override official difficulty not working

[Ethanhunter]

I tryed pretty much evertything to my knowledge that i could find on the internet but still my wild dinos max level is 120 itryed the override = 5, i put in on read only, (yes i made sure to save), i reinstalled the entire game, i tryed on multiple maps, still my singleplayer dinos are max 120. Please help

[🦊 Hermit]

Did you shut the game down while adjusting the configs? And did you do a dino wipe in game after setting the config, to remove all creatures which had already spawned in before and force the game to spawn new ones?

If so, it may help if you could provide a little more detail on the steps you have taken so far:

*) Which config files were you editing, and what is the file path for them?

*) What is the exact line you put into the file?

*) Have you put any other configs into the file, and are those working or are they broken too?

Any extra info you could give may be helpful.

[Ethanhunter]

First of all thank you so much for trying to help already i really apreciate it,
So i did do a dino wipe multipel times.
the file i edited was located at:
Date (D:) > games > steamapps > common > ARK > shootergame > Saved > Config > WindowsnoEditor > GamesUSerSettings.ini

this is the litteral line i added under DifficulityOffset: OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5

[Ethanhunter]

i tryed multiple things and did a dino wipe every single time again just nothing seems to work, i flipped the 2 lines around of DifficulityOffset and the override. i even changed something to the file game.ini : MaxDifficulty=True
bUseSingleplayerSettings=False.

i got this info form this discussion: https://steamcommunity.com/app/346110/discussions/0/3896113836830450278/

i tryed all these things just nothing seems to work

[sgargoyle]

same issue here havent had to change ini files or anything in years but now its like they purposely nurfed ark in order to push us to buying ascended and ark 2 sorry i dont buy flipped content still wont touch atlas. and i doubt it will be given any fixes if Dark and light is any example about the care and attention given to their older or less popular content.

[🦊 Hermit]

Hmm, that is strange yeah. From what you've said it all sounds correct, I don't see any glaring reasons why it shouldn't be working.

Perhaps try adding the OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5.0 argument to the game's startup options too? That would emulate putting the config into the command line of a dedicated server, it might force the game to respect it.

In your Steam Library, right-click Ark and select Properties. Near the bottom of the first tab there should be a text box where you can enter modifications to the launch options. Put the override line into that box, then start up Ark, do another dino wipe, and see if anything has changed.

[guig]

Originally posted by Ethanhunter:

this is the litteral line i added under DifficulityOffset: OverrideOfficialDifficulty=5

you misspelled the first Difficulty
also there should have already been that line above "difficultyoffset". if you add one make sure of that because the second one would be useless.

also: in game.ini this time: you should not need to change the Singleplayersetting. try to put this back to true, maybe a conflict when you load the game in Sp aferward (mine as always been on true and no issue)

[Ethanhunter]

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

Sadly still nothing :/

if you would have some time and would like to maybe help me on discord on anything since thats a bit more easy, my discord is Ethanhunter #7324

it would be very much apreciated

[🦊 Hermit]

I'm afraid I can't do Discord, my apologies.

But this is indeed a confusing situation. Can we just doubly confirm that other settings you have in the config files are definitely working? If for example you up the gather rate in the gameusersettings file to something crazy like 100, and then walk along a beach and pick up a stone, how many stones do you collect in one go? And if you go into the game.ini file and use the following config to remove all dodos from the game:

NPCReplacements=(FromClassName="Dodo_Character_BP_C",ToClassName="")

Then do a dino wipe on your save, do you still get dodos spawning in, or are they properly removed? I'm just trying to figure out if the game is actually reading anything from the files at all, or if it's just running with defaults the whole time.

If you test the above and it does work, I would advise trying this mod to see if you can get that to adjust the levels. Ideally the mod would not be necessary and we can still figure out a solution otherwise, but if the mod does work it would at least be some progress and new info to work with, and if all else fails maybe the mod could stand in and give you the creature levels you are looking for where the configs fail.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2182894352

Oh and one last query, do you use an online backup service such as Google One Drive or anything like that? I have in the past heard stories from other games of online backups constantly restoring game files to older versions when the player was trying to make changes or make progress in a game. If you were using a service like that and it was set to backup the Ark folders, I wonder if it might be replacing the config files with older ones every time you try to update them?

[Ethanhunter]

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

I'm afraid I can't do Discord, my apologies.

First of all i found the problem. Apparently i had 2 entire maps of ARK/steam games

I had

Date (D:) > games > steamapps > common > ARK > shootergame > Saved > Config > WindowsnoEditor > GamesUSerSettings.ini

and apparently also

Date (D:) > Steamlibrary > Steamapps common > ...

i found out because when i was editing the gather rate in the first one i noticed it was different then the gather rate i use in game.

So thank you so much for your help because even tho i found it this way i would have never found it without you.

Just know your help is very highly appreciated!!

[🦊 Hermit]

Wow, that's weird...wonder how the game came to be installed in two different locations. And that other one you mentioned isn't even the default install spot - the 'SteamLibrary' one is the directory Steam makes when you tell it to install games in another location, I use that on my own machine, but I would have expected any other install to be in the default Steam directory within the Program Files X86 folder

Anyway regardless, I'm glad your issue seems to be fixed, and pleased I could be at least some small help in accomplishing that Hope things run smoothly for ya from here on out.