Ark played as a survival game?

[Redarmy]

With lower rates and less dino's/harder to get food etc?

Seems this game shouldnt be called Ark survival but Ark thrival. The amount of OP stuff in game,from tek to tamed buffs,regening health,a hunger system that on default settings is a non issue,same with water(why isnt there a reason to have to Boil sea water at least?)

To the vastly OP focused mods of which the workshop are 99.9% full of.

People say ♥♥♥♥ like...."i dont think long tame times add difficulty,they are just tedious" etc etc...sorry but u can use the tedious argument for anything,in reality you have a short attention span if you cant hold your character still for a set amount of time,hell just take in the natural beauty around you as you wait,organize inventory etc.

Im not bashing peoples play styles,i just find it most unfortunate that 99% of players dont understand that the real challenge comes from harder more scarce settings and you miss the amazing feelig of just making it through a day on the island...instead,its like a playground of kids with ADHD riding around on wild lizards one shotting and vaporizing instantly anything that comes within one mile of them.

Truly sad

[𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲]

Mmm, i don't think the overwhelmingly vast majority of people play games to have brutal or challenging experiences. Those that do have their own games (Sekiro, Dark Souls, classic games etc etc).

Maybe this was the case when Ark was in EA with 1/4 taming, harvesting and XP rates, but i think WC realized people like Ark for what it offers rather than it's difficulty. They did mess up with Genesis a bit, a little too hard off old 1x rates, but that's fine as it's a DLC map MADE to be difficult.

I don't see your point at all tbh, just sounds like pointless droning.

[𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲]

Originally posted by lShadow:

If you want to waste your time then play on low rates, nobody is stopping you but also nobody cares about this pseudo-elitist nonsense you put here. Ark doesn't have a proper combat system and the taming relies on RNG so all the "challenge" will go away anyway as soon as you learn the basics.

Exactly. That's the beauty of a sandbox game where the devs give you the ability to change literally everything about the game. He can play his way and I'll play mine. Simple and that should be the whole conversation here. No if ands or buts.

[Vanathi]

Boiled sea water would provide you with salt....

[Redarmy]

Fact is,there should be more options for it to be a survival game and more importantly,work done by the devs to cater it toward being "appealing" as a survival experience since they brand t as such.

Its like some saying "i used to be indecisive but now im not sure".

And when a game has the name survival in it and 95% of the player base play it the way they do(and are encouraged to),my opinion isnt "droning" as you say..its an observation.
Its almost like people who play a shooter game but then realise they can just sit back with OP heavy artillery rounds all day...the experience is missed.

[🦊 Hermit]

My real life is a nightmare to live through as is...I play games to escape that pain and struggle, not propagate it. Survival games really aren't my thing, I only bought Ark because a few of my friends begged me to play with them, and when I first tried it I hated it completely.

But then I found out about one of the game's biggest strengths - it's customizability. It's almost unique in the gaming world to have a title which opens up so many config options to it's playerbase, so we can play precisely how we wish to and tune the game to our liking. So after a long while tweaking and experimenting, I finally found a setup which worked for me.

Is it a lot easier than many other players would prefer? Definitely. Does it effectively mean I'm playing a glorified Minecraft with dinosaurs? Yes it does, and I have no problem with that. Because that's the sort of thing I look for in a game. And WildCard, for all of their faults, have provided a platform which allows not only hardcore survival fans, but also much more casual gamers like myself, to have fun and enjoy their world. They've kept me occupied now for over 6k hours - that's a really impressive achievement, and a credit to just how good of a game Ark is.

Gamers all have different preferences and ideas about what makes a good game. And it's rare that we find a title which, while not perfect, can appeal to a wide variety of us across the whole spectrum of gaming experience. We may not share opinions on what sort of games we like to play, but surely we can all come together to agree that Ark is something special, and has a lot of good points which we enjoy?

[gcavenger]

Play single player start a new game turn all settings to lowest.

[Samadhi]

Originally posted by Redarmy:

Fact is,there should be more options for it to be a survival game and more importantly,work done by the devs to cater it toward being "appealing" as a survival experience since they brand t as such.

Its like some saying "i used to be indecisive but now im not sure".

And when a game has the name survival in it and 95% of the player base play it the way they do(and are encouraged to),my opinion isnt "droning" as you say..its an observation.
Its almost like people who play a shooter game but then realise they can just sit back with OP heavy artillery rounds all day...the experience is missed.

You missed the survival game Ark by 5 years.

Also this thread is strikingly similar to another where you make largely the same point.
Ergo its redundant and also you are wrong, this is the answer for Ark 2021:

Originally posted by 𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲:

Originally posted by lShadow:

If you want to waste your time then play on low rates, nobody is stopping you but also nobody cares about this pseudo-elitist nonsense you put here. Ark doesn't have a proper combat system and the taming relies on RNG so all the "challenge" will go away anyway as soon as you learn the basics.

Exactly. That's the beauty of a sandbox game where the devs give you the ability to change literally everything about the game. He can play his way and I'll play mine. Simple and that should be the whole conversation here. No if ands or buts.

[guig]

Most of the time ppl complain they can't do this or that with their game.

here is a game which allows you to set it up right to your feelings. it's rare enough to be noticed.

so I guess your problem is liberty of choice ? honestly what's wrong for you if other ppl don't play the game the way you play it ? and what's wrong with a game offering that choice ? (compared to many of those so said "AAA" games with no flexibility/improvement in gameplay for years).

is your way the only way ?

ps: also you should avoid posting statistics like "99% of players", because it's obviously false. your case/point of view doesn't make the absolute majority. or at least have sources to prove it (but such statistics never happened thoughout human history, based on human choices, except of course : 100% of human beings are stupids).

[Samadhi]

Originally posted by Redarmy:

Im not bashing peoples play styles,i just find it most unfortunate that 99% of players dont understand that the real challenge comes from harder more scarce settings and you miss the amazing feelig of just making it through a day on the island...instead,its like a playground of kids with ADHD riding around on wild lizards one shotting and vaporizing instantly anything that comes within one mile of them.

Truly sad

Well you sort of are bashing other peoples playstyles.

Pigeon holing everyone as 'kids with ADHD' is a stretch when I'd bet most long term players are 30+ and the reason they 1 shot you is because they put all the hard work into perfecting their lines.

[DarkFaceGlow]

Settings

[Liralen]

I first started playing Everquest while it was in beta, and my first toon was created on the day it went live, because I sat for hours trying to get through the log jammed queue. This was on dial-up internet connections.

I watched a stump for days, waiting on a ground spawn, and I eventually married the man who stood vigil with me (whom I'd met before in the original Diablo, and was co-creator of the legit Diablo guild we formed, because the original Diablo was so rampant with cheaters).

I was an EQ cleric, who pretty much couldn't kill anything solo except for undead, and so his company was needed. If an undead attacked me while watching that stump, it would take me 10 minutes to regen mana before I could kill another. And if I got attacked by something that wasn't undead, I was toast. But yet, much later, when I gained the achievements I needed to progress, with much help from my friends, people would bow to me when I zoned in.

We watched that stump for several real life days. Because Everquest was magical back in those days because of the people you met.

So I get where the OP is coming from, but my days of watching stumps for days are done. I no longer find it fun to guard a knocked out dino for hours.

Been there, done that. But if the OP hasn't, more power to them.

[Cobretti]

I agree this isn't a survival game. I've always said it and never denied it. However there is enough content in this game that makes that OK. You don't need to make a player boil water (this isn't planet Earth btw, you assume it is salt water) or make food harder to get.

Thinking that grind = difficulty is a very immature way to think of game difficulty. There is no difficulty in spending 2 hours smashing rocks with an Anky. You want to make the game harder, reduce tamed dino armor and damage and / or increase wild dino damage / armor, that's how you make the game harder because when a wild dino can really punish you for making bad decisions, you actually need to use your brain, instead of spamming LMB on a bunch of rocks for 2 hours.

That aside, I find most players making these arguments haven't even cleared the game by themselves yet. Is this you? Have you played at server settings (no SP buff) and cleared every single map in the game? Going from one map to the other naked and starting anew? Maybe it is, I won't know, all I know is that most people complaining about difficulty haven't even finished the content in the first place.

[MortVent]

You have the tools, both in game settings and ini alterations to make it more of a survival experience.

Dropping XP rates (something I do because it's easy to level up way too fast at times) is a very good option as it slows the progression.

Tweaking harvesting health and amounts, tweaking the multipliers for player and dino (can reduce the amount both get for example)

Adjusting stat increases per point, taming rates, etc

You have the granularity to alter the game to suit what you want.

And then there are mods.

[Samadhi]

Originally posted by Cobretti:

I agree this isn't a survival game. I've always said it and never denied it. However there is enough content in this game that makes that OK. You don't need to make a player boil water (this isn't planet Earth btw, you assume it is salt water) or make food harder to get.

Thinking that grind = difficulty is a very immature way to think of game difficulty. There is no difficulty in spending 2 hours smashing rocks with an Anky. You want to make the game harder, reduce tamed dino armor and damage and / or increase wild dino damage / armor, that's how you make the game harder because when a wild dino can really punish you for making bad decisions, you actually need to use your brain, instead of spamming LMB on a bunch of rocks for 2 hours.

That aside, I find most players making these arguments haven't even cleared the game by themselves yet. Is this you? Have you played at server settings (no SP buff) and cleared every single map in the game? Going from one map to the other naked and starting anew? Maybe it is, I won't know, all I know is that most people complaining about difficulty haven't even finished the content in the first place.

I agree entirely with your post, well written.

I would like to add that this boil water thing is ridiculous, as boiling seawater does NOT remove the salt so it would be assumed its fresh water in game. (Not aimed at you mate, just a comment in general)

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Redarmy:

With lower rates and less dino's/harder to get food etc?

Seems this game shouldnt be called Ark survival but Ark thrival. The amount of OP stuff in game,from tek to tamed buffs,regening health,a hunger system that on default settings is a non issue,same with water(why isnt there a reason to have to Boil sea water at least?)

To the vastly OP focused mods of which the workshop are 99.9% full of.

People say ♥♥♥♥ like...."i dont think long tame times add difficulty,they are just tedious" etc etc...sorry but u can use the tedious argument for anything,in reality you have a short attention span if you cant hold your character still for a set amount of time,hell just take in the natural beauty around you as you wait,organize inventory etc.

Im not bashing peoples play styles,i just find it most unfortunate that 99% of players dont understand that the real challenge comes from harder more scarce settings and you miss the amazing feelig of just making it through a day on the island...instead,its like a playground of kids with ADHD riding around on wild lizards one shotting and vaporizing instantly anything that comes within one mile of them.

Truly sad

User end issue.

You can play hardcore servers for one.
You can also opt to play either in single player or on unofficial servers with more brutal settings and mods that add even more layers of challenges to you. Mods with more creatures, more immersive and challenging taming and more.

You see, devs understand that different people have different interests and have made it to where people can opt for and enact choices that best match them.

Thus you have choices.