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PvP On The Island


Logan96
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  • Logan96 changed the title to PvP On The Island
12 hours ago, Logan96 said:

Thank You! It's been fun, but a bit stressful too. All it takes is one dude to sink my raft and I'll be back on week 1 progress lol.  

I know on Island w out a griffin or wyvern available it is a horrible task - but may a sky quetzal is in order at this point for a "back up" base. That raft is just too tempting!
I years ago done it with an argie and grapple and whistle .... But it is a mission!

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2 hours ago, DirkInSA said:

I know on Island w out a griffin or wyvern available it is a horrible task - but may a sky quetzal is in order at this point for a "back up" base. That raft is just too tempting!
I years ago done it with an argie and grapple and whistle .... But it is a mission!

I like it! I have 3 more levels to go before the platform saddle is unlocked, but after that we will take to the sky!

 

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On 2/5/2023 at 12:17 AM, Mackiecool said:

Why do people barely pull back the comp bow is it worth the damage loss.

Maximum damage per shot is achieved at 90% pullback, so if you have the arrows to spare it's more damaging to rapid fire into the enemy. In my opinion it's better to save on the arrows, unless you are in a rush to kill something. 

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Week 3 Update Part 1-Attacked 

Well...it finally happened, I guess i couldn't stay hidden forever. Out during a rex hunt I showed up and found my species x destroyed and raft damaged. My first thought was that a leeds hit the base then shortly after my arrival the turrets on players only began firing. A lone raider.

 I felt confident in my rafts ability to hold off a raider on my same level, but this attacker had a level 400+ shadowmane at their side, and they seemed to care very little about my turrets. They were underwater so none of the tames I had been breeding could take them on either.

My best bet was to load up my argy with all the cryos and run...as i made my dash to safety I started to understand the power of this beast as it instantly dismounted me. Allright so that didn't work...upon respawn I knew my turrets were getting low, so i decided to move my raft to shallow water and I powered down my generator. 

Surrender isn't the most noble move, but It's all i could do at this point and at least if they destroy my raft I could try to scrap up some of the remains in the shallows...then the unexpected happened and the raider backed off. I don't know why they decided to spare me, but one thing was for sure. My position was compromised and now I need a new place to live.

It's been a good little base, but its time to move on. I moved my remaining dinos and gear into my hidden caches for the time being. Looks like this weekend I will be building a new base. Hopefully someplace where shadowmanes can't reach me. 

 

So long crab shack...

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On 2/9/2023 at 9:40 PM, DirkInSA said:

Damn!!! But yeah - you could not stay hidden forever. Maybe the dude thought to loot "crab island" rather than chase a hardened raft - your turrets must have been doing SOME good!!!

Good Luck!

To be completely honest I don't believe the turrets were doing any good at all. I had 4 under the raft set to all for the leeds and the ones up top set to players and tames. The dude was just casually swimming around while taking fire lol. I didn't have them fully stocked yet, but he absorbed 3-4k rounds without flinching and that's without a soaker!

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Week 3-The Great Migration

My god this was a pain in the butt...so after the attack 2 nights ago I had spent some time scouting until I found a suitable place to make base. I'm taking a slight risk posting it, but let's be honest, most people left in this good community aren't going to raid me...right? 😅

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It's not the best picture, but it is definitely a change of scenery. As I was moving my stuff there a thyla grabbed me mid flight and while I was pinned a stupid pego ran up and stole...my megatherium! The little bugger ran off with him while I was still pinned down from the lion. I then spent the next hour searching every damn bush in the redwoods, but at last I found him. BugzB still lives!

That mega is actually a crucial tame. To survive down here I need both a steady supply of antidotes for the bats and ghillie for the heat...oh and also cryo pods and grapples in order to get out! It's a bit of a hassle, but now the raiders will have a few hoops to jump through before they can reach me. 

I am also pleased to say that I have made my first true ally on the server. Most of the guys I supplied with tames just kind of disappeared, but these guys are a tribe of 3 and seem pretty experienced. We named our alliance "The (server number) Defenders". A bit cliche, especially since we haven't really defended anything, but I like to think that this is the start of something that can grow into a real community.

All of this being said, I must admit that I have fallen off track. Between breeding the initial tames and building a new home I lost sight of the bigger picture. My new base still requires fortification, but It's also about time i got back on track and continued the hunt for some boss dinos.

The weekend Is just beginning so with some luck I'll post again with some more good news!

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16 hours ago, Logan96 said:

Week 3-The Great Migration

My god this was a pain in the butt...so after the attack 2 nights ago I had spent some time scouting until I found a suitable place to make base. I'm taking a slight risk posting it, but let's be honest, most people left in this good community aren't going to raid me...right? 😅

 

20230211035131_1.thumb.jpg.df504f4b3ab219a58e43d4a4b3c255d8.jpg

 

It's not the best picture, but it is definitely a change of scenery. As I was moving my stuff there a thyla grabbed me mid flight and while I was pinned a stupid pego ran up and stole...my megatherium! The little bugger ran off with him while I was still pinned down from the lion. I then spent the next hour searching every damn bush in the redwoods, but at last I found him. BugzB still lives!

That mega is actually a crucial tame. To survive down here I need both a steady supply of antidotes for the bats and ghillie for the heat...oh and also cryo pods and grapples in order to get out! It's a bit of a hassle, but now the raiders will have a few hoops to jump through before they can reach me. 

I am also pleased to say that I have made my first true ally on the server. Most of the guys I supplied with tames just kind of disappeared, but these guys are a tribe of 3 and seem pretty experienced. We named our alliance "The (server number) Defenders". A bit cliche, especially since we haven't really defended anything, but I like to think that this is the start of something that can grow into a real community.

All of this being said, I must admit that I have fallen off track. Between breeding the initial tames and building a new home I lost sight of the bigger picture. My new base still requires fortification, but It's also about time i got back on track and continued the hunt for some boss dinos.

The weekend Is just beginning so with some luck I'll post again with some more good news!

You may wanna reconsider building in a cave. If memory serves, structures in caves actually take more damage for some reason

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16 minutes ago, CosmicSkeleton said:

You may wanna reconsider building in a cave. If memory serves, structures in caves actually take more damage for some reason

Yep, everything in caves takes 6x damage. To be honest though these days the damage is a moot point. Explosives and Arthropleura are so easy to come by that structure health dosent really matter. 

Also this isnt just in a cave. There is a bridge that you have to cross with a giant lava pit undeneath. I actually grappled down into the pit and built under the bridge so its pretty dang hidden.

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Going to disappoint on this one guys. I frigen love this game, but after the third week of averaging 4-5 hours a day I am getting burned out. All I can say is that you guys were right about the practicality of it all. I've actually been hoping to get wiped so that I can put the games down for a bit lol. 

I don't really know what to do at this point. All I need at this point is some mating rex's to start taking on the bosses, but after a week of killing low levels I found maybe 2 that were barely above level 100. It's a little frustrating to know that I could easily get these rexes by simply transferring to a newer map. 

I think it may be time to call it quits on the challenge unfortunately.  The challenge is a cool idea and I think I could do it If I had the patience, but I think it's best to leave the PvE goals with the PvE servers. 

Sorry for the sudden ending! 

 

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Sad to see the ending so soon. It's also sad to have watched the evolution of progression get exponentially shorter with every new map release over the years. It has made starting on The Island with this progressive "story mode" style of play completely impractical and tedious, and nearly impossible on Official PVP

Don't lose heart, though. It can still be rewarding on PVE. After multiple years of strictly large tribe PVP, in PVE as a solo player I got to experience so many more aspects of the game that I had missed out on, and without the constant shadow of total loss hovering over you, also known as the Desert Titan.

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21 hours ago, Logan96 said:

I think it may be time to call it quits on the challenge unfortunately.

Nevermind - you had a good and solid dip at it!!!! You even prompted me to have a go on Official again for the first time in years. But as a solo peep, this is really not a thing to do when there real life involved. Work - the curse of the game playing class ;) 
Sad to see the posts gone, but once again Well Done!

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14 hours ago, DrSmithDVM said:

Sad to see the ending so soon. It's also sad to have watched the evolution of progression get exponentially shorter with every new map release over the years. It has made starting on The Island with this progressive "story mode" style of play completely impractical and tedious, and nearly impossible on Official PVP

Don't lose heart, though. It can still be rewarding on PVE. After multiple years of strictly large tribe PVP, in PVE as a solo player I got to experience so many more aspects of the game that I had missed out on, and without the constant shadow of total loss hovering over you, also known as the Desert Titan.

Absolutely! I do think PvP still has it's place in Ark, even when solo...but playing for the story is a little broken because as you say the progression on the island is pretty slow compared to other maps. Hopefully in Ark 2 they get a better balance figured out. 

Those shadowmanes are pretty insane. I looked up counters and the only 2 I've seen are people recommending net guns or getting a shadowmane yourself...so basically genesis is required to hold your own now lol.  

 

3 hours ago, DirkInSA said:

Nevermind - you had a good and solid dip at it!!!! You even prompted me to have a go on Official again for the first time in years. But as a solo peep, this is really not a thing to do when there real life involved. Work - the curse of the game playing class ;) 
Sad to see the posts gone, but once again Well Done!

A big thanks to you DirkInSA for being such a positive voice throughout the run. I may have quit sooner had it not been for your replies. As you say maintaining a healthy work/social life is pretty hard when trying to survive out there.

After attempting this I'm now convinced that a healthy PvP solo run is less about progression and more about the encounters. Providing the starter tames to my allies and getting into a derpy frog battle was the most enjoyable part of the run.

I don't really care about end game content now. I have more fun just messing around on beaches with high population servers. I think that was one of the metas that joeblow mentioned in the beginning of this post. 

Good Luck on your own official run! Take your time and enjoy the experience!

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On 2/12/2023 at 1:14 AM, Logan96 said:

Going to disappoint on this one guys. I frigen love this game, but after the third week of averaging 4-5 hours a day I am getting burned out.

Dear diary...

Joking aside, sorry it didn't end up being as fun as you had hoped. Even so you've given it a good, solid try and you now have the experience of having done it. Also, it's better that you reached this point after 3 weeks rather than 3 months, it was interesting to read your progress reports.

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10 hours ago, Logan96 said:

Absolutely! I do think PvP still has it's place in Ark, even when solo...but playing for the story is a little broken because as you say the progression on the island is pretty slow compared to other maps.

I disagree with that. ARK was originally conceived as a tribe-based game, with SP mode intended for solo story play (and PvE eventually added because players yelled about it until they listened).

Playing solo in PvP is pretty much the one way they never intended the game to be played. No one would try playing solo against a full football team, or solo against a full baseball team, but people do it in ARK even though that's the hardest way to play the game (except for the sheer lunacy of hardcore, I'm only counting sane people here).

Playing the story line in PvP is still do-able with a tribe, although even that is harder than playing the "normal" way. Trying to play the story as a solo player in PvP isn't broken, it works exactly how one should expect it to work.

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13 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Dear diary...

Joking aside, sorry it didn't end up being as fun as you had hoped. Even so you've given it a good, solid try and you now have the experience of having done it. Also, it's better that you reached this point after 3 weeks rather than 3 months, it was interesting to read your progress reports.

Honestly the biggest hinderance here was burnout. The initial start was extremely fun, despite a few setbacks, but once I got a taste of what kind of time investment it would take to complete the challenge I had zero desire to complete it. It wasn't about challenge, only time investment...and the gratification as you said is simply not worth it. 

Ironically enough, it's the moments after getting raided when the desire to continue playing kicks in. Almost like a stubborn will that refuses to be beaten by a simple raid. Once things started going smooth is right about the time I reached the burnout point.

I had a well hidden lava base with breeding capability and multiple recovery stashes at my quitting point. The next 2-3 months would have been nothing more that running the same caves and islands for tames and saddles to complete the bosses. 

Without the fear and danger of facing a total setback the game becomes dreadfully boring for me. I am a firm believer that early-mid game is the best experience that ark has to offer. 

 

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13 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

I disagree with that. ARK was originally conceived as a tribe-based game, with SP mode intended for solo story play (and PvE eventually added because players yelled about it until they listened).

Playing solo in PvP is pretty much the one way they never intended the game to be played. No one would try playing solo against a full football team, or solo against a full baseball team, but people do it in ARK even though that's the hardest way to play the game (except for the sheer lunacy of hardcore, I'm only counting sane people here).

Playing the story line in PvP is still do-able with a tribe, although even that is harder than playing the "normal" way. Trying to play the story as a solo player in PvP isn't broken, it works exactly how one should expect it to work.

Call me crazy, wrong, or paranoid if you will, but I personally suspect that you pipingshot play amongst the lunatics that that you mention...and it may be that you have found the best way to play!

I have some major gripes with tribing up in this game though, honestly I think tribe play and following the storyline directly clash. First of all, let's take a look at what it takes to be a good teammate in this game.

1. Microphone:

This is a great tool to coordinate teamwork during raids, dungeons/caves and bosses, but let's be honest. A microphone especially when combined with other tools like discord are a complete emersion buster. Call me a nerdy ass role-player if you want, but when I play a game, whether for the story mode or not, I want to be as emersed as possible. Hearing and talking to my teammates about random poop completely breaks the emersion aspect for me. 

2. Commitment:

This isn't as much of a problem in other types of games, but games like ark are different. Once in a tribe you have forfeited your right to play for the story. You may dispute that if you wish, but I will hold the claim that nobody who plays in a competitive PvP tribe plays for the story. They play for the betterment of the tribe (like Nerva) and that is all. 

3. Kill On Sight (KOS):

Call me crazy, but in my experience if you can't communicate wit someone in the game (because your mic is locked in a stupid discord chat room) and you are in seperate tribes then your encounter will most likely be a violent one. KOS was not always the norm in ark, but these last few years the KOS has risen dramatically, and I suspect it's because the people who continue to play are those who already have an established tribe that they only speak to through discord. 

Why this relates to your post:

1. The survivor documents that we follow throughout the story are faced with their own "PvP encounters." Mei-Yin vs Nerva for example. As such I believe that our own survivor is meant to face the same PvP threats that these figures fought against. Anything else is a betrayal to the storyline. 

2. For the reasons I listed above, tribe gameplay is pretty much oblivious to story gameplay.  We can only conclude that our main heroes/villains of the storyline such as Helena and Rockwell went their own ways solo, with the larger "oblivious" tribes serving as allies, or enemies, so I expect that our own survivor is following their path as well. 

Conclusion) :

Solo PvP based on a story perspective was always the intended way to play, from a story perspective. Unfortunately, the true gameplay of solo PvP is a completely different experience than what the story portrays and as such it is as I've stated broken. 

Instead solo PvPers spend their days hiding in the shadows and becoming the villains of the story because it's the only way to survive against this so called intended player base. 

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7 hours ago, Logan96 said:

Solo PvP based on a story perspective was always the intended way to play, from a story perspective. Unfortunately, the true gameplay of solo PvP is a completely different experience than what the story portrays and as such it is as I've stated broken. 

Instead solo PvPers spend their days hiding in the shadows and becoming the villains of the story because it's the only way to survive against this so called intended player base. 

This !

 

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9 hours ago, Logan96 said:

Honestly the biggest hinderance here was burnout. The initial start was extremely fun, despite a few setbacks, but once I got a taste of what kind of time investment it would take to complete the challenge I had zero desire to complete it.

 

9 hours ago, Logan96 said:

Ironically enough, it's the moments after getting raided when the desire to continue playing kicks in.

And both of this!!!!

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4 minutes ago, DirkInSA said:

I T O of my own official dip - I have just come out of 36 hours of no electrics - so never mind work getting in the way of game play, my dodgy country does not aid the cause either. I am no even going to bother logging in to see what ruins are left .........

This happened to me during this last freeze in the US. Lost power (internet) for a week. Logged back in to nothing but a trough staring at me.

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