Will Pillaring be addressed in Official PvE ASA

[Legitarkplayer23]

Nvm

Edited September 27, 2023 by Legitarkplayer23

[Noricha]

The land should have markers that a person could claim, and each person should be allowed to have two markers. If you want to change properties, you have to give up your claim.  Or something like that to prevent one person from owning 80% of the land.

[Duffmek]

I HIGHLY doubt it ... when i reported a tribe that had took over most of a certain area and blocked  it off for others it took the CS WEEKS to remove stuff - yet when i had literally 5 pillars AROUND my own base to stop fools from building too close i was reported and the pillars where removed rather quickly ... almost felt dodgy since i had been on that sever in the SAME spot for over a full year lol (blocking nothing either apart from that extra couple of foundations to m own base).

 

It requires videos, pics and sacrifices to get some things done this is just going to be one of them problems again.

 

However Ark 2 is supposed to have set areas to build or something that requires others to load into an area with a base inside if i remember correctly - but yeah Ark 2 .... 

[Pipinghot]

2 hours ago, Legitarkplayer23 said:

If you've played any offical PvE on ASE you know exactly what I'm talking about. The pillars, ladders and the foundations... as far as the eye can see and usually right up to everyone's property. It wasn't awful in the beginning, wildcard even tried to minimize it before the offical launch in 2016 by adding the 2 snaps required instead of the single foundation for the max decay time. This had little to no effect. I hope they implement some sort of like 2 property limit, maybe a large one for a main base and a smaller for a trap build. I don't mind the ugly bases but the blatantly greedy land grabbing not only ruins the game on a fundamental level but it's also makes the once beautiful maps ugly as hell.

Anyway I just wanted to ask this so hopefully someone higher up sees and gives an update on this specific issue in an upcoming QaA.

There's no reason to expect that pillaring will ever change in PvE, it's the solution that WildCard has chosen to accept in the game.

As you noted, they made some changes to make pillaring a bit more difficult and a bit more expensive in 2016, and ever since then for 7 years, they have allowed pillaring to be a standard feature of PvE in ARK. It's pretty obvious that WildCard approves of pillaring and has no intentions of changing the land claiming system.

Also, considering no one "higher up" has had anything to say about pillaring in many years, there's no reason to believe they'll suddenly have something to say about it now.

Pillaring is part of ARK PvE, that's just the simple reality of how the game works.

[Duffmek]

9 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

There's no reason to expect that pillaring will ever change in PvE, it's the solution that WildCard has chosen to accept in the game.

As you noted, they made some changes to make pillaring a bit more difficult and a bit more expensive in 2016, and ever since then for 7 years, they have allowed pillaring to be a standard feature of PvE in ARK. It's pretty obvious that WildCard approves of pillaring and has no intentions of changing the land claiming system.

Also, considering no one "higher up" has had anything to say about pillaring in many years, there's no reason to believe they'll suddenly have something to say about it now.

Pillaring is part of ARK PvE, that's just the simple reality of how the game works.

sad quote for truth lol

[Pipinghot]

35 minutes ago, Duffmek said:

sad quote for truth lol

Yeah, I'm not saying that I'm super happy with pillaring, but any land claim system will have both positive and negative aspects. People have suggested many alternatives on the forums and most of them would work even worse with a game like ARK. Different systems work well in other games, but that doesn't mean they would work well in this game. Pillaring may not be a great solution, but when you weigh all of the pro's and con's it's less bad than just about anything we've seen suggested on the forums.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Pipinghot

[wildbill]

16 hours ago, Noricha said:

The land should have markers that a person could claim, and each person should be allowed to have two markers. If you want to change properties, you have to give up your claim.  Or something like that to prevent one person from owning 80% of the land.

Another game very similar to ARK is Atlas. In that game they tried several solutions to the pillaring "problem". They never came up with one that came close to solving the problem. 

So really the only solution that works is to not play on the official servers and play on a friendly unofficial server where they have rules against pillaring and admins that enforce them. Or single player also works.

[Noricha]

The thing is, they should be working on a solution and perhaps the public has ideas for the devs.  Like the Dino leash you put down, there should be a 1 acre marker you put down as a claim, and everyone only gets two markers.  Or there’s probably a better solution out there.  But I guess we can all just throw up our hands and say oh well let’s play single player and not communicate with anyone.

[Pipinghot]

3 hours ago, wildbill said:

Another game very similar to ARK is Atlas. In that game they tried several solutions to the pillaring "problem". They never came up with one that came close to solving the problem. 

So really the only solution that works is to not play on the official servers and play on a friendly unofficial server where they have rules against pillaring and admins that enforce them. Or single player also works.

 

[Edit: I was wrong about Atlas PvE, didn't realize it actually exists. Leaving the original text of this  post here for continuity.]

 

Considering Atlas is pure PvP there isn't a pillaring problem to begin with, just like there's not a pillaring problem in ARK PvP.

Pillars are a moot point in PvP. If you don't like someone's pillar, destroy it. If you can't, or are afraid to do it, you've already lost the battle. Same with Atlas.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Pipinghot

[Pipinghot]

3 hours ago, Noricha said:

The thing is, they should be working on a solution

You're assuming there's a better solution, but the history of ARK (and many suggestions from players) has shown this to be untrue (so far).

3 hours ago, Noricha said:

and perhaps the public has ideas for the devs.

People have been suggesting ideas since the very beginning of ARK and, as already discussed, they all have pro's and con's, with all of them being less suitable for ARK than pillaring (or at least equally problematic in different ways). Many have tried, none have succeeded, that fact alone should be informative that it's not as easy as it sounds.

3 hours ago, Noricha said:

Like the Dino leash you put down, there should be a 1 acre marker you put down as a claim, and everyone only gets two markers.  Or there’s probably a better solution out there.

This is a good example of why alternatives don't really work for this game (even if they work well in other games).

 

Leashes (or something like them) have been discussed many times and the fundamental problem(s) is that it's not adaptable or flexible.

1) If the leash zone is too large small tribe gets too much land.

2) If the leash zone is too small a big tribe doesn't get enough.

3a) If the size changes based on the number of people in a tribe, a large tribe that loses members will have their land area shrink and they might have buildings that they earned fair and square get destroyed because the game has shrunk their land area.

3b) If the size changes based on the number of people in a tribe, a small tribe that gains people might still be stuck in their original area, because the leash distance can't automatically push their boundaries outwards without being unfair to the tribes around them.

In the end, it doesn't solve any problems with land claiming but it does create new ones.

3 hours ago, Noricha said:

Or there’s probably a better solution out there.

Except so far there's not, and "so far" means "since the day ARK started'. That doesn't mean a better idea can't exist, but so far no one has thought of it.

If you can come up with an idea that solves the problem of pillars without creating new, equally bad, problems people all over ARK would rejoice and sing your praises. But after this many years no amount of working on a solution has ever resulted in a better idea for ARK.

3 hours ago, Noricha said:

But I guess we can all just throw up our hands and say oh well let’s play single player and not communicate with anyone.

No, don't throw up your hands, I'm not counseling hopeless, just realism. People should try as hard as they want to come up with a better idea as long as they have realistic expectations. The catch is that people have to be willing to accept constructive criticism about the flaws in their ideas. Remember, any alternative solution needs to solve the problem of pilaring but not create worse problems.

 

Solving a problem with a different problem can possibly be a solution, lots of things in life are improved this way, but it only works is the new problem is better than the old problem.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Pipinghot

[Joebl0w13]

2 hours ago, Noricha said:

The thing is, they should be working on a solution and perhaps the public has ideas for the devs.  Like the Dino leash you put down, there should be a 1 acre marker you put down as a claim, and everyone only gets two markers.  Or there’s probably a better solution out there.  But I guess we can all just throw up our hands and say oh well let’s play single player and not communicate with anyone.

Suggestions -> https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/forum/64-game-suggestions/

[Noricha]

@ Pipinghot, all good points.  And Joe, my suggestion is probably lame, I’m sure there’s tech people out there with a better idea.  And maybe it’s just something that can’t be fixed, after reading Pipinghot’s post, I now realize that this has been an ongoing issue since the game started.

[wildbill]

2 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

Considering Atlas is pure PvP there isn't a pillaring problem to begin with, just like there's not a pillaring problem in ARK PvP.

Pillars are a moot point in PvP. If you don't like someone's pillar, destroy it. If you can't, or are afraid to do it, you've already lost the battle. Same with Atlas.

Well obviously if we are talking about a pillaring problem, it is PvE, so I didn't mention Atlas with PvE. And yes, there is a setting to play Atlas PvE and yes, lots of people in the day played it PvE or a mix of grids that were some PvE and some PvP. And yes, it sucked for PvE with all the land getting claimed if you played on an official server. And yes, like always in ARK, some people playing PvE seem to think it is just a slightly different form of PvP and will try to find ways to grief you and even kill you playing Atlas PvE. Of course I'm talking about the Atlas I played a few years ago, but from what I've heard, there has been very little done to change Atlas since then, so pretty sure my example of Atlas and PvE is still valid for even the current version of Atlas being played. 

Edited September 27, 2023 by wildbill

[Pipinghot]

25 minutes ago, wildbill said:

Well obviously if we are talking about a pillaring problem, it is PvE, so I didn't mention Atlas with PvE. And yes, there is a setting to play Atlas PvE and yes, lots of people in the day played it PvE or a mix of grids that were some PvE and some PvP. And yes, it sucked for PvE with all the land getting claimed if you played on an official server. And yes, like always in ARK, some people playing PvE seem to think it is just a slightly different form of PvP and will try to find ways to grief you and even kill you playing Atlas PvE.

Whoa, my bad. I didn't have any recollection of Atlas having PvE. That's what I get for writing about it without looking at the Web/Steam page first.

Thanks for the correction.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Pipinghot

[wildbill]

2 hours ago, Noricha said:

@ Pipinghot, all good points.  And Joe, my suggestion is probably lame, I’m sure there’s tech people out there with a better idea.  And maybe it’s just something that can’t be fixed, after reading Pipinghot’s post, I now realize that this has been an ongoing issue since the game started.

I'm sure we all wish for there to be a solution to PvE and land claiming on official servers.

Many games simply avoid this problem which can be addressed as part of the core design of a game. You can do things like 1) Make the base be in a non-public location. So a separate private area that is similar for all players, separate from the main map. 2) Have no ability to make a base to begin with, 3) Make the map essentially unlimited in size such that it is literally impossible to build all over the entire map. 4) Each player has their own separate map, with common areas where you can't build at all. 5) Not have official, just privately hosted servers, 6) Single player or non-dedicated servers only, 7) Only release the game as PvP, 😎 etc.

ARK uses none of the known methods that work, instead the fundamental game design is one I personally have never seen work well with PvE. It is what I'd call a fundamental/core design error that can't be fixed with any reasonable change to the game design. Instead it requires admins to address the issue. Something that is too expensive to implement fully with official servers.

BTW, I'm not against playing PvE on ARK. It can be done on private (unofficial) servers just fine. I'm also not against PvP games, but in my opinion ARK is also not that well suited to PvP either on official servers (at least not the type of PvP I like to play), so I play ARK PvE only.

There are plenty of examples of games that work well for PvE and also  games (not always the same game) that work well for PvP. If you look at those games and look at the features that make them work, you will see core game mechanics not present in ARK. Or the opposite, those game will not have some of the core game mechanics that ARK has that cause problems with PvE.

Essentially, from what I've seen so far of ARK, fixing the pillaring problem would mean changes so fundamental to ARK, that it wouldn't even be recognized as the same game. Personally I like ARK as it is. Really it is up to each player to play the game as they like it. Some might chose single player, others only play with friends or with a friendly community of players. Some PvP. Some just think it is fine to play on a server that has 1/2 or more of the buildable area with bases or pillars on them. If none of these is to your liking, you can just chose not to play ARK at all.

[Joebl0w13]

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

I'm sure we all wish for there to be a solution to PvE and land claiming on official servers.

Many games simply avoid this problem which can be addressed as part of the core design of a game. You can do things like 1) Make the base be in a non-public location. So a separate private area that is similar for all players, separate from the main map. 2) Have no ability to make a base to begin with, 3) Make the map essentially unlimited in size such that it is literally impossible to build all over the entire map. 4) Each player has their own separate map, with common areas where you can't build at all. 5) Not have official, just privately hosted servers, 6) Single player or non-dedicated servers only, 7) Only release the game as PvP, 😎 etc.

ARK uses none of the known methods that work, instead the fundamental game design is one I personally have never seen work well with PvE. It is what I'd call a fundamental/core design error that can't be fixed with any reasonable change to the game design. Instead it requires admins to address the issue. Something that is too expensive to implement fully with official servers.

BTW, I'm not against playing PvE on ARK. It can be done on private (unofficial) servers just fine. I'm also not against PvP games, but in my opinion ARK is also not that well suited to PvP either on official servers (at least not the type of PvP I like to play), so I play ARK PvE only.

There are plenty of examples of games that work well for PvE and also  games (not always the same game) that work well for PvP. If you look at those games and look at the features that make them work, you will see core game mechanics not present in ARK. Or the opposite, those game will not have some of the core game mechanics that ARK has that cause problems with PvE.

Essentially, from what I've seen so far of ARK, fixing the pillaring problem would mean changes so fundamental to ARK, that it wouldn't even be recognized as the same game. Personally I like ARK as it is. Really it is up to each player to play the game as they like it. Some might chose single player, others only play with friends or with a friendly community of players. Some PvP. Some just think it is fine to play on a server that has 1/2 or more of the buildable area with bases or pillars on them. If none of these is to your liking, you can just chose not to play ARK at all.

The best part about Ark has always been that you can do just about anything, just about anywhere at just about any time. 

Best sandbox ever made. 

[Noffek]

7 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

The best part about Ark has always been that you can do just about anything, just about anywhere at just about any time. 

Best sandbox ever made. 

Yes, this is the best sandbox.  I've seen other more adult games with open world building modes.  You could build palaces, swimming pools and use scripts.  The building mechanics are at an average level, but what was introduced on ARK, I don't know if it would be applicable.  And what do I care about ASA, I won't buy it anyway xd.  Well, in the open world you could move around the instances and each of them was a separate server, you could build something on each of them BUT:

The place had to be paid for with micro payments, monthly in the amount of about €50 for the VIP right, but without VIP, many instances were not available to the player.  Yes, you know, 50€ has already been spent, now we are buying land for our house.  you can buy a ready-made model in one of many stores and simply respawn it in your area.  But there was a problem here too, because the area you bought had a limited number of structures, to have more you had to pay more, on average about €20 per month.  Yes, you know, building on your own was possible and there were many options and interactions with objects.  But when you looked at the store later, your expression changed because it turns out that you were already 98% of the limit and your place was a barracks.  For a house made with a script, you had to pay again, up to €300 (some people bought it), but this house had everything you wanted, you could change the color, and best of all, it was fully equipped, which took up only 30% of your limit.  This option would have been accepted on ARK 1 and future ones, but I kept quiet.

Assuming 4 "Official Servers" maps for each of the current ones, it would be available to players (naturally separated pvp and pve) and a free instance with a limit of structures and dinos.  In this instance he could build his own small base and then choose an instance, e.g. GEN2 pvp mode or pve mode.  There, many players do tame missions, missions only affect the player and so on.  And here's the place for WC/SG - paid instance - the player decides on the amount of space for the base - the number of structures increases with the size of the area - the dino is not included in the structure.  I don't believe that it wouldn't be used in practice in ASE.  And the monthly revenues to the WC/SG piggy bank would increase significantly :p

Sorry, goglebabyts explained it xd.

[Noricha]

Ark was a happy sandbox before March 30th, then the people started to leave and it became a litter box of decaying bases and shattered dreams.

[Pipinghot]

11 hours ago, Noffek said:

The place had to be paid for with micro payments

For what it's worth, the open-world-survival-craft genre has inspired a bunch of games in the last couple of years, some of which are pretty darned creative and imaginative without charging subscriptions or microtransactions. Obviously we've already had Conan and Valheim, both of which have a lot to recommend them both for Official and unofficial game play, but there are more on the horizon (and a few that have already been released).

If you only want to play a game with dinosaurs then the options are extremely limited, but you're willing to generally consider open-world-survival-crafting games with different backstories there are a number of good options on the market now with more to come.

 

[wildbill]

1 hour ago, Pipinghot said:

For what it's worth, the open-world-survival-craft genre has inspired a bunch of games in the last couple of years, some of which are pretty darned creative and imaginative without charging subscriptions or microtransactions. Obviously we've already had Conan and Valheim, both of which have a lot to recommend them both for Official and unofficial game play, but there are more on the horizon (and a few that have already been released).

If you only want to play a game with dinosaurs then the options are extremely limited, but you're willing to generally consider open-world-survival-crafting games with different backstories there are a number of good options on the market now with more to come.

True, but the two you mention are not nearly as good (in my opinion) or as popular as ARK (even still is).

Conan has all the same problems as ARK, but it doesn't matter all that much since not nearly as many people play it. I don't think I've even ever played on one of their official servers, which I assume they have, but honestly don't know.

Valheim should never be played with strangers. As far as I know, there are no official servers, just ones hosted privately. The best way to play it is with friends, since it isn't even properly designed as a client/server architecture. It is more like they took the single player version, converted it to use peer to peer networking. All the code runs on your PC or some other player's PC, there are no servers. If by chance one player on the "server" has a potato of a PC and he loads in a part of the map first (this is what makes it run on his PC), then all that enter that area get a very laggy experience. If that player decides to hack the game and cheat, there isn't a lot you can do, as the code is actually running on the hacked PC, not a server. So not secure at all and not something you should trust with someone you don't know. You can't even really compare Valheim to ARK, they aren't even the same type of game architecture. I doubt most of the players of Valheim even understand these limitations, since you see gaming communities try to run it, which is probably not a good idea.

[Pipinghot]

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

True, but the two you mention are not nearly as good (in my opinion) or as popular as ARK (even still is).

Fair enough. I wasn't trying to debate the merits or demerits of either game, merely referencing the fact that they're established games rather than being part of the recent wave of games that are in the process of coming out.

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

Conan has all the same problems as ARK, but it doesn't matter all that much since not nearly as many people play it.

Which, if pillaring is the specific thing that someone hates about ARK, could recommend Conan as matching their preferences better. Some games are better with higher populations, some are better with lower populations, and in the case of Conan a lower population might make the game better for people who hate pillaring.

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

I don't think I've even ever played on one of their official servers, which I assume they have, but honestly don't know.

They do, and their PvE players do complain about land claiming, but not as often or as harshly as we see people complaining about it in ARK. Part of the issue is that there will always be someone complaining about land claiming in any game, because people get frustrated when they can't build in the "perfect spot" that they've chosen in their mind. But If we compare the amount of complaining in ARK to the amount of complaining in Conan about land claiming, overall it's less of an issue in Conan (probably because of the lower populations that we discussed).

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

Valheim should never be played with strangers.

I've played both with strangers and with friends, and some of my friends have played it with other strangers. Personally, I preferred it with friends but as long as the game host is honest then playing with strangers can be a fun experience.

The negative scenarios that you mention can definitely happen, no question about it, and anyone who plays with strangers should be prepared to leave if they don't like what's happening on the server. But whether it's fun or not is a highly variable experience, it just depends on whether people are willing to gamble on strangers.

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

Valheim should never be played with strangers. As far as I know, there are no official servers, just ones hosted privately. The best way to play it is with friends, since it isn't even properly designed as a client/server architecture. It is more like they took the single player version, converted it to use peer to peer networking. All the code runs on your PC or some other player's PC, there are no servers. If by chance one player on the "server" has a potato of a PC and he loads in a part of the map first (this is what makes it run on his PC), then all that enter that area get a very laggy experience.

My group of friends did some testing and I have to disagree with this, at least in part. The quality of the playing experience depends on the host machine. If the hosting player has a good computer and a good, dependable internet connection with low latency (latency matters much more than bandwidth) then everyone can have a good playing experience even if some of the individual players don't have a good setup. What we found in our testing (which we did because we were noticing problems with our first attempt) is that having a good host pretty much makes the problems go away. A player with a bad connection (almost) entirely affects only themselves, not the other players. The individual can experience tons of lag and rubberbanding without affecting the other players as long as the host has a good setup.

Also, you can run Valheim on a dedicated server (either rented or privately owned hardware) to get away from this problem, so in that specific regard it's just like ARK.

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

If that player decides to hack the game and cheat, there isn't a lot you can do, as the code is actually running on the hacked PC, not a server. So not secure at all and not something you should trust with someone you don't know.

Agreed. People who run cheats can ruin the group experience for everyone, which is also true for private ARK servers. Again it just depends on whether a player is willing to roll the dice and try it with strangers.

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

You can't even really compare Valheim to ARK, they aren't even the same type of game architecture.

True, but then I wasn't trying to so that's ok.

Most games in the open-world-survival-build genre are not directly comparable, because they each make some different choices that augment their individuality. Part of the issue is that the tags "sand box", "open world" and even "survival" are used as much for marketing purposes as for real taxonomy, there isn't an objective 3rd party that decides what classification a game belongs to, it depends on what buzz words the developers and publishers want to try. If someone looks at the "open world survival craft" tag on Steam there are some games that are highly debatable as being deserving of that tag.

Heck, even ARK, when you compare it to some games (like Don't Starve for example) it's hard to argue that ARK is truly a Survival game. It's definitely a survival game when the player is new, and for a few levels on each new character, but after that it's mostly a farming-building game.

So yeah, I agree with you that they're not directly comparable point-for-point, there are many differences between them, but then again I wasn't trying to directly compare them point-for-point, just referencing Valheim as an open-world-survival-build game.

1 hour ago, wildbill said:

I doubt most of the players of Valheim even understand these limitations, since you see gaming communities try to run it, which is probably not a good idea.

As long as it's run on a dedicated server the only issue to worry about is player honesty, and that's going to be an issue in any open gaming community for any game. There's nothing about Valheim that makes it worse, socially, than a comparable server for ARK or Conan.

[Noffek]

6 hours ago, wildbill said:

True, but the two you mention are not nearly as good (in my opinion) or as popular as ARK (even still is).

Yes they still exist and they still have paying customers.  I played these games before I discovered ARK on PC (then I bought Ps4 and ARk).  Yes, I discovered ARK on PC, but it was terribly muddy (but what kind of PC was it? XD it was some pad made from who knows what).  And I know they exist because my wife and I have accounts there and our assets are equally modest, so we also have to log in to the website so as not to lose our profiles.  (apart from the fact that these games are still thriving) They make you pay, but you also get the opportunity to actually earn money (if you have a mind for business), Ark will never provide this, because it is a different topic.

 

There, the issue was perfectly resolved regarding ownership of the land and what one wanted on it.  This would apply to Ark, perhaps reducing the number of WC/SG servers needed to host maps.  See how many dozens of maps we have on the official and unofficial list.  On playable maps there are lags in bases (oops, mine on Ragnarok has a maximum of 5k structures in one place) LAGggg, well if these structures were moved, e.g. one building, add the Scall option, the building will create one element, which you can then pack  e.g. ExoMek and then place it entirely in another place.  If there were instances where players could build, there was a limit on the elements used to construct a building in a given area, it would reduce lag on playable maps, on instances (where the instance was available to everyone, they could come and see it, but you couldn't  build because it was your town).  , I suspect it was based on dividing the server into instances).  The pillaring problem disappears and playable maps are lag-free because there is no structure.  I will even say that we have several such "cases" in Gen1 and Fjo.  We use the built-in TP in the client, which takes us from one part of the map to another.  Please know that solving pillaring would be possible even in ASA, as announced, the multiplatform would provide more customers with free or paid slots for Playerbases (If it was in ASA, I might still consider buying it, but no) Because WC/SG has no confidence in  players, I'm sorry, I won't disturb you.  xD.  And it could be quite a good move on the part of WC/SG.  They make money, we have fun, and the lag problem disappears.

[wildbill]

15 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

As long as it's run on a dedicated server the only issue to worry about is player honesty, and that's going to be an issue in any open gaming community for any game. There's nothing about Valheim that makes it worse, socially, than a comparable server for ARK or Conan.

I don't think you quite get the point. In Valheim, If 50 people are playing on a server, any of those 50 can hack the game and the game has no way to prevent this. This could be as simple as installing a mod that gives any of those 50 people an unfair advantage. In ARK, none of the players can easily hack the game because the game logic runs on the server, not on each player's PC. ARK is client/server, with the server controlling the game logic. The client (your PC) is just your graphics and your input to the game. On Valheim, you need to trust all 50 players. In ARK, you need to trust only the admin who installed the server. The rest of the players can be untrusted. I often ran mods that the "server" didn't have. The server host would threaten to ban people if they did this, but unless they installed a cheat detector mod (the game itself doesn't include that), there was nothing they could do unless they caught you "cheating" in game. This is a really stupid way to run a server in my opinion. Mods in ARK are installed on the server and only work if the run there and on your PC. There isn't a client only mod that can affect what happens on the server like in Valheim.

I also played a lot of Valheim. I do prefer playing games on a server with other players, not solo. I don't find Valhiem's game design to be acceptable though. It is like I said, a game designed for single player and then adapted to multiplayer to get a wider audience. And not correctly, although considering that it was wrote by just a few people, I can understand why they did it.

[Pipinghot]

2 hours ago, wildbill said:

I don't think you quite get the point. In Valheim, If 50 people are playing on a server, any of those 50 can hack the game and the game has no way to prevent this.

Which is exactly what can happen in ARK too, which is the point.

I'll agree that there are more mods that can cause this problem for Valheim than for ARK, so player honesty is somewhat more important, but there are definitely client-side cheats for ARK that the server admin cannot prevent. I'm not going to name or discuss specific cheats but they exist. ARK is nowhere close to being immune to the problem of client-side cheats.

Beyond the question of client-side mods, I would also argue that ARK is also more vulnerable to exploits than Valheim, by virtue of having a more complicated set of game mechanics. ARK is a more complicated game, and with greater complication comes greater vulnerability to exploits. Not hacks, not cheat mods, but simply understanding ways to exploit the game mechanics for an unfair advantage, ARK has a big history of this. Personally, I think the sheer number of exploits in ARK balances out the greater number of cheat mods in Valheim. If you play ARK on a private server you have the same trust problem, you have to trust that other players are not taking advantage of known exploits.

2 hours ago, wildbill said:

This could be as simple as installing a mod that gives any of those 50 people an unfair advantage. In ARK, none of the players can easily hack the game because the game logic runs on the server, not on each player's PC. ARK is client/server, with the server controlling the game logic. The client (your PC) is just your graphics and your input to the game. On Valheim, you need to trust all 50 players. In ARK, you need to trust only the admin who installed the server. The rest of the players can be untrusted. I often ran mods that the "server" didn't have. The server host would threaten to ban people if they did this, but unless they installed a cheat detector mod (the game itself doesn't include that), there was nothing they could do unless they caught you "cheating" in game. This is a really stupid way to run a server in my opinion. Mods in ARK are installed on the server and only work if the run there and on your PC. There isn't a client only mod that can affect what happens on the server like in Valheim.

I used to think that too, but unfortunately it's not true. There are definitely client-only cheats that can affect what happens on the server in ARK. Again, don't want to name specifics nor talk about where to find them, but they definitely exist. Thinking that ARK is invulnerable to client-side cheats is a mistake.

2 hours ago, wildbill said:

I also played a lot of Valheim. I do prefer playing games on a server with other players, not solo. I don't find Valhiem's game design to be acceptable though.

Understood, we each have our preferences. You certainly have the right to like or dislike any game because... well because obviously you do, no reasonable person would argue otherwise.

Which brings us back full circle to why I was writing to Noffek in the first place. You'll notice that at no time did suggested that Valheim is a direct, one-to-one substitution or replacement for ARK, nor that any other specific game is a direct substitution or replacement for ARK. I wasn't advertising or touting Valheim's virtues. It's worth remembering that I said, "If you only want to play a game with dinosaurs then the options are extremely limited, but you're willing to generally consider open-world-survival-crafting games with different backstories there are a number of good options on the market now with more to come."  Which is to say, "There are other options if you like them". That was it, really, the whole point of my reply to Noffek was that there are an increasing number of options in this genre if someone is willing to try them out.

2 hours ago, wildbill said:

It is like I said, a game designed for single player and then adapted to multiplayer to get a wider audience. And not correctly, although considering that it was wrote by just a few people, I can understand why they did it.

I'm not convinced that's an accurate assessment, I think they intended it to be multi-player from the beginning. I'm not saying your wrong because (as far as I now) there's no evidence to prove either feeling right or wrong, I'm just offering a different opinion based on my feelings being different from yours. Unless or until the Valheim team has made a public statement on this particular aspect of the game we'll never know the answer for sure.

For what it's worth, there are aspects of Valheim I also don't like (again, it was never my intention to proselytize Valheim here, this whole Valheim discussion is a tangent). Personally, I think it's insulting to their players that they don't support mods. The need to utilize 3rd party mod installers is absurd and pretty obnoxious. This is the 2020's not the 1990's, mods are a standard feature of online gaming. I think it's lame (which in to say being overly precious about themselves and their "vision" for their game) when a developer "doesn't support mods" even though mod support is a native feature of the game engines that they're using to build their games.

Mind you, if a game has official servers then it's perfectly reasonable to say that mods are not allowed or supported on the official servers, but the instant a game is allowed to be played in any other environment, single-player, private dedicated servers, non-dedicated sessions, then "we don't support mods" is insulting and deserves to be mocked by players.