Community Crunch 404: An Update on The Center, Eggcellent Rates, and More!

[FlorianWind9]

4 hours ago, Joebl0w13 said:

Steve Martin showing you where you CAN build:

😆That's kinda how I felt when I first started playing Ark. As a lone beach bob, all the stronger larger tribes kept saying; "Nope, you can't build here. Nope, you can't build here. Nope, you can't build here." Then Meatstick and Ghostface finally said; "Well, in this little area right here, between the giant rock on the end of the peninsula and the start of the slope that goes up into the tall cliff-edged hill, but not the area including the dense bushes where we harvest fiber. If you want you can build a little house there and we'll protect you." Then from that day on for quite a surprisingly long time, after having been trying to setup a small shack for like two months, I finally had a place where I could call home.😂

[Joebl0w13]

1 minute ago, FlorianWind9 said:

😆That's kinda how I felt when I first started playing Ark. As a lone beach bob, all the stronger larger tribes kept saying; "Nope, you can't build here. Nope, you can't build here. Nope, you can't build here." Then Meatstick and Ghostface finally said; "Well, in this little area right here, between the giant rock on the end of the peninsula and the start of the slope that goes up into the tall cliff-edged hill, but not the area including the dense bushes where we harvest fiber. If you want you can build a little house there and we'll protect you." Then from that day on for quite a surprisingly long time, after having been trying to setup a small shack for like two months, I finally had a place where I could call home.😂

You're not wrong. 

[St1ckyBandit]

13 hours ago, FlorianWind9 said:

I mean, I do get it. But, I'm not entirely sure if you got my point.

If I were in charge of Ark then on PVE servers there would be no-build zones built into every single cave, a good distance around every single cave entrance, a good distance around every Obelisk, a good distance around every built in spawn point, and a good distance around areas with a high density of important resources and creature spawns. This is because, PVE servers and single player are what is meant to allow the majority of a video game's player-base to have access to reaching endgame content. If this is what you want out of the video game; if access to a wide range of content is what you want to see and play; then PVE servers and single player are where you should go in a game like this. (Unfortunately I know that PVE on Ark is not fully designed this way and is another thing that wc/sg have failed in.)

But, PVP servers is where people should go when experiencing endgame content is not their ultimate goal. If your ultimate goal is to have the most challenging experience, then PVP is where you should go. Restricting things in PVP takes this unique challenge away.

If you do not want this challenge, then my question would be why are you on a PVP server? It's a question that people on my original server asked new players countless times back in the good old days.

The answer almost always was; "Because on PVE they pillar everything off and slot cap the tames. At least on PVP we have a chance of blowing other peoples' stuff up so we can open up space for ourselves."

This is why pillaring and slot capping tames should not be allowed on PVE servers and is one of the things wc/sg have failed on.

But, if this is a person's answer then why should they complain when the different rules of a PVP server work negatively against them as well? If you want the extra freedoms that a PVP server provides over a PVE server, then you should be willing to accept when those freedoms become negative towards you as well. 

The thing with Ark ever since the very beginning when pertaining to this subject comes down to how wc/sg have handled the game with concern to its multiplayer servers. They never truly thought through how people would receive and play this game. So, from the very start they didn't code the game with PVE or single player in mind. When they finally did decide that the modes should be differentiated and split, they had a difficult time implementing coding that would specifically affect one but not the other. So when things were balanced for PVP, PVE got negatively affected. (Example: Flyer Speed Nerf) When things were balanced for PVE, PVP got negatively affected. (Example: Creating Tame Slot Caps and Build Radius Limits) Creating no-build zones and dealing with the pillaring and tame slot capping on PVE became something they couldn't realistically do because those things would drastically affect PVP in a negative way. Since A.S.A. is just a copy/paste of A.S.E.'s coding, then the same still applies today.

If PVE servers truly were PVE, then the majority of the game's player-base would not need to even think about PVP servers if they wanted to experience the game's endgame content. The extra struggle to get to that endgame content on PVP is what should make PVP different from PVE on any multiplayer game. 

I like to fight people. I like to raid. I like to defend from raids. I like PvP.

Just because I see a glaring issue with how the game is structured doesnt mean I want to abandon PvP altogether. 

The very nature of PvP makes getting to end game more difficult. We dont need additional astronomical barriers like we have now. Again, all it does is screw over 90% of the playerbase and there's a very simple solution. 

[ccz2887]

On 4/10/2024 at 11:19 PM, FlorianWind9 said:

That's exactly my point. 

On PVE servers where everyone is "supposed" to be friendly and your only challenge or danger should come from the game's creatures, not other players, then the caves should absolutely not be buildable. Pillaring also should not be possible or any kind of blocking in any way. PVE is meant to allow the widest range of people access to the entire game.

On PVP however, your main challenge in the gameplay is meant to come from other human players. Alpha tribes blocking things is supposed to be part of the challenge in pvp. PVP is not supposed to be easy. Yes, it sucks. Yes, it's difficult. Yes, it is unfair. But, that's what PVE is for.

Back in the glory days of Ark when I first began playing soon after it released in Early Access, I intentionally chose to play on a PVP server because the freedom and challenge from that mode and from the other human players would make the experience feel more real and immersive. More like in real life where people can be mean; destroy your stuff; block you from things; take you prisoner. There were many times where I was harassed by people; where people destroyed my stuff and killed my creatures; where people killed me; where people knocked me out and took me prisoner; where I wasn't able to access certain areas because of stronger people blocking my path.

But do you know how wonderful the stories were that came from all that?

How exciting and interesting the experiences were because of those things?

How terribly boring it would have all been if on a PVE server where those things couldn't have happened?

I played on that server for 2 years, and I didn't get to experience the bosses or even most of the caves until about 1 1/2 years in. Can you imagine the excitement and satisfaction once I finally did get to? How boring and tedious would it have been if I'd been able to note XP my way from level 1 to 100 in a day and then expert gather resources to get the artifacts in 1 or 2 more and then defeat all the bosses a week later? Instead the suspense built up over 1 1/2 years. I had to work hard during all that time. I had to build my way up until the Alpha tribe on that server let me into their tribe. All the trust and personal connections built over all that time. And all the exciting stories of hardships along the way.

Back in those days, the Alpha tribe could completely block access to the Obelisks and they were the only way to do the bosses and when transfers first came also the only way to transfer in and out of a server. So cool to finally gain access to the sacred Obelisks and gain such abilities. The Alpha tribe used one of the Obelisks as a prison center where those deemed hostile to the server were kept knocked out and fed under 24/7 watch by various wardens. The sneaky ways those prisoners used to try to escape; the cunning involved. The vigilance needed to keep the prisoners locked up so they wouldn't harm the server. Just so much excitement and nuance and suspense and intrigue that no longer is truly possible in the game; and mostly never was on PVE. 

You start restricting things in PVP, and you take all that away; which they already have long ago. Making the game easier for the masses only takes away the excitement and challenge for those who truly have the will to survive. 

I agree with most of this.  As also a PVE player who started playing this game not long after its release on Xbox, I remember all of these issues.  For the most part, PVE was/is more friendly than PVP.  Not saying there weren’t servers that were completely run amuck of power hungry “alpha tribes” that had the moto of all for me and none for all, and would block caves and obelisks, fortunately those servers were much fewer than the ones that didn’t do that.  After a time most of the servers started naturally developing kind of a community, some were close and some were an uncomfortable tolerance with each other.  I don’t know if that ever happened on PVP because I didn’t play and still don’t.  I like to play the game to have fun, and to me I’m not having fun when I log in everyday to my base gone and creatures dead, but that’s me and to each their own.  I do differ from you in that yeah I deal with nimrod people in real life, I didn’t want to deal with them playing the game.
 

 Even on PVE though there were still times when it wasn’t easy to get things done or there was some crap from mother tribe that we had to deal with.  Back in those days though offline damage prevention wasn’t a thing and  for a long time kiting was an everyday threat (and it was legal), I know I mentioned that it to me it wouldn’t be fun to walk up everyday to a destroyed base and dead creatures, and most of the time it didn’t happen if you had enough of a base and decent defenses, but the threat was still real even for PVE players.  
 

It also wasn’t that boring, it was typical Ark and the grind was there but we made up things to do.  Kinda how like the creators on the monarky servers come up with different challenges, we were in a way doing that 8 years ago we just didn’t realize it at the time.  We would have bets on who could run on foot from one end of spino river to the other with nothing but stone tools and a bow and see who could survive( a lot harder than what you think it is lol), we would tame the shoulder monkeys and turn them loose on aggressive wander on the river and see how long they would live, boxing matches in the volcano.  Stuff like that.

I definitely see where you coming from on the note runs and getting to a higher level quicker and kinda in a way bypassing the hard ships along the way, but also in the old days that wasn’t as big of a thing like it is now.  There were faaaarr less notes on the map and finding one was a pretty awesome thing as I remember it.  So even in PVE it was still a grind from level 1 to 80.  We also made friends and personal connections along the way and I would like to believe that it benefited the server and all those on it, because we all had the same goal to keep the server playable and fair to EVERYONE!  Which also brings me to the practice of pillaring land.

Now pillaring was to combat 2 things mostly.  Protecting spawns (resources and creatures) and keeping the map playable.  Obviously rivers got pillared, beaches got pillared and high density resource spawns got pillared, because tribes would come into a server and build a full base right on top of a resource spawn and not have a care in the world how it effected the whole server (still happens to this day), or would build a massive 40w x 60l x 25h lag box of a base that would completely close off a river to where no one could get through on a meat run and it would ruin creature spawns and/or cause a disconnect area where even if you looked in the direction of that base it would dashboard ya.  Why people build bases like that I have no idea, maybe they can’t build?  I dunno, but given situations like that it causes the map and game to not be fun for anybody at that point.  I’ve been on servers like that and my god everybody that plays on it is just miserable all the time.

Lastly, there was excitement, nuance and intrigue on PVE.  A lot of it was in different areas though, since for the most part we didn’t have to worry about getting our stuff wrecked, we channeled it in running the hard snow cave with another tribe (it was just as hard then as it is now, in some cases maybe more so).  We also pushed the building aspect a lot, finding out new ways to manipulate the sideways mechanics, of course breeding creatures to insane stats.  Now yes did it get monotonous and feel like just another job?  Oh yeah many times, but it took a while if you were solo or only maybe a 4 player tribe.  We had a 25 member tribe upon entering the center for the first time in may of 2016, and things happen so fast it made our heads spin.  Within the first 4 days we had quetzs, Rexes, spinos max level untility creatures and had pretty much the entire run of the map to ourselves before most tribes even upgraded their thatch huts to wood and a raptor pack for protection.  There was still new things to see and fun to be had but I guess my point is that it went stale quicker.  By the end of the summer of 2016 all but 4 of our tribe had up and quit and by the end of that year we all took a break.  So there can still be excitement and cool things to check out even in an 8 almost 9 year old game, but the big thing is the pace that you go.  Obviously if your solo or smaller tribe it is a lot more satisfying to accomplish things, and it keeps the spark of the game alive.  So in that aspect I agree with you in regards to you spending a year and 1/2 building up, by yourself it takes that long, but where I disagree is that PVE can be just as fun and intriguing as PVP, it’s just in a different way and how your perspective is on it.  Now there are a ton of things that WC could do that would make the 2 modes drastically different, but like you said in another post it would be all in the coding and being the game was coded more to the PVP aspect when PVE was conceptualized they will be permanently linked to adversely affect each other when balances are made.  Now if WC ACTUALLY did recode the game with an real cleaned up code base, that would have been the time to completely split the 2 modes and balance them individually from each other and not affect each other negatively.  Unfortunately we as players pay the price for their (or their publishers) lack of competence within this matter.

[FlorianWind9]

On 4/12/2024 at 8:27 AM, St1ckyBandit said:

The very nature of PvP makes getting to end game more difficult. We dont need additional astronomical barriers like we have now. Again, all it does is screw over 90% of the playerbase and there's a very simple solution. 

I guess that my perspective is that I did make it to end game, starting from absolute zero, during a time period of the game where these types of things were even worse than they are now. So, I guess that I am not able to see the problem. 

Maybe I am not understanding something correctly? The original person I responded to said that PVP may as well be PVE now and then that caves should be unbuildable. I don't play A.S.A. and haven't played official A.S.E. in a very long time. What did they mean by that?

[FlorianWind9]

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, ccz2887 said:

As also a PVE player who started playing this game not long after its release on Xbox, I remember all of these issues.  

Thank you very much for your post. Reading it gave me all kinds of nostalgic warm fuzzies. ☺️

You sound very much just like me, but from the other side of the PVP/PVE divide. 🙂

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, ccz2887 said:

After a time most of the servers started naturally developing kind of a community, some were close and some were an uncomfortable tolerance with each other.  I don’t know if that ever happened on PVP because I didn’t play and still don’t.

Yes; that happened on PVP servers to. On my original server the people playing gradually developed a sense of community. It wasn't all about killing or fighting each-other or destruction. We knew that for the server to survive and thrive there had to be some form of balance; so various peoples naturally developed into a kind of society.

If you'd like to read a little bit about all that from a PVP perspective then you're welcome to read what journal entries I've posted on here. I've got chapters 1-14 at the moment.

You sound like you'd have some really interesting stories from the game as well. If you've posted any anywhere then I'm sure I'd enjoy reading them. 🙂

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, ccz2887 said:

Back in those days though offline damage prevention wasn’t a thing and  for a long time kiting was an everyday threat (and it was legal), I know I mentioned that it to me it wouldn’t be fun to walk up everyday to a destroyed base and dead creatures, and most of the time it didn’t happen if you had enough of a base and decent defenses, but the threat was still real even for PVE players.  

Yes; I remember people talking about that as well. They'd say they came over to PVP from PVE cause on PVE it was difficult to retaliate against others doing these things. If they were going to get attacked they said, then at least they wanted to be able to attack back. That's why the worst problem was and is that PVE on Ark isn't true PVE.

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, ccz2887 said:

Now pillaring was to combat 2 things mostly.  Protecting spawns (resources and creatures) and keeping the map playable.  Obviously rivers got pillared, beaches got pillared and high density resource spawns got pillared, because tribes would come into a server and build a full base right on top of a resource spawn and not have a care in the world how it effected the whole server (still happens to this day), or would build a massive 40w x 60l x 25h lag box of a base that would completely close off a river to where no one could get through on a meat run and it would ruin creature spawns and/or cause a disconnect area where even if you looked in the direction of that base it would dashboard ya.  Why people build bases like that I have no idea, maybe they can’t build?  I dunno, but given situations like that it causes the map and game to not be fun for anybody at that point.  I’ve been on servers like that and my god everybody that plays on it is just miserable all the time.

The good PVE servers managed this well. Just like how the good PVP servers managed their bloodshed well. But, that's why I'd say that a true PVE server should have no-build zones built into the map to keep these things from happening. That way the players wouldn't have to worry about pillaring areas and doing it themselves. High density resource areas and creature spawn areas should have no-build zones on them from the start. Perhaps at least some if not most rivers should have no-build zones across the water so people can't wall off areas. And for PVE especially there needs to be build radius limits to keep people from making bases so big that they break the server.

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, ccz2887 said:

Lastly, there was excitement, nuance and intrigue on PVE. 

I didn't mean to say that there wasn't any. Just that there was more of it and that it was more intense on PVP. There was a lot more danger and risk to every little thing that you did so if you wanted to survive then you had to be very careful.

For example: There was one time on my original server where a lesser tribe got wiped by the Alpha due to a dispute over a Pteranodon. Can you believe that? And the lesser tribe wasn't super small either. It was a good-sized middle-range tribe. The dispute was that the leader of this lesser tribe had tranqed down and was preparing to tame a max level 120 Pteranodon. A member from the Alpha tribe came by after the bird had been knocked out and a protective wall placed around it, and he said to the leader of the lesser tribe that he had been tracking this Pteranodon for awhile and had just returned with equipment to tame it himself. He then asked the leader of the lesser tribe to go away and let it wake up so that he could knock it out and tame it instead. Well, the leader of the lesser tribe got angry at this and refused to let this member from the Alpha tribe have the Pteranodon. An argument broke out, which escalated to violence with shots fired and things getting killed. Next thing you know the entire lesser tribe is wiped into oblivion because of the selfish and reckless actions of a single individual from it.

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, ccz2887 said:

Obviously if your solo or smaller tribe it is a lot more satisfying to accomplish things, and it keeps the spark of the game alive.  So in that aspect I agree with you in regards to you spending a year and 1/2 building up, by yourself it takes that long, 

Yep. 🙂 Even once I had reached the end game content and had been made part of the Alpha tribe on that server, I constantly found myself going off away from their big established fully stocked city forts and building myself little shacks of my own. Having everything handed to me once I was in the Alpha tribe got boring quick. To keep things fun I had to go make my own little separate forts. 

On 4/12/2024 at 9:42 AM, ccz2887 said:

Now if WC ACTUALLY did recode the game with an real cleaned up code base, that would have been the time to completely split the 2 modes and balance them individually from each other and not affect each other negatively.  Unfortunately we as players pay the price for their (or their publishers) lack of competence within this matter.

That's one of the major things that I am upset with them and one of the major reasons why I have not and may not buy A.S.A. They promised a new and fixed experience, where I only see a shameless reskin. 

[ccz2887]

On 4/14/2024 at 8:15 PM, FlorianWind9 said:

You sound like you'd have some really interesting stories from the game as well. If you've posted any anywhere then I'm sure I'd enjoy reading them. 🙂

Oh without a doubt lol!  From walking a juvenile giga from a friends base that was just about on top of the new swamp cave to the NE side of gigs mountain, escorted by 4 gigas and 5 battle quetzs and spawning the brood mother at the obs when people decided to be tools and built RIGHT ON TOP OF THE OBELISK!  Spawn her and let that big green meanie go full on hulk smash lol.  Logging into the center for the first time in May 2016 and getting immediately “handled” by mate boosted 150 gigas.  That’s enough to humble ya for a hot second when you’re starring at the death screen and it says “you were killed by giganotasaurus- lvl 150”.  Especially when we had absolutely ZERO idea WC was going to raise the wild tame level cap lol. 
 

I haven’t posted any of the stories on here because I kinda forgot where to do it lol, but oh yeah we had a metric s#$* ton of fun and good times back in old school ark.

On 4/14/2024 at 8:15 PM, FlorianWind9 said:

Yes; I remember people talking about that as well. They'd say they came over to PVP from PVE cause on PVE it was difficult to retaliate against others doing these things. If they were going to get attacked they said, then at least they wanted to be able to attack back. That's why the worst problem was and is that PVE on Ark isn't true PVE.

Yeah I remember hearing something about that.  Our favorite thing to see in chat was “it’s pve, you can’t do anything to me!”  We could and did we just had to be more creative to accomplish it.  With enough time, patience, planning and a little bit of help any tribe could be taken out, but it wasn’t an easy feat once a tribe had a good enough base.  I don’t blame em for that perspective, our server we usually only reserved that for the tribes that had no regard for the server or the the people who were there from the start.

 

On 4/14/2024 at 8:15 PM, FlorianWind9 said:

The good PVE servers managed this well. Just like how the good PVP servers managed their bloodshed well. But, that's why I'd say that a true PVE server should have no-build zones built into the map to keep these things from happening. That way the players wouldn't have to worry about pillaring areas and doing it themselves. High density resource areas and creature spawn areas should have no-build zones on them from the start. Perhaps at least some if not most rivers should have no-build zones across the water so people can't wall off areas. And for PVE especially there needs to be build radius limits to keep people from making bases so big that they break the server.

WC did actually start adding in “no structure zones” shortly after the redwoods were added to the island.  The old volcano there were metal smelting platforms all over the rim and the sides of the volcano. Now you can’t place anything above a certain altitude.  They did the same with supply drops.  People could build a base that would enclose a supply drop, that can’t be done anymore.  Also in pve we can not build in caves, that’s been a thing from the start.  I remember a certain point in the center that there were some resource spawns that structures couldn’t be placed but that could have been changed.  I see both sides of this coin.  Yes it would be nice that there be no build zones along rivers and heavy resource spawns, but on the reverse in a way it kinda defeats the point of being a complete sandbox experience to “play how I want to play”.  People are greedy and selfish and unfortunately others pay for it.  I will say though that a lot of the servers ( i have seen towards the end of ASE and just nicely starting to see it in ASA), people didn’t close off entire portions of the rivers, and if they did they at least built some sort of bridge for others to traverse said area.  Now I am sure that some servers are plagued with blocked rivers and beaches that are next to impossible to get around, but as more maps come out it will get better just like it did in ASE.  When all of the population is forced to play in “X” number of servers and only one map it gets a little congested.  As more maps release the player base will spread out and the bottlenecks and congestion will clear up.

 

On 4/14/2024 at 8:15 PM, FlorianWind9 said:

That's one of the major things that I am upset with them and one of the major reasons why I have not and may not buy A.S.A. They promised a new and fixed experience, where I only see a shameless reskin. 

I agree.  I don’t regret buying ASA, but it seems as if what they were trying to sell to the players wasn’t quite delivered.  The big one that comes to mind is cryopods.  I called it, along with many others.  A month and a half after the release of ASA cryopods we’re back in when they realized (finally, but even a blind man could see it) how bad the server performance was with a 65 people taming and breeding 100 plus creatures a day for a month.  I think I said something along the lines of “even the most advanced processors have their breaking points”.  When they’re are people who are running some top of the line machines are struggling to get 60 fps with ASA, it wasn’t any wonder why they added cryopods.  Many of us said that no cryopods at the start was a BIG mistake.  To quote Will Smith in I,Robot…..”sometimes I told you so, just doesn’t quite say it” lol.  Last mention of cryos, the range to deploy them is ridiculous in pve.  Yeah I get “it makes the game to easy”, well sometimes (and in my case most of the time) it’s got nothing to do with easy it has everything to do with real life time.  If ya got only 2 hours to hope on and do some stuff quick and get into a sticky situation (which is just about an everyday occurrence in ARK), ya don’t have time to spend an extra hour trying to rescue your gear, tames or sometimes even base.  Whereas yeah a pocket giga doesn’t just save your butt, it saves time and an added 2 hours of frustration when something should have only taken a half hour.  I certainly miss the old cryos.
 

Other than that the graphic upgrade is cool, the changes to the maps is pretty nice.  They did do a decent job at that.  I definitely like the visuals and am excited to see the changes to the maps, especially The Center.  That’s map is my favorite, and I hope they bring it up to snuff with the others.  It left sooooooo much to offer on the table.

[FlorianWind9]

On 4/16/2024 at 7:49 PM, ccz2887 said:

I haven’t posted any of the stories on here because I kinda forgot where to do it lol, but oh yeah we had a metric s#$* ton of fun and good times back in old school ark.

You can post things like that in the Creative Chat forum on this site. 🙂

On 4/16/2024 at 7:49 PM, ccz2887 said:

I will say though that a lot of the servers ( i have seen towards the end of ASE and just nicely starting to see it in ASA), people didn’t close off entire portions of the rivers, and if they did they at least built some sort of bridge for others to traverse said area. 

On PVP you definitely had to be careful about that if you weren't the Alpha; unless you wanted to get your stuff blown up. On my original server people were pretty good about it. Even with all the turrets trained on you people still left ways to get around their areas and built bridges over rivers raised high enough that rafts could still travel underneath. 

I remember when I started taming behemoth sized dinos and decided I needed bigger walls and more room to keep them safe. I lived in a tight area and had to build out into the ocean as well as up against the cliff wall nearby which completely blocked travel along the beach for my neighbors who had "allowed" me to build there. I decided that before I completely blocked their pathway, I should build a large stone ramp from the beach below up to the top of the cliff so that they would have a way to travel around my base.

In the middle of constructing that ramp, one of the guys from the tribe who let me build there came by and said; "Hey there. I see you're doing a lot of large scale construction lately. What happened to that thing you said about not needing much space for your house?"

I responded by saying; "I didn't realize how much space rexes and brontos took up. I need to build out just a little more, but I'm going to put up a large wall to protect and finalize the area of my base. Then I won't make it any bigger than that. But first I thought I should build this ramp so that people can get around my base since I'll need to build right up to the cliff wall."

He looked at me sternly and said; "I see. Well, that's very thoughtful of you. I'll see ya later. You be careful now."

As he stomped away on his Giga I had a little chill as I thought; "I'm glad I decided to build the ramp first. What would have happened if I hadn't? Also, looks like I'm going to have to make it wider and reinforce it more than I thought. I forgot about how big Gigas were."

Even though I was pretty good "friends" with my neighbors, at that moment I felt like I was just a second away from getting bulldozed. 😛