Worth to play on servers in 2025?

[Svet]

Hello everyone
I played this game for a while in 2015 on a PVP/PVE Server which was quite fun and thinking of returning to ark in 2025 and got a few questions for the community:

1. Are there still populated mixed PVP/PVE Servers around?
2. Is it worth to play the game in singleplayer / coop?
Does it have enough challanging gameplay and progress or is it like playing "Rust" alone?

Looking forward to your opinions.
(Please restrain from hardcore fanboying or hate-whining in the comments)

[🦊 Hermit]

I only ever play solo or privately with friends, so I'm afraid I can't really comment on the server side of it. However the player count has remained consistently pretty high (a good bit higher than the remaster) so there are still quite a few playing. Check out server listings on Battlemetrics to get more of an idea how many servers may be available, but do remember that multiple servers could be clustered together in one community so if general player count per server seems low, it may be that the community is large, it's just spread over multiple maps.

As for how challenging it is single player/co-op though: That's largely up to you. One of Ark's biggest strengths is that a huge selection of config options are open for us players to adjust, so we can make it as easy or difficult as we wish. If you start playing and it's a breeze, reduce the xp rate or player damage resistance. If it's way too grindy, increase gather rates so you gain materials faster. And you can even add a wealth of mods from the Workshop to the mix, to make it even more customised and entertaining than vanilla.

It certainly has a lot to do though. Six maps to play through, each with their own boss and many sub-bosses along the way, and all of those require you to find artifacts and hunt rare creatures, or complete many in-game missions, in order to unlock them. Almost 200 creatures to combat, tame, and breed. A host of equipment and items to learn to craft and use, and many diaries and explorer notes spread across the map to find. With the right difficulty setup, just one of those maps could keep you entertained for months. And that's before the free DLC maps that were originally mods, which have their own landscapes, creatures and bosses too.

Of course, all of the above should also be qualified with the warning that you'll face some frustrations with bugs and issues along the way. Ark is a very glitchy game, almost to the point of being totally broken at times, and could well cause you no end of headaches. I'd recommend you keep very frequent backups of your saves, so you can restore from them if something goes wrong and you lose progress. Only you can decide for yourself whether it's worth it to try and fight through those frustrations or not. But for all it's faults, when it does work the game has occasional flashes of brilliance which can keep you coming back for more. I'm not a fan of the survival game genre at all, but it's given me almost 8k hours - if it can do that, it's gotta be doing something right.

[Svet]

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

I only ever play solo or privately with friends, so I'm afraid I can't really comment on the server side of it. However the player count has remained consistently pretty high (a good bit higher than the remaster) so there are still quite a few playing. Check out server listings on Battlemetrics to get more of an idea how many servers may be available, but do remember that multiple servers could be clustered together in one community so if general player count per server seems low, it may be that the community is large, it's just spread over multiple maps.

As for how challenging it is single player/co-op though: That's largely up to you. One of Ark's biggest strengths is that a huge selection of config options are open for us players to adjust, so we can make it as easy or difficult as we wish. If you start playing and it's a breeze, reduce the xp rate or player damage resistance. If it's way too grindy, increase gather rates so you gain materials faster. And you can even add a wealth of mods from the Workshop to the mix, to make it even more customised and entertaining than vanilla.

It certainly has a lot to do though. Six maps to play through, each with their own boss and many sub-bosses along the way, and all of those require you to find artifacts and hunt rare creatures, or complete many in-game missions, in order to unlock them. Almost 200 creatures to combat, tame, and breed. A host of equipment and items to learn to craft and use, and many diaries and explorer notes spread across the map to find. With the right difficulty setup, just one of those maps could keep you entertained for months. And that's before the free DLC maps that were originally mods, which have their own landscapes, creatures and bosses too.

Of course, all of the above should also be qualified with the warning that you'll face some frustrations with bugs and issues along the way. Ark is a very glitchy game, almost to the point of being totally broken at times, and could well cause you no end of headaches. I'd recommend you keep very frequent backups of your saves, so you can restore from them if something goes wrong and you lose progress. Only you can decide for yourself whether it's worth it to try and fight through those frustrations or not. But for all it's faults, when it does work the game has occasional flashes of brilliance which can keep you coming back for more. I'm not a fan of the survival game genre at all, but it's given me almost 8k hours - if it can do that, it's gotta be doing something right.

Thanks for the detailed and relevant comment! This makes me want to play the game.

When looking into the server browser it seemed only a few servers had more than 10 players, but battlemetrics shows someting else. Will have to investigate that.

[Evil]

i play on an unofficial server ,theres hardly anyone about these days but i prefer the online expierence.

[william_es]

If you do enough hunting around, you can still find very well run unofficial servers. Some of the better ones are password protected, just to keep out the griefers and gankers. They often have a website where you can "apply" to play on them. It's a little bit of extra work, but worth it in the long run.

[Svet]

Originally posted by william_es:

If you do enough hunting around, you can still find very well run unofficial servers. Some of the better ones are password protected, just to keep out the griefers and gankers. They often have a website where you can "apply" to play on them. It's a little bit of extra work, but worth it in the long run.

Thanks for the info. Do you have any administrated server with passwords you can recommend?

[Sirendire]

I have a Progression Based PVP Cluster set up for veteran players. Would you like info about it?

[Svet]

Originally posted by Sirendire:

I have a Progression Based PVP Cluster set up for veteran players. Would you like info about it?

Sounds like an interesting setup but I havent played the game for literaly 10 years, surely will need some time to learn it.

[Sirendire]

Originally posted by Svet:

Originally posted by Sirendire:

I have a Progression Based PVP Cluster set up for veteran players. Would you like info about it?

Sounds like an interesting setup but I havent played the game for literaly 10 years, surely will need some time to learn it.

I have a unique near to Vanilla PVP Cluster, It is progression based- White listing to gain access to the next map, Beta Overseer, to go from island to scorched, Beta Manticore to go from Scorched to Aberration, and so on etc, all of the DLC maps are unlocked at the completion of the Beta Prime Rockwell.

There are no Mods

Cygnus Progression Cluster PVP 10xBreed
steam://connect/173.27.156.94:27019
Epic: 173.27.156.94:7781
https://discord.gg/YdDFB7V

Join if you are interested :)