This is just not entertaining. Dev's please read.

[DattoSSS 22]

As an Ark addict (3 years 3k hours) I was excited to get this game.   Unfortunately it is where Ark was in 2016 - 2017 and it is just not fun:

1. Endless Host Connection Timed Out disconnects (with a ping of 49 mind you and no measurable packet loss)
2. Uber-grindy and time consuming to craft the very basics - geared towards mega tribes 
3. OP aggressive animals with ridiculous aggro radii.  
4. No ability to increase player movement speed so cannot outrun the animals from point 3.  
5. Due to rarity of some materials I have to retrieve my corpse, which generally has the animal that killed me still there but now with full health for some reason even though I damaged it to near death.
6. Snakes, spiders and scorpions can swim underwater.  Snakes can fly when you climb rocks.
7. Tigers and wolves run faster than me
8. Spiders catch you in webs from a ridiculous distance and the groups of other animals finish you off
9. Bows do not reload properly in battle, they stall on reload and you die
10. You spend hours dying repeatedly at lower levels to get your gear back because metal is rare and exists in  different forms
11. There is a ridiculous cooldown on items when retrieved so you have no chance of fighting the animal again, and you cannot outrun it. 10 seconds cool down on the bow!
12. Animals glitch through walls so much that they destroy items inside your base through the wall, and you can actually kill them inside as they are half thru the wall.
13. It is just not entertaining, it is frustrating and disheartening to play.

Now I know there will be keyboard heroes who say 'git gud' and 'stop being salty' but this is based on playing Ark from the 1st week it was released.  The devs have dealt with all of these issues in Ark previously and should rightly have learnt from the experience.  Yes this is early access, but it is also full of early glitches from Ark that had been fixed, yet here they are again.  I would argue that this game has already seen a 3 year early access program with Ark, yet it has regressed significantly.  This should not have been released in it's current form.

 

[mndfreeze 92]

It's early access.  Literally alpha.  The entire point is to find and fix this shit.  Come back in 2 years.

[DattoSSS 22]

45 minutes ago, mndfreeze said:

It's early access.  Literally alpha.  The entire point is to find and fix this shit.  Come back in 2 years.

Reread my post.  This is Ark with a new skin.  These issues are exactly the same as what Ark had and the majority (if not all) were fixed during that early access phase.  I could fully understand if these were new issues, but they are not.  Don;t believe me search the Survive the Ark forums and you will find the same bugs.  

[Wichtelman 8]

looks like nowadays they just ignore all feedback similiar games could give and also have still no clue how to deal with massive amounts of players on their servers... that happens not just with this game...

[Thund3r 4 13]

Just a point. 

Wolves and tigers most probably can run faster than you irl so if nothing else there’s a slightest bit of realism to this game

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

3 hours ago, mndfreeze said:

It's early access.  Literally alpha.  The entire point is to find and fix this shit.  Come back in 2 years.

Bull Crap!  Did you even read his post?  Obviously not.  EA/ALPHA is not an excuse for things like this.  This game is an ARK mod whether you like it or not.  As the OP said, much of this was already addressed in ARK, so why is it back again here?   A lot of these things were simply not well thought out.  As if the devs don't even play the games they make.

Here's a clue.  How long do you think a ship will last in a shipyard, once the Mega tribes get bored?  Not long.  They will go out hunting and blowing up nearly complete Galleons, Brigantines, and Schooners.  How long do you think people will play a pirate game, when it feels more like ARK with no Dinos?   How much common sense does it take to understand that they needed to have Safe Harbors to put your ship in while you log off?  How much common sense does it take to NOT make ships decay away in one day?  It won't do that in your claim area?  Well aren't you the genius to point out another ridiculous game mechanic...if that is what you were going to say.  The simple fact is, this game is a great idea, with very poor execution.  Classify it as WTH were they thinking?

[Captain Jack Shadow 488]

1 hour ago, Thund3r 4 said:

Just a point. 

Wolves and tigers most probably can run faster than you irl so if nothing else there’s a slightest bit of realism to this game

But then the part of realism that is missing is that wild animals have learned to largely avoid human areas, as ONE...ONE arrow could kill them...not 10, or 50, or 100.  And humans also meant traps.  We don't have traps in this game.  Humans also had dogs.  We don't have dogs.  OK, well you can tame a wolf I suppose. But wait...I don't have skill points to use on taming because I am trying to spec for the inevitable combat, and also some useful skills like ship building, etc...  So let's not get into the abomination they call a skill tree.

[peter 25]

i love how the first reply was "this is EA".. this basically sums up whatever people have to say about their negative experiences (some might earn it, most dont)

EA is not a joker to disregard everything


and seriously without a roadmap which we player/community can possible change and without tools to see what is actually worked on like trello/... its not an EA.. its just an excuse to not test shit internally

Edited December 29, 2018 by peter

[Maffia 11]

5 hours ago, mndfreeze said:

It's early access.  Literally alpha.  The entire point is to find and fix this shit.  Come back in 2 years.

"This game runs better than ARK does now"

[mndfreeze 92]

13 hours ago, DattoSSS said:

Reread my post.  This is Ark with a new skin.  These issues are exactly the same as what Ark had and the majority (if not all) were fixed during that early access phase.  I could fully understand if these were new issues, but they are not.  Don;t believe me search the Survive the Ark forums and you will find the same bugs.  

 I read your post and re-read it again just now and my entire statement still stands.  Wait 2 years if you want to have a finished game.  This is not just a 'reskin' of ark.  It's common practice at game companies to:

1) use the same tools and engine, making improvements over time. This is why games "feel" the same as they go from 1 to 2 to 3 in series. Feel free to browse a fallout76 subreddit if you want to hear all about 'reusing engines' blah blah blah.  

2) use the same assets but change them around.  Just about all game devs do this.  It's faster, saves money, and depending on the story makes sense (like super mutants from 3 being in 4 and then 76).  Rarely do game companies make a new game with completely new and unique assets, code, etc.  Generally only when they make a totally new style of game.  I.e. an FPS company deciding to branch out into the RTS world.

3) It's irrelevant if some of these bugs existed in ark.  You have no idea at what point development actually started on this game vs when it was fixed in ark. Nor do you know what their development process is like on the back end.  There could be numerous reasons why they exist in its current state.  Since its early access and not a finished product they can take the time to fix things in the order they need to be fixed. Coding is not something where you can just pinpoint one specific thing and magically fix it super easy.  It could have HUGE amounts of systems that rely on that code, so fixing one "thing" from your view could be months of work.  And since this ISNT just a reskin of ark, you can't just port changes over either.  

4) most of what you complained about aren't even really bugs.  Its just balance shit.  Why you expect anything to be balanced at this point is beyond me.  Why you expect to be able to run faster than tigers and shit is beyond me.  The cooldown timers are INTENTIONAL to prevent people from doing shit like using autohotkeys to speed equip armor and weapons to get around game mechanics like only being able to have one 'back' weapon equipped.  No 2H mace speed swapping to a bow.  No running around in cloth until right when a pvp fight starts then one clicking your plate armor.  No falling off a cliff then speed equipping your glider or climbing pick.

5) The game is DESIGNED for large companies, alliances, politics and intrigue. The devs even came out and states it's not really meant for solo play before it released.  They want it to be like Eve online is.  But no matter what the game (and ALL for the most part) will always favor those who can spend the most time, pool their resources, work together, etc.  There is no way around it except to join a tribe/company.

So, again, since so many people in this thread can't seem to read. The entire point is to *FIND* and *FIX* this shit.  It's been what, 7 days?  People need to get your entitled expectations in check if you want to play  early access games.  They come with a big ass fscking disclaimer on the store page that it's alpha.  Ark is not anywhere NEAR the state now that it was in on day 7 of EA was it.  You either accept this shit is part of the experience, roll with it and help make the game better, or you wait until its done.

[MaxPower 126]

15 hours ago, DattoSSS said:

Tigers and wolves run faster than me 

Honestly, its be pretty stupid if they didn't.... 

The rest of your feedback is pretty fair but this particular one is fitting an annoying pattern I've noticed: People complaining about ANYTHING that can kill them. Look, this is a survival game... there are going to be dangers in the world and you shouldn't be able to outrun or overpower everything. 

[CyanicEmber 40]

14 hours ago, DattoSSS said:

Reread my post.  This is Ark with a new skin.  These issues are exactly the same as what Ark had and the majority (if not all) were fixed during that early access phase.  I could fully understand if these were new issues, but they are not.  Don;t believe me search the Survive the Ark forums and you will find the same bugs.  

What if it’s actually not Ark with a new skin and the amount of ground up work they did lead to some similar bugs? *gasp*

Things’ll get tuned in time.

[mndfreeze 92]

9 minutes ago, CyanicEmber said:

What if it’s actually not Ark with a new skin and the amount of ground up work they did lead to some similar bugs? *gasp*

Things’ll get tuned in time.

Get out of here with your logic and reasoning you wildcard shill!    

 

[boomervoncannon 1,541]

There is stuff that needs to be tuned and then there is stuff that plain common sense should have told you better. Look, I’m sorry, you can say “it’s EA” all day long til you’re blue in the face, but if you honestly think that after Ark official pve pillar spam, that they shouldn’t have known better than to come up with something better than the existing flag claim system ON DAY ONE, then I’m not sure you’re operating with a meaningful level of horse sense and intellectual honesty, and I do not mean that as an insult, just an observation.

Let me employ an analogy. If you’re an engineering team, and you design a car from scratch, literally a kind of car no one has seen before, and it’s a hit, that’s great. Then your team goes to design it’s second car. If the prototype for that car doesn’t have round wheels, then saying “yeah but it’s a prototype” is not an acceptable explanation.

Your team shouldn’t need to reinvent the wheel for the second car.

 

(btw, I’m the guy who started a thread warning people that EA involves lots of change, so please don’t preach to me about iterative testing and change. On some of these things it just isn’t the issue, failure to learn from past experience is)

[mndfreeze 92]

Ark was originaly designed to be a PVP game.  PVE was an afterthought that came later on because people begged for it.  The 2 systems are so vastly different in requirements for a game like this it's not surprising things don't work quite right because this also was designed to be a pvp focus'd game.  It's about land control, guild v guild, etc.

The flag system is far better than how land claim stuff was on ark.  I imagine over time the PVE specific stuff for it will get adjusted for and they will attempt to make it work but on the pvp servers the flag system is working for the most part.  99% of the posts bitching about it are solo and tiny groups mad because they are too small to contest by force and don't want to work other methods in to get land.  I've said this before and I'll say it again. DIPLOMACY WORKS.  We have many small tribes of a few people on our island that we own, that we TOOK from another guild that tried to own the whole thing.  We did it flag point by flag point.   We tax those small guilds to live on our island automatically using the bank as its intended.  They get to live here and have a single flag point, build their base, and enjoy the protection of our alliance.  We get resources as incentive for sharing.  You know how they got to live here?  They asked. They didn't sneak up on the island and try to sneak steal some claims, or just plant flags in an open spot.  I imagine you could do the same thing on PvE but people are far to hard headed to think past either taking it by force, or joining an alliance/company, or just finding some nice people  who want to build a cool city.  

There is no perfect solution to people being able to build and therefore own land and resources that will make everyone happy.  There will always be assholes who take more than they need. There will always be people who abuse methods or mechanics and choosing to play PvE limits your choices on dealing with it.  I highly doubt they are going to remove the flag system for PvE and create an entirely new, separate system for it and split the development branches of the game on a core mechanic. 

[DattoSSS 22]

Thanks to everyone for their discussion.  If this was in fact a ground up work with only the Ark engine driving it, then the devs need to communicate this and I will accept the issues as they stand and treat the game as a true early access development.

[Speedblade 11]

Definitely is Ark on the water lol.  Aggro animals need to be toned down a bit, particularly crocs who can swim faster than a shark in water and hit like a truck even at lvl 1.  The clipping through walls still happens in Ark to this day.

[Percieval 1,067]

People think this game was starting to develop 3 weeks ago? The coding was given like what? 1,5-2 years ago and GS has been taken it from there. It’s not an excuse but this game doesn’t play on the latest ARK patch, but one from years ago. 

[Domino 48]

19 hours ago, DattoSSS said:

It is just not entertaining, it is frustrating and disheartening to play.

Sounds like it might not be the game for you, and/or you don't have the understanding nor patience to participate in an Early Access release.  Perhaps you should spend a bit of time checking out other people playing it on Twitch or Youtube before you buy your next game, so you have more realistic expectations of what you're purchasing.

Not to say all your points aren't valid, because some definitely are.  But my point still stands.

Side note: I often wonder how many people post complaints about everything under the sun, and yet still continue to play.  Is there a secret cabal of witches that abducts people and forces them to play video games against their will?  If so, how can I sign up?

[psykikk 66]

20 minutes ago, Domino said:

Sounds like it might not be the game for you, and/or you don't have the understanding nor patience to participate in an Early Access release.  Perhaps you should spend a bit of time checking out other people playing it on Twitch or Youtube before you buy your next game, so you have more realistic expectations of what you're purchasing.

Not to say all your points aren't valid, because some definitely are.  But my point still stands.

Side note: I often wonder how many people post complaints about everything under the sun, and yet still continue to play.  Is there a secret cabal of witches that abducts people and forces them to play video games against their will?  If so, how can I sign up?

another fanboi or keaboard hero. 
I spent much more money on EA titles in the last years than "finished" products. 
Sad fact is that more often than not its not a big noticeable difference about what you are playing: most finished games are as bad , some are worse (looking at you , EA).

YET, EA has become a running joke and an easy excuse to stop game devs from any seemingly anf form of quality testing.
let me give you an example:
- In a game of objects, where A should not pass through B (A is a player or mob spawn and B being the game world or physical objects in the game like trees, rocks, you have it)
it is utterly imcomprehensible that glitching through stuff should even make it into a released version. 
you make an asset, you launch the engine, you test the damn thing. 
yet in most EA Games, we have glitching like no tomorrow. 

how does that have anything to do with "it´s EA, what do you expect?"
 

BEFORE they release a new feature for "testing", it should technically work.
I think EA CUSTOMERS are testing for balancing and finetuning. not core game mechanics and elements. 

In case of Atlas, they needed the input of the sheer amount of players too really tune their engine and servers. for me the game runs smoothly most of the times. 

so gflying mobs, mobs gliotching through objects, etc etc is just not acceptable, even for an EA title. thats like falling through ther game world. how that could ever happen in a customer-released product is beyond me. 

BUT: 

A lot of the issues we encounter have nothing to do with technical stuff though. its the balancing. that takes trial and error.
adjust spawn rate, test. adjust, test, etc. 
same with ressource ratios, build timers etc etc etc. 

 

[Domino 48]

1 minute ago, psykikk said:

another fanboi

I've never understood this term.  Am I supposed to be ashamed of the fact that I'm happy with what I spent my money on?  Because some of the other options (like ranting and raving like wild children because I'm not happy with my purchase) seem far less appealing to me.

I'll take "fanboi" status any day.  In fact, if I'm not a fan of the game, you probably won't see me wasting my time either playing that game nor in the forums.  Especially when it's over a whopping $25 price tag and there are literally thousands of other games I could be playing.  

Also, don't you think if everything was working, it'd be the actual release, not an early access release?  Stop and think for a moment.

BTW, here's a challenge: find me any game since the dawn of computers that is and always was bug-free.  Have fun with that.  I feel like you'll find thousands and thousands of games' forums to occupy your time.  You could even become a "keyboard warrior" and go on a crusade to let all the developers know that you're unhappy.  

[Domino 48]

10 minutes ago, psykikk said:

you make an asset, you launch the engine, you test the damn thing. 
yet in most EA Games, we have glitching like no tomorrow. 

how does that have anything to do with "it´s EA, what do you expect?"
 

BEFORE they release a new feature for "testing", it should technically work.
I think EA CUSTOMERS are testing for balancing and finetuning. not core game mechanics and elements. 

Also, that's exactly how I've always understood Early Access to be.

And since quoting Steam is important:

"What is the game like to play right now?

When you buy an Early Access game, you should consider what the game is like to play right now. Look at the screenshots and videos to see what the game looks like in its current state. There are a lot of ways a game can go as it develops over time, so if you aren't excited to play the game in its current state, then hold off and wait until the next update--it shouldn't be far off.

Sounds like you didn't follow Steam's suggestion and do your research before you purchased.

[DattoSSS 22]

5 hours ago, Domino said:

Sounds like it might not be the game for you, and/or you don't have the understanding nor patience to participate in an Early Access release.  Perhaps you should spend a bit of time checking out other people playing it on Twitch or Youtube before you buy your next game, so you have more realistic expectations of what you're purchasing.

Not to say all your points aren't valid, because some definitely are.  But my point still stands.

Side note: I often wonder how many people post complaints about everything under the sun, and yet still continue to play.  Is there a secret cabal of witches that abducts people and forces them to play video games against their will?  If so, how can I sign up?

Just so you know, I mostly play EA games.  I am very conversant with the development process and I as I stated I played Ark religiously since week one.  The developers rely on people like you to be happy with the next shiny thing irrespective of the obvious fact that this was released without any consideration of the leanings from the Ark development process.  I have seen all of these bugs, all of these complaints, and all of these arguments before in Survive The Ark forums. Thanks for your response, but I don't agree with you.  Prior to release the developers should have at least upgraded the coding to minimise the issues already patched in Ark. You are welcome to pay good money for an EA game that carries the sins of the father if you want, but it is the time loss I don't like as my time is valuable, and re-visiting bugs that have already been sorted in a prior development of the same code is a waste.

[Realist 504]

On 12/29/2018 at 4:45 AM, DattoSSS said:

As an Ark addict (3 years 3k hours) I was excited to get this game.   Unfortunately it is where Ark was in 2016 - 2017 and it is just not fun:

1. Endless Host Connection Timed Out disconnects (with a ping of 49 mind you and no measurable packet loss)
2. Uber-grindy and time consuming to craft the very basics - geared towards mega tribes 
3. OP aggressive animals with ridiculous aggro radii.  
4. No ability to increase player movement speed so cannot outrun the animals from point 3.  
5. Due to rarity of some materials I have to retrieve my corpse, which generally has the animal that killed me still there but now with full health for some reason even though I damaged it to near death.
6. Snakes, spiders and scorpions can swim underwater.  Snakes can fly when you climb rocks.
7. Tigers and wolves run faster than me
8. Spiders catch you in webs from a ridiculous distance and the groups of other animals finish you off
9. Bows do not reload properly in battle, they stall on reload and you die
10. You spend hours dying repeatedly at lower levels to get your gear back because metal is rare and exists in  different forms
11. There is a ridiculous cooldown on items when retrieved so you have no chance of fighting the animal again, and you cannot outrun it. 10 seconds cool down on the bow!
12. Animals glitch through walls so much that they destroy items inside your base through the wall, and you can actually kill them inside as they are half thru the wall.
13. It is just not entertaining, it is frustrating and disheartening to play.

Now I know there will be keyboard heroes who say 'git gud' and 'stop being salty' but this is based on playing Ark from the 1st week it was released.  The devs have dealt with all of these issues in Ark previously and should rightly have learnt from the experience.  Yes this is early access, but it is also full of early glitches from Ark that had been fixed, yet here they are again.  I would argue that this game has already seen a 3 year early access program with Ark, yet it has regressed significantly.  This should not have been released in it's current form.

 

Don’t worry, I am neither a “git gud” person, nor a “stop being salty” person, and I am most definitely not a early access excuse giver. 

I am however someone that it going to tell you that you bought a wildcard game and you should have known better than to do that in the first place.

you being with ark since the beginning, you don’t have to git gud or stop being salty, but you do have to deal with it. You chose to buy a wildcard product so you are at fault for the level of enjoyment you are currently experiencing. Lesson learned. Time to deal with it

[Rellom 15]

The game has already taken a severe blow and continues to decline, there will be no one left by the time it is playable.