Bringing back the magic of old ARK

[covenantgrunt]

In my opinion the best days of ARK were during legacy to early official era, when we had tribes of many different sizes and types playing togather on a shared world. There were solos, roleplayers, PVE lovers. people who liked trading. You had tribes that played as mercenaries, beach bobs making their own alliances and engaged in their own turf wars. All while big stuff was going down in background. When an enemy megatribe dropped a FOB on server, it was a jaw dropping moment seeing two mighty alpha tribes battle and talk of the whole server community. The thing about ARK is that it used to be that PVP was just one part of the game. People taming, breeding, exploring the caves, trading, painting houses etc were having just as much fun on officials. Today the only reason for playing on official servers is to raid people. Back then there was so much more to the game, and the blend of different kind of players provided a rich server ecosystem. These days all the casuals are gone and with them the heart of the game has died.

Todays officials are like equivalent of a forest with only predators left, all the other animals long since extinct, its not fun being a wolf in a land filled with only other hyper blood thirsty wolves. Back then there was a niche for every type of player and this was what made ARKs sandbox so great. Now its just a pure pvp game like Rust. And not even a good pvp game with all the unbelievable lag, bugs and cheating.

I am glad the devs are trying to fix long standing issues with the pvp. But I hope they dont forget the roots of ARKs success. ARK became what it is because of the sandbox, official servers were not a strict pvp world intended solely for competitive tryhard gamers. It was a game where it seemed you could do anything and play as you wanted. If you just cater to megatribes and endgame PVP, and segregate the game strictly along pvp/pve line ARK will remain a shell of its former self. The games core survival mechanics and PVE elements need some love. If ARK went back to days when wild dinos were a threat, night time was truly dark, and the game felt like a unforgiving alien world, the PVP would improve too. 

[ForzaProiettile]

8 hours ago, covenantgrunt said:

In my opinion the best days of ARK were during legacy to early official era, when we had tribes of many different sizes and types playing togather on a shared world. There were solos, roleplayers, PVE lovers. people who liked trading. You had tribes that played as mercenaries, beach bobs making their own alliances and engaged in their own turf wars. All while big stuff was going down in background. When an enemy megatribe dropped a FOB on server, it was a jaw dropping moment seeing two mighty alpha tribes battle and talk of the whole server community. The thing about ARK is that it used to be that PVP was just one part of the game. People taming, breeding, exploring the caves, trading, painting houses etc were having just as much fun on officials. Today the only reason for playing on official servers is to raid people. Back then there was so much more to the game, and the blend of different kind of players provided a rich server ecosystem. These days all the casuals are gone and with them the heart of the game has died.

Todays officials are like equivalent of a forest with only predators left, all the other animals long since extinct, its not fun being a wolf in a land filled with only other hyper blood thirsty wolves. Back then there was a niche for every type of player and this was what made ARKs sandbox so great. Now its just a pure pvp game like Rust. And not even a good pvp game with all the unbelievable lag, bugs and cheating.

I am glad the devs are trying to fix long standing issues with the pvp. But I hope they dont forget the roots of ARKs success. ARK became what it is because of the sandbox, official servers were not a strict pvp world intended solely for competitive tryhard gamers. It was a game where it seemed you could do anything and play as you wanted. If you just cater to megatribes and endgame PVP, and segregate the game strictly along pvp/pve line ARK will remain a shell of its former self. The games core survival mechanics and PVE elements need some love. If ARK went back to days when wild dinos were a threat, night time was truly dark, and the game felt like a unforgiving alien world, the PVP would improve too. 

I agree ARK was better in the early days but for different reasons. In the early days of ARK around late 2015/ Early 2016 the servers were constantly packed and great fun. Every night there was constant PVP action. I fondly remember several raids where my group armed with spears and other basic weapons in hand had good fights vs other tribes, raiding wooden bases.

It also helped that very large tribes were a rarity and just as importantly there was none of these stupid 500 000 hitpoint giant creatures in the game. As a player on foot you had a reasonable chance of killing a player and the dino he was riding without expending a great deal of effort or requiring a far superior skill level. Dino's weren't these unbalanced forgiving tanks that any moron can use successfully that they have since become. You had to think a lot more back then in combat, now its really more of a numbers game. My tribe has 10 Gigas, they only have 7, therefore we win.

That to me is the biggest detriment of this game, the constant addition of junk creatures that just don't belong in the damn game. This game started out as a dinosaur game but now it might as well be some game about alien creatures. I am not saying this because I have some kind of love for dinosaurs, I never played this game just because it had dinosaurs in it. I really don't care if its a dinosaur or some glowing blue alien but it needs to be balanced and relevant to the world. There are so many creatures now in this game but very few of them have any real application when compared to other dinos that do the same job a lot better, this is especially the case on PVP servers.

The other thing was there was a lack of air dinos. There was some but back then they were only the Argent and a bit later the Pteradon. Neither of which at that time were as ridiculously tanky as they later became. If you ask me air dinos have screwed the game in more ways then one. They literally delete huge chunks of gameplay and contents and vastly simplify the gameplay decisions and choices.

With regards to the PVE/PVP thing, if you are trying to play as PVE player on a PVP server and then complaining about getting slaughtered then really what did  you expect would happen. It's a PVP server, the title says it all. You can't inject your own morals and ethics and expects others to play by them in what is a lawless combat zone. I see a PVE base I think great, easy loot here. I came across one not along that had all the fancy roleplayer bells and whistles to it, but even more funny was the fact that the owner decided that to complement the design he would place his one and only generator on the roof and leave it completely exposed. A couple firearrows fired from a nearby hill and down went the turrets.....

[covenantgrunt]

8 hours ago, ForzaProiettile said:

It also helped that very large tribes were a rarity and just as importantly there was none of these stupid 500 000 hitpoint giant creatures in the game. As a player on foot you had a reasonable chance of killing a player and the dino he was riding without expending a great deal of effort or requiring a far superior skill level. Dino's weren't these unbalanced forgiving tanks that any moron can use successfully that they have since become. You had to think a lot more back then in combat, now its really more of a numbers game. My tribe has 10 Gigas, they only have 7, therefore we win.

Quoting for emphasis. Back in legacy and even early officials game was more about player skill than dino stats. Remember the days when we all used to go griefing on foot, have lots of fun, and return back to home server with thick loot ? Seems like another game now. These days you cant go raiding without bringing along manas, snow owls, gigas, racers etc.

[Thyme]

Personally I’d like to see a set of servers with prim+ type limitations for structures/weapons. Additionally a lower weapon bp cap and breeding limitations would remove the grind for PvP viable items/dinos and limit undefeatable alphas tribes

[ForzaProiettile]

38 minutes ago, covenantgrunt said:

Quoting for emphasis. Back in legacy and even early officials game was more about player skill than dino stats. Remember the days when we all used to go griefing on foot, have lots of fun, and return back to home server with thick loot ? Seems like another game now. These days you cant go raiding without bringing along manas, snow owls, gigas, racers etc.

Yep I remember those days very fondly they were great fun, easily among the most fun to be had in this game. The game was definetly more tactical and skill based back then, now as you say its more about dino stats that is the deciding factor.

I remember the first time we got majorly attacked. We had built a wood base on a spot surrounded by cliffs on 3 sides which was near the waterfalls on the Island. One night an enemy tribe came and start hatching down the gate of our base. I jumped in a little tower overlooking it and flicked as many arrows as I could at them. Eventually they broke through then there was a brief dinosaur battle with our Stego, Raptors and a Trike trying to fend of their players but we learned a valuable lesson that day about the uselessness of dinos in a defence. The enemy players just lured them all off the side of the cliff. So then it was onto the next layer of defence that of the walls of our main building.

We kept spawning in and trying to slow them down with our arrows, spears and everything else we had but they had a lot more numbers then we did so it was merely a delaying tactic. When we would occasionally push them back we'd quickly try and repair the damaged walls. Anyways after about a good hour or so of solid combat they finally broke into our main base area upstairs and that was that. We lost our first battle but eventually won the war. Even though we lost it was great fun and we learned a lot.

I also very much dislike these cheap spotting mechanics of the Parasaur, and Snow Owl. If I make the effort of sneaking into a base, the other player should have to make at least make some effort to find me. These kind of  instant win mechanics dumb down the gameplay and reduce the options for tactical players.

[d1nk]

Im cofused.. you talk of old ARK but then in the same paragraph mention server transfers... when did you start playing ARK? Server transfers arent old ARK

[covenantgrunt]

On 9/19/2019 at 2:26 PM, ForzaProiettile said:

Yep I remember those days very fondly they were great fun, easily among the most fun to be had in this game. The game was definetly more tactical and skill based back then, now as you say its more about dino stats that is the deciding factor.

I remember the first time we got majorly attacked. We had built a wood base on a spot surrounded by cliffs on 3 sides which was near the waterfalls on the Island. One night an enemy tribe came and start hatching down the gate of our base. I jumped in a little tower overlooking it and flicked as many arrows as I could at them. Eventually they broke through then there was a brief dinosaur battle with our Stego, Raptors and a Trike trying to fend of their players but we learned a valuable lesson that day about the uselessness of dinos in a defence. The enemy players just lured them all off the side of the cliff. So then it was onto the next layer of defence that of the walls of our main building.

We kept spawning in and trying to slow them down with our arrows, spears and everything else we had but they had a lot more numbers then we did so it was merely a delaying tactic. When we would occasionally push them back we'd quickly try and repair the damaged walls. Anyways after about a good hour or so of solid combat they finally broke into our main base area upstairs and that was that. We lost our first battle but eventually won the war. Even though we lost it was great fun and we learned a lot.

I also very much dislike these cheap spotting mechanics of the Parasaur, and Snow Owl. If I make the effort of sneaking into a base, the other player should have to make at least make some effort to find me. These kind of  instant win mechanics dumb down the gameplay and reduce the options for tactical players.

Sneaking into bases used to be one of most fun things in old ARK. Now with parasaurs, snow owls, and tek helmets powered by cheap ele dust (and ini abuse thats rampant on PC) stealth basically dont exist anymore. A huge aspect of ARKs open world pvp is gone.

[covenantgrunt]

On 9/19/2019 at 2:32 PM, d1nk said:

Im cofused.. you talk of old ARK but then in the same paragraph mention server transfers... when did you start playing ARK? Server transfers arent old ARK

Legacy and even early officials were different despite transfers. Every server had multiple tribes, and was a community. Same server pvp and politics was a thing. It was not like today where the norm is one tribe per server.

[johnm81]

Honestly the early days before server transfer sucked. IMHO later ark after transfers were better 

[d1nk]

2 hours ago, covenantgrunt said:

Legacy and even early officials were different despite transfers. Every server had multiple tribes, and was a community. Same server pvp and politics was a thing. It was not like today where the norm is one tribe per server.

Yes I know that. Ive played since release. I was asking why YOU were mentioning early days then also mentioned transfers. Transfers were after early days

[Darkholis]

For the sake of it, I did look into the amount of work required to setup a server as seen in 2015 (minus all the issues that has been corrected).

- Island map only (pre-biome ideally).
- Only creatures prior to v173.
- Explorer notes experience boost disabled.
- No stone tier.
- Old engrams list.
- Players limited at level 65.
- No tek/no bosses. (Yes you could spawn the brood I know as I was the first on our server to kill it)
- Wild dinos level 30.
- Flyer mod to undo the speed nerf.
- No Alpha predators.
- 1x ratings on everything, taming included.
- Disable kibble crafting.

Most of the job can be done via proper INI files configurations and the old engrams list is still available on the wiki.
However, the biggest challenge remains in setuping up a pre-biome island map.

It can be done with the dev kit that's for sure, but that wouldn't be 100% the same thing. If one could open up an old backup map file/SOFT map which is basicly the pre-biome map, that would solve a LOT of problems.

Pushing the idea further, a custom argentavis creature would be needed in order to remove it's smithy saddle, as well as its ability to pickup stuff. Ptera would need to same treatment to remove the barrel roll.

I'd be down to tackle a total conversion for that honestly!

[SlipperySquid]

9 hours ago, Darkholis said:

Most of the job can be done via proper INI files configurations and the old engrams list is still available on the wiki.
However, the biggest challenge remains in setuping up a pre-biome island map.

What you would have to do is get the map from survivor of the fittest and rework the middle mountain.

 

Edit:For some reason i missed the part where you said sotf map. Also that other guy linked the old map so that is pretty cool as well.

[caleb68]

8 hours ago, Darkholis said:

However, the biggest challenge remains in setuping up a pre-biome island map.

there are mods for that:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=936205021&searchtext=old+island

 

[SlipperySquid]

37 minutes ago, caleb68 said:

there are mods for that:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=936205021&searchtext=old+island

 

Ohh not quiet fleshed out just downloaded it and their is pearls/oil nodes in the rivers. Nvm it is actually the Sotf map. Still interesting find tho i had no idea.

[ForzaProiettile]

19 hours ago, Darkholis said:

For the sake of it, I did look into the amount of work required to setup a server as seen in 2015 (minus all the issues that has been corrected).

- Island map only (pre-biome ideally).
- Only creatures prior to v173.
- Explorer notes experience boost disabled.
- No stone tier.
- Old engrams list.
- Players limited at level 65.
- No tek/no bosses. (Yes you could spawn the brood I know as I was the first on our server to kill it)
- Wild dinos level 30.
- Flyer mod to undo the speed nerf.
- No Alpha predators.
- 1x ratings on everything, taming included.
- Disable kibble crafting.

Most of the job can be done via proper INI files configurations and the old engrams list is still available on the wiki.
However, the biggest challenge remains in setuping up a pre-biome island map.

It can be done with the dev kit that's for sure, but that wouldn't be 100% the same thing. If one could open up an old backup map file/SOFT map which is basicly the pre-biome map, that would solve a LOT of problems.

Pushing the idea further, a custom argentavis creature would be needed in order to remove it's smithy saddle, as well as its ability to pickup stuff. Ptera would need to same treatment to remove the barrel roll.

I'd be down to tackle a total conversion for that honestly!

Well the thing is you don't have to really use the old The Island map. The current one is not that much different apart from Volcano and the different biomes although that said I do miss the intense jungle that covered much of the map.

In terms of tech and stuff you don't necessarily have to scrap all the current stuff. Stuff like kibble crafting does have a place, and the wild dino level/player could be even raised to 100. Really the main issue with player stats is the movement speed and the relative stats of the player vs the dino level/max levels which failed to keep parity ie lvl 450 dinos vs lvl 135 players.

As well I would love to see a no flyer 'version' of the map. Basically all the big mountain peaks would be flattened quite a bit for the sake of balance. 

[ForzaProiettile]

22 hours ago, covenantgrunt said:

Sneaking into bases used to be one of most fun things in old ARK. Now with parasaurs, snow owls, and tek helmets powered by cheap ele dust (and ini abuse thats rampant on PC) stealth basically dont exist anymore. A huge aspect of ARKs open world pvp is gone.

XRay vision is always a bad idea in any game especially one like this, it really does take out the strategy fun from the game. It doesn't even require any skill or effort to use, its push a button to win mode.

There is also as you probably know a longstanding issue of allowing players to put their GFX extremely low and then the game basically turning off everything to try and accommodate them such as no shaders, no foliage on tress, no rocks, no bushes, even walls can at times fail to render letting you look into bases. If you don't do the same you are basically playing at a huge disadvantage, I would love to play this game the way it looks in the trailers without feeling like I am disadvantaging myself. For this reason I think they really need to have a minimum gfx requirement to play on PVP servers. It should be medium at a minimum (a setting which has all the essentials enabled).

 

I also dislike the effects the visual effects the  Yutyrannus creates, they just look cheap and out of place with everything else.

[johnm81]

1 hour ago, ForzaProiettile said:

XRay vision is always a bad idea in any game especially one like this, it really does take out the strategy fun from the game. It doesn't even require any skill or effort to use, its push a button to win mode.

There is also as you probably know a longstanding issue of allowing players to put their GFX extremely low and then the game basically turning off everything to try and accommodate them such as no shaders, no foliage on tress, no rocks, no bushes, even walls can at times fail to render letting you look into bases. If you don't do the same you are basically playing at a huge disadvantage, I would love to play this game the way it looks in the trailers without feeling like I am disadvantaging myself. For this reason I think they really need to have a minimum gfx requirement to play on PVP servers. It should be medium at a minimum (a setting which has all the essentials enabled).

 

I also dislike the effects the visual effects the  Yutyrannus creates, they just look cheap and out of place with everything else.

I’d vote for you for president 

[Darkholis]

17 hours ago, caleb68 said:

there are mods for that:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=936205021&searchtext=old+island

 

I knew that mod existed but the platform in the middle is a bit of an annoyance to me.

[caleb68]

Just now, Darkholis said:

I knew that mod existed but the platform in the middle is a bit of an annoyance to me.

there use to be another that was just the original island but i can't seem to find it now.