I don't understand progression in this game

[That Fetcher Fargoth]

Why lock crafting recipes behind levels? It doesn't make any sense in an open world crafting game. It changes things from organically discovering recipes on your own, and discourages experimentation, and instead turns to game into a arbitrary RPG grind fest. Grinding in RPGs was not something most people enjoyed.

[CrEaToXx]

You're dying over and over again. What's left of you and your experience is uploaded into a database, and your memories will be provided as engrams.

You're basically a Dino hunting Neo, you just don't know because your memories will be portioned by the entities running your Matrix. They'll allow you exactly what and when to know it.

Also, this is absolutely no RPG. It's a gameplay rich survival sandbox, in a vast and difficult world. There are plenty of gameplay ways to manage the grind, you just have to focus on your engram ladder.

[That Fetcher Fargoth]

Lore is all well and good, but the gameplay function of arbitrarily locking my progression and limiting me from building stuff because I'm "not far enough on my engram ladder" is not creative or fun. Minecraft doesn't lock your progress in this way, and it's done just fine, as have countless other open-world survival crafting games.

[william_es]

Originally posted by That Fetcher Fargoth:

Lore is all well and good, but the gameplay function of arbitrarily locking my progression and limiting me from building stuff because I'm "not far enough on my engram ladder" is not creative or fun. Minecraft doesn't lock your progress in this way, and it's done just fine, as have countless other open-world survival crafting games.

uhm, yeah. That's the way things are done in this game. Doesn't really matter if it makes "sense". It just is.

It it bothers you, it's possible to just give yourself exp through admin commands or use mods that unlock all engrams. All of these things already exist.

But as a general principle, the idea of "levels" is commonly used in many many many games. Why do I have to wait until level x to learn how to throw a fireball spell in a fantasy game. Or level 25 to unlock plasma rifles in a sci-fi game? Because it forces you to make do with lesser things until you do. And when you finally do reach that level, you do backflips because you can throw a fireball now. Gives you a sense of expectation, like waiting to unwrap christmas presents.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by That Fetcher Fargoth:

Why lock crafting recipes behind levels? It doesn't make any sense in an open world crafting game. It changes things from organically discovering recipes on your own, and discourages experimentation, and instead turns to game into a arbitrary RPG grind fest. Grinding in RPGs was not something most people enjoyed.

1. The progression is tied to the lore/story. The engrams(ie recipes) are part of that. Spoilers: your character is in the far far future of the earth after the planet underwent a catastrophy. "Arks" were put in place in orbit around the planet which use a technology to create the creatures(including you) on the arks. Your purpose is to grow, survive and evolve(hence the name) to the point that you can leave the ark. You have an implant in your arm to track your progress(and more).

So saying it doesnt make sense is simply due to your lack of understanding the game.

2. Ark Evolved is not an open world crafting game. It is an open world survival game with crafting. Better to frame it from that perspective as the devs intended.

3. Game is only as grindy as you wish to make it. Devs implemented admin commands and settings you can adjust to have the game match better your play caliber.


All in all then, either adapt to match your play style or perhaps reconsider if the game is something that matches you.

Best of luck.

[CrEaToXx]

I mean, if you implement eating Giant's Toes over and over again to level your Alchemy, it's probably less "arbitrary".

Minecraft locks progression behind recipes and limited resource availability btw. and you have to level to get access to proper means of survival.

[Alucard †]

Hmmm curious.
You don't like grindy RPG mechanics in open world games yet Morrowind is your favorite game?

[That Fetcher Fargoth]

Originally posted by Alucard †:

Hmmm curious.
You don't like grindy RPG mechanics in open world games yet Morrowind is your favorite game?

Hmm, curious. It's almost like different game genres have different expectations, and shoe-horning in grinding to arbitrarily to control progression in a open-world survival game is a bad idea. Besides that, you don't have to grind in Morrowind.

[That Fetcher Fargoth]

Originally posted by CrEaToXx:

I mean, if you implement eating Giant's Toes over and over again to level your Alchemy, it's probably less "arbitrary".

Minecraft locks progression behind recipes and limited resource availability btw. and you have to level to get access to proper means of survival.

Yeah, and MInecraft lets you experiment with recipes to discover them on your own. Minecraft doesn't have levels, the closest thing is the green xp which is used as a resource for enchantments (which don't have recipes to begin with), so clearly completely different from what we're talking about.

[That Fetcher Fargoth]

Originally posted by retsam1:

1. The progression is tied to the lore/story. The engrams(ie recipes) are part of that. Spoilers: your character is in the far far future of the earth after the planet underwent a catastrophy. "Arks" were put in place in orbit around the planet which use a technology to create the creatures(including you) on the arks. Your purpose is to grow, survive and evolve(hence the name) to the point that you can leave the ark. You have an implant in your arm to track your progress(and more).

The gameplay mismatch for an open-world survival game being backed up by the story doesn't make it a good idea.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by That Fetcher Fargoth:

Originally posted by retsam1:

1. The progression is tied to the lore/story. The engrams(ie recipes) are part of that. Spoilers: your character is in the far far future of the earth after the planet underwent a catastrophy. "Arks" were put in place in orbit around the planet which use a technology to create the creatures(including you) on the arks. Your purpose is to grow, survive and evolve(hence the name) to the point that you can leave the ark. You have an implant in your arm to track your progress(and more).

The gameplay mismatch for an open-world survival game being backed up by the story doesn't make it a good idea.

Story being involved in an open world survival game isnt uncommon, but I recognize due to your game play history on steam and lack of depth of experience with such games that you would find that to be an erroneous incongruence. I mean, of the 493 games that you own even, less than 20 have over 20 hours played and none of those are even in the genre.

At this point then given your responses to in the thread, I think the evidence is rather compelling that it pretty much shows this is a user end issue and intentional shenanigans on your part.

All in all, you're just being silly.

[ShatteredPumpkin]

god crybaby then freaking increase exp gain to max so you become lvl 100+ after picking up a rock and stop crying lol

[william_es]

And more importantly, any complaining about the level system in this game is NOT going to have any effect on how it works.

They have stopped all changes on this game. It's done. The game has been out for 9+ years, and games age in dog years. 9+ is like 20+. Many games are nearly dead 6 months after they debut. This game sold very very well, and still remains a popular well played game to this day.

So either use mods or use admin settings. Those are the only things that will change how it works. The developers have stopped ALL WORK on this game.

[CrEaToXx]

A conversation ends when users start to triple post. Baiting arguments for the reason of arguing is just boring.

I don't think you have even remotely enough playtime and in that regard, enough experience, to argue about Bethesda games, or Minecraft with me...

[🦊 Hermit]

Originally posted by Telcontyr:

As a solo player I always forego the levelling aspect and max my character with console commands right away. Next thing I do is unlock all engrams with another console command. The joy for me is then building my bases, capturing dinos, breeding them etc. and ascending legitimately all the way.

Those things are interesting to me too, but do you not find the game gets rather stale and boring towards the end? Both me and my friends really struggle to stay motivated when we're super powerful with mutated armies and ascendant gear.

We find the earlygame by far the most rewarding and exciting. Surviving on your wits and strategy when you don't have OP equipment, trying to stay alive with low level weaker tames against the map's strongest...it holds a lot more entertainment value for us. So we've actually taken to lowering the XP multiplier to just 0.2 or even 0.1 of vanilla, to force us to slow down and stay in that earlygame much longer. Without that, I don't think Ark would have had nearly the length of playtime it has achieved among my friendgroup.

Not to say your way of playing is wrong, mind you. Each to their own if that's what you prefer Just offering a viewpoint is all...

[CrEaToXx]

I agree on the early game part. It's intense...