Does anyone have a general progression chart?

[Vainglory]

 

Hey everyone!

I been searching the web, looking for any semblance of a checklist, progression chart, etc. for guidance  about surviving on Ark. What I mean by "Chart" is something like...

- 1. spawn in. Get a dodo.

-2. Get a dilo.

- 3. make a thatch hut.

-4. make a fire.

The reason being that despite my decent hours of play (500+), my scatterbrained plans and tendency to get off track leads to me struggling with resources due to either skipping important tames, not having enough levels, etc. Typically I often have my progress stifled mid game, stuck with basic utility dinos, a small dinky little base and absolutely no where near my big goals of taming and boss fighting. Despite playing solo, I play like a PvP player, so I always am looking for the more difficult aspects of the game- but whenever I get close, I am always missing something, and it could have been achieved early game, if only I knew I needed it.

Which begs the question- IS there a progression list out there? One with steps on what to do, what to tame next, what is needed, etc? Because if so, I'd love to read it.

[choroni]

I actually love not having a specific progression expectation.  I'm sure that there are as many opinions about the best strategy as there are players in the game.  I'm not sure I understand what you mean about your progress getting stifled, but then again I don't do PVP either.  It seems like what you describe regarding having only utility dinos and a dinky base could be easily remedied.

[Vainglory]

15 minutes ago, choroni said:

I actually love not having a specific progression expectation.  I'm sure that there are as many opinions about the best strategy as there are players in the game.  I'm not sure I understand what you mean about your progress getting stifled, but then again I don't do PVP either.  It seems like what you describe regarding having only utility dinos and a dinky base could be easily remedied.

That's perfectly fine! Everyone enjoys their own way to play. 

Basically, what I mean by stifled is often either 1. Not knowing what to do next, or 2. Not being able to do anything next. I don't know what dino to tame, or I can't tame that dino. I don't know how I should upgrade my base, or I don't have enough resources TO upgrade my base. I'm often left stranded not knowing how to get certain things or tames because I missed getting something early on. I would like a checklist to keep a steady pace and not leave anything important out, so I can keep progressing forward. 

I'm sure it could, but I certainly wouldn't know how to fix it, haha! That's why I'm asking for some help, to see if anyone has suggestions on how I can keep a constant pace and not get sidetracked- which is how a checklist would help me out.

[graystorm01]

55 minutes ago, Vainglory said:

That's perfectly fine! Everyone enjoys their own way to play. 

Basically, what I mean by stifled is often either 1. Not knowing what to do next, or 2. Not being able to do anything next. I don't know what dino to tame, or I can't tame that dino. I don't know how I should upgrade my base, or I don't have enough resources TO upgrade my base. I'm often left stranded not knowing how to get certain things or tames because I missed getting something early on. I would like a checklist to keep a steady pace and not leave anything important out, so I can keep progressing forward. 

I'm sure it could, but I certainly wouldn't know how to fix it, haha! That's why I'm asking for some help, to see if anyone has suggestions on how I can keep a constant pace and not get sidetracked- which is how a checklist would help me out.

There is a lot of stuff in ark and it definitely can be overwhelming. I often get sidetracked, but i have a general basic plan. My first 50 or so hours was just me leveling up running around, trying to tame a few dinos, oh and lots of dying. It took me a long time to learn the most basic and necessary rule. Dinos are your lifeblood, and having the right ones make your life soo much easier.

I don't know of any "checklist" But what i can tell you is this:

As far as bases go, it all depends on whether you are playing single player, pvp or pve. Building progressions goes something like this thatch>wood>stone>metal>tek (adobe is in there, but that's only for Scorched Earth). But, If your not playing PVP, then i think usually stone is sufficient as most dinos can't damage stone. Stone is much easier to build and get mats for than metal.

For dinos, you absolutely want a doedicurus for gathering stone, a beaver or mammoth for gathering wood, an ankylosaurus for gathering metal, obisidian, flint and crystal, and a therizinoosaurus for fiber. Theris are also good at gathering berries, wood, and hide but usually they don't have the weight to carry a lot. This right here took me a long time to learn. But with a doedicurus i can gather in 5 minutes thousand of stone that would have taken me hours by hand.

I play solo, which can make some things a bit tougher and require a bit more thought and foresight. My current goal is unlocking the tek tier. So for me, playing by myself that means i have to breed dinos that are good enough to take on the bosses. And since i'm breeding, that also means i had to go and tame a bunch of different dinos for eggs for kibble to imprint new baby dinos. My base is not really big enough for all these dinos and i've been lazy to build a new bigger base/breeding facility. Basically, what i'm sayiing is that my more immediate goals formed up themselves because of my larger goal of unlocking the tek tier which inevitably requires all the other stuff (breeding, egg farms, etc)

 

Official Ark Wiki and dododex.com are your best friends.

Also, what helped me out a lot in the beginning to have some ideas what to do was watching Phlinger Phoos Soloing the ark season 4. He starts on the beach, and progresses all the way thru the tek tier, showing and telling you what he's doing, and why he's doing it. I learned a great deal from him and also, i read A LOT of stuff about ark.

 

Hope some of this helps.

[Zahlea]

Hmmm, I haven't seen a checklist, but if I were to venture one heavily influenced by how I play (this is based on my assumption that you play single player as you said you play "solo" - if you're playing where others can raid/kill/wipe you, the list would be very different!):

1. Get a small hut somewhere
2. Create a small pen with walls high enough that wild creatures can't get in (usually 4 walls high is fine, but go for 2 walls high first and then upgrade as you go)
3. Start looking for a spot where you want your permanent base whenever you're exploring.
4. Get a mated pair of your preferred creature from the Extra Small Egg list. A Parasaur could be useful in the beginning, but I daresay you'll soon move away from needing any of them so it's mostly about your preference. If you feel like it, tame multiple females of the chosen species. Collect all the eggs you find.
5. When the eggs start coming, build a few crop plots for advanced crop and plant at least one of each.
6. Get a mated pair of Trikes (good for farming berries and will give you eggs for Simple kibble).
7. Get a mated pair of Ankylos and start collecting their eggs (Ankylos are good for farming flint and metal)
8. Get a low level Oviraptor for eggboost.
9. Create a preserving bin and start making cooked and prime meat jerky (means you need to get some oil).
10. Now your crop plots should have started to give you some crops.
11. Use the Ankylo eggs to create Regular kibble and tame a Ptera. This will make it a lot easier to find a spot for your permanent base if you haven't already.
12. If you feel you're going to be at your current location a while before you move, build a taming pen for trapping and taming bigger creatures.
13. When you've found a spot where you want a permanent base, start by creating a pen for your creatures (and buildings if you want a perimeter wall around your whole base), or if you'd rather just have a house for your creatures, create that. You can build this in between doing other things just when you feel like it or want to mix things up.
14. Get a mated pair of Argies (you can start with a Moschops as well). Collect all the eggs you find.
15. Tame a Doed for getting stone, a Castoroides (or Mammoth) for getting wood, a Gigantopithecus for fibre (you can do a Theri instead, but you don't have kibble for it yet  )
16. Create superior kibble.
17. Now you can kibble tame Argies and Daeodons. Tame the highest levels you can find. Argies are a really good flying mount that can carry a lot and Daeodon are useful when doing bosses.
18. By now is a really good time to have a permanent, bigger base set up.
19. Get a mated pair of Brontos or Quetzals and collect their eggs - now you can make kibble for Rexes.
20. Start taming as many high level Rexes as you can.
21. Tame a saber or whatever your favourite cave mount is and start doing caves.
22. Start breeding the Rexes for stats (unless you're on official or a cluster with trading in which case you can buy eggs).
23. When you have good enough Rexes, do the Gamma Broodmother. If it succeeds, move on, if it doesn't, try to figure out why (like: were your Rexes not good enough?) and modify.

This is a very rough list and could definitely use some more iterations, but as I don't know what you want, there is no need of putting too much effort into the wrong things. A lot of the points could be done simultaneously - that's how I do it. Most of all though - you should make your own list. To do that, I would suggest you make your own list. If making  your own list seems hard, try this:

1. Start with the end goal: what do you want to achieve?
2. Write down bullet points of what you need to achieve that goal - use the wiki and the forum to help you with what you need to achieve a certain goal.
3. For every bullet point, write down what you need to achieve that.
4. Continue doing this until you can't break down your bullet points any more.
5. Now you have a (probably huge) list of what you need to do. Prioritise what the easiest are and make those happen.
   1. If you're feeling organisational - have a look at the different items and see what dependencies you have. I.e. if you need crops or jerky, that takes time to make, or even eggs that take time to get enough, start doing those things earlier so that when you do need them, they're already done.
6. Make sure you're list is written down somewhere. Even better if you cross out or remove things you've finished so that it's clear what you need to do. Being sidetracked is fine! But having the list written down will help you get back on track!

[Cymas]

I think the problem with having any single progression flow is that it depends so, so much on player experience. A fresh Bob who has never played Ark before will have a very different game experience than someone like me with multiple thousands of game hours, for example. In your case, I think maybe your sense of progression is a little too...basic? You've got over 500 game hours, you know how to play and what needs to be done, so your problem is that you haven't streamlined your process to be in line with your level of play experience.

You say you play with a PVPer mindset, but you're not playing that way. Being stuck in the progression mindset and thinking you can't do anything is a symptom of this particular problem. You're kind of looking at it backwards by building up to the endgame, when I suggest "building down" instead.

By that I mean look at the top level goals you have and break them down into steps you need to accomplish to get where you want to be in the game. That's your progression checklist. You can skip literally everything else.

Let's take a look at what you want to do: I'll just say boss battles because honestly that covers taming too.

To do boss battles, that means you need boss animals. So you'll need a large area to build a base. Is your current base built in a large area that can house your boss animals and all of the necessary supporting infrastructure? If no, there's your first goal. You need to relocate to a larger area. If yes, but your base is too small, then you need to expand your perimeter.

Once you know where to build, do you want to build in stone or metal? This depends on where you are. If gigas can spawn near your base, then your outer perimeter should be metal and at least 5 walls high. If you're not in giga territory, then you can get away with building in stone and upgrading to metal or tek later if you choose.

Either way, you'll need utility animals for building. You do not need to kibble utility tames to start with, just tame the highest level you can with the supplies you have available, and then you can upgrade later on. So at bare minimum you want an anky, doed, mammoth or beaver or thorny dragon. Personally I often skip having a dedicated fiber gatherer, I don't need that much usually and a sickle does the job well enough, but if you think you need one add an ape or a bear or a theri to the list. You'll also want something to transport your tames, so add an argent too.

Now you need a way to actually tame your animals. Personally I am a huge fan of taming rafts and highly suggest building one, so add that to your checklist.

Everything that's on the list right now is your foundation. Start with these things and then you can build up. It's a sandbox game, nothing has to be perfect and you won't miss anything by say, not taming x dino at x level. Tame what you need as early as possible, the rest is fluff. You don't even need to have the saddles unlocked to tame everything on the list.

So skip ahead a little bit and you've got finished this list. Now you're lost again, what to do? Well, refer back to your top level goal of boss battles. In order to fight bosses you need lots of high level animals with good saddles. So, this is actually multiple separate goals. You need good bred animals, good saddles built from blueprints, and you also need the artifacts to spawn the bosses. So that's 3 high level goals you can break down in the same way in order to figure out your next move. Hint: industrial level crafting stations. If you can't access those yet your next goal will be to level up to the point where you can. So if you haven't already, look up how to do Explorer Note runs and just collect them all up to get as high a level as possible. If you're not quite there yet, then tame a decent level rex, spino or theri, you don't need to kibble this one or look for a perfect tame, just aim for whatever the highest level you think you can handle is. Now go run around and kill alphas (and basically everything else too) until you level up enough for the Engrams you need.

Every time you get lost or stuck, just keep doing that. Build down from your goals, not up from your ambitions. Figuring out what you need and how you want to get there is how you develop your playstyle, it's very individual and heavily reliant on personal preferences.

[Kharneth]

It would be cool to see people's general checklist because there's definitely going to be a variety. 

I'm new, but OP's chart is nothing like what I do at all. I usually build tools, build weapons, build a fireplace, and eventually build a hut. But that's partially because Idk where I'm going so I spend more time exploring before settling down. 

Taming dinosaurs isn't even on my radar. I suspect it's part of everyone's progression, but I'm sure there's still a large variety of the order people progress and the ways they choose to do it. 

[Aushegun]

I tend to follow the same "checklist" whenever  I start over. (PvE)

1) Spawn in, and harvest materials until I can make a storage box and bed.

1A) Find a location that is easily defensible from dinos.... A cliff Edge, a land peninsula, etc. and lay down a few foundations to place bed on.

2) build small house around the bed.

2A) harvest materials needed to make narcotics, including gathering meat to spoil.

3) build a taming pen with ramps,  far enough from my base to not agro dinos onto the base.

4) tame closest dinos that can be useful. ( Trike for berries and carrying materials, dilos for protection, Anky & doeds, etc.)

5) As soon as I can, I tame Pteras and Argies, EVEN if I am not high  enough level to make saddles) In the meantime I can have them follow me for protection or carrying materials. Especial the Argies for mining metal.

6) Also during this time, I am building a fence around my base (at least 2-3 high)

7) Tame some power dinos to defend the base (Rex, Spino, Carnos, raptors) Add saddles to them as I rank up.

 

Once I feel I have some decent protection, I grind out the materials to create a stone building with a dino gate. I then will locate and settle on my "permanent" base location. Usually centrally located, or at least near major resources.

I will then create more dino traps and begin focusing on higher level dinos to replace the ones I left back at the starter base location. (at this point I still am meat or berry taming)

Expand new stone base and get Egg farm going, so I can kibble tame the best Wild dinos that I want.

Make sure new base is well protected from dinos.

Breed all top level dinos, to make sure I always have eggs as backup, in case an accident happens and one dies.

.... from there it depends on what my goals are ... breed for mutations, prepare a Boss battle army, advance and upgrade to metal or tek.

 

[d1nk]

3 minutes ago, Aushegun said:

I tend to follow the same "checklist" whenever  I start over. (PvE)

1) Spawn in, and harvest materials until I can make a storage box and bed.

1A) Find a location that is easily defensible from dinos.... A cliff Edge, a land peninsula, etc. and lay down a few foundations to place bed on.

2) build small house around the bed.

2A) harvest materials needed to make narcotics, including gathering meat to spoil.

3) build a taming pen with ramps,  far enough from my base to not agro dinos onto the base.

4) tame closest dinos that can be useful. ( Trike for berries and carrying materials, dilos for protection, Anky & doeds, etc.)

5) As soon as I can, I tame Pteras and Argies, EVEN if I am not high  enough level to make saddles) In the meantime I can have them follow me for protection or carrying materials. Especial the Argies for mining metal.

6) Also during this time, I am building a fence around my base (at least 2-3 high)

7) Tame some power dinos to defend the base (Rex, Spino, Carnos, raptors) Add saddles to them as I rank up.

 

Once I feel I have some decent protection, I grind out the materials to create a stone building with a dino gate. I then will locate and settle on my "permanent" base location. Usually centrally located, or at least near major resources.

I will then create more dino traps and begin focusing on higher level dinos to replace the ones I left back at the starter base location. (at this point I still am meat or berry taming)

Expand new stone base and get Egg farm going, so I can kibble tame the best Wild dinos that I want.

Make sure new base is well protected from dinos.

Breed all top level dinos, to make sure I always have eggs as backup, in case an accident happens and one dies.

.... from there it depends on what my goals are ... breed for mutations, prepare a Boss battle army, advance and upgrade to metal or tek.

 

Hey man, havent seen ya around in a while, welcome back  Get an Xbox yet?  Jks 

[Cymas]

8 hours ago, Kharneth said:

It would be cool to see people's general checklist because there's definitely going to be a variety. 

I'm new, but OP's chart is nothing like what I do at all. I usually build tools, build weapons, build a fireplace, and eventually build a hut. But that's partially because Idk where I'm going so I spend more time exploring before settling down. 

Taming dinosaurs isn't even on my radar. I suspect it's part of everyone's progression, but I'm sure there's still a large variety of the order people progress and the ways they choose to do it. 

To be honest mine changes every time I start over, it's not a static list. I'm always trying out something new because it gets boring doing the same things over and over again. It also changes based on what game mode and map I'm playing on. I've done unofficial, official and SP and currently only play SP so that also affects my choices.

Lately my general routine is something like this:

Spawn in, do the basic harvest/craft/repeat cycle.

Tame a female dodo, I always name her Berry and use her as a noob fridge to store mejos, narcos and meat until I can make narcotics.

Make spears and kill whatever's around and weak. Dodos, lystros, dilos, etc. Collect hide and start splitting the meat stacks to make spoiled meat.

Make a storage box to hold all the valuable stuff in.

Keep killing, harvesting and adding/upgrading gear.

Level 16, make a raft and build it up into a basic houseboat.

Pack up the dodo and supplies and sail off into the sunset, in the direction of the closest relatively safe metal spawns.

Collect metal, make crafting stations, smelt and upgrade tools, weapons and make sure I've got my two crossbows. Make 50-100 tranqs as soon as possible, keep stockpiling narcotics.

Head out to whatever area I've decided to set up my base at. I usually have an idea of where I want to build, sometimes even before I first spawn in. Since I play with S+ even post-Homestead I can pick up everything off the raft and have a mini base set up in a few minutes.

Then I build and reconfigure the raft into a mobile taming pen.

What happens from this point on is hugely variable depending on what my overall goals are.

I think that's part of what separates experienced players from newer ones. Once you've learned the game enough, you don't really need to rely on a checklist or set progression. You know what you want to do and how to do it, and by that point you don't really see being low level as a limitation, mainly because you know how to level as fast or as slow as you want. You also don't consider the same threats or dangers as a newer player and are much more willing to take big risks with confidence because you already know what you can do, regardless of what progression thinks you should do.

I used to do the whole level up, make a thatch hut, slowly build up a collection of mediocre tames and grind out tons of mats to house and protect them, etc. Now? No way. I know what animals I like and what I need, and I ignore the rest. I tame stuff on a basis of want or objective need rather than perceived need or obligation. I don't need a para as a pack mule when I can go out and snag a low level rex with about the same amount of effort, but 100x the reward, you know? But these are the things you only learn through experience and for that I do think you need to stumble through the mid tier progression grind at least once or twice first.

[Aushegun]

On 3/21/2019 at 1:16 PM, d1nk said:

Hey man, havent seen ya around in a while, welcome back  Get an Xbox yet?  Jks 

Yes, long time.   I was off on a Red Dead Redemption kick for about 6 weeks, and prior to that, I had been not playing any games basically.  Been playing some Extinction, and moving some dinos around from various maps, as my Ragnarok map is up to 573 dinos out of 600 limit!

Tried to move some Fert. Snow Owl & Vela eggs over to Rag, along with a couple Gachas and Enforcers this weekend. Sadly, and FRUSTRATINGLY, they disappeared into thin air.  When I tried to down load them, the OB was empty!    (I play single player, so not like anyone stole them.) They just vanished!  Pretty frustrating, as I also had uploaded some nice blue prints I had gotten from loot drops on Extinction. I've never had much issues in the past 

Oh well, I've had a lot of losses lately. Back in January, I let my private server close, as I decided not to re-up the service after 9 months. I tried to transfer most of the wanted dinos over to my SP game, but things in Real Life got very busy, and by the time I could get back online, I was a day late and the server had locked me out, unless I re-upped.

So I lost about 25 event colored Quetz, Pteras, and Griffins.  I also lost a handful of event Argies, jerboas, dimorphs and Wyvern Eggs 

 

However I did get nearly all of my Tek Stegos, Tek Rexs, and other event colored dinos over.

 

and nope, still sticking to my PS4 .... and I keep threatening myself to upgrade to a PS4 PRO, but everytime I get close to doing it, a ,major appliance, home or vehicle repair is needed. I love being an adult. I built my current house in 2003, and I am starting to reach the end of the lifespan of some of the applicances, so I need to focus the $$ on the house first, gaming second.

 

Hope you are doing well, I see your Flames certainly are

[Sphere]

Join a random server.

Start begging for tribe join or free dinosaurs.

If receive said dinosaurs or joins an established tribe, play a day or two and then quit ARK: Survival Evolved.

If does not receive said dinosaurs or tribe invite, play a few days more and then quit ARK: Survival Evolved.

 

This seems to be what some people do.

[johnm81]

On 3/20/2019 at 9:00 AM, Vainglory said:

 

Hey everyone!

I been searching the web, looking for any semblance of a checklist, progression chart, etc. for guidance  about surviving on Ark. What I mean by "Chart" is something like...

- 1. spawn in. Get a dodo.

-2. Get a dilo.

- 3. make a thatch hut.

-4. make a fire.

The reason being that despite my decent hours of play (500+), my scatterbrained plans and tendency to get off track leads to me struggling with resources due to either skipping important tames, not having enough levels, etc. Typically I often have my progress stifled mid game, stuck with basic utility dinos, a small dinky little base and absolutely no where near my big goals of taming and boss fighting. Despite playing solo, I play like a PvP player, so I always am looking for the more difficult aspects of the game- but whenever I get close, I am always missing something, and it could have been achieved early game, if only I knew I needed it.

Which begs the question- IS there a progression list out there? One with steps on what to do, what to tame next, what is needed, etc? Because if so, I'd love to read it.

My personal build order as I am a pirate at heart!

1. Grind out either explorer notes or dino gates to level up to the 60-70 range. Don't build or tame anything till that point. 

2. Once at level build a boat. Learn how to sink foundations and do so with stone. On that boat you will design it to be a taming boat along with your core work stations IE: smithy, preserving bin, compost bin ect...

3. Once built you will want to sail around and find xplant seeds put down a few turrets on the boat.  Remember to put at least one turret on the inside of the boat. Makes raiding your boat harder (see youtube for how).

-At this point you will be pretty safe from beach bob griefers that attack with primitive gear. When you log out do so with your boat in different places and in deep water faaaar from land. Also try not to be near any underwater resources or alpha spawn spots so some dude with a squid doesn't stumble upon you.

4. Either collect by hand or by crop plots start building up a supply or narcotics / tranq arrows.

5. Now here is where you will start taming and your first tame is .... drum roll .... a meat tamed purlovia. Sail your boat along the west cost of the red woods (did I mention only start out on the rag map) then run your naked character along the coast and up into the hill a little to get them to pop out and try to eat you. Lure it down. You will die its okay just respawn on your boat and continue to lure the purlovia into the taming pit on your boat. Once trapped. Tranq it and sail away to deep water where you have a good chance of not being seen. Tame it (it will be a few hours). Your turrets will protect you as well.

6. Once the Purlovia is tamed you are at this point almost un-wipe-able if there is such a thing. You will stock all of your imp gear and supplies on the purlovia burrowed a distance from your boats in spots that no one would want to make a base.

7. Your next tame will be an anklyo on your taming boat. Simply lure it into your taming pit and berry tame it. 

8. The next boat you will make will be a stone argie taming boat. Simple in design it will be fully enclosed with a dino gate on one side and a human sized door on the other. Aggro the bird in and close the dino gate behind it. Tranq it and tame it in safety of deep water. You may want to get several birds. Arm it with xplants.

9. Your next dino and it will be a long tame. That is a therizinosaur. Ranging from 3-10 hours to tame it depending on your server rates it will serve as one of the best in game wood harvesters. Tame it with mejoberries. Try to lure it from the cliffs up top the canyon on the west coast down to the water with your argie before you begin taming it. Then you can lure it into your taming boat. Long tames puts you at risk for other players finding you so drive this one out to the ocean. 

10. Your next dino will be a daeodon. Lure it into your taming boat and tame it. It will be a quick tame even with raw meat. But it will take a TON of food. Prepare accordingly.

11. Now is time for your first trip off server. All of your efforts with the therizinosaur and the daeodon are about to pay off. You must start doing orbital supply drops in extinction. Put the daeodon on healing duty and have your therizinosaurs clear the waves. Once you have cryopods go home and cryopod your tames. Keep them on purlovia. You have now eliminated the last major vulnerability. Your most important mats and now even your dinos will be hidden. Only your crappy stone boats remain visible targets for raiders.

12. Make a wood harvesting boat. A wood harvesting boat consists of a boat with a large 3 wide ramp coming off of the front of the boat. You will put the theri on this ramp and drive your boat into the trees in the SE that are in the middle of the ocean to slot cap the dino on wood. This will fuel your forge boat. If resources are tight you can use your taming boat as it will have a ramp for this as well. But it is best to have many boats in case one or two get sunk. Arm it with xplants.

13.Put down a raft and set up a forge boat. Now many try to use industrial forges. Don't its a trap. For solo or small tribe players putting down 20 refining forges yields the same smelting speed along with MORE capacity than an industrial forge. It is a lot cheaper and much less noticeable.

14 Now begins the process of transitioning over to a major naval power. You have the capacity to convert your stone rafts into metal motor boats armed with xplants and auto turrets. With the forge boat(s) losing a metal raft is no longer a big deal as you can recover the mats quickly. Defend your waters fiercely and move your boats around often. And try not to gloat as those tribes that sunk your rafts in the beginning have been long wiped from raiders and yet you and your fleet remain. Now tame whatever you want. And experience other aspects of the game as you see fit. Just keep all your tames cryopodded. And continue to make trips to extinction to increase your cryopod count and replace expired ones. 

[Demerus]

On 3/20/2019 at 10:00 AM, Vainglory said:

 

Hey everyone!

I been searching the web, looking for any semblance of a checklist, progression chart, etc. for guidance  about surviving on Ark. What I mean by "Chart" is something like...

- 1. spawn in. Get a dodo.

-2. Get a dilo.

- 3. make a thatch hut.

-4. make a fire.

The reason being that despite my decent hours of play (500+), my scatterbrained plans and tendency to get off track leads to me struggling with resources due to either skipping important tames, not having enough levels, etc. Typically I often have my progress stifled mid game, stuck with basic utility dinos, a small dinky little base and absolutely no where near my big goals of taming and boss fighting. Despite playing solo, I play like a PvP player, so I always am looking for the more difficult aspects of the game- but whenever I get close, I am always missing something, and it could have been achieved early game, if only I knew I needed it.

Which begs the question- IS there a progression list out there? One with steps on what to do, what to tame next, what is needed, etc? Because if so, I'd love to read it.

There is no such thing.

Progression in ARK is not the same as making a sandwich.

ARK is dynamic and progression depends on too many variables to list here.

Search youtube and the wiki to get a better idea of what the game has to offer and forge your own path.

[Tattare]

log into island server

• create character.
• do a "note run"  (yt it) until level 70.

Transfer to another server

• find a location.
• start building.
• start taming.

[ForzaProiettile]

The progression chart/plan really depends on what kind of tribe you are in or if you are even in one. Small tribes have different needs to larger ones and vice versa. The general rule of thumb is if you are in a small tribe it is better to have a small hidden base rather then a large base with a lot defences. The latter will attract a lot of attention and be quickly raided.

When you first start out make your stone tools, then level up until you can make thatch foundations and keep spamming those until you can unlock wood. Then spam those until you can unlock stone. That is generally the fastest route. You can also try and kill alpha raptors/collect XP notes.

In terms of taming Dodo's at the start is good because you can then use the eggs to tame Pteradons. Trikes are also good early on. I'd avoid taming anything large and especially creature that will take more then 3 hours to tame because some of the large creatures if you are using only basic berries/raw meat it will you many many hours and in all likely hood it will die anyway pretty quickly due to it having crap stats.

The basic dinos that are essential for playing are basically all farming dinos: 

• Some kind of berry harvester: Trike/stego
• Meat gatherer: Saber/Wolf/Bear
• Fiber gatherer: Bear
• Metal/Flint/Thatch/Crystal/Oil: Anklo
• Stone/Obsidian: Doed

On top of this you'll want a quick dino to recon the map ie a Pteradon

Later on you'll want a tanky dino to raid bases either Stego or Bronto

That is more or less the basics.

[johnm81]

26 minutes ago, ForzaProiettile said:

 

In terms of taming Dodo's at the start is good because you can then use the eggs to tame Pteradons. 

is that still true with the kibble rework?

[ForzaProiettile]

Just now, johnm81 said:

is that still true with the kibble rework?

With the kibble rework any egg in the same tier as what it requires will work. So in this case it should be eggs like Dilo and Compy and some others. Dodo though is still the easiest.

[johnm81]

9 hours ago, ForzaProiettile said:

With the kibble rework any egg in the same tier as what it requires will work. So in this case it should be eggs like Dilo and Compy and some others. Dodo though is still the easiest.

I thought Dodo's and Pteras were on different tiers after the rework.