Degrindify Ark (Removing the grind aspect of ark, for the most part)

Several people have complained that Ark is way too grindy. I completely stopped playing because of it, I asked myself "why do i grind for all this? It is just not worth it." The game feels like a chore instead of a fun game. Therefore, I will try to find the best settings and mods to try to make the game as enjoyable as possible, with very limited grinding, without making the game too easy.

I will try to update this regulary to find the perfect balance between time spent and reward.
The main problems are: Resource collection, taming speeds and the imo unnessecary leveling system.

Resource collection is a hassle, you dig away for hours to make just a few things, where instead of the sole feeling of achievement, you question yourself on why you just spent 3 hours to get a metal pickaxe, that will collect resources just a bit faster. It is just not worth it, and I personally can not stand it, I hate the feeling of just wasting time for no real reason.

Taming speeds: You finally managed to get all of the resources to take a trike down, congrats. Now you have to tame it, that means babysitting the thing for several long minutes to even several hours, for a dino that will make you collect berries "just that much faster". If you are lucky and successfully tame it, a raptor comes along and in 30 seconds it will be dead. Awesome! Ark has no respect for your time, you spending 5h+ on a dino means absolutely nothing. This game very rarely feels rewarding.

Leveling system: Why? Why are engrams a thing? I have played around with this, if I spawn with a lvl 100 character, that does not mean that i will run around with a giga and build metal bases in 10 minutes. Just because I am now able to craft an assault rifle does not mean that I can do it. I still have to collect resources for hours. The engram system is to me just a time wall, preventing you from proceeding quickly. If I have managed to get the ridiculous amount of resources required to build a giga saddle, then manage to knock one out, I already have a lot of things, why would i need a specific level that is preventing me from doing what i want? There are already so many things blocking you from doing certain things too early, we dont need another one!

I have made this guide to try to make Ark a rewarding and fun game, with very little grinding. Ark has a lot of things to do and explore, reaching end game stuff will take you 50+ hours, depeding on your gameplay, without any time limitations of grind system. I would rather play a game for 50h+ hours, where I gather new resources and tame new dinos one by one quickly and feeling rewarded, instead of having a game where i can spend every minute of my life without ever reaching the end game, because it takes thousands of hours with official servers, and doing it alone is impossible.

Please give your thoughts on how i can improve this "rebalancing". I have worked on it for 2 days and played for about 20h total to see how it works out. As of now i am pretty pleased with it, but there is always room for improvement.

The mods

These are currently the mods that i have installed. Feel free do change whatever you want, i have seen some weird behaivour but currently dont want to change it. (Probably singleplayer only, unforturnatly, not sure)

EZTAME
This mod allows you to craft a pill that will deplete the hunger of a dino, making taming way faster without removing the cost of food.

KIBBLE MATRIX
At this time, I have yet to use it. I may remove it, but it looked promising so as of now it will stay.

MASS STACK
This is a bit cheaty, I am thinking of swapping it out with something else, but it just makes life soo much easier. Also, the "cheaty" part is also kind of great. Items way waay less, making resource harvesting much more fun and less tedious. You can now run around chopping an entire forest down without too much effort. This gives you the feel of power, you can just master everything. A bronto will harvest for days on end, and seeing numbers like "120 000 wood" is just so rewarding. This is probably the most cheaty aspect of this guide, but i really love it, and i haven't felt like its too OP anyway. It still takes me a few hours to get to low-mid game.

BABY PREMIUM CARE
Have yet to play around with, but it looks promising so i will keep it.

REBALANCED COMPOST BIN
Have yet to play with it, but everything with "rebalanced" in the title goes in here!

OIL PUMP
Automation is a great way to reduce grinding, so in it goes!

AUTOMATED ARK
Same story as with oil pump.

MAX DINO LEVEL (WILD LEVEL 840)
This is here to enable the extreme OP feeling in the very end game. I love it when a game allows my end game character to just demolish everything with ease, its one of the best feelings ever, but it also brings more difficulty, a 840lv dodo will probably oneshot a mid game player. So watch out. I just like the choice.

The ARK RULES

Some changes in the ark rules will have to be made too.

XP MULTIPLIER: 70
Here I try to remove the need to level for engram points. I wish the mod worked which automatically added all needed engram points without you having to level up, but as of now I have to do it this way. The one problem with this is that your character gets better a bit to fast. Max health, stamina, crafting speed, etc just gets maxed after you kill a dodo ._. . This is something i will look into as time goes. But as of now i will take 70 multiplier over something lower any day of the week.

TAMING SPEED: 8
Personal, i think 8 is a great balance between reward and time. Its not instant, its not frustratingly slow.

DINO HARVESTING DAMAGE: 2.5
Make the dinos feel way more powerful when harvesting, it just adds to the fun.

HARVEST AMOUNT: 5
I think a range from 4 to 6 is good. Resource collection is quick without being laggy or too OP. I just like it. Change it if you want.

PLAYER CHARACTER WATER DRAIN: 0.5
Water is just annoying...

PLAYER CHARACTER FOOD DRAIN: 0.5
Are you eating 5-7 or more whole cooked beefs a day?
Sure your character works a lot harder when punching dilos all day, but come on...
And its annoying to mash the corresponding key all the time..

ADVANCED SETTINGS:

BABY MATURE SPEED: 3
Never had a baby dino, just know that stock Ark is way too slow..

RESOURCE RESPAWN PERIOD: 2
No real reason. I want resources fast in vast quantities thats all.

The verdict

With all this, I have found that I never really had to grind for things. Everthing i did felt rewarding, progression happened at a nice speed. The limitations on which dinos I could ride was no longer restricted by my level, instead the restrictions came from tools(ability to down the dino) and resources when taming the dino aswell as building the saddle. I have played on 2 different worlds with a combined time of about 15-20h. In that time I got a basic base, basic metal tools, a few nice dinos to help with resource and protection, and a ptetradon, or however you spell it. I still feel very threatened by a Rex, but a carno is pretty much not a problem. I feel like the game progresses in a way that always makes me what to progress further and further, i no longer mind collecting resources. Before i just stopped in the middle of building a wooden house, thinking "this is my 30th run to get wood, why on earth am i doing this?", then i simply logged off and didnt touch the game for over a year...
Now I hear that grinding is even worse, so yeah, nope..

[Tsnow]

u realize that there are modded servers with boosted rates i dont see y u guys complain alot of games u need to grind in rust, atlas, even minecraft bro just know what the product is b4 u buy it gosh dont buy it and be like i had no idea ark was a grindy game when u watch someones game play all they do is farm/horde resources and raid know what types of games u enjoy and if something makes u wanna complain like all you do is collect stuff then maybe a game ur looking for is like mario kart or some crap.

[M.R. Smith]

Another thing you could do, which would still take a bit longer, but would remove the need for engram points is the Auto Engram mod which automatically unlocks all engrams of a certain level when you reach that level, so there is still some progression, but if you play 100% solo you can learn everything without worrying about points.

[NeuroMod]

The engram system is there to limit the amout of things a player can craft per lvl which makes the player figure out what he or she needs the most. This is probably very important for balancing and makes it so you have to communicate with your tribe about who crafts what. I think this is a fun and interesting system which adds another level of complexity to the game. But if you dont like it then thats your choice but bumping up the xp multiplier to 70 is probaly the worst solution there is. This makes it so hitting trees with your dinos is a viable way to level which is just insane. This is way to overpowered and is completely gamebreaking. This goes for the player character as well. You can just runaround and pick up rocks on a beach for a while, level up and then be able to survive a raptor attack with no problem. A better way to solve this problem is to unlock them through the console.

[Denosur]

I may be VERY late but to anyone who sees this, a mod that allows dinosaurs to carry a lot more rather than 'mass stack' could work.

[EntityFile]

Thank you for this! I feel the same way about ark especially with this new map that just released. I love the aspect of taming dinos and building bases, I just feel like there is no reward to work towards and too much grinding. In general, the progress is really slow and extremely unsatisfying when you die or lose items. I hope this helps with my play through.

[Zealyn]

Cool to see a guide like to see something like this. Though I feel like it all depends on the player I wish ark had different difficulty servers one that is easy, one being medium and obviously one being hard. Having over 4,000 hours and having the game before it was officially released I think I can say the grind can be insane and I believe with no breeding events a giga can take up to 12 days to raise not to mention getting on the game at least every 8 hours to imprint/feed plus you must babysit it until it is juvenile. So I think the settings are semi-reasonable however that many mods seems a little over the top(I haven't researched many of these mods though).

[hippo]

I live on a mountain with a 815 melee anky that gets about 250-300 metal per swing with a 3k weight quetz so it would only take a few minutes to get that. When i have 2 people i can get 18k metal ingots in 20 minutes on 2x. It's still grindy though because once you get to this point you need way more than that, working on 60k metal ingots right now to get behemoth gates to keep gigas out.

[Sisrace]

Hippothing that's fine, this config was just too much, I realised this quite quickly, I was just too lazy to change the guide. Getting a metal pick with this config could be done in minutes after starting the game. 2 minute for 500 metal on 1.5x seems like a miracle though, but then again, 500 metal is nothing later on :/

[hippo]

I said something kinda negative, but i gotta say everyone needs to respect your opinion. I kinda regret saying what i did.

[Sisrace]

Since this guide (understandably) got a not of negative reviews, and that I wanted to improve upon it, I present to you Degrindify ARK 2.0. This is the config I have used for my server for me and my friends for the past months. The balance is nice, and as long as you think stock ark is too grindy I think you will appreciate it.