This is pretty much the same thing I have said a few times, but nobody listens. The servers become decrepit and people lose interest in the game. Games these days are about player retention. There is an easier way to keep players coming back rather than rushing to release some new DLC that hasn't been tested or balanced properly. Wipe official servers the way they do in rust (only perhaps less often because Ark is a slower paced game).
It baffles me why WC don't do this. They were ballsy enough to wipe repurpose the legacy servers when the game went full retard release. So why don't they do it again? Why are people so against it? Why are they so afraid to push people out of their comforting, protective Alpha-tribe bubble?
I stopped playing Ark because it is all try hards and sore losers, where every official server (small tribes, classic, you name it) always ends up the same way. Why? Because tribe limits, removing certain dinos etc are just gimmicks, cheap tricks to get players to come back. It was the same half arsed attitude that started the "evolution events" (2x weekends). None of it will change the way the servers end up. They will all become stagnant and die at some point, probably quicker than normal official if they are slightly boosted.
The most fun I had was on the old Extinction Arkpocalypse servers. I have no idea why WC made them all PG arks. Did they actually intend for those servers to die or are they just stupid? Those things worked a treat. They wiped periodically like Rust servers and when they did, the servers were slot capped. Nowdays the only time we see slotcapped servers in Ark is when one insurmountable zerg tries to raid another, which is what, once in a blue moon?
IMO the only way to save Ark - and convince people like me to come back - is to start taking the game seriously and set a wipe schedule for official servers. Not just a one off wipe, I mean every 1-2 months on the dot. It will put more emphasis on getting ahead at the start of a wipe, breathing new life into the game. This will hopefully give more time for the devs to make sure their DLC is functioning correctly and properly balanced before it is released.
