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Feedback to devs from a player who has had enough after 1000 hours.


SlimyTurnip

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You already won, you have my money that I paid for all of your DLC and expansions, so trully you have no reason to care, but if anyone at the development office cares about this game please listen. I have around 1000 hours into this game. I have played for so long, and have tried to enjoy it, I really really tried to enjoy this game, because it is a beautiful game with so much to offer an that possibility has kept me playing so long, but it is a broken game that can not continue as it is. The game itself is made to be frustrating, the grind, the creatures made for no purpose but to make you lose your tames in the most frustrating ways possible, this game does not understand the difference between the game being hard and the game being unfair and forcing players to lose hours of work over something they had no control over. The bugs and glitches that have killed so many tames I spen hours getting, the random game crashes that happen at the worst of times and at least once a day. The fact the game doesn't work after every update and I have to revalidate steam files, so on. And that is just the techniccal issues. Every official server is littered with abusers, cheaters and trolls ruining any experience a new player has with the game, while megatribes are allowed to take over entire official servers and sell resources on the internet, the ammount of toxicity and abuse going on is unparalleled and Wildcard is at best allowing it to happen. As I said, I have really tried to enjoy this game, but it is simply impossible and I can't take it anymore. You have already stolen my money and time so I doubt anyone will care, but consider if this game does not change it will die. Can you trully imagine a new player hopping onto this game and enjoying the experience, becasue I can't. 

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It's funny, players have been mollified by the idea that fixing bugs doesn't make money, but it really does, because I'm not going to buy Ark 2 because I've seen the way they treat Ark like it's early access 6 years later and how incompetence runs through the company from message board to product.  

I'm baffled by people who say WC is a small studio when they were big enough to split their team and make Atlas and they now have an animated show and celebrity sponsorship AFTER being bought out by a rather large company.

I'm floored by the amount of people who say the devs are doing the best they can, that it's the people at the top who are the problem as if they have some incite into the company when we repeatedly see lazy code across the board.   Do you guys know that there's an explorer note on Extinction that you can't get in single player because its inside the mesh?   That STRONGLY implies that we're all downloading two separate maps, the one we play online and the one we have locally, because they couldn't have simply added a snippet of code for official to delete the mesh blocking it because there is literally no terrain around it once you do that.

I scoff when people say it's easier for the devs to respond on Twitter than to come to their own message board.   It's a shame they don't know any programmers that could update the board so that it was easier to correspond.... oh wait.     Plus you know, that costs them money.   Let Twitter foot the bill.

I'm constantly amused by people who complain about things other game studios are doing when they've never seen the stuff that happens in Ark.   Bethesda for example puts out massive maps that track every single thing and people complain about FPS drops in areas, but they've never had to put up with a 350gb Bethesda game or whatever Ark is up to now.   They complain about NPC pathfinding in Bethesda games, but at least those NPC's HAVE pathfinding and they will track the player, instead of letting you just kite them off a cliff, or into lava, or out in the water to drown, or THROUGH THE TERRAIN!    Do you guys know there's a whole ocean area _under the map_ in Crystal Isles where water dinos just hang out?    They're unreachable to be tamed, and they're taking up your PC resources, but you can't get to them.   If you don't believe me, ghost under the map, or download Larkator and start tracking your dinos in SP.   

As far as I'm concerned the consumer is just as much to blame.   It doesn't matter how many times I come back to this game, at least I didn't fork out money for Genesis, and I won't be buying Ark 2.  More often than not, I'm playing Ark because I'm just bored and I have nothing else going on, to be honest.

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41 minutes ago, theopheus said:

It's funny, players have been mollified by the idea that fixing bugs doesn't make money, but it really does, because I'm not going to buy Ark 2 because I've seen the way they treat Ark like it's early access 6 years later and how incompetence runs through the company from message board to product.  

I'm baffled by people who say WC is a small studio when they were big enough to split their team and make Atlas and they now have an animated show and celebrity sponsorship AFTER being bought out by a rather large company.

I'm floored by the amount of people who say the devs are doing the best they can, that it's the people at the top who are the problem as if they have some incite into the company when we repeatedly see lazy code across the board.   Do you guys know that there's an explorer note on Extinction that you can't get in single player because its inside the mesh?   That STRONGLY implies that we're all downloading two separate maps, the one we play online and the one we have locally, because they couldn't have simply added a snippet of code for official to delete the mesh blocking it because there is literally no terrain around it once you do that.

I scoff when people say it's easier for the devs to respond on Twitter than to come to their own message board.   It's a shame they don't know any programmers that could update the board so that it was easier to correspond.... oh wait.     Plus you know, that costs them money.   Let Twitter foot the bill.

I'm constantly amused by people who complain about things other game studios are doing when they've never seen the stuff that happens in Ark.   Bethesda for example puts out massive maps that track every single thing and people complain about FPS drops in areas, but they've never had to put up with a 350gb Bethesda game or whatever Ark is up to now.   They complain about NPC pathfinding in Bethesda games, but at least those NPC's HAVE pathfinding and they will track the player, instead of letting you just kite them off a cliff, or into lava, or out in the water to drown, or THROUGH THE TERRAIN!    Do you guys know there's a whole ocean area _under the map_ in Crystal Isles where water dinos just hang out?    They're unreachable to be tamed, and they're taking up your PC resources, but you can't get to them.   If you don't believe me, ghost under the map, or download Larkator and start tracking your dinos in SP.   

As far as I'm concerned the consumer is just as much to blame.   It doesn't matter how many times I come back to this game, at least I didn't fork out money for Genesis, and I won't be buying Ark 2.  More often than not, I'm playing Ark because I'm just bored and I have nothing else going on, to be honest.

Exacly, how can the studio keep putting money into other games and content while theri flagship product is in this state. ARK is special and there is nothing liek it as far as I know which is why I put so much time into it, but eventually that isn't enough to justify burnign my money and time. And I feel bad for the devs that obviously give everything to this game and the many talented mod creators and artists and so on, but if Wildcard doesn't put in the effort to take this out of "early access" there is no point.

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1 hour ago, SlimyTurnip said:

Exacly, how can the studio keep putting money into other games and content while theri flagship product is in this state. ARK is special and there is nothing liek it as far as I know which is why I put so much time into it, but eventually that isn't enough to justify burnign my money and time. And I feel bad for the devs that obviously give everything to this game and the many talented mod creators and artists and so on, but if Wildcard doesn't put in the effort to take this out of "early access" there is no point.

It's kind've a little gross that they're planning another mod map.   Not only are they trying so desperately to keep this game alive, but the other 4 maps have progressively been less and less finished as they were released.

The Center still has tons of holes in the mesh and is just.... boring.   It was made so early in Ark's development it has zero exclusive dinos, it's mostly a rearrangement of the Island from the POV of a teenager who just read his first fantasy book, with skull shaped Islands, massive waterfalls at the end of the world and a floating island.  The lava biome is of course new and its the best place to tame Gigas and Rexes, but mostly it's a big boring map.

Ragnarok's overworld was mostly finished, but it was meant to have a dungeon for each artifact, but once the devs joined WC, it was all over.  The map is TOO big.   If you play on a very populated server, like official it lags like hell because of all the structures, players, and dinos, and if you play on a small server, it's too big, taking forever to cross from one side to the other.   There are a bunch of redundant areas, 2 snow areas, 3 Redwoods areas, 2 swamps, etc.   The map could have been half the size and it would have been better for it.

Valguero only has 2 finished dungeons and the underwater ocean is pointless unless you really want to go find the deep sea drops, but traveling down there takes forever.

Crystal Isles has zero progression caves, unless you count the water cave with the artifact of the lost.  The lighting is terrible, the biomes don't mesh well with each other, and WC removed like 90% of the unique dinosaurs that were on the mod map from what I understand.  At least it HAS new biomes.   Most of the mod maps have just been a rehash of stuff we've seen over and over again since the Island was released.

And of course they had to add Wyverns to 3 of them.   Anyone else sick of Wyverns?    I never really cared for Wyverns when I played official.   In SP on Ragnarok I at least began to understand the necessity since the map is massive.   Crystal Isles just made them a joke and now they're breedable to boot, complete with another nerf.

Now they're saying they're going to add another one, probably Fjolnir, or more likely, that Glacius map both of which they teased in the community crunch back in March, neither of which is even close to done, from what I've heard.

The players are almost as bad, as it seems like everyone wants every single dinosaur and biome on one map, which is ridiculous to me.  There's no variety and it just makes transferring pointless.

The last TLC pass was a joke, too.  It was like they went through with a checklist of who they were going to add breeding or bleed damage to, aside from Mammoth and Stego and I don't know anyone asking for TLC's on those.  Nor have I heard anyone talking about how great or useful those dinos are after the TLC.

But don't worry guys, the devs are doing their best.   (in before:  "If you think you can do better, why don't you make your own game!")

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This game is super innovative,  listen bottom line is, if you don't like it leave. Most of the time(just like real life) the people always openly complaining are in the minority,  and usually end up ruining stuff for the rest. Why? Because the people that have fun are to busy playing the game to come on here and cry(only reason I am on here now is I am at work, but believe me as soon as I walk through my door I will be glued to my PC). Go start a blog so that the rest of the crybabies can follow you, and maybe we could actually get some core stuff fixed. Think about it, you are on a forum complaining about a game, because you really do love the game BUT you just want it how you want it. So please just shut up and go talk to your parents, as they are the only ones who MAYBE will treat you like like the world revolves around you. The game is amazing although buggy, but show me something even close to Ark. They gave me at least a ton of fun and I am thankful.

Enjoy your day

 

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9 hours ago, SlimyTurnip said:

Every official server is littered with abusers, cheaters and trolls ruining any experience a new player has with the game, while megatribes are allowed to take over entire official servers and sell resources on the internet, the ammount of toxicity and abuse going on is unparalleled and Wildcard is at best allowing it to happen.

The Solution to this is easy: get your friends and play on your own Server.

99% of Problems solved.
Only thing that will keep affecting you: irrational und dumb changes/nerfs to well rounded, good tames becuase of official PVP Players. Bad skilled people that don't know or unable to counter and/or unwilling/unable to adept.

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4 hours ago, theopheus said:

Now they're saying they're going to add another one, probably Fjolnir, or more likely, that Glacius map both of which they teased in the community crunch back in March, neither of which is even close to done, from what I've heard.

Both maps still have truck loads of work required in order to be finished. I have 6k hours into Glacius already and it's far from done.

4 hours ago, theopheus said:

The players are almost as bad, as it seems like everyone wants every single dinosaur and biome on one map, which is ridiculous to me.  There's no variety and it just makes transferring pointless.

Yeah and that as always been a problem, at least in my book. I must applaud the time and effort spent by modders creating their maps as some of them are truly visual masterpieces. However, a lot of maps are either small (island sized), filled to the roof with DLC content and/or are simply yet again another variant of the existing content.

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1 hour ago, ctmtank420 said:

This game is super innovative,  listen bottom line is, if you don't like it leave. Most of the time(just like real life) the people always openly complaining are in the minority,  and usually end up ruining stuff for the rest. Why? Because the people that have fun are to busy playing the game to come on here and cry(only reason I am on here now is I am at work, but believe me as soon as I walk through my door I will be glued to my PC). Go start a blog so that the rest of the crybabies can follow you, and maybe we could actually get some core stuff fixed. Think about it, you are on a forum complaining about a game, because you really do love the game BUT you just want it how you want it. So please just shut up and go talk to your parents, as they are the only ones who MAYBE will treat you like like the world revolves around you. The game is amazing although buggy, but show me something even close to Ark. They gave me at least a ton of fun and I am thankful.

Enjoy your day

 

It's people like you who make us have to put up with an incomplete, buggy, mess of a game because you keep buying them and apologizing for the devs and then you crap on the rest of us for pointing out the millions of flaws the game has.

Sometimes you have to hold out to get something better.

You're like the people who buy Madden every year.

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2 minutes ago, theopheus said:

By modifying the crap out of the game so it no longer resembles what it was and relying on a boatload of cheats to make up for the ineptitude of the game's code.

As example, we are using S+.

S+ is not a cheat. It just adds what the game is missing. If there was no S+ i would have stopped playing ARK a long time ago (including most of my friends that play as well).

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2 minutes ago, Zayisha said:

As example, we are using S+.

S+ is not a cheat. It just adds what the game is missing. If there was no S+ i would have stopped playing ARK a long time ago (including most of my friends that play as well).

Yes.   You had to add to the game because it isn't satisfactory without S+ and you would have stopped playing.  That's the point.  If you have to mod a game to make it playable, was it really that good of a game?

Let me guess.  Good devs give you customization?   Right.   Because they didn't really build a game, did they?  They just threw a bunch of elements together they thought was neat and added a soft progression and a story that jumps all over the place later.

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Just now, theopheus said:

Yes.   You had to add to the game because it isn't satisfactory without S+ and you would have stopped playing.  That's the point.  If you have to mod a game to make it playable, was it really that good of a game?

Let me guess.  Good devs give you customization?   Right.   Because they didn't really build a game, did they?  They just threw a bunch of elements together they thought was neat and added a soft progression and a story that jumps all over the place later.

I understand your point and basically you are right.

Times have changed.
When i started gaming (late 80's) games were made by gamers for gamers.
That changed somewhere around 2000.

In the '90s you were good in a game or you just had to accept that you suck.
Nowadays the bad players are the focus of the Gaming Industry. Thinks get nerfed until EVERYONE can beat the game end see the End Video.

In the 90s and still early 2000s you could completely own a game by pure skill (like Falcon 4.0 Players hopping into BF2, getting the Jets and completely dominating).
Nowadays everthing gets evened out. Not Intelligence, creativity or Skill decides but reaction times. No matter what type of game, shooter, rts... everythign is spoiled. See StarCraft2. That is not RTS anymore.

In short:
Good games were made in the past. Good AND challenging Games. If more then 3% of the Playerbase is able to beat the game, it's too easy.

Today:
Big Companys have taken over. They give zero "F"s about a good Game. They are only interested in Money.
So Games are taylored and catering to the average to bad players.


Only Solution to escape that is... Mods, Server Setting.

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7 minutes ago, Zayisha said:

I understand your point and basically you are right.

Times have changed.
When i started gaming (late 80's) games were made by gamers for gamers.
That changed somewhere around 2000.

In the '90s you were good in a game or you just had to accept that you suck.
Nowadays the bad players are the focus of the Gaming Industry. Thinks get nerfed until EVERYONE can beat the game end see the End Video.

In the 90s and still early 2000s you could completely own a game by pure skill (like Falcon 4.0 Players hopping into BF2, getting the Jets and completely dominating).
Nowadays everthing gets evened out. Not Intelligence, creativity or Skill decides but reaction times. No matter what type of game, shooter, rts... everythign is spoiled. See StarCraft2. That is not RTS anymore.

In short:
Good games were made in the past. Good AND challenging Games. If more then 3% of the Playerbase is able to beat the game, it's too easy.

Today:
Big Companys have taken over. They give zero "F"s about a good Game. They are only interested in Money.
So Games are taylored and catering to the average to bad players.


Only Solution to escape that is... Mods, Server Setting.

I'm not going to argue the merits of what makes a game good or not, or argue with your interpretation of history.   But you hit the nail on the head.  The bottom line is money.

Whether you're from the US, or not, Wild Card is.   So are MOST of these big studios making games.    Capitalism rules the United States, period.   You can hate it if you want to.   It's a system, like anything else.  What truly sucks is human nature.   But I'm not trying to start a philosophical discussion.

The point is, if you give them money for a game you're not satisfied with, you're giving them license to keep doing it.

Stop giving them money.

Do you think the whole video game industry is going to fold if everyone quit buying games that have major issues with them?  In today's reality, where social media makes company feedback at an all time high?

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5 minutes ago, theopheus said:

Yes.   You had to add to the game because it isn't satisfactory without S+ and you would have stopped playing.  That's the point.  If you have to mod a game to make it playable, was it really that good of a game?

Let me guess.  Good devs give you customization?   Right.   Because they didn't really build a game, did they?  They just threw a bunch of elements together they thought was neat and added a soft progression and a story that jumps all over the place later.

The devs certainly have a time-commitment framework in place when they design elements for this game, and it is certainly designed with those commitments in mind.  I've played some other games where elements are just cobbled together and it is totally up to the player to make some form out of the programmed function, and ARK isn't perfect but because of what it gives, I personally can forgive it.  I think the level of customization the devs stopped at was driven by the amount of time they want people to play, and regardless of how we feel about it, that's just the way it goes!

Why is any of that worth typing out?  Because S+ as an addition isn't intended to "fix" many things that are broken because even some parts of S+ are broken (S+ ceiling placement, sometimes).  And yes, I said "sometimes," because if something doesn't work every time, it can be considered damaged or broken in some way.  S+ only helps people cut some of the designed time-commitment down and adds features to increase convenience (again, informing/addressing time-commitment) so people like @Zayisha can spend more time doing things they like in the game, or getting the ability to take a small break without their work being destroyed.

The story, yeah.  That part, I can't defend at all.  The story is suuuuuch a faint detail of the game, which is a shame because it is a great story.

Now understand, I've been through insane amounts of loss and terrible times on ARK.  @SlimyTurnip, I have 9.2K hours in the game, some were great, some were horrible.  It just is what it is:  ARK isn't perfect but isn't fully unplayable, and ARK 2 will probably follow suit.  I'm with @theopheus and will be waiting to buy ARK 2, if I ever do.  I want to see how it turns out, but I've definitely had fun with this game.

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What is a company supposed to do? Hmit's AKE MONEY, it's the whole point. You think they care about anything but the dollars, NO. Problem is that so many ifiots have bought into this everything is fair and we all should have fun. Guess I should start playing minecraft and just complain till they make it how I like it. I'm not sticking up for the devs or anything, but I'm not stupid enough to think they care about anything more than getting their check and doing what they want. If you dont like it make your own game, and if you can't, just deal like the rest of us. One more time, they made the game, they spend hours upon hours in making this, but you all act like when you make a game you are automatically done with life except building and fixing the game. That my friend is why when you complain, you look like and idiot. All your saying is "I paid x amount of dollars for this game, so you owe me anything I want, anytime I want it. Also please add more stuff to keep me entertained and do it fast, but it better be perfect right away or I'll cry". They have lives, families,  and free time. You aren't making a game for me to enjoy, so what gives you the right to tell a company how to do it when YOU DON'T KNOW HOW? Please just stop being stupid. You have a right to an opinion, but in no way do you have a right to get 1000 hours out of a game and act like it is poop.

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