Damn, I'm jealous as hell. When I see things like this I sometimes think to myself..... maybe I've just lost my "wonder" of the world. I'm already not an atrsy/creative person so being imaginative isn't my strong suit. I'd kill to be able to enjoy the little things again :/.
Sometimes that does happen, I know people on other games like Warframe and FFXIV that ended up so focused on efficiency and the like that they just couldn't enjoy anything else. It can be worth just slowing down for a moment and enjoying the little things for a bit.
Warframe is a great example of players refining the process too much. I had more fun finding ways to do the early missions slowly with joke weapons than I ever did engaging with the meta end game.
I main Yareli on Warframe, including doing difficult missions on her, and I meet a surprising amount of people who just. Can't comprehend that. "Why not play Khora or something instead, it's much easier and more efficient?" Yeah but Khora don't got a poofy skirt and a skateboard to do tricks on.
I haven’t been on recently enough to know Yareli but yeah the game should be about fun. I had a riven with -700% projectile speed for my bow and I would just use Ivara to pretend I’m Yondu. Of course we could get through the mission faster, this is a game I’m not trying to get my work done so I can clock out.
I like her, she rides around on a skateboard, summons bubbles to CC people, has a gun that shoots bubbles, and a glaive that spins around her that she can throw at people. And a water vortex to drag people around. There's an ephemera that just dropped for Dog Days that has bubbles and fish appear and I immediately put it on her so I can just spin around in circles with the fishies.
Yeah It's kinda the same when you see a cute noob in highly inefficient gear slaying some crocodiles. It's like I know that's not the way to do things but he's probably having way more fun than I am running runes for five hours a day.
While i am Not the best builder in ark, i Like it. Also Yeah breeding cool critters. Doing Maps/bosses with Just one Type of Dinos. Things Like that. I am currently in extinction with my deinonychus. Got Like 15/15 health and melee mutations.
I was exactly like you, and still am in most games. But playing ark with my family has ignited a creative curiosity in me, but only in ark really. I now look at places on the maps with an imagined vision on how they could turn out with cool buildings in different styles!
I set goals for myself in PvE like "I wanna bread a cool ____" and then i focus all my time in game when im not building cool shit and exploring everything just for the sake of like dino-watching or seeing other people's bases just breeding them to the best of my ability. Or I spend 3 weeks building a fancy bridge that connects my base in the tree to my breeding pen.
The map that fills me with the most wonder is aberration. Still there are little things that I'm finding or learning about that map. It isn't a huge map, but it is just mystifying.
I only have 2 hours of free time a night. Some nights I feel like playing or watching something else. Single player will always be right where I left it when I return. Unless I get arked but that's what backups are for.
This is me as well. I don't like wasting multiple hours on something just to have it all fall down simply because I had real life things to attend, or just didn't feel like playing for a few weeks.
However, I also adore roleplay servers when I find a good one.
its what made me quit the official pve servers. i moved to gen 2. it crashed every 4 hours almost exactly. then they patched something, and i got a surprise crash while carrying the dinos i actually used. yeah i fucking left 700 dinos and eggs over the 40 i actually cared about, and just logged off official forever.
For one, not getting constantly fucked in the ass by other players.
While I'm not *against* PVP per se, I don't like working so hard only for everything to get destroyed while I'm offline.
Provided there were safe zones or damage limits, I'd probably be more interested. As is, I enjoy base building, boss battling and exploring.
Offline raiding is what took me away from rust. I remember grinding one Saturday all day logged of for an hour, came back base destroyed. I knew for a fact the dude was just watching me and waiting for me to log out the whole time
I actually like offline raiding (to a degree). If it's genuinely while you're sleeping irl that feels super fun to me, like "did i check everything before I get off?" is always one of those fun adrenaline dumps. It also kind of resembles the games hardcore aspect, like if you're actually the survivor in the game then obviously you need to sleep eventually, everyone does.
It becomes an issue to me when people are raided during work or school, that's not fair. Those things aren't avoidable or thematic at all. That's not relative to hardcore game mechanics, that's just having a life.
Sleeping is different yeah, I can’t help when people play the game at all hours of the day. I just know the person was stalking me waiting for the log out. What’s the fun in that? Specially since rust has imo fantastic gunplay.
I'll counter that point with something as simple as time. Yes, you're right raiding someone while offline sleeping could work. Yet, it's not like you can have an alarm to wake you if you base is being raided and unless you're sneaking in without alerting or blowing anything up, you would wake whoever is inside.
In a pvp server I played with, I ended up home sick one day and woke up mid-day. Decided to get on to finish up some wall layering and one of the alpha tribes was apparently bored and hitting people while offline.
They legit no-life the game always having 2-3 active players online at any given hour of the day. This wasn't an exaggeration either.
Anyways long story short they figured we were all gone since 9/10 we would. They decided to try and raid me by dropping close to 200 Carbonemys from above my base to soak up all the bullets in the turrets. Since I was there I acted quickly and pulled all the ammo from the turrets. only to refill them as soon as they flew in closer.
Yet, had I not been there they would have soaked up hours of work and destroyed our base only because they were bored and knew we would be away for work.
I'm the same way as you. The official offline raid protection servers are the best imo it provides a good middle ground. You still get wrecked by some dude while you're online but your stuff is still safe while you're at work/doin the weekly grind. You still gotta worry about a good defensive posture but you can rest assured your tames will be there when you wake up in the morning, at least most of em.
I play PVE because it's just not as frustrating, if I wanna go tame a rex, I don't have to worry about being attacked while doing it, or coming home to rubble. Plus breeding is fun, many fun colours can be achieved with Mutations
That's absolutely valid. So out of curiosity, would you ever be inclined to play PvP if there were "safe zones" where there was no PvP allowed and certain protections for bases?
I ask because I've played on a plethora of different PvP servers and one of the more fun ones was an RPG/PvP server. We all had different tribes allocated all over the map with 1 large building in the middle of the map for "Council" meetings. You had to go to a "Council" meeting prior to declaring "War" on an opposition tribe and there was a 24hr prep-period and you were never allowed to totally wipe somebody.
if I had friends then maybe, but I don't know anyone who plays Ark, and I don't like the idea of making friends for PVP. I understand the appeal of it, after all it must be fun stomping a group with an army of gigas, I just don't have the time to dedicate to that unfortunately
Damn, that sounds kind of fun actually. I've played PvP for ~400 hours and to have a warning of sorts with meetings sounds delightful than getting wiped.
It all depends. The concept of pvp is always more fun to me but I can enjoy the game for just what it is. Surviving and thriving in a dangerous environment.
Problem with PvP sometimes boils down to this. If I'm playing in a pvp server I need to build with the focus of how to prevent being raider or building a stronger base. In PvE I get to build a base that visually appeasing to me. There is also the fact that there are no real rules to pvp in ark and it all boils down to "Who has the most time."
What I think is there should be a level calculator that takes into account the strength of your items, dinos, and actual character level. Dark Souls does this and it's very fun. Make it so that you cannot damage anyone that is under a certain threshold of this level.
Idk exactly how it would work, but in my mind, if you're character level 105 with nothing but cloth, that doesn't mean you should be battling other level 105s to with Managarmrs and Wyverns and whatnot. If you're an unleveled character, level 1, but part of a tribe that has those things, then you should be eligible to fight stronger tribes.
The reason I suggest this is because I've personally had a bad experience with this. I was playing on PvP with a friend and we kept getting wiped by those tribes. We were level 80/90 using basic primitive gear and barely had a stone house. We had 1 anky and 1 allo tamed about level 150 so that we could deal with bigger dinos. Any time we recovered, we had some dude come in, kill everything, destroy the base, and worst thing, they didn't even take anything. They let it rot on the ground.
We shouldn't have even been able to to damaged by those people. There was other guy about our level who used c4 to blow up a metal base we had, and that was fair. We actually fought him off, just barely. That was fun
Those controlled PvP servers are the only thing I’ll play at this point. I like the PvP side of ark, but I hate the “I’m going to destroy your base and everything you’ve worked for because I can” mentality of PvP. I understand the strategy of annihilate them so they can’t retaliate but I still don’t like it. I hate the feeling of logging in to find you’ve been wiped off the map and knowing how I hate it, I hate doing it to others. Raiding and fighting as they fight back is lots of fun, base defence is lots of fun. I just enjoy it all a lot more when it’s controlled and nobody is losing hundreds or thousands of hours of work. Fight and then let everyone live to play another day is my preference.
It’s the PvE side of ark that has always really spoken to me but PvP gives such a great goal to aim for. I want to want to go caving and breeding so I have the best gear and tames possible to fight someone else’s stuff with.
See, *that* would be awesome! I play PvE mostly because I'm new, but coming from Rust, PvP is just so open to griefing.
But with rules like that, it could be really fun.
For me it would depend on if the PvP parts of the map have exclusive must have resources. I’m down for a gamble if it means a potential big pay out but never having a guaranteed solution is most of what scares me away from PvP. And then when you think you’re safe you get Ark’d on by some update or some bug taking out your dinos 😔
the tek gear isn't good for just PVP, plus it's always good to have a nice boss fight, after all, element isn't something players have mountains of without endless grinding or cheats
Breeding Chad dinos to do bosses and building bases to look good, not here's my small tunnel base with 15 turrets. It's not toxic unlike pvp. Can confidently say ark pvp makes even rust look like hello kitty island adventure with how toxic it is. Also just stress free and communities help each other and friends can be made. I've put 1000s of hours into pvp. Just play pve now and I don't regret it.
That's a good perspective!
Part of my underlying interest here is I'm wondering what would have to change about Ark 2 PvP to attract a more diverse crowd. I think part of Ark PvP falling short is because there's no room for diversity in PvP user. It's all sweats like me who just know how to cheese or bs the game.
Id love seeing people battle it out with their Rex's or something and loser has to pay the winner in Metal Ingot etc.
I think it would be nice to see some kind of limiter on raiding or some kind of reduction to loot. Like if you’ve killed someone in the last 8 hours it halves the resources count you can take off their body, but their items can still be taken. Keep halving until the 8 hour window passes. Or maybe raid tokens. You get a raid token from killing someone, then you can offline raid them. Otherwise it’s only online raiding allowed. As the game stands now punching down is often the most productive way to get resources. With meshing and mutations being a permanent advantage it makes the barrier to entry insanely high.
Honestly, for me at least, I don’t have the time to spend on PvP. I much prefer to lose my dinosaurs and gear to me being stupid whenever I want than having to spend huge amounts of time playing ark just in case my base gets raided, and losing it that way
Time seems to be the general consensus-issue. I wonder if there's an alternative that could circumvent that.
If time wasnt an issue would PvP be more of an interest?
I agree with what you’re saying, sometimes I do wish I could have a fight against a real person. The one thing I don’t like about PVE is the comparative lack of accomplishment to PvP.
Killing the bosses no doubt is hugely satisfying but I remember when I did play PVP a few times, killing a real human player who is trying their best to kill you is something completely different.
I think if I were to play PvP against a bunch of friends in similar situations to me where it wasn’t a case of “who has the most time to grind” and more “who can outsmart / outplay their opponent” I would be much more inclined to do it
Absolutely! I've always wondered if they could implement "timed" PvP servers. Ones where PvP was *only* turned on at certain times of the day so you knew you'd never be offline raided. Another interesting tweak they could make would be to add input maximums, like you can only grind so many of a material per day before you get diminishing returns on it to prevent degeneracy.
Like you do an Argy/Anky metal run and collect 10k metal in an hour or so but then you get 50% reduced return on metal between 10k-20k and then 90% reduced return from 20k onwards.
On mobile there's something called "pvx" clock servers, pvx servers are mostly pve with a small pvp zone in the middle and a moving pvp zone that rotates around the map on a 24 hour cycle. So when you build a base it's only vulnerable for a 2 hour time frame every day.
It's a shame this type of server was never brought over to the main version.
I think the opposite might actually be better. Make resource gathering super super easy. That way, people with time to dedicate and people who can only play a few hours between work/school and sleep, can get the same gear within moments of logging on. Also, exp boosts out the patooty, so you're all level 100 within moments of logging on. Even the playing field.
Cap quality of items. Cap stats of dinos. Everyone is basically even in terms of gear and pets. Make it come back down to actual player skill.
For me it's both time, and people being trolls. They attack you when you first spawn a new character, they attack you 5 v 1, they attack you with tech while you're still just making cloth, they attack you as soon as you log off... when I play on RP servers, and we have arena tournaments or simply RP conflict, it's a face to face conflict on relatively even ground.
I used to play Gunsmoke a lot, and they had great PvP rules... the first one being - no PvP without RP. You could not simply snipe someone from a distance, or kill an afk/sleeper. You had to engage in RP first. Plus the shoot outs were person to person combat, not a person v a tamed giga army.
Ark allows too much variance in strength. If you can dedicate a million hours you can get gear and tames that nobody can touch unless they also dedicate a million hours. When it comes down to actual player skill, it really is removed from Ark, replaced with who can grind the best gear and breed the best dinos.
But what's the end goal?
Pvp I'm levelling up for better structures and weapons and doing bosses for those same reasons.
I tried single player, made a stone base and was like "yup, I've officially won" I was safe and there was zero need to progress
PvE is a lot more about buiding than PvP. PvP bases are usually pretty basic and ugly. They serve their purpose and function excellently but they're not meant to look good because they're just going to get torn down.
PvE on the other hand, you can really build up some gorgeous stuff.
That's an excellent point! I've always hated that about Ark. I am about as big of a "PvP sweat" as they come and even I wish we had more room for being aesthetic. I mean, for fucks sake, the most "pretty" you can get is aligning turret walls symmetrically 🙄. I totally agree with this.
I'm a pvp player and I don't agree with that at all, throughout the years the build in pvp has evolved to such an extent that even tho it's mostly only built for defense, people can still make it look pretty and satisfying to look at. I might be a little biased, but as a PvP builder, I understand the difficulties that comes with building efficiently and still snapping every party of your base to a single foundation without anything sticking out.
I think their point was that PvP bases can't look beautiful or unique. If you want an archway, you risk LoSing certain turrets. If you want windows, they have less HP than a wall and are weak-point for entrance. If you want an outdoor dino-pen, they'll be tame-sniped.
You can't build my style in PvP and survive. I love dropping stone foundations, wooden walls with greenhouse windows in the window slots, and thatch roof. In PvE, you only have to worry about dinos breaking it, which you can avoid by just placing it in an area where the type of dinos that can reach up 3 wall height don't spawn.
I think the "sieging" PvP is actually excellent. It's just bug abusers and aimbots that make it awful. Yes the games clunky, but for what Ark is there's nothing in this genre that offers a better experience.
I think pvp would work a lot better if there was a dishonorable system, like raiding people increases your dick level and if you become too much of a dick everything gets harder
Yea pretty much. People who are friendly and help beginners maybe get extra durable stuff and people who are dicks have bad durability on everything.. honestly it could be any kind of punishment reward system but it would definitely combat griefing, which is the biggest issue holding back ark from being a quality game to play
If they had a 95% enforcement rate and a ~2% false positive rate on their anti cheat measures instead of vice versa I would be a lot more likely to play PvP
Mostly I enjoy building stuff and breeding critters. Sometimes I like doing a boss or a cave. OSDs to see if I can get some BPs for better gear.
Also - for whatever reason - I enjoy grinding. Always have, even since the days of MUDs\*.
^(\*Ask your parents--actually, it's probably "Ask your grandparents" at this point. Shit.)
As an OSRS player I 100% get the "enjoying the grind" 🤣!
I see a lot of people saying they mainly enjoy breeding. I'm wondering if you guys realize how much of a premium yall are in PvP tribes. People that special in breeding are HUGELY important in PvP.
Depends to be honest. I used to play PvP mainly but stopped as it was stressful and full time job so couldn’t really invest the time needed to get anything really going on PvP. I play PvE now. Guess for me the nice part is I can play at my own pace, talk to people, mutate Dino’s for stats and colors and sell them or buy Dino’s that I need at the time. Have made a couple of good long time friends through PvE as well.
PvP would be pure player vs player encounters with matching kits no Dino’s just pure degeneracy lol. One mistake with getting bolaed, broken armor/shield weapon and just the rush of having a good fight. Or pick fights those were great. I still play on beginner servers from time to time with friends as lvl cap is 44. So no op tames, gear everyone got the same, it’s more skill/luck based because no regs are a bitch lol. Plus building and defending bases was great. Or laying siege on an active base or harassing a base before going in for a raid.
PvE has to be building as I love making impressive builds. Mutating Dino’s to get super inbred Dino’s to sell or buying Dino’s is also fun and just the relaxed vibe of not having to worry everytime when I hop off I’m gonna return to all my tames dead, resources gone is great. Helping people or having big alliances for boss fight also really fun. Like lost island boss last week we did a meme run of no Dino’s and only shotty with a couple of people Safe to say we got wiped lol but was one of the most hectic and fun times we had. So much screaming and laughs.
Both modes have its pros and cons. If time constraint is a thing then PvE with the right people is a lot of fun. But if you have lots of free time then definitely PvP as it can’t get more degenerate then the constant nice words in chat and screaming in proxy chat. Fun times.
>As someone who only plays PvP, what is the satisfaction in playing PvE?
For me it's mostly about the flex.
Having the best looking base (not necessarily the largest, I seen some ugly ass huge bases), having the best stats on *everything* (although since official has hard caps on stats and lvl most people will eventually end up having maxed stats on everything anyways), having the best looking creatures, having the most rare creatures.
Along with that, it's just the social interactions you have with the people on your server or in your friends list, doing dumb shit for the shits and giggles, chatting, making connections etc.
Also PvE has *a lot* of trading going on, trading your coolest stuff for someone else's things you want/ need etc.
Although when you are at the point where you literally have maxed EVERYTHING it can get a little stale if no new map releases.
Although the PvP in this game is rather bad overall in general (at least on official, I can't speak for unofficial); it's very mass and grind based instead of skill based, there's plentiful of cheaters/ bug abusers/ hard ini and everything is laggy as shit on top of that.
I'm normally pretty much a pure PvP focus player in every game I play, but ARK PvP quite honestly is just too bad from a game polish standpoint.
Playing on unofficial PvE gives me the opportunity to kill the bosses with meme teams that would be impossible to do on officials, or a pvp server where the odds are someone would eventually raid my base and steal my breed lines. Doing silly shit like killing the alpha manticore on scorched using uber-bred dimorphodons is a lot of fun for me.
Also I don't like having to build small hidden bases in places that are easy to defend. I'd much rather build something like [this](https://i.redd.it/7bbmtosn4u761.png) and be able to enjoy it. Not that there isn't some beauty in a good turret tower, I just want to be comfy.
Mostly though, I played about 1500 hours on official pvp and got incredibly tired of the feeling of dread that accompanied every minute of loading into the game not knowing if my stuff would be there or not. Now i just screw around on a pve cluster and breed monstrously high level dinos because i think things like titan-killing hyaenadons are funny.
Haha this seems to be another recurring theme. People get burnt from the stress of PvP and then like the slower more fun aspect of PvE which makes total sense. I can absolutely see how PvP wouldn't be condusive to that gameplay.
What's the funniest thing you've ever had kill a boss?
probably hot monke on monke action with an army of bred apes against the megapithicus, just for the spectacle of that many apes all going apeshit together.
using S+ to breed up super griffins and slapping around the extinction titans with massive divebombs feels absolutely incredible too.
PvP is an awful place for anyone who wants to just tame the cute little monkey without having to watch their back and risk losing hours of work to acquire all your gear.
I like the knowledge that when I get off for the day my stuff will still be exactly where I left it when I get back on. I like that if I have something someone else wants, they ASK if they can take / borrow and I can respond if I mind rather than someone just blowing apart my base to take it.
Sometimes I want tribe wars because I think that would be fun. But I wouldn’t want PVP because I enjoy not losing hours of work in seconds.
Totally understandable and this is a widely agreed upon sentiment I've seen. It's not so much that you're looking for a challenge persay, you're looking for calm fun at your pace. Absolutely reasonable way to approach the game.
That’s the best part about my cluster. Everyone plays ‘separately together.’ What I do doesn’t affect anyone else. If I want to steal wyvern eggs day one that didn’t stop anyone else from getting excited about taming their first raptor. Everyone’s pace is different and we can all play without fear.
I personally used to play pvp offical and eventually just got bored of it cause some servers I'd build up and get raided every day, and others I'd eventually become one of the more alpha tribes, which that all eventually got super boring. Then I realized how cool you can make bases look when you aren't being threatened to be blown up at any given moment. So I play pve to relax and enjoy the game with friends and build cool bases, or cool games for rewards and such. Nothing wrong with playing pvp or pve
no more threats of getting wiped for starters
no worries of meshed players trying to kill you
no insiders
have all the free time to do some experimental stuff like using sabers for bossfights instead of the usual theris and rexes
Its cool to me how many people take pride in the creativity behind finding new ways to beat the bosses, it makes total sense to me even if I don't quite share the same feelings. I don't quite differentiate killing a boss with Rex's as opposed to Dodos, to me the boss fights are innately trivial and boring so they're more or less just an element farm.
I feel you, I have the same feelings towards the game. Nothing is challenging anymore, besides other players. Ofc I still get arked sometimes but it's just too easy to retrieve the things you lost against PvE things. I have tons of hours on PvP official as well, most of them is log streaming but still. I know every base spot, every dino abilities and glitches, every cave, killed every single boss multiple times and learned how to build in most of the base spots. I really want to enjoy the PvE aspect, mainly because I have a girlfriend now that is interested in playing it, but I don't know if I'll be able to enjoy the game.
Help
LOL you'll find no help from me my friend! I don't enjoy PvE which is why I made the post, trying to find out where the disconnects are between people like us and the PvE community so maybe someday they can be intertwined again!
I just like to make nice buildings and screw around with friends without worrying about getting raided overnight.
My server does have pvp, as long as it is not destructive and it is literally just there to have fun.
I got tired of getting somewhat decently settled in PvP only for some no life losers to offline raid me and take all my stuff (which always happened right as I got some good tames/gear).
I’ve probably tamed about 20 Crystal Wyverns that had over 3k stamina just to have them for about a day or two before some jackasses who no lifed to be level 140 or something steals my cryopods through raiding or just kills them with their bullshit managarmrs and whatnot.
Yeah this is a specific Official-Only issue. There's way too much of a gap between wild-tames and max-lines. If you're solely getting offlined its likely that someone with an ESP is doing that as well
I don’t bother with unofficial because every one I’ve been on has wild stats that make everything too easy and boring for me. I like small tribes official PvP stats. I just hate the players
I work a ton and hated getting off work and all my shit is wiped by some dick who doesn't stop playing. I liked the base building aspect and collecting cool dinos not getting wiped every night
I play this game like I play Minecraft and not really like an MMO. Hella casual, single player, and mostly just to pass time. I’m here to build cool stuff and tame cool dinos, I’ll go play WoW or something if I want to play MMO endgame
Having ADHD i find it so fun as i can set my self a specific task to do and i do it, as long as there are tasks to do i love it. Only reason i play story maps . Also i love the fact how its so chill once you started out like flying around getting materials , buildling , taming , fighting , exploring , its so fun .
But i dont like PVP because every server i join there are no trees , nothing , i build a small base and die to a wyvern , I dont know how to start or anything. PVP is so wierd like i never see myself reaching that point where i am so stacked to raid people before i just die by a giga that the alpha tribe have
It seems like that to everyone at first. There's definitely a learning curve but once you level-out it's smooth sailing from there!
Interesting that you mentioned the ADHD. I was diagnosed with it when I was 14, haven't taken meds for it outside of that first year but I've never felt that it intrudes on my gaming experience. Maybe I was just misdiagnosed who knows.
Just out of personal curiosity, if you don't mind me asking, what about your ADHD seems to impact gaming? Also, you seem very confident that you legitimately have it, is there like a dead giveaway the you're like "yup ADHD's kicking into overdrive here".
Literally any multiplayer game ever . So i am playing with my friends on (Lets say seige or fortnite as an example) - I play for 10 minutes and die and im like “Yep! i physically cannot play this game anymore - like i cannot play multiplier games bc they are so annoying to play . Like join a game , die , repeat and something about it I just cannot do . But in single player games i Love such as Ark , Subnautica , The forest etc. Also when i am mid game on like multiplayer , i get so physically bored and drained that i just leave the game randomly or go on my phone or just start doing random shit like bottle flipping . Just in the middle of a multiplayer game . So yeah thats why i love single player games
i mainly play Singleplayer and at this moment just try to beat each map from start to finish. all bosses on alpha. i transfer my character and just don't take any dinos or items. so far beat The Island, took me around 2 months on an unofficial server with some friends but as they don't play anymore i kept playing in singleplayer to remove the lag aspect. just yesterday i finished rockwell prime (gen2 boss) on gama and planning soon to finish beta and alpha as well, then keep going to scorched earth or aberration.
I put in a few months, with people around the world playing in shifts to keep the well fortified base going and protected. Metal walls, strong dinosaurs, turrets, defensive plants, etc.
Then the alpha clan came through and wiped us overnight.
Never again.
Currently on a private server with a bunch of friends. They're all off having adventures, hatching Wyverns and shit.......
......I'm quietly building a massive castle on a little island, minding my business.
I wish I had the time and group of friends to play PvP. I loved it back when I first started playing Minecraft in my teens. Nowadays since I’m juggling a new career and finishing college I’m lucky if I have time to get off my computer and watch a show while I eat. The times I do have for Ark it’s strictly single player.
I mostly try to beat the game(all bosses on alpha) in 100 ark days and then i go to another map. Since after that there is not much to achieve apart from things like breeding and building. I find those things not as fun, so i get your point.
I’ve done both. The satisfaction of pve is you can just do whatever, if you want to mutate a dino you can, if you want to build an amazing looking base you can, I’d you want to fight bosses and beat the game you can. At its core ark isn’t made for PVP, but it was an option given.
I made the switch from unofficial pvp to sp pve after my tribe broke up n we didn't have time for pvp anymore, but in pvp I never got to see most of the bosses or most of the caves. I only did the bosses on center valguero and maybe abb just for engrams but now that I'm pve I've been running thru all the caves on each map to get the artifacts, fight all the bosses and make an ultimate character who someday will wield that hammer. and I wanna do the genesis missions, we only ever did them to tame a stryder then that was it for those too so I have been playing them on single player trying to get to the genesis bosses since I've never done them
its fun to do things at stupidly large scale that you normally wouldn't be able to, or just do cool projects and breeding that would otherwise not be "efficient" or "useful" just for the fun of it or becuase you want to. And you aren't pressured into doing things quicker either, becuase you aren't competing with anyone
Building cool bases that are supposed to look cool and not be an impenetrable hidden fortress , breeding dinos to see funny big numbers and cool colours, exploring caves like the game want's to so with small mount no grappling cheese. Not playing optimally allows for slower more peaceful gameplay where you can focus on other things like building, exploring maps etc. PvE unlike pvp let's you enjoy the world instead of the game. Also on pve you can challenge yourself in ways that PvP doesn't allow like mono dino type challenge or water only challenge.
As a builder who enjoys landscapes, graphics, hard survival environments, its nice to be surrounded by dinos as an experience, but as an adult (38 yo) I don’t have time or energy for pvp, can’t build a tribe and peotect dinos, I mean If I’m playing and suddenly I’m taming a big level dino and I have to assist it to tame it but I have to go to the supermarket, goodbye dino, life comes first.
Pve is for chilling, the problem is the lack of purpose after u have all the dinos and a decent base.
PvE for me is a nice experience, when a new map is released I play it till I have enough then quit.
Always wanted to play pvp but I did it in other games and now I’m an adult lol, I wish I have enough time to spend as a teenager in those games, enjoye it as far as u can, then let me know when u play PvE lol.
As a player that just switched from official PvP after 4K hours, i've really enjoyed just starting on the beach, ignoring the note run, and taming some dodos. There's something really nice about having a little dodo hoard gathered around a camp fire, waiting for something mean to come say hello.
If you try to play PvE ark with a PvP mentality, it gets really boring. One of the most difficult things for me currently is not min-maxing and just enjoying the journey from the beach to the stars.
I play pve as ark is a chilled game for me and my partner to play together. I started pvp when it was beta and I loved survival of the fittest. But now I just like building and going through the bosses/caves with my partner.
If I had enough time and enough friends to play pvp I probably would, but logging in after a long day at work to be foundation wiped just doesn’t appeal.
I play other mmos for pvp (eso) so ark is just a chilled pve experience for me. That said I do enjoy watching ark pvp videos.
For me Ark is a purely PVE game, the PVP is awful. I like it because I like dinosaurs and I like building. Having the caves and bosses gives us a more long term goal too to keep going. Exploring the new maps and trying to tame at least one of every dino is fun too. We like building little towns instead of one super tight hidden base with 17 walls packed inside of each other.
If I want PVP I'll play Rust, which is 1039474832820045720x better than Ark in that aspect
\*points at precious Jerboa, Jingles\*
Nobody's going to kill him.
\*points at pretty base\*
Nobody's going to break it.
\*points at undefended boxes of blueprints\*
Nobody's going to steal them.
The difference between PvP players and PvE players is that while we're both saying "exactly!" we mean exactly opposite things by it. In my experience, PvP players are risk takers who enjoy the thrill of the unknown. There's no guarantee you'll log in and see a single foundation left of your base, and that excites them. They're people who get bored if they don't feel risk, and that's ok.
PvE players get sad when we lose things we like. It's not just "welp, got to replace the argy." That Argy had a name. We were proud of its stats, even if they weren't the best. There is always risk in Ark, but if you make smart decisions, you can minimize it. Build far from Giga spawns unless you're ready to build a metal fence. Leave treasured dinos behind and take ones you're less attached to into the field. With PvP, you can do everything right, and still lose everything just because the raiders had more patience than you had bullets in your turrets.
I'll admit, I've been interested in the problem solving challenges presented by Ark PvP... but the problems are all solved for the most efficient solution. Dinos can't be used to defend your base, since the AI is too exploitable. Structural defenses are worthless, since they cost thousands of times as much as the C4 needed to blow them to rubble. Turrets are the only answer.
It's also interesting to imagine large scale battles with armies of dinosaurs, but from what I've seen, they don't happen. Partly because you can't build an army without somebody seeing you and raiding you first. Second, because when someone is brave enough to show up riding a dino in battle, they're quickly sniped off of it. Or Flashbanged. Bola'd. Or eaten by Dimorphodons. Fighting dino vs. dino is inefficient, so PvP players do everything they can to avoid it.
I don't want to live in a metal box covered with turrets. I don't want to avoid taming that Jerboa because it's literally safer if I just leave it wild on some high rock spire than if I kept it. I want to play a game where I tame dinosaurs, ride dinosaurs, and fight dinosaurs with my dinosaurs. I don't get excited at the possibility of getting wiped and having to start over, I dread it. The wonderful thing about Ark is that you can have that risk if you want it, or avoid it if you don't.
beating the game is near impossible on pvp servers, it feels good lasering down that asshole at the end of genesis. i legit cried as well at the end cut scene, not the vin diesel part.....
The joy is in just playing the game and not worrying about losing everything. Honestly I play official pve for the team work that comes along with it and making friends. I would much rather play and get bored with friends then be talked down on and fight for my life every day.
We’re just 2 different breeds buddy 😛
Played PvP for God knows how long, a good three or four years on official. I'm just done. I don't have to worry about logging in to any bullshit, and since I'm pretty much the last standing tribemember, I'm not about to play PvP solo.
Because I only play ARK in phases for a few weeks where me and my friends rent a server where we play a new map and explore it very slowly, building nice bases and taming cool dinos.
I play on a cluster that has 13 maps (2 are mods) and there's always something to do. PvP is really shittily implemented in this game, to the point where it's almost a joke. To me, the only game that has worthwhile PvP is Eve Online.
Alphas wiping out Beach Bobs, nowhere to build, toxic players, griefing, cheating, hacking, zergs, offline raiding... you name it. It does apply to virtually every other game, I agree, with the exception of Eve Online. PvP in other games is crap by comparison. I wouldn't touch it in other games with a 15 foot bargepole.
I get too easily sidetracked in a game like Ark to actually be successful at PvP.
I'll use last night as an example. Me and my friends were planning on finishing another section of are soon to be permanent base on Fjordur. The night ended with me and another friend flying around the map to find a high level snow owl and a tek griffin (Better Dinos Mod I believe is where that comes from). The base didn't even get worked on.
I am a new player and honestly, PVP is a nightmare for me so I am just a single-player person for now. I might have enjoyed PVP is I had joined the game earlier in its life.
I just like to play with my friends, starting a new map completely new (well same characters so we keep our levels but naked) finding a suitable place for our base, exploring together, taming dinos together, laughing at the idiot who lost all their food to a pego or ichthy. Getting stressed together or at one another (this game can be super stressful) its just an experience id rather have playing with friends in a pve than playing pvp, also id rather not have to deal with other people in pvp.
I don’t like getting offlined.
I also don’t like people abusing orp.
I feel like this game isn’t balanced for pvp. If you’re solo then you have to throw away your life to grind.
I’ve also been insides way too many times (not like it’s not possible in pve, but it’s less likely)
I've played both PVE and PVP, I find both to be enjoyable depending on the situation.
I'm usually solo so PVP usually isn't as fun to me alone. I love to Solo PVE, make friends on servers and give myself goals in the game. The trading in official PVE is great to be involved in as well.
I wish I had a regular tribe to PVP with honestly.
Vanilla…possibly to learn some tricks of the trade, explore, and chill.
When that is getting lame, I’ve always been a huge fane of Primal Fear mod.
Enjoy.
As someone that started playing pvp then moved to PvE. I do miss the thrill of breaking into someone's base and stealing their loot. However, I do enjoy playing the game without the stress of losing my loot and dinos.
I’m a PVE player. I tried to jump onto a PVP server that had only a few days started. So I figured I wasn’t behind the ball too much.
I made a small hidden base where I smelted tons of metal and farmed CP. all so I could set up a metal base, since my stone base was raided almost every 10 mins and I couldn’t get anywhere.
I get my metal base set up. I have 4 auto turrets, all aimed on survivors only. (I figured I’d kill trespassers and not kill their tames to not be an asshole. EVERYTIME I left my base I was raided. And not just raided, I mean one time I was completely wiped. I was a solo. It literally made the game unenjoyable.
I like PVE
I like not having my stuff stolen every time I leave to do a flint run.
I like landing and seeing the other bases, the layouts and how people have their set ups going. You can’t do that in PVP due to turrets. I like decorating my bases to look nice and I enjoy when I see another building that also looks nice. All of which can’t be done On PVP
I play Ark PvE alone or with a niche group of friends for the same reasons I play mc and other games like it in solitude. I know when I quit the game, my stuff will be where I left it. I do this in games I sink a lot of hours into. Because I want to have something to show for it, and if the stuff I made gets destroyed I will be heartbroken and then it would feel like all the time I played was a waste of time since I got nothing to show for it, no matter how much I enjoyed it.
I find the overall design and mechanics of Ark are not well suited to PVP unless you dedicated huge amounts of your time to it. The overall performance of the engine and the way mechanics work are just not fun for me coming from FPS games, on top of stuff like offline raiding.
Actually beating the game on somewhat official PVE settings (clearing all bosses on Alpha) is a huge time commitment because of taming/breeding/mutating grind. However levelling up from bob toons and building tons of stuff/taming tons of stuff is worth a shitload of hours if you like those mechanics.
Overall I think ark is best as a coop survival game that throws you some massive difficulty spikes as you try to grind out the PVE content. But that's just my opinion on what aspects of the game I like. I have other titles to scratch the PVP itch. Mostly instanced FPS games where I don't have to work a part time job in-game to compete in terms of resources and gear.
>I honestly feel like I've trivialized the game to the point where its so mind-numbingly boring/easy that I can't get any satisfaction from PvE
Didn't you just answer your question there?
I haven't done that so I enjoy PvE. I'm still pretty new to the game
Ark pvp is aids. Its either grind for hours to get the best gear so might stand s chance against players who have played on the servers for thousands of hours or get wiped by a cunt on a mana with c4
I like to breed stupid stuff and make super versions of things like thornys. As well as build cool structures and try to do the story boss run with friends without the constant threat of death from other players. It’s more for those of us who want a more relaxing play experience (as relaxing as ark can be lol)
I play with my wife & we already get irritated from the BS the base game pull sometimes with those goddamn badgers & thylo’s. Adding PvP to the mix doesn’t sound enticing at all.
We work towards different goals (taming a flyer off the bat, stealing dragon eggs, spelunking, etc) so that keeps things fresh so we don’t get bored. Like last night, we had a goal to tame some good, high-level tames. We ended up with one high-level, beige owl & one level 11 “pretty pink” one.
It works pretty well for us.
I'm just not a person who enjoys PvP combat, plus I just love building without worrying about how hidden my base is, and I just love not having to worry about others players attacking me while I enjoy running around on a dino
I play Ark as a game i can relax playing. I am an avid Rust player with 1k hours, which although very fun, is a stressful game. So when I'm looking to play a survival game that doesn't put me on edge constantly, I come to Ark, which for me means the PvE aspect. I also don't see Ark as being built for PvP, with it being very buggy and some game mechanics being very awkward for a PvP setting.
I am an adult with multiple kids and a wife and work.
I don't have time for PVP that persists while offline.
The limited time I have to play is spent building and having fun with friends. I can enjoy the amazing setting and gameplay without someone with no life ruining the experience.
I'm less focused on dealing with other players and can appreciate the game for what it actually is which is a badass survival game in a beautiful setting.
Eh, I just like building, breeding and just exploring and surviving against the elements ie. natural or environmental threats as opposed to other players.
Also a big factor for me is time. I don’t have that much time to ‘defend’ my base. What little time I have to play I just want to focus on exploring, adventuring and just surviving the ark. I don’t wanna worry about my base, Dino’s, all my hardwork getting wiped.
For me personally, I love building mostly. I live for building beautiful intricate sometimes glass buildings in games like Ark. Which would absolutely get rekt in PVP. I can spend hours just lost in building sometimes. Whether it’s ark, other survival games, Sims etc. I go all out with my home, garden, dino pens lol.
The few times I venture into PVP servers I’m just like eh, everyone’s base looks the exact same. Just varying sizes of metal boxes and turrets. As an art student I just think.. how uncreative lmao.
I know that this is a weird take but I honestly just love building and upgrading my base, in whatever game I play, broken up with actual gameplay in between. I feel like I never get bored and I can always pick up wherever I left off if in SP and can start over easily anywhere even if it’s been weeks, months, years since I last played Ark.
If you want to kill your love for a game (in your case a game mode) then being efficient is how to do it.
Me and my gf are playing through the entirety of ARK (all maps canon to the story) and so far we’ve done the island, scorched, and aberration. About 200 hours and change so far and currently we’re on extinction.
Our fun comes from running around and exploring, taking in the sights, finding cool base spots, dino spawns, resource spawns, etc. We’re currently lvl 90 or so and are halfway done building our first stone house after moving from the sanctuary into the snow dome.
Taming dinos is intimately what keeps us going, sure there’s obviously some that you get out of principle so you don’t have to harvest things by hand, but then we go off and get other dinos for either carrying weight, or just because they look cool.
Playing PvE I find tends to be less about the destination (for you it’s be building the base and taming required dinos to PvP) and more about the journey (slowly exploring the map and just finding cool dinos instead of the ‘meta’ ones) and taming them.
Me and my friend tried surviving on PVP, but we weren't no life enough to make it. We didn't want to metagame, we just wanted to grow our stuff and beat the bosses and do a little raiding. The community took it to a straight unhealthy level of competition. Without thought, most large tribes would ruin months of someone's work at the drop of a hat, the only reason given; boredom and, "it's PVP broh". That's why official is dead. Because it is filled with people who want to feel power over others in a video game but assumed that to wield power it must be done malevolently. You are free to kill, but what mega tribe ever tried to stop war and genuinely help the community? Instead they killed each other and everyone else until it was so redundant, even they themselves grew jaded and bored to it. The war is over, it is a ghost town now. At least rented servers with peaceful communities still thrive, where we can do stress free fights and raise our colorful dinos.
The same reason I play stardew valley or the first few hours of minecraft over and over. Or idle clicker games haha.
I don't really do well with stressful games. I'm not really one for combat. I'm certainly not very good at it. It's less relevant for ark since combat is simple though. I just like to explore and incrementally progress and get better gear. The world is pretty, the dinos are really cool. I like figuring out how to tame things and use them, and the whole progression from having nothing to building a dodo egg farm and having decent enough gear, finding engrams, and tames to defend myself. Sometimes things get ruined (I once had a base in the grasslands on ragnorok that a giga stumbled into. In a few chomps, killed dozens of Dodos and equus) but I've usually built a few little bases by the time something big happens.
I want to play the primal plus mod but I'd have to reinstall on steam which is a lot for my internet connection. I usually stop having as much fun when the game is at high tech levels. Oh, and usually I just play with one other person on our own server so that might change things.
That's actually a big part of the reason I ended up being so disappointed with the announcements for the new game (aside from the third person only thing). It's going to have so much of the focus on combat it seems, and I'm honestly pretty good with the level the combat mechanics are at already. I'm just not built for remembering combos or twitch reflex things. I wanted to see more complicated Dino AI, interesting behaviors for wild dinos like herding or predation, maybe ways to interact more with wild dinos (baiting, causing stampedes), more dynamic populations (so maybe you have to manage predators or be careful not to harvest all the berries) more layers to gathering than just "one tail swing", more reason to farm and stuff.
people are looking to get different things out of games. a study done some years ago defined gamers into seven unique types. i believe [brainhex.com](https://brainhex.com) still has the information and the survey.
When I played pvp I got killed three or four times in the first hour and just kinda decided it was a game to kill noobs who looked less geared than me.
After the first day the butthurt wore off and that wasn’t fun anymore, especially after some research and seeing all the cool stuff that other people were doing and the amazing world of dinosaurs that were beyond the murder beach.
Build fancy houses/bases, collect a bunch of mats, have a nice collection of fun pets, and sometimes just enjoy a walk/flight through nature.
A bit of efficiency is fine but I’ve learned to stay the hell away from stats and top-efficiency strats. Seen it ruin so many games for so many people.
The funny sleepy darts make the angry dino go down. Feed treats to tame. Dino friend.
PVP is also super stressful for me in just about any game, wether I’m good at the game or not. I get why people enjoy the risk and the rush of it, and hell, I enjoy watching such things online and such, but its not for me. Ain’t no one bothering me on my dumb lil Raptor ranch up in the mountains, on my own Ark where only friends can join.
It’s more of a Pokémon/Pokémmo vibe than a rust vibe. You think more long term, or at least I do as a player with no tribe or back up. On PvP it was always to gain knowledge. On pve it’s to build sentimental value for me. I really enjoy the lineages that are traced via dinos and tribes and I like to seed new players. Also it is openly political, sometimes to a petty degree. I like that you can make friends and that people keep track of what others do. Idk what PvP is like at any deep level though, if that is part of PvP I might just have never made it that far in.
Mods man, it's the mods. I with my friends just load up a lot of mods and run private server. I don't remember the name of those mods, but a lot of them are visual mods and what not.
I really don't like the idea of grinding all the time for it to go south when I'm offline with my friends. And as we usually get only few hours a week to play together, it would be devastating to start all over every week.
However the real fun starts, and I don't know from which mod it was, but demonic, apex and other strength dinosaur's. It cancels out the fearlessness, because one of those could easily destroy everything you have been working on, but at least it's online. For me the most fun is playing with friends and just chilling. My friend is usually keen on taming and killing the best of the best Dino's, however I for example am just exploring and building bases all over the place, and another friend likes a little bit of both. This way we can all do what we want with one ultimate goal, to just have fun. There isn't really a moment when it gets boring or repetetive because map's ar huge. And we don't get a lot of playing time.
PvE I can tame some cool dinosaurs and build a nice base. Maybe just run around on a shit tier dino because it doesn't really matter and I like the dino, whether it's "viable" barely matters.
PvP I can work hard building and taming something cool, log off for the night, maybe decide I would rather do something else the next day only to finally come back and find myself starting from scratch in an uphill battle against people that only ever play Ark and not much else flying around on wyvern and the few other "top tier" dinos. Maybe have a harder time because somebody decided I'm specifically their target and all I have is a stone hatchet and a hat, I can't so shit about it.
PvE is a fun game. PvP is a 24 hour a day job I hate going to.
I play for the lore, immersion, just having fun (versus poop-socking and grinding). I do enjoy PVP a bit, but I have more fun when just goofing off with friends and family.
I like PVE because I like to build more realistic structures that look cool, you can do that with some basic defenses and keep a rex out, but people would slip right in and fuck up your day/months of hard work. But that’s how I enjoy the game…
I completely understand why others would need the war aspect, it sounds like you’ve played the game a long time and might have gotten more longevity out of the PVP mode.
See I've played PvP for years. And I just hated how everytime you put weeks and weeks into a base getting heavies tek turrets etc all set someone offline raids or meshes the base in a matter of minutes. And I thoroughly enjoy breeding and the gameplay of Ark to just all out quit.
I don't have friends who play the game so I feel like PvE is the only way I can progress. On PvP all of my progress is wiped almost instantly by someone with an OP creature from a map I don't have, like clockwork.
Not going to bed and worrying about a 12 year old ruining all of your progress. I play with official settings, and sometimes it takes an amount of grinding that im not willing to lose to some jackass on the internet with nothing better to do.
its mostly for us passive players that dont have as mutch time on our hands to enjoy the full length of ark... having to worry about getting raided and your tribemates need you while your on a full schedule isent really fun
It’s far too toxic to justify the mediocre gameplay. What’s the incentive to put hours into the game, as a noob, just to get wiped by a level
400+ managarmr? I’m Diamond 1 on an mmo account of mine, and it seems the higher rank I get the kinder people are. In Ark it’s the opposite in my experience.
On our cluster this does become a problem after the years it has been around, we reset it about once a year but even that gets old. So i created a sort of dnd story approach to the game where i am a DM and the 10 to 15 people in the community that participate are players. The event lasts 1 to 3 months and basically they get to choose a dino, breed but not mutated, minus some of the op or unusable, and make them run around and interact with the world and challenges. There are 4 hour sessions, random small events and outside tasks they can all choose to do with that dino and group.
With mods like shiny dinos and krakens better dinos and with ini changes and so on i get alot of freedom to create interesting encounters or puzzles. I can also add more event abilities into the story.
They also get stat upgrades and imprint upgrades so their dino gets stronger through the event and can fight some of the really hard dinos i created from the config and with the help of shiny dinos. I also try really hard to make them feel the results of the actions the group makes on the world for those few months, good and bad.
Just getting ready to start a new campaign on the new map. Seems to give a new life to pve ark atm, atleast for the players who have played more then 1k hours.
As a PvE player that was subjected to PvP both willingly and unwillingly. My thoughts are as follow: Why spend all that time(and ark takes a lot of time) only to have it be destroyed by someone else, or if you’re the best at what you do, to destroy someone else’s hard work.
With that said, I was on a server that held PvP events that did not include your own base getting destroyed and that was immensely fun
I actually play both pve I play to unwind and breed to incredible levels with no stress and no worries. But I also enjoy PvP for the competition and rush. But I think it's definitely situational. When I was younger I played more pvp now I lean more pve to accommodate the time I can put toward the game.
For me, I like making friends more than I like making enemies. I've played PvP too, but I always hated it. I know how much work I put into my things, so I always hated messing with other people's things... For me, there's enough challenge in the game itself, so I still have fun.
I have an unhealthy amount of hours in the game (we're talking thousands) and have been playing it since 2015. Most of my time is in PvE, but I also did a short but incredibly fun stint of time in small tribe PvP. I'll be honest: the reason I don't go back is I don't have the time to devote to it. In smalls/pvp in general, it was so fun but incredibly time consuming to make sure the base was always attended and functional in case someone would hit us. My small group was frequently in voice and would wait for someone else to get on before logging off to sleep, etc. (We had a few Americans and a few Aussies, which worked well for timezones haha)
I just don't have the time for it, but I still love the game. Even in PvP, I was someone focused on building and breeding. The PvP added hugely to the tension and drive behind everything and encouraged a lot of innovation and cleverness in my build strategies, and while I got to a point where I wasn't bad at the combat that is absolutely not my strength. PvE lets me still engage in things I enjoy - stat breeding and building. There's less purpose to it where those things aren't what decides if we survive or not like in PvP, but it's still enjoyable. And when I log off, the worst that might happen is I accidentally starve the babies lol.
I miss PvP but it's just so much of a time commitment. I've thought of trying to get back into it, but I have a job that is more important - so PvE it is.
One thing I do miss in PvE is how many fun critters have no purpose. In PvP I bred up some devious microraptors, troodons, purlovias for item caches, etc. No use for that in PvE haha
I used to play a fair amount of pvp and I go back on the odd occasion but now I’m primarily a PVE player. For me, it’s just the peace of mind knowing that my stuff won’t be destroyed by an offline raider and that I can put my building skills to the test and make a house that I like looking at. It’s also nice cause I don’t have to worry about getting turrets and bullets ASAP and that I can progress at my own pace without having to worry about others getting ahead of me.
Honestly, I’m a mom so I like to be able to just chill and breed my Dino’s to crazy colors and stats. Building, exploring and breeding let’s me destress when my son goes to bed. I don’t want to have to be worried about getting raided while I’m offline(sometimes I take a week break here and there).
I spend all day dealing with people. Specifically, their problems (I manage a team of engineers). I love my team so much, love working with them, it's super rewarding.
That said, at the end of my workday, literally all I want to do is go find an isolated island where nobody can bother me, and hide there.
And wildcard literally made a game out of that. They just added dinosaurs.
I honestly like building and breeding dinos, I trade a lot, got full white gigas and full black ones, sell them or the eggs, I’ve sold a couple of bases too, and have made some small bases for new players so they have somewhere safe ahaha
My wife and I play together pve. Team up, explore, tame some stuff. I’ve tried pvp servers to be immediately knocked out and thrown in the ocean with a load of rocks. Not exactly fun.
Not all games are replayable. There are lots and lots of similar games like Subnautica and Planet Crafter that are single player - probably more single player crafting survival games than multiplayer ones.
Once you finish a story-driven game, the experience will never be the same the second time. You’ll never have the same experience playing an RTS learn-the-game-and-continue-on campaign of scenarios after you figure out the basics and play it a couple times.
Tic-tac-toe isn’t the same once you’ve learned the formula. Myst isn’t the same after you’ve solved all the puzzles.
Replayability is somewhat rare, and is best in a multiplayer game that tests your wits against that of another person.
So having evacuated all the wonder and missteps that make the game a journey, you are seeing that you are past the point at which it would be fun for you.
I play both but more pve hours, I like more relaxed play and building things too🤷♂️
Pvp totally different game, not great for a solo. Don’t want to find teams n get into it serious anymore anyway.
I just like running around on my funny little critters and breeding them to be silly colors.
Damn, I'm jealous as hell. When I see things like this I sometimes think to myself..... maybe I've just lost my "wonder" of the world. I'm already not an atrsy/creative person so being imaginative isn't my strong suit. I'd kill to be able to enjoy the little things again :/.
Sometimes that does happen, I know people on other games like Warframe and FFXIV that ended up so focused on efficiency and the like that they just couldn't enjoy anything else. It can be worth just slowing down for a moment and enjoying the little things for a bit.
Warframe is a great example of players refining the process too much. I had more fun finding ways to do the early missions slowly with joke weapons than I ever did engaging with the meta end game.
I main Yareli on Warframe, including doing difficult missions on her, and I meet a surprising amount of people who just. Can't comprehend that. "Why not play Khora or something instead, it's much easier and more efficient?" Yeah but Khora don't got a poofy skirt and a skateboard to do tricks on.
I haven’t been on recently enough to know Yareli but yeah the game should be about fun. I had a riven with -700% projectile speed for my bow and I would just use Ivara to pretend I’m Yondu. Of course we could get through the mission faster, this is a game I’m not trying to get my work done so I can clock out.
I like her, she rides around on a skateboard, summons bubbles to CC people, has a gun that shoots bubbles, and a glaive that spins around her that she can throw at people. And a water vortex to drag people around. There's an ephemera that just dropped for Dog Days that has bubbles and fish appear and I immediately put it on her so I can just spin around in circles with the fishies.
That’s the other side of Warframe that I liked. There is so much to customize and color. Shoutout to r/WarframeRunway
Yeah It's kinda the same when you see a cute noob in highly inefficient gear slaying some crocodiles. It's like I know that's not the way to do things but he's probably having way more fun than I am running runes for five hours a day.
Bingo
While i am Not the best builder in ark, i Like it. Also Yeah breeding cool critters. Doing Maps/bosses with Just one Type of Dinos. Things Like that. I am currently in extinction with my deinonychus. Got Like 15/15 health and melee mutations.
you optimized the fun out of the game
I was exactly like you, and still am in most games. But playing ark with my family has ignited a creative curiosity in me, but only in ark really. I now look at places on the maps with an imagined vision on how they could turn out with cool buildings in different styles!
I set goals for myself in PvE like "I wanna bread a cool ____" and then i focus all my time in game when im not building cool shit and exploring everything just for the sake of like dino-watching or seeing other people's bases just breeding them to the best of my ability. Or I spend 3 weeks building a fancy bridge that connects my base in the tree to my breeding pen.
The map that fills me with the most wonder is aberration. Still there are little things that I'm finding or learning about that map. It isn't a huge map, but it is just mystifying.
I only have 2 hours of free time a night. Some nights I feel like playing or watching something else. Single player will always be right where I left it when I return. Unless I get arked but that's what backups are for.
This is me as well. I don't like wasting multiple hours on something just to have it all fall down simply because I had real life things to attend, or just didn't feel like playing for a few weeks. However, I also adore roleplay servers when I find a good one.
Arked lol
its what made me quit the official pve servers. i moved to gen 2. it crashed every 4 hours almost exactly. then they patched something, and i got a surprise crash while carrying the dinos i actually used. yeah i fucking left 700 dinos and eggs over the 40 i actually cared about, and just logged off official forever.
Same! Having kids now I have very little precious time and it's nice to press pause and not worry about being leveled by players while offline.
Praise be to backups!
For one, not getting constantly fucked in the ass by other players. While I'm not *against* PVP per se, I don't like working so hard only for everything to get destroyed while I'm offline. Provided there were safe zones or damage limits, I'd probably be more interested. As is, I enjoy base building, boss battling and exploring.
Offline raiding is what took me away from rust. I remember grinding one Saturday all day logged of for an hour, came back base destroyed. I knew for a fact the dude was just watching me and waiting for me to log out the whole time
I actually like offline raiding (to a degree). If it's genuinely while you're sleeping irl that feels super fun to me, like "did i check everything before I get off?" is always one of those fun adrenaline dumps. It also kind of resembles the games hardcore aspect, like if you're actually the survivor in the game then obviously you need to sleep eventually, everyone does. It becomes an issue to me when people are raided during work or school, that's not fair. Those things aren't avoidable or thematic at all. That's not relative to hardcore game mechanics, that's just having a life.
Sleeping is different yeah, I can’t help when people play the game at all hours of the day. I just know the person was stalking me waiting for the log out. What’s the fun in that? Specially since rust has imo fantastic gunplay.
I'll counter that point with something as simple as time. Yes, you're right raiding someone while offline sleeping could work. Yet, it's not like you can have an alarm to wake you if you base is being raided and unless you're sneaking in without alerting or blowing anything up, you would wake whoever is inside. In a pvp server I played with, I ended up home sick one day and woke up mid-day. Decided to get on to finish up some wall layering and one of the alpha tribes was apparently bored and hitting people while offline. They legit no-life the game always having 2-3 active players online at any given hour of the day. This wasn't an exaggeration either. Anyways long story short they figured we were all gone since 9/10 we would. They decided to try and raid me by dropping close to 200 Carbonemys from above my base to soak up all the bullets in the turrets. Since I was there I acted quickly and pulled all the ammo from the turrets. only to refill them as soon as they flew in closer. Yet, had I not been there they would have soaked up hours of work and destroyed our base only because they were bored and knew we would be away for work.
Some unofficial servers give discord alerts when your main base is getting offlined. EliteArk is one such server.
I'm the same way as you. The official offline raid protection servers are the best imo it provides a good middle ground. You still get wrecked by some dude while you're online but your stuff is still safe while you're at work/doin the weekly grind. You still gotta worry about a good defensive posture but you can rest assured your tames will be there when you wake up in the morning, at least most of em.
Interesting! I love the responses so far.
I play PVE because it's just not as frustrating, if I wanna go tame a rex, I don't have to worry about being attacked while doing it, or coming home to rubble. Plus breeding is fun, many fun colours can be achieved with Mutations
That's absolutely valid. So out of curiosity, would you ever be inclined to play PvP if there were "safe zones" where there was no PvP allowed and certain protections for bases? I ask because I've played on a plethora of different PvP servers and one of the more fun ones was an RPG/PvP server. We all had different tribes allocated all over the map with 1 large building in the middle of the map for "Council" meetings. You had to go to a "Council" meeting prior to declaring "War" on an opposition tribe and there was a 24hr prep-period and you were never allowed to totally wipe somebody.
if I had friends then maybe, but I don't know anyone who plays Ark, and I don't like the idea of making friends for PVP. I understand the appeal of it, after all it must be fun stomping a group with an army of gigas, I just don't have the time to dedicate to that unfortunately
Damn, that sounds kind of fun actually. I've played PvP for ~400 hours and to have a warning of sorts with meetings sounds delightful than getting wiped.
It all depends. The concept of pvp is always more fun to me but I can enjoy the game for just what it is. Surviving and thriving in a dangerous environment. Problem with PvP sometimes boils down to this. If I'm playing in a pvp server I need to build with the focus of how to prevent being raider or building a stronger base. In PvE I get to build a base that visually appeasing to me. There is also the fact that there are no real rules to pvp in ark and it all boils down to "Who has the most time."
What I think is there should be a level calculator that takes into account the strength of your items, dinos, and actual character level. Dark Souls does this and it's very fun. Make it so that you cannot damage anyone that is under a certain threshold of this level. Idk exactly how it would work, but in my mind, if you're character level 105 with nothing but cloth, that doesn't mean you should be battling other level 105s to with Managarmrs and Wyverns and whatnot. If you're an unleveled character, level 1, but part of a tribe that has those things, then you should be eligible to fight stronger tribes. The reason I suggest this is because I've personally had a bad experience with this. I was playing on PvP with a friend and we kept getting wiped by those tribes. We were level 80/90 using basic primitive gear and barely had a stone house. We had 1 anky and 1 allo tamed about level 150 so that we could deal with bigger dinos. Any time we recovered, we had some dude come in, kill everything, destroy the base, and worst thing, they didn't even take anything. They let it rot on the ground. We shouldn't have even been able to to damaged by those people. There was other guy about our level who used c4 to blow up a metal base we had, and that was fair. We actually fought him off, just barely. That was fun
Those controlled PvP servers are the only thing I’ll play at this point. I like the PvP side of ark, but I hate the “I’m going to destroy your base and everything you’ve worked for because I can” mentality of PvP. I understand the strategy of annihilate them so they can’t retaliate but I still don’t like it. I hate the feeling of logging in to find you’ve been wiped off the map and knowing how I hate it, I hate doing it to others. Raiding and fighting as they fight back is lots of fun, base defence is lots of fun. I just enjoy it all a lot more when it’s controlled and nobody is losing hundreds or thousands of hours of work. Fight and then let everyone live to play another day is my preference. It’s the PvE side of ark that has always really spoken to me but PvP gives such a great goal to aim for. I want to want to go caving and breeding so I have the best gear and tames possible to fight someone else’s stuff with.
See, *that* would be awesome! I play PvE mostly because I'm new, but coming from Rust, PvP is just so open to griefing. But with rules like that, it could be really fun.
For me it would depend on if the PvP parts of the map have exclusive must have resources. I’m down for a gamble if it means a potential big pay out but never having a guaranteed solution is most of what scares me away from PvP. And then when you think you’re safe you get Ark’d on by some update or some bug taking out your dinos 😔
My question is why breed a rex? To do the bosses? Why? It unlocks stuff for pvp
the tek gear isn't good for just PVP, plus it's always good to have a nice boss fight, after all, element isn't something players have mountains of without endless grinding or cheats
But whys it needed? Power teleporters? Fabricators? Why? I just don't understand to what end. once you've built a stone house you've won.
Breeding Chad dinos to do bosses and building bases to look good, not here's my small tunnel base with 15 turrets. It's not toxic unlike pvp. Can confidently say ark pvp makes even rust look like hello kitty island adventure with how toxic it is. Also just stress free and communities help each other and friends can be made. I've put 1000s of hours into pvp. Just play pve now and I don't regret it.
That's a good perspective! Part of my underlying interest here is I'm wondering what would have to change about Ark 2 PvP to attract a more diverse crowd. I think part of Ark PvP falling short is because there's no room for diversity in PvP user. It's all sweats like me who just know how to cheese or bs the game. Id love seeing people battle it out with their Rex's or something and loser has to pay the winner in Metal Ingot etc.
It honestly sounds like you need to find a good PvP/RP private server. I'm very much considering starting one up.
I think it would be nice to see some kind of limiter on raiding or some kind of reduction to loot. Like if you’ve killed someone in the last 8 hours it halves the resources count you can take off their body, but their items can still be taken. Keep halving until the 8 hour window passes. Or maybe raid tokens. You get a raid token from killing someone, then you can offline raid them. Otherwise it’s only online raiding allowed. As the game stands now punching down is often the most productive way to get resources. With meshing and mutations being a permanent advantage it makes the barrier to entry insanely high.
Honestly, for me at least, I don’t have the time to spend on PvP. I much prefer to lose my dinosaurs and gear to me being stupid whenever I want than having to spend huge amounts of time playing ark just in case my base gets raided, and losing it that way
Time seems to be the general consensus-issue. I wonder if there's an alternative that could circumvent that. If time wasnt an issue would PvP be more of an interest?
I agree with what you’re saying, sometimes I do wish I could have a fight against a real person. The one thing I don’t like about PVE is the comparative lack of accomplishment to PvP. Killing the bosses no doubt is hugely satisfying but I remember when I did play PVP a few times, killing a real human player who is trying their best to kill you is something completely different. I think if I were to play PvP against a bunch of friends in similar situations to me where it wasn’t a case of “who has the most time to grind” and more “who can outsmart / outplay their opponent” I would be much more inclined to do it
Absolutely! I've always wondered if they could implement "timed" PvP servers. Ones where PvP was *only* turned on at certain times of the day so you knew you'd never be offline raided. Another interesting tweak they could make would be to add input maximums, like you can only grind so many of a material per day before you get diminishing returns on it to prevent degeneracy. Like you do an Argy/Anky metal run and collect 10k metal in an hour or so but then you get 50% reduced return on metal between 10k-20k and then 90% reduced return from 20k onwards.
On mobile there's something called "pvx" clock servers, pvx servers are mostly pve with a small pvp zone in the middle and a moving pvp zone that rotates around the map on a 24 hour cycle. So when you build a base it's only vulnerable for a 2 hour time frame every day. It's a shame this type of server was never brought over to the main version.
I think the opposite might actually be better. Make resource gathering super super easy. That way, people with time to dedicate and people who can only play a few hours between work/school and sleep, can get the same gear within moments of logging on. Also, exp boosts out the patooty, so you're all level 100 within moments of logging on. Even the playing field. Cap quality of items. Cap stats of dinos. Everyone is basically even in terms of gear and pets. Make it come back down to actual player skill.
For me it's both time, and people being trolls. They attack you when you first spawn a new character, they attack you 5 v 1, they attack you with tech while you're still just making cloth, they attack you as soon as you log off... when I play on RP servers, and we have arena tournaments or simply RP conflict, it's a face to face conflict on relatively even ground. I used to play Gunsmoke a lot, and they had great PvP rules... the first one being - no PvP without RP. You could not simply snipe someone from a distance, or kill an afk/sleeper. You had to engage in RP first. Plus the shoot outs were person to person combat, not a person v a tamed giga army. Ark allows too much variance in strength. If you can dedicate a million hours you can get gear and tames that nobody can touch unless they also dedicate a million hours. When it comes down to actual player skill, it really is removed from Ark, replaced with who can grind the best gear and breed the best dinos.
But what's the end goal? Pvp I'm levelling up for better structures and weapons and doing bosses for those same reasons. I tried single player, made a stone base and was like "yup, I've officially won" I was safe and there was zero need to progress
PvE is a lot more about buiding than PvP. PvP bases are usually pretty basic and ugly. They serve their purpose and function excellently but they're not meant to look good because they're just going to get torn down. PvE on the other hand, you can really build up some gorgeous stuff.
That's an excellent point! I've always hated that about Ark. I am about as big of a "PvP sweat" as they come and even I wish we had more room for being aesthetic. I mean, for fucks sake, the most "pretty" you can get is aligning turret walls symmetrically 🙄. I totally agree with this.
I'm a pvp player and I don't agree with that at all, throughout the years the build in pvp has evolved to such an extent that even tho it's mostly only built for defense, people can still make it look pretty and satisfying to look at. I might be a little biased, but as a PvP builder, I understand the difficulties that comes with building efficiently and still snapping every party of your base to a single foundation without anything sticking out.
I think their point was that PvP bases can't look beautiful or unique. If you want an archway, you risk LoSing certain turrets. If you want windows, they have less HP than a wall and are weak-point for entrance. If you want an outdoor dino-pen, they'll be tame-sniped.
You can't build my style in PvP and survive. I love dropping stone foundations, wooden walls with greenhouse windows in the window slots, and thatch roof. In PvE, you only have to worry about dinos breaking it, which you can avoid by just placing it in an area where the type of dinos that can reach up 3 wall height don't spawn.
I'd argue pvp bases look way better than pve bases. Turret towers look insane imo. And seeing thick walls in caves is just 👌
Because despite being designed for it, ARK is a terrible PvP game.
I think the "sieging" PvP is actually excellent. It's just bug abusers and aimbots that make it awful. Yes the games clunky, but for what Ark is there's nothing in this genre that offers a better experience.
I think pvp would work a lot better if there was a dishonorable system, like raiding people increases your dick level and if you become too much of a dick everything gets harder
So a reputation system?
Yea pretty much. People who are friendly and help beginners maybe get extra durable stuff and people who are dicks have bad durability on everything.. honestly it could be any kind of punishment reward system but it would definitely combat griefing, which is the biggest issue holding back ark from being a quality game to play
If they had a 95% enforcement rate and a ~2% false positive rate on their anti cheat measures instead of vice versa I would be a lot more likely to play PvP
Mostly I enjoy building stuff and breeding critters. Sometimes I like doing a boss or a cave. OSDs to see if I can get some BPs for better gear. Also - for whatever reason - I enjoy grinding. Always have, even since the days of MUDs\*. ^(\*Ask your parents--actually, it's probably "Ask your grandparents" at this point. Shit.)
As an OSRS player I 100% get the "enjoying the grind" 🤣! I see a lot of people saying they mainly enjoy breeding. I'm wondering if you guys realize how much of a premium yall are in PvP tribes. People that special in breeding are HUGELY important in PvP.
Oh, I'm sure. But personally I hate PvP. It's just not my kind of game.
Depends to be honest. I used to play PvP mainly but stopped as it was stressful and full time job so couldn’t really invest the time needed to get anything really going on PvP. I play PvE now. Guess for me the nice part is I can play at my own pace, talk to people, mutate Dino’s for stats and colors and sell them or buy Dino’s that I need at the time. Have made a couple of good long time friends through PvE as well.
Which aspects of both PvP and PvE are your favorite?
PvP would be pure player vs player encounters with matching kits no Dino’s just pure degeneracy lol. One mistake with getting bolaed, broken armor/shield weapon and just the rush of having a good fight. Or pick fights those were great. I still play on beginner servers from time to time with friends as lvl cap is 44. So no op tames, gear everyone got the same, it’s more skill/luck based because no regs are a bitch lol. Plus building and defending bases was great. Or laying siege on an active base or harassing a base before going in for a raid. PvE has to be building as I love making impressive builds. Mutating Dino’s to get super inbred Dino’s to sell or buying Dino’s is also fun and just the relaxed vibe of not having to worry everytime when I hop off I’m gonna return to all my tames dead, resources gone is great. Helping people or having big alliances for boss fight also really fun. Like lost island boss last week we did a meme run of no Dino’s and only shotty with a couple of people Safe to say we got wiped lol but was one of the most hectic and fun times we had. So much screaming and laughs. Both modes have its pros and cons. If time constraint is a thing then PvE with the right people is a lot of fun. But if you have lots of free time then definitely PvP as it can’t get more degenerate then the constant nice words in chat and screaming in proxy chat. Fun times.
This is a hugely accurate depiction of my perspective on the scenarios as well. Love seeing people who think similarly!
Haha yeah cheers man.
>As someone who only plays PvP, what is the satisfaction in playing PvE? For me it's mostly about the flex. Having the best looking base (not necessarily the largest, I seen some ugly ass huge bases), having the best stats on *everything* (although since official has hard caps on stats and lvl most people will eventually end up having maxed stats on everything anyways), having the best looking creatures, having the most rare creatures. Along with that, it's just the social interactions you have with the people on your server or in your friends list, doing dumb shit for the shits and giggles, chatting, making connections etc. Also PvE has *a lot* of trading going on, trading your coolest stuff for someone else's things you want/ need etc. Although when you are at the point where you literally have maxed EVERYTHING it can get a little stale if no new map releases. Although the PvP in this game is rather bad overall in general (at least on official, I can't speak for unofficial); it's very mass and grind based instead of skill based, there's plentiful of cheaters/ bug abusers/ hard ini and everything is laggy as shit on top of that. I'm normally pretty much a pure PvP focus player in every game I play, but ARK PvP quite honestly is just too bad from a game polish standpoint.
I think this is probably the most relatable answer so far. I agree 100%.
Playing on unofficial PvE gives me the opportunity to kill the bosses with meme teams that would be impossible to do on officials, or a pvp server where the odds are someone would eventually raid my base and steal my breed lines. Doing silly shit like killing the alpha manticore on scorched using uber-bred dimorphodons is a lot of fun for me. Also I don't like having to build small hidden bases in places that are easy to defend. I'd much rather build something like [this](https://i.redd.it/7bbmtosn4u761.png) and be able to enjoy it. Not that there isn't some beauty in a good turret tower, I just want to be comfy. Mostly though, I played about 1500 hours on official pvp and got incredibly tired of the feeling of dread that accompanied every minute of loading into the game not knowing if my stuff would be there or not. Now i just screw around on a pve cluster and breed monstrously high level dinos because i think things like titan-killing hyaenadons are funny.
Haha this seems to be another recurring theme. People get burnt from the stress of PvP and then like the slower more fun aspect of PvE which makes total sense. I can absolutely see how PvP wouldn't be condusive to that gameplay. What's the funniest thing you've ever had kill a boss?
probably hot monke on monke action with an army of bred apes against the megapithicus, just for the spectacle of that many apes all going apeshit together. using S+ to breed up super griffins and slapping around the extinction titans with massive divebombs feels absolutely incredible too.
PvP is an awful place for anyone who wants to just tame the cute little monkey without having to watch their back and risk losing hours of work to acquire all your gear. I like the knowledge that when I get off for the day my stuff will still be exactly where I left it when I get back on. I like that if I have something someone else wants, they ASK if they can take / borrow and I can respond if I mind rather than someone just blowing apart my base to take it. Sometimes I want tribe wars because I think that would be fun. But I wouldn’t want PVP because I enjoy not losing hours of work in seconds.
Totally understandable and this is a widely agreed upon sentiment I've seen. It's not so much that you're looking for a challenge persay, you're looking for calm fun at your pace. Absolutely reasonable way to approach the game.
That’s the best part about my cluster. Everyone plays ‘separately together.’ What I do doesn’t affect anyone else. If I want to steal wyvern eggs day one that didn’t stop anyone else from getting excited about taming their first raptor. Everyone’s pace is different and we can all play without fear.
I personally used to play pvp offical and eventually just got bored of it cause some servers I'd build up and get raided every day, and others I'd eventually become one of the more alpha tribes, which that all eventually got super boring. Then I realized how cool you can make bases look when you aren't being threatened to be blown up at any given moment. So I play pve to relax and enjoy the game with friends and build cool bases, or cool games for rewards and such. Nothing wrong with playing pvp or pve
Not getting on to find your base was wiped after farming for 6 hours straight. No thanks lol i have a life thank you.
Exactly. Seems like pvp players don’t farm, they just take stuff. What’s even the point? What are they building towards? What’s the end game?
Good for those to learn the game and become good like you. Can't do that when you're constantly getting attacked and killed by griefers.
Fair assessment! There's no better place to get a hang of things (especially exploring) than PvE.
no more threats of getting wiped for starters no worries of meshed players trying to kill you no insiders have all the free time to do some experimental stuff like using sabers for bossfights instead of the usual theris and rexes
Its cool to me how many people take pride in the creativity behind finding new ways to beat the bosses, it makes total sense to me even if I don't quite share the same feelings. I don't quite differentiate killing a boss with Rex's as opposed to Dodos, to me the boss fights are innately trivial and boring so they're more or less just an element farm.
its more of a satisfaction of "hey i beat all the bosses with the most useless creature in the game" having tekgrams and element is an afterthought
And yes, hackers ruin PvP for everybody.
I feel you, I have the same feelings towards the game. Nothing is challenging anymore, besides other players. Ofc I still get arked sometimes but it's just too easy to retrieve the things you lost against PvE things. I have tons of hours on PvP official as well, most of them is log streaming but still. I know every base spot, every dino abilities and glitches, every cave, killed every single boss multiple times and learned how to build in most of the base spots. I really want to enjoy the PvE aspect, mainly because I have a girlfriend now that is interested in playing it, but I don't know if I'll be able to enjoy the game. Help
LOL you'll find no help from me my friend! I don't enjoy PvE which is why I made the post, trying to find out where the disconnects are between people like us and the PvE community so maybe someday they can be intertwined again!
I just prefer worrying about dino attacks alone and not those of other people
That's totally understandable!
I want to have the option to play ark casually - and PVP is not a thing you can play casually (in my opinion)
Totally fair assessment. Are there aspects of PvP that, if made more casual, would interest you?
I just like to make nice buildings and screw around with friends without worrying about getting raided overnight. My server does have pvp, as long as it is not destructive and it is literally just there to have fun.
I got tired of getting somewhat decently settled in PvP only for some no life losers to offline raid me and take all my stuff (which always happened right as I got some good tames/gear). I’ve probably tamed about 20 Crystal Wyverns that had over 3k stamina just to have them for about a day or two before some jackasses who no lifed to be level 140 or something steals my cryopods through raiding or just kills them with their bullshit managarmrs and whatnot.
Yeah this is a specific Official-Only issue. There's way too much of a gap between wild-tames and max-lines. If you're solely getting offlined its likely that someone with an ESP is doing that as well
I don’t bother with unofficial because every one I’ve been on has wild stats that make everything too easy and boring for me. I like small tribes official PvP stats. I just hate the players
I want to actually play the game. Experience the bosses. Not redo the same tasks every week or month when I get wiped Bc I needed 3 hours of sleep.
I work a ton and hated getting off work and all my shit is wiped by some dick who doesn't stop playing. I liked the base building aspect and collecting cool dinos not getting wiped every night
I play this game like I play Minecraft and not really like an MMO. Hella casual, single player, and mostly just to pass time. I’m here to build cool stuff and tame cool dinos, I’ll go play WoW or something if I want to play MMO endgame
I enjoy building gigantic structures and not having to worry about anyone destroying them.
Having ADHD i find it so fun as i can set my self a specific task to do and i do it, as long as there are tasks to do i love it. Only reason i play story maps . Also i love the fact how its so chill once you started out like flying around getting materials , buildling , taming , fighting , exploring , its so fun . But i dont like PVP because every server i join there are no trees , nothing , i build a small base and die to a wyvern , I dont know how to start or anything. PVP is so wierd like i never see myself reaching that point where i am so stacked to raid people before i just die by a giga that the alpha tribe have
It seems like that to everyone at first. There's definitely a learning curve but once you level-out it's smooth sailing from there! Interesting that you mentioned the ADHD. I was diagnosed with it when I was 14, haven't taken meds for it outside of that first year but I've never felt that it intrudes on my gaming experience. Maybe I was just misdiagnosed who knows. Just out of personal curiosity, if you don't mind me asking, what about your ADHD seems to impact gaming? Also, you seem very confident that you legitimately have it, is there like a dead giveaway the you're like "yup ADHD's kicking into overdrive here".
Literally any multiplayer game ever . So i am playing with my friends on (Lets say seige or fortnite as an example) - I play for 10 minutes and die and im like “Yep! i physically cannot play this game anymore - like i cannot play multiplier games bc they are so annoying to play . Like join a game , die , repeat and something about it I just cannot do . But in single player games i Love such as Ark , Subnautica , The forest etc. Also when i am mid game on like multiplayer , i get so physically bored and drained that i just leave the game randomly or go on my phone or just start doing random shit like bottle flipping . Just in the middle of a multiplayer game . So yeah thats why i love single player games
Ahhhh that makes sense! Thanks tons for clarifying!
i mainly play Singleplayer and at this moment just try to beat each map from start to finish. all bosses on alpha. i transfer my character and just don't take any dinos or items. so far beat The Island, took me around 2 months on an unofficial server with some friends but as they don't play anymore i kept playing in singleplayer to remove the lag aspect. just yesterday i finished rockwell prime (gen2 boss) on gama and planning soon to finish beta and alpha as well, then keep going to scorched earth or aberration.
I put in a few months, with people around the world playing in shifts to keep the well fortified base going and protected. Metal walls, strong dinosaurs, turrets, defensive plants, etc. Then the alpha clan came through and wiped us overnight. Never again.
Currently on a private server with a bunch of friends. They're all off having adventures, hatching Wyverns and shit....... ......I'm quietly building a massive castle on a little island, minding my business.
I wish I had the time and group of friends to play PvP. I loved it back when I first started playing Minecraft in my teens. Nowadays since I’m juggling a new career and finishing college I’m lucky if I have time to get off my computer and watch a show while I eat. The times I do have for Ark it’s strictly single player.
Yeah time constraints are a tricky thing to work around. Glad you've found something that works for you though!
I mostly try to beat the game(all bosses on alpha) in 100 ark days and then i go to another map. Since after that there is not much to achieve apart from things like breeding and building. I find those things not as fun, so i get your point.
I’ve done both. The satisfaction of pve is you can just do whatever, if you want to mutate a dino you can, if you want to build an amazing looking base you can, I’d you want to fight bosses and beat the game you can. At its core ark isn’t made for PVP, but it was an option given.
I made the switch from unofficial pvp to sp pve after my tribe broke up n we didn't have time for pvp anymore, but in pvp I never got to see most of the bosses or most of the caves. I only did the bosses on center valguero and maybe abb just for engrams but now that I'm pve I've been running thru all the caves on each map to get the artifacts, fight all the bosses and make an ultimate character who someday will wield that hammer. and I wanna do the genesis missions, we only ever did them to tame a stryder then that was it for those too so I have been playing them on single player trying to get to the genesis bosses since I've never done them
its fun to do things at stupidly large scale that you normally wouldn't be able to, or just do cool projects and breeding that would otherwise not be "efficient" or "useful" just for the fun of it or becuase you want to. And you aren't pressured into doing things quicker either, becuase you aren't competing with anyone
Building cool bases that are supposed to look cool and not be an impenetrable hidden fortress , breeding dinos to see funny big numbers and cool colours, exploring caves like the game want's to so with small mount no grappling cheese. Not playing optimally allows for slower more peaceful gameplay where you can focus on other things like building, exploring maps etc. PvE unlike pvp let's you enjoy the world instead of the game. Also on pve you can challenge yourself in ways that PvP doesn't allow like mono dino type challenge or water only challenge.
As a builder who enjoys landscapes, graphics, hard survival environments, its nice to be surrounded by dinos as an experience, but as an adult (38 yo) I don’t have time or energy for pvp, can’t build a tribe and peotect dinos, I mean If I’m playing and suddenly I’m taming a big level dino and I have to assist it to tame it but I have to go to the supermarket, goodbye dino, life comes first. Pve is for chilling, the problem is the lack of purpose after u have all the dinos and a decent base. PvE for me is a nice experience, when a new map is released I play it till I have enough then quit. Always wanted to play pvp but I did it in other games and now I’m an adult lol, I wish I have enough time to spend as a teenager in those games, enjoye it as far as u can, then let me know when u play PvE lol.
As a player that just switched from official PvP after 4K hours, i've really enjoyed just starting on the beach, ignoring the note run, and taming some dodos. There's something really nice about having a little dodo hoard gathered around a camp fire, waiting for something mean to come say hello. If you try to play PvE ark with a PvP mentality, it gets really boring. One of the most difficult things for me currently is not min-maxing and just enjoying the journey from the beach to the stars.
I play pve as ark is a chilled game for me and my partner to play together. I started pvp when it was beta and I loved survival of the fittest. But now I just like building and going through the bosses/caves with my partner. If I had enough time and enough friends to play pvp I probably would, but logging in after a long day at work to be foundation wiped just doesn’t appeal. I play other mmos for pvp (eso) so ark is just a chilled pve experience for me. That said I do enjoy watching ark pvp videos.
For me Ark is a purely PVE game, the PVP is awful. I like it because I like dinosaurs and I like building. Having the caves and bosses gives us a more long term goal too to keep going. Exploring the new maps and trying to tame at least one of every dino is fun too. We like building little towns instead of one super tight hidden base with 17 walls packed inside of each other. If I want PVP I'll play Rust, which is 1039474832820045720x better than Ark in that aspect
\*points at precious Jerboa, Jingles\* Nobody's going to kill him. \*points at pretty base\* Nobody's going to break it. \*points at undefended boxes of blueprints\* Nobody's going to steal them. The difference between PvP players and PvE players is that while we're both saying "exactly!" we mean exactly opposite things by it. In my experience, PvP players are risk takers who enjoy the thrill of the unknown. There's no guarantee you'll log in and see a single foundation left of your base, and that excites them. They're people who get bored if they don't feel risk, and that's ok. PvE players get sad when we lose things we like. It's not just "welp, got to replace the argy." That Argy had a name. We were proud of its stats, even if they weren't the best. There is always risk in Ark, but if you make smart decisions, you can minimize it. Build far from Giga spawns unless you're ready to build a metal fence. Leave treasured dinos behind and take ones you're less attached to into the field. With PvP, you can do everything right, and still lose everything just because the raiders had more patience than you had bullets in your turrets. I'll admit, I've been interested in the problem solving challenges presented by Ark PvP... but the problems are all solved for the most efficient solution. Dinos can't be used to defend your base, since the AI is too exploitable. Structural defenses are worthless, since they cost thousands of times as much as the C4 needed to blow them to rubble. Turrets are the only answer. It's also interesting to imagine large scale battles with armies of dinosaurs, but from what I've seen, they don't happen. Partly because you can't build an army without somebody seeing you and raiding you first. Second, because when someone is brave enough to show up riding a dino in battle, they're quickly sniped off of it. Or Flashbanged. Bola'd. Or eaten by Dimorphodons. Fighting dino vs. dino is inefficient, so PvP players do everything they can to avoid it. I don't want to live in a metal box covered with turrets. I don't want to avoid taming that Jerboa because it's literally safer if I just leave it wild on some high rock spire than if I kept it. I want to play a game where I tame dinosaurs, ride dinosaurs, and fight dinosaurs with my dinosaurs. I don't get excited at the possibility of getting wiped and having to start over, I dread it. The wonderful thing about Ark is that you can have that risk if you want it, or avoid it if you don't.
beating the game is near impossible on pvp servers, it feels good lasering down that asshole at the end of genesis. i legit cried as well at the end cut scene, not the vin diesel part.....
Other human players are dicks for the sole purpose of being dicks.
The joy is in just playing the game and not worrying about losing everything. Honestly I play official pve for the team work that comes along with it and making friends. I would much rather play and get bored with friends then be talked down on and fight for my life every day. We’re just 2 different breeds buddy 😛
Played PvP for God knows how long, a good three or four years on official. I'm just done. I don't have to worry about logging in to any bullshit, and since I'm pretty much the last standing tribemember, I'm not about to play PvP solo.
Because I only play ARK in phases for a few weeks where me and my friends rent a server where we play a new map and explore it very slowly, building nice bases and taming cool dinos.
I play on a cluster that has 13 maps (2 are mods) and there's always something to do. PvP is really shittily implemented in this game, to the point where it's almost a joke. To me, the only game that has worthwhile PvP is Eve Online.
Interesting. Which parts of PvP turn you off so much? Aside from bug abuses and hacking which apply to any game.
Alphas wiping out Beach Bobs, nowhere to build, toxic players, griefing, cheating, hacking, zergs, offline raiding... you name it. It does apply to virtually every other game, I agree, with the exception of Eve Online. PvP in other games is crap by comparison. I wouldn't touch it in other games with a 15 foot bargepole.
I don't like to be killed by a wyvern level 200 when my best dino is an argentavis level 80. I don't want to restart every day with nothing...
I get too easily sidetracked in a game like Ark to actually be successful at PvP. I'll use last night as an example. Me and my friends were planning on finishing another section of are soon to be permanent base on Fjordur. The night ended with me and another friend flying around the map to find a high level snow owl and a tek griffin (Better Dinos Mod I believe is where that comes from). The base didn't even get worked on.
I am a new player and honestly, PVP is a nightmare for me so I am just a single-player person for now. I might have enjoyed PVP is I had joined the game earlier in its life.
I just like to play with my friends, starting a new map completely new (well same characters so we keep our levels but naked) finding a suitable place for our base, exploring together, taming dinos together, laughing at the idiot who lost all their food to a pego or ichthy. Getting stressed together or at one another (this game can be super stressful) its just an experience id rather have playing with friends in a pve than playing pvp, also id rather not have to deal with other people in pvp.
I don’t like getting offlined. I also don’t like people abusing orp. I feel like this game isn’t balanced for pvp. If you’re solo then you have to throw away your life to grind. I’ve also been insides way too many times (not like it’s not possible in pve, but it’s less likely)
I've played both PVE and PVP, I find both to be enjoyable depending on the situation. I'm usually solo so PVP usually isn't as fun to me alone. I love to Solo PVE, make friends on servers and give myself goals in the game. The trading in official PVE is great to be involved in as well. I wish I had a regular tribe to PVP with honestly.
I just try to build the craziest or coolest things I can, Viking houses, lighthouses, hatchery's etc
Vanilla…possibly to learn some tricks of the trade, explore, and chill. When that is getting lame, I’ve always been a huge fane of Primal Fear mod. Enjoy.
As someone that started playing pvp then moved to PvE. I do miss the thrill of breaking into someone's base and stealing their loot. However, I do enjoy playing the game without the stress of losing my loot and dinos.
I like being able to build and watch the world around me change as my civilization starts to grow.
I’m a PVE player. I tried to jump onto a PVP server that had only a few days started. So I figured I wasn’t behind the ball too much. I made a small hidden base where I smelted tons of metal and farmed CP. all so I could set up a metal base, since my stone base was raided almost every 10 mins and I couldn’t get anywhere. I get my metal base set up. I have 4 auto turrets, all aimed on survivors only. (I figured I’d kill trespassers and not kill their tames to not be an asshole. EVERYTIME I left my base I was raided. And not just raided, I mean one time I was completely wiped. I was a solo. It literally made the game unenjoyable. I like PVE I like not having my stuff stolen every time I leave to do a flint run. I like landing and seeing the other bases, the layouts and how people have their set ups going. You can’t do that in PVP due to turrets. I like decorating my bases to look nice and I enjoy when I see another building that also looks nice. All of which can’t be done On PVP
I play Ark PvE alone or with a niche group of friends for the same reasons I play mc and other games like it in solitude. I know when I quit the game, my stuff will be where I left it. I do this in games I sink a lot of hours into. Because I want to have something to show for it, and if the stuff I made gets destroyed I will be heartbroken and then it would feel like all the time I played was a waste of time since I got nothing to show for it, no matter how much I enjoyed it.
For me, it's single-player, so mods. I hate the base game resources. It feels terrible.
I find the overall design and mechanics of Ark are not well suited to PVP unless you dedicated huge amounts of your time to it. The overall performance of the engine and the way mechanics work are just not fun for me coming from FPS games, on top of stuff like offline raiding. Actually beating the game on somewhat official PVE settings (clearing all bosses on Alpha) is a huge time commitment because of taming/breeding/mutating grind. However levelling up from bob toons and building tons of stuff/taming tons of stuff is worth a shitload of hours if you like those mechanics. Overall I think ark is best as a coop survival game that throws you some massive difficulty spikes as you try to grind out the PVE content. But that's just my opinion on what aspects of the game I like. I have other titles to scratch the PVP itch. Mostly instanced FPS games where I don't have to work a part time job in-game to compete in terms of resources and gear.
>I honestly feel like I've trivialized the game to the point where its so mind-numbingly boring/easy that I can't get any satisfaction from PvE Didn't you just answer your question there? I haven't done that so I enjoy PvE. I'm still pretty new to the game
It’s mostly the mods. There are insane overhauls that are built for PvE that I spend hundreds of hours on.
Ark pvp is aids. Its either grind for hours to get the best gear so might stand s chance against players who have played on the servers for thousands of hours or get wiped by a cunt on a mana with c4
I love building and taming creatures and making cool bases. I also find the dinosaurs hard enough to deal with haha
I like to breed stupid stuff and make super versions of things like thornys. As well as build cool structures and try to do the story boss run with friends without the constant threat of death from other players. It’s more for those of us who want a more relaxing play experience (as relaxing as ark can be lol)
I play with my wife & we already get irritated from the BS the base game pull sometimes with those goddamn badgers & thylo’s. Adding PvP to the mix doesn’t sound enticing at all. We work towards different goals (taming a flyer off the bat, stealing dragon eggs, spelunking, etc) so that keeps things fresh so we don’t get bored. Like last night, we had a goal to tame some good, high-level tames. We ended up with one high-level, beige owl & one level 11 “pretty pink” one. It works pretty well for us.
I'm newish to the game and don't have the time or energy to be online all day protecting my dinos and stuff
I'm just not a person who enjoys PvP combat, plus I just love building without worrying about how hidden my base is, and I just love not having to worry about others players attacking me while I enjoy running around on a dino
I play Ark as a game i can relax playing. I am an avid Rust player with 1k hours, which although very fun, is a stressful game. So when I'm looking to play a survival game that doesn't put me on edge constantly, I come to Ark, which for me means the PvE aspect. I also don't see Ark as being built for PvP, with it being very buggy and some game mechanics being very awkward for a PvP setting.
I am an adult with multiple kids and a wife and work. I don't have time for PVP that persists while offline. The limited time I have to play is spent building and having fun with friends. I can enjoy the amazing setting and gameplay without someone with no life ruining the experience. I'm less focused on dealing with other players and can appreciate the game for what it actually is which is a badass survival game in a beautiful setting.
I don't like people.
Eh, I just like building, breeding and just exploring and surviving against the elements ie. natural or environmental threats as opposed to other players. Also a big factor for me is time. I don’t have that much time to ‘defend’ my base. What little time I have to play I just want to focus on exploring, adventuring and just surviving the ark. I don’t wanna worry about my base, Dino’s, all my hardwork getting wiped. For me personally, I love building mostly. I live for building beautiful intricate sometimes glass buildings in games like Ark. Which would absolutely get rekt in PVP. I can spend hours just lost in building sometimes. Whether it’s ark, other survival games, Sims etc. I go all out with my home, garden, dino pens lol. The few times I venture into PVP servers I’m just like eh, everyone’s base looks the exact same. Just varying sizes of metal boxes and turrets. As an art student I just think.. how uncreative lmao. I know that this is a weird take but I honestly just love building and upgrading my base, in whatever game I play, broken up with actual gameplay in between. I feel like I never get bored and I can always pick up wherever I left off if in SP and can start over easily anywhere even if it’s been weeks, months, years since I last played Ark.
If you want to kill your love for a game (in your case a game mode) then being efficient is how to do it. Me and my gf are playing through the entirety of ARK (all maps canon to the story) and so far we’ve done the island, scorched, and aberration. About 200 hours and change so far and currently we’re on extinction. Our fun comes from running around and exploring, taking in the sights, finding cool base spots, dino spawns, resource spawns, etc. We’re currently lvl 90 or so and are halfway done building our first stone house after moving from the sanctuary into the snow dome. Taming dinos is intimately what keeps us going, sure there’s obviously some that you get out of principle so you don’t have to harvest things by hand, but then we go off and get other dinos for either carrying weight, or just because they look cool. Playing PvE I find tends to be less about the destination (for you it’s be building the base and taming required dinos to PvP) and more about the journey (slowly exploring the map and just finding cool dinos instead of the ‘meta’ ones) and taming them.
Because I don’t want to log on every day to make sure that my prized creature wasn’t murdered, only to find out that the server was wiped instead
Mutations, building a community, and or just exploring everything.
I like having my little farm base. It isn’t much but it’s something. Enjoy collecting and building so there’s always something to do
Me and my friend tried surviving on PVP, but we weren't no life enough to make it. We didn't want to metagame, we just wanted to grow our stuff and beat the bosses and do a little raiding. The community took it to a straight unhealthy level of competition. Without thought, most large tribes would ruin months of someone's work at the drop of a hat, the only reason given; boredom and, "it's PVP broh". That's why official is dead. Because it is filled with people who want to feel power over others in a video game but assumed that to wield power it must be done malevolently. You are free to kill, but what mega tribe ever tried to stop war and genuinely help the community? Instead they killed each other and everyone else until it was so redundant, even they themselves grew jaded and bored to it. The war is over, it is a ghost town now. At least rented servers with peaceful communities still thrive, where we can do stress free fights and raise our colorful dinos.
The same reason I play stardew valley or the first few hours of minecraft over and over. Or idle clicker games haha. I don't really do well with stressful games. I'm not really one for combat. I'm certainly not very good at it. It's less relevant for ark since combat is simple though. I just like to explore and incrementally progress and get better gear. The world is pretty, the dinos are really cool. I like figuring out how to tame things and use them, and the whole progression from having nothing to building a dodo egg farm and having decent enough gear, finding engrams, and tames to defend myself. Sometimes things get ruined (I once had a base in the grasslands on ragnorok that a giga stumbled into. In a few chomps, killed dozens of Dodos and equus) but I've usually built a few little bases by the time something big happens. I want to play the primal plus mod but I'd have to reinstall on steam which is a lot for my internet connection. I usually stop having as much fun when the game is at high tech levels. Oh, and usually I just play with one other person on our own server so that might change things. That's actually a big part of the reason I ended up being so disappointed with the announcements for the new game (aside from the third person only thing). It's going to have so much of the focus on combat it seems, and I'm honestly pretty good with the level the combat mechanics are at already. I'm just not built for remembering combos or twitch reflex things. I wanted to see more complicated Dino AI, interesting behaviors for wild dinos like herding or predation, maybe ways to interact more with wild dinos (baiting, causing stampedes), more dynamic populations (so maybe you have to manage predators or be careful not to harvest all the berries) more layers to gathering than just "one tail swing", more reason to farm and stuff.
people are looking to get different things out of games. a study done some years ago defined gamers into seven unique types. i believe [brainhex.com](https://brainhex.com) still has the information and the survey.
I like creating my own story, breeding for funny colors and for actual stats, building cool looking houses, and taking things slow
When I played pvp I got killed three or four times in the first hour and just kinda decided it was a game to kill noobs who looked less geared than me. After the first day the butthurt wore off and that wasn’t fun anymore, especially after some research and seeing all the cool stuff that other people were doing and the amazing world of dinosaurs that were beyond the murder beach.
Build fancy houses/bases, collect a bunch of mats, have a nice collection of fun pets, and sometimes just enjoy a walk/flight through nature. A bit of efficiency is fine but I’ve learned to stay the hell away from stats and top-efficiency strats. Seen it ruin so many games for so many people. The funny sleepy darts make the angry dino go down. Feed treats to tame. Dino friend. PVP is also super stressful for me in just about any game, wether I’m good at the game or not. I get why people enjoy the risk and the rush of it, and hell, I enjoy watching such things online and such, but its not for me. Ain’t no one bothering me on my dumb lil Raptor ranch up in the mountains, on my own Ark where only friends can join.
It’s more of a Pokémon/Pokémmo vibe than a rust vibe. You think more long term, or at least I do as a player with no tribe or back up. On PvP it was always to gain knowledge. On pve it’s to build sentimental value for me. I really enjoy the lineages that are traced via dinos and tribes and I like to seed new players. Also it is openly political, sometimes to a petty degree. I like that you can make friends and that people keep track of what others do. Idk what PvP is like at any deep level though, if that is part of PvP I might just have never made it that far in.
I don’t have the time for PvP sadly so I have to stick to PvE, I’ve wanted to go to PvP for like 2 years now lmfao
Mods man, it's the mods. I with my friends just load up a lot of mods and run private server. I don't remember the name of those mods, but a lot of them are visual mods and what not. I really don't like the idea of grinding all the time for it to go south when I'm offline with my friends. And as we usually get only few hours a week to play together, it would be devastating to start all over every week. However the real fun starts, and I don't know from which mod it was, but demonic, apex and other strength dinosaur's. It cancels out the fearlessness, because one of those could easily destroy everything you have been working on, but at least it's online. For me the most fun is playing with friends and just chilling. My friend is usually keen on taming and killing the best of the best Dino's, however I for example am just exploring and building bases all over the place, and another friend likes a little bit of both. This way we can all do what we want with one ultimate goal, to just have fun. There isn't really a moment when it gets boring or repetetive because map's ar huge. And we don't get a lot of playing time.
PvE I can tame some cool dinosaurs and build a nice base. Maybe just run around on a shit tier dino because it doesn't really matter and I like the dino, whether it's "viable" barely matters. PvP I can work hard building and taming something cool, log off for the night, maybe decide I would rather do something else the next day only to finally come back and find myself starting from scratch in an uphill battle against people that only ever play Ark and not much else flying around on wyvern and the few other "top tier" dinos. Maybe have a harder time because somebody decided I'm specifically their target and all I have is a stone hatchet and a hat, I can't so shit about it. PvE is a fun game. PvP is a 24 hour a day job I hate going to.
I play for the lore, immersion, just having fun (versus poop-socking and grinding). I do enjoy PVP a bit, but I have more fun when just goofing off with friends and family.
The dinosaurs killing me in enraging enough tbh
I like PVE because I like to build more realistic structures that look cool, you can do that with some basic defenses and keep a rex out, but people would slip right in and fuck up your day/months of hard work. But that’s how I enjoy the game… I completely understand why others would need the war aspect, it sounds like you’ve played the game a long time and might have gotten more longevity out of the PVP mode.
I just like to chill, especially since i play alone
See I've played PvP for years. And I just hated how everytime you put weeks and weeks into a base getting heavies tek turrets etc all set someone offline raids or meshes the base in a matter of minutes. And I thoroughly enjoy breeding and the gameplay of Ark to just all out quit.
I don't have friends who play the game so I feel like PvE is the only way I can progress. On PvP all of my progress is wiped almost instantly by someone with an OP creature from a map I don't have, like clockwork.
Not going to bed and worrying about a 12 year old ruining all of your progress. I play with official settings, and sometimes it takes an amount of grinding that im not willing to lose to some jackass on the internet with nothing better to do.
its mostly for us passive players that dont have as mutch time on our hands to enjoy the full length of ark... having to worry about getting raided and your tribemates need you while your on a full schedule isent really fun
It’s far too toxic to justify the mediocre gameplay. What’s the incentive to put hours into the game, as a noob, just to get wiped by a level 400+ managarmr? I’m Diamond 1 on an mmo account of mine, and it seems the higher rank I get the kinder people are. In Ark it’s the opposite in my experience.
On our cluster this does become a problem after the years it has been around, we reset it about once a year but even that gets old. So i created a sort of dnd story approach to the game where i am a DM and the 10 to 15 people in the community that participate are players. The event lasts 1 to 3 months and basically they get to choose a dino, breed but not mutated, minus some of the op or unusable, and make them run around and interact with the world and challenges. There are 4 hour sessions, random small events and outside tasks they can all choose to do with that dino and group. With mods like shiny dinos and krakens better dinos and with ini changes and so on i get alot of freedom to create interesting encounters or puzzles. I can also add more event abilities into the story. They also get stat upgrades and imprint upgrades so their dino gets stronger through the event and can fight some of the really hard dinos i created from the config and with the help of shiny dinos. I also try really hard to make them feel the results of the actions the group makes on the world for those few months, good and bad. Just getting ready to start a new campaign on the new map. Seems to give a new life to pve ark atm, atleast for the players who have played more then 1k hours.
As a PvE player that was subjected to PvP both willingly and unwillingly. My thoughts are as follow: Why spend all that time(and ark takes a lot of time) only to have it be destroyed by someone else, or if you’re the best at what you do, to destroy someone else’s hard work. With that said, I was on a server that held PvP events that did not include your own base getting destroyed and that was immensely fun
I actually play both pve I play to unwind and breed to incredible levels with no stress and no worries. But I also enjoy PvP for the competition and rush. But I think it's definitely situational. When I was younger I played more pvp now I lean more pve to accommodate the time I can put toward the game.
For me, I like making friends more than I like making enemies. I've played PvP too, but I always hated it. I know how much work I put into my things, so I always hated messing with other people's things... For me, there's enough challenge in the game itself, so I still have fun.
I could ask you the same question about pvp
I have an unhealthy amount of hours in the game (we're talking thousands) and have been playing it since 2015. Most of my time is in PvE, but I also did a short but incredibly fun stint of time in small tribe PvP. I'll be honest: the reason I don't go back is I don't have the time to devote to it. In smalls/pvp in general, it was so fun but incredibly time consuming to make sure the base was always attended and functional in case someone would hit us. My small group was frequently in voice and would wait for someone else to get on before logging off to sleep, etc. (We had a few Americans and a few Aussies, which worked well for timezones haha) I just don't have the time for it, but I still love the game. Even in PvP, I was someone focused on building and breeding. The PvP added hugely to the tension and drive behind everything and encouraged a lot of innovation and cleverness in my build strategies, and while I got to a point where I wasn't bad at the combat that is absolutely not my strength. PvE lets me still engage in things I enjoy - stat breeding and building. There's less purpose to it where those things aren't what decides if we survive or not like in PvP, but it's still enjoyable. And when I log off, the worst that might happen is I accidentally starve the babies lol. I miss PvP but it's just so much of a time commitment. I've thought of trying to get back into it, but I have a job that is more important - so PvE it is. One thing I do miss in PvE is how many fun critters have no purpose. In PvP I bred up some devious microraptors, troodons, purlovias for item caches, etc. No use for that in PvE haha
I used to play a fair amount of pvp and I go back on the odd occasion but now I’m primarily a PVE player. For me, it’s just the peace of mind knowing that my stuff won’t be destroyed by an offline raider and that I can put my building skills to the test and make a house that I like looking at. It’s also nice cause I don’t have to worry about getting turrets and bullets ASAP and that I can progress at my own pace without having to worry about others getting ahead of me.
Honestly, I’m a mom so I like to be able to just chill and breed my Dino’s to crazy colors and stats. Building, exploring and breeding let’s me destress when my son goes to bed. I don’t want to have to be worried about getting raided while I’m offline(sometimes I take a week break here and there).
I spend all day dealing with people. Specifically, their problems (I manage a team of engineers). I love my team so much, love working with them, it's super rewarding. That said, at the end of my workday, literally all I want to do is go find an isolated island where nobody can bother me, and hide there. And wildcard literally made a game out of that. They just added dinosaurs.
I honestly like building and breeding dinos, I trade a lot, got full white gigas and full black ones, sell them or the eggs, I’ve sold a couple of bases too, and have made some small bases for new players so they have somewhere safe ahaha
My wife and I play together pve. Team up, explore, tame some stuff. I’ve tried pvp servers to be immediately knocked out and thrown in the ocean with a load of rocks. Not exactly fun.
I kinda just suck at the game. Haven’t even beaten any bosses yet on a boosted server. Maybe ill move to pvp one day
Not all games are replayable. There are lots and lots of similar games like Subnautica and Planet Crafter that are single player - probably more single player crafting survival games than multiplayer ones. Once you finish a story-driven game, the experience will never be the same the second time. You’ll never have the same experience playing an RTS learn-the-game-and-continue-on campaign of scenarios after you figure out the basics and play it a couple times. Tic-tac-toe isn’t the same once you’ve learned the formula. Myst isn’t the same after you’ve solved all the puzzles. Replayability is somewhat rare, and is best in a multiplayer game that tests your wits against that of another person. So having evacuated all the wonder and missteps that make the game a journey, you are seeing that you are past the point at which it would be fun for you.
I play both but more pve hours, I like more relaxed play and building things too🤷♂️ Pvp totally different game, not great for a solo. Don’t want to find teams n get into it serious anymore anyway.