Worst map

[DonaldDuck]

After playing a few weeks here, imo Crystal Isle is the worst map compared to the others.

- Raft is not a viable option here because the water isn't connected to all or most of the Islands, it is a fun way of exploring the map in Ark but not here on this map.

- No water exploration (or cmiiw maybe I haven't discovered it yet) , but even if it does, how the water and land are laid out is kinda badly designed.

- Wyvern egg spawn mostly low level, no obvious telling where it might be, have to memorize location for nest.

- The Crsytal wyvern can't pick up bigger dinoes.

- And what I hate most is Ovis is so random and rare, most of my tame is using Prime Meat, it is more time consuming and tedious.

- Dino spawn is really reallly bad and not too many making it too empty or too widespread. I just searched for a snail and I couldnt find any.

- I like Redwood best among other biomes even though I never make a base there, but here its main point of interest is just for bee stuffs/organic poly. There is not that many flat lands there or location is just bad. I think the worst mistake is not having any path to main water aside from map edges.

- Loot crates only have craps, been playing a few weeks and most bp I got is flamethrower ammo and other repetitive craps, hardly a useful one.

Anyway it's just my personal experience playing on this map, coz I never play a continuous longplay on Ark like years. The longest time I ever played was on Ragnarok for 8 months actively everyday, and it's a very very fun experience. Other than that was on  Aberration for 6 months it is the most scary map I ever lived on hahah. If only they allow Ragnarok to have Aberration and newer creatures then wow, even if it's a separate map not in any cluster, for ppl like me who play occasionally for a period of time and leave until it's time for a new adventure again later. I hope they can make map travel more seamless and not too tedious in Ark 2. 

 

[MMaas]

You are correct to say this is not a rafter map, it's a flyer map.
I never played this map on solo, only on dedicated servers and do not realy recognize the other issues.
If you play solo, try adjusting the spawn settings.
There are many large flats, some as highlands but also near water around dessert and tropical zone.

[Noa]

For best raft experience try Scorched Earth.

[Herbapou]

I so disagree with this.  This is by far there best map in my opinion.

Lots of flat area to build and such a beautiful map.

I keep saying Ovis all the time in the lower left section of the map.  They are very common there. 

Dino spawning is fine... been taming all over the map. It did had trouble finding castoroid, best spots are middle right side and up north left side. Some of there spawn spots are filled with swamp dinos so they get killed fast.

Keep saying high level wyvern and there are huge bases full of tame and breaded high level one so I guess its not an issue.  That being said , they are faster than scorch ones, you cant outrun them. I train them to my Giga and I will setup turrets on my base roof.

The desert area is a good source of chitin for cementing paste and organic poly.  But there are so many massive obsidian and metal spawns that is not really an issue. I did a metal run in the Griffon valey, wife on the Giga and me with 2 5k weight Arg's is could not even finish the vally Arg where filled up.  Area near the volcan is flled with obsidian.

Loot crates are garbage indeed. Not an issue for me I have 4 Gacha's running spitting up mastercraft gear like candy. I feed them seeds and owl pellets of course.

I will try to make a motor raft for fun, but from up flying rivers and sea seems fine.  The only thing I can see is some area are very swallow so it may bock access.

We are setup on a nice tropical island near the desert biome. No need to wall up there, just build a nice base. No neighbor's, no pillars everywhere its like paradise compare to the island.

 

[theopheus]

I actually agree, but maybe not for the reasons you gave.  

It has zero progression caves unless you count the one water cave with the artifact of the lost, or that dragon temple where the artifact of the pack is.  All the artifacts are more or less just sitting out there for you to grab.  It seems like they started to build a progression Cave in the middle snow area where you find the Yetis and Polar Bears, but there's no artifact in there.

It's far less polished and finished than the other mod maps, which isn't surprising since they're less and less finished every time WC adds one.   Making a custom map isn't something you're going to do overnight by yourself, so these things take time, but WC wants to keep milking them before they're ready.   Some of the texturing is horrendous though.

I like that the Crystal Wyverns are smaller and and more maneuverable than the traditional Wyverns.  I don't like how easily tamed they are and the fact that WC nerfed the regular Wyverns to match them.

A few of the new biomes are neat, but the way they just harshly transition into each other is super unappealing.

Overall the map is WAY too big.  They could have done without the desert, grasslands, redwoods, and snow biomes again.

Everyone complains about the Rock Drakes getting removed, but I can't imagine how much they actually added to the map since their AI is too Awful for them to do much except sit in that one cave.   I spawned a bunch in on SP once and they lay eggs in the nesting spots, but it's just a big cave full of Rock Drakes, with occasionally some of them falling off the floating Island into the ocean below.

I can't really comment on the liquid dinos or the other stuff that was removed because I never played the mod version.

The Crystal Wyvern fight sucks because she won't land after the 3rd time and then you have to use the waterfall exploit to defeat her and don't get me started on how much I hate the fact that they used the janky "The Center" terminal pads at the obeliks that make it a PITA to place dinos for boss fights.

[Kazaanh]

Played a bit of this map and only reason it exists in some cross-arks is because of easy artifacts to use on other maps.

 

Map is very flat, lighting is weird, biome transition feels like you would play some psx game, 0 spelunking for artifacts. Which is most fun to use your gear and dinos.

 

Im very disappointed, each zone feels like "woah this is gonna be amazing" then you enter into that temple like no one with no challenge. A wyvern skeleton could make a nice miniboss there ( there are already bones of wyvern laying in the temple ). Boring map, its stretched out island x2 but with random crystal props placed to fill in the gaps and map emptiness