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PVE Servers - New Guy Experience


DirkInSA

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Over the last looooong while this topic bumps in one form or another.

So excuse me (beer was taken) but I believe a new look is in order.

My personal experience of Official PVE servers has been mostly "Spawn in" "Try and live through the massed stuff built around spawn areas" "Give up and try a different server"

Some 4 (or 5 I don't remember) years ago, I swore to my self not to even try that no more. Because with PVP I could maybe one day  come back and nuke the dodgy base that blocked my spawn.  (Albeit I would probably not survive long enough to get nukes ..)

So what this topic is intended to do is kinda a survey (I dunno how to set up such a thing in the forum).
1) Which person has spawned into Official PVE and made a good go of it 

2) Which of the "established" guys have recently spawned  into a (new to you) Official sever and tried to make a go of a 0 level character?

I am no trying to throw stones at ANYONE here - but I did (like 2 weeks ago) spawn into an official PVE server (for fun) to try and make a go. And I could not live long enough to get a raft out into sea. And I am no a new comer to Ark!  Sure maybe I did no have the patience to persist :( But what does that say about a new purchase kinda guy that read all the marketing rubbish on Ark?

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I've read your post a few times and can't grasp your question, are you asking who has joined an official server and kept playing and whether you start a new character, so from level 1 on a new server?

If so, nearly every time on official when i join a map, i start a new character and build up from scratch, pretty easy with the current 1x rates to get a starter base down  within the hour.

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26 minutes ago, DirkInSA said:

I am no trying to throw stones at ANYONE here - but I did (like 2 weeks ago) spawn into an official PVE server (for fun) to try and make a go. And I could not live long enough to get a raft out into sea. And I am no a new comer to Ark!  Sure maybe I did no have the patience to persist :( But what does that say about a new purchase kinda guy that read all the marketing rubbish on Ark?

Ive seen a bunch of completely new guys come to 'my" server over the last 2-3 months. They have pretty much, all of them Full tek bases now...
I must say that my server is EXTREMELY welcoming to new players though. If not me, others end up inviting them to our aliance pretty soon... Getting all kinds of stuff...
I think you are limiting yourself too much, like Oh I cant do this or that because im a "newb' today...

They will find a way if they are persistant :)

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I just did this a few weeks ago. 2 different things. 

  • Logged into my old legacy server for the first time in 2+ years. Most all spaces where available to build. Seems about right for a mostly empty legacy server. All the old places where people used to have huge bases. All clear for building.
  • Started a new character recently on the live servers. The first server I logged into had plenty of great space for building. Prob got lucky on that one.

Whenever I transfer servers, I look around to see what the pillaring is like. It's really hit or miss. Some places are all taken up. some don't have much pillaring at all. Really just have to look around at different servers. 

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  • Joebl0w13 changed the title to PVE Servers - New Guy Experience
1 hour ago, DirkInSA said:

1) Which person has spawned into Official PVE and made a good go of it 

2) Which of the "established" guys have recently spawned  into a (new to you) Official sever and tried to make a go of a 0 level character?

I am no trying to throw stones at ANYONE here - but I did (like 2 weeks ago) spawn into an official PVE server (for fun) to try and make a go. And I could not live long enough to get a raft out into sea. And I am no a new comer to Ark!  Sure maybe I did no have the patience to persist :( But what does that say about a new purchase kinda guy that read all the marketing rubbish on Ark?

I did, and had a metal base, indy forge, and even a giga under my pants before my IP issue cropped up.

I have not since, but it was only a couple years ago, so I had the same issue, but I managed. Granted it was a huge bummer to see a base in the area I wanted to go to originally, but after sticking to my guns, found a hella decent spot for my ambitions.

Honestly I think the solo play was better. Yeah, play with freinds and all that, hopefully ark 2 will keep this in mind and instead of doing their own servers or rent servers, maybe they can use the system as its own server AND still be able to play on it as well. But thats a heck of a jump from where we are now.

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On 3/16/2023 at 1:30 PM, DirkInSA said:

Over the last looooong while this topic bumps in one form or another.

So excuse me (beer was taken) but I believe a new look is in order.

[snip]

I am no trying to throw stones at ANYONE here - but I did (like 2 weeks ago) spawn into an official PVE server (for fun) to try and make a go. And I could not live long enough to get a raft out into sea. And I am no a new comer to Ark!  Sure maybe I did no have the patience to persist :( But what does that say about a new purchase kinda guy that read all the marketing rubbish on Ark?

About once a year I jump on to an official server for 2-5 days (basically to do what you're describing) just for the fun of it, and I've never had a problem being able to get established.

I always choose the server based on lowest ping (which means I don't actually "choose" a map, I get whatever map is randomly lucky with ping that day) and I always choose Official PvE (in other words, not legacy servers). I can always build a 1x1 starter hut with a bed within a couple hours, and within a few hours more have a 2x2 stone building with a small courtyard with a parasaur or some other convenient/easy mount. Over the course of my play time I end up taming at least one each of the utility animals (stone harvest, wood harvest, and usually metal harvest), a few combat/predator animals, and reach the point where I could easily build a larger base. Then I'm done and I go back to my private server for a year.

To be fair, sometimes I go back to an old server with an existing character (not always a Lvl 0) but other times it's a brand new character (I'm up to having characters on 8 different Official servers at this point) and using a brand new Lvl 0 is never a problem.

One of the reasons I do it is specifically because I enjoy the mini-game of trying to find a good place to build. Popular areas are... popular, so what makes things interesting is finding a less popular area that still has good build locations. On my private server we always get to pick exactly where we want to build because we own the entirety of every map, but on Official servers I have to figure out a good place to build in a world that's already heavily inhabited, and I like that little tidbit of an extra challenge once in a while.

I have always maintained that experienced players who complain about lack of places to build suffer from a lack of imagination. With new players it's different, it's more understandable, they're just not used to games that work the way ARK does (I can just about guarantee there are similar complaints on Conan PvE servers), but with experienced players they just don't want to do the work of finding a good spot. If someone is going to be on a server for months, or longer, then they should expect that it will be necessary to do some scouting before they find a location that has everything they want, that's simply how life goes on an Official server.

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7 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

One of the reasons I do it is specifically because I enjoy the mini-game of trying to find a good place to build

I do the same thing. For some reason it's just fun to start a small base someplace you never have before and someplace most people wouldn't. It is a mini-game. Once I'm pretty established... poof, off to another playthrough.

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After I quit pvp but before quitting officials in general I found myself a quaint little official server that actually served me pretty well before I had to accept that I really didn't have the time to do officials any longer. Minimal pillaring around the rare spawn and resource locations for the most part and generally pretty chill aside from this one clownshow of a tribe that tried to gate off/pillar and foundation spam everything they could near me and the neighbor tribe that was willing to tolerate my base (at the time I always kept my bases small and efficient, only tamed things I could fit in my established area, and was generally polite so I guess I was easy enough to accept nearby) being just out of render because the aforementioned clownshow tribe wanted the area we were in for themselves. Funnily enough them doing that hurt them in the long run because my neighbors apparently were well liked in the server and the second they piped up and it got heated every other tribe that played there all came to the unanimous decision to constantly pillar near them or kill or at the very least use as a meathsheild against aggroed creatures whatever they caught them trying to tranquilize until they gave up and destroyed the structures they put near us. It was probably the best example of toxicity and pettiness being used as a force for dubious good I'd seen in a good while. Finding servers like that on official is one part luck, one part trial and error, and one part server hopping. Lots and lots of server hopping.

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