Singleplayer question

[Ne_Obliviscaris]

Is it possible to play through the entire game without needing help? For those that have played it, has it ever been frustrating not having anyone helping?

[esthergray]

At times, it does. The reason they let you change your game settings is so that you can make a game that is made for tribe play playable for the single player. I got frustrated with aberration because you can't transfer dinos in until you can get to the surface and use the obelisks. The surface is very inhospitable and you can't use loot drops to transfer on that map in single player. From that point on I just played the maps without planning to beat the bosses. The Island and Scorched Earth are totally doable in single player. Just tweak the game settings to make it fun for you.

[unreservedly590]

it is frustrating at times but it shows alot in extinction and gen 1

i dont wana spoil it but be warned gen 1 isint possible in sertain parts inless you land super op gear

[🦊 Hermit]

It's possible to play through the entire game solo, with the exception of some missions on the Genesis maps. The 'Gauntlet' type missions force you to use weapons the mission provides, not your own equipment or dinos, and is balanced for a tribe of people, so it is simply not possible for a solo player to output the damage needed to defeat the enemies in the time limit. You would need to use cheats or mods to complete those missions.

Aside from that, though, the game is certainly doable solo. But as Esther says, it is more balanced for group play, so adjusting some of the settings to make things more enjoyable would be advised. And a few mods wouldn't go amiss either.

But one thing WildCard excelled at is giving us players access to so many configs, so we can set things up how we like. So experiment - find a setting which you feel offers enough challenge for you without becoming frustrating, and tweak it to your particular tastes as you go.

[HALO_run]

you should be fine, just fine tune some settings and you'
ll be good but don't put some settings too high or the game won't be any fun

[Liralen]

Originally posted by esthergray:

At times, it does. The reason they let you change your game settings is so that you can make a game that is made for tribe play playable for the single player. I got frustrated with aberration because you can't transfer dinos in until you can get to the surface and use the obelisks. The surface is very inhospitable and you can't use loot drops to transfer on that map in single player. From that point on I just played the maps without planning to beat the bosses. The Island and Scorched Earth are totally doable in single player. Just tweak the game settings to make it fun for you.

If you defeat the Island bosses first (specifically, the Dragon) or some other bosses elsewhere, you can make a Tek Transmitter and take it with you to Aberration. As others have said, adjust your settings as necessary to make it possible to defeat a boss, not the least of which is create a saved file that you can restore to.

I don't know if that's possible in single player or the in-game dedicated server. I've mostly played on unofficial dedicated servers using ASM, in which it is possible.

Edited Note: Aberration does restrict some dino transfers, flyers I remember, but possibly others. Having a Tek transmitter at the very least allows you to transfer back to another server if you need a respite from Aberration.

[Liralen]

Also, some of the Island's caves can be very difficult. But you only need to do those to obtain artifacts (needed to summon bosses), which are transferable between maps (trophies are not transferable so must be obtained on the map where you plan to summon a boss.)

You can often find a map that is easier than others to obtain an artifact (never spurn searching for spoilers made by other players, especially Youtube videos - consider them as a member of the group you do not have, and reward them with at least a Like if you found the information helpful. And no, I don't make Youtube videos, but rather use them a lot.)

[Auakopf]

In singleplayer you have the possibility to "cheat" items into your inventory (which is fully legal for singleplayer). These cheat commands can kind of replace the help from other players. For example, you can find the cheat code for transmitters here:
https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Tek_Transmitter

Scroll a bit down until you see the line "Spawn Command" and "Expand".

You could then enter Abberation, cheat and place the transmitter without having to go to the surface.

I had started on singleplayer, too, but these cheat codes were too tempting for me and cheating everything into my inventory is no fun for me. :D

Multiplayer can sometimes be frustrating, depending on the players on the server, but I stay there anyway. One reason is that looking at other player's bases gave me so much ideas and help for my own bases. Reading the chat of other players also gave me many hints about playing strategy and dino traps that I don't want to miss this again. And when other players quit the game and their structures decay, I sometimes find items which I never had seen on singleplayer.

[gentleman]

well, SP have pros and cons. In my opinion it is better to play in dedicated server with atleast 1 friend. Otherwise it will be very hard to tame some dinos (Like Quetzal). Also it is almost impossible to complete Alfa Volcano Cave in solo. 5 min is not enough to move all dinos in a tiny door.

[Liralen]

Originally posted by gentleman:

well, SP have pros and cons. In my opinion it is better to play in dedicated server with atleast 1 friend. Otherwise it will be very hard to tame some dinos (Like Quetzal). Also it is almost impossible to complete Alfa Volcano Cave in solo. 5 min is not enough to move all dinos in a tiny door.

I agree, but with some exceptions. But for new players who haven't done either one, here is a video of what the final boss fight on the Island is like (which is what I believe gentleman is referring to by "Alfa Volcano Cave", but done with two players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRTfnM5Zy8g

i.e., the hard part is what gentleman said - getting the dinos within the cave in 5 minutes and keeping them from falling into the lava on the narrow path until you reach a giga (do not try this fight until you know enough to make a wild, non-flying type dino jump into lava without your tames trying to attack it, too.)

I've never had to solo tame a quetzal, as all the quetzal tames we've done were with the help of others, but here's an idea of why solo taming a quetzal is hard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw9pQk4NtaQ

The problem is that it takes so long to knock a quetzal out. The flyer you are on usually can't out-stamina a quetzal (wild ones seem to have infinite stamina - I've never seen one land),

And the last time I tamed a quetzal, you could only shoot while on a griffin, quetzal (requires you to dismount, but you don't fall off of them, and once you do, tamed ones will regain stamina), or as a passenger on a Tapejara.

Then you'll need to land your flyer until it regains stamina (if it's not a quetzal), while a tribe mate takes over, the more the better.

However, if you have one quetzal, you can build a trap on it to much more quickly trap and tame another quetzal. So if you have access to one quetzal, you no longer need help.

Why are quetzal's desirable? They can carry a lot of weight, in addition to high stamina.

This is another reason https://www.dododex.com/capabilities/carry. I obtained almost all of my high level therizins by simply picking them up with a quetzal and dropping them into a taming pen, far from where I picked it up.

[HALO_run]

Originally posted by Liralen:

Originally posted by gentleman:

well,.

well no it's easy as to get dinos in the tech cave within 5 mins, keeping em alive inside is the hard part

[Liralen]

Originally posted by HALO_run:

Originally posted by Liralen:

well no it's easy as to get dinos in the tech cave within 5 mins, keeping em alive inside is the hard part

I'll trust your judgment on that. I've only done it once, with 4 other players, and while we had no issues getting them into the cave, it just looked like it might be difficult solo. We had no issues keeping dinos alive inside, but there were 5 of us, so that is by no means any evidence at all that a solo player would have a similar experience.

[HALO_run]

nah if you have lots of rexs they may fall into the lava and die, that and anything big makes that part hard, more players can head the horde better then a solo player

[🦊 Hermit]

I've done the tek cave solo, and while I use mods to make my game a little easier, I don't have any mods which adjust dino pathing or follow behaviour. Getting them through the cave is tricky, but not too difficult if you have a lot of experience with Ark's follow mechanics and take your time about it, doing things carefully and methodically.

I daisy-chained all my tek rexes together into 2 or 3 groups, one following another, then rode my yuty and whistled the first rex in the chain to follow me. Had to take the turns wide, because the rexes at the end of the line tend to cut the corner a lot as they feed through. And you have to be very careful walking over cliffs, as following creatures will run at speed and could overshoot the path, falling into the lava.

But it definitely can be done. I'd recommend a yuty as mount to ride on, because it's an extremely fast runner, so you can lead one line of dinos past an obstacle, then run back to pick up the next line quickly without losing much time.

[Liralen]

Originally posted by HALO_run:

nah if you have lots of rexs they may fall into the lava and die, that and anything big makes that part hard, more players can head the horde better then a solo player

Yeah, we probably had more players than we had rexes and yuts, so we could ride the ones we had, or easily swapped between them. The player who bred the rexes had already done the cave solo, so he pretty much orchestrated the event and telling the rest of us (on Teamspeak) what to do.

The rest were therizins well supplied with sweet vegetable cakes.

[esthergray]

Theris are much easier to keep on the path in the cave. They are more maneuverable and stay in a line much better. It helps to take them down in groups of about 4 or 5 at a time. Clear the path for a ways and then bring them that far, rinse and repeat. You have all the time you want in single player, only the beginning entrance has a timer.