My first impressions on Genesis Part 1

[SAS]

My first impressions on Genesis Part 1

tl;dr the idea is excellent, the release went not tested nearly enough.

 

I have been testing Genesis for a few days using admin commands on my testing server.

The map has design even better than Aberration! I love it!

The amount of work that went into the DLC is massive. Some people might complain there are not so many new engrams or creatures but that means nothing. New resources, new creature mechanics, missions, teleportation, environmental features, your bot-assistant, reworked lava, low gravity, air vents, I could continue this list but you got my idea.

Wild dinos have even level distribution like it is on official mod maps. I hope when the experiment is successful we will have even distribution across all ARKs.

Magmasaurs are breedable. Being similar to Wyverns and Drakes there is hope it will come to them too.

Tek Giganotosaurus is in the game files. Just doesn't spawn yet.

Some new admin commands like transfer imprints from player id to player id, give ascension, give tek engrams, spawn exact dino and others will definitely make official folks happy.

Player character is buffed to have 155 levels, tamed dinos could be leveled up 88 times. This opens new horizons for me.

Harpoons now have quality in mission rewards.

I like eel boss, I don't know how difficult will be actual fight yet, but the look of it gives me joy.

The final battle... When I described it to my brother he declared that there is not enough coke in the whole Columbia for me to make it up, so I definitely must have seen it somewhere. I wanted to get the exact XP requirement for levels 141-155 with singleplayer settings enabled to use on my server. I had not find new ascend commands so I had to do it manually. 168 missions required for Alpha final battle can't be completed solo without fixing all 30 glitches in at least 3 biomes. Fortunately there is a command for debugging the battle that allows bypassing mission requirements. The battle is the hardest I ever seen in ARK. I haven't yet ascend on Extinction but there are Meks available. Despite being invulnerable and invisible I didn't have any dinos so managed to finish it with plasma rifle and grenades 23 seconds before defeat. It will be a challenge worth a lot of preparation until I will be ready to fight Master Controller on my own.

I haven't found anything unfixable that would make it to my cons list yet.

The bugs...

They gave me 2015 vibes. I don't remember a single alpha or beta version of ARK broken more then these post Genesis updates. I've backed up my worlds and won't touch them until there is no risk of savegame corruption. It might take half a year if they keep their tendencies, less if they did any conclusions from prior releases or more judging by how many bugs there are (spoiler - more then taiga swamp has mosquitoes in the breeding time of year during decade's population peak).

OK, to name a few: loss of all tek engrams on transfer? Mindwipe? Both? No Deinonychus Saddle. Player weight changes on respawn. Swimming speed scales based on 864, 900 or 300 depending on... reasons? I was looking for Moelder mission terminal but got to some dark depths that awoke my thalassophobia that much I turned on ghost. Was it a hidden megacave or undermesh that doesn't teleport? I got there by cave system not touching rendering surfaces at all. Cheat ClearMyBuffs clears completed missions. Raptors don't pounce. I miss being pounced by wild raptors, it's like half the game is gone. I mean literally, I loved it. Many places during various ingame events in Lunar Biome kill audio on my PC. It used to be only on Ragnarok in several places like Green Obelisk and a spot in Highlands, now it's half the Lunar Biome. At least since a few months ago those don't kill my audio completely and I don't need restarting PC but just to exit the area. Progression commands like Defeat All Bosses, Max Ascend etc don't work anymore. Loot rewards for missions are extremely low in quality, loot crates look more like templates. And many, many more issues reported all over the forums and social networks by other people.

Bugs are numerous, bugs are bad, game couldn't be played if you don't intend massive usage of admin commands to restore your worlds. Or are they?

There might be some good in bugs too! Some players report broken cryopods with Genesis dinos. Fixing Genesis issues is at the top priority while fixing issues with Valguero is right over the P+ in the list. It's a great opportunity to fix a savegame corrupting long standing bug with Valguero Ice Wyverns breaking cryopods and Obelisk slots (in my case expiration timer is set to 2130000000 seconds that is 67.5 years without server files intervention). Constant console BSODs might be related to my sound card issues and be fixed simultaneously. We might get new admin commands, new server options. Some issues that are occurring every single big update like Extinction missing Horde Events might lead to developer team doing a mandatory QA check on those issues (good joke, right? But wonders happen when you believe in them. Some say). Such a big shock on the team will not be deadly but rather induce positive changes in the internal processes.

Many features need to be adjusted or balanced. Some need customization options. I have faith in the team that created impossible - ARK game. The virtual world was with me when there was nobody around during difficult times. I'm grateful for that. And I enjoy ARK and see a tendency of constant internal improvements in the company. Temporal inability to play my main cluster will eventually be solved.

I'm looking forward for Season Three!

P.S. I've proofread the text 4 times now but there will be errors and many because I feel really bad at the time of writing this due to bad health lately.

Here is a tiny Universe of #PositiveVibes for @Cedric to share with the team. You need them

[ShinDude]

3 hours ago, SAS said:

 the idea is excellent, the release went not tested nearly enough.

Here is a tiny Universe of #PositiveVibes for @Cedric to share with the team. You need them

I agree with almost all you say. 1000% with the first line of my quote. But then again that is what WC does and always has been doing. Excellent ideas with totally inadequate coding. They dont seem to have any pride in their work whatsoever... It seems like the paycheck decides if they are good or not.

 

Second line I sort of agree with but I'm sure they do find comfort in the money pouring in... A good and bug free game is secondary to them,