Industrial Grinder abuse...

[Darkholis]

Since I've lost it all, I feel the need to share a mechanic that will almost sound like an exploit (maybe is one?). It is especially true on hardcore servers where you lose it all when dying (levels/engrams).

The industrial grinder combined with a beaver to fill it with wood allows the user to powerlevel at an extreme rate, so quickly that hunting alpha predators is a waste of time. Actually, filling and processing an entire grinder (with wood) will grant any user around 10k experience in roughly 20 minutes. (The time required to process 5.9k wood). Furthermore, stacking multiple grinders allow the player to stack and gain even more experience during the same amount of time.

Combining multiple grinders and stacking explorer notes for the experience boost allow a lambda player to grind from level 1 to 85+ within a few hours during any Evolution Event. Futhermore, this mechanic can be used to powerlevel dinosaurs as well. Indeed, nearby players to the person who queued the grinder(s) will be gaining shared experience and said experience is 100% transfered to the dinosaur they are actually riding.

Solution : Disable any form of experience gain from items/ressources processed in the industrial grinder.

Regards.

[hullu hullu]

Stacking explorer notes?
Evolution event?

Youre aware that evolution event and xp boost from notes do not stack?
Why is this an abuse? You have to farm and waste huge amounts of wood for this leveling speed.
So you cant do it with a lvl5 beaver, you can also not do it solo before you can craft a grinder.

Another hint: if a lvl 1 player joins a higher level tribe, imagine him hunting a bit on the back of a giga, he'll get incredible high amounts of exp for free.

Another hint: ever used a chem bench to craft thousands of narcs? No? Try it, and you will open the next thread about "chem bench abuse".

This is intended, no action needed.

[Darkholis]

Originally posted by hullu hullu:

Stacking explorer notes?
Evolution event?

Youre aware that evolution event and xp boost from notes do not stack?
Why is this an abuse? You have to farm and waste huge amounts of wood for this leveling speed.
So you cant do it with a lvl5 beaver, you can also not do it solo before you can craft a grinder.

Another hint: if a lvl 1 player joins a higher level tribe, imagine him hunting a bit on the back of a giga, he'll get incredible high amounts of exp for free.

Another hint: ever used a chem bench to craft thousands of narcs? No? Try it, and you will open the next thread about "chem bench abuse".

This is intended, no action needed.

They do stack, I tested it.

[Dudeus]

Time stacks, not the xp boost amount.

[Darkholis]

Originally posted by Dudeus:

Time stacks, not the xp boost amount.

Indeed, I was refering to stacking notes to extend the timer for full grinding duration. My appologies if I didn't properly written it initially. English is not my main language.

Regards.

[Thiil]

Originally posted by Darkholis:

snip

Solution : Disable any form of experience gain from items/ressources processed in the industrial grinder. anything, as you can gain a lot of experience by being smart.

Regards.

Back in the day, everybody went nuts with crafting cloth armor, then it was narcotics.
Getting experience in a smart way instead of a hard way shouldn't be called an exploit.

OP, you want this nerfed because you used it, got rekt by other people who also use it, so now you can't use it and want it removed - right?

[Kenny]

I went from lvl 86 to 100 in 2 week with deathworms, but i was farming em to xp my wyvs

[Darkholis]

Originally posted by Thiil:

Originally posted by Darkholis:

snip

Solution : Disable any form of experience gain from items/ressources processed in the industrial grinder. anything, as you can gain a lot of experience by being smart.

Regards.

Back in the day, everybody went nuts with crafting cloth armor, then it was narcotics.
Getting experience in a smart way instead of a hard way shouldn't be called an exploit.

OP, you want this nerfed because you used it, got rekt by other people who also use it, so now you can't use it and want it removed - right?

Yes. Being wiped by large tribes, hackers, cheaters and exploiters. You have to find some ways to barely have your head above water level. Knowing Wildcard barely gives a clue about said issues on the official servers and actually don't do anything to fix.

Did I said I used it? Nope.

A dupe is discovered after 6 weeks and they refuse to wipe. Yeah good joke. If I can screw those cancer tribes by revealing one major exploit like this, sure I will do it.

Am I salty for losing it all? Sure, who wouldn't be? But I've wasted enough time (2500+ hours) rebuilding, getting wreck on countless servers I'm about done with the game for now.

Regards.

[Thiil]

Originally posted by Darkholis:

Originally posted by Thiil:

snip

Yes. Being wiped by large tribes, hackers, cheaters and exploiters. You have to find some ways to barely have your head above water level. Knowing Wildcard barely gives a clue about said issues on the official servers and actually don't do anything to fix.

Did I said I used it? Nope.

A dupe is discovered after 6 weeks and they refuse to wipe. Yeah good joke. If I can screw those cancer tribes by revealing one major exploit like this, sure I will do it.

Am I salty for losing it all? Sure, who wouldn't be? But I've wasted enough time (2500+ hours) rebuilding, getting wreck on countless servers I'm about done with the game for now.

Regards.

Sure it sucks, but people will always find a way to get XP in the most efficient way possible. That's the nature of grindgames, there'll always be "Minimum effort, highest reward"-kind of people.

The dupe-exploit actually came with a statement that punishment in the future will be far more severe, and also had quite a well-written explanation and responsibility from Wildcards side built into it.

[Thiil]

Found the news-article for you to save you some time :)


Right here
Stance on Exploiting

Let’s be clear about this, no one likes cheaters. We don’t like cheaters, you don’t like cheaters, your friends don’t like cheaters, cheaters don’t even like each other. We want to do everything we can to ensure that the ARK is a fair place for everyone to play with one another. It is why we worked to get a strong BattlEye system for ARK which is constantly receiving updates and will continue to do so because we want to stomp out cheats.

However, I don’t think it would be unreasonable to say that we have been lenient when taking action against people who are exploiting game bugs. Previously, we have felt that the bugs are on us and we have to do our best to resolve them and fix them, so we try not to punish survivors in this instance and make changes that will benefit the community as a whole, in the long-term, even if in the moment it seems a bit unfair. We’re going to change that up a little bit. Going forward, we will be taking a stricter approach when it comes to exploiting game bugs. If there is malicious intent, we will take action, be it destroying your tribe, structures, tames, and where necessary straight up removing you from the ARK and adding you to the global ban list and requesting a VAC ban. Consider this your warning to those of who you would rather exploit than report. Cases such as duping, or building under the map for instance, will result in such actions. Of course, it’ll be case by case, accidents happen, sometimes you’re curious - but it is pretty clear when there is indeed malicious intent and that’s where we’ll be taking action.

[Darkholis]

Thank you. I appreciate it but I have also seen the entire post on the official forums.

Let's say I have a very limited faith in their capacity to deal with said issues. I mean, they pretend that both-way transfers were what the community wanted. What a lie. The community asked for transfers to be limited because both-way would lead to the current chaos on the official network.

Anyways, I did my fair part and reported what I believe is an exploit. Isn't it the point of EA testers like us?

Regards.

[Kryzzk]

I used to play on an official server until just about a week ago, I decided to start a new charactor on an official SE server, I went from lvl 1 to lvl 85 in a few hours during an evolution event and I wasn't using the grinder or chem table, anyone who knows how to play is going to know how to level fast especially during an evolution event, mind you the grinder might have made it a little easier but I was still able to do it.

I brought a Chainsaw back from SE, with the High Melee damage that my Island survivor had I could farm more wood faster at lvl 80 than the lvl 100 beaver we had, was that also an exploit?

At any given time my tribe had 20+ mortars making something, along with 4 - 5 crafting tables, 2 - 4 fabricators and 30 furnaces, we were always crafting something at no point was more than half our crafting stations idol, thats a lot of XP being handed out to low level players in our tribe, was that an exploit? they were not working for that XP (unless you count loading the mats to help keep everything going.

Honestly, I think it takes more work to level a player to 86 with the grinder than it is worth unless you only have 4 - 5 people in your tribe, in that case you need a way to generate the XP of a mid/large tribe that is always crafting/building somthing and the grinder could do that. My tribe never used the grinder, and we could still level you fast.

This mechanic looks like it's working as intended to me.

Originally posted by Darkholis:

Anyways, I did my fair part and reported what I believe is an exploit. Isn't it the point of EA testers like us?

Regards.

You are correct though, as testers we are suposed to find and report bugs, glitches and exploits, if you think it is a Exploit you should report it in the bugs section and let the developer decide if it's working as intended.

[Thiil]

Definitely! :D
As for the community wishes, i have no clue if people asked for it or not, let alone how many wanted it or not. I play on unofficials, as i don't have 20+ hours to tame (Insert medium-sized dino-name)

[Argon]

I don't think this is an exploit based on Stark's comments on the Community Hub on a post regarding what I considered to be a bug with the Industrial Grinder. The development team are well aware of just how much XP it gives out (among other problems) and in Stark's own words

"
The grinder is working as intended, not going to go into details or reasoning (would rather avoid a debate, really busy atm).

Anyways, we knew it had no on off switch in inventory prior to release and it did not have a grind all function.

And we do test things before releasing them ;)."

Source: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/79604-industrial-grinder-has-no-onoff-button-in-inventory/

[C.Fodder]

personally i used to use rafts. Super easy to get 1 - 80 in a few days. Much easier than narcs. I cbf looking it up but i thnk 1 raft gives almost 100exp and you can start crafting them at level 15 or so. Not as good as the grinder for sure but you can get to 80+ over one weekend. More if its an evolution weekend.

[hullu hullu]

Originally posted by Darkholis:

Anyways, I did my fair part and reported what I believe is an exploit. Isn't it the point of EA testers like us?

Actually you didnt report it (at least not by posting this thread).
This here is the general discussion forum, and not the report form they gave us to report bugs/exploits/hacks.

Therefore you just announced something to the public that should (in your opinion) not be used.
Makes much sense.

Should i call you twoface now or did you do that on purpose?