Which game do you prefer ASA or ASE and why?

[Xandor]

The difference I see:
Pros for ASA.
Better graphics.
Some QOL features (Oviraptor and Dung Beetle automatically picking up, being able to track location of pets, waypoints being visible in the world, building system improved, quick swap ammo and attachments by holding R, access shoulder mounts without throwing them down)
Improved pathing.
Better/more fun supply crates.

Cons for ASA.
Paid features and creatures in seperate dlcs. (key features are locked behind dlc instead of just maps like it was in ASE)
Modding is so much worse in ASA.
More likely that the game will crash or other bad bugs. (no idea how big issues it is still, I only played on The Island and it was when ASA got released)

Pros for ASE.
Plenty of mods that add a lot of stuff and it is all for free.
All creatures and gameplay features available for everyone even if they don't have dlcs.
Lower PC requirement to run. All content already out.

Cons of ASE.
No new content (other than mods, which I think is still more new being made for ASE than ASA and so much more accessible in ASE).

[Scheneighnay]

imo modding in ASA is much better

my server had alot of mods in ASE, to the point that it took 15 minutes to load into the server each time. (don't blame me, I'm a vanilla purist, my guild isn't)
No such issue in ASA

[Legiondorf]

ASA by far but damn do they have to add random new bugs like this patch the guy jitters up and down when you drive the boat lol. Also stop adding mod dinos like giga crocs to my beautiful island.

[Ansgar Odinson]

ASA by far. Most of the stuff I used to have to use mods for, is now just part of the base game. And thanks to multi threading, huge bases dont bring the game to a grinding halt.

[Sleepy]

There's one major negative for ASA.

"Fantastic Tames" as a DLC model is god awful. Packs like Bob's is fine, but microing tames like that is a slippery slope that is more than likely going to ruin the game if they continue doing it. 2 of them 3 months apart means it's going to be a DLC mall before long if they continue that. This one is pretty inexcusable and the reason I'm not recommending that my friends buy the game.

The rest of the negatives can be fixed with config changes or mods.

[TheSlayerNL]

ASA for sure due to these Pro's:
-Extra content via Bob's Tall Tales, yes you pay for it, but it gives so much cool stuff.
-Club ARK, really like the mini games, even tho performance isn't always so great in that hub.
-It looks a lot better, even on Medium.
-It also has much nicer building system, building a big base no longer kills your fps as insanely as on ASE, only a minor drop.
-Most of the mods are of much higher quality because the engine supports better.
-Future Proofing, a new GPU will allow me to run this game at higher settings then I currently can, so I will have even better looks.

Cons:
-There are still plenty of old ASE bugs they never fixed, but they do fix some now and then, so there is still a chance they might in the end fix the majority.
-Some updates they do break a ton of things, right now Club ARK wont work, as you can't get any rewards when spending credits.
-It runs rough on some maps, definitely needs to be improved.
-SE had some architectural changes that took away from the original ruins, do like the ASE ones more, as they did have more detail.
-The Center was pretty bad, there is some really big repeating texture on rocks in the east area, they also changed asthetics of the volcano island which just sucks.

While there are still big issues, I still prefer ASA over ASE, as I play on my own self run servers, I don't care about all the Official Issues.
ASA just goes a lot better on the eyes, and I just hope Ragnarok wont be ruined, but we shall see.

[DarkHalls]

ASA is a much better game.
Imo evolved has not aged well and I would never go back to it.

[Darkcat]

ASA from far, lot of new things, and improvement. If you own one bob's tales you have them all, so it's not a big deal for all it give. I don't mind the fantastic tame

Plus, they already said we'll have at least one totally new DLC later

[Serious]

I would say The differences are minimal.
The most important negative things at ASE are pretty much the same on ASA (e.g. pathing, balancing between PVE, PVP and Singleplayer).
The most "important" positiv thing at ASA should be the qol and better graphics but tbh, even here the difference is not that much (Playing with RTX 4080/RTX4070 so i play at high/ultra). Sure the textures are better and in case everything works out the screenshots are very nice, but there is also a lot of flickering, ASE reused animation (looking very weired if you combine 2000s animation quality with state-of-the art texture quality and raytracing) and esp. the caves lost much of their atmosphere.

The modding might be much better for console users for ASA but at pc everything was working as well with steamworkshop, so i won't say that's a important difference at steam at all.

For the additional maps i would say it's currently a 2/3 for ASE,
Both center and abberation looked and played much better at ASE, while scorched earth seems to be better at ASA. (needs further testing)

In general i would say ASA might be the better game at 1.0 release (expecting further improvments, interesting mods,...), but now it's pretty much the same with some minor improvments, but costs twice as much and additional weirdos like "fantastic tame".

conclusion:
I would say right now ASE is the better game, simply for it's better performance/quality and stabilty as well as the currently missing maps and mods at ASA.
This might change with ASA 1.0 and further on.

[Princess Lily]

Originally posted by Xandor:

The difference I see:
Pros for ASA.
Better graphics.
Some QOL features (Oviraptor and Dung Beetle automatically picking up, being able to track location of pets, waypoints being visible in the world, building system improved, quick swap ammo and attachments by holding R, access shoulder mounts without throwing them down)
Improved pathing.
Better/more fun supply crates.

Cons for ASA.
Paid features and creatures in seperate dlcs. (key features are locked behind dlc instead of just maps like it was in ASE)
Modding is so much worse in ASA.
More likely that the game will crash or other bad bugs. (no idea how big issues it is still, I only played on The Island and it was when ASA got released)

Pros for ASE.
Plenty of mods that add a lot of stuff and it is all for free.
All creatures and gameplay features available for everyone even if they don't have dlcs.
Lower PC requirement to run. All content already out.

Cons of ASE.
No new content (other than mods, which I think is still more new being made for ASE than ASA and so much more accessible in ASE).

there are aspects of both i like certain mods on ase and the glyph transformation of asa is my favorite mod in asa ive loved play as a dino in ase but it hasnt been updated at all and glyph transformation is more userfriendly with an easy to setup config, i wouldnt say the payed features are cons for me as the developers need a way to make money to be able to improve the game and bring ark 2 closer to release, and the mod creatures get money out of it to be able to improve their mods so in a way it's a pro not a con

[Ki-Rin]

ASE because of Ragnarok Map