Balancing PVP

[deucebigaloww]

The reason I stopped playing even though I loved the game is the same for many, constant wiping, you look at forums where people say why they stopped playing its pretty much all the same response, had enough of constant raiding mostly offline, I called the game wipesville because that's all that happens, most people stop playing for this reason and yet nothing is done, please atleast try balance Ark 2, scouting the map is too easy to find players even if they try live in a  rat hole the trolls on their wyverns or manas with their pokeball Giggas find you, Dinos way to powerful they might aswell join Marvel they are soo strong, it once took me 60 RPGs and some longneck rifle shots to kill a bred Rex before, takers one bred steggo to raid any base leaving base defence useless thats why the only surviving tribes were mega tribes because they allways have players on, second your offline your done, thats also why Alphas wipe servers and dont allow anyone to grow because they know the second someone gets established even if they are much weaker than them, once they are offline they could get wiped out so better keep everyone down, also explosives and raiding equipment easy to mass produce, with argy and anky or quetz you can clear entire mountains of metal straight back to base, hows that realistic? a bird can carry about 100 tonne of metal lol, a combination of easy access around the map, easy to farm resources, super powerful bred tames, the gap between the bottom players and the top is simply to huge, one player in a set up tribe can defeat an entire server of new starters over and over, imagine joining a server with 50 players, all say right we are going to take out the troll that wipes everyone, they all start tameing, have a trike or similar each and level them up best they can, then they see the troll ruining the server on his super powerful bred gigga and attack him, we all know what the outcome is, a Gigga with a full belly, no balancing at all, numbers dont matter, no such thing a base defense, easy raid equipment= wipesville.

[Xavanic]

Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

But realisticaly your best bet is to find an UO with ORP, but there is tons of tactics to develop a good base on Officals aswell just gotta realize that starting by building a base out in the open can and will screw you if your a smaller tribe

[sjskdjkfa]

What is balance? Idk, but I always wanted to pve in pvp. I dreamed of a perfect base design that would be unraidable. I always said building material shoulda been stronger, why is it one guy can bum rush past your turrets and with a handful of small explosives shred a gaping hole in the side of your base like it's made of paper? People responded to me in this forum when I'd suggest that - "yea but then it'd make it impossible to raid well built bases, especially cave bases, imagine not being able to get an artifact because your rival dug in deep around it and could never be remove"... which is a reasonable response. So I stopped suggesting it, but most of your post is about guns vs dinos not explosives vs buildings. I'd just point out that if guns were more potent and dinos less, that'd just make the game more gun centric and less dino centric. It's a dino game so dinos should be central, but I never got dinos to defend a base much better than auto turrets lol. But I always kinda sucked at this, but I know most other people couldn't keep from getting wiped. I don't know if in a game as complex as ark if balance is possible. And I know others really liked to find the weakness in any base and wipe it out, for them the game worked perfectly.

[DirkInSA]

12 hours ago, deucebigaloww said:

scouting the map is too easy to find players even if they try live in a  rat hole the trolls on their wyverns or manas with their pokeball Giggas find you

Agreed! I have always played solo - never been in an official online tribe. And no matter where I tried to make a base(s), I was wiped. Often with more than one base being whacked overnight. I don't have the same issue as you with Alpha guys - they have spent a collective effort over time to become Alpha, so good luck to them. But my experience was that the "wiping" was almost NEVER done by peeps homed on the server. It was generally an off server guy popping in with (probably) a Mana and some pocket this or that to cause destruction with. And there is my issue. How does a single, off server, player come to a map and infallibly find bases to whack. Be they hidden deep in jungle, or on  a raft in the least interesting piece of ocean, or whatever. The base is found - wipe is done, and the guy is not seen on server for weeks.

I understand that an Alpha with like 50 players using heatseeking spiders or x-ray owls or whatever could scout the map for stuff. But again, I ain't seen that happening. And on smalls, there are no 50 people tribes. And if a alpha were to do that on a regular basis, they would not have time to do anything else - the maps are BIG.

So my issue boiled down to either peeps were using .ini hacks, or plain cheating with ESP or some such.

But the answer was the same for me as you - give up official online!

[St1ckyBandit]

3 hours ago, DirkInSA said:

Agreed! I have always played solo - never been in an official online tribe. And no matter where I tried to make a base(s), I was wiped. Often with more than one base being whacked overnight. I don't have the same issue as you with Alpha guys - they have spent a collective effort over time to become Alpha, so good luck to them. But my experience was that the "wiping" was almost NEVER done by peeps homed on the server. It was generally an off server guy popping in with (probably) a Mana and some pocket this or that to cause destruction with. And there is my issue. How does a single, off server, player come to a map and infallibly find bases to whack. Be they hidden deep in jungle, or on  a raft in the least interesting piece of ocean, or whatever. The base is found - wipe is done, and the guy is not seen on server for weeks.

I understand that an Alpha with like 50 players using heatseeking spiders or x-ray owls or whatever could scout the map for stuff. But again, I ain't seen that happening. And on smalls, there are no 50 people tribes. And if a alpha were to do that on a regular basis, they would not have time to do anything else - the maps are BIG.

So my issue boiled down to either peeps were using .ini hacks, or plain cheating with ESP or some such.

But the answer was the same for me as you - give up official online!

Doesnt always have to be cheating. Sometimes the pop-in will screw you over. I've seen peoples bases load in before the surrounding foliage a few times.

Either way its EXTREMELY hard to hide anything bigger than a craft shack. I should know I've been struggling with it since the game released.

Finally found a good spot on the Center but it took literally years and probably 100 wipes.