imbalanced Ark Survival has Evolved into... UNPLAYABLE.

[Wax]

7 hours ago, Poojes said:

Have a karaoke contest by yourself. Boom, problem solved  

Most tribes play in party chat so they probably wouldn't even realize or care if you were singing or trying to be annoying in the mic.  I would say re-roll but I'm not sure you can even do that without dying (possibly delete game cache) - a forever unconscious body in a cage is no fun for them - only advice I can give for the future is tribe up, there is power in numbers

[Wax]

37 minutes ago, Barahur said:

Adding the ability for sociopaths to keep someone imprisoned and unable to play indefinitely is fail on the part of Wildcard. If you want to allow people to grief, fine, but there needs to be limits. What those limits are I'm not one to say because I'm not a developer, but there needs to be limits. Otherwise, it's a recipe for disaster.

I think trolls and/or griefers are more like sadists than a sociopaths - a sadist takes pleasure from others pain and misfortune but either way your right

[Spadekarrde]

There's actually a glitch to get out of cages on xbone, press forward as you load into the world and sometimes you will jump out of it. But the easy fix to getting out of a cage is to just tell your buddies hey, im locked up, then log out and let them drag your body out through the cage walls.

[GeneralNinjaAnt]

5 hours ago, Spadekarrde said:

There's actually a glitch to get out of cages on xbone, press forward as you load into the world and sometimes you will jump out of it. But the easy fix to getting out of a cage is to just tell your buddies hey, im locked up, then log out and let them drag your body out through the cage walls.

no one wants to have to use a cheat or a glitch using game exploits isnt something good players want to have to do. if you look at primtive tribes today most r starting to work together because of there world getting smaller plus they trade with each other either goods or even people to stop imbreeding or to just marry 2 to merge tribes.. and if theres a dispute it could rise to become a village raid then you get revenge killings... the one thing they never did was take you and hold you captive for the rest of your life...still in a cage today week 3 just started.. i started another new guy on a different server but again these bullies get away with it... right now in server 477 there is usually only 20 to 40 people.. anyone who played when it first came out and isnt apart of them then you be in a jail... i count15 including me and thats just what i see.. go into pvp 477 and ask to join a tribe see how long they let you stay free

[GeneralNinjaAnt]

all these items the cages and handcuffs and anything else like that should be put only in hardcore that way it would be treated like a hostage.. the captors dont want to get killed.

 

[Engraverwilliam]

imprisioned for life?

New survivor.

 

 

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

yeah, that game mechanic sucks.

[perk8504]

12 hours ago, Woden said:

 

3. This is the fun option for risky plays. The good ol lock pick. 1 ingot to craft, but can only carry 1. You see em open a gate and make a break for it. Or make a break as your tribe starts a distracting offensive only to get you out and back home.

 

I like this one, but with a bit of change

a lock pick, with you only able to hide 1 away, and lockpicking system so that you're not guaranteed to get out, but have a chance...and an an ability to gather resources at a very slow rate (theoretically from items that captors drop or their garbage that gets left around...not full items, but splinters and such) so that eventually you could create another lockpick and try again.

then, when you've gotten out, you can either truly escape, or atleast aggro one of their tamed dinos or a turret and get killed

 

 

one thing's for certain though...a "suicide button" is not an option

[JimE1971]

I'm not reading too many responses (if any) that are in favor of this game mechanic for the time you spend as a captive. Most game mechanics I've experienced that penalize the player for mistakes either set the player back in experience or game progression (which is often the same thing), but not actually cause the game to come to a complete standstill for an indeterminable amount of time.  I can't imagine how I could stay interested in a game when the time I do get to play is spent staring at a cage... because I didn't keep enough of unstackable poop in my hotbar.

So there has to be something we are missing about the game mechanic that probably needs a little more explanation by the dev team. Why is it so important to be heavily defended and even expanded on by the addition of handcuffs? It seems to be a part of the game that is so easily abused, but still important enough to keep in the game design despite its abuse.

New players that join a server and get immediately captured (wether it be in PvP or PvE) haven't had a chance to develope friendships or join a like-minded tribe. When does the calvary come to rescue them?  Even established smaller tribes could be unable to rescue their tribe members from larger bullying tribes. Eventually the smaller tribes falling victim to this might find their only option to move to another server in hopes that this doesn't happen again. I'm not a business man, but I can see this as a problem of running out of servers, or players for them. Hopefully not the latter because negative word-of-mouth about a game spreads like a virus.  With that said, it's just my opinion and I have no experience running a game company. I love this game (playing single-player) and want to see it be successful.

What are we missing about this game mechanic that must be very important to keep even though it's easily abused? Are the developers really considering staring at a cage as worthwhile gameplay? I can understand the whole "bargain and ransom" concept they might have conceptualized, but it's not working out like that among the players. It's a tool used for greifing more times than not (from what I'm reading).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Throttlejam]

Ark is a survival MMO. You hunt, gather, craft build and defend yourself from the environment and other players. PVP or PVE, official server or private, it makes no difference. That’s how you PLAY this game. If the game’s mechanics prevent you from doing those activities for long periods of time or indefinitely, the game is UNPLAYABLE. The game is BROKEN. 

It’s no different than if you got stuck somewhere on the map and could not move (which has also happened to me). You’d expect the devs to fix that right? You’d expect them to provide a “stuck” function and/or fix the map.  In my case, I was able to eventually starve and respawn. I lost my entire kit, but I was back to playing in a REASONABLE amount of time.

When captured, handcuffed, encumbered and force fed… you can’t suicide or starve and respawn in a reasonable amount of time.  You’re intentionally and effectively prevented from playing the game by the actions of others. That’s unplayable. That’s broken. 

Who can argue that having your avatar immobilized in a cell for over 12 hours doing NOTHING constitutes playing this game?  Someone explain to me how the ability to hijacking and detain dozens of avatars and prevent all those players from playing Ark for long periods of time makes the game better and more fun for EVERYONE?  Personally, after just 6 hours I was online contacting Steam for a REFUND for Ark, and I LOVED the game before this experience. That’s how unplayable and broken I feel it is. 

[UDGxKnight]

10 minutes ago, Throttlejam said:

Ark is a survival MMO. You hunt, gather, craft build and defend yourself from the environment and other players. PVP or PVE, official server or private, it makes no difference. That’s how you PLAY this game. If the game’s mechanics prevent you from doing those activities for long periods of time or indefinitely, the game is UNPLAYABLE. The game is BROKEN. 

It’s no different than if you got stuck somewhere on the map and could not move (which has also happened to me). You’d expect the devs to fix that right? You’d expect them to provide a “stuck” function and/or fix the map.  In my case, I was able to eventually starve and respawn. I lost my entire kit, but I was back to playing in a REASONABLE amount of time.

When captured, handcuffed, encumbered and force fed… you can’t suicide or starve and respawn in a reasonable amount of time.  You’re intentionally and effectively prevented from playing the game by the actions of others. That’s unplayable. That’s broken. 

Who can argue that having your avatar immobilized in a cell for over 12 hours doing NOTHING constitutes playing this game?  Someone explain to me how the ability to hijacking and detain dozens of avatars and prevent all those players from playing Ark for long periods of time makes the game better and more fun for EVERYONE?  Personally, after just 6 hours I was online contacting Steam for a REFUND for Ark, and I LOVED the game before this experience. That’s how unplayable and broken I feel it is. 

1. The game is not broken, the devs have stated before that the creatures in the game are not your only problems. Other players can lock you up and keep you there if they want , but that is a lot of effort to keep you alive. 
2. The game is not completed, so complaining about game bugs where you get stuck or some other nonsense is completely uncalled for since you bought the game knowing it is incomplete.
3. You obviously haven't heard of joining a new server, and you're argument will be "well thats not fair because I got so far with that character" well guess what if it was a real survival situation you would be stuck in the cage the exact same way, it is called realism and a lot of people appreciate it. It isn't the rest of the communities fault that you got caught.
4. I do not think you should be allowed to escape from the cage unless your captors let you escape, they put in a lot of effort to put you in the cage and keep you alive so I think they deserve that choice.
5. Go play on a different game mode so you don't get put in a cage and complain about it if it is that big of a deal, or next time try harder to not get caught.

[Grayden178]

On 2/28/2016 at 9:23 PM, DmpTrkDrvr said:

The truth is They've given the Jailers all the Tools and Given none to the Captives..  

Like how about a hidden lock pick  engram.  Or have the handcuffs timeout with a 30minute respawn on the ability to put them on the same captive again..  

I WHOLE heartedly agree with the OP..  WILDCARD has Enabled captors and disabled captives. . 

 

On 2/28/2016 at 7:08 PM, SanguisDiabolus said:

Wholeheartedly agree here. Having the mechanics for prisoners is all good and interesting, but when you only give tools to players to imprison people, and NO tools for players to escape, it is quite simply just plain broken and unfair. There should be a lockpick item that you can craft beforehand and have it hidden in your inventory from other players who capture you. At least then you might have a chance to escape. These recent "griefer-focused" updates are what have kept me away from official servers. Eventually I want to get established on a primitive PVP server, so there's less BS to deal with.

 

On 2/27/2016 at 5:28 PM, Throttlejam said:

And no, you can't do anything about it. Handcuffs don't allow you to use your hands. No punching walls or using anything to suicide with. Your captors encumber you so you can't burn stamina, food and water to kill yourself. And captors are able to force feed you to keep you alive indefinitely.  So you're stuck, unable to actually play Ark for as long as they decide to hijack your game.

This is my proposed response to the captives not having a way to fight back:....nevermind

https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/39962-hidden-inventory-slot/

[Grayden178]

14 hours ago, Woden said:

I believe there should be a couple options added to the game soon. 

1. Pill made from organic polymer and feces that if placed in offhand slot cannot be removed by anyone other than player, if you have more in inventory and not offhand slot maybe they can just take those. So people cannot carry infinite escapes at once, but just one per respawn.  This would drain 200 health per second over 5 seconds.

2. A slower backup plan to the other option would be an inventory option that pops up when inside a cage. Allowing the player to start a respawn timer ~10 minutes to 15 minutes would be plenty of imprisonment time, plus you lost your gear.  (1+ hour suggestions here is just too much, imagine it were you, 15 minutes would feel like forever, so sorry OP....lol), I know this could be exploited for a fast travel but it's got a slow timer plus you drop everything in inventory so it's not practical  

3. This is the fun option for risky plays. The good ol lock pick. 1 ingot to craft, but can only carry 1. You see em open a gate and make a break for it. Or make a break as your tribe starts a distracting offensive only to get you out and back home.

the limits of #1 and 3 mean capturing someone will occasionally make them wait on the respawn timer. This would be enough time to hit their base with a makeshift raid or just cause them minor strife without making people quit the game. Keeping a player base is important for a game like this. 

These seem like easy and reasonable solutions. Although I could see the respawn timer being pushed up to 20-30 minutes. 

See the post I made directly above this one.

[D4u2s0t]

On February 28, 2016 at 3:12 AM, ciabattaroll said:

The best way to prevent being a captive for life is to make  yourself  so  unbearable to maintain. In other words, if you make yourself so detestable to the point  that people want to kill you, you'll never be a captive.

Unless they are in a private party, then you're just wasting your time.  :-) 

[Rickyh24]

The logic of "your captives put a lot of work into keeping you in a cage" is silly. Everyone puts a lot of work into this game. It's stupid for somebody to be able to keep you from the upkeep your base needs for 12 hours at a time while you sit in a cage. It's like they are getting bored and just keep adding things. If this is where we are at it might get one to start optimizing the game. No need to add stuff that make the game unplayable to some. 

[GeneralNinjaAnt]

On ‎2016‎-‎02‎-‎29 at 2:08 PM, UDGxKnight said:

1. The game is not broken, the devs have stated before that the creatures in the game are not your only problems. Other players can lock you up and keep you there if they want , but that is a lot of effort to keep you alive. 
2. The game is not completed, so complaining about game bugs where you get stuck or some other nonsense is completely uncalled for since you bought the game knowing it is incomplete.
3. You obviously haven't heard of joining a new server, and you're argument will be "well thats not fair because I got so far with that character" well guess what if it was a real survival situation you would be stuck in the cage the exact same way, it is called realism and a lot of people appreciate it. It isn't the rest of the communities fault that you got caught.
4. I do not think you should be allowed to escape from the cage unless your captors let you escape, they put in a lot of effort to put you in the cage and keep you alive so I think they deserve that choice.
5. Go play on a different game mode so you don't get put in a cage and complain about it if it is that big of a deal, or next time try harder to not get caught.

this guy reads one post and thinks he knows anything just another person defending the people that do this stuff..

1. takes about 15 to 20 mins to keep somebody alive by force for a month. if u have dinos and a large tribe i would say about 5 mins so stop saying 'effort'

2. how many times have you started over and how many times r you willing to start over.. just you dont care doesnt mean the rest of your crew feels the same

3. dont need anymore points lol. it is to easy to take you, keep you and make you hate this amazing game its called ark survial evolved.. You seem to want it to be called Ark Bullying Evolved

[GeneralNinjaAnt]

i cant wait until the grapling hook comes out. im sure its going to b used for everything then what its intended for lol...no more im going to build in the south to make it hard to be dragged..

[Hexadecimal]

On 2/29/2016 at 0:49 PM, Throttlejam said:

Ark is a survival MMO. You hunt, gather, craft build and defend yourself from the environment and other players. PVP or PVE, official server or private, it makes no difference. That’s how you PLAY this game. If the game’s mechanics prevent you from doing those activities for long periods of time or indefinitely, the game is UNPLAYABLE. The game is BROKEN. 

It’s no different than if you got stuck somewhere on the map and could not move (which has also happened to me). You’d expect the devs to fix that right? You’d expect them to provide a “stuck” function and/or fix the map.  In my case, I was able to eventually starve and respawn. I lost my entire kit, but I was back to playing in a REASONABLE amount of time.

When captured, handcuffed, encumbered and force fed… you can’t suicide or starve and respawn in a reasonable amount of time.  You’re intentionally and effectively prevented from playing the game by the actions of others. That’s unplayable. That’s broken. 

Who can argue that having your avatar immobilized in a cell for over 12 hours doing NOTHING constitutes playing this game?  Someone explain to me how the ability to hijacking and detain dozens of avatars and prevent all those players from playing Ark for long periods of time makes the game better and more fun for EVERYONE?  Personally, after just 6 hours I was online contacting Steam for a REFUND for Ark, and I LOVED the game before this experience. That’s how unplayable and broken I feel it is. 

I would try to look at the game for what it is, it is not an MMO, it is a sandbox survival game.

[Hexadecimal]

Just now, n_scheffel said:

Your points #1 and #4 are identical and completely wrong.

It takes very little effort to keep a handcuffed person alive. All you basically have to do is tranq them (1 tranq arrow) and then force feed them 5 cooked meats and a flask of water....every ~2 hours. How exactly is that hard?

I have no issue with being able to hold someone captive indefinitely if the captor is willing to micromanage the captive player. I have issue with how easy it is to do it now that handcuffs have removed the ability for players to kill themselves (especially if the captors weight you down so you can't jump or move to deplete stamina and cause starvation to happen more quickly).

Interpersonal communication is and has been part of the genre of the game for quite awhile now and easily one of the more important things to consider when trying to survive on the ark.

[Wollzy]

I'd like to add that cages and handcuffs go both ways.  I don't know the OP so I can't say if he did something to deserve this but I know our prisoners are griefers who try to ruin the server.  Cages aren't always used to pick on innocent players but a great way to make the game unplayable for those who try to ruin it.  We recently had a tribe member who killed several high end dino's and wasn't pulling his weight and after killing our Mosasaurus he knew he was going to get kicked.  So he decided he would go out with a bang and scatter all the dinos from one of our bases (this belonged to a tribe we merged with so it was a massive amount of dinos) and demo their base destroying all the key resources, eggs, and kibble.  After this he decided he would only come to the server and grief.  A few days later we saw him near our water base trying to aggro our Plesi and beach it so it would die.  He now lives in a cage with cuffs and gets fed berries on a regular basis so we don't have to worry about his toxic behavior.  

TL;DR cages and cuffs can be used in a positive manner two, it's a double edged sword.  I know I wouldn't want this former clown of a tribemate to be able to escape after 15 minutes or just suicide himself instantly.

[UDGxKnight]

15 hours ago, GeneralNinjaAnt said:

this guy reads one post and thinks he knows anything just another person defending the people that do this stuff..

1. takes about 15 to 20 mins to keep somebody alive by force for a month. if u have dinos and a large tribe i would say about 5 mins so stop saying 'effort'

2. how many times have you started over and how many times r you willing to start over.. just you dont care doesnt mean the rest of your crew feels the same

3. dont need anymore points lol. it is to easy to take you, keep you and make you hate this amazing game its called ark survial evolved.. You seem to want it to be called Ark Bullying Evolved

You seem not to be able to understand realism in a world where people are forced to survive. The extremes people would go to would probably be inconceivable to you. You just want this game to be like almost every other game these days and just pander to everyone's every last request and have no realism. Also the handcuffs were implemented so captives wouldn't be able to kill themselves so easily. My points are not wrong, I understand completely why this mechanic is in the game and why it is so unforgiving and why you don't I can't understand. Also it isn't the effort of knocking someone out and putting them in a cage, it is the constant maintenance of keeping said person alive which takes away from you being able to do other things and makes it to where you have to keep an eye on them which is why it takes effort. Like it has been told to countless other people i'm sure, just go play on a different server or stay off of PvP if you can't handle people doing what people do best, which is be jerks to put it nicely. Seeing as how this game isn't complete I would start over as many times as I wanted to and I can't be mad at an incomplete game because I chose to buy it, which is something you should consider before losing your mind over something so trivial.

[DjWormy87]

On 2/27/2016 at 9:28 AM, Throttlejam said:

Ark is a great game but it's become unenjoyable for some and unplayable for others. As I write this, my avatar on official server 16 has been caged, immobile and unplayable for over six hours. I'd suicide and respawn... but that's not an option.

Changes to Ark have given players the ability to immobilize other players for long periods of time- - - hours, days, or forever, but not given captive players an EQUAL option such as a suicide and respawn.

I paid for an MMO I can actually play and enjoy. Not a game in which other players can effectively keep me from playing for unlimited amounts of time. That "evolved" later. And maybe I just don't "get" the fun aspect of sitting in a cage doing nothing for hours and hours. To me, that's the MMO version of paying $30 to watch paint dry. I don't have a problem with players the ability to abduct and incarcerate other players. It's interesting. I do have a problem with having NO CHOICE in how long that goes on. It makes Ark imbalanced, unenjoyable and unplayable. That's a deal-killer.

And no, you can't do anything about it. Handcuffs don't allow you to use your hands. No punching walls or using anything to suicide with. Your captors encumber you so you can't burn stamina, food and water to kill yourself. And captors are able to force feed you to keep you alive indefinitely.  So you're stuck, unable to actually play Ark for as long as they decide to hijack your game.

Is not being able to play Ark what we bought Ark for?

 

On 2/28/2016 at 6:12 PM, ciabattaroll said:

The best way to prevent being a captive for life is to make  yourself  so  unbearable to maintain. In other words, if you make yourself so detestable to the point  that people want to kill you, you'll never be a captive.

it doesn't work if you get weighted down you can't move, you are low maintenance

[DjWormy87]

3 hours ago, UDGxKnight said:

You seem not to be able to understand realism in a world where people are forced to survive. The extremes people would go to would probably be inconceivable to you. You just want this game to be like almost every other game these days and just pander to everyone's every last request and have no realism. Also the handcuffs were implemented so captives wouldn't be able to kill themselves so easily. My points are not wrong, I understand completely why this mechanic is in the game and why it is so unforgiving and why you don't I can't understand. Also it isn't the effort of knocking someone out and putting them in a cage, it is the constant maintenance of keeping said person alive which takes away from you being able to do other things and makes it to where you have to keep an eye on them which is why it takes effort. Like it has been told to countless other people i'm sure, just go play on a different server or stay off of PvP if you can't handle people doing what people do best, which is be jerks to put it nicely. Seeing as how this game isn't complete I would start over as many times as I wanted to and I can't be mad at an incomplete game because I chose to buy it, which is something you should consider before losing your mind over something so trivial.

your going to be put in a cage with handcuffs, you will regret it

[UDGxKnight]

13 minutes ago, DjWormy87 said:

your going to be put in a cage with handcuffs, you will regret it

Like I said in my post, I would just move servers or not play PvP. I don't care about restarting on a game that isn't complete, it is still fun and to me even more fun when you don't have things.

[PhantomDragonX]

Honestly, I love the devs for this feature,

So many games now cater to whiners it's a shame.  I probably has to do with the fact that a lot of young people today want game developers to bow down to their wants.  The game devs are ultimately in control.  And to be perfectly honest, since there is no subscription they aren't obligated to do jack for you, thanks for the $30, if you don't like it feel free to move on.

 

STOP WHINING, make your suggestion and if it falls on deaf ears, join another server - move on, or GO AND MAKE YOUR OWN GAME.

[FaneBlackwing]

I have to agree with the OP. This is pretty broken and there needs to be someway to counter being imprisoned. This will especially be a major problem on Xbox as there's party chat on that version.

I say lockpicks and cyanide would be perfect counters. Lockpicks would prove to be the riskier choice, but it could allow you to get out alive. They could be used to open doors/gates, but using one consumes it. Cyanide would be the easier option, but would also kill you. Cyanide would probably be a great way to introduce poisonous arrows or darts as well, so it would really add a great new mechanic to the game. (: