Jump to content

OVERCROWDED NA PVE SERVERS - HOW CAN I EVEN PLAY?


steel777777

Recommended Posts

OVERCROWDED NA PVE SERVERS - HOW CAN I EVEN PLAY?

Hi Guys!!!

I have been playing Ark since the early beginnings and have recently started playing again after taking a break for a year.

I first filtered through all the "Official", NON legacy servers (PVE) to see which server I should start off with.

The first server I selected, I was spawned into someone's base. As I ran around I noticed I couldn't build ANYWHERE as 

it was so extremely overcrowded, with small and large bases, and pillars literally everywhere I went.

I then proceeded to try another server........then another and another.

Each and every Official, non legacy PVE server I went to was the same exact thing!!!

I tried one last thing, I went to Battlemetrics and picked the least popular Official, non legacy PVE server I could find. It was in the range of 300-400 in ranking.

That was also exactly the same....simply overcrowded, in almost every spot on the map (I flew around and looked).

With that being said, the LAG SPIKES on all my trials was absolutely CRAZY. The game was BARELY playable. 

On all trials the spikes happened at least every 5 minutes, lasting anywhere from 10-45 seconds.

My question is this, How is anyone supposed to be able to enjoy the game?

I know you will say, "play solo" or "find a non official server" but what if someone wants to play with other people on an official server?

Since the game is so popular now and has progressed to a really good game, WHY are there no new official servers being added

every so often as more and more people start to play?

I just wanted to see what people out there think about all this.

Thanks :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, GrumpyBear said:

I can show u plenty of places.  Even as bad as genesis is right now,  there’s tons of open space in harsh places but it’s there.

Today we were in Built Fjord Tough Mission area. Tons of space. 

I can also go to just about any Val server and find land in the Redwoods by the border.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's some points to be made on this topic. Most of the following is subjective and based on my own experience, so it's a matter of perspective I suppose.

First, Official Servers don't cover China, south America, and some other areas of the globe, so players from these parts have migrated to EU and NA servers. Wildcard could care less about the overpopulation, and aren't technically obligated to even provide official servers, so good luck finding any sympathy from them. They don't play on Official or Legacy, and seeing a GM is a rarity. Lost your toon? lost your dinos? good luck with that.

Second, there's a stark difference between "free" maps like the Island, Ragnarok and Valguero, and "paid" maps that require Expansion passes like Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction and Genesis. For the most part, you're going to find the most toxic players and the most overcrowding on the free maps, and more than likely you'll see the Island, Rag, The Center and Valg crashing far more often than the paid maps due to said toxic players. Toxic players build massive bases, have all their dinos unpodded during events, troll general chat, pillar large areas, and generally are the cause of server instability and crashes, especially during events. If you want to find servers/maps that aren't overcrowded, then get the expansions and play on those maps. Also, the ping that you see in the server browser is not always correct. I've played on Oceana servers where the ping said 200ms in the browser, but ingame it was barely 40ms ping. NA servers you'll often find the opposite, especially on weekends and during events.

Third, a lot of players are in isolation or quarantine, so there's a lot more people online right now. Add to that Wildcard is doing large breeding events, which means the breeders have all their dinos unpodded, and are online constantly. 

Trust me, play during the week when it's 1x rates and there isn't a global pandemic, and most of the servers will be a ghost town. That's just how it is sadly. Until Wildcard add further restrictions to base sizes and dino limits, PVE official is going to be rough going during events/weekends. especially on the free maps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

B4 anyone says “they need to wipe the severs” wiping servers won’t do ANYTHING I’ve tried to say this many times but people especially newer players just complain and complain, keep switching servers till you find an empty one, that’s what I did and now I play on a small rag official server which only has like 5 main players, I’ve been playing on there since Halloween event. you just have to find the right one, look past recommended spawn points, that’s going to be the biggest pillared region, look away from the water and go farther inland. The only reason ark wont wipe is because they know people will leave and won’t come back, they’ve watched it happen to a ton of other pve games, players leaving=losing money, thus why our lazy game creators won’t wipe. Another reason is because players will already be built up and have pillars every where and laggy bases in a months time, Ive seen multiple tribes join and with in a week have huge box bases, then within a month those box bases are filled with tons of Dino’s making it a lag bomb. People will also take vantage of the wipe and pillar even larger areas, no bases means more room for them I guess. I do think a pillar rule should be added to make it so you can only pillar so far It sounds complicated but they could find ways. Now the ping idk it’s always high when there’s 1 person on, Ive seen servers with 5x more bases have the same ping and lag as a server with small bases. 
I don’t know if you every heard of these people but there’s A group on a few servers who will watch people with the big box bases, if people log on just to feed them log off, they kite them sadly, I love them but hate them at the same time but they do keep a lot of servers lag free and give us a lot more room, they also kite people who pillar large amounts of areas, again I love them but hate them lol. I’d wait till this three times event is done then try to find a base. Usally servers are better when there isn’t a event going on!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hello Early Birds,

I am far from saying "wipe the servers". That would be the last thing I would want. The problem as I see it is the 20-45 second Lag Issue.

The new Official PVE Server I am on right now as of late last night has the same exact issue, 20-40 second lag times every so often even when there are only 10 people on in the middle of the night. Not only that but after I was on for a bit, it crashed for 4.5 hours!!!

There are 2 things that would help these issues. Both are fairly obvious, Upgrade to modern servers that can handle the load.....we are in 2020 and I know great powerful servers out there. Second, since the game has become so popular, and I am sure they are having really good profits, simply add more servers to handle the increase of players who wish to play on Official. 

I don't know what their situation as to finances, overhead, salaries, etc are but I feel fairly confident that they are not starving.

So that said, again, I do not wish for any server wipe, that is my biggest nightmare after investing over 2400 hours into the game.

All this is of course just my opinion, but people should be talking about it. Maybe they will hear.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, Aushegun said:

UNofficial servers is the way to go.

What Aushegen says. Once you go Unofficial you dont go back and then you wonder why you put up with the shenanigans that is Official. Servers are actually somewhat stable and admins are actually active in policing servers and helping with issues.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I still think there should be building limits based on tribe size or something. That being said, if you don't pillar some parts of the map, people will build right over dino spawns and resources, then you won't be able to get tributes for boss fights or gather materials. Some pillaring is pointless though, although some people just don't want others building next to them because people build like they think they have an infinite lego set and that crap will crash them as soon as they try logging in. 

Best thing to do is level up and make a raft base, so you can start gathering and exploring until you find a place to settle down. A lot of servers will have structures timing out, so keep an eye on timers when you go by where someone has built. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

you shut down the only suggestions i have OP.  alot of people here will tell you that technically there is non prime real estate to build in on official servers but personally who pays to buy a game and essentially live in the ark ghetto hemmed in on all sides by greedy bastards trying to gentrify your neighborhood into a park with the cunning use of pillars.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, AngrySaltire said:

What Aushegen says. Once you go Unofficial you dont go back and then you wonder why you put up with the shenanigans that is Official. Servers are actually somewhat stable and admins are actually active in policing servers and helping with issues.

I went back. ?

Official and the larger community is just more fun despite the problems to me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Issues from week one of Ark's original release:

 

  • Pillars/foundations - You'll find a slew of excuses to justify it too: Protecting land, future base location, tribemate will be building, protecting resources/spawns, dont want new neighbors up your ass, etc
  • Non-Region based servers. - You can say its a NA server, but non NA players can still play on it, thus: Language barriers, lack of cultural understanding issues, etc Ark has been and continues to be, one of the few online games with no enforced region locks.

People will give you the usual top two responses: Play unofficial or "There are tons of open spots on my official server" which, when youre new or level one, means jack since the "open spots" are the snow or an outrageous cliff area requiring architectural ingenuity.

But as has been mentioned: Its a PVP game that took off better then expected with a team that wasnt sure how to handle PVE which is why zero solutions to issues such as pillaring, has ever been implemented. Welcome to Ark: Survival Evolved.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, JetJaguar said:

Issues from week one of Ark's original release:

 

  • Pillars/foundations - You'll find a slew of excuses to justify it too: Protecting land, future base location, tribemate will be building, protecting resources/spawns, dont want new neighbors up your ass, etc
  • Non-Region based servers. - You can say its a NA server, but non NA players can still play on it, thus: Language barriers, lack of cultural understanding issues, etc Ark has been and continues to be, one of the few online games with no enforced region locks.

People will give you the usual top two responses: Play unofficial or "There are tons of open spots on my official server" which, when youre new or level one, means jack since the "open spots" are the snow or an outrageous cliff area requiring architectural ingenuity.

But as has been mentioned: Its a PVP game that took off better then expected with a team that wasnt sure how to handle PVE which is why zero solutions to issues such as pillaring, has ever been implemented. Welcome to Ark: Survival Evolved.

Even as a low level you can start building a small base on a raft and use it as a base while staying close to the beach to avoid leeds

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Oli4 said:

Even as a low level you can start building a small base on a raft and use it as a base while staying close to the beach to avoid leeds

So Im a new player who just plunked out money to by the game. I see the huge, Walmart/Home Depot sized bases with tons and tons of dinos of all kinds, ranging over massive areas of land. I too, want tons and tons of dinos and a big base and the response is: Go build a small raft young man?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, JetJaguar said:

So Im a new player who just plunked out money to by the game. I see the huge, Walmart/Home Depot sized bases with tons and tons of dinos of all kinds, ranging over massive areas of land. I too, want tons and tons of dinos and a big base and the response is: Go build a small raft young man?

Start with the raft, get some levels, early game tames, get better, tame your birst bird, find an area to build your base(plenty of areas on all servers), become walmart/home depot sized base?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pro Tip: Ocean Platforms

  • Cheap
  • Plenty of areas to place them
  • Safe
  • Accessible

I know pillaring sucks but I even admit I'm part of the problem because if I dont, I'll have others pillar to death around my base (as seen on my rag server). On their one game Atlas, they tried a method with flags and territories but its a total disaster last time I played it so this problem unfortunately wont go away anytime soon. Best to adapt. 

One really cool thing you can do though is like for example you pillar too much and some noob is looking for a base spot, ask them if they'd like to check out that area you dont need and give it to them. I've seen it done on my server, it really helps out a lot and creates an overall pleasant server vibe. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now hear me out, since ark won’t listen to us let’s MAKE them listen, I don’t think they really will care but they might, listen to my tiny plan lmao,

what if we gather 100s of ark players and on the same date at the same time send the same quote like “save ark” or something and say the problem we have, wed attack their email, Twitter etcetc, like a riot!
but one more comment soon rafts are going to be a reck because of the ocean platforms, they are very useful but people are building bridges with them now to islands! Our waters will soon become a lag bomb more then it already is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, ButterMilk said:

Now hear me out, since ark won’t listen to us let’s MAKE them listen, I don’t think they really will care but they might, listen to my tiny plan lmao,

what if we gather 100s of ark players and on the same date at the same time send the same quote like “save ark” or something and say the problem we have, wed attack their email, Twitter etcetc, like a riot!
but one more comment soon rafts are going to be a reck because of the ocean platforms, they are very useful but people are building bridges with them now to islands! Our waters will soon become a lag bomb more then it already is.

That group attack idea is just dumb and I don't recommend you do that.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...