Since the Servers had quite a bit of downtime and is soon going to be online again i want to discuss the opportunity to wipe the servers since there are some problems. If we wipe the servers we could also change some things that would make the games more balanced, but more to that later.

Lets talk about the problems first:

1. There were bugs around that gave other players an unfair advantage
As some may know Ark is "a bit" buggy, that are sometimes be able to be exploited. An example would be an player that built a base in the Sky, almost at the sky/ceiling limit of the world. Try to raid that when its built properly, if you even find that base. Due to that some people could accumulate an unfair advantage that just snowballed over time. Since you cant delete all of the advantage without wiping everything of him that wasnt done. Now is a good opportunity do even the ground.

2. Apparently the rules weren´t clear enough
Some players dont know what is fair and what is not, some players like me would think some things are obviously not fair (like getting under the mesh to raid or set up a base that is not raidable under "fair" conditions) but for some players that is a grey zone or just okay. Setting some general rules to prevent that (if its not intended to work that way/ to do that you are not allowed to do it) would help a lot if you make the punishment clear (wipe/ban).

3. The features that are on our servers are too strong for pvp
Some of the features on our server are too strong for pvp, as an example think about the mutator. With enough element you can make dinos breed babys with 100 fresh mutation... counting as 1 mutation. So this effect is stackable 40 times if you do it right (20 male side, 20 female side). This is not ok, no base is safe with this kind of mutations.

4. Transfer between server
Imagine you play on Ragnarok and go to sleep just to wake up to see you got raided. Obviously you want to take revenge, dont you? Now you find their homeserver, but unfortunatly its Abberation/Extinction. You cant transfer Items there, on Ab you can atleast transfer dinos but you will still get wiped by them before you are able to retaliate. The concept not to transfer items/dinos to new maps its totaly fine and actually appreciated to slow make progression and keep the content exiting and challenging. But you have to open the restrictions sooner or later to make the maps balanced again (but ofcouse Ab only transfer dinos that are supposed to be there from devs, so no rex/giga etc.).

5. The servers never got a wipe
Now this should be a good thing, everyone can keep their hard worked Base and can continue to play like they want right? Well while i do agree to that, players become bored when they dont get anything to achieve anymore. After a certain amount of time you got everything you ever wanted to do, pvp may not be possible since there are not enough players to attack/to get attacked. People get bored and leave, making the server slowly dying. This is actually my problem, i just got nothing to do anymore without attacking either friends/allies or much weaker players, to the point it feels unfair to attack them and eventually driving them of the server. A wipe would help that everybody got something to do again.


That were some reasons to wipe the cluster, now i will add some changes that i think would help to keep the game exciting and fresh for as long as possible:

1. Events
I know, Events are hard, take time and are hard to balande the rewards (if there are any). But it keeps the game exciting and helps that the game doesnt become stale. By no means i ask for events every week, but maybe 1 per month/2 month (more if easy to execute) would help. Doesn´t really matter to me if its pvp tournament or a cool colored dino that you can tame (1 red/black Basilisk max. lvl as an example). I would help to organize if it is requested.

2. Change the loot and dino level
The higher the level, the more broken do the dinos and gear get. It is fun to run around with a 2k durability flak armor, but it makes raiding bases too easy and not really counterable. As an example: A good mutated breed line of rexes in the difficult 5 area (wild max lvl 150) will have 11-13k hp when they hatch. A non mutated breed line of rexes on our server has 16,5k hp when they hatch. I dont think i have say the stats of "soaker" dinos, you can imagine the rest. It would also make good breeding a necessity, which takes long but feels rewarding and keeps the people on the server.

3. Balanced Boss fights
Tek is a good feature in my opinion, but the late game stuff of tek is too easy to get considered how good they are. As an example: Ragnarok hard difficult is easier than brood mother medium. In my opinion not okay at all. On the other side the gamma (lowest lvl) boss fights reward you almost nothing, except trying for the first time to test the strength you will never do them again, since its not worth the time with the new ways to get element, making some maps more desirable than others. I dont know exactly how but there is a way to change the drop rate of element per boss. You wouldn´t have to change it immidiatly since it would take a while to do bosses after a wipe and exspecially with the changed balancing but it would give more options to get element.

4. Alliances
It is good that you can make Alliances but since there is no regulation there was just one big alliance on the whole cluster. This made the pvp dying down, since no one would oppose 14 players with 1-3 people in their own tribe/alliance. Make it that you can have a max of 2 Alliance tribe, this way you will consider who you want to have as partner and will stop the hesitation about pvp.

This were some of the points i just had in my head, there are for sure more things you can change to make the server better.
Of couse you can suggest stuff yourself too if you want.
Do you agree or do you disagree? If yes/no, why? Please let us discuss this to keep the cluster alive and fresh!