Weaselly

Doken - I would look into unofficial servers. I didn't want to either at first but once I did I never went back to official. In my experience, unofficial have some good admins that are willing to help with things like accidentally leaving your solo tribe (which I have done a few times lol) The community is better, most mods make the game easier and spend less time farming, grinding and more time talking, taming, doing more of the things you find fun. Not all unofficial servers are as I described above and does take sometime finding the right one you. Good Luck!

Wow I didnt expect this post to get this many responses! I agree with what most people are saying on here and the idea of playing on an RP or offline safe pvp server could be fun and different. I also like the idea above of maybe having servers that are online only for 6-12 hours a day. Say Noon - Midnight PST or something. Since time is limited, more action will be had and farming and organizing with the tribe could be easier. Plus you would be likely playing people in the same country/time zones instead of getting stomped offline from Chinese or Russian tribes that dont fuc around.

I usually only target bigger tribes or if someone attacks me first. Also if I see a base with auto turrets, I call that fair game since that person has the ability to defend themselves even offline. But sadly yes, bullying and trolling is a thing in PvP servers. That is the nature of this game, unless you join a server that recently wiped with a group of friends, you will always be behind and be a target of someone stronger. That's why the only way I can keep up is building various bases (in swamps with tons of tree cover, inside poorly clipped waterfalls that isn't technically underwater etc) until I can afford to make rifles/c4/riot gear/auto turrets etc.

Many people have this issue, about 50% of the people I talk to in game say the same thing. I have tried PvE for a bit but didn't like it. That was over a year ago but I feel like the only things to do in PvE is base building, taming, and insane upkeep since some of the bases I saw were huge. I like the thrill of pvp, being attacked and attacking others, stalking, helping out smaller tribes, looting satellite bases of large tribes. I think PvE would be a little too safe, I recently joined a freshly wiped PvP Ragnarok server and that was fun. Lots of people skirmishing, cut throat, but no one had c4 or explosives yet to completely level bases. That was fun for about a day until you run into people with more time than you. At that point they just better equipped in every way and my hideout was raided. Its kinda pick your poison for me: PvE - Little to no threats, more focus on base building, dino taming and creative stuff - this would get boring/hallow for me quickly but safer and hours of work wouldn't get undone. PvP - Fast paced at times, skill and strategy play a big role, more fun but also more cutthroat - I have always enjoyed the PvP of most games but this one is just as brutal, as it is fun.

So I have quit ARK....again....for the 4th time in the last two-ish years. It seems like a reoccurring theme in ARK that I play for 1-4 weeks (grinding hard at least 4-8 hours on most days) but end up leaving and taking a 6 months to a year off? I play on unofficial pvp servers fyi because I enjoy playing as a solo tribe and being a pain to other tribes with lots of small hidden bases and lots of explosives Some even 'hire' me as a bounty hunter to kill certain tribe members or attack satellite bases. Funny enough most contracts come from tribes that are allied with the tribe I am attacking so they can take the farming spot or base location etc without coming off as the aggressors. Anyway, now that you know my play style, I still wonder why I always quit within a month of playing. I think I have compiled a list why I and maybe others quit as well only to play again later. 1. Takes up too much time/game is in real time - grinding resources, upkeep of dinos, base, defenses etc 2. Glitches, lag, rubberbanding, disconnects - all of which usually lead to a death and loss of good gear and items. 3. Getting raided - once in awhile one of my bases will get discovered and you can't stop 2-5 tribe members that want to kill your base, especially offline. (seeing a base that took 2-6 hours to make to only get destroyed within likely 3 mins can suck, as well as losing 2-4 hours of gathered resources and items) 4. Sleep schedule gets destroyed IRL - this is a personal thing but I have caught myself playing til 4am. I would be tired at 2am but I had to the spend the extra 2 hours to make sure that my bases were secure, turrets had enough ammo, generator had enough gas, dinos were hidden/in pens, made sure I had lots of idle items going (making metal, cp etc) This goes hand in hand with #1 but since the is in real time, you feel obligated to login a lot to make sure all your poop is still there. 5. Eventually gets stale/stagnate - I have caught myself getting bored at times spending 20% of time upkeeping, 30% gathering, 20% traveling to/from places and only 30% enjoying the game. Things that used to be fun aren't anymore such as taming dinos (just adds upkeep time and traveling back to your base with it can take hours), pvping can get stale since most bases have 1000 auto turrets, and you eventually end up spending your time doing a lot of...nothing. 6. You realize none of it matters/you wasted a lot of time - eventually the game gets stale and you spend more time flying around looking for SOMETHING to do/interact with that is different. All it takes is one base wipe, one glitch or DC, one death to undo hours upon hours of play time and then you think "Why tf am I still playing this? Putting in tons of hours only to be undone in mere seconds." All it takes is that one death or raid for you to then close the game, and proceed to uninstall it. I love this game, I do but for these reason and more, I just can't bring myself to play it long term at all. Why do you guys stop and start playing this game again and again?

My personal opinion on reasons why most Ark players die. #1 - Server crashes, lag, & glitches brought to you by Studio Wildcard #2 - Dinos #3 - Turrets/other Players #4 - Fall Damage #5 - Environmental Elements (Cold/Heat/Drowning) #6 - Starving/Thirst #7 - Killing self on purpose (eating poop, punching to death) #8 - Pissing off the wrong dodo...

My issues all happened on PC, and I play on unofficial servers. I found a new Ragnarok server that seems much more stable and way more active than the previous one. Only crashed once instead of 4-5 times a day. **Update** Still getting crashes but at least its not every 20-30 mins, now its a few hours between crashes which is much better. Wish I didnt have to deal with crashes at all

I feel you on the bugs part. I think I am going to uninstall the game as well today. I play mainly on unofficial PvP servers as a solo tribe which I find fun. The smaller the tribe/base the easier it is to hide and do small raids etc. For the last 18 or so months I have quit 3 different times out of frustration. Play for a a few weeks, quit for 6 months, and again and again. Even with tame/xp/gather bonuses it still takes hours and hours to do anything, sometimes days. What gets to me every time are random bugs/glitches, lag, etc. This game is already hyper time and focus intensive but dying due to getting stuck in a group of trees after rubberbanding back 100 ft in the swamp and dying to titanboas is stupid. Or the game randomly crashing while flying a mile high on your argy and having to wait 10 mins to log back in since the "A player with that account is already connected" error keeps me from doing so and once I finally do I am dead and can't get my stuff that took me hours to make/farm and my argy is out of whistle range. I got tired of this cycle and was honestly scared at one point to even put on my good gear/weapons and items or else I could die to lag, crashes, and the list goes on. (btw I have a great gaming rig and can run the game on high) Hours and days worth of gameplay can be undone with one crash or disconnect and that frustrated me. Its like trying to build a Lincoln Log (remember those?) house with a friend, but he will occasionally knock down parts of the house & hides some logs while you leave to take a poop, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's like the game slaps you in the face (game crashes), calls you names (error can't log in for 10 mins), then spits in your face when its all done (dead, can't loot body, argy out of range)

Same issue here. I seems random when it does happen. Also as of the most recent (update?) 1/5/2018 the spyglass change. Now when I have the spy glass equiped and go to the menu for options, the cursor disappears and I cant select anything and I have to force log out and wait the 10 mins I remember why I stopped playing this game a year ago, the bugs make it unplayable at times and just doesnt make it worth it.