how do players tolerate official PvE servers for ark?

[myArkCharisDED]

how do players tolerate official PvE servers for ark?

I decided to play on official servers solo so it could bar me from using creative mode started on valguero 560 wasn't too bad i guess? aside from the constant pause on the server every 15 minutes which if some are unaware it will rubberband the crap out of your character or even DC you from the server.

It started out as a minor nuisance but grew more and more as i started building up getting dinos and overall becoming frustrating i eventually ended up with a big established base and was content with it because now i finally had a place where i could expand add a bunch of big dinos and maybe start breeding dinos for boss fights had a garden with a bunch of materials irrigation power so on.

The final nail in the coffin was when i was using a Mana dino and for whatever reason i can use argents perfectly fine no problems except for the occasional random dc once every week or something nothing major but with this guy i ended up disconnecting roughly 8 to 9 times in the course of only 30 minutes in one of these disconnects it propelled me into the air so when i reconnected i ended up falling to my death because i did not bring a parachute with me and could not find my body because the corpse locator bugged on me.

Sure people can reply i should have had a parachute in the first place but having to have extra weight on my character just because the server decides to break every 15 minutes is a bit of a chore to say the least.

With me being demotivated i ended up moving to another server aberration 380 where i would have thought the grass would be greener on the other side.

Turns out i was wrong again what was even better was this server decided to go down for approximately 8 hours ? when i decided to upload my character to this server because it had the lowest ping and least amount of players on it at the time apparently the server was down for the whole night it probably just popped up for a few minutes when i saw it and then it went back offline so i was stuck in aberration for quite a while and when i did finally load into the game i was immediately greeted with a awful spawn where somebody thought it was a good idea to place a teleporter right on top of a spawn point.

I don't see how this is allowed but i guess my stone pillars are more important to delete and my refining forge than these people deliberately blocking players out of a public server.

After getting out of that nonsense i go to a lootcrate to pick up my dinos and start to look for places to build of course all the gas collectors are occupied as to be expected except for the scornful players who decide to leave a open gas vein with no gas collector but hey lets build a tek pillar right next to it.

I really hate how players can get away with stuff like this completely barring new players access to materials that allow them to delve in to the spine.

Luckily there are players who have public gas collectors that is something i commend and thank immensely for these players sharing, but that is where the good ends and the bad parts start up again.

The ground level of this map is cluttered with so many bases and alot of people that see new players are practically shunned from access to anything but a transmitter to get out of "their" server.

You can end up getting stuck inside somebodies base just from running around because the rendering takes ages.

So i thought to myself since i cannot build on the ground i might as well build on the cliffs since this map does in fact allow for cliff platforms which is a very cool feature and there is plenty of fungal wood so i decided to fly up look for a spot to start processing materials i find a high up spot to start placing the cliff platforms and then i decided to head to bed afterwards.

I come back the next day to find out all my stone pillars were destroyed and my refining forge and smithy were also destroyed mind you i build purposefully at a area where dinos would not spawn even had a foundation placed to prevent spawning and guess what? My pillars refining forge and smithy were all destroyed i placed a vault a good chainsaw and a bunch of materials for building in the smithy and remember in pve there is offline damage prevention so my conclusion was a player probably complained about it to somebody and the GM probably destroyed it without a care in the world i guess because they considered it to be a eyesore for these other players bases but it was only temporary because i was trying to become situated on the server.

So i settle with storage boxes for the time luckily most of my mats were on another dino i had out at the time and i continue with the base of 9 or 10 connected cliff platforms it started turning out great because they were pretty much all leveled right next to each i was enjoying it because i typically do not build on cliffs and then the 15 minute lag happens.

I was telling myself please dont fall off a cliff because i was really high up so i didn't fall but came really close to falling.

However, two minutes later the game decided to lag again next thing i know im at the bottom of somebodies dino pen and since my mobile dinos were up at the cliff i have no means of getting up there or getting to my body.

That right there was the final straw for me playing on official after that i decided to just play on single player and just spawn in the dinos i have obtained during the course of playing on official and a base similar to what i had.

The support for this game to get anything done takes too long and they honestly could care less about what happens to the unfortunate players that decide to try out their official PvE servers.

Stick to unofficial servers or single player/ host if you want the best possible ark experience.

[Yggdrassil]

The sad thing is, that is ark in a nutshell. You get glitched, lagged, pillared or annoy someone that they grief you. I've lost so much and shouted at this game every time i play it, quit daily, yet i still play it...

It could be a great game, however ive never known a game to patch so often yet fix so little, with a new developer and more frequent content ark could be a very good game.

[TraXz]

Honestly, I just read the title. This wall of text without line breaking and massive lack of dots is not enjoyable to read. 

But based on the title: 
- The good thing about PVE on official servers for me is the great community and that it's always populated. You can always find someone to do a nice trade.
- The fact that i'm able to travel between a high amount of servers / maps, I can keep my character and progress with it. I had the same character since early access. 
- I like that no admin has the control of the server and doesn't decide who is allowed to do this and that. And most important is not abusing his admin rights. 
- The server is always up to date with the newest patch, I have experienced slow dedicated servers in terms up staying up to date with the newest patch (This is a long time ago, it might be different now)
- I like the 'standard' rates of harvesting, breeding and taming. This keeps the grind and end-game for a lot longer period and makes it a bit more challenging. 

The downside is obviously that the servers lags quite a lot when highly populated, but if you play on older servers (except from TheIsland), they are actually quite good. 

[FreeEnergyDrink]

People get depressed, rage quit, cry because of Ark Lags, Glitches, Bugs.. and WC doesnt care.

The days are counting down for ark... 

[Fukushu]

A better save system like many other big games like RUST, conan exile use would be great. Constant server saves without the need to pause the game every 15 minutes for up to 60+ seconds depending on the server, a wish come true.

You are wasting so much time just doing nothing if you calculate the server saves up. You have 8 server saves in only 2 hours x 30-60sec = 4 minutes.

You waste 4 minutes a day if you ''only'' play 2 hours daily which is crazy. Four minutes just gone down the drain because ARK doesn't have better save system for their already bad servers that constantly lag. (Would be way more on my Ragna/Extinction server 45-60sec save time)

This is just frustrating and lead me to play way, way less. I'm now one of the people who just log in every 13-14 days to refresh their bases in hopes that Wildcard/Snail Games will finally change something. Sadly I don't believe that they will ever fix the server save mechanics because most people seem to have just accepted it as it is. It's like accepting the horrible pain in your body that you have adjusted to instead of actually working on it or seeking help...

[yekrucifixion187]

4 hours ago, FreeEnergyDrink said:

People get depressed, rage quit, cry because of Ark Lags, Glitches, Bugs.. and WC doesnt care.

The days are counting down for ark... 

How exactly long do you expect a game to keep going? They are celebrating 5 years this summer and have hit their three highest peak player totals on steam this year (their 4th) so I think they are doing fine. 

The Ark Doomsday prophecy is always a good chuckle.

[yekrucifixion187]

46 minutes ago, Fukushu said:

It's like accepting the horrible pain in your body that you have adjusted to instead of actually working on it or seeking help...

I like this example and it leads to a poignant response which is some things are just age and it's financially impossible/irresponsible to invest what you would need to keep these servers/your body in the same condition as when they/it was new.

There's a reason band aids sell well. Surgery for every nick is unfeasible.

[invincibleqc]

7 hours ago, myArkCharisDED said:

My pillars refining forge and smithy were all destroyed i placed a vault a good chainsaw and a bunch of materials for building in the smithy and remember in pve there is offline damage prevention so my conclusion was a player probably complained about it to somebody and the GM probably destroyed it without a care in the world i guess because they considered it to be a eyesore for these other players bases but it was only temporary because i was trying to become situated on the server.

They most likely auto-decayed after 12 hours because they were not snapped.

[TraXz]

6 hours ago, FreeEnergyDrink said:

People get depressed, rage quit, cry because of Ark Lags, Glitches, Bugs.. and WC doesnt care.

The days are counting down for ark... 

They are actually having a lot of active players and a good sale. 
The sad part is, that they don't invest in some better servers and more competent staff. 

[nameless]

2 hours ago, TraXz said:

They are actually having a lot of active players and a good sale. 
The sad part is, that they don't invest in some better servers and more competent staff. 

In a business perspective, I don't know how they did the math.

Now that more people staying at home and with so many games discounting (ARK did too). It isn't surprising that the number of ARK players increased.

However, when the potential buyers of ark depletes, and the players who bought ark progresses in game, when they found out they can lose everything in game due to a glitch in official and un officials can shut down at any time, I don't think they will keep playing and buy more DLCs. Then the sales will probably decrease since most people who wanted to try ARK already bought it during discount and the DLCs are not sold (I assumes  people do not by DLC instantly when they bought base game. Long term income is reduced since: 1, DLCs are not sold. And 2, most potential buyers bought this game at 1/4 of the price

 

What I see now is that whoever running ark are sacrificing long-term interest for a burst of income. Are they gathering liquid cash to push for a final change? Or are they extracting as much as they could from this game before it collapses? I wish it is the former and not the later.

 

 

[nameless]

Sigh..... I feel like I have been in form more than I had ever before, since I had been spending much more time waiting for a crashed server to get online...……..

[ishootpaint]

 Dude, use paragraphs FFS. Your wall of text is higher than my defenses on pvp.

[Luewen]

8 hours ago, Fukushu said:

A better save system like many other big games like RUST, conan exile use would be great. Constant server saves without the need to pause the game every 15 minutes for up to 60+ seconds depending on the server, a wish come true.

You are wasting so much time just doing nothing if you calculate the server saves up. You have 8 server saves in only 2 hours x 30-60sec = 4 minutes.

You waste 4 minutes a day if you ''only'' play 2 hours daily which is crazy. Four minutes just gone down the drain because ARK doesn't have better save system for their already bad servers that constantly lag. (Would be way more on my Ragna/Extinction server 45-60sec save time)

This is just frustrating and lead me to play way, way less. I'm now one of the people who just log in every 13-14 days to refresh their bases in hopes that Wildcard/Snail Games will finally change something. Sadly I don't believe that they will ever fix the server save mechanics because most people seem to have just accepted it as it is. It's like accepting the horrible pain in your body that you have adjusted to instead of actually working on it or seeking help...

Server save is required nuisance. Game cannot save without pause with the amount of crap are built on the servers. The map save sizes are huge. Fresh server with few players and few structures save in less than second. But more poop players build and tame longer the save is gonna take.

 

[nameless]

 

10 minutes ago, Luewen said:

Server save is required nuisance. Game cannot save without pause with the amount of crap are built on the servers. The map save sizes are huge. Fresh server with few players and few structures save in less than second. But more poop players build and tame longer the save is gonna take.

 

I just wish they can at least save more important things.

Such like saving when a blueprint/ cryopod is transferred, when a character is down loaded, or when a boss fight/ ascension is initiated.

The ideal is that if a server crashes, cryopods , characters and blueprints transferred into server will not be lost or duplicated, and creatures in a bossfight/ ascension will be reverted to before they entered arena.

 

 

It will also be nice to have a 5 minute pause before time starts flowing after a server restart 

[Fukushu]

@LuewenI simply do not believe that there is not a better solution for the server save mechanic. Just because there is a lot of stuff doesn't mean the servers shouldn't be able to constantly save the changes and progress of the servers. How do other big games handle this? The game has been out for 5 years like @yekrucifixion187said but there is always room for improvement when it comes to such important issues.

Laggy official servers, server crashes and the 15 minutes server saves are constant bothering issues. The betterment of those should be the highest priority UNLESS 90% of all ARK players do not play on official. I sadly have not found anything that compares both playerbases but I believe that the overwhelming population plays on official since it's the first thing you see when starting up the game as a fresh player.

All effort should be put into fixing lags, crashes, game breaking bugs/other heavy game breaking issues and possibly finding new ways to handle the 15 minute server saves. Cheaters, dupers, hackers, new content should be addressed after the game is in a state that doesn't remind you of some early access games...

Wildcard/Snail Games have simply stopped looking further into ways to improve the server saves because the community just drags it around with them as a necessary evil. People have simply accepted it as ''that's just how it is'' instead of pushing for anything better...

I would gladly play more ARK again if it wouldn't waste 4-6 minutes every 2 hours I play this game with server saves. I didn't even take the time into account where you fall into lava, randomly die, get stuck into other bases or jump and fly outside the map boarder because of it. The 4-6 minutes are just the standard wasted time on saves in 2 hours on normally populated servers. Some of you have played this game for 10k hours and just by calculating it upwards you have wasted 300+ hours on server saves...that's 12+ days of your life. (Not that you probably care anymore while already pumping 10k hours into a game  )

[Luewen]

22 hours ago, Fukushu said:

@LuewenI simply do not believe that there is not a better solution for the server save mechanic. Just because there is a lot of stuff doesn't mean the servers shouldn't be able to constantly save the changes and progress of the servers. How do other big games handle this? The game has been out for 5 years like @yekrucifixion187said but there is always room for improvement when it comes to such important issues.

Laggy official servers, server crashes and the 15 minutes server saves are constant bothering issues. The betterment of those should be the highest priority UNLESS 90% of all ARK players do not play on official. I sadly have not found anything that compares both playerbases but I believe that the overwhelming population plays on official since it's the first thing you see when starting up the game as a fresh player.

All effort should be put into fixing lags, crashes, game breaking bugs/other heavy game breaking issues and possibly finding new ways to handle the 15 minute server saves. Cheaters, dupers, hackers, new content should be addressed after the game is in a state that doesn't remind you of some early access games...

Wildcard/Snail Games have simply stopped looking further into ways to improve the server saves because the community just drags it around with them as a necessary evil. People have simply accepted it as ''that's just how it is'' instead of pushing for anything better...

I would gladly play more ARK again if it wouldn't waste 4-6 minutes every 2 hours I play this game with server saves. I didn't even take the time into account where you fall into lava, randomly die, get stuck into other bases or jump and fly outside the map boarder because of it. The 4-6 minutes are just the standard wasted time on saves in 2 hours on normally populated servers. Some of you have played this game for 10k hours and just by calculating it upwards you have wasted 300+ hours on server saves...that's 12+ days of your life. (Not that you probably care anymore while already pumping 10k hours into a game  )

There might be but not feasible to rewrite the netcode and file structure at this time of game life. It would take loooot of work. How will you move allmost a 1 gb of data off the server without pausing the server? You can test it yourself by taking a 1 gb file and copying it to other drive or folder while at same trying to start a game or play on same drive. It will grind to halt or take a looot l ger to start up.

 

And on other note, there are no other big games with similar scope or file structure to ark. Or us much data needed to be saved. 
The file structure here is a mess. There is ton of small files needed to be saved. And multiple small files is the worst time taker on copying files. It takes a looot longer to move 1gb of hundreds of files than single 1gb file.

[Luewen]

On 5/11/2020 at 5:44 AM, nameless said:

 

I just wish they can at least save more important things.

Such like saving when a blueprint/ cryopod is transferred, when a character is down loaded, or when a boss fight/ ascension is initiated.

The ideal is that if a server crashes, cryopods , characters and blueprints transferred into server will not be lost or duplicated, and creatures in a bossfight/ ascension will be reverted to before they entered arena.

 

 

It will also be nice to have a 5 minute pause before time starts flowing after a server restart 

The items are ”saved” when you upload them to transfer. They are just not saved when downloaded until a server save. Otherwise the server would need to do portion of a small save every time item is downloaded. And that is gonna cause a brief lag. And now thing 20 ppl doing it. The waiting on server saves would be small hindrance when you get a hic up every time someone transfers items. That on top of a normal lag. Would be a mess sadly.