Hackers Still Here. Parity never was.

[Cruse]

Hackers Still Here. Parity never was.

Through all the years of this game since launch, I have tried to come back to it so many times. The griefers make it miserable to bring friends into the game, and the alpha tribes pretty much own the official servers keeping the overall community smaller than it should have been. Releasing to EPIC while never changing the inherent problem of there being zero chance low levels can advance without inbreeding into the alpha tribes, will cause this game to continue its lost promise with a slow bleedout of what could have been new fans of the game.

But all of that realization never stopped me from trying to give the game one more chance since its hard not to love the grind. Until tonight when a hacker just blew up one of my small resource bases. We arent talking about a typical PvP attack where they soak the turrets and make a skillful move. He literally flew over the top of my base low (heard the argentavis wings but didnt think anything of it since the tame-target turrets were quiet), landed, strolled up to the side of my base and C4d it. NOT A SINGLE SHOT fired by any of my turrets. Literally had wiped a few people in that exact same spot less than 30 minutes before that, and had just finished refilling my turrets when he showed up.

This was in the absolute pitch black of night in the jungle. You couldn't see a thing unless you had night vision. BUT AFTER he pulled that stunt, he literally ran way up the hill around numerous sight blocking rocks and trees to where I had respawned on a random hide bed in the bushes and was going to stay until he left. RAN THAT FAR RIGHT UP TO ME IN THE PITCH BLACK. Where you cant even see an outline of a person. And offered me my pickaxe back. Thought he was hilarious.

And now I realize after this much time and energy, whats the point? If thats possible, combined with the complete lack of any new players/tribes ever having a chance at parity in PVP (let alone the  rather creative griefers in PVE) then why bother trying to play this any longer? Why bother trying to get friends/coworkers into it for the first time after Epic threw them a bone to test it out? Most of them quit in the first week after joining one of the brand new servers only to have a server transfer alpha come in and wipe everything they had built instantly. Im guessing a lot of the new players from the Epic release will be feeling the same way about now.

TLDR: This game had INFINITE potential, but lax developers and the nearsighted, borderline toxic playerbase ruined its chances to loved by a much larger community.

[FraggleRock]

I've noticed, after an experience with a hacker, there of course is a community of hackers in this game. The "other hackers" logged onto the server because of the hacker I had an experience with. In the 4500+ hours I been playing the game it has only been 1 incident with a hacker. 

Using an experience with a hacker as an excuse is just that. Too many other variables that YOU need to address. 

[HoboNation]

4 hours ago, FraggleRock said:

I've noticed, after an experience with a hacker, there of course is a community of hackers in this game. The "other hackers" logged onto the server because of the hacker I had an experience with. In the 4500+ hours I been playing the game it has only been 1 incident with a hacker. 

Using an experience with a hacker as an excuse is just that. Too many other variables that YOU need to address. 

This is a bit subjective, You may be lucky enough to not have had many run in's with hackers and that could be down to many variables. Others however may not have been as lucky, I have less than half your hours and have had multiple experiences with hackers. Everything from under-meshing, ESP, aimbot, the list goes on... I still come back every now and then but I lost a lot of interest in the game due to the rampant hacker play, now sure hackers exist in almost every online game, however this doesnt mean that it should just be an accepted norm, some games hacking is much more rare due to the proactive action of certain dev teams to address and focus their efforts on punishing and reducing this phenomenon.

I have known a few friends who straight up stopped playing all together because of experiences with hackers. You see it isn't necessarily the experience itself that will turn a player off, it is how the situation is handled and what outcome can be expected. In Arks case the outcome and expectation is usually that nothing will be done and you will have to just take it on the chin, this is why many feel it's not worth the time to play a game like that, and to be honest I can't blame people who feel that way, even though I still play it is by no means as much as I used to, maybe I do one playthrough every few months, usually lasting a few days per playthrough. The potential of a hacker being able to come by and unfairly ruin hours of progress without any kind of fair fight or chance for you to defend yourself is one that is always looming over your head. When your only response to this, which would be to report them, often ends up being as effective as throwing a tissue at them... well you can imagine why that would make one feel it's time to try another game. This is why many have turned away from the game and it is indeed a valid reason not just an excuse.

PS all hackers are scum no matter the reasons they have for hacking. Usually they are bad at the game without the hacks they employ which is what makes it even more frustrating to be screwed over by such skill-less and sad individuals, but that is a rant for another thread :).