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PvP's Focus Is Too Offensive?


Crows

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PvP's Focus Is Too Offensive?

I've noticed that a lot of major updates add more offensive weaponry/systems and dinos than defensive. Yea, we have the Tek sensor, but that's so underwhelming... 

Many argue that defending is easier than attacking, but the whole point of PvP is risk/reward, so if you want to risk attacking a base for loot, it should be harder by nature because you're "entering" their "fort."

Much more time and effort goes into the defensive side of PvP over the offensive as well. Why make it increasingly easier to attack? I know the balance is hard to get right, but adding more defensive-type structures would help a ton because right now it's far too easy to attack/raid/soak, hence why most tribes (in the know) build in caves/OP spots.

 

For example

Super version of Plant X? a plant species that slows, adds poison effect and torpor to dinos/players, eventually knocking them out.

More reliable traps like... Flamethrower turret traps and Electric traps? or a TEK Death-ray that you can mount on the ground like a wind turbine and it zaps nearby players/dinos to death lol

Stronger/new structures, maybe behemoth walls and such. More variants of Spike Walls, maybe an electric fence that stuns dinos and dismounts riders, similar to the Jellyfish's stun.

TEK Flare turret: basically acts like a TEK Turret, but it shoots out a flare to destroy/soak an incoming projectile.

New/More non-tek weapons: Submachine guns, Fabricated 50. cal Sniper? I'm not a big fan of the combat system in general, especially the guns with no bullet dip and the horrendous recoil on Assault rifles and such. 

Just a few quick suggestions/ideas. I'm sure you guys can come up with better ideas.

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Was thinking about this my self recently currently the ark meta is solely aimed at the 10% who never log off. But no game should cater for such small numbers.

There’s not a base on this game that carnt be offlined in hours and if you don’t believe just go to any of the big tribes  On any server and ask them about there offline window ...it will Be zero.

 

A turret tower with 100 turrets on capped should be next to unshakable ....that’s endgame. But on this game you need five four racer and a tek tapey to destroy what is the Maxium achievable offline defence in minutes.

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1 hour ago, LE4SoDeadly said:

Was thinking about this my self recently currently the ark meta is solely aimed at the 10% who never log off. But no game should cater for such small numbers.

There’s not a base on this game that carnt be offlined in hours and if you don’t believe just go to any of the big tribes  On any server and ask them about there offline window ...it will Be zero.

 

A turret tower with 100 turrets on capped should be next to unshakable ....that’s endgame. But on this game you need five four racer and a tek tapey to destroy what is the Maxium achievable offline defence in minutes.

People aren't getting crushed by game mechanics.  They're getting crushed by people.

In pretty much every endeavor throughout the history of man, the person who's willing to work harder, sleep less, spend more, sacrifice more, learn more and bring more manpower will usually come out on top. You can change the rules of the game all you want, those folks will adjust their strategy and continue kicking the crap out of everyone.

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 I agree with the OP in the sense that PvP has become largely focused on offensive capabilities. In  my opinion the greatest pleasure of PvP is not the actual attack/raid but the tension and preparation before it, so I am also concerned about this. Back In the day alpha status meant something, but now alpha tribes come and go almost every other day on my server and there is no longer a sense of identity or comradery amongst those who stay.

I don't believe more defenses will help though. A tribe base needs to anticipate all methods of attack while the attackers need to only find one weakness in the base to bring it down. Therefore the attackers even on a level playing field will always have the advantage.

Add to this, the fact that most tribes that are defending have all of their eggs in one basket. If their base falls they go back to square zero and must regain not just their gear and tames, but also their production capabilities. 

Last but not least attackers tend to focus on tribes that are far weaker than them to heighten their advantage even more. You simply cannot win under some odds and that is the harsh reality that ark pvp brings to the table.

As a side note consider this: What if you manage to drive the raiders back? Are they going to just give up and leave you alone? Of course not, they are going to go resupply and come back with twice as much gear because at they end of the day they have the power and you don't. Extra turrets or new defenses will not change that. 

 

I'm not saying I like it, but this is the reality of the situation. Advantage will always favor the attacker in this game. Defending is a thing of the past. Bases exist to get crushed and reveal the attacker so that you may attack them back twice as hard. That's the only way to survive these days. 

Edit: Just wanted to add that i'm not against new base defense ideas. I actually made a recent suggestion of my own to add a few. I believe new defenses would be good to mix things up and keep the game interesting, but i simply don't believe that they are a viable alternative to playing offensively. 

 

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When you are new to this game it does seem like offense far too strong compared to defense in this game. However once you get some experienced, make some friends and a tribe with 10 or people, the game completely changes. Bases go from easy to raid to effectively unraidable.

Ever tried to online raid an island cave ? Its near impossible. 5 people could defend vs 65 people for several days easily. A center ice cave  or pearl cave? Abberation shadow or tree ? Valguero oil cave or abzone tree ? Extinction tree or city plat ? Practically impossible or incredibly hard if actually attempted,

Defense is much, much stronger than offense in this game once you understand PVP meta. On officials we have situation that bases have become effectively unraidable. None of the established tribes can wipe each other. We can just go to an enemy server and engage in pointless skirmishes and trash talking. But we cant wipe anyones bases because they live in unraidable caves or trees. The only time main bases get wiped is when tribes get insided. This has created a toxic game environment where the game has become about infiltrating tribes and insiding them instead of waging war, because legit pvp is pointless in a game where bases are practically immune to damage.

Devs have promised us cave nerfs since a year ago. They have not delivered. What they have done in last 12 months however is make caves even stronger. Such as remove giga mesh bite and ice titan mesh breath, which was only way to break stalemates lasting for weeks. They also made uncryod dinos take extra damaged and made turtles, which were only way to raid crouch caves like island ice, useless.

Most people who think defense is weak are bobs or new people. Their only information about the game come from watching youtube. You only watch the highlight vidoes showing the very end of a long, ardous struggle. Where someone managed to infiltrate an enemy tribe and drop a turret wall, or TP attackers in. Or end of a long weeks long siege. You watch the very rare exceptions when a base actually falls. You  dont know the amount of planning, resources and manpower involved in wiping a main base. As someone else wrote at end of day people are not being defeated by game mechanics. They are being defeated by people. People who were willing to work much harder and sacrifice much more.

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On 5/25/2020 at 1:04 AM, Logan96 said:

Add to this, the fact that most tribes that are defending have all of their eggs in one basket. If their base falls they go back to square zero and must regain not just their gear and tames, but also their production capabilities. 

True but another big problem is how easy it is to save your cryos/items, especially if you have another server or a friend that's in an OP spot who you can store your valuables with... I do like that, but it does make it so that getting wiped means nothing really. If you get wiped offline by surprise then of course you're going to lose much more than you wanted, but yeah, re-gearing/re-building is so easy nowadays. 

Everyone knows someone who can get them top eggs and stuff, it's crazy haha

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14 hours ago, covenantgrunt said:

Most people who think defense is weak are bobs or new people.

You're talking about OP spots/caves. You've missed the point of my topic.

Why do you think they've built in those caves? because bases outside of OP spots are EASY to wipe, hence my point all along.

The Ice Cave's strength is the crouch spot and the cave itself, which us players can only strengthen with structures, turrets, dinos, etc. (obviously) 

I'm talking about defensive structures, systems, dinos that could potentially allow us all to build out in the open again without EZ Tek Drake offline or easily soaking, etc. 

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On 5/25/2020 at 5:18 AM, Usuallyafk said:

Literally all endgame pvp is mana vs mana. Manas are still way too strong and the entire mechanics of them broke on ground pvp. Not to mention made most dinos useless. Breath damage should not scale. They were told at the start of extinction by thousands of people and it's still not fixed.

True. Another big reason I'm glad Manas aren't allowed on Genesis.

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58 minutes ago, Crows said:

You're talking about OP spots/caves. You've missed the point of my topic.

Why do you think they've built in those caves? because bases outside of OP spots are EASY to wipe, hence my point all along.

The Ice Cave's strength is the crouch spot and the cave itself, which us players can only strengthen with structures, turrets, dinos, etc. (obviously) 

I'm talking about defensive structures, systems, dinos that could potentially allow us all to build out in the open again without EZ Tek Drake offline or easily soaking, etc. 

You want outside land bases ? That's an easy fix. Get rid of the turret limit. Thats like the main reason why land bases are not very viable anymore. 100 turrets is not enough unless you have a turret wall at a chokepoint, hence cave meta. The original reason for turret limit which was turrets causing turret lag was bullpoop to begin with and does not even apply anymore. They said turrets add lag and then added velos. At this point just rid get of rid turret limit and game would be infinitely better,

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19 hours ago, covenantgrunt said:

When you are new to this game it does seem like offense far too strong compared to defense in this game. However once you get some experienced, make some friends and a tribe with 10 or people, the game completely changes. Bases go from easy to raid to effectively unraidable.

Ever tried to online raid an island cave ? Its near impossible. 5 people could defend vs 65 people for several days easily. A center ice cave  or pearl cave? Abberation shadow or tree ? Valguero oil cave or abzone tree ? Extinction tree or city plat ? Practically impossible or incredibly hard if actually attempted,

Defense is much, much stronger than offense in this game once you understand PVP meta. On officials we have situation that bases have become effectively unraidable. None of the established tribes can wipe each other. We can just go to an enemy server and engage in pointless skirmishes and trash talking. But we cant wipe anyones bases because they live in unraidable caves or trees. The only time main bases get wiped is when tribes get insided. This has created a toxic game environment where the game has become about infiltrating tribes and insiding them instead of waging war, because legit pvp is pointless in a game where bases are practically immune to damage.

Devs have promised us cave nerfs since a year ago. They have not delivered. What they have done in last 12 months however is make caves even stronger. Such as remove giga mesh bite and ice titan mesh breath, which was only way to break stalemates lasting for weeks. They also made uncryod dinos take extra damaged and made turtles, which were only way to raid crouch caves like island ice, useless.

Most people who think defense is weak are bobs or new people. Their only information about the game come from watching youtube. You only watch the highlight vidoes showing the very end of a long, ardous struggle. Where someone managed to infiltrate an enemy tribe and drop a turret wall, or TP attackers in. Or end of a long weeks long siege. You watch the very rare exceptions when a base actually falls. You  dont know the amount of planning, resources and manpower involved in wiping a main base. As someone else wrote at end of day people are not being defeated by game mechanics. They are being defeated by people. People who were willing to work much harder and sacrifice much more.

I dont know why you were downvoted for this. It's a very true and honest answer. New people like the OP will always cry about it. 

 

Do they think they *should* stand a chance against a tribe that's been fortifying their position for literal years?

 

Can a small booth compete against Walmart? No.

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On 5/24/2020 at 6:04 PM, Logan96 said:

 I agree with the OP in the sense that PvP has become largely focused on offensive capabilities. In  my opinion the greatest pleasure of PvP is not the actual attack/raid but the tension and preparation before it, so I am also concerned about this. Back In the day alpha status meant something, but now alpha tribes come and go almost every other day on my server and there is no longer a sense of identity or comradery amongst those who stay.

I don't believe more defenses will help though. A tribe base needs to anticipate all methods of attack while the attackers need to only find one weakness in the base to bring it down. Therefore the attackers even on a level playing field will always have the advantage.

Add to this, the fact that most tribes that are defending have all of their eggs in one basket. If their base falls they go back to square zero and must regain not just their gear and tames, but also their production capabilities. 

Last but not least attackers tend to focus on tribes that are far weaker than them to heighten their advantage even more. You simply cannot win under some odds and that is the harsh reality that ark pvp brings to the table.

As a side note consider this: What if you manage to drive the raiders back? Are they going to just give up and leave you alone? Of course not, they are going to go resupply and come back with twice as much gear because at they end of the day they have the power and you don't. Extra turrets or new defenses will not change that. 

 

I'm not saying I like it, but this is the reality of the situation. Advantage will always favor the attacker in this game. Defending is a thing of the past. Bases exist to get crushed and reveal the attacker so that you may attack them back twice as hard. That's the only way to survive these days. 

Edit: Just wanted to add that i'm not against new base defense ideas. I actually made a recent suggestion of my own to add a few. I believe new defenses would be good to mix things up and keep the game interesting, but i simply don't believe that they are a viable alternative to playing offensively. 

 

"Back In the day alpha status meant something, but now alpha tribes come and go almost every other day on my server"

Just my two cents. While Wildcard has a lot of screw ups atm, as solo / small 1-3 tribe player, i can't say im crying over the particular state of Alpha (or Zerg tribes as they should be called) who even meta in st servers. Just before i quit ark i remember Alpha tribes being the most toxic players. They're usually the ones who hunt you down for telling them to stop being cringy in general chat, capture and imprison beach bobs (who couldn't suicide for 2+ weeks through fall exploits at the time) and blocking bosses and taking personal offense when you try to solo liberate it with the other server Alpha tribe alliance hunting you down. That said, there's nothing wrong talking smack or raiding of pvping or wiping someone / getting wiped yourself, that's the fun. But if Zerg tribes were to have it their way, they would turn the official server into a desolate private server for their personal discord. Pvp is fun but not when its extremely one sided since as a side-effect they force the entire server to meta. Although this is more of a playerbase issue rather then a developer one, the developer is in charge of balancing such an issue.

 

But this is why i'm partly ok with defenses at their current state, if a tribe is able to hide in their base virtually forever with resource spamming and there's no realistic way for the majority of the smaller tribes / solo players to even organize and harm them so there needs to good offense abilities for these scenarios. But the situation still sucks for small tribes and solo players who are being targeted. In that scenario the best option is to be mobile af and make friends and if possible act as a merc so the blame isn't on you, but more on the people who hired you

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On 5/24/2020 at 10:18 PM, Usuallyafk said:

Literally all endgame pvp is mana vs mana. Manas are still way too strong and the entire mechanics of them broke on ground pvp. Not to mention made most dinos useless. Breath damage should not scale. They were told at the start of extinction by thousands of people and it's still not fixed.

KEK, for the 1000th time this. I quit ark when the mana was balls-deep-broken because it was just boring getting a bro and destroying everyone with ice beam. About a year later getting back into ark i see that they nerfed the mana, by alot "in theory" and to me it just seems like the mana went from "Balls on the Wall" OP to a mild 'Still OP but we won't admit it because its not as OP as before"

And to top it all off as i was looking up new counters for the current build a month of so ago, mana was still the popular search in a 3 month timeline. Its ASTONISHING how many kids are still crying about mana nerfing being unfair and bullpoop WHILE THE MANA IS STILL THE CURRENT META OVER A YEAR LATER! Its hilarious how in denial people are over it. But yea i, iv looked it up and apparently the mana counter is basically general dino counters, which of course is a great sign of balance when the only way to balance something is the method that's used on everything else. There is a good argument that "if it wasn't for the mana, it would just be the wyvern" which is a good arguement but the mana takes it to an extreme since the griffin at least doesn't have a saddle and is squishy. Removing the saddle and breeding would fix the mana, its such an obvious fix but then again its a rip off the band-aid solution that would piss off the unreasonables but fix the problem, pushing such a needed patch during a dino / tame add on is the best way to do it..

 

As it stands, I'm pretty much thinking about quitting again and maybe coming back another year later depending on the conclusion of the current server drama and/or the new flyer just to see if its a good mana counter.. Developers were smoking crack when they released the mana. 

 

edit; just to cry more and make this more tl;dr 

this is the trailer that got me to buy ark, now its kinda sad that all these dinos are irrelevant. Just to kill time i'm going to use my video editing skills to make a new trailer just showcasing manas in different biomes titled Ark: The Managarmr simulator

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7 hours ago, F1A1 said:

"Back In the day alpha status meant something, but now alpha tribes come and go almost every other day on my server"

Just my two cents. While Wildcard has a lot of screw ups atm, as solo / small 1-3 tribe player, i can't say im crying over the particular state of Alpha (or Zerg tribes as they should be called) who even meta in st servers. Just before i quit ark i remember Alpha tribes being the most toxic players. They're usually the ones who hunt you down for telling them to stop being cringy in general chat, capture and imprison beach bobs (who couldn't suicide for 2+ weeks through fall exploits at the time) and blocking bosses and taking personal offense when you try to solo liberate it with the other server Alpha tribe alliance hunting you down. That said, there's nothing wrong talking smack or raiding of pvping or wiping someone / getting wiped yourself, that's the fun. But if Zerg tribes were to have it their way, they would turn the official server into a desolate private server for their personal discord. Pvp is fun but not when its extremely one sided since as a side-effect they force the entire server to meta. Although this is more of a playerbase issue rather then a developer one, the developer is in charge of balancing such an issue.

 

Thanks for the detailed response. I agree that alphas can be extremely toxic and given the power gap between them and new players, this can definitly be an issue. Maybe I was just lucky, but I've had the benefit of meeting some great alpha tribes. To alot of players a good alpha helps the server and gives free stuff and all this other crap that i disagree with. 

The best alpha tribes I've ever met were the ones who didn't care about you, but they also left you alone (mostly). The best alpha tribes were territorial and if you got too close to their base you would get shot/eaten without warning. They didn't care about you even if you got big, but they wouldn't back down to any threats either. It was a mutual understanding on the server that if someone got big enough on the server they would challenge the alpha tribe and whichever tribe won would be the new alpha. 

The tribe that lost would get dissolved pretty quickly, as the victor would traditionally be pretty ruthless in their conquest, but it rarely extended beyond a tribe and their allies. On top of that the greatest alphas held no grudges. In fact it was pretty common to see a defeated tribe split apart and join the newer tribes, beginning the cycle all over again. This was one of the coolest things because even if a player lost their entire base and was a beach bob their name still held meaning and influence and over time we developed a sort of inner circle on the server, born out mutual respect for the veteran players who have managed to both stick around and rise up time and time again.

To me that is the biggest disappointment of the loss of alpha tribes. In a way each server had an identity. Alpha tribes were respected not out of fear or generosity, but just because they managed to gain and hold their position. I don't get that feeling anymore. Alpha tribes today fall too quickly to even gain an identity and i think its due not to a lack of defenses but because the player base on pvp has decided to favor aggression and conquest over maintaining a healthy official network. 

 

 

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On 5/24/2020 at 5:46 PM, johnm81 said:

Consider this though. Strong offensive minded changes are defensive as well. Strong offense can be a defenders best tool if they choose to 'counter attack'. So buffing offense buffs both.

Bro you missing the point. 70% of raids are offline.

Offense doesn't help an offline defense.  Better defensive tools do, though.

I agree - been saying it a long time.  Ark needs way more defensive capability for bases.  The game takes a long time to tame dinos and get setup only to be wrecked easily.

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12 hours ago, Skiidzman said:

Bro you missing the point. 70% of raids are offline.

Offense doesn't help an offline defense.  Better defensive tools do, though.

I agree - been saying it a long time.  Ark needs way more defensive capability for bases.  The game takes a long time to tame dinos and get setup only to be wrecked easily.

You are right that buffing offense only aids online defense. But you need to understand why buffed defense rule sets like orp only work when you are offline. Minor buffs for off line defense are several factors more potent when a defender is online. It would be impossible to balance that.

You want to boost offline defense?Put in a far more complex and comprehensive tribe privilege system so tribes can aggressively recruit without fear of insiding and can insure players are always on.

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On 5/28/2020 at 1:45 PM, F1A1 said:

 

KEK, for the 1000th time this. I quit ark when the mana was balls-deep-broken because it was just boring getting a bro and destroying everyone with ice beam. About a year later getting back into ark i see that they nerfed the mana, by alot "in theory" and to me it just seems like the mana went from "Balls on the Wall" OP to a mild 'Still OP but we won't admit it because its not as OP as before"

And to top it all off as i was looking up new counters for the current build a month of so ago, mana was still the popular search in a 3 month timeline. Its ASTONISHING how many kids are still crying about mana nerfing being unfair and bullpoop WHILE THE MANA IS STILL THE CURRENT META OVER A YEAR LATER! Its hilarious how in denial people are over it. But yea i, iv looked it up and apparently the mana counter is basically general dino counters, which of course is a great sign of balance when the only way to balance something is the method that's used on everything else. There is a good argument that "if it wasn't for the mana, it would just be the wyvern" which is a good arguement but the mana takes it to an extreme since the griffin at least doesn't have a saddle and is squishy. Removing the saddle and breeding would fix the mana, its such an obvious fix but then again its a rip off the band-aid solution that would piss off the unreasonables but fix the problem, pushing such a needed patch during a dino / tame add on is the best way to do it..

 

As it stands, I'm pretty much thinking about quitting again and maybe coming back another year later depending on the conclusion of the current server drama and/or the new flyer just to see if its a good mana counter.. Developers were smoking crack when they released the mana. 

 

edit; just to cry more and make this more tl;dr 

this is the trailer that got me to buy ark, now its kinda sad that all these dinos are irrelevant. Just to kill time i'm going to use my video editing skills to make a new trailer just showcasing manas in different biomes titled Ark: The Managarmr simulator

Yeah you really hit the mark honestly. There is just endless problems that we know won't get fixed, but why make dinos so blatantly broken? I can list the details but at this point does it really matter lmao. How long were unlimited jumps on manas a thing and how many design people seen that and said "looks good".....that really sums it all up without rambling on haha.

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Caves shouldn't be buildable, and the game should allow defense in the open, THAT is the only way to make it fair. Yea yea call me a beach bob, bla bla. I don't play pvp anymore because of this issue, and trust me, my tribe went well beyond bob status, but we always loose, because everyone always looses, you just can't "win". Not in the sense that I used to think of winning, which is to build up a base that you will be safe in. The only way I saw to do that was to move to pve.

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