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This Game is a Mess


Humana

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This Game is a Mess

Let me start by saying for the most part i love this game or rather the concept behind it.

I have over 48 days play time before anyone accuses me of just being a newb.

Honestly the game is a train-wreck, between spawn zones not actually being suitable for low level players (spawn in the recommended you'll get pined by a 150 raptor before your character has a chance top wake up) and the power balance being broken between tribes.

We have built up on 5 different servers 5 times we got to having an indie forge and someone on a Mana was able to tank our turrets, kill all our tames and then wipe the base, it's not something that can at that level be defended against when you have a ramshackle Pickaxe and 1000 bullets in 8 turrets.

People have justified this by saying that "Oh they are just trolls that don't want you on their server" okay but why is that their choice, that's every server and every cluster, you grind and struggle it takes you more than a day sometimes just to get the turrets up and they do nothing, the people who wipe you get nothing, repeat with 5 other tribes across as many days.

I know people are gonna say "that's PVP" but it's not, when there is no risk and no challenge to the raid that's not PVP that's punching down, what is that guy on the level 62 Pt gonna do to you on your level 300 Lightning Wyvern? is he gonna pick you up with that 145 carry weight? it's like killing a Compy on a Rex.

It's a mixture of both the Devs being short sighted and players being toxic that has ruined this game, the Devs concentrate on end game not thinking through what it takes to get to levels where you can get those items from Level 70 onwards it's a slog and you can't build because you can't build Heavy Turrets, it just turns into a cycle of Repair-Wipe-Repair-Move-Repeat.
Toxic players are also to blame for the state of the game, as said before you on your Wyvern/Mana have nothing to gain from destroying a low level base, there was a guy joined into our server and just flew around destroying everything that wasn't metal, he would then go into the bases and popcorn the loot inside.

Again Punching down against people so low they can't punch back isn't PVP, and to those who say that people should go to PVE if they don't like it there is just a tiny problem there structure spam is a thing you can't build and you can't gather because people can build in key areas.
Once again i'm not complaining about PVP in fact i raid myself, we were once in an Alpha tribe, we would wipe trolls and allow people to build up so that we would gain something when we raided others, half the time we only did for blueprints at that level mainly because we could gather far more resources in less time it took to raid someone.

My issue isn't with PVP it's balance.

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Thats progression in a nutshell. Progress past the point of raptors killing you, progress past the point where single players can raid your base, same concept.

PVP is a lot more ruthless of course. Why shouldn't a level 300 lightning wyvern decimate your level 62 ptera? Would you be upset if you spent dozens of hours hunting a good lightning egg, 4 days raising it with risk of pvp death then leveling it full, only to get owned by a level 62 ptera?! Think about it man. 

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The maps do not work well with the amount of players that traffic through them and the design breaks down the larger the population gets.  I find on a server of 10-20 people it feels fun, but with a full server cap worth of people plus any number of people who can come and go through the terminals you get those problems. 

Have you tried looking for any unofficial servers? I know you see people all the time complaining about admin abuse on unofficials but that is because nobody wants to come post about all the pleasant experiences they have had, it's human nature.

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3 hours ago, Humana said:

Again Punching down against people so low they can't punch back isn't PVP, and to those who say that people should go to PVE if they don't like it there is just a tiny problem there structure spam is a thing you can't build and you can't gather because people can build in key areas.
Once again i'm not complaining about PVP in fact i raid myself, we were once in an Alpha tribe, we would wipe trolls and allow people to build up so that we would gain something when we raided others, half the time we only did for blueprints at that level mainly because we could gather far more resources in less time it took to raid someone.

My issue isn't with PVP it's balance.

Unfortunately the official PvP servers are now exactly that.  It is played like Call of Duty with dinosaurs, where the majority of the playerbase feels like if you aren't actively killing people, you are doing it wrong.  If you aren't actively raiding people, you are doing it wrong.  If you aren't able to teabag someone's dead body, you are doing it wrong.  I remember back a few years, it was bartering with the alpha to see where they would let you build, and going from there.  Nowadays there is no real alpha, there are just a bunch of people who have one powerful dinosaur roaming the map and killing everyone and everything that moves.  Worse yet, the precedent is set for official PvP ARK players so this pattern will only continue, maybe even grow bigger.

Many people now on official PvP will defend killing on site and wiping on site with very eloquent speech about threats and war and combat and this and that.  But the truth is, if you are on a level 62 Ptera, you aren't much of a threat to a level 300 Lightning Wyvern.

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Boi it’s a storyline starting with you end up in an unknown part of the universe, which is a planet with different places in the one you start on, the island. Then, when you find and complete a cave, the tek cave, you find a teleporter, in which you teleport to aberration. Then once you defeat Rockwell, you go to a jungle. Which is actually a corrupted shield and you see you end up in a corrupted place with weird biome bubbles known as Extinction. Once you defeat the king titan, all the corruption disappears. And Helena Walker, who is a past survivor that died,  meets you and tells you that the ark is safe now. And you turn into pure light to live in this uncorrupted world. So don’t say that isn’t bad. It is still a survival game with dinosaurs, but the tech stuff is all part of the storyline defeating the bosses.

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53 minutes ago, DoughBoy93 said:

I brought the game as a dinosaur survival game. Ended up with a sci fi shooter with aliens,mythical creatures and freaking laser beams!

But it was always scifi. The give away was the mixture of animals from different time zones, floating obelisks and implants in arms. Unless I misunderstood the lore there isnt any aliens. 

But yes I bought the game for the dinosaurs, who didnt ?. I am glad however it evolved into more than that though. 

 

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I have a thought and am interested to know what others would think of this.

I'll start with where my idea came from. Many and I mean most of the games that you can play on Android devices and probably even iOS like clash of clans and similar games. When you first start out you get a "shield" that makes you invisible, and protects you from being attacked for like maybe a week. Idk the exact length of time.

So what if when you started out in ark, you got a shield that protected you from being attacked for 1 week. After which you can be attacked. 

If you haven't gotten your tribe built up high enough to be able to defend yourself by then, it wouldn't have anything to do with improper balance of game mechanics, and you wouldn't be able to blame the devs, it would rest solely on player and tribe abilities alone, and whether or not you used the time given wisely. All while protecting you from trolls as well, until time is up.

 

Let me know what you guys think?

 

~ArkAfterDark~

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3 hours ago, ArkafterDark said:

I have a thought and am interested to know what others would think of this.

I'll start with where my idea came from. Many and I mean most of the games that you can play on Android devices and probably even iOS like clash of clans and similar games. When you first start out you get a "shield" that makes you invisible, and protects you from being attacked for like maybe a week. Idk the exact length of time.

So what if when you started out in ark, you got a shield that protected you from being attacked for 1 week. After which you can be attacked. 

If you haven't gotten your tribe built up high enough to be able to defend yourself by then, it wouldn't have anything to do with improper balance of game mechanics, and you wouldn't be able to blame the devs, it would rest solely on player and tribe abilities alone, and whether or not you used the time given wisely. All while protecting you from trolls as well, until time is up.

 

Let me know what you guys think?

 

~ArkAfterDark~

This wouldnt work. If the bubble protects you from wildlife then noobs would abuse it to their advantage. If it doesnt, noobs would still get stomped inside by wild dinos being kited in.

The bigger problem tho is that big tribes would abuse it to get an invincible base, just needs to be remade every time the week of protection is over. Imagine they would even do this at a cave entrance and you have no chance to attack the tribe behind it. 

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4 hours ago, ArkPlayer64 said:

Boi it’s a storyline starting with you end up in an unknown part of the universe, which is a planet with different places in the one you start on, the island. Then, when you find and complete a cave, the tek cave, you find a teleporter, in which you teleport to aberration. Then once you defeat Rockwell, you go to a jungle. Which is actually a corrupted shield and you see you end up in a corrupted place with weird biome bubbles known as Extinction. Once you defeat the king titan, all the corruption disappears. And Helena Walker, who is a past survivor that died,  meets you and tells you that the ark is safe now. And you turn into pure light to live in this uncorrupted world. So don’t say that isn’t bad. It is still a survival game with dinosaurs, but the tech stuff is all part of the storyline defeating the bosses.

The story line was not part of the game at the beginning, it was made up during development, nobody knew what was to come at the beginning.

Yes there were the obelisks and implants as sci fi elements, but those are just passive elements, part of the setting the game is in. Fighting and taming tel and fantasy creatures, crafting space suits and roaming through maps like aberration/extinction is a whole different thing.

I really enjoy the new classic pvp servers they added for pc. It takes away the unbalanced and unliked sci fi and fantasy parts of the game (personal opinion). I dont miss the content as theres always enough to do on pvp and i like the improved balance.

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1 hour ago, acat said:

This wouldnt work. If the bubble protects you from wildlife then noobs would abuse it to their advantage. If it doesnt, noobs would still get stomped inside by wild dinos being kited in.

The bigger problem tho is that big tribes would abuse it to get an invincible base, just needs to be remade every time the week of protection is over. Imagine they would even do this at a cave entrance and you have no chance to attack the tribe behind it. 

You misunderstood.

1. The shield would only be a one time thing, for the first time you start out on a server. After which the tribe or persons buildings can't be protected again, so you can't just redo it every single week and have an invincible base. It's only so u can build up enough to defend yourself. Also it could be made so that it can't be placed next to certain areas... Like cave entrances.

2. It can be made so that wildlife can't go through and get you, and neither can tamed dinos, or their owners. However if you go outside of the area of your base, then wildlife, and other players and their dinos can attack you. 

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28 minutes ago, ArkafterDark said:

1. The shield would only be a one time thing, for the first time you start out on a server. After which the tribe or persons buildings can't be protected again, so you can't just redo it every single week and have an invincible base. It's only so u can build up enough to defend yourself. Also it could be made so that it can't be placed next to certain areas... Like cave entrances.

2. It can be made so that wildlife can't go through and get you, and neither can tamed dinos, or their owners. However if you go outside of the area of your base, then wildlife, and other players and their dinos can attack you. 

This still dosen't fit with official servers and open world survival games. There are some mods that have a safe bubble.

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2 hours ago, ArkafterDark said:

You misunderstood.

1. The shield would only be a one time thing, for the first time you start out on a server. After which the tribe or persons buildings can't be protected again, so you can't just redo it every single week and have an invincible base. It's only so u can build up enough to defend yourself. Also it could be made so that it can't be placed next to certain areas... Like cave entrances.

2. It can be made so that wildlife can't go through and get you, and neither can tamed dinos, or their owners. However if you go outside of the area of your base, then wildlife, and other players and their dinos can attack you. 

Make a new character/tribe every week and have a new bubble every week. Which areas are allowed and which arent? What about aberration, that whole map is a cave. 

I agree that its hard for new players, but i dont think this could work out. The best idea i have is to tell new players to learn in singleplayer, or some safe environment, to watch videos and to learn from others ingame. 

At the end in a game like ark, it is all about the knowledge a player has. And gaining that knowledge takes time. Every idea i have read, that wants to help newbies on the regular official pvp servers would be exploited by the experienced players. Wildcard did already set up beginner servers. Other than that they can just make sure their game is balanced and not easy to exploit. They cant stop people from being assholes. But i have played the original primitive servers and now the new classic servers, and i noticed that it makes the game more balanced if the difference between low tier and top tier is not as big as it is on the regular servers with tek. 

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1 hour ago, ArkafterDark said:

You misunderstood.

1. The shield would only be a one time thing, for the first time you start out on a server. After which the tribe or persons buildings can't be protected again, so you can't just redo it every single week and have an invincible base. It's only so u can build up enough to defend yourself. Also it could be made so that it can't be placed next to certain areas... Like cave entrances.

2. It can be made so that wildlife can't go through and get you, and neither can tamed dinos, or their owners. However if you go outside of the area of your base, then wildlife, and other players and their dinos can attack you. 

it would still be abused. Official people are just like that. I'm like that myself when I'm playing official. It's lord of the flies out here, bro.

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On 5/25/2019 at 7:59 AM, Humana said:

Toxic players are also to blame for the state of the game, as said before you on your Wyvern/Mana have nothing to gain from destroying a low level base,

I hear this said over and over again. And in the vast majority of times this just isn't true. Most megas / alphas attack lower level players because they do get something out of it. Now, before people get their panties in a twist and start recalling anecdotal evidence about how some bored pvper wrecked their thatch mansion for no reason, yes it I do know that sometimes that happens but it by no means the majority of the time. The vast majority raids are due to them wanting something you have. A lot of the players of the mega I am in go around scouting bases that they think will have resources and they bring back huge amounts of loot. They take screen shots discuss amongst themselves possible costs vs possible loot. This cost benefit analysis usually involves the leadership on some level and then go raid the targets that they decided on. 

I kid you not  when I say they are looking for large quantities of raw mats like stone, flint, hide, ect..

They are looking for turret ammo.

They also want fert eggs 

Fertilizer, bolas, narcotics, are also things that drive them to raid lowbies.

 

Until you realize that there is a reason they are raiding you will never be able to suggest game changes to stop this because you do know what you need to change. And what you need to change is the cost of raiding such that their cost benefit analysis will come up with the answer of raiding a base is not worth it.

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16 hours ago, DoughBoy93 said:

I brought the game as a dinosaur survival game. Ended up with a sci fi shooter with aliens,mythical creatures and freaking laser beams!

As others have mentioned, it has always had sci-fi elements.

It has always been unclear what the actual story was up until it wasn't but most people assumed it would be sci-fi and the game has had guns forever now so that kind of shuts down the "i thought i was gonna be a neanderthal" idea.

arguing that one non existent fantasy creature shouldn't be with other non existent creatures is a strange place to draw your line in the sand.  being eaten by a t-rex, or a dragon wielding two unicorns tied together by their tails like nunchaku is really the same to me as they are both fantastical things that do not exist and would scare the crap out of me.

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7 hours ago, johnm81 said:

I hear this said over and over again. And in the vast majority of times this just isn't true. Most megas / alphas attack lower level players because they do get something out of it. Now, before people get their panties in a twist and start recalling anecdotal evidence about how some bored pvper wrecked their thatch mansion for no reason, yes it I do know that sometimes that happens but it by no means the majority of the time. The vast majority raids are due to them wanting something you have. A lot of the players of the mega I am in go around scouting bases that they think will have resources and they bring back huge amounts of loot. They take screen shots discuss amongst themselves possible costs vs possible loot. This cost benefit analysis usually involves the leadership on some level and then go raid the targets that they decided on. 

Until you realize that there is a reason they are raiding you will never be able to suggest game changes to stop this because you do know what you need to change. And what you need to change is the cost of raiding such that their cost benefit analysis will come up with the answer of raiding a base is not worth it.

You are providing anecdotal evidence to support your claim.  That doesn't make your point any less valid though, John.  But in the same way, people saying they spent two to three weeks building and getting wiped every two days by randos on Manas or MEKs with C4, those people's points aren't any less valid.

Above in this thread, I spoke of people defending Call of Duty Evolved PvP with "very eloquent speech about threats and war and combat and this and that," and that is basically what you did.  The majority of PvP on Official PvP servers is -NOT- an Alpha looking to gain supplies and gear, get fertilized eggs, get fertilizer or bullets, or the like.  The majority of PvP on Official PvP servers is the Call of Duty style.  It is one person with a strong dino, and that one person roams the map killing everything they can find.  It is partly the fault of YouTube people like Apex, HOD, or any of the other 100% COD-style skirmish PvP players, and partly the fault of humanities' desire to crap on people to get a laugh (because you know they will be mad when they log in and see that you killed all their tames and they no longer have a base).  You also can't "out-hard" a tribe from raiding you.  I saw a metal 2x2x2 base with 10 heavy turrets and 5-6 Plant-X, surrounded with metal spikewalls, still raided.  The Plants were still all grown which means the base was taken down when it was all still active.  It was an insanely tightly built base, and it still had a hole in the side of it nonetheless.  There is a point where you become a "fun" target, and the cost of raiding you becomes secondary next to the knowledge that you will piss this person off that has massively overbuilt a 2x2.

If you are online and your "mega" tribe raids 2 bases for strategy, there are probably 10-15 smaller bases that have nothing of value and are destroyed in the same time period.  The 10-15 people are the ones complaining the most on the forums about getting a leg up, but it is a losing battle.  Anyway, it doesn't matter, it's ARK PvP.  It's not enjoyable for everyone, but it is terrible for everyone.

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21 hours ago, acat said:

Make a new character/tribe every week and have a new bubble every week. Which areas are allowed and which arent? What about aberration, that whole map is a cave. 

I agree that its hard for new players, but i dont think this could work out. The best idea i have is to tell new players to learn in singleplayer, or some safe environment, to watch videos and to learn from others ingame. 

At the end in a game like ark, it is all about the knowledge a player has. And gaining that knowledge takes time. Every idea i have read, that wants to help newbies on the regular official pvp servers would be exploited by the experienced players. Wildcard did already set up beginner servers. Other than that they can just make sure their game is balanced and not easy to exploit. They cant stop people from being assholes. But i have played the original primitive servers and now the new classic servers, and i noticed that it makes the game more balanced if the difference between low tier and top tier is not as big as it is on the regular servers with tek. 

Ok so if you make a new character/tribe you have to start all over and don't get to keep any of your stuff from the previous tribe if you take any buildings any items or anything from the previous tribe the child wouldn't work so now how does this benefit them at all? You can't start out brand spanking new and fresh every single week with nothing from the previous week and be a mega/alpha tribe.

Unless I'm confused on how you become a mega/alpha tribe.

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5 minutes ago, ArkafterDark said:

Ok so if you make a new character/tribe you have to start all over and don't get to keep any of your stuff from the previous tribe if you take any buildings any items or anything from the previous tribe the child wouldn't work so now how does this benefit them at all? You can't start out brand spanking new and fresh every single week with nothing from the previous week and be a mega/alpha tribe.

Unless I'm confused on how you become a mega/alpha tribe.

I can make a new alt char on the same steam profile whenever i want. I can switch between the new char and my main char as i please (just cant have them both on the same map, that would delete one). So i can keep everything and the tribe of my main char and still have an alt char with invincible base. It is enough if one person per tribe does that and the whole tribe benefits. 

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20 hours ago, acat said:

I can make a new alt char on the same steam profile whenever i want. I can switch between the new char and my main char as i please (just cant have them both on the same map, that would delete one). So i can keep everything and the tribe of my main char and still have an alt char with invincible base. It is enough if one person per tribe does that and the whole tribe benefits. You clearly

You clearly did not even read what I said.... so I'll try to explain once more.

As I previously said... It doesn't matter how many caracters you make or don't... it's only once per tribe... Not once per person in the same tribe, not once per character in the same tribe... So no matter how many you make, if your tribe has already used the shield once, it can never be used again for that tribe, and if it isn't a brand spanking new tribe you cannot use it again! None of the items, none of the members, in that tribe can can ever use another shield. It's only for a brand new just created tribe.... How hard is this to understand?

Once that's it....

Yet you guys keep insisting that you can just keep making new character and do it again... Even though this is the third time I've said it could only be used once for a brand new tribe.

 

Comprende?

 

~ArkAfterDark~

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31 minutes ago, ArkafterDark said:

You clearly did not even read what I said.... so I'll try to explain once more.

As I previously said... It doesn't matter how many caracters you make or don't... it's only once per tribe... Not once per person in the same tribe, not once per character in the same tribe... So no matter how many you make, if your tribe has already used the shield once, it can never be used again for that tribe, and if it isn't a brand spanking new tribe you cannot use it again! None of the items, none of the members, in that tribe can can ever use another shield. It's only for a brand new just created tribe.... How hard is this to understand?

Once that's it....

Yet you guys keep insisting that you can just keep making new character and do it again... Even though this is the third time I've said it could only be used once for a brand new tribe.

 

Comprende?

 

~ArkAfterDark~

Calm down mate, i read everything you said and i think you are either new to ark or to pvp. If it is once per tribe, i just make a new tribe with an alt char, keep my main tribe with my main char and abuse the invincible base of my alt. If it is once per player, it would have to be bound to the steam profile (on pc at least). In that case you could never start new on another server, at least not with the protection. Once a noob joins an official pvp server he wastes his bubble, before he even knows how the game works. Could he then join the tribe of his mates later on if they are currently having an active bubble? Could a new player, who joins an old tribe, before he made an own tribe and used up his bubble, have an own bubble if he leaves said tribe again? There are many problems with a personal right for a bubble in correlation with arks tribe gameplay. On top of that the one time use mechanic would have to be explained to new players so that they dont „waste“ it without knowing the game. Big tribes could just buy a few copies of ark when its on sale and could still abuse it whenever they want. You cant stop items from other tribes being taken into the bubble, the game doesnt know if an item was owned by somebody else before.

I dont want to fight with you, i think it is good if people have ideas and suggestions and share them. I just dont see your idea working out on official pvp, there are too many questions unanswered. 

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