How to do the "ultimate" PvE dedicated server playthrough?

[Andykay]

So my friends and I have done our first Ark playthrough on Lost Island and we're getting ready to fight the boss. It was a lot of fun, but given it was the first playthrough a lot of it was learning.

We want to start again, play with some mods this time, and experience as much of the game as we can. I don't know that I have it in me to start again three or four times to experience all the maps and bosses from scratch, so we want to try and make this a more complete playthrough.

So what approach should we take? I'm under the impression we may be able to map hop with a dedicated server. Is that possible? Assuming we can do that, which map should we start on and how should we progress?

We liked the sound of Aberation, the way the map was all tiered and had interesting progressions, so we were thinking of starting there, then trying to go back to The Island to actually play the story content and working our way forwards. Is there any way to make a playthrough like this work?

Any help would be appreciated. Cheers

 

[nworlds]

I believe the best way to experience the whole galore would be a good cluster, that features all the official maps (and some more?)

Depending on your geographical location (ping is a thing) i could *slime* propose our PvE cluster that is hosted in Düsseldorf/Germany.

We have alot of players from the Netherlands, also quite a few Scandinavian abd French, and ofc Germans.

Hop in, have a look, see how our settings/rates/mods feel for you.

[EU] Nworlds XPx30 Tx30 Hx10 PVE S+ Cluster

Our Discord

[DirkInSA]

@Andykay

Firstly - good luck w the boss fight!

My view - you done the hard work to get to a place where you think you can do bosses - don't throw that away. Character level and "kit" is not really relevant to boss progression, your dino's with stats that can stand up to the fight is what counts.

I done my 1st boss fight on Scorched using wild tamed wyverns. And it worked OK. I then went back to the Island and tried a Alpha boss fight with a group of Rex's that were wild tamed, but bred to "replicate" the good stats into children (no attempt at mutation stacking). And I got wasted!!!!!!

For me the fun of Ark is exploring the map, getting the "tributes" , and progressing as a character / tribe with bad a$$ stuff. But sat waiting for rex's (or whatever) to breed millions of times in order to get a "good" tame is just grind.

So take your dinos and selves to the Island and see how you go. Don't do all that breeding stuff again (no matter what settings you got - it takes FOREVER). And each map is different - what work well on one map (or boss fight) may indeed get wasted on a different map.

As above - run a "cluster" of maps so you can hop through and pick up stuff (for example) like a Maewing to help raising dinos if you have to go back to square one and breed to get better.

[wizard03]

18 hours ago, Andykay said:

So my friends and I have done our first Ark playthrough on Lost Island and we're getting ready to fight the boss. It was a lot of fun, but given it was the first playthrough a lot of it was learning. We want to start again, play with some mods this time, and experience as much of the game as we can. I don't know that I have it in me to start again three or four times to experience all the maps and bosses from scratch, so we want to try and make this a more complete playthrough. So what approach should we take? I'm under the impression we may be able to map hop with a dedicated server. Is that possible? Assuming we can do that, which map should we start on and how should we progress? We liked the sound of Aberation, the way the map was all tiered and had interesting progressions, so we were thinking of starting there, then trying to go back to The Island to actually play the story content and working our way forwards. Is there any way to make a playthrough like this work? Any help would be appreciated. Cheers

First the bad news, you have spoiled yourself hard with playing on this map.....this map is probably the most over the top map you can play before extinction, gen 1 and of course gen 2....Other than striders destroying resource runs, shadowmanes ruling the game with its lionfish prowess, and element just oozing out of the ground like oil in an oil field, you have experienced the game nearly to its fullest. Mantis, gryphons, snow owls.....truely you will be in for a tough and rough time trying to get through most of the storyline maps.

But there is some hope, if you wanna play with mods, I would suggest that you try it on the island first.....you pretty much just experiences the island, but with some mods turned on, you will still feel at home and get to experience some new things. Once all is said and done, you can upload your characters, switch maps, and boom your back on it for the next map.

I would strongly suggest island, scorched earth, aberration, extinction, gen 1 gen 2, but then again I like doing things in order one at a time. However this game is how you want to play. And if you want to throw caution to the wind and go with aberration first, go for it. Just keep in mind, at this point in time, aberration is "VERY" temperamental. One lil glitch, one big lag, you game gets crushed hard and abusively. In fact the last time I played it a few months back, you cannot collect the artifacts. It insta crashes the game. Now this bug is well known in single player offline. However you said your in a dedicated server, so you might be able to do things without too many issues, but you really need to have contingency plans in place, just in case. 

In the end, play it as you see fit, try to work with your friends to make sure everyone is happy with the next move, and always......this is a game, so have fun.