What is PvP to you?

[Enigma505]

So tons of arguments in local chat about Pvp and what is the right time to attack and who to attack? 

1) Is pvp to you flying down of a new player or any player picking them up dropping them to die Pvp to you? Your not actually doing pvp if your just picking them up and dropping them.. The Usual response or Justification! its PvP go to Pve if you dont want to die...

2)  tribes well established due to them having tons of time to build up ect going to every stone and thatch base blowing them up knowing they wont have anything of value in them but do it just to hear them get angry? and tell them to quit then later (the attackers) complain that the game is dead!

3) My favorite) hand full of larger tribes wont attack each other because they know they can actually lose tames ect so they choose to only attck those who are offline and solo or just a small tribe. Pvp or (avoiding) PvP because you dont like a (Challenge) only easy targets but You complain that its Pvp yet you dont really do PvP just use the Game mechanics Of PvP that allow the destructions of bases when offline ect and say Its PvP doesnt matter if i didnt fight you it says PvP but if you finally get wiped from a cross transfer tribe you now complain that you got offline wiped... Seen this 1000s of time.

Im just curious here because i dont have tons to play like before so when i log in i see chat blown up with these being talked about in chat non stop.

[Joebl0w13]

Most Ark PVP is really just Player vs Offline Base. 

[St1ckyBandit]

PVP is anyone can get it on sight.

It is a little ridiculous for a guy in a tek suit to be crushing a thatch bob on the beach, but overall PvP is dog eat dog.

New players need to learn lessons on how to stay small and hidden until they have enough to claim a spot to build their own legit base.

I've been wiped 1000 times so I have no sympathy for people crying in chat about getting their base leveled or their tames killed. Its part of the PvP experience. 

[Enigma505]

Ive seen for years guys cgo to bases with tek weapons to wipe a small base and always say its pvp.. Ive asked those same people why dont they ever attack tribes on their same level and the response is always the same.  Its Get good your just mad go to pve ,if you dont like pvp leave but yet if they erally liked pvp they would go pvp against someone whos a challenge! problem is they are all scared of a challenge and losing things so in reality they are the ones who dont like pvp.

[St1ckyBandit]

3 hours ago, Enigma505 said:

Ive seen for years guys cgo to bases with tek weapons to wipe a small base and always say its pvp.. Ive asked those same people why dont they ever attack tribes on their same level and the response is always the same.  Its Get good your just mad go to pve ,if you dont like pvp leave but yet if they erally liked pvp they would go pvp against someone whos a challenge! problem is they are all scared of a challenge and losing things so in reality they are the ones who dont like pvp.

I agree with your overall sentiment but I've seen way too many Bobs act like they should be immune to getting attacked or wiped just because they're starting out.

Being low on the food chain means youre still in the food chain.

[Arkolucious]

PVP vs Offline it is most time - or against such a less powerful enemy, that it does not matter if he is online or offline.

I think the whole FFA-Idea makes people play the lowest risk in 99% of the case - but PVP could actually be more vivid and more fun if it gets managed by the gamerules somehow in a more balanced way. The huge imbalance between time investment you need to do, to actually start pvp besides of bob fights with wooden spears compared to the actual PVP is a problem. Popular PVP-Games try to create balanced matchups with different  skill-level-matchmaking....and if you get rolled over - you can just start over again without any delay and need to recover and farm stuff back. The pvp conditions against your enemies are somewhat balanced and fair and it is immediate upon request.

This just does not apply to ark and this genre - so this is one huge reason.

I have always thought about how this could be fixed and how to avoid to sacrifice the openworld feeling of the maps and the huge freedom players have besides pvp.

 

Maybe deviding a pvp map like Island into different PVP-Zones - mb based on popularity and/or resources/dinos available - or shifts randomly. So the easy lowlevel zones allow for a more moderate approach of pvp - or may be only 2 days in a week, a time limit with some days of peace between them. While in other zones it stays as extreme as it is.

Whenever you enter such zones you get a warning - stay there and you get tagged for pvp even you return to the beginner zone. So the strong tribes would duel each other, while beginners have a little more room ot breathe.

 

Just an Idea - many other concepts could be possible.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Arkolucious

[Stewbawl]

pvp to me is equal opportunity with willing participants on both sides taking action against each other to see who comes out on top.

i play several different pvp games.  among them are: League of legends, Player Unknown Batlegrounds, Rainbow 6 Siege, Fortnight, along with a few others.

pvp in ARK isn't pvp.  in no other game would the actions taken in ARK be viewed as acceptable.  imagine loading into a game of PUBG just to find out that you're already dead because someone killed you yesterday.  or loading into a match of league of legends  halfway through a match the other team started 5 minutes ago and your towers are already gone.

in any situation in ark where you have the ability to affect others when they are not on and actively playing you are removing the aspect of willing participants.  i have no problem with situations where a mega tribe picks on a beach bob.  IF they're both online.  sure it's unbalanced, but both are participating.  heck the beach bob may not even be opposed, it might be the challenge he is looking for. 

because of these reasons i do not pvp in ARk, although the setting would be wonderful.

56 minutes ago, Arkolucious said:

I have always thought about how this could be fixed and how to avoid to sacrifice the openworld feeling of the maps and the huge freedom players have besides pvp.

here's my solution:

take a map and separate it into a PVE area and a PVP area.  make it so that certain materials and tames and BPs are only available within the PVP area.  Metal ore for instance.

this creates an experience where people can plan out what they want to take into pvp with them.  they can choose to only take what they are willing to lose.  the more you take with you the better your chances are.  this reintroduces the willing participants aspect of play that is currently missing.

[Pipinghot]

6 hours ago, Enigma505 said:

Ive seen for years guys cgo to bases with tek weapons to wipe a small base and always say its pvp.. Ive asked those same people why dont they ever attack tribes on their same level and the response is always the same.  Its Get good your just mad go to pve ,if you dont like pvp leave but yet if they erally liked pvp they would go pvp against someone whos a challenge! problem is they are all scared of a challenge and losing things so in reality they are the ones who dont like pvp.

It's not the people, it's the game design. The fact that ARK has fully destructive PvP is the root cause of this happening.

If you were in a tribe that, with all of the players added up, spent thousands of hours building up, you wouldn't want to do it either. Having thousands of hours of work burned down in a day isn't really fun, no matter how much you think you like PvP. It's really easy to accuse of others of not liking PvP when you've only spend a few dozen hours building a base, but the more time a tribe invests in building up the less likely they are to want to put that at risk.

The thing is, their answer is valid. "its pvp.." is true - in ARK. That might not be PvP in WoW, or a bunch of other games, but in ARK it is. It's not just ARK, in any game that has fully destructive PvP that's how the game works. It's the game design that causes this problem, this type of PvP almost requires you to be a bully if you want to stay on top, it's pretty much impossible to be "king of the hill" in ARK if you don't do these things. This is the same reason a lot of wars don't happen in the real world - countries (and tribes) don't go to war unless they are confident they have a really good chance of winning, that's what happens when the game is fully destructive.

I've been on both sides of this line, and let me tell you when you see a new tribe on your server you immediately have to keep an eye on them. If they seem to be growing too quickly then you have no choice to knock them down a couple of steps, otherwise you're setting yourself up for failure if you let them grow too much.

There are a couple of solutions to this:

1) Establish some kind of diplomatic relations with the powerful tribes so they don't crush you. That might, for example, mean that you agree to not tame certain creatures. Back when ARK was new the first time, before Scorched Earth had been released, the alpha tribe on our map allowed people to build out of stone but no metal, and people could tame anything other than a giga. When Scorched Earth came out that also included no wyverns.

Later on, when I was in an alpha tribe, we basically did the same thing. Constant patrolling, set the server rules, and then beat down anyone who violates them and anyone who looks like they might present a threat. Just because someone has a wooden hut doesn't mean they're harmless, sometimes you have to break it open to see what they have inside that hut. It's pretty easy to build a double-layer building with wood on the outside and metal on the inner layer. That's a sure sign that someone is planning to become a threat, and the only way to find out is to bust down their building a couple of times.

2) Try to get to know them until eventually they invite you to join them. Sometimes this is done strictly through diplomacy, other times you do it by being persistent enough and putting up a good fight so they recognize that you're a good player.

3) Build a tribe of your own that's strong enough to invade a server and take it over.

 

But whatever you do, complaining about it and telling people that they don't like PvP is never going to accomplish anything. Whatever people like or don't like, the game system in ARK PvP almost forces you to be a bully, because if you don't someone else is going to take you down when you let down your guard. That's the thing about ARK PvP, you either survive through diplomacy or force, or a combination of both, or you don't survive, that's just how it works. If you can't like that system them you're never going to like PvP in ARK.

[Arkolucious]

it is true, that the system forces you to play like that. The gentleman agreement that you do not tame certain stuff etc is unlikely to work out well - on private servers yes, but not on officials. People will just do, what the system allows them to do an won't, what the system does not require them to do.

The target to become the top Tribe on a server is not very realistic - because there is only one throne to climb and the time investment is not achieveable by many players anyway.

I agree with the biggest problem is the loss of all the invested time, so nobody will risk a tribe war on the same level under balanced conditions. May be a mechanic to make it easier to recover could help out.

 

 

 

[St1ckyBandit]

Picking on people weaker than you or taking an easy fight/raid isnt just a valid strategy in Ark, its a universal fact of life.

Lions hunt the weak, old, sick members of the herd.

In a Battle Royale, you aggressively 3rd party because the other 2 teams are weakened from fighting each other or distracted at least.

Criminals snatch an old ladies purse, not the briefcase of a gigantic muscle bound guy.

Ark players raid an offline tribe or a susceptible/flawed base because its more likely to result in success 

There are situations where it becomes cheesey, like a tek tribe wiping poor Bobs thatch palace, but even those that just like to watch the world burn are an accepted part of PVP, because thatch Bob has to opt into PvP servers in the first place . If you dont like the heat get out of the kitchen. 

People that expect any PvP game is going to be fought on completely neutral fair ground are making a fatal mistake.

[Cinnamongod]

PVP = Pointless waste of time

[ThePryBar]

Claiming that you are new to the game is a tactic that people use to dupe idiots.  Having pity for new players leaves you vulnerable to their attacks.  I have played with Alpha's on Small Tribes for years and the amount of times I passed on a player because they claimed to be new then for them to attempt to offline raid my base happens all the time.  So I just foundation wipe everything tek or thatch it dosen't matter, if you want people to stop attacking new bobs then maybe suggest people start being honest and truthful instead of lying all the time. But that won't happen 😕 so whatever

[Scheneighnay]

Real PVP is PVP on a moderated private server with pre-agreed rules.

Everything else is just a joke where there's never any kind of actual fight going on and everyone competes to see who can cheat, exploit, and offline raid the hardest.

[Rashawn]

 Offline raid protection on a 15 minute timer after logout was the best official server I have ever played on. It got rid of so many of the problems alot of the posters here are talking about.

Orp servers made us a community but we were always aware of each other. One day we would be killing a boss together and the next we might argue and start a war with the same tribe we just killed bosses with. On another hand for the bobs that spawn on the beach and were called human,  yea your going to die viciously and without remorse. If you weren't having dialogs with people on the server you were kill on site for the most part. At the same time though you could never really trust who is talking in chat because it could just be a online check to see who can be raided and that just created a whole different dynamic I don't think alot of ark players are aware of.

 

The bad side of orp was the pincoding of everything and then making a new character and just using the offline protection main base through the pincodes as a separate character. If they can figure out how to fix that then I would say ark orp pvp is how the game is intended to be played. Just my 2 cents though.

[Tylanater]

PvP in ark has massive potential that WC has kind of squandered by not changing up the meta more in ASA. Cave building should not exist, it's way too OP and they've had to add way too OP of dinos in the game to compensate, making living aboveground impossible. Also, primitive locking other tribes by not allowing them to get artifacts or element (depending on the map) is awful design and awful for the PvP scene. The vast majority of "PvP" in ark is just offlining a base, which is player vs turret and dino AI (pve). They should have added an improved version of offline raid protection into the game for every server.

Ark PvP was in it's best state at the beginning when it was PvPvE but for some reason they choose to cater to the biggest no lifes. You cannot play Ark PvP with a job offline anymore. 3 hour offline timer on your base is too much to be competitive. No job, no family, and no skipping a night allowed.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Tylanater

[sjskdjkfa]

If you have a dozen ideas for how to fix ark pvp, you might want to consult a psychiatrist about your ark PVPtsd.

[IGacha]

On 11/8/2023 at 2:01 PM, Arkolucious said:

PVP vs Offline it is most time - or against such a less powerful enemy, that it does not matter if he is online or offline.

I think the whole FFA-Idea makes people play the lowest risk in 99% of the case - but PVP could actually be more vivid and more fun if it gets managed by the gamerules somehow in a more balanced way. The huge imbalance between time investment you need to do, to actually start pvp besides of bob fights with wooden spears compared to the actual PVP is a problem. Popular PVP-Games try to create balanced matchups with different  skill-level-matchmaking....and if you get rolled over - you can just start over again without any delay and need to recover and farm stuff back. The pvp conditions against your enemies are somewhat balanced and fair and it is immediate upon request.

This just does not apply to ark and this genre - so this is one huge reason.

I have always thought about how this could be fixed and how to avoid to sacrifice the openworld feeling of the maps and the huge freedom players have besides pvp.

 

Maybe deviding a pvp map like Island into different PVP-Zones - mb based on popularity and/or resources/dinos available - or shifts randomly. So the easy lowlevel zones allow for a more moderate approach of pvp - or may be only 2 days in a week, a time limit with some days of peace between them. While in other zones it stays as extreme as it is.

Whenever you enter such zones you get a warning - stay there and you get tagged for pvp even you return to the beginner zone. So the strong tribes would duel each other, while beginners have a little more room ot breathe.

 

Just an Idea - many other concepts could be possible.

PVP zones actually sounds like it could be a really fun idea. I only ever played PVE because I dont wanna start from scratch 100 times but if everything outside of the PVP zone was safe I would definitely try it out