Excessive land claims using pillars in starter areas

[Beargawn]

I''m new to ARK and I will start off by saying,  WOW this game is amazing!  With that being said,  I have found numerous player created pillars (wood, rock, metal) plastered all over in the recommended new charactere starter areas.  This allowed practice makes it unessararly difficult to level up  

Due to being to close to a created pillar, the system will not allow a the placement of ANYTHING near  them.  Example: firepit, storarge box, base foundation, ect.  I would understand this if I was actually attempting to build near a vaild land claim/base, but in this case it is not valid.  This allowed practice of placing random pillars all over the land to stake a claim is only to prevent new characters/players from leveling up in areas that are rich in plant, animal and mineral resources or having close access to water.  

These pillars are not able to be destroyed on a PVE server  and both the PVE/PVP pillars have a 11 plus day count down until they can be destroyed.  I suspect the players that will respond to this practice will be those that already have established bases and are themselves a high level and employ this  pillar land grab tactic.

May I recommend a rule be put in place that  level 20+,  not be allowed to place pillars, or any other items that will prevent new players/characters from leveling up.  This may be be a poor example but Blizzard World of Warcraft has specic areas that are desinged for starter characters and are protected  from highlevel player interference.  The allowed low level builds would each have a set decay time regardless if the players level up or not, thus preventing campers  from long  term stay.  The land area itself would be fairly large to accodate thes new charater builds for the purpouse of leveling up.  If the player levels up quicly to the predefined max level for this area, ALL build items would have 24 hour decay or sooner.   Also, they would not be allowed to place additional pillars outside of thier starter build, since their land plot would be size restricted. This starter plot is not intended to be a permanent base, but one allow them to learn/aquire the needed skills to survive outside of the starter area/land. 

ARK is an open world  that is truely amazing!  The abity to grow ones character from the ground up and forever change the world eniroment allowing not only the builds to be a personal/tribe accomplishment and home base, but can in turn be the "Boss" that others players strive to pillage/destroy.   The sence of adventure in ARK is increadable.  As one awakens and ventures out into the world, there is a sence of aw and wonderment , then the adrenaline rush when one is attacked by an assortment of creatures.   This area in time becomes one home until they are skilled/strong enough to venture deeper past their spawn point/home and the sence of adventure starts all over again.

Coming into ARK late but I truely do enjoy what has been created and looking forward training my tame, to  belonging to a tribe and exploring, learning and .. dying in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

 

 

 

[ickleMrG]

ill start off by saying im not a noob but have recently started on a new server.

As above, 99% of the maps WILL be pillared mainly for all the reasons above, spawn protection and to stop hundreds on thatch huts littering the beaches.

I reached out to the people on the map using the chat to see if anyone knew anywhere available to build. They helped me, showed me a few places and made it a nice introduction. It is PVE but it just made the intergration in to the server a lot easier. People then know who you are and will generally end up helping you with bits.

Dont be demanding, an idiot or too needy and people will help.

[Lycan187u]

57 minutes ago, GamerXD001 said:

Just one more idiot snowflake thinking that everything in life has to be fair, probably receiving participation trophies all your life. The world isn't fair, virtual worlds are even less fair most times, and when people see whiney little noobs like you are part of the reason those overly pillared starter zones exist.

Toxic much? Lol

[harschness]

9 hours ago, Beargawn said:

May I recommend a rule be put in place that  level 20+,  not be allowed to place pillars, or any other items that will prevent new players/characters from leveling up.

I understand where you're coming from to a slight extent, but that being said any implementation of such of a rule would be detrimental to the game at it's very core. Ark was designed as an open world survival game. There are no high tier areas locked behind level requirements so that you can go wherever you want to go whenever you want. Whatever you are considering a starter area was designed so that if people liked that spot they could make it their own. Building is the absolute core of the game whether it be PvE or PvP, without a base you cannot craft the tools necessary to protect what you have on PvP and you cannot make the materials necessary to tame more Dino's on PvE. Thinking about simple things such as that and the countless other reasons without need for explanation I'm sure you can understand why it's so important for a person to be able to decide where they want to build. I also understand that some people on PvE since they cannot simply be raided become arrogant and decide to try and ruin everything for the new guys but that's not every server or every person. There are 3 free to play maps each having a good amount of servers try them all out, try different spawn locations because, and even try unofficial for PvE cause that's where it shines.

[Milsurp]

On 4/10/2019 at 3:10 PM, BTH said:

When I am new to a server (I have restarted 3 different times), I build a boat and get TF out of the starting areas, however, I see this problem walking around the beach, the thing is in PVE, noobs think they need a 2x2 thatch base on day zero.  Then day 2 they need a 4x4 base and some fences.  Day 3 they need a 6x6 house, bed, tables, fabricators, generator, greenhouse, etc... BUT THEY NEVER LEFT THE STARTING AREA.  And then the next person does the same thing and then someone sneeks a f*cking 1x1 thatch hut in between you and the next one so you can't put a door on your gate.  You move areas because there is no elbow room, but the hell if your going to take down your crap shack and the cycle continues.  I moved and pillared until I was tired of it.  I have space to build without fear of being crowded.  I behemoth gated the entire area and have pillars around as well.  WC tried to slow the pillar spam a few years ago (individual pillars have a very short decay) but the second you add a ladder, you now have 7-14 days for decay.  Best/Most pillared or overbuilt area, Blue Ob on Ragnarok, hands down, every Rag server, even on day zero when Rag opened, people were trampling over one another to get there.

We need weather effects on beaches that degrade thatch and wood, so people have to move in like a week, and the buildings decay hard on their own. The storm effects from SE might be useful for that. 

I changed beach spawns on Rag to bring back boas and sarcos and add bugs (and took off the fast-moving threats, bobs should always have a chance to run away). Those help incite movement pretty well, esp. the boas and bugs. Bonus, Bob / Roberta the Brave can get prime meat for good early tames, if he / she can win the fight.

Oh, another thing that would help is not being able to build stone foundations on sand, if that's possible. That would keep only thatch and wood buildable on beaches and make the above weather effects effective.

[Aylana314159]

7 minutes ago, harschness said:

even try unofficial for PvE cause that's where it shines.

Yeah. There are some amazing unofficial PvE communities where pillaring dosen't exist.

[Aushegun]

16 hours ago, GrumpyBear said:

People would then exploit that by taking the land w/ alternate accounts and they would never login except to reset timers.  By letting long time players on their respective servers manage it, you end up with it being solved w/ people who will be logged in and available to talk in global, or one day allied maybe.  Creating a 25 and under rule would just give trolls a new game to play.

 

 

Perhaps if the "beginner area, only allowed the account to access/use that area for the first 7 days. then after that they couldn't access anything in the zone, and everything auto-decayed.

 

I've played a lot of ARK, after a long stretch in Single player, I spent a weekend trying to get back onto a PvE server.  I was never able to find a spot after trying many servers ... spawn in locked in a base, or unable find a tiny spot to jsut build even a shack to make it thru the first night.  How does ARK expect to continue to draw in new gamers, if an experienced player can't even get started?   That's the problem.  I think there are a LOT of new players who try ARK out, get spawn blocked for their first 1/2 a dozen servers, and then just say screw this, I'll go play Conan.

Me personally, not a huge deal, as i love the flexibility of the single player variation.  I can play when I want, and if I don't play again for two weeks, my dinos are still fine.  

 

[Woodsman]

because everyone hates crappy thatch shacks everywhere not to mention noobs in general

 

 

 

[ishootpaint]

  Here we go again.... My land is pillared out to my render range so when im in my base no other bases are in render. This cuts down on lag, structure limit if you like to build like me and keeps the map looking good instead of 20 thatch huts on my beach blocking resource and dino spawns.

 I know out to render seems like alot but my tribe owns less than 1% of the landmass on the center. We have been on that server since the cluster opened and every pillar has been thought out and placed in spots where they are hidden for the most part.

 If you don't pillar your area is gonna look like trash and there will be disputes with other tribes when they build too close and make it where you cant finish your base. If you pillar the game will look nice, no disputes, no being blocked from building, less lag, more dinos, more resources and an overall better game experience.

 Would you rather have the vast minority of your time on the server(starting out) to be a great experience just for it to degrade later on as you encounter issues like the ones mentioned above. Or would you prefer to tuff it out in the beginning and have the game get better and better as you go.

 Theres a reason changes like ones proposed never got implemented. They just will not work long term. 

 And no, I dont condone 1 tribe pillaring half the map but eveyone cant look past the pillar and see the true problem which is humans are greedy by nature. Pillars dont jump out my vault onto my property and spam themselves just as none of my guns can do anything without human input.

[doceproce]

on the pillars always interests ha all players.
I am present in all dlc and mod (s) of the game, I have a main base in the island and small bases in the others, to assist in tames and farm.
all of my bases were built in non-flat areas, so all of them are supported pillars, when, not to say that I have more land than necessary, I have a technical reserve around my gates and also, resevei where are born tyla and spino, because jogei more of a year on the server where a player (the same) did not put base, left dino in the aggressive, (including inside the basement) thus avoiding that all had access to the resource to go in the arenas of the bosses.

I have been playing on the same servers since the official launch, so I have helped many who later turned around and misappropriated themselves
so I also still help the newbies, but much less generous,
then before leaving asking ARK to drop everything that is pillar we will ponder and argue.

my sugestion:

again as legacy legacy, the ARK could reset the servers that have little use each semester a new list with a space of 30 days for the residents to re-loquem,

as would be the calculation:
added the online time of all the players of the server, always restarting the least used.
 so every 6 months will have servers being restarted (in all dlc and mod) s) pve and pvp

so we who love the ark and stayed more than 50 hours a week would have to go after new players and guarantee the active population on the server.

[BTH]

When I am new to a server (I have restarted 3 different times), I build a boat and get TF out of the starting areas, however, I see this problem walking around the beach, the thing is in PVE, noobs think they need a 2x2 thatch base on day zero.  Then day 2 they need a 4x4 base and some fences.  Day 3 they need a 6x6 house, bed, tables, fabricators, generator, greenhouse, etc... BUT THEY NEVER LEFT THE STARTING AREA.  And then the next person does the same thing and then someone sneeks a f*cking 1x1 thatch hut in between you and the next one so you can't put a door on your gate.  You move areas because there is no elbow room, but the hell if your going to take down your crap shack and the cycle continues.  I moved and pillared until I was tired of it.  I have space to build without fear of being crowded.  I behemoth gated the entire area and have pillars around as well.  WC tried to slow the pillar spam a few years ago (individual pillars have a very short decay) but the second you add a ladder, you now have 7-14 days for decay.  Best/Most pillared or overbuilt area, Blue Ob on Ragnarok, hands down, every Rag server, even on day zero when Rag opened, people were trampling over one another to get there.

[doceproce]

On 4/25/2019 at 10:27 PM, doceproce said:

my sugestion:

again as legacy legacy, the ARK could reset the servers that have little use each semester a new list with a space of 30 days for the residents to re-loquem,

as would be the calculation:
added the online time of all the players of the server, always restarting the least used.
 so every 6 months will have servers being restarted (in all dlc and mod) s) pve and pvp

so we who love the ark and stayed more than 50 hours a week would have to go after new players and guarantee the active population on the server.

may have been overshadowed by a long post.

 

remembering that all my bases are built on top of pillars

[Demerus]

2 hours ago, Beargawn said:

I''m new to ARK and I will start off by saying,  WOW this game is amazing!  With that being said,  I have found numerous player created pillars (wood, rock, metal) plastered all over in the recommended new charactere starter areas.  This allowed practice makes it unessararly difficult to level up  

Due to being to close to a created pillar, the system will not allow a the placement of ANYTHING near  them.  Example: firepit, storarge box, base foundation, ect.  I would understand this if I was actually attempting to build near a vaild land claim/base, but in this case it is not valid.  This allowed practice of placing random pillars all over the land to stake a claim is only to prevent new characters/players from leveling up in areas that are rich in plant, animal and mineral resources or having close access to water.  

Would you rather spawn inside a base you cannot get out of?
Pillars are placed to protect spawns (that includes player, resources, meat gathering areas, radius around base so a tek gen can be placed unhindered, etc, etc.)

These pillars are not able to be destroyed on a PVE server  and both the PVE/PVP pillars have a 11 plus day count down until they can be destroyed.  I suspect the players that will respond to this practice will be those that already have established bases and are themselves a high level and employ this  pillar land grab tactic.

These are the same players that police their main servers for the benefit of everyone who has been playing there a lot longer than you have. 
You cannot realistically expect to join a ARK official server, this late in it's release life and expect to build anywhere you please.
Yes other players will be higher level and more established than you.
Make friends, don't be annoying in global QQ'ing about pillars everywhere and get to know the locals. Maybe some will be willing to help you settle in and get started. Maybe some might even remove some pillars to a place they have been saving for someone worth giving land away to. The point is, prove yourself that you want to be a positive contributing part of the community on the server. That is what PVE is all about. Your experience will be much more pleasant and other people will actually welcome that.

May I recommend a rule be put in place that  level 20+,  not be allowed to place pillars, or any other items that will prevent new players/characters from leveling up.  This may be be a poor example but Blizzard World of Warcraft has specic areas that are desinged for starter characters and are protected  from highlevel player interference.  The allowed low level builds would each have a set decay time regardless if the players level up or not, thus preventing campers  from long  term stay.  The land area itself would be fairly large to accodate thes new charater builds for the purpouse of leveling up.  If the player levels up quicly to the predefined max level for this area, ALL build items would have 24 hour decay or sooner.   Also, they would not be allowed to place additional pillars outside of thier starter build, since their land plot would be size restricted. This starter plot is not intended to be a permanent base, but one allow them to learn/aquire the needed skills to survive outside of the starter area/land. 

You can easily get XP all the way up to lvl 70 on 2x weekend on the Island. The whole process will take 1-2 hours or less depending on how well you know how to find the easier notes in the less hostile areas. All done on foot with 0 equipment and 0 tames. Many videos are on youtube showcasing different XP routes using purely explorer notes.

 

[Aylana314159]

WC could designate starting areas with a 24 hours decay to force people to move on. But things like this limit the open world nature of the game.

 

Same for pillaring nature reserves. Designate more no build resource/spawn/waterway/cave/land path areas. This would make for tons on no build areas, but protect areas currently protected by players using pillars.

[Cymas]

Build a raft or go inland. Beaches on officials will always be pillared, which is fine because they're terrible building locations anyway. Even if you did build there, do you really want to deal with other new players annoying you all day every day as they spawn in and find your base? Even if they aren't griefers, a lot of them will beg you for stuff, ask to join your tribe, etc. Plus, especially on The Island map, the best starting areas are pretty far from anything useful that you would need to advance later on such as metal in large quantities, obsidian and pearls, etc.

Use the beaches for what they are--a good place to get a few levels and get the absolute basics of the game down, then move on as soon as possible. These days I hugely favor using a raft as a starting houseboat; as a low level newbie there are very few tames you can easily make saddles for that would have the same utility as a small, mobile base that can keep you relatively safe as you move around. Plus if you build it right the raft can double as a taming pen.

[Aushegun]

2 hours ago, Beargawn said:

 

May I recommend a rule be put in place that  level 20+,  not be allowed to place pillars, or any other items that will prevent new players/characters from leveling up.  This may be be a poor example but Blizzard World of Warcraft has specic areas that are desinged for starter characters and are protected  from highlevel player interference.  The allowed low level builds would each have a set decay time regardless if the players level up or not, thus preventing campers  from long  term stay.  The land area itself would be fairly large to accodate thes new charater builds for the purpouse of leveling up.  If the player levels up quicly to the predefined max level for this area, ALL build items would have 24 hour decay or sooner.   Also, they would not be allowed to place additional pillars outside of thier starter build, since their land plot would be size restricted. This starter plot is not intended to be a permanent base, but one allow them to learn/aquire the needed skills to survive outside of the starter area/land. 

 

 

 

 

You know making a section of the maps near the easy spawn points available only to level 25 and less, might actually be a good idea.  I'm not a computer programmer, so I'm not sure how hard to add in something like that would be.  But just having a spot to get established as a beach noob, would be a great help. Sure having to move out within a few days would be a hassle, but at least you could get some gear, ammo and a few tames made, pre-make a base components, and then travel until you found a "permanent" spot away from the easy spawns.

[basilmemories]

I personally believe in pillaring for one of only two reasons:

Are you protecting a spawn or land route? Cool, pillar away.

Are you going to build there eventually? Sure, go and stake your claim, buddy.

But if you're not going to do either? Stop it. It makes the landscape look like crap, it blocks off common areas that all players will want to build on, and it makes you look like a greedy, unreasonable sort. I just want to say to those people, "No aquillesaraph, you're not a mighty alpha, you're a spoiled child who doesn't want to share their toys. Stop pillaring new areas or the scar."

[Tribeofdarkfoxx]

Don't waste your breath man, 99% of the players in this game are untrustworthy douchebags. Literally everyone I've encountered in this game is a douche. At least in WOW they had a balance and only douches would talk to douches and they didn't get very far in the game. Here, being a douche is rewarded and praised.

[Reno00]

I faced the same issue, started in a beginner server had no issues with finding a place to start a base, meanwhile i was scouting servers for a place to move to, some players were nice enough to make room and remove pillars. Eventually a space came up and some big tribe moved and space opened up and started my big base there:) 

[DeHammer]

3 hours ago, Beargawn said:

I''m new to ARK and I will start off by saying,  WOW this game is amazing!...

...Coming into ARK late but I truely do enjoy what has been created and looking forward training my tame, to  belonging to a tribe and exploring, learning and .. dying in more ways than I could have ever imagined.

 

 

 

I'm fairly new as well. I felt the same way. You should honestly try playing on a private server, whether that be PVP or PVE. You get to really appreciate the game without the craziness.

[DerpyNo]

This seems like a really moot point to gather enough attention that it was put on my Google phone's information feed. If you don't like the server, join another one..

The main thing that needs to be addressed (at least on the Xbox, not sure about PC) is the non-functional Dino trackers. I have spent countless hours in this game hunting down my lost dinos. This should be a simple fix with the Dino trackers but put the thing on your Dino, log out, come back and it's gone. The things even disappear right from your inventory. They wasted time in a recent update nerfing the trike's charge ability but still no attention to the effectively useless Dino trackers. Please fix it. As it sits I don't have much left to complain about with this game, they did finally fix the bug of getting stuck on the edge of structures and that was a game changer. But to put something that useful, and essential really, into the game but render it useless is just plain annoying..

[SaltyMonkey]

Pillaring is a perfectly legitimate action on officials which is why I don’t play them.

[GamerXD001]

Just one more idiot snowflake thinking that everything in life has to be fair, probably receiving participation trophies all your life. The world isn't fair, virtual worlds are even less fair most times, and when people see whiney little noobs like you are part of the reason those overly pillared starter zones exist.

[Lycan187u]

Just demo the ladders if wood when the decay timer is up on the ladders then the pillar will despawn after 12 hrs

[Celeste]

This has been a problem since day one and they have yet to address it like many more other problems in the game. Each update adds more items and fixes zero problems. You will lose hours of work because of glitches and crashes. Even with all the problems, I had beat my head on that game so much I am now tired of it and had to move on to something different. If a more competent company handled this game, it could have went to amazing places. Still a great game for what it's worth. 

[Kristofer]

The other way to see this is if not pillared you would have lots small base on spawn area and you would spawn inside of the base not  even giving you a chance to do anything. I know some servers go ov the top but there is normally a lot of land left when you venture out of spawn area.