Single Player/Coop Honest Review

[Survival Gamer]

I am looking for someone to give me an honest overview or review of SP or Coop modes for this game.

Most of the reviews focus on multiplayer, which I have absolutely no interest in. On principle I avoided this game when it was still in Alpha and the paid expansions released. (I am not interested in re-discussing that issue.)

My assessment of the multuplayer mode is that I would definitely never even try it. However, I prefer survival games and I am willing to be open minded regarding SP or Coop.

I currently prefer 7 Days to Die and Empyrion.

Anyone willing to give me some gameplay feedback on those game modes?

[Lord_Vengeance]

Haven't played coop, didn't have any good experiences with MP.

I've played almost solely in SP. It's got it's advantages and drawbacks. It will require a decent rig to play it on, and even then expect some performance issues. It also has a lot of bugs, and in my opinion, should never have come out of early access.

As for gameplay, I would say it is an awesome game. It is a giant sandbox full of dinos (and other similar things) that you can do about anything in. Without the bugs and performance issues, this would be a truly epic game.

For me it is about 50/50 fun/frustrastion. It's crazy fun... when it's working right.

[KitsuneShiro]

The game can be fun solo or with a tiny group. There is so much customization (settings and mods) available that you can make this sandbox play however you want.

I think SP mode (and non-dedicated) mode has more bugs than running a dedicated server.

If I were starting a solo game from scratch, I would just use ASM (ark server manager) to run a server for just me.

[Kazarl]

Originally posted by KitsuneShiro:

I think SP mode (and non-dedicated) mode has more bugs than running a dedicated server.

If I were starting a solo game from scratch, I would just use ASM (ark server manager) to run a server for just me.

i agree with this but is still in a playable state i'd say this game is still worth playing on single player if you dont mind being on your own you can do anything on this game solo its just more time consuming and you sometimes have to get a bit creative in order to do the late game stuff safely

[Ghost]

I played single player for almost half my play time. Stillnuse it to test mods and whatnot. But really sp or with a small group is a ton of fun.
But it really depends on your taste in games.

[MiltoNova]

Be a mqn and play MP, fight it is fun

[=Sarsante=]

I enjoy, altho is fun when couple friends join my server after couple days starts to pissing me off.

Why I login and there are 8 useless unicorns, 3 useless quetzals, a freaking useless bronto, 2 useless phoenix and my rex bloodline turned into 5 different ones all inside my base??

Then someone says Im gonna build a trap, then build the most useless 6 star hotel building that can be used for anything but taming...

Yes Im salty when people mess my things up.

Some people like me enjoy the game solo, some enjoy coop, some pvp. Thats the beauty about ark, so many settigs and mods that it can be almost whatever you want it to be.

[Jahon]

Co-op can be done with private server or hosted session with tweaked settings (i.e. bump the tether distance up a lot). In those situations playing with friends can be a lot of fun (boss fights, dungeon runs, taming the tougher dinos). :)

Edit - oh and I'm a big fan of 7d2d and Empyrion, so if you like building, crafting and combat in those, you'll enjoy ARK. SP you may need to fiddle with difficulty settings or mods to get the right balance (boss fights and dungeon runs solo can be difficult).

[My_goat_is_alive]

If you are doing any pve online avoid official servers. as far as single player it is very fun if u set little goals to accomplish and follow the "campaign" if you want to call it that. whati mean by campaign is bossfights asscention ect.it is slightly buggy and you motlikely will have to play on lower settings.i also have an isue of it crashing but if u use a highend computer that wont be a problem.

[My_goat_is_alive]

Originally posted by Milton:

Be a mqn and play MP, fight it is fun

takes time tho. i have no time

[Philberus]

Join on to my personal server and give it a go it's called Tounge punch

[Old-gamer]

I've played SP on Ark (since July 2015) through all the DLCs and am currently still on Aberration. I can certainly see why either MP or Co-op could be interesting. MP has never been something that I enjoyed and I've always been ok with being the sole player in the sandbox.

I have enjoyed this game from the beginning even when it had some significant FPS issues in the earlier days. I consider it to be the gold-standard of the sci-fi based survival games I've played. One thing that sticks with me to this day is those early nights, in total darkness with only a torch to see by, listening (cringing) to the sounds of every foot-stomp around me with my one primitive spear for defense. Love that kind of immersion in a game.

The game truly excels in the area of player customization and options which is so very valuable in a survival game. If you don't like to grind for resources, there's a plethora of console commands to sooth however you want to play. I've always recommended the game as full of challenge, visually beautiful and just plain fun (for me) to play.

[MiltoNova]

Originally posted by Bjorn Ironsides:

Originally posted by Milton:

Be a mqn and play MP, fight it is fun

takes time tho. i have no time

On unnoficial servers its preety easy and fast

[Hevak]

honestly single player is a bit of a limitation for you in one sense.. You will have to find every dino at whatever level you want YOURSELF, unless you spawn them in. That is a real PITA

That is the one serious SP drawback to me. Its not to say you cant play its just more difficult to "play" and find high level tames.

In a server or MP setting that is "friendly" enough (pve or pvp or whatever) you could get help with tribemates, or other tribes/alliances that tend to call out stuff they dont need. They also tend to slaughter stuff so others cant tame. But often your find a few helpfuls on PVE.

150 F rex at 45,30.. type thing and you can get tames much faster and easier.

But SP is really pretty cool to play. very chill yet can be demanding (depending on your settings)

Co-op i have no idea, but depending on your tether distance, your computer specs and how it runs, it will basically be like playing SP but with a helper. It will help you find Good tames a bit easier. But it wont be that much different than SP as compared to a server and a tribe.

Otherwise, other than the obvious things, raids, idiots. Everything you hear about MP is about the same as SP, except you can mod, and change settings to your own whims.

[nightshark]

I've only played The Island map and Well i'm not very experianced in this game for expertise level but I'd say for me single player is about a 6/10 enjoyment. Multiplayer is about the same to me. I like the game i like the concept. The issue for me is that to actually complete things takes so much time (even with admin cheats) that unless you just don't have a life or have all the time in the world to play the game, it's not as fun as it could be. The game is just very demanding of time. You can tweak settings to make dino's lay eggs and hatch faster but there's a lot that goes into the raising of them. If you want to play the game to the detail of what can be done and do it right you need to research the raising of dino's and the hatching process as it's very complicated process which takes time to do properly.

There is different ways to play this game. Build a base and not care about doing the bosses correctly. Love to PvP and terrorize people. Or spawn stuff and go kill all 3 Bosses. Or maybe just mess around riding a Trex killing ♥♥♥♥ and exploring the island or what ever map you're playing and don't care about the rest.

I have about 95% of my hours of doing nothing in mulitplayer just screwing off getting dino's killed and messing about the south area out of complete ignorance of what to do. The last couple days i've spent hours researching and playing around with hatching etc.

What you do in this game all depends on what you want to do. So i hope that's enough of an answer for you ;)

[Hevak]

i didnt read the whole OP (yeah i know lol) but that doesnt change my intital post here. But to try adn expand.

Vs. 7D2D.. Its going to be much harder in some sense. the wilderness is much more dangerous on ark.. you will die almost immediately sometimes. and you wont have any "free time" so to speak to build your base as you do over there. You are on constant High alert in ark. and well you get snuck up on here, yeah you are pretty much dead most times. Resource collection is probably on par with 7d2d at first, kind of slow. But once you get tames it gets much easier with the right ones.

Metal is much different and not neccessarily hard to get but used a lot that you will be worrying about getting it like in 7d2d.. But its set spawns and easy to find.. its just getting there, getting it and getting back with it lol.

You have weight in ark.. so yeah no more magic backpack like 7days. but you have magic back pack in such as you can hold up to 250? stacks of items. You may not be able to move, but you can "hold a ton more stuff"

Building is diffrent but similar lol.. but there is NO TERRAIN DEFORMATION at all like in 7 days. So bldg things can be a bit of a hassle. they did add part of a mod to the game that helps with this, but its still much more of a hassle than 7days. There is no structural integrity like in 7days bldg. But you have limits on how far out you can build with out a support structure. and if supports are destroyed parts of your base can fall like 7 days. But there is no weight, to support strenght calc like in 7days. just simple support for 2 pieces either side of the support piece no matter the material used.

i went from ark to 7 days. and they do play similar, but there are some big differences. But i think there is a good chance you may like this if you liked that in sp.

Gunplay and fighting, well i dont think any of them do it particularly well, but im going to give the edge to 7days there. And since you say no MP or pvp, then well you wont really do as much shooting (except when taming) or hacking things. You more often use a dino to kill, the dino are more liek the tools and weapons towards teh end game of ark.

Idk much of what else to say in terms of comparing those 2.

As far as Empurion idk really. I have Empyrion and ive put some decent time it. All i can really say as far as my experience is empyrion is much more relaxed, and quite a bit easier.. The bldg mechanics are much more of a pita in Empyrion, but you can build much differently and much more there.

There are caves and stuff you can explore and kill in, but there are really nothing like the poi's in Empyrion, and they dont really have that sort of feel to them. At least for me. Mining metal ands tone is just find rocks or the right rocks and hit them. They will respawn if not built near. It is much less annoying here. Its a pain to transport in ark because it is heavy as ♥♥♥♥ but you dont ahve to feel like you are actually building a mine to get some resources like Empyrion and 7days lol.

All in all i would say 7 Days is much more closer to the type of experience over all you would have in ark. As in gathering, building, crafting and being worried about attacks or suprises. You do get a bit of safety once you build a good base, but really youre never as safe here as you can get in 7days (except the obvious hordes).

Like i said in my first post, Finding and Taming things in ark is much harder as a single player or co op. Best example i can get is like running around 7days to die looking for a specific bldg, with something specific in it, except its even harder finding that one high level tame running around ark alone.

Sp is cheat mode enabled (console) and they have a creative mode console command where you can build without worrying about weight and stuff as well. but there are still dangers and stuff. so you can spawn things in, you just have to find the commands for them instead of clickng a picture in a menu like 7 days. There is no safe mode without any dinos unless you modding them out of your game. Which you can remove any or all of the dinos if you really wanted. It just not as easy as clicking a different mode.