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  1. #1

    Suggestion: Wipe the servers

    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!

  2. #2
    I would definitely like input from other Ark players on this sooner than later. There are some good points to this thread.

    Side note for discussion so everyone is on the same page: We WILL be getting a PvE only map guaranteed at some point for our casual HD players.

  3. #3
    Lets talk about the problems first:

    1. There were bugs around that gave other players an unfair advantage
    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.

    Agreed.

    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).

    Cant fix stupid......but easy addition.

    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.

    ......?

    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.).

    prefer not transferring anything.

    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.

    Fresh start is ok. wife may not like it but PvE is her domain.

    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

    Yes please.

    2. Change the loot and dino level

    Either way i guess.

    3. Balanced Boss fights

    Never made it to a boss fight solo. i enjoyed the one i did with vik and epi though.

    4. Alliances

    unless mods/admins join the same tribe i suggest 3 alliances. Personally i enjoying building and having my own things.

  4. #4
    As someone who used to play a lot on the cluster, but treated it mostly as PvE (meaning: do not attack anybody and make strategic alliances ) I will throw in my 3 cents: I liked the relaxed atmosphere very much. I liked that my small (2 person) tribe was generally not attacked as long as we were nice to everybody. I liked that it was not cutthroat PvP. We were seriously raided only after we stopped playing, previous raids were minor I liked the atmosphere, people were nice, chat talks were fun. The atmosphere of HD servers (all of them, Ark and MC) is what is keeping me here most of the time. Question is: is it only me, or is there more players who feel that too? And will more "PvP oriented" rules destroy it or not? I don't know the answers, but this is something to keep in mind.

    Sometimes I think about coming back, but I simply don't have time to play so much now as I used to have and ARK on PvP kind of requires you to play much, play often, or you make yourself too vulnerable. You can't go on a 3 weeks "ARK vacation" (doesn't mean IRL vacation, as much as I would like it too ), only popping in to feed your dinos once a week, because you will most probably come back to empty bases. The "get in, get what you want and get out" rule still means someone will raid every container you have, just to make sure it doesn't have an epic rifle stashed in the middle of fertiliser. That's why I'm waiting for the PvE server, because I love ARK and would like to play it again, but I will never again want it to take over so much of my time as during my HD PvP period.

    Now, having said that... I did play a lot at one point. If I were to play again (suppose I won 10 millions and don't have to work anymore ), I still wouldn't like to keep big and elaborate bases on 4 or 5 maps. 2 max. That means that without transfers I would pick one or two maps and would stick to them. Other people would either pick the same maps, meaning the rest would be virtually dead OR they would scatter over several maps. HD doesn't have that big of a player base, mostly because the majority of the players are mature and silly kids get bored easily If you scatter all those players on different maps, you will end up with nobody to raid

    TL; DR: do not block transfers and do not destroy the atmosphere, would be my advice. Wipe could be good for the servers, I think.

    @Jiro - about the PvE server - since this will be only 1 server, can we maybe get a map that has all 4 basic maps engrams and resources available? I don't remember what was the last favourite, the Volcano, I think, it has SE and AB stuff, but not EX stuff? Crystal Isles has all as far as I know and there is are a couple of new ones, Hope and Amissa, that are worth watching, I think.

  5. #5
    One of the main draws to this server cluster is the fact that they never get wiped. Which server out there has existed for so long like these ones? You can leave your base unattended for half a year and come back when you get the itch and pick up where you left (provided you hid the important stuff or gave it to an active ally). Some servers require you to leave a notice to the admin if you go off for 2 weeks. Here, you can feel at your ease.

    So yea, I'm not a big fan of a full wipe. But I do agree on some points Epi made though.

    1. Before the implementation of S+ into the full game, I made an entire new base to store my valuables. You don't want to have your base in the sky right now as it is very vulnerable with the way S+ was implemented into the full game.

    2. Seeing as people of varying ages play this game, clear rules are a good thing. Nothing else to add.

    3. The mutator is indeed very powerful. However, you can't stack 40x100 mutations as you can only get 255 points into one stat or 254 +number of domestic levels. The most recent S+ updates allow you to convert dinos into corrupted versions, turning even shitty dinos into good soakers. The swapping to corrupted is definitely OP. Not sure how I feel about the guaranteed mutations. It costs a lot, takes out the RNG/mindless grind. If you can afford 2k element to breed OP dinos, I'm not sure if you have that much reason to raid offensively. You don't really need it to kill bosses either. Main limiting factor is farming blubber for the tribute. But it does give you very powerful dinos that would otherwise be unattainable. I guess the mutator just gives you something extra to do after you "beat" the game. Not needed at all if you want to have the server be PvP focused.

    4. With all DLCs being released for quite some time, I see no reason to not allow free transfers of goods/dinos across servers. It might entice some players to try out the newer maps instead of starting all
    (or partly) over again.

    5. I really don't want all my stuff to get wiped. I still need to finish my Ragnarok beaver base. I already collected 4k+ element to make full tek armor, which I couldn't complete due to servers shipping. I still have to slay the alpha version of the King Titan in order to fully "complete" the game. If people get bored, why should other people who still have plenty to do suffer from it? Maybe it's just time to play another game or start on another fresh server. Ofcourse, if I am the only person who thinks this way, do not hesitate to wipe.
    http://i.imgur.com/v4naT6Q.png

  6. #6
    Great that i got some responses from all of you! I will try to give my input on everything that is unclear or where i can my opinion more clearly:

    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.

    ......?
    The S+ Mutator has the option to give dinos the ability to breed baybs that have a 100% chance of a mutation. You can stack this buff to 100, that means you can have baby dinos that will have 100 mutations when they hatch. The 100 mutation only count as one in the mutation tree, making it possible to exceed the 20 mutation limit on the father and mother side.

    As someone who used to play a lot on the cluster, but treated it mostly as PvE (meaning: do not attack anybody and make strategic alliances ) I will throw in my 3 cents: I liked the relaxed atmosphere very much. I liked that my small (2 person) tribe was generally not attacked as long as we were nice to everybody. I liked that it was not cutthroat PvP. We were seriously raided only after we stopped playing, previous raids were minor I liked the atmosphere, people were nice, chat talks were fun. The atmosphere of HD servers (all of them, Ark and MC) is what is keeping me here most of the time. Question is: is it only me, or is there more players who feel that too? And will more "PvP oriented" rules destroy it or not? I don't know the answers, but this is something to keep in mind.
    I do like the atmosphere aswell and it makes the game a lot more enjoyable, that you can exspect that your base is still there tomorrow. But i also have some negative points:

    1. There was no open world pvp. You either raided or got raided and even that was very rare. I dont hate the pve aspects of the game, i enjoy them a lot. But i play on PvP server for PvP, even if its only once per month.

    2. There was no competition because of the atmosphere and it was very boring for people who did everything/almost everything. I have around 3.650 hours in Ark, that is not much compared to others but it is very much compared to the casual player. Around 2.500 hours of them were on the Happydiggers Server and i think you guys can understand that after that much time the PvE aspect gets boring. PvP should be something that keep the servers a bit exciting without adding new mods or content updates from the devs.

    3. My input on the server wipe isnt to make it a hard PvP server and i dont intend it to be. But with the changes it would make PvP more balanced and maybe something player would consider more, to make the game more enjoyable. The no wipe rule, passive protected and the higher rates keep you pretty safe from hard losses.

    3. The mutator is indeed very powerful. However, you can't stack 40x100 mutations as you can only get 255 points into one stat or 254 +number of domestic levels. The most recent S+ updates allow you to convert dinos into corrupted versions, turning even shitty dinos into good soakers. The swapping to corrupted is definitely OP. Not sure how I feel about the guaranteed mutations. It costs a lot, takes out the RNG/mindless grind. If you can afford 2k element to breed OP dinos, I'm not sure if you have that much reason to raid offensively. You don't really need it to kill bosses either. Main limiting factor is farming blubber for the tribute. But it does give you very powerful dinos that would otherwise be unattainable. I guess the mutator just gives you something extra to do after you "beat" the game. Not needed at all if you want to have the server be PvP focused.
    I dont know if the 255 points hard cap works, i heard about it aswell but didnt tested it out. Since you shouldn´t be able to breed over lvl 450 (and yet you are able to) there is no proof that it works the same on our cluster, maybe because of difficulty 8. Of course. if you tried it very often and proved it with your breeding experiments disregard these part.

    I dont think it costs a lot considering what you gain. I have around 12k element in my base, not considering all the element shards in my tek turrets. It may be hard on Ragnarok because of the amount of tributes,but its definitly not hard anymore to get element with all the ways to get it (Extinction corrupted nodes,Bosses on other maps take way less tributes, Abberation is just farming like metal), exspecially once you got these op dinos.

    Its not about the amount of resources you have that will lead you to raid/PvP with the mutated dinos, its the ability to surpress your (potential) enemys and bend the free PvP to your will. Think twice about raiding anybody when you can´t defend yourself at all against the player (who the raided one might be friends with) with a mutated breed line.

    5. I really don't want all my stuff to get wiped. I still need to finish my Ragnarok beaver base. I already collected 4k+ element to make full tek armor, which I couldn't complete due to servers shipping. I still have to slay the alpha version of the King Titan in order to fully "complete" the game. If people get bored, why should other people who still have plenty to do suffer from it? Maybe it's just time to play another game or start on another fresh server. Ofcourse, if I am the only person who thinks this way, do not hesitate to wipe.
    I do that. Since a very long time i don´t play ark anymore. I might have checked in one month ago, to see if my base is still intact. But i don´t really care, because what is the point? You don´t have anything to do when you are bored with the PvE content of the game because you are too far ahead/advanced to make it challenging. And looking at other players im definitly not the only one. Every player not playing makes the server a bit more boring because of no human interaction. Till there is only 1 or 2 players playing. Might aswell play singleplayer (my opinion).

    Like i said i know the advantage of our server are not wiping, but it makes the server dying and keeps draging it down. I think wiping it once in its entire history will prove beneficial for the player base.

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Chogata View Post
    @Jiro - about the PvE server - since this will be only 1 server, can we maybe get a map that has all 4 basic maps engrams and resources available? I don't remember what was the last favourite, the Volcano, I think, it has SE and AB stuff, but not EX stuff? Crystal Isles has all as far as I know and there is are a couple of new ones, Hope and Amissa, that are worth watching, I think.
    If there's only 1 PvE map, then yes we'll be sure to select one with the most opportunity for access. There would have to be a different kind of rule set as well. Base limiting rules, for example, to prevent mass expansion and claiming multiple areas of a map.

    Legacy servers (current servers) could be an option, but it's hard to justify keeping even 12 Gigs of RAM reserved for a server like Ragnarok for things that are basically PvE purposes if it's no longer in a cluster and doesn't have many active players.

    I know "no wipe" is one of our draw points and it's a primary reason I wanted to start Ark servers, but we've had a good run (much longer than the official servers) and in order to do things right as far as balance is concerned the only way to do that would be to wipe. Wiping is something that happens for our MC servers with regular frequency due to updates and stagnation so it's nothing new for HD. We narrowly avoided a couple of wipes through the years caused by colossal developer screw ups too, and we paid a price for both of them in how the servers were salvaged. Also consider that since we've been continuously running since the first Island server, all of the mistakes I've made in learning how to manage Ark servers (particularly early on when there was no documentation, community, or dev support) have been carried through our cluster over the years.

    And if I'm being brutally honest, I don't enjoy playing on our servers anymore which is a problem. I, more than anyone understand what a wipe entails as I have around 4,500 hours on the Ark HappyDiggers servers alone. A fresh start will be bittersweet, but in the long run I know it'll make for better servers. I've been trying to figure out what to do for about a year now, and Epimetheus has started a conversation with the community that has been long overdue.

    Nothing is set in stone yet, and I'm still working on setting up the server on my end. At this point I feel that PvE and PvP will have a place here and I'd like to move into solid modded maps more so than older DLC maps.

    Side note: 255 is for sure the max points per stat. Tested and proven personally. It can be manipulated with mods, but we don't utilize those kinds of mods.

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