My First Experience of Official (PvE)

[Myrm]

My First Experience of Official (PvE)

Hi

I have been playing Ark on PC, PS4 and Xbox for several years now, though I exclusively only play on Xbox for the moment.  I have always played on solo, and for the past 6 months on my own private server.  I have never played on an official server.  So yesterday I decided to go take a look at what playing on an official PvE server is like.  I am too chicken to play on PvP ?  I will probably create a character to check out a PvP server, out of curiosity more than anything else; after all, it's only a a game - It's not like I will die in real life, right? Right? ?

Anyway, the very first thing that struck me as I awoke and explored the immediate area ("Footpaw") on my first official PvE server is the amount of pillaring that goes on.  I can understand some pillaring taking place around spawn points, to protect these areas.  But the pillaring I witnessed goes far beyond the spawn areas.  For example, on the PvE server I entered, the metal pillaring extends all over the south spawn areas, including that island near the red obelisk.  I haven't  checked out the rest of the island yet.

I always thought that pillaring was forbidden on official servers.  Most of the pillars seem to be placed by one particular player/tribe.  It's not as if though the person who placed the pillars has a base next to them.  

My question is; why do people pillar like this?  Is it to protect spawn areas or is it some player taking it upon themselves to dictate where other players can and can not build?  Does reporting pillaring work?  Do the devs/moderators take any notice of pillaring reports?  Just curious.

Many thanks. 

[Zapha]

Another reason is base lag. You don't want a borg cube in render range of your base.

[Myrm]

2 hours ago, Zapha said:

Another reason is base lag. You don't want a borg cube in render range of your base.

 

The lag without the pillars here is bad.  Bases are created so big that the lag is awful when they first render in.  

[Zapha]

I played a while on The Island too, but I can only advising against this map. Not only that it's packed most of all maps, they running on old hardware, you don't get chainsaws from drops, black pearls are nearly impossible to get, no special dinos and so on.

I read often that players want to play the maps in the order they came out, but hey, this needs passion and motivation for years. I'm happy with Crystal Isles, the servers running good, much space to build, I could pillar half the map if I want. If you want move stuff in and out then Valguero is a good choice ... but not The Island.

[Myrm]

1 hour ago, LEDminer said:

And don't forget the creatures... people have enough dinos out in their base to fill up the sun.

If people used their cryopods more, I suppose the lag could ease a little bit.

Yes, I noticed that too.  Tribes with so many dinos that it really slows down rendering.  

[FraggleRock]

My advice would be unofficial PVE - I am enjoying it. 

[Myrm]

2 hours ago, FraggleRock said:

My advice would be unofficial PVE - I am enjoying it. 

Indeed. I have my own unofficial PvE Xbox server. I just logged onto an official server out if curiosity. 

[sjskdjkfa]

In pve a reasonable amount of pillaring is allowed. My problem with the current system is they don't do much to define how much you can/should pillar. I've seen dozens of posts where the punished person comes here and claims they got punished capriciously, and they didn't have that many pillar, but now all their stuff is gone for no reason. People trying to claim a render range around their main base, trying to protect metal mountains, etc. usually don't get punished. People trying to claim a substantial fraction of a map do. You also can't pillar people in, which is also ambiguous. Countless times peoples pillars buff up against other peoples land claims, and if it's near to a base then the base can't expand so they say they are getting boxed in. Often those get resolved in global, but sometimes one of them gets punished.

[Zahlea]

16 hours ago, Zapha said:

I read often that players want to play the maps in the order they came out, but hey, this needs passion and motivation for years.

I'm one of those people  I've played on and off since the game came out - so that's on and off for 5 years! - and I'm still on The Island ? I have checked out some of the other maps for a little bit, but I'm still committed to doing it in "the right order". I'll let you know how that goes... in about another 5 years or so ?

 

15 minutes ago, LEDminer said:

The worst part with officials is the lack of moderation. There are rules but nobody to actively enforce them. Someone breaks a rule, it'll get resolved in a month.

This, to me, is really bad. I get that it takes a huge amount of time to enforce it, but really - people are always going to break rules to cheat and try to feel more powerful in online games. If they can't enforce a rule, it really shouldn't be there! The only ones who follow a non-enforced rule are the decent players, and they're at a disadvantage against the cheaters anyway. Having a rule that you don't enforce (enforce frequently and consistently, that is) only teaches the player base to not heed any rules. Maybe dial back on the rules to the most important ones and make sure they're enforced? When that's under control, add the next important rules. Rinse and repeat.

[Muucow]

if you think the island is bad for pillaring, try getting into extinction! we have a few tribes that pillar for specific reasons my tribes main reason is river spino spawns and beaver spawns. we get a lot of flak from new people to the server that "YOU PILLAR TOO MUCH! I CANT FIND ANY PLACE TO BUILD!" then once they do get settled and start getting into metal/bosses they realize why we do what we do.