across another player or players who seem equally skilled at PVP, we nearly always make them an offer. Of my current group, several of them were recruited like this. We had attacked their base and they put up a really good fight. We were impressed enough that after the battle I made them an offer and at that point they had nothing to lose anyway as their base was gone. They accepted and ever since they have 2 of my most reliable warriors.

There is an element of trust to it as well, obviously they may want immediate revenge but if you play it smart you can minimize that risk.

On the flip side a tribe member is only a tribe member so long as he is your tribe. The moment he leaves the tribe as far as I'm concerned he's back on the target list.

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Well this is great. We had a wooden base and a level 25 beaver on a place that could only be reached by bird (once settled we lost the bird but there were Dino's there etc). Then when we had a 2x1 wooden base set up this douche comes in with his PT and kills our beaver and our bed, making us unable to get back to our base untill we tame a bird from scratch. This is great lol

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1 minute ago, BremFM said:

Well this is great. We had a wooden base and a level 25 beaver on a place that could only be reached by bird (once settled we lost the bird but there were Dino's there etc). Then when we had a 2x1 wooden base set up this douche comes in with his PT and kills our beaver and our bed, making us unable to get back to our base untill we tame a bird from scratch. This is great lol

Classic case of bad priorities? Did you tame the beaver to make a bigger wooden base? ?

I wouldn't bother taming anything if I didn't have at least a stone base. 

Also this 'douche' is playing smart. Why would he leave you the bed so that you can respawn and cause him problems? That makes no sense.

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8 minutes ago, ForzaProiettile said:

Classic case of bad priorities? Did you tame the beaver to make a bigger wooden base? ?

I wouldn't bother taming anything if I didn't have at least a stone base. 

Also this 'douche' is playing smart. Why would he leave you the bed so that you can respawn and cause him problems? That makes no sense.

Because he doesn't live anywhere near where we do. It was a wooden base because we had nothing. The beaver was just to collect berries, as it was one of the few easy tames around.

Guess we differ on that aspect. I understand all your mumble jumble about removing the weed and being a victor, but tbh you should leave noobies alone. Especially since me and my friend are not aggressive at all, just looking to have a fun time with a bit of a challenge. I do not mind getting raided in a (fair) fight, but not when the raid is completely unnecessary. His loot consisted of 12 metal bars and some thatch. Our base was 1 high, meaning he knew there were no chests inside.

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18 minutes ago, BremFM said:

Because he doesn't live anywhere near where we do. It was a wooden base because we had nothing. The beaver was just to collect berries, as it was one of the few easy tames around.

Guess we differ on that aspect. I understand all your mumble jumble about removing the weed and being a victor, but tbh you should leave noobies alone. Especially since me and my friend are not aggressive at all, just looking to have a fun time with a bit of a challenge. I do not mind getting raided in a (fair) fight, but not when the raid is completely unnecessary. His loot consisted of 12 metal bars and some thatch. Our base was 1 high, meaning he knew there were no chests inside.

See from my perspective, your base sings free loot. Wood walls cost nothing to break and I'm guaranteed to get more out of your base then I put in. I've never not raided a wooden base that I came across in all my years of playing ARK.

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3 hours ago, ForzaProiettile said:

I play to win and at the end of the day that is what counts. PVP is about fighting and winning. At the end of the day honour is decided by the victor. If he wants to be merciful then so be it, but if one chooses to give no quarter then that is perfectly acceptable as well. My theory is if you only chop off the stalk of the weed, it will come back to grow larger. It is better to take a shovel to it and remove it completely then it will no longer threaten your crops.

Regarding our friend, as I said in my post we didn't raze his base without first offering him the chance for resettlement to our farming server. Unfortunately his hubris got the better of him and we had to remove him. We offered him a really good package, top notch. It included access to a big base, lots of resources, quality breeding lines, being part of a mega tribe. Everything most humble folks would enjoy. It is a shame he chose to be suicidal instead. Oh well we can't all be winners.

 

Honor is NOT decided by the victor. Where did you come up with that nonsense? You need to look up the definition of honor before you can even begin to understand how wrong you are. Most of history proves the victor was not honorable, but they did exactly what you do, whatever is needed to win. Which in life and death situations, that is fine. But in a gaming environment involving pvp, if you grief the hell out of your opponents to the point that they quit, there will eventually be no pvp. We arent in life and death situations, we are in a situation where it takes two to tango and you are chasing off the other half. Its sad that the griefers will whine and cry when the game goes belly up due to not enough interest, when you were part of the problem that drove off those that would have kept the game afloat. I have watched more than one great game die from this in the past.

While your theory is true, its not how you nourish the plants that are needed to keep the garden going. Hammering other pvpers into the ground makes them leave, just like your bragging admitted. How exactly does that help the pvp experience when you chase off potential challengers before they even have the remotest chance against you? It doesnt, which is why it seems you dont want a challenge. Most people that play a game want a challenge, something to strive for, a goal that required hard work and a potential win with the risk of losing. Ark unfortunately doesnt give the majority of people a chance must less one that is even. Most other pvp games pair you up against opponents that are within the same skill set and gear that you possess, giving you a chance to win. Not Ark, it lets people at the top, grief the hell out of those just starting out to the point they quit out of frustration, even ones who try over and over again, above what a sane person would endure like the guy in your story.

Let those noobs get started, give them hope, then when they come at you, crush them with your superior skills. I guarantee they will hang around longer to play and you will actually have more fun than just blowing a hole in a base and stealing all their crap after killing their dinos that dont fight back. You will start to earn their respect which always leads to great pvp encounters. That is the beginnings of honor.

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5 hours ago, ForzaProiettile said:

See from my perspective, your base sings free loot. Wood walls cost nothing to break and I'm guaranteed to get more out of your base then I put in. I've never not raided a wooden base that I came across in all my years of playing ARK.

Lol you are the type of guys I either raid with or fight with. I respect that

 

Cheers

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  • 10 months later...

You are the reason ark is going to die. He had nothing but you blow his base up for what?? To waste c4? You gained nothing so you did it for what reason??  Your thought process is weak minded at best.  You didn’t win anything at the end of the day, you took something that someone enjoyed and destroyed it. Because you have unlimited resources. I wouldn’t have joined you either. Go farm for us on this server, no thanks.

On 8/22/2018 at 10:25 AM, ForzaProiettile said:

I play to win and at the end of the day that is what counts. PVP is about fighting and winning. At the end of the day honour is decided by the victor. If he wants to be merciful then so be it, but if one chooses to give no quarter then that is perfectly acceptable as well. My theory is if you only chop off the stalk of the weed, it will come back to grow larger. It is better to take a shovel to it and remove it completely then it will no longer threaten your crops.

Regarding our friend, as I said in my post we didn't raze his base without first offering him the chance for resettlement to our farming server. Unfortunately his hubris got the better of him and we had to remove him. We offered him a really good package, top notch. It included access to a big base, lots of resources, quality breeding lines, being part of a mega tribe. Everything most humble folks would enjoy. It is a shame he chose to be suicidal instead. Oh well we can't all be winners.

 

 

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Hey Brem, I've been holding out as a crazy lone survivalist on an Official PVP server for a few weeks, so I'm by no means an expert, but my current base is basically a stone bullet factory that I can throw together from scratch in a couple hours tops. I mostly stay out of global chat and I'm reasonably out of the way of high traffic areas, I only gather enough material to make what I need immediately, and keep any higher value items in hidden stashes. When I next get raided I can comfortably burn the asset and move into the frozen north, where I'm hoping to be even less of a worthwhile target.

Full disclosure: My previous base was a giant metal monument to man's hubris on the side of an exposed hill, with a stunning sea view.

 

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20 hours ago, chris282 said:

Hey Brem, I've been holding out as a crazy lone survivalist on an Official PVP server for a few weeks, so I'm by no means an expert, but my current base is basically a stone bullet factory that I can throw together from scratch in a couple hours tops. I mostly stay out of global chat and I'm reasonably out of the way of high traffic areas, I only gather enough material to make what I need immediately, and keep any higher value items in hidden stashes. When I next get raided I can comfortably burn the asset and move into the frozen north, where I'm hoping to be even less of a worthwhile target.

Full disclosure: My previous base was a giant metal monument to man's hubris on the side of an exposed hill, with a stunning sea view.

 

Well it seems you are willing and able to learn from your mistakes and adapt. You built some giant monument to stupidity, which obviously attracted raiders like flies. It got logically blown up and since then you've downsized and built smart. As such you are already better and smarter then probably half the PVP player base. You'll find playing this game over a long time that many players are highly resistant to change and unwilling to adapt. They live daily in their comfort zones and see no need to learn new tricks or techniques until the earthquake hits, you on the other hand have shown that rare quality amongst ARK's players that of adapting to survive. Good stuff.

 

My advice going forward would to be invest in a second account even if you are a solo player. A second account opens up many new possibilities from both a combat and PVP perspective such as having a highly specialized recon/guerrilla warrior to using it to engage in false flag ops. I have 5 accounts myself:

  1. Guerrilla - Very High move speed. I use this guy mostly for raiding and general combat. Exceptional at moving around the map and scouting. I use him to place down bed spawns around the map which I can then use to spawn in my other characters as need be.
  2. Brute - Very high melee damage 550%. Good at killing most tames and also other players indoors. Smashes boxes with ease. Extremely OP vs wooden bases.
  3. Hauler - Has very high weight on him. I use him for construction, farming and moving stuff out of looted bases.
  4. Tank - Has heaps of health. I use him for base defences such as sniping and also occasionally to deal with heavily turreted bases. Also very reliable in boss fights
  5. Oxygen Char - Used to be really good but since the Oxygen stat was nerfed its less so but still handy on occasion especially for raiding water bases.

Even the classic farmer tribe/raider tribe separation combo is always handy if nothing else.

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Cheers Forza, I appreciate that. Good advice too, I'll get on to it.

I'm perhaps a bit more patient than most, and I enjoy the problem solving aspect of gaming. I think it's easy to get wrapped up in the drive to acquire bigger and better tech because that feels like you're levelling up. Playing solo, I've had to give serious consideration to what I need to get by - there's no point putting resources into an assault rifle if it's going to get taken off me by two naked pygmies with a bolas and a club.

Did you ever play Eve Online, out of curiosity?

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On 8/18/2018 at 12:20 PM, BremFM said:

Hello there! This is my first post here so excuse me if it's not in the wrong subforum (I figured this was the place but hey, everyone makes mistakes).

 

I bought ARK last week, and am in love with it so far. I've been getting constantly raided, but I'm learning from it every time. I usually play with a friend of mine. I'm playing on a small tribes server. The past two days we've been grinding hard: we had a poopty hidden base, where we were preparing for an instant build out. Yesterday when I went to bed, we had made all the props made to build a 4x4x3 metal base with 3 floors and an air lock. We also had 2.1k iron set aside to craft turrets (we couldn't get a lot of silica pearls yet). For these turrets we had prepared 1k bullets  On top of that we had a spare 2k iron in case we needed to make something. I went to bed really satisfied with all the hard work we had delivered, only to wake up today to everything gone! I find PvE lame, but am in no way a warmonger. I like competition but also like to just hang out. Now today I was told by someone that we should get off this server, cause the alphas will simply keep on wiping everyone. I have a level 67 character so I want to transfer it, but I don't know where!

 

Hence why I made this post. I was wondering if anyone knows of a small tribes server with actual friendly alphas that will just let me be?

 

Thanks a lot!

~Bremfm

 

If you're in love with official, you might have to just keep trying until you find the right server.  But I would recommend unofficial / modded (settings) servers, as there is a lot more variation in server styles, and a lot more control within clusters.  The cluster I help run is PvP, but with more of a focus on big PvP events against admin, and  "friendly" PvP between server members - no wiping, no griefing (yes, there is a difference between PvP and griefing, which is typically Pv Person who is offline and can't do anything to stop them...hehe...).  People don't go crazy on each other's bases, because they might be working together at weekly events.  It keeps the drama and the butthurt down, while giving people a reason to grind for big PvP opportunities (last Admin raid base we built took all weekend to take down, loot was great to compensate).  

At this point there is so much variation in custom servers that you should have no problem finding the experience you're looking for.  If you're interested in what is going on at our cluster, it can be found under Savage Empire.  

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18 hours ago, OlNate said:

 

If you're in love with official, you might have to just keep trying until you find the right server.  But I would recommend unofficial / modded (settings) servers, as there is a lot more variation in server styles, and a lot more control within clusters.  The cluster I help run is PvP, but with more of a focus on big PvP events against admin, and  "friendly" PvP between server members - no wiping, no griefing (yes, there is a difference between PvP and griefing, which is typically Pv Person who is offline and can't do anything to stop them...hehe...).  People don't go crazy on each other's bases, because they might be working together at weekly events.  It keeps the drama and the butthurt down, while giving people a reason to grind for big PvP opportunities (last Admin raid base we built took all weekend to take down, loot was great to compensate).  

At this point there is so much variation in custom servers that you should have no problem finding the experience you're looking for.  If you're interested in what is going on at our cluster, it can be found under Savage Empire.  

In a few sentences you have managed to sum up why unofficials are just plain bad. Silly unenforceable rules combined with unaccountable admins that can ban you or wipe a server at the drop of a hat. Admin abuse is a serious issue on unofficial servers, Official servers may have large tribes and lots of "baddies" (people that attack you)  but they are known quantities which you can develop counters to, you cannot however counter someone with god powers.

I've tried playing on several unofficial servers in the past and I can say from my own experience it was not worth the investment in time or energy. On our first server after we began wiping other tribes weird stuff began to happen to our base over the course of a few days culminating in one night when the pin codes from all  our vaults were removed and our doors unlocked while we were offline and somehow our main enemy tribe just knew to attack us that very night... 

On our second play on an unofficial server we got outright banned for raiding too much even though we had not actually broken any existing rules. The admin asked me to go on his TeamSpeak and he told me straight up, our PVP actions were causing players to leave the server and therefore we were bad for the server and he was therefore banning us. On another we caught the admin using cheat commands to spawn in dinos and loot for an enemy tribe and on our final server the admin's own tribe was aimbotting (the server was one of the few servers to have BattleEye disabled). That's a lesson in itself there, never join a server with BattleEye disabled no matter what reason the admin gives for it being off (in this case it was that it wasn't updating properly).

If you somehow survive the admin abuse then you still to deal with their ridiculous rules that they often come up with. I've seen the following rules on a lot of servers:

  • No excessive damage when raiding - always nice and vague so the admin can ban you if he feels like it. (The guy I quoted has this rule)
  • Don't kill passive tames - nice little rule that results in people making walls of passive dinos around their base as well as storing loot on them
  • Don't build within 100m of another base - good luck measuring that
  • Don't be a griefer - another vague rule that is extremely common. It seems to be designed to stop people from PVPing too much on a PVP server..
  • You must declare war on another tribe before attacking them and they must agree to the war - easily one of the most dumbest rules I have seen. Rarer then the others but yes sadly some "PVP" servers still implement this rule.
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9 hours ago, ForzaProiettile said:

Well it seems you are willing and able to learn from your mistakes and adapt. You built some giant monument to stupidity, which obviously attracted raiders like flies. It got logically blown up and since then you've downsized and built smart. As such you are already better and smarter then probably half the PVP player base. You'll find playing this game over a long time that many players are highly resistant to change and unwilling to adapt. They live daily in their comfort zones and see no need to learn new tricks or techniques until the earthquake hits, you on the other hand have shown that rare quality amongst ARK's players that of adapting to survive. Good stuff.

 

My advice going forward would to be invest in a second account even if you are a solo player. A second account opens up many new possibilities from both a combat and PVP perspective such as having a highly specialized recon/guerrilla warrior to using it to engage in false flag ops. I have 5 accounts myself:

  1. Guerrilla - Very High move speed. I use this guy mostly for raiding and general combat. Exceptional at moving around the map and scouting. I use him to place down bed spawns around the map which I can then use to spawn in my other characters as need be.
  2. Brute - Very high melee damage 550%. Good at killing most tames and also other players indoors. Smashes boxes with ease. Extremely OP vs wooden bases.
  3. Hauler - Has very high weight on him. I use him for construction, farming and moving stuff out of looted bases.
  4. Tank - Has heaps of health. I use him for base defences such as sniping and also occasionally to deal with heavily turreted bases. Also very reliable in boss fights
  5. Oxygen Char - Used to be really good but since the Oxygen stat was nerfed its less so but still handy on occasion especially for raiding water bases.

Even the classic farmer tribe/raider tribe separation combo is always handy if nothing else.

Weight characters are really useful addition to a squad when raiding. You can neutralize a lot of dinos with grapples.

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On ‎7‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:34 PM, ForzaProiettile said:

In a few sentences you have managed to sum up why unofficials are just plain bad. Silly unenforceable rules combined with unaccountable admins that can ban you or wipe a server at the drop of a hat. Admin abuse is a serious issue on unofficial servers, Official servers may have large tribes and lots of "baddies" (people that attack you)  but they are known quantities which you can develop counters to, you cannot however counter someone with god powers.

I've tried playing on several unofficial servers in the past and I can say from my own experience it was not worth the investment in time or energy. On our first server after we began wiping other tribes weird stuff began to happen to our base over the course of a few days culminating in one night when the pin codes from all  our vaults were removed and our doors unlocked while we were offline and somehow our main enemy tribe just knew to attack us that very night... 

On our second play on an unofficial server we got outright banned for raiding too much even though we had not actually broken any existing rules. The admin asked me to go on his TeamSpeak and he told me straight up, our PVP actions were causing players to leave the server and therefore we were bad for the server and he was therefore banning us. On another we caught the admin using cheat commands to spawn in dinos and loot for an enemy tribe and on our final server the admin's own tribe was aimbotting (the server was one of the few servers to have BattleEye disabled). That's a lesson in itself there, never join a server with BattleEye disabled no matter what reason the admin gives for it being off (in this case it was that it wasn't updating properly).

If you somehow survive the admin abuse then you still to deal with their ridiculous rules that they often come up with. I've seen the following rules on a lot of servers:

  • No excessive damage when raiding - always nice and vague so the admin can ban you if he feels like it. (The guy I quoted has this rule)
  • Don't kill passive tames - nice little rule that results in people making walls of passive dinos around their base as well as storing loot on them
  • Don't build within 100m of another base - good luck measuring that
  • Don't be a griefer - another vague rule that is extremely common. It seems to be designed to stop people from PVPing too much on a PVP server..
  • You must declare war on another tribe before attacking them and they must agree to the war - easily one of the most dumbest rules I have seen. Rarer then the others but yes sadly some "PVP" servers still implement this rule.

 

I think there are an endless number of different ways to play, though, and people will want different things out of their experience.  There are definitely toxic admins out there, we've all heard stories, but there are really good servers as well, where people go because they are sick of official.  Sounds like you had some bad experiences...sorry to hear that, bud. 

At this point in life of the game, unofficial servers / rulesets offer variety and niche game play for people who have hacked at trees and rocks enough, and who have too much going on in their lives to wait three days for a giga to mature.  If playing unofficial is not for you, don't.   It's a game, you should be having fun, do what gets you there.

Anyway, thanks for the comment...but I think you'll find that while you think what I said perfectly describes what's wrong with unofficial, someone else will think it's exactly what they're looking for.  #FREEDOM  lol...  We have fun on our cluster, and our members have been around for a while, so it can't be all bad.   ;)

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/19/2018 at 11:16 AM, ForzaProiettile said:

It's PVP regardless of whether they are there or not. It still falls under the PVP umbrella.

In any case we were honourable, we gave the guy a chance to move to greener pastures but he chose to die. 

 

Even though this post is old I couldn't help but remark on how this sounds remarkably similar to Hitler's philosophy of the world. If people wouldn't suck up to and join the the Nazi regime like Austria had, they were simply wiped off the map such as Poland.

While PVP does stand for "player versus player", the only difference from PVP servers and PVE ones is the small change in code that allows players to attack other players and their belongings. There is no official rule stating "anyone on PVP servers must do everything in their power to obliterate others, no cooperation is allowed other than in tribe cooperation". Also, while PVE is often seen as a place where you can take a break from being offline raided every night, many PVE players still do everything in their power to cause grief to other players even though it is technically supposed to be "player versus environment".

What I am trying to get at is the fact real life and everything else (video games etc.) is PVP. The only difference between Ark PVP and real life is the factor that billions more people participate in real life and hence there is more importance placed on real life and hence there have been laws put in place to govern the people that lack a moral code and would otherwise murder and steal whatever they want from others. I play Ark PVP and would never destroy another person's valued spent time as much as you did unless otherwise provoked.

Hitler saw the world as you see Ark PVP and he was obviously wrong  and despised by History. I don't see how you can see it any other way.

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1 hour ago, Cythraul said:

Even though this post is old I couldn't help but remark on how this sounds remarkably similar to Hitler's philosophy of the world. If people wouldn't suck up to and join the the Nazi regime like Austria had, they were simply wiped off the map such as Poland.

While PVP does stand for "player versus player", the only difference from PVP servers and PVE ones is the small change in code that allows players to attack other players and their belongings. There is no official rule stating "anyone on PVP servers must do everything in their power to obliterate others, no cooperation is allowed other than in tribe cooperation". Also, while PVE is often seen as a place where you can take a break from being offline raided every night, many PVE players still do everything in their power to cause grief to other players even though it is technically supposed to be "player versus environment".

What I am trying to get at is the fact real life and everything else (video games etc.) is PVP. The only difference between Ark PVP and real life is the factor that billions more people participate in real life and hence there is more importance placed on real life and hence there have been laws put in place to govern the people that lack a moral code and would otherwise murder and steal whatever they want from others. I play Ark PVP and would never destroy another person's valued spent time as much as you did unless otherwise provoked.

Hitler saw the world as you see Ark PVP and he was obviously wrong  and despised by History. I don't see how you can see it any other way.

I see things differently. My experience from thousands of hours playing this game is that to be properly successful in ARK PVP you have to adopt a particular philosophy, a certain way of playing void of morals and ethics. This game requires total war in order to win, every aspect has to be covered. There are the obvious ones like combat and the less obvious ones such as politics, diplomacy and subterfuge.

I and my group have become quite adapt at working server politics to my tribe's advantage through various schemes and plots. I've succeeded in making deals against my allies, luring my allies into a war and then not helping them, getting one ally to fight another. I even sold out some allies to a Chinese tribe in exchange for a share of the loot and a treaty between us. One of the best tricks you can do is kick off a war between two stronger tribes, then sit back as they delete each other only for you to come in at the end collect the spoils.

I've also found that people in this game tend to believe what they want to believe no matter how unlikely it is. If your ally is saying he suspects Tribe A has been stealth raiding some of his bases, then you simply lure one of Tribe A's tames to be near one of your allies base then you go on their TeamSpeak and tell them about your discovery. Works like a charm. Similarly If there is some new Chinese tribe on the server, then that's a great opportunity to create a war. Simply have some of your tribe members create a few Chinese alts and go wild, attacking everyone (even yourself, of course you miraculously fail to do anything more then blow up a wall). People are lazy and they will conclude its a Chinese conspiracy to take over the server. I've never not seen this work and I've used it many times.

Player's ego is another aspect you can take advantage of. Many of the big tribes will often have several loudmouths in them, they are easy to spot. They will always be boasting in global chat about relatively minor things. Create a tribe name similar to another tribe, then go and hunt one of these loudmouths down. Kill him and slaughter his 100% imprinted tame and rub it in a bit then sit back and watch. He'll leap into action without even questioning it, that tribe you mimicked will be deleted by the big tribe and you'll have won yourself some potential allies that you can exploit.

 

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In the fact that the meta of PVP supports your point of having to play without morals or ethics I would agree with you. Honestly, I will be the first to admit my own bias and weaknesses in an argument because otherwise I have no credibility in the first place. With that in mind, you are much more of an authority on this issue than I. I only have about 200-250 hrs of Ark playtime and most of that only on Singleplayer.

I am merely pointing out a true comparison that I saw with the meta of Ark PVP (and honestly PVP in general) that bugs me but will probably eventually cause me to adapt as well and become more "like you".

If or when I ever reach thousands of hours of playtime on PVP I can totally see myself becoming like you and playing everything to my advantage without a thought of the means I use.

On one hand, I wish everyone could get along and the laws and morals that have taken hold in real life would be carried over in a virtual society as well but this is obviously unrealistic and a "noobish" line of thought.

All in all, the meta of PVP is such a huge mindshift for me but I acknowledge what you are saying and will have to adapt to survive or be left in the dust. Ugh

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3 hours ago, ForzaProiettile said:

I see things differently. My experience from thousands of hours playing this game is that to be properly successful in ARK PVP you have to adopt a particular philosophy, a certain way of playing void of morals and ethics. This game requires total war in order to win, every aspect has to be covered. There are the obvious ones like combat and the less obvious ones such as politics, diplomacy and subterfuge.

I and my group have become quite adapt at working server politics to my tribe's advantage through various schemes and plots. I've succeeded in making deals against my allies, luring my allies into a war and then not helping them, getting one ally to fight another. I even sold out some allies to a Chinese tribe in exchange for a share of the loot and a treaty between us. One of the best tricks you can do is kick off a war between two stronger tribes, then sit back as they delete each other only for you to come in at the end collect the spoils.

I've also found that people in this game tend to believe what they want to believe no matter how unlikely it is. If your ally is saying he suspects Tribe A has been stealth raiding some of his bases, then you simply lure one of Tribe A's tames to be near one of your allies base then you go on their TeamSpeak and tell them about your discovery. Works like a charm. Similarly If there is some new Chinese tribe on the server, then that's a great opportunity to create a war. Simply have some of your tribe members create a few Chinese alts and go wild, attacking everyone (even yourself, of course you miraculously fail to do anything more then blow up a wall). People are lazy and they will conclude its a Chinese conspiracy to take over the server. I've never not seen this work and I've used it many times.

Player's ego is another aspect you can take advantage of. Many of the big tribes will often have several loudmouths in them, they are easy to spot. They will always be boasting in global chat about relatively minor things. Create a tribe name similar to another tribe, then go and hunt one of these loudmouths down. Kill him and slaughter his 100% imprinted tame and rub it in a bit then sit back and watch. He'll leap into action without even questioning it, that tribe you mimicked will be deleted by the big tribe and you'll have won yourself some potential allies that you can exploit.

 

This entire lecture is the most insane raptoring thing I've read on the survivetheark.com forums.  Bar none, hands down.  Jesus-poop-sausages Forza.  

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6 hours ago, Cythraul said:

In the fact that the meta of PVP supports your point of having to play without morals or ethics I would agree with you. Honestly, I will be the first to admit my own bias and weaknesses in an argument because otherwise I have no credibility in the first place. With that in mind, you are much more of an authority on this issue than I. I only have about 200-250 hrs of Ark playtime and most of that only on Singleplayer.

I am merely pointing out a true comparison that I saw with the meta of Ark PVP (and honestly PVP in general) that bugs me but will probably eventually cause me to adapt as well and become more "like you".

If or when I ever reach thousands of hours of playtime on PVP I can totally see myself becoming like you and playing everything to my advantage without a thought of the means I use.

On one hand, I wish everyone could get along and the laws and morals that have taken hold in real life would be carried over in a virtual society as well but this is obviously unrealistic and a "noobish" line of thought.

All in all, the meta of PVP is such a huge mindshift for me but I acknowledge what you are saying and will have to adapt to survive or be left in the dust. Ugh

Well to be fair I think must folks start out in PVP as nice people. They build their base, make allies and do all the regular stuff. We did that too for a while but for me it got to a point where our PVP server became very passive. There was my tribe, and two allied tribes and the three of us made up about 60% of the server population. Then an opportunity came along, a reasonably large Chinese tribe joined the server. I was acutely aware of the hostility and suspicion towards such groups on other servers and decided to implement a new tactic.

I and my most trusted lieutenants went ahead and bought a 2nd copy of the game and then created some fictitious Chinese alts. We went about attacking all the non Chinese tribes on the server and in particular our allied tribes. Occasionally we would also attack ourselves to keep up the ruse. The loot we gained would be deposited in our vaults via using a pin coded little hut in the woods just outside of turret range of our main base.  These attacks generated a lot of anger and suspicion towards the Chinese. The real Chinese tribe denied having anything to do with us but despite several weeks of searching no one could find our base on the island (this was before server transfers existed).

Things worked pretty well for us with our two tribe separation ensuring there was little chance of discovery. Even in our tribe only about 4 of us out of about 15 knew of the scheme, everyone else was told the accumulating wealth was from over zealous farming. At one point we even used it to inspire our workforce as well as give ourselves a pat on the back. We'd award small prizes for farming efforts in the form of high tier weapons and armor which we always won and use ourselves as examples of the devout farmer. I would take the regular members to the mining hut and show them the thousands of ingots one of our heroic 'farmers' supposedly farmed today and say look how much Bob farmed today. Of course these farming efforts were fictitious, and no one in our tribe managed to get anywhere close to our farming achievements but it was a good source of inspiration to the rest to work harder.

 The scheme went very smoothly until the one time when one of us got lazy and was photo'd collecting loot boxes thrown to him by one of the Chinese by a guy in a French tribe. Luckily for us the leader of the French tribe also quite unscrupulous and instead of going public with it he simply added me on Steam and sent me the photo. In order to keep things quiet we agreed to a deal where we wouldn't attack his main base and we would also give him our excess loot. He and his small tribe eventually became extremely wealthy and no one seemed to notice this little French tribe of 4 with a large base and wealth seemingly well beyond their means.

Anyways after several weeks of plunder, we decided it was time to take the next step. Up until this point there was a lot of hostility between the Chinese and the non Chinese tribes but since there was no direct evidence linking the griefer tribe and the Chinese there was a reluctance to go to outright war. We aimed to change this. In the dark of night one evening, I swam across to Herbivore Island which was where the real Chinese tribe's base was located and took out of my pocket a ready to go metal base. I plonked it down in the name of the fake Chinese tribe as close as I could to their walls and then swam away.

I then went onto my allies Teamspeak and told them what we had discovered near the main Chinese base. This was for me the most challenging part, I had to engage in a bit of acting and fake outrage but they swallowed the whole story and with my urging they decided to go to war. Despite furious Chinese denials, the very next day, they us and the other ally began the invasion of Herbivore Island and so began the war.

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19 hours ago, TheDonn said:

This entire lecture is the most insane raptoring thing I've read on the survivetheark.com forums.  Bar none, hands down.  Jesus-poop-sausages Forza.  

I quite enjoy the strategic/political side of PVP that this game offers. I'm glad you found it interesting and hopefully useful as well. 

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1 hour ago, ForzaProiettile said:

I quite enjoy the strategic/political side of PVP that this game offers. I'm glad you found it interesting and hopefully useful as well. 

I didn't really want to comment much more than I did, but your response seems to indicate tacit validation of this sort of thing.  So, I'll say:  Absolutely quite the opposite.  ARK is about enjoying ARK, not dreaming up psychological manipulation schemes in which to trap people you have been lying to and pit them against one another, or invent a fictitious aggressor to lure a different person you have been lying to into a war in the hopes of getting their fat loot profits. 

Then you come on the forums, writing about how you are the only one who can have "pride" because of your infinite amounts of explosives.  Then you bandy around terms like "honor" (or "honour" if one is so inclined, but 6 of 1) as you simultaneously discuss with pride and self-appreciation how you literally tormented a guy who never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stood even the slightest chance against said infinite supply of explosives for over a week with constant raiding and popcorning.  You then reveal that tried to coerce him into your psychopathic "alliance" of people who you basically keep at the edge of the precipice of annihilation with really weak threads, until such time that it is slightly convenient for you to get a thousand metal ingots and 1 or 2 decent BPs from the smoldering wreckage of what used to be their base.  He declines, so in the big reveal of the inspirational "lesson" in the story, you foundation wipe the guy who again never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stood even the slightest chance against your tribe and, without looking at his base or knowing anything about the player, presented absolutely zero threat during the 1 or 2 weeks he was constantly ransacked.

You get enjoyment from lying to people and messing with their heads as you line them up like dominos to topple when the occasion suits you, with zero regard to what anyone feels about it, including the victims.  This is the behavior of a psychopath:  Actions devoid of a consideration of impact on others (or, devoid of conscience).  It does stray toward sociopathic behavior as well, because you know what you are doing and how it will make people feel, yet you do it anyway.  But you probably stopped thinking about how it affects your victims a long time ago, and now focus on the end-goal of that extra 1k ingots you didn't have to farm.  You want to talk about real-world-style politicking in a dinosaur-taming survival game, I'll talk real-world psychology.

I am a PvE player, and you won't agree with this assessment:  I get that.  But understand, the reason many choose not to play PvP is not because they are scared of getting wiped, but to avoid this exact kind of behavior.  A group of players who want only thatch and wood huts as their competition, who have an infinite amount of explosives, and who act without conscience are not good for the game.  It is good for you, because you have an entire server that you and your Chinese friends use as a server-sized base.  But it is not good for our game.

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31 minutes ago, TheDonn said:

I didn't really want to comment much more than I did, but your response seems to indicate tacit validation of this sort of thing.  So, I'll say:  Absolutely quite the opposite.  ARK is about enjoying ARK, not dreaming up psychological manipulation schemes in which to trap people you have been lying to and pit them against one another, or invent a fictitious aggressor to lure a different person you have been lying to into a war in the hopes of getting their fat loot profits. 

Then you come on the forums, writing about how you are the only one who can have "pride" because of your infinite amounts of explosives.  Then you bandy around terms like "honor" (or "honour" if one is so inclined, but 6 of 1) as you simultaneously discuss with pride and self-appreciation how you literally tormented a guy who never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stood even the slightest chance against said infinite supply of explosives for over a week with constant raiding and popcorning.  You then reveal that tried to coerce him into your psychopathic "alliance" of people who you basically keep at the edge of the precipice of annihilation with really weak threads, until such time that it is slightly convenient for you to get a thousand metal ingots and 1 or 2 decent BPs from the smoldering wreckage of what used to be their base.  He declines, so in the big reveal of the inspirational "lesson" in the story, you foundation wipe the guy who again never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stood even the slightest chance against your tribe and, without looking at his base or knowing anything about the player, presented absolutely zero threat during the 1 or 2 weeks he was constantly ransacked.

You get enjoyment from lying to people and messing with their heads as you line them up like dominos to topple when the occasion suits you, with zero regard to what anyone feels about it, including the victims.  This is the behavior of a psychopath:  Actions devoid of a consideration of impact on others (or, devoid of conscience).  It does stray toward sociopathic behavior as well, because you know what you are doing and how it will make people feel, yet you do it anyway.  But you probably stopped thinking about how it affects your victims a long time ago, and now focus on the end-goal of that extra 1k ingots you didn't have to farm.  You want to talk about real-world-style politicking in a dinosaur-taming survival game, I'll talk real-world psychology.

I am a PvE player, and you won't agree with this assessment:  I get that.  But understand, the reason many choose not to play PvP is not because they are scared of getting wiped, but to avoid this exact kind of behavior.  A group of players who want only thatch and wood huts as their competition, who have an infinite amount of explosives, and who act without conscience are not good for the game.  It is good for you, because you have an entire server that you and your Chinese friends use as a server-sized base.  But it is not good for our game.

Well look your a PVE player I don't expect you to understand the more complex nature of the PVP game. The PVP game is a brutal and unforgiving world in which you have to learn to adapt or else you will quickly go the way of the dinosaurs.  If you ask me politics/diplomacy is one of the most under-rated aspects of the PVP game, that is the ability to manipulate others into doing your bidding. When the devs stated this game is an open world game, they really meant it. It offers players all manner of opportunities to influence the game and its outcomes through combat or otherwise. I started out as a regular 'nice guy' kind of player but circumstances necessitated an alternative course. 

I do enjoy working politics and diplomacy to my favour, its a high stakes game in which the rewards are rich and the risks very high. It's an art I haven't seen a lot of players truly master. It is very easy to swear at your enemies in global chat but its far harder to be able to put aside your differences for mutual advantage. I've had situations where my alliance and the enemy tribe had been waging total war for several weeks and then they made us a really good offer and I swapped sides.  To me allies are friendly enemies, never trust them they will always backstab you if given the chance. Better to use them up then discard them when a better opportunity presents itself.

The same is true for tribe members particularly in large tribes. The ideal tribe member in a large tribe is basically a PVE player, the simple farmer. You want someone that is content with farming, base building, breeding and community. You don't want to have too many PVP types because they are harder to control, they tend to be a lot more ambitious (which is bad if your the tribe leader) and their egos are normally much more inflated. In my large tribe setups typically I have a core group of PVP players who I trust and have known for sometime as the leadership and the rest are just mass recruited lemmings who you can safely discard when they stop being useful. Inter tribe relationships is also important, you never want to have 5 people all IRL friends join the tribe in one big block because that will just lead at some point to guaranteed trouble. Those kind of players are highly independent of the tribe and essentially constitute their own inner tribe which is bad for cohesion.

With regards to our resilient friend in the stone hut, we offered him the opportunity of a life time and he turned it down. What more can I say. Sometimes you have to know when your time is up and take the offer on the table. His hubris got the better of him and sadly for him it didn't work out so well.

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12 hours ago, ForzaProiettile said:

Well look your a PVE player I don't expect you to understand the more complex nature of the PVP game. The PVP game is a brutal and unforgiving world in which you have to learn to adapt or else you will quickly go the way of the dinosaurs.  If you ask me politics/diplomacy is one of the most under-rated aspects of the PVP game, that is the ability to manipulate others into doing your bidding. When the devs stated this game is an open world game, they really meant it. It offers players all manner of opportunities to influence the game and its outcomes through combat or otherwise. I started out as a regular 'nice guy' kind of player but circumstances necessitated an alternative course. 

I do enjoy working politics and diplomacy to my favour, its a high stakes game in which the rewards are rich and the risks very high. It's an art I haven't seen a lot of players truly master. It is very easy to swear at your enemies in global chat but its far harder to be able to put aside your differences for mutual advantage. I've had situations where my alliance and the enemy tribe had been waging total war for several weeks and then they made us a really good offer and I swapped sides.  To me allies are friendly enemies, never trust them they will always backstab you if given the chance. Better to use them up then discard them when a better opportunity presents itself.

The same is true for tribe members particularly in large tribes. The ideal tribe member in a large tribe is basically a PVE player, the simple farmer. You want someone that is content with farming, base building, breeding and community. You don't want to have too many PVP types because they are harder to control, they tend to be a lot more ambitious (which is bad if your the tribe leader) and their egos are normally much more inflated. In my large tribe setups typically I have a core group of PVP players who I trust and have known for sometime as the leadership and the rest are just mass recruited lemmings who you can safely discard when they stop being useful. Inter tribe relationships is also important, you never want to have 5 people all IRL friends join the tribe in one big block because that will just lead at some point to guaranteed trouble. Those kind of players are highly independent of the tribe and essentially constitute their own inner tribe which is bad for cohesion.

With regards to our resilient friend in the stone hut, we offered him the opportunity of a life time and he turned it down. What more can I say. Sometimes you have to know when your time is up and take the offer on the table. His hubris got the better of him and sadly for him it didn't work out so well.

That's great.  Hopefully you keep getting fed dupes and your lying schemes go well.  In all honesty, none of that sounds fun to me.

Also, please refrain from using the word "hubris" to describe a guy who just wants to play.  You interpret his gumption as a defiance to your almighty supply of explosives, but it's simpler than that.  The definition of that word does not fit.  A man who is wiped daily does not have the opportunity to feel pride about his accomplishments.  

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