TEK Turret nerf/update (Double Consumption) destroyed PvP's delicate balance.

[JetSetz aka cryptonite89]

TEK Turret nerf/update (Double Consumption) destroyed PvP's delicate balance.

This is a long writing but i'm pouring my raw feedback and experience on this. I have nothing left and this is what I have to say after thousands of hours (I played ARK since Beta just before Riot gear was added, I don't even remember the year).

I have been a soloist player this time and my journey began from December 2019. I faced every single odd that a "high tier" PvP would face. From the start, it was pointless to build a base... So I "survived" by being hidden. I would be hunted by mega tribes (that had easily hundreds of players) for at least 4 months as they used parasaurs, tek helmets, owls to find me... And was never found but I have seen many different empire rise and fall.

I had to efficiently work my way up, doing all the grinding, the maintenance, the scouting, taming/breeding/raising, crafting, bossfight etc by myself. I could beat every PvP engagement, many times against ridiculously unfair odds that had bigger mouths compared to their brain, but each victory leveraged me even more strength.

There was no way I could ever match a lvl400+ top of the line apex dino if I started to breed right now, it takes years. My best bet was to beat my enemies in combat and claim their cryo'd dinos, even if it's sterilized, I'd eventually be able to clone them; which isn't as strong but it's better than anything i'd ever make from scratch. And also made very kind hearted generous friends who helped gift such tames to help my cause.

Eventually I reached TEK tier and had the resources and strategy I needed to survive "defensibly" rather than hiding. Every day that passed while hiding, it required tremendous amounts of unhealthy paranoia, sleepless hours, anxiety and stress that it impacted my health in ways that i'd rather keep private. I just hope it's not permanent damage. To a point where even just logging in the next day was an intense fear moment.

All of that work had paid off after 4 months, I had to rapidly set up a base in a way which actually was truly a pain to raid (not in a weird exploitative way like meshing or some tight rat-hole stuff, but using the mechanics of the game that many have overlooked).

The space was limited but it was all I need to sustain myself and grow from there, remaining as efficient and compact for my needs and enough room for large dinos and breeding.
There was only 1 way of going through and that last factor was no longer a problem by doing a neat little "turret setting" that no one does. Alternatively, the obvious way to do it was to soak the TEK/Heavy turrets. But that would take many hours, enough time for me to sleep soundly, wake up, have a nice breakfast (instead of rushing my breakfast, or skipping it for a brunch). I was attacked a few times and on 2 of those occasions I got a chance to be on during the raid and it was actually mutually fun, I was even complimented by them for having such an impressive defence as a soloist.

I had to decide between defending my base, or quickly go to another map to get resources to fill up my turrets so that I don't get breached (using Transmitter to get out).
PvP felt like a very intricate and unforgiving place with lots of critical moments that could hurt real bad if not done correctly. And I ALMOST got wiped if I hadn't logged in the next day in a hurry to imprint a baby. Was lucky for me. 

So from these megatribe raids, it was a peace of mind to learn that 8~9hrs was enough time to get on and have a chance to defend but if I wait till those last moments, it can be a very dire situation, so I try to be on sooner but overall I was happier just for the fact that I'm not stressed out as before, I could spend more time making friends ingame, doing PvP in the open to challenge and beat any player, defending other tribe's bases to form friendship/alliances to a point where enemies actually assumed that i'm aimbotting. I was building myself a positive reputation that hasn't been beaten till date. It felt great, I gradually earned my own place.

 

But all of my solo work and effort was butchered by the change in the latest update for TEK turrets which DOUBLED the consumption (in other words, it means my 8~9hrs has been cut down by half to around 4hrs to get wiped).

I don't know who's idea was it to do such a huge change out of the blue without a poll/discussion on something that is LIMITED and severely alters the meta; there can only be 100 combined turrets with limited ammo, compared to something UNLIMITED; thousands of 200k HP suicidal tames and a variety of methods deliberately for soaking or breaching. Breaching as in there is no need to soak ALL of the turrets. Once a necessary amount of the turrets have been soaked, the attacker will try to BREACH through using things like Ptera C-spin, rocket running, mana-dash, to then destroy everything. There is a reason why destroying turret towers for "free ammo" is a thing. There could be a 100 turret wall of death capped with ammo and actually most of that ammo will just end up being loot for the attacker. It is that pathetic. And yet there is a DOUBLE CONSUMPTION? Why not DOUBLE DAMAGE? 
Even something like a 10% increased TEK turret consumption would be shaving off close to 1hr off my defence. The psychological effect of that update was devastating; players will more intentionally want to relentlessly go raiding when normally there is already a meta and pace on how raids usually go and THERE WAS NO NEED FOR THIS CHANGE. If there is a major change in something like this, raiders won't carry on doing the usual... They will go overboard and try hard to abuse. Specially in combination of a very long 4x rates event (mainly breeding) during july.

Actually immediately after the 4x rates ended it was when I had several griefers/raids occurring one after the other from different tribes. I anticipated it, and my goal was to endure those moments until they either think it's not worth continuing or to outplay them in combat over and over to at least gain loot from it, but I hardly get anything good out of it; like budget carbo saddle and gacha gear. I'd be fighting for days at a loss.
 

In the end, this update was the nail in the coffin that broke a delicate balance between skill, timing, efficiency, and probably the only form of "intelligence" left in ARK.
There was literally nothing, with all my thousands of hours of knowledge and combat skill to do in this situation unless I sleep for only 3hrs daily. This is the absolute peak of Solo PvP that I dared push my mental and physical for, that I wanted to perhaps one day pass on as a social media content (making videos or streaming for others to enjoy). 

I was ready to reveal what ARK is like through the storyline while also engaging against real players in one of the most challenging form of PvP. I was in a state to show that solo PvP on Official was possible to pull off if one had the insanity to go through these things. But a single mind, can impact the game more heavily than a raw form of brute force (dino stats/weapons).

This was my enjoyment that I get to have daily. It's like working hard to eventually achieve another level of happiness and prosperity. I didn't just settle with "being pathetic", I gave all I got under a tenacious champion's mindset for improvement.

 

But that journey ended by something completely out of my hands even with the peak of performance. This turned everything that I loved about the game into an equivalent amount of hatred and unhealthy rage/trauma. Looking back on something else, even "deceptively simple" games like "Flappy Bird" was well known to be so traumatic for how it impacts its playerbase, that it even lead to a lot of deaths. It was declared a dangerous game and has since been banned internationally. ARK has something of easily double this deadly caliber, but it's a stealthy grasp.

Even if you get to a point where you can withstand absolutely anyone, or beat extreme odds and play very efficiently. Just like what happened to me; you'll eventually get stabbed by a major change that throws all form of logic, possibility, intelligence, consequence, integrity; out the window.

I was one of those people who ignored the signs, criticism, and negativity about the game. But for something as UNSTABLE as ARK, with patches that can change the gameplay entirely to favour destruction rather than sustainability... Let me save you months of suffering that you wouldn't have to go through (I didn't just assume, I actually did the hard work before having a say). This will very likely drive people to extreme internal health damage which wouldn't be known until too late.

Turrets were the only thing that kept a consistency. I really wouldn't give a damn if a dino, that had 1,000,000 health and 200 armor saddle, was added to the game. Because that's the same as using 5 strong turtles or healing up 1 turtle repeatedly, although it could be a decent breach dino. And if it was an overpowered dino/weapon, then i'd eventually think of a way to beat it. But this nerf to TEK Turrets wiped out all my insomniac months of progress without having even a chance at fighting for it or to retreat to another place for rebuilding. Just log in to find out that it's all gone. And there is nothing I can do about it unless I'm having only 2~3hrs of sleep daily because that's secretively what is demanded in order to play PvP Official.

To whoever is behind this intentional sinister change; you know exactly what you did... This was a calculated twisted move. 

Just as was done to me, i'll leave it in the hands of something far greater than us all combined; Life will one day "double" its karma upon you. For myself and behalf of others who probably cannot express themselves after such a hopeless and devastating ultimatum update that cannot be rolled back.

~Bobby

[Baklap]

Daaamn maybe you need to stop playing games for a while? Sounds like you got a problem..

[JetSetz aka cryptonite89]

 

Just like any other high competitive game out there, the top tier demands this kind of determination. ARK however, is a different beast that hasn't thoroughly pieced together things sensibly.

Other games don't require you to be so dedicated, you can perform when you are ready. There is time to unwind and perfect yourself. 

But here, you can't afford to slack... You either lose all your progress and stay low tier (which i've seen can also be very frustrating, and gives a sense of being powerless/hopeless), or be tenacious and dedicated to end up beating the odds. That's the game design. And as I mentioned, from the start I had a mindset to reach that performance and push myself. It's a gradual thing that occurs over many months that you wouldn't even notice it. Few months down the line you would be so dedicated, that it slowly chips away at your sleep and health. I am simply playing by what the game demands out of any of us. We all know a glimps or rumours of how unforgiving, or incredibly difficult it is to play on Official PvP.

Actually a lot of these players, just like myself, are quite simply "dealing with it". If you didn't experience it, the enemies would also make you swallow the "Deal with it" treatment after beating you. But anyway, all that no longer mattered once I reached TEK Tier, things were actually very good. I returned to a normal and healthy lifestyle without straining, exhausting or stressing myself about much. I could focus on other things that I normally wouldn't and even had the confidence to just hang out, chill and do nothing, knowing that my belongings would be safe for like 8hrs. Even though I had other priorities, it was just "a thing" for me to keep a close tab on ARK.

For comparison, a 100 Heavy Turret death wall capped with ammo, gets dropped in as little as 20~30mins. It's quite a joke. TEK turrets are essential for hours of sustain.

So upon getting TEK, actually the whole buildup towards achieving it made it way more gratifying and was a uniquely victorious moment with a huge relief. Many months of intense dedication is almost as comparable to some e-sport level of adrenaline (which in short; i'm very used to by the way). It just simply is tough, it will break the unprepared. But those who train and put the time in to reach those heights, end up enjoying a different caliber of "fun". And that's where I happily was in ARK Official PvP as a soloist.

Even the top tier of my enemies couldn't break through my defence. Names including: YSS, TPG, BLDX, Hydra (Wiped), GangGang (Dev-Wiped, and failed k37 server takeover). 

 

I've made great friends with META, N3 and IGI megatribe, mainly META. They are very mature, sensible people with good personality, that average around 25~35 years old. 

 

The game was fine, there was no real reason for doubling TEK Consumption at all. And as I said before, even a 5%~10% would be a significant impact, and yet this one is DOUBLED.
Add also the combination of a very long 4x rate (so a lot of dinos to soak turrets have been mass-bred), that killed it all. If a base is left unguarded for 2~3hrs, it will almost certainly be wiped. And that's why I decided to write my post above.

I wouldn't be upset if I had lost in gameplay, it simply means that the opponent was smarter and defeated me fair and square, I should be prepared for defeat.
But this made me sick, because it's the GAME DEVELOPERS themselves that screwed me over with the update.

Doubling the TEK consumption had lead to me losing all my progress and I had absolutely no chance at anything. When I had spent a lot of time carefully calculating what had to be done to ensure my own survival and peace-of-mind. What more can I do? I have a specific limited amount of firepower to stop them. Which has then been cut in half.

This change DOES NOT affect megatribes at all, they have hundreds of members around the clock with TEK Dedicated boxes full of ammo to refill constantly. But to a smaller group that don't have much time or definitely for a soloist; it killed the game for them. The game at this point now REQUIRES me to only sleep for 2~3hrs, in order to compete.

Anyway, I think i've laid out all my feedback that needed to be said. I'd like to hear your thoughts about the changes. Please keep it to that topic, not my tenacity/health/sanity although I very much appreciate the care ? (and as I've mentioned, my health did improve eventually). I just want to address this stupid problem.

 

[Leys]

3 hours ago, JetSetz aka cryptonite89 said:

I have been a soloist player this time and [... ]I would be hunted by mega tribes (that had easily hundreds of players)

So.. you chose to play with the hardest settings ever.. 

I am pretty sure that before the tek turret nerf, you could already be wipe in less than 8-9 hours.

You said that after the nerf they can wipe you in 4-5 hours but i think it's even less now (if an entire tribe come for you).

Nerf or not nerf, in both case they can wipe you clean during your sleep so as the previous guy said you cannot survive alone forever, especially on those big tribe serv.

 

Anyway you are totally right about one thing : how did wc think it was a good idead to nerf tek turrets ??? they really never play their own game

And doing it without any survey or justifications is close to a middle finger adressed to the pvp playerbase

[JohnnyWaffles]

Your story gives me hope that someday my solo career will be as fruitful as yours has been.

[yekrucifixion187]

3 hours ago, Leys said:

 

I am pretty sure that before the tek turret nerf, you could already be wipe in less than 8-9 hours.

You said that after the nerf they can wipe you in 4-5 hours but i think it's even less now (if an entire tribe come for you).

Nerf or not nerf, in both case they can wipe you clean during your sleep so as the previous guy said you cannot survive alone forever, especially on those big tribe serv.

You should read it before cherry picking a part and responding. OP stated his base was able to and had withstood 8 to 9 hours of assault while he was offline. It had proven its worth. The doubling of consumption has reduced that to 4 to 5 hours so he can't get proper time off. 

At least read if you want to comment.

[Aegeis]

So, I'm a lurker.  I also haven't been here long.  This is my take about this game.  In PVP, this game apparently seems to be a team effort, heck, they call them a "tribe".  This game is meant for team play.  You chose to defy that by going solo because what an accomplishment that would be to go against the norm and "win".  

The things they do to this game probably revolve around the team play aspect.  Maybe, you should invite one more person to your "solo play" who is just as dedicated to PVP as you and you can both accomplish together what so few players have?

On the part about your health, take care of yourself.  This is just "a game".  Take a step back.  Breathe in some fresh air, say hi to your neighbor from 6 feet away.  Be healthy man.

[JetSetz aka cryptonite89]

Thanks all you guys, I appreciate your support a lot. It is a crushing demoralizing thing to experience. Even now, the aftermath is a haunting thing that escalated my fears and stress to new heights. Because I know i'd "perform" well within gameplay, even if it was a defeat, it's a gradual thing and it's just "gg wp" at that point for me to learn my mistakes and start again with better experience for next time. But having it being taken away from me overnight has left me in some kind of shock. I'm just paralyzed to figure out what to do. I wasn't defeated by my own errors, but by a stupid and HUGE unforeseen/untold change. That's the injustice that crippled me deeply which i'm trying to address.

12 hours ago, JohnnyWaffles said:

Your story gives me hope that someday my solo career will be as fruitful as yours has been.

Thanks buddy, but now is not the time. ARK ended up NOT being a "fruitful" place to be. You end up making a basket for it to be taken away from you without reasoning or preparation. Not by raids or anything to do with gameplay, but by the game developers that introduce meta-changing updates without notice. That's what would kill you.

[Chewytowel]

Yeah imo the crazy change to require double ammo consumption with no tek turret buff to go with it sucked.  Just seemed like something they did so megatribes don't have to soak bases for days on end if there are tons of turret towers to push through.

[JetSetz aka cryptonite89]

12 hours ago, Chewytowel said:

Yeah imo the crazy change to require double ammo consumption with no tek turret buff to go with it sucked.  Just seemed like something they did so megatribes don't have to soak bases for days on end if there are tons of turret towers to push through.

In the second reply I posted that it doesn't really affect megatribes at all. Probably just a little more maintenance but nothing too out of ordinary on that scale. There are dozens or hundreds of players active around the clock and have TEK Dedi Boxes full of ammo to refill their frontline as needed, unless there is too much enemy "suppressing fire/bombardment" that they can't get near the turrets to top them up without risking their lives. But megatribes do rise and fall, it's just a lot of back-and-forth that causes stalemate wars, but that's where the fun is at. Both attackers and defenders are having a hard time gaining ground on each other so it ends up in just a nice PvP combat. Not so much emphasis on either side loosing something as valuable as a base full of belongings that took years to put together.

There are so many ways to get through pathetic turrets. C-spin, Mana-dash, Rocket-run, Shield-run, TEK Suit dash, Use a large tanky dino and whistle "move to" toward the turrets and run with it under its belly so that you can get close enough to do more devastating damage such as C4, Tek Rifle etc, RollRat, Destroy the cables if possible, use cannons from far range, flame arrows from far range to destroy exposed gens or cables, Since turrets prioritise the closest target on any particular setting then you can use soakers as a gap-closer. Any many more...
Here are some video examples.

 

And below, you can just skip to 3:25 and you'll get the idea. Previous to that time he talks about detailed damage per shot.

 

 

But the base that I built was unique and I actually tested it thoroughly on single player mode using some lvl2000 dinos and 120~200 armor saddles (to mimic end game potential and so I can understand time-to-kill much better).

The key thing was the use of environment which denies as many things that I don't want to deal with.
For example;

• Building underwater means no Ptera Cspin or land dino soakers, no rockets, no sprinting. 
• Holding a narrow choke point means no large soakers (platform dinos out of the equation).
• Building in radiation zone means no flyers and their soakers will take way more damage over time unless they want to spend every 3 or so minutes to feed mushroom brews.

The base was really remarkable, quite proud of putting it together, I had to perfectly set the first foundation and it fits the entire structure without a gap to spare between terrain and wall. The height and distance of turret placement was perfect so that the attacker is killed by splash damage of the TEK turrets if ridden soakers were used, he had to peek in a little further and would be shot off from another flanking angle simultaneously, many times instantly killing them by surprise. So "front-facing" tactics didn't work for them, such as attacking a flat death wall of turrets (use golems/reapers/trikes), all the firepower would come from one direction and quite easy to deal with. But in my case, once they peek in they'd get shot from all sides.

This base design was to be revealed as one of my most precious video someday. There isn't such a thing as "unraidable" base, I assure you. But if you can cleverly make use of as many mechanics as you can, including the environment... You "could" survive for several hours or more, by turning a base into more of a puzzle run. Well not anymore since this update but that was the delicate balance. Look what had to be done; the construction, the resource requirement, the planning, the maintenance, the prioritisation, and the sheer knowledge of possibilities that could harm or wipe you that must be evaluated.

What do attackers have to do? Well just bring a few high HP dinos to soak, maybe 1 giga to meatrun and a spare set of top-grade armor incase the turrets shot them once for no damage while chugging a whole stack of medbrews because they lost 1% health, and that basically counters all form of intelligent design within a few hours.

You risk losing absolutely everything, because of literally "no-brainer" methods anyway. So why drive the game into the ground with this TEK Turret change, and also put people in severe health risks for putting up with this sh*t? 

Here's a clip from Tyler1 as he also had to deal with "Riot Games" company for similar incompetence. I feel it is really damaging to bottle up such emotions and frustration quietly, instead I took the initiative to take action. Specially if it's an injustice move. That's like playing football and one day the rules are; to use a cube as a ball. Or horse racers are now required to be 300lbs fat weight to be qualified. Updates that has no common sense, or haven't been discussed but it changes an already fragile meta entirely and it pisses me off.

Even if it gets hotfixed or something, THE DAMAGE HAS ALREADY BEEN DONE (and in ARK's case, it's likely PERMANENT/IRREPLACEABLE).

 

[Leys]

On 8/11/2020 at 6:53 PM, yekrucifixion187 said:

You should read it before cherry picking a part and responding.

 

OP stated his base was able to and had withstood 8 to 9 hours of assault while he was offline. It had proven its

 

At least read if you want to comment.

i read everything he said.

 

I just say it's not possible, maybe his base can survive 3 dudes during 9 hours but if the mega tribe come for him, it's not the turret nerf that will change anything. OP will wake up wiped

 

did you properly read my comment ?

 

[yekrucifixion187]

3 hours ago, Leys said:

i read everything he said.

 

I just say it's not possible, maybe his base can survive 3 dudes during 9 hours but if the mega tribe come for him, it's not the turret nerf that will change anything. OP will wake up wiped

 

did you properly read my comment ?

 

Ok so you're just going with he's a liar since he mentioned that time frames with mega tribes (which is normally a 8 to 12 person raid party unless they are targeting a server not a solo player)?

Got it. 

[jedikitteh]

The TEK turret change has been a much awaited boon to smaller tribes. Alpha and megatribes live in nearly unraidable caves, they can do whatever they do want, but smaller guys can not retaliate against them. This is made possible by broken cave meta, where you locations like island ice cave that are virtually impossible to raid online. And things like TEK turrets. A single TEK turret before patch could shoot 40 minutes without being depleted. Then be reloaded with 5000 shards (50 element) and shoot for 40 minutes again. Element comes from berries, you take berries from crop plots, using iguanadon fill up several dedi boxes with seeds. Then put seeds in the gachas on a large tower and in one hour you have nearly 1000 element. With gachas you make element faster than it can be soaked. Megatribes with their gacha towers have virtually unlimited amount of element, produced while AFK with zero human labor using AHK scripts. Many tribes have dedi boxes full of element (180000+ element) sitting on their servers. You can see an example of this during the recent war on Genesis610. For 2 weeks, N3 and allies and the attacking BLDX+GG coalition continuously rained down an endless barrage of TEK weapon fire at each other, the game resembled something out of Star Wars as the two mighty alliances clashed in lunar biome and bog biome. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of element was spent raining fire for two weeks yet no one was close to running dry. 

You can not offline raid megatribes either. They have steam bots that alert them on discord the moment you join their servers. And now there is the lovely TEK sensors which silently warn them the moment you start soaking. Offline raiding an official tribe is extremely hard, almost impossible on most days.

In official meta no one soaks TEK turrets, the meta is to try and destroy them with TEK tapes and TEK rexes, hatchframe racers, hatchframe quetzals. TEK turrets are considered unsoakable. If you try to racer soak TEKs during a major assault you raid leader would probably laugh at you, then kick you if you keep wasting cakes trying to soak TEKs.

The TEK turret changes have made it slightly easier for smaller tribes to now actually raid big alpha tribes. You can now go to an alphas base and do some damage by using turtles. People who cant survive against these 200 man tribes now have a chance to fight back.

This person who made this thread I am skeptical about his claims of being a solo. How do I know this ? You can look him up using Haxbot or EOSbot (same tools megatribes use). Or if you want a free tool just use battlemetrics.

According to data from bots he played META and Pistole, two of oldest, biggst megas on PC Officials. Currently he plays on server EU-PVP-Official-TheIsland10 which is controled by large alpha tribe. He probably lives in their ice cave base. There are no TEK tier solo players on island10 trust me i scouted it. The only TEK tribe that exists is the alpha. He also played on Val540 which is Meta's Val server, and EXT495 which was affiliated with some Pistole or some GG beta tribe I believe.

Who are you really my friend ? Are you posting here, pretending to be a solo player,  trying to mislead people who dont know officials, in faint hopes that the devs once again tilt the game balance back to big tribes like yours.  

 

[Leys]

14 hours ago, yekrucifixion187 said:

Got it. 

Good, no problem man

[EliteQuarmada]

Before I even read the post: What balance? Lol! 

[TiTmellais666]

Ouch