Alpha Raptors destroyed all my time and effort

[Alizona]

Played a week on Official PVE server, grinded up to player level 75 with my tames in this order - Trike, Pteranodon, Baryonyx (killed by jellyfish diving for oil), Baryonyx, Ichthyornis, Argentavis (F), Argentavis (M), Spino.

Decided to move from South Beach to the river just to the north of Redwoods Forest. Built a base, moved all my stuff and dinos, and needed one more day to lay out my fence foundations and install the big gates to seal off my location.

This morning I log on and when I arrive I notice 2 alpha raptors down the beach. Sure enough, one of them strolls my way, and starts sniffing at my Trike. I know this is trouble but I don't know what else to do but confront the two of them. My Level 200 Argy can take down alphas, so I get to work.

Within a few short minutes, I realize its not going very well... and then I realize there isn't just TWO alpha raptors, there is... omg, there's FIVE of the angry red whirling dervishes. Now I really don't know what to do, I can see my dinos are already bleeding and I haven't even killed one alpha yet.

Then the messaage begin rolling in... my male Argentavis, dead... my level 215 Pteranadon, dead... My Bary, dead. That's when I logged off. Half disgusted, half sad. Maybe a little angry, but its more like a resignation than a rant. I'm done with this game, its not worth me spending an estimated 100+ hours of work only to have it all go up in flames in an instant.

I could ask the readers "What could I have done differently?" but at this point I don't really even care. The game was awesome fun for this short while, thanks to Epic Games for a terrific FREE addition to my gaming lineup... but sad to say, this is a brutal and unforgiving game and I am just not into that I guess. The game has one major flaw in my estimation, and my experience this morning sums it up. Once I realized my guys were in trouble, there was no way to "call off the dogs". There's no whistle command to tell my dinos "Okay, full retreat", and there was certainly no way I was going to run around and try to collect each of my five dinos who were each fighting a different alpha raptor. What a mess, what a disaster, what a sad way to end - abruptly - a really fun time. I'll miss Ark but I'll get over it and find some other game to love, its what we video gamers do!

[Baklap]

you should have build a wall around your dinos, so the alpha raptors couldnt see them.. and btw, you can whistle passive and follow all to make your dinos stop attacking and follow you.
But i dont think that would have helped in this situation.

[Dj DNA]

Always build the fence first

[Sam]

I play by myself offline so I don't have to answer to anyone or anything else, so I either forcetame what's attacking or I destroywilddinos. forcetame is not always viable, so I destroywilddinos as that will kill what is attacking.
I'm not always timely with the commands and still loose good dinos.
You shouldn't even be upset, only frustrated with the hours and tames.

[Jaggid Edje]

There is a whistle command for full retreat though...

You just need to whistle twice. Once, whistle them to Passive, then whistle them to follow. Between the whistles, you begin your own full retreat...they will follow.

I do this all the time when I get into situations I regret.

[Zolushka]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

There is a whistle command for full retreat though...

You just need to whistle twice. Once, whistle them to Passive, then whistle them to follow. Between the whistles, you begin your own full retreat...they will follow.

I don't think a lot of new players know this though. The game is not really newbie friendly, and I suppose it doesn't have to be but many new players that haven't played similar games even know or think to check key bindings. I didn't check after 800hrs into this game.

I feel bad for op though, I couldn't even justify wasting a day on an official server, I can't imagine losing a week's worth of progress.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by Zolushka:

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

There is a whistle command for full retreat though...

You just need to whistle twice. Once, whistle them to Passive, then whistle them to follow. Between the whistles, you begin your own full retreat...they will follow.

I don't think a lot of new players know this though. The game is not really newbie friendly, and I suppose it doesn't have to be but many new players that haven't played similar games even know or think to check key bindings. I didn't check after 800hrs into this game.

I feel bad for op though, I couldn't even justify wasting a day on an official server, I can't imagine losing a week's worth of progress.

I AM relatively new...I only started playing a few weeks ago. haha

But yah, I guess not everyone is like me.. the FIRST thing I do when starting a new game is go into keybinds and make a cheat sheet of every single bind that exists (while also rebinding any where I don't like what the default is).

I don't start actually playing until I've done that.. for any game..ever.

[GobboKirk]

Originally posted by Dj DNA:

Always build the fence first

This... OP didn't survive in a survival game... booo hoooo comes to mind.
Sure it sucks but people that can't take responsebility for their errors should stick to more forgiving genres...

[Pisaro]

Well, so "much" high level Dinos and no walls? Really? I mean, reeaaallyy? In facts, that is only your fault...

I didn't tame anything (okay, pteranodon and maybe Argentavis) before I build walls..

Sorry, but the game don't do anything wrong here.

[Jaggid Edje]

To be fair to the OP, It takes a lot of resources to build the walls to a full enclosure...for one's FIRST base, you aren't going to have them done "right away" and you'll have dinos to lose while working on it if you are smart enough to tame some dinos to help with all that resource gathering..

But then, this wasn't his first base...

[Crossbone]

what I would've done is kite the raptors with the argy away from my base, one time I logged in and there was a Giga waiting for me, it did kill a few tames but I baited it with a flier straight into the ocean.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Alizona:

Played a week on Official PVE server, grinded up to player level 75 with my tames in this order - Trike, Pteranodon, Baryonyx (killed by jellyfish diving for oil), Baryonyx, Ichthyornis, Argentavis (F), Argentavis (M), Spino.

Decided to move from South Beach to the river just to the north of Redwoods Forest. Built a base, moved all my stuff and dinos, and needed one more day to lay out my fence foundations and install the big gates to seal off my location.

This morning I log on and when I arrive I notice 2 alpha raptors down the beach. Sure enough, one of them strolls my way, and starts sniffing at my Trike. I know this is trouble but I don't know what else to do but confront the two of them. My Level 200 Argy can take down alphas, so I get to work.

Within a few short minutes, I realize its not going very well... and then I realize there isn't just TWO alpha raptors, there is... omg, there's FIVE of the angry red whirling dervishes. Now I really don't know what to do, I can see my dinos are already bleeding and I haven't even killed one alpha yet.

Then the messaage begin rolling in... my male Argentavis, dead... my level 215 Pteranadon, dead... My Bary, dead. That's when I logged off. Half disgusted, half sad. Maybe a little angry, but its more like a resignation than a rant. I'm done with this game, its not worth me spending an estimated 100+ hours of work only to have it all go up in flames in an instant.

I could ask the readers "What could I have done differently?" but at this point I don't really even care. The game was awesome fun for this short while, thanks to Epic Games for a terrific FREE addition to my gaming lineup... but sad to say, this is a brutal and unforgiving game and I am just not into that I guess. The game has one major flaw in my estimation, and my experience this morning sums it up. Once I realized my guys were in trouble, there was no way to "call off the dogs". There's no whistle command to tell my dinos "Okay, full retreat", and there was certainly no way I was going to run around and try to collect each of my five dinos who were each fighting a different alpha raptor. What a mess, what a disaster, what a sad way to end - abruptly - a really fun time. I'll miss Ark but I'll get over it and find some other game to love, its what we video gamers do!

1. That area is a common alpha(not just raptor) area. Thus your choice of locations in this regard wasn't great. Alpha rex and carno can be found pathing around there too.

2. Make a base first then move dinos.

3. Lure alphas far away and in such a way that they cant bother you(ocean, crevices, etc)

4. Don't play official servers. Grinding to 75 and experiencing what you did is going to daunt you more when you realize that if you intend to progress, cave spelunk artifacts, breed dinos (very very time consuming) in order to have boss fight dinos and more, that the time sink involved and losses to come will discourage you more because of the time sinks involved. Thus you may wish to consider playing on some of the 60,000+ unofficials where the majority of the player base play instead frustrating yourself continuously on the 1300ish official servers. Few to none venerate them.

[Noeat]

Originally posted by retsam1:

4. Don't play official servers. Grinding to 75 and experiencing what you did is going to daunt you more when you realize that if you intend to progress, cave spelunk artifacts, breed dinos (very very time consuming) in order to have boss fight dinos and more, that the time sink involved and losses to come will discourage you more because of the time sinks involved. Thus you may wish to consider playing on some of the 60,000+ unofficials where the majority of the player base play instead frustrating yourself continuously on the 1300ish official servers. Few to none venerate them.

dont play on unofficial servers..
grinding your way even to max lvl, invest thousands hours into.. and then realize owner just shut down it without any warning..
u never know if any unofficial server what r u playing on.. will be online tomorrow..

[Richarad]

A) Play singleplayer, a casual server (ones with plenty of boosts to various game settings), or on a private server/nondedicated host with some friends; official servers aren't fun unless you actually like the regular week-long grind to do just about anything followed by regular losses of all your progress. There are reasons that most unofficial servers have a lot of boosts or edits to the game.ini file.

- I personally enjoy playing with one or two friends or just in singleplayer exclusively, since I get to control all the server settings to exactly how my friends and I like it. Here's a fact I know some people will hate hearing: we play with structure damage off : ) And I mean ALL damage, not just structure decay over time. We don't exactly care for random dangerous dinos to just so happen to spawn nearby and come over and destroy all our work for no reason, so we simply make it so nothing can damage said work (in regards to structures, anyways). And structure decay is just a pointless annoyance with no place in singleplayer/tiny private play sessions.

B) Play on servers/singleplayer with plenty of boosts to tamed dino stats (to increase survivability; not that you should make them invincible, it just helps that they become a bit stronger when tamed with high taming effectiveness, which is barely noticeable with default settings). This is more or less the norm on a lot of unofficial servers, as I said at the end of point A. They also boost taming speed, EXP gains, stats gained per point invested, etc. By all means, make the game less grindy. Anyone who demands that you have to play the game in such a way that takes 1-2 hours to build a little thatch hut just wants you to suffer, lol. Do whatever you want with your game settings. Whatever is fun for you, personally.

C) Consider checking the wiki for dangerous areas if you didn't already before moving there. Yes, there are alpha-heavy areas (although I don't think that suddenly means the game isn't at fault; by no means should you be encountering entire PACKS of alphas, for crying out loud. They're supposed to be more like mini-bosses for players looking for a challenge) that you may want to avoid. No, I don't think you should have had any problems with a bunch of very high levels dinos fighting threats off (I'm saying that the game was being unfair, not that you handled it poorly). Raptors are the weakest alphas (as far as I can tell) and frankly just one or two high level dinos should be able to take an alpha raptor of any level easily, IMO. I don't understand why the default settings make them spawn so often but also be stupidly punishing (I get they're meant to be difficult, but alpha raptors in particular seem to spawn EVERYWHERE all the time, in my experience; my friend and I have a base at the south eastern side of The Island and there's always at least three roaming around with their own packs of normal raptors).

[DarkFire]

OP's post is a perfect example of how bad the new player experience is in Ark.

The area where you built your new base is one of the most dangerous if you only have access to thatch, wood & maybe stone tech. There are a *lot* of dinos that will spawn around there that will love to eat you, your tames and have your base for desert.

Unfortunately the game does very, very little to sign post the difficulty changes between various areas of the map, other than generally flying around noting what dinos are where and their levels. Even that needs a mod such as awesome spy glass.

I can only imagine how frustrating the situation was. I'd suggest playing SP or on your own dedicated server where you get to define the game parameters. I think the default official servers are very much aimed at hard core PvP & no life players who have a lot of spare time. Nothing wrong with that sort of game play for those who want it but as a new player experience it's horribly bad.

[Noeat]

Originally posted by DarkFire:

OP's post is a perfect example of how bad the new player experience is in Ark.

The area where you built your new base is one of the most dangerous if you only have access to thatch, wood & maybe stone tech. There are a *lot* of dinos that will spawn around there that will love to eat you, your tames and have your base for desert.

Unfortunately the game does very, very little to sign post the difficulty changes between various areas of the map, other than generally flying around noting what dinos are where and their levels. Even that needs a mod such as awesome spy glass.

I can only imagine how frustrating the situation was. I'd suggest playing SP or on your own dedicated server where you get to define the game parameters. I think the default official servers are very much aimed at hard core PvP & no life players who have a lot of spare time. Nothing wrong with that sort of game play for those who want it but as a new player experience it's horribly bad.

i think u get whole survival game genre wrong
it is intended to be unforgiving, hard, where u die a lot and even loose your progress
and some of them have PvE mod too.. like Ark for example.. then u need deal only with PvE content - how this can be aimed to hardcore PvP players?
and if u will read descriptions of spawnzones at begining, when u create your char - u will see what zone is easy, what is medium and what is hard...

this is survival game.. it means u will be killed, loose your progress, and u need deal with it ( still better than play on unoffi and loose all because u never know if owner dont shut down that server in next hour or day )

if u dont know survival games and this is your first.. then maybe lack of knowledge about this game genre isnt fail of this game...

make sure u will never play roguelike games where is ALL progress reseted with every your death.. its called permadeath - u will start again from scratch.

..and btw: u dont need mod for seeing dinoi levels..
u can see them with normal spyglass what is already in game

and ofcourse.. on offi maps arent some "low lvl" zones
+ dinos are able to move, walk around, fly to another zone, etc

i must say, when i play this game first time, it was awesome experience, just because survival ..i lost all my progress many times when i start, even at high lvl was half of my base 60 / 100 / 20 froim stone.. eaten by Giga, i lost lot of dinos.. ofc, i was sometime angry, disappointed, hopeless.. but still, i enjoy it

if u dont enjoy survival game genre, then grab another game