Getting into ARK - basic questions

[stefan.klaus86]

Hi there,

I have a few questions regarding the game. I have it a long time already, and I also did play it here and there, but never got into it at a more "serious" level. Due to me liking Dinosaurs and simmilar creatures, and this game has plenty of these, I consider getting into the game, again, on a "more serious" level. My questions follow.

1. Is this game "casual friendly"? Altough I do have a lot of spare time, and I do enjoy gaming, I see it as a hobby, and not a profession. Years ago, when I played ARK, I saw someone has built a "Fortress" (more or less). I asked how long does it take to build such a thing, and people wrote, that it takes about 5000hours to build such a "Fortress". My game time varies. I could have a week where I would play the game 2+ hours every day, and I could have week(s) where in 2-3 Weeks I touch it for 30 minutes. This leads to question 2

2. Tribes "Guilds(?)". To me it is clear, that if I like to play this game on a "higher level" I need help. Playing it all alone isn´t really an option for me, so it would be clear, that I´d join a tribe or "guild" to play with others. My plan would be that I participate in whatever they´re building, do simple jobs ("Gather 200 wood / stone") and supply them with materials, and I get an "internal level" (if you will). The more this level progresses, the more I´m given (they give my character a home, maybe even a Dino mount - that would be my personal goal in the game). Does it work that way? I know it is a thing to "not play this game a lot" but then ask for endgame content being "given to me" (I consider Dino Mount endgame content), but I don´t expect to "gather 200 wood / stone" and be given a mount for that, rather it is a thing I do months long, and then I earned enough reputation to receive said things. In the same time I could probably build a lot by myself, but as I said, I´d rather have my character be a tribe member, then be a "lone wolf".

3. Gameplay / Story. With the newer game (see question 4) around, I picked up the word "story" (related to ARK). I like story based games, but as far as I recall "how ARK is", it´s a base-build game. You start with a simple "straw house", and through leveling your skills / tools you progress, and... as the other person, after 5k hours, you have a fortress. I remember that his Fortress looked "finished". He has had so many Dino-Mounts, that they were "stacked" (Imagine it like a shelf in a grocery store, you can pick one... they were lined up in a row, and it were all the same mounts). Can it be said, once you achieve to have such a fortress, the game is completed, or is there actualy a story? If it has singleplayer, and a story then I´d be fine playing singleplayer, but I have a feeling, that singleplayer is multiplayer, just that you are alone in the map.

4. Play the old game, or get the new game? The new ARK has been released, and people are having rather mixed feelings about it. Supposedly it´s just "this game" but with updated visuals. Many people complain about the bad coding and the bad performance that goes along with the bad coding. As people´s hardware will improve during the next years, less people will have complaints about performance. If I´d "hop in" into ARK again, shall I play this game ( I think I have the base-game and some DLC maps) or shall I buy the new game, and have my start there? Did they add a story / campaign mode in the new game?

...

That were my main questions about the game. Does it make sense to get into it, if you are a super-casual player that "wants to" play it only occasionly, as a hobby, and not a job, or shall I rather stay out and save myself some potential frustration? As for the tribes, I can joing Englisch speaking tribe, but also German speaking tribe.

Also, if I don´t reply (...fast) don´t worry. I´ll read your comments and replies.

[Dj DNA]

1. you decide the rates of your game. So it can be as hard or as easy as you want.

2. see point 1.

3. There is a story, it spans 6 maps in the following order: The Island, Scorched Earth, Aberration, Extinction, Genesis 1, Genesis 2.

You complete a map by defeating it's final boss. How to get there you will have to figure out, for yourself but it takes way more than just "build a fortress". The story itself is told through the notes you find on all these maps. Find them all and piece together the story. A more basic, global and incomplete story can be found through the intro and outro cutscenes of each of these maps.

The other 6 maps not mentioned above are non canon maps without notes and cutscenes.

4. The "new" Ark is literally this one but with a visual upgrade and a couple new creatures. It only has The Island and Scorched Earth for now and it will take (no joke) at least till 2026 to release the rest of the story maps. So my recommendation is:play this one, it has all story content already released.

[Sad Clifford]

1. Nothing that forces you to play X number of hours. You can just do your own thing. Just join a nice private pve server.

2. there are discord channels you can join for servers. they do events like basically run instances. otherwise with your lackluster participation it's unlikely anyone will care about your contributions. for example, with a gacha farm i'd be able to mine 200 stone in seconds.

3. story is convoluted and nonsensical.

4. money grab. avoid.

[🦊 Hermit]

1) On default rates the game is not particularly friendly to casual play. It can be quite grindy to gather materials and progress, and the difficulty curve is set for large tribes not solo players so it is very unforgiving. And if you are playing online with others this can be amplified, because on a server the game does not pause while you are offline - your dinos can starve to death if left without food too long, and if the server is PvP other tribes can raid you, meaning you have to jump online to defend or risk losing all your progress.

However if you play solo or set up your own server, you can decide the rates yourself. Set it so gathering is not such a grind and materials come quicker, reduce the damage that dinos do to you so you can survive more easily etc. And on single player you can shut the game down when not playing, so nothing will happen to your creatures. And if you are on a PvE server with a good tribe, they should be able to look after your tames while you are away, so everything should be safe there.

2) It is possible to play the game solo, although you might need to tweak a few settings as mentioned above to make it a little more forgiving. But if you find a good server and tribe, a good community who will help you out, then that would be an option too.

A note though - getting a dino mount shouldn't really be considered 'end game content'. This entire game is about riding and using dinos to assist your survival, and you will want to start taming creatures right from your very first few levels after you wake up on the beach. Dinos are effectively your tools that you use to interact with the world...they survive fights much better than the player and can defend you, they can gather materials far quicker and in greater quantity than the player, and can carry much more than you can, and they are often more manoeuvrable and can get to places the player cannot reach. At first you will want a mount to ride on to take hits for you so you don't die so fast, and some smaller predators following to fight off attacks. Then as you level up you can start taming creatures which can gather large amounts of stone, wood, metal etc, and bring them back to your base. Then flying creatures and fighters to explore the more dangerous areas of the map, and finally the apex predators to take on the map bosses. Taming and riding dinos is a major part of the game right from the outset.

3) As mentioned above, there is a story to the game, but it isn't so much told through cutscenes and dialogue. Most of it you discover in the diaries and notes of explorers who came before you, scattered around the map for you to find. Read those diaries and piece together what they went through, and slowly but surely the lore behind the game and your involvement in it will become more clear. DJ DNA stated the order in which the maps should be played if you wish to follow said story, starting with The Island map. The free DLC maps such as Ragnarok, Valguero, Lost Island etc, are mod maps from the Workshop which have been adopted into the game - they offer some extra gameplay and areas to explore, and a few new creatures to tame which can't be found on the canon story maps, but they do not have any lore or story on them themselves and are not part of the official game story.

4) Whether you get the remaster or not is your choice, I'm reluctant to sway you either way. However I will say that Ark Evolved is currently a complete (albeit very buggy and glitchy) game, that you can play through from start to finish. But Ark Ascended currently only has two of the story maps released, and as mentioned above it may be a very long time before the rest see the light of day.

[stefan.klaus86]

Thank you for your replies, is appreciated.

So ... what I gather from these is that it´s best for me to try singleplayer, or... find a PvE tribe that plays the maps?

Even thou singleplayer can be heavily modified to "make things easier", I´d preffer it to not play alone. I can understand that others won´t have an interest in "carrying" my character through the game, hence my offer to "gather materials" (the examples I wrote are the ones I know, as I haven´t experienced a lot of the game yet).

The thing is that I´d like to see this game as a hobby, and if it requires you to play daily at least like an hour or so, it´s more like "a 2nd job". I can understand that they want things to be realistic, but if that´s the case, it´s not for me.

The only creature I ever managed to tame in this game was the "dodo bird" or however it´s name is. I recall that you had to punch it un concious, and then "heal" the bird by feeding it specific berries, and then, after it recovered, it followed you, as the player.

I did have a long break then from the game because updates made it so fancy, that my "old" PC wasn´t able to play it, it stuttered un play able... I got an upgrade, and when I checked the game again like a while ago, it now worked fine, but it was to difficult. I created 5 characters, and everyone had "an accident", so I abandoned it again.

Gathering wood / stones was just an example. I assume, that with level progression, more "complex" "grindy" materials are to be gathered, and I could then do that for the tribe. I like to do simple tasks (in such games), and be rewarded with others doing the complex things, but then share some of their work with me / my character.

I do recall that Materials and even buildings had a timer on them. Like "If you don´t come back and check the building, it will be removed in many hours" (I think it would last a few days), but I never thought it through further.

The game is quite complex. You really need to know your stuff, and I think playing it solo in singleplayer is rather the "last attractive option" here, because I was able to tame the dodo, but what is with the other dinosaurs? Getting started sure is a thing you will have to use a lot of time to "get started", which is good, bc it adds a realistic feeling to the game, but it´s also not good with how I want to see or play the game.

Are there any servers or tribes out there, that would work well with my "needs". If there´s a tribe, they could invite my character, and we can check how it would work together (they can give simple tasks but I´m really a newbie in this game), this, however ... is after I´ve re-installed it, because currently it´s not even installed.

As it is now, I´ll most likely play the "old" version. Based on the reviews that I did read, and the replies that were written here, I do not see a lot in playing the new version, except the visuals are better. I´m fine with the "old" visuals, they´re fancy enough for me.

[🦊 Hermit]

Originally posted by stefan.klaus86:

I´d preffer it to not play alone. I can understand that others won´t have an interest in "carrying" my character through the game, hence my offer to "gather materials" (the examples I wrote are the ones I know, as I haven´t experienced a lot of the game yet).

The thing is that I´d like to see this game as a hobby, and if it requires you to play daily at least like an hour or so, it´s more like "a 2nd job". I can understand that they want things to be realistic, but if that´s the case, it´s not for me.

If you could find a server/tribe that would be willing to take you in and show you the basics, then yes you could probably work out something like that. If you were playing on a server, as stated before time would continue to pass while you are away and your dinos' food bars would drain, so you would need somebody around to make sure they didn't starve. And also the decay timers you mentioned on structures are renewed by players in the tribe that owns said structure logging on and rendering them in (to prevent someone filling the map with small huts and blocking all build points, then never logging in again, preventing anybody from building there). So if your tribe is active and somebody logs in regularly, even if it's not you, to renew those then everything should be fine.

To find such a server, check out the server advertisements section of these forums, see if any of the threads there are for active communities and are welcoming of newbies. They might even have a Discord you could join to see if you would be comfortable there. Or you could check a third party listing site like Battlemetrics to find active servers. Just don't bother using the in-game server browser to find one, as that browser is very buggy and only displays a small handful of the servers on offer, most of which will be empty.

Originally posted by stefan.klaus86:

The only creature I ever managed to tame in this game was the "dodo bird" or however it´s name is. I recall that you had to punch it un concious, and then "heal" the bird by feeding it specific berries, and then, after it recovered, it followed you, as the player.

Most creatures in the game are similar, just that the methods of knocking them out get more advanced (tranquilliser arrows and darts), and the food they eat may be different. But the majority of tames can be done this way. There are just a few which have other mechanics, like following them around without KOing them to feed them passively, or killing other creatures nearby and dragging the bodies over for the tame to eat. But if you can find a helpful community, then the other players in that server/tribe should be able to advise you on such differences.

Originally posted by stefan.klaus86:

Gathering wood / stones was just an example. I assume, that with level progression, more "complex" "grindy" materials are to be gathered, and I could then do that for the tribe. I like to do simple tasks (in such games), and be rewarded with others doing the complex things, but then share some of their work with me / my character.

If you are joining an established tribe, they will probably already have tames for farming various materials. For example they will likely already have mammoths or beavers which can knock down trees and collect the wood, or ankylosaurs which break metal rocks and collect metal and crystal. So doing 'simple tasks' for them might not so much be walking out collecting the stuff by hand, but rather accompanying them on a supply run riding said creatures and flying back and forth to get the materials home.

They might even have some of the very endgame tames in their bases already, ones which can generate materials in their inventories just by being fed, so they might not actually require any materials to be 'farmed up' from the outside world at all. It depends on what stage of advancement the tribe is at, and what they would be willing to let you do/what agreement you can come to with them. If you really want the full experience of starting out from nothing and building up, joining an established tribe might perhaps not give you that experience.

But perhaps they would be willing to teach you the basics and let you progress at your own pace, while just helping out with small things such as feeding your dinos while you are offline, or something like that. It all depends on what sort of community you can find, what you want to do yourself, and what agreement you can come to with them really.

[william_es]

Originally posted by stefan.klaus86:

Thank you for your replies, is appreciated.

So ... what I gather from these is that it´s best for me to try singleplayer, or... find a PvE tribe that plays the maps?

Even thou singleplayer can be heavily modified to "make things easier", I´d preffer it to not play alone. I can understand that others won´t have an interest in "carrying" my character through the game, hence my offer to "gather materials" (the examples I wrote are the ones I know, as I haven´t experienced a lot of the game yet).

If you find the right relaxed vibe server, it might work on multiplayer. I ran a private server for a while, and it was mainly 99% working adults. They just wanted to build and tame dinosaurs. People were friendly, but mainly kept to themselves. I had building decay turned off, so people who built something had it there forever. I kept track informally of the "permanent players", and the other people who joined once and never came back.

Long term I'd suggest single player, or playing on a private server where you're the only player. That way the save files are under your direct control.


As far as materials gathering goes, ark has you covered there. There are dinos with special abilities, and some of the include gathering tons of extra materials. The idea is to work smarter not harder. If you want tons of stone, you tame a doedicurous, which is like a prehistoric armadillo. It's basically a walking jackhammer. Hits stone boulders with it's tails, and can get hundreds of stone from one boulder. If you the player hit the same boulder, you'd get a tiny fraction with a hand tool. Stone also only weighs 1/4 of it's normal weight in it's inventory.

There are a ton of dinos with similar weird special abilites. Instead of living flesh and blood creatures, think of them as construction equipment, vehicles, tools, and weapons. If you're having an annoying issue in ark, there's a dino (or more then one) that can take care of the issue for you. Entirely and permanently. That's a huge part of the game, taming and adding new creatures to your collection.

[stefan.klaus86]

I have installed the game now. Thanks for all the advice. So... I am still unsure wheter I should look for a tribe with experienced players (that´s what I´d preffer to do) or if I should just play the singleplayer game.

I´d be okay with a solo-play, but I wonder if it´s do able in solo mode. I´m not up for making the 5000 hours fortress myself, to progress in the map.

[🦊 Hermit]

If you were to try it solo, then yes it is doable for a single player. The game is balanced for multiplayer so you might want to adjust some of the settings as mentioned above, but you can play through all the maps and complete them.

There is just one small part which is unworkable for a solo player. The later maps, Genesis 1 and 2, add in a new 'mission' mechanic which didn't exist in the earlier worlds, where you have to complete certain objectives within a time limit. One or two of those missions were never given a balance pass for solo play, and since they do not let you bring in your own equipment and tames but you are forced to use the stuff provided to you, it is impossible for a single player to deal the required amount of damage in the limited time. So those few missions you will have to use admin commands to auto-complete. However those are just two or three instances, all the other missions, and all the other maps, can be completed without issue.

You wouldn't have to make a 5k hour fortress if you didn't want to - the actual required items for a base are relatively limited, so you could keep your operation smaller and more manageable. The biggest time sink in the game is breeding creatures for bosses; You can tame a number of dinos with good stats, breed all those stats into one mated pair, and then breed those together to get 'mutations' which boost their base stats still further and make them more powerful. Doing this is highly recommended to face the bosses on each map, as a non-mutated army would struggle a little to take down the most difficult enemies, however all the breeding and mutating does take quite a while to do.

However even here, you can tweak the game to make it less grindy if you wish. You can adjust the mating and maturation cooldowns to make dinos breed more often and babies grow much quicker, and there are even mods on the Workshop which can make mutations more frequent too, so you have to spend less time breeding to get the specific mutated stats you want. It just cuts down on the time required to accomplish the tasks, doesn't make the game unbalanced or anything. Also, it should be said that you would only have to do this once - when you have a mutated male and female, you can transfer them to the next map with you and breed a new army from them for the next boss, without having to breed for many mutations again. You'd only have to do it multiple times if you found you enjoyed the process and wanted to use different creatures instead.

But yes, if you would prefer to play multi rather than solo then perhaps look into servers and see if you can find a good one, even with Ark Ascended now released there are quite a few communities still out there on Evolved I believe.

[skyguard]

Don't worry about this 5000 hours Fortress, it has nothing to do about your progress. We have players on our servers that are great builders and have built awesome structures, Mansions, Fortress, all kinds of stuff and it was nowhere near that.

But like I said, not needed to progress.
Yes it can be done solo in SP, just adjust all the sliders to your liking and your pace.

[baia]

Originally posted by 🦊 Hermit:

Hey Quick question. do you know any unofficial ASE servers where xp gain is on normal speed?. like I'm bored to play in 5xp/ 10xp+ servers it's just only pvp game nothing more, no greeding. if u know any server pls tell me. I used to play officials servers which was fun, slow but at least much better than now. me and my friend again started playing ark, we play on nonededicated server, however we just finished it and we want to make game harder by playing online with others, I want to find server with normal mode maybe a slightly faster taming or something but not like 5x +. I searched all kinds of sites for ark servers and all i can see is pvp servers with crazy stats and xp gains. I actually prefer pvp rather than pve but I really miss old official servers where I felt like there is more in this game. defending your base from raiders is cool but why would it matter now if i can get kits and 100 Metals just with one punch...

[Scramble]

Originally posted by stefan.klaus86:

1. Is this game "casual friendly"?

Set your settings to your liking.

2. Tribes "Guilds(?)".

Make agrement with your friends / try find a server that works like you want.

3. Gameplay / Story.

The "story" in ark is some notes with no relation to the actual world. Like note say sandworm attracted by vibrations, game code says sandworm just have agro radius like everything else.

4. Play the old game, or get the new game?

Do you want less errors or more shiny graphics - assuming your computer can draw them - up to you.

...

Since you want to play with a guild, your main thing will be to find enough friends or a server that match you. Without that nothing else matters, with that, you got what you want and seems it would make sense.

[stefan.klaus86]

Hey there,

it´s been a while since I asked that ARK-question, but I´ve been informed regarding the game, got taught new things, and watched 2 tutorials "how to get started", which were quite helpfull.

I´m considering to start a game, but I think it´s going to be a singleplayer experience for me, rather than a mutliplayer one. This simple has to do with my time... I mean how much time I want to invest into the game. As said initially, it can be that I have weeks where I won´t play, or weeks where I play 2 hours or so every day.

The question is now how to get started. I´d like to play singleplayer, but it was hinted that it´s partly "un beat able" hence the game hasn´t been optimiced for singleplayer, and to get through certain parts of the game, you must use "admin commands" or something...

I think about joining a random PvE server, and play there, but these servers seem to have some sort of reset, like every month the progress a person makes is being reset, so it would be sorta pointless to play there ... wouldn´t it?

Also... assuming the PvE server would not reset, how would I progress in the story then? As I understood it the goal is to tame strong animals, and defeat a "world boss". Once this is achieved, you can move on to the next map, but if it´s for a PvE server, wouldn´t it be stuck on the same map all the time?

I could change the server once I beat let´s say "Map 1", but then... wouldn´t that cause that my character loses all his progress (make a new character).

These are my new questions. I´m in the mood for playing that game, but "at my pace", and if it takes 1 year to beat map 1, then be it... as long as I have fun, I´m fine with it.

Thanks

[🦊 Hermit]

Welcome back^^

The part of the game which is impossible to beat for a solo player is only one or two missions on the very final couple of maps. Everything up to that point is totally doable on your own, and even on those maps, 90% of the content can be completed legit. It's just those couple of missions that you will have to use the command for - that's just simply a case of 'start up the mission, press TAB to bring up the admin console, type the command and press enter and the mission should auto-complete'.

Whether a server resets or not depends on the host, there are some no-wipe servers out there that pledge to never wipe player progress. What you say about moving maps is true though...while you could make a new character and complete the bosses etc on the new map, you wouldn't really be able to play through the story fully and unlock all the extra levels/lategame equipment doing that. Progressing from one map to another with one character would be preferable for that reason.

There are such things as cluster servers out there - servers which have multiple maps all joined together into a cluster so you can swap between them any time. If you could find a cluster server community that hosted all the story maps, then you would be able to play through them in order there. But hosting clusters is more costly than just a single server so it might be more difficult to find one, and especially if you're looking for PvE no wipe as well. In that case, just playing solo might be the best suit for the gameplay style you wish to go for.