yeah because joining a year after someone else who will have a tribe of 10+ people with ascendant gear, 20+ lvl 300 rexs a dozen lvl 280+ gigas, quetzals, wyverns, around 500 fully loaded turrets and a ton of other poop is a fair fight you can win with "skill". "wah you can get that stuff too" only if the alpha is ass/gone. for the record I've never been wiped while owning anything significant, I've been in an alpha tribe before, and a mega tribe as well, and let me tell ya, the balance of the game is actually pretty poop. in other games you can catch up. this one you have to be around 10x better than the alpha and very very lucky with a lot of time between your tribe. skill has 0 to do with ark. You lord over everyone else till someone with more time and more poop, or nearly as much poop while you're all offline, comes and knocks you down. ark is not a game of skill.