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Official Solo PVP Mode!


BKBArker

Suggestion

Mode Suggestion - Official Solo PVP!  Haters hear me out!  I assume a large majority of the community prefer to play official PVP within tribes with a goal of becoming alpha/mega tribes.  However, I would bet there is also a good amount of the community that prefer to play official solo PVP!  And with all current official modes it makes it virtually impossible for a solo player to SURVIVE!  Official Primitive + is a simple alternative, but that mode isn't getting fair updates and seems to be "dead."  Official Small Tribes was a wonderful mode addition that has seemed to decrease the amount of servers ruled by mega tribes, but a tribe of 2-6 can still take major advantage of solo players.  Official PVE is likely a suggested alternative to official solo PVP, but it doesn't afford the thrill of retaliating against someone or raiding a base with some known good loot.  Unofficial servers aren't an option for someone that is interested in investing a lot of time on a server(s) knowing it won't suddenly be decommissioned.   

Official Solo PVP would also give players with skill an opportunity to showcase those skills!  Within the ARK community there are skilled players in base design/defense, taming, breeding, raiding, etc. and those skills collectively improve among solo players; you have to be well rounded as a solo player to make any legitimate progress.  There is zero skill in joining an alpha/mega tribe and bullying smaller tribes or solo players.  There is zero skill in grieving servers with high level breed lines from alpha/mega tribes.  There is zero skill in soaking uncapped turrets (because it takes a ridiculous amount of bullet grinding to cap turrets as a solo player) and destroying a solo player's good defensive base design.  There is zero skill in raiders/trolls exploiting solo player tactics (small base designs, raft bases, hidden base designs, storing pre-fab bases, etc.) used that are necessary to expand as a solo player.  Give solo players an opportunity to showcase their skills and enjoy the essential aspects of the game as intended for official PVP as well!

Suggested settings for Official Solo PVP:

1)  Increased Rates - at least 5x would seem appropriate so that a skilled solo player can accomplish the same amount of progress that a tribe of 2-3 players can within the same timeframe.  

2)  3 Map CrossARK Clusters (Ragnarok, Abberation and Extinction) with No Outside Cluster Server Transfers - this would not only create a genuine sense of community by keeping solo players within the same 3 maps (retention and activity of players would probably be a lot higher too) but it would also prevent teamers/trolls from easily grieving servers.  Keeping a community of solo players within 3 maps would also allow players to use the benefits of the unique aspects of each map.

3)  No Alliances - speaking of teamers,  preventing alliances would encourage every man or woman for themselves!  Changes to the code of conduct for official solo PVP servers would also give players an opportunity to report such abuses.

4)  Tek Engrams Enabled at Lvl 100 with Hard Level Limit at Lvl 105 - boss fights are literally impossible as a solo player (without exploits) so there is no chance of ascension.  However, solo players should still have the opportunity to access tek engrams with as much xp gained at lvl 100!  A hard level limit at Lvl 105 is adequate enough as a solo player, especially with increased rates.

5)  Reduced Turret and Tames Limits - reducing the turret limit 50% and the tames limit 75% (or an amount of no more than 50 tames) would create a balanced playing field and prevent solo players from "stocking piling" tames (which would be easier to attain with the increased rates) at a scale similar to other official modes.  Solo players essentially only need one set of utility tames (ankylo, doedi, castoroides, argy, etc.), flyers (ptera, griffin, owl, etc.), soakers (stego, trike, etc.) and meat harvesters (rex, allo, etc.) since they can only use one tame at a time.  Allowing some additional room for defensive tames, unique tames and breeding tames along with each of the aforementioned tames can all be accomplished within an amount of 50 tames.

6)  Similar Settings to Official Classic - removal of the quetzal, paracer and giga, mainly, would remove strategies used to soak and push that should only be allowed on Official Conquest mode.  Solo player mode would be more of a skill and tactics based mode, as opposed to a conquest mode that essentially only requires strength in numbers as opposed to skill and tactics.  *Edit - removal of titans and meks would also prevent any one player from massacring the community and relentlessly wiping bases.

*Edit - 7)  Maintain Cryopods - allow players to craft cryopods and cryofridges in Extinction city terminals at a modest high lvl (for example, lvl 75).  However, increase the amount of time between cryopod releases and cryo-sickness (for example, 900 seconds instead of 300 seconds between releases and cryo-sickness).  This would allow players to maintain small manageable bases without having to store all their tames, and allow convenient travel by a solo player with multiple tames.  But it would prevent a player from conveniently releasing a handful of tames.

*Edit - 8)  Reduce Explosive Splash Damage - solo players would likely build smaller, manageable bases and with the current official PVP splash damage settings it only takes a minimal amount of C4 or rockets to obliterate anything and everything within a small radios.  Of course an explosive's intended target should take the majority of the damage and I'm not suggesting a reduction in that, but collateral damage on an official solo PVP mode should be minimal. 

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6 hours ago, covenantgrunt said:

There is solo servers in ark already, it's called official PvP. Everyone here started as solo beach bob in a big scary world. Some of them learned to band together for survival, and in time some of those those rag tag bands grew into massive empires controlling half dozen servers. Megatribes are highest skill level gameplay in ark. To deny that there is no skill involved in creating and administering a group of hundreds of players, taking virtual strangers on the internet from different cultures and continents, and turning them into an effective army, is delusional.

 

If you are solo, and can not create a successful tribe it's because you are not good at the game and need to get better. You are literally playing a game that's about creating tribes, and complaining about people who are better at it than you.

I'm not arguing that a large majority of the ARK community don't want to play in tribes (which is an innate component of the original game design) with a goal of becoming alpha/mega tribes.  I believe they do.  I'm simply suggesting an additional game mode for the others in the community that prefer to play solo!  

I won't trade insults (I'm not delusional), but I disagree with your stance that "if you are solo, and can not create a successful tribe it's because you are not good at the game and need to get better."  I think it's quite the opposite; I think solo players are generally more skilled because they are the only individuals harvesting, crafting, taming, breeding, etc.  Their survival is their exclusive responsibility!  And because solo players are forced to do everything for themselves to attempt to survive they become a more well rounded player.  I've been in a tribe of 4 active players on official PVP that managed to form an alliance with an alpha because of our defendability and skill.  Eventually everyone in the tribe but myself became inactive, and I was recruited by two different alpha tribes.  I joined one of those alpha tribes, and left after three days.  I felt my skill wasn't being used - I helped the co-founder of the alpha tribe grind bullets the entire time, I was never given a personal room or gear and wasn't invited to two raids they did.  It was alienating and proved my point that alpha/mega tribes function with strength in numbers.

I never mentioned it took zero skill to lead an alpha/mega tribe.  I would never discredit that.  I was referencing that the nature of "strength in numbers" to abuse solo players or small tribes takes zero skill.  An entirely unbalanced official PVP format of alpha/mega tribes bullying solo players is why I suggest an additional official solo PVP mode!  I also disagree with your stance that "megatribes are highest skill level gameplay in ARK."  Leading an alpha/mega tribe is skillful, but don't for a moment forget about all of the toxic politics involved; insiding, demotions, whistle all (yikes), immature party conversations/complaining, admin locks to prevent tribe members from using all aspects of the tribe, etc.  Also don't for a moment forget that if you aren't an alpha/mega tribe leader you're likely spending the majority of your time taking orders and mindlessly grinding.  When an alpha/mega tribe gets hit hard or wiped, what do you think most players in the tribe do?  Leave and go to another alpha/mega tribe!  What do you think a solo player does when they get hit hard or in most cases get wiped?  They stand back up, brush themselves off and go back into the grind!  Tell me which takes more skill for players in general?

I believe player retention and activity on an official solo PVP mode would be pretty high too!  Just watch the many YouTube videos that exist of mega/alpha tribes battling vs solo players raiding.  One example might be an alpha/mega tribe of 20 players online with half a dozen paracers, a dozen gigas, a quetzal, a few wyverns or managarmrs, a few yuties and enough explosives to wipe an entire map pushing on another alpha/mega tribe with 5 players online, leading to a huge "reeee" meat run, panic and devastation with a bunch of "rip."  It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen on ARK, and I'm not sure what's fun about destroying countless hours of work in a matter of a few hours!  Another example might be a solo player making a detailed plan to raid a base, using skill to breach that base, exchanging some "gg" PVP and only taking loot without killing passive tames.  It can be a thing of beauty, and it's fun!  The opinion of the two examples in mine alone, and I'm not suggesting others don't feel differently!  I'm simply suggesting I would prefer to play official PVP mode because of the skill and thrill of a balanced playing field for solo players, and I'm sure more in the community do too! 

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10 hours ago, Scuff3d said:

There’s only one thing that would go wrong with solo servers and that is loosing your character because it’s ark. Personally I would like duo just Incase it did happened

I also agree with the tek engrams at level 100, only thing is you still need to do bosses for element unless they just removed it

Loosing a character on official solo PVP is certainly a concern!  But I'm confident WC would have contingencies in place for character recovery.  I like the appeal of every man or woman for themselves, and in my opinion I think even duo would dilute that and create subtle imbalance.  

If a 3 map crossARK cluster existed with Ragnarok, Abberation and Extinction you'd at least have the opportunity to farm element dust on Extinction, and with increased rates of 5x it would make it feasible to farm enough element dust to craft element/element shards in city terminals in order to at least keep that tek generator, replicator and trough running!  Maybe even cap some tek turrets! ;)  I think gaining tek engrams is a well deserved bonus for solo players that are loyal, skilled and experienced enough at lvl 100 to gain, instead of the excessive nature of boss fights (which would remain virtually impossible for solo players unless the entire format was changed) to gain tek engrams and harvest element! 

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No Alliances - speaking of teamers,  preventing alliances would encourage every man or woman for themselves!  Changes to the code of conduct for official solo PVP servers would also give players an opportunity to report such abuses.

This is probably the toughest one to solve and the one most likely to get abused with this.  I'd love to see official solo servers but they'd need to figure out a way of easier enforcement to prevent teaming as given how folks abuse other game mechanics this is sure to be the first to get abused here.  :(

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5 hours ago, covenantgrunt said:

There is solo servers in ark already, it's called official PvP. Everyone here started as solo beach bob in a big scary world. Some of them learned to band together for survival, and in time some of those those rag tag bands grew into massive empires controlling half dozen servers. Megatribes are highest skill level gameplay in ark. To deny that there is no skill involved in creating and administering a group of hundreds of players, taking virtual strangers on the internet from different cultures and continents, and turning them into an effective army, is delusional.

 

If you are solo, and can not create a successful tribe it's because you are not good at the game and need to get better. You are literally playing a game that's about creating tribes, and complaining about people who are better at it than you.

Funniest thing I’ve read in awhile. And you say megatribes is “highest skill in the game” actually most of time it’s  just a bunch of slaves with good leaders. Some solo players are the best players in the game. They actually do everything themselves instead of rely on other people. You do realize if there were actually solo servers everyone would have the same advantage, no insiding, and not in a party with a bunch of kids. Look at 6 man tribes; it became more popular then they expected. why? because there’s less people. Solo servers - who is the best player overall instead of who has the most people in their tribe. 

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1 hour ago, mleii said:

This is probably the toughest one to solve and the one most likely to get abused with this.  I'd love to see official solo servers but they'd need to figure out a way of easier enforcement to prevent teaming as given how folks abuse other game mechanics this is sure to be the first to get abused here.  :(

I agree! :(  I don't know if it's logistically possible for WC, but an internal log WC could access when someone submits a report of abuse that they could review to see evidence of damage/kills from more than one player that would support the reporter's case.  For example, if a solo player is offline raided by teamers in a situation where one or more players use explosives to breach the base and a different one or more players kill neutral/aggressive tames within the same timeframe.  Another example, teamers raid a base that has turrets that kill more than one player within the same timeframe.  If WC found evidence of teaming they could enforce a temporary ban.  Exploits would be used to avoid detection and it would be a difficult grey area for WC to enforce, but it might be a good way of preventing a majority of teaming.

Disable "unclaim tame" and create an alternative "kill tame!"  Also enable a setting that only allows an egg to be hatched (or live birth) and claimed by the player owner of the parent tames.  I suggest this because it would prevent one player from taming/breeding and giving tames or eggs to another teamer to use or create a teamer breed line, but it would also still give you the ability to purge tames as needed.  "Public seating" on certain saddles should also be disabled to prevent teamers from mounting the same tame (tapa, diplo, etc.) and traveling together.

"Lock/unlock" of doors/hatches/gates/turrets/vaults/fridges should be the only option as well with no pin code option.  This would prevent one teamer from having access to another teamers with a pin code.  And if a teamer chose to "unlock" everything they make themselves vulnerable to the entire crossARK cluster server to access everything as well, not just a teamer.

Removing tribe names (but still having the ability to create an activity log) all together might also prevent players from trolling/teaming as well.  Making a player's character name exclusive and permanent would encourage players to be more cautious of their actions due to easier retaliation if players on the crossARK cluster are aware of their base location(s). 

However, the dynamic of solo mode might be enough for players to voluntarily play solo.  Players may have no interest in abusing the game mechanics since they don't genuinely want to play solo and assume the responsibility of that grind!  Maybe those type of players will continue to grieve on all the other current official PVP modes.  And if they don't, at least there might be enough of a balanced playing field to gain an edge with skill! ;) 

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There is solo servers in ark already, it's called official PvP. Everyone here started as solo beach bob in a big scary world. Some of them learned to band together for survival, and in time some of those those rag tag bands grew into massive empires controlling half dozen servers. Megatribes are highest skill level gameplay in ark. To deny that there is no skill involved in creating and administering a group of hundreds of players, taking virtual strangers on the internet from different cultures and continents, and turning them into an effective army, is delusional.

 

If you are solo, and can not create a successful tribe it's because you are not good at the game and need to get better. You are literally playing a game that's about creating tribes, and complaining about people who are better at it than you.

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