Captain Jack Shadow

Oh, and with fish, it's even worse. It normally takes two shots to kill a fish, minimum. Occasionally one will die with one shot. If it doesn't die with one, it swims away from you, and several shots stick to the tail, but don't register. Meanwhile the fish is healing as those shots fail to register, so it takes more actual hits. Next, they will then make another boneheaded decision by reducing how many arrows you can recover. I don't hate the devs. I hate that they seem to be stupid and stubborn all at once.

I stopped reading there. That post is not to be taken seriously. This game does nothing better than ARK did. And the Devs aren't talking about what will fix the problems, and instead go backwards, like 40 shots per bow, when easily 1/3 of the shots don't even register as hits. They seem to be stubborn, and dead set on proving everyone wrong. People left for a reason, and it wasn't because this game does anything better than ARK.

Because your company will be smaller than what the Devs expect on official, also look for one that gives a lot more skill points per level.

Just move to an unofficial server. Companies are too small there to be able to abuse you like the Megas do. I am here to tell you that I played Official, then moved to unofficial. It is SO much better when you find a good unofficial. Look for one that is not boosting the rates out of this world. No more than 5x is good. Then look for one that has a good community. The land is not over populated, and they can't enforce as much land because they don't have 500 people to patrol it. So most take several flags, near their base, and leave it at that. I assure you that a 3x3 map plays quite well. It's more than big enough. I've traveled more on that than I did on official.

I will petition our server admin to undo this madness.

I think the key is to spam your area with 3x3 structures, with windows and doors. When you spot a predator, alpha or not, retreat to one of them, and now you can shoot without getting bitten, which is good because now the predator doesn't get that ridiculous heal it gets when it bites you. No bite, no heal. Same as shooting them from the water. Throw a bed in them to make them a convenient spawn point to recover your stuff when killed. Add a box with another bow and some arrows to deal with the predator that killed you.

I'm close to demanding a refund also. I want to give them time, but they just keep going in the wrong direction. Now, they want to nerf the already weak bow and arrow. It's like they don't understand what's wrong with their game. I am just about done with it. Going to start looking for a new game to play. I have not bought it yet, but friends suggest RDR2, since I love a good single player with a good story.

Yes, the 3x3 we play on, has a bill of around $200 per month. The ARK cluster we are on has 5 ARKs, and is around 60 per month.

Ugandan Navy Seal...now that's a real accomplishment. LOL But, by your description, you are pepega. You have zero debating skills, so you resort to ad hominem, which is the ammunition of those who have no valid argument. It doesn't speak highly of Ugandan Seals if you think attacking an undefended base is a real challenge. But I don't think Ugandan Seals are actually in the top 100 respected fighting forces...if they even exist, and even if they do, I highly doubt you are one. Likely a kid in mom's basement.

Speak English. Are you one of those kids you deludes themselves into thinking that attacking AI...easily bypassed AI, is actually PvP? smh

I've seen better action on private servers than on official. Most of these have rules on how to PvP, that make the PvP actually PvP. Too many people delude themselves into thinking they actually accomplished something when they raid an undefended base. Truth is, that is NOT pvp. You get a better challenge from a good, professionally designed level in a single player game. Bases in ARK were not hard to raid when the owners were offline. It was simply a process. Not even a hard process. Got beer, flak, shield and C4? Got Stegos? Easy peasy. It's a simple process everyone knew, thanks to Youtube and Twitch. ORP, and rules that force you to actually PvP, if you want to PvP...that's a real challenge. Especially because the tribes tended to be smaller, and thus roughly the same size.

Play on an unofficial server where the owner is smart enough to undo this madness. The bow should not be nerfed. It's already nerfed. It needed a boost, not a nerf. We are looking at doing our own server, and I assure you that even if it takes a mod, we will have bows, and maybe even crossbows, that do realistic damage, meaning as much as a pistol. I will also look for a mod that removes the absurd minigame for the loading of pistols, and all weapons. This of course will remove those options from the skill tree. For me, those things remind me this is a game. Too arcadey. I want a realistic feeling battle, not one that forces me to place some weird minigame while fighting. I also expect somebody to make a mod that makes the skill tree make sense. Like, for instance, the first skill allows you to make and use pistols at a basic level. Then they split with one side dedicated to improved usage, and the other side to improved crafting. I would expect that you will no longer have to go deep into one tree to unlock each skill tree. Being a Mariner has nothing to do with boat building.

I think most people are aware of this. I think the people have a hard time articulating their frustration. I do not. I have tried to tell people, but too many do not want to listen. So let me spell it out once again. People do not mind assets being reused and reskinned. They simply don't want to play ARK with Pirates. Too much focus is on battling wolves, snakes, tigers, etc... BORING and FRUSTRATING all at once. The Alphas need to be removed from the main islands, to the boss Islands. Spawning very rarely on the main Islands, OK, but not like now where they are everywhere you look. Second, stop with the OP animals from level 2 to 60. They are absurd. Voracious eaters that do nothing but run from one thing to the next, eating. It's beyond immersion breaking. Take the focus off battling those for good XP. Put more things to discover, and boost the XP for gathering, crafting, and building. Allow people to spend most of their time on boats, at sea. This what they came for, but this is not what they got, and 3 out of 4 refuse to play, and many are gone for good. Add in ORP for ships that are undefended. Add alarms for ships under attack. Your first clue should not be a death message for an AI crewman, followed 60 seconds later by message that your ship was sunk. If you are away from the ship, allow it to have a buff such that another ship won't want to fire at it. Not until the ORP buff is gone. Give us the ability to put AI crewman in the crow's nest with 360 degree awareness, to alert you of approaching enemies. Allow us to fast travel back to the ship with our armor, weapons and gear, but not stuff we have gathered. Make that drop into a chest to be discovered by others, or recovered by us, say within 24 or 72 hours. Nothing wrong with the fun of discovering free resources somebody dropped, but couldn't get back to. Adds to the fun of the game. Give us home ports with AI so powerful, you CANNOT get past them, at all. We want to fight at sea with our ships, not get them blown up while we sleep, or are inland at our main base. This does not mean your port should not be able to be raided. The protection should just be very nasty for anyone who tries to damage the ship. Might not be necessary if while in the port area, the structure of the ship, other than the doors and hatches, are invulnerable. This would mean you can be raided, just not destroyed. Allow for containers and stations to be broken into without destroying them. Often, people raid you in ARK, and only take a small amount of your stuff, but everything is gone because the bags disappear in 30 minutes. Would be nice if a raid didn't cost you everything you worked for. The issue, for the TLDR crowd is that people don't want to play ARK. They don't want the focus being so much on fighting wolves, tigers and snakes for the XP. And they don't want to spend so much time gathering and building forts. They want to be on the water, in cool ships, fighting, and having a good time exploring. Take a cue from Star Citizen. 9 of 10 ships you see will be NPC's. This allows for everyone to shoot at stuff, without half the people being winners, and half being losers. Like it or not, people don't play games to be your target, to be your punching bag. They play for their own enjoyment. I know many old friends you used to PvP with me, who can't be bothered with PvP these days, because it's so toxic, and so focused on large clans led by some streamer. They only play Single player games, or dabble in PvE. 50% of the online gamers, are now doing PvE, or close to it. I am starting to believe that this is the only way to go in this game, at the moment, because there is NO way to protect your stuff, without a large online presence around the clock.

Games need balance. While they can't add more servers, at least not right now. Games however, need balance, and there simply is no balance when Megas have hundreds of people, and can run roughshod over small companies. Not everyone wants to be in a huge company. This does not make them antisocial. If anything, they are social, but want to actually game with people they know, and add new friends slowly. When a Company gets too big, it gets to the point that you don't really know anybody. Or, well you have a handful of people you know, and like, but the rest you just don't actually know. So, this is one of the reasons that it sucks for the little guy in a big Company. The leader promotes people to leaders, and these tend to be his friends, or become his friends. Thus, it becomes a bit of a clique, even in the best companies. So many choose to avoid that by forming their own company, with their friends. Maybe 5 to 50, maybe even 100 people. But they have no chance against a company that has ten times those numbers, or more. For the 4 to 20 member companies, a private server is a good option. But 50 to 100 is pushing it because their numbers may be too high to allow for a well populated unofficial server, AND opponents to fight. If it's PvE, they are golden, because you don't really need people to fight against.

So long as that boost is across the range, those who know how to sail, will still beat those who do not. I do however, think they should run multiple servers, with the easier modes on one server, and the harder modes on the other. I will stick with Unofficial. We will be able to alter those things, and I will vote for it being removed. If the settings don't allow it, look for a mod to be made, and will likely be called something like, "Classic Sailing," or something similar.

I see no problem with it. But, it depends on how much and what is given. I would not want to play on a server that is straight pay to win, but, I wouldn't want to play on a server that disappears because the bill didn't get paid. So, for instance, maybe they get a schooner with no cannons or ammo. Just the shell and decks. It's not OP, but it is a reward. If I don't pay, I should be happy that he did, and he deserves a reward for providing a place for me to play. I think there should be a sliding scale,with multiple options at each level of donation. And it should be things that enhance the person's game, without making them the alpha with what they are given. No Brigantines, and no Galleons. No big cannons, etc...No OP tames. Something that could work is to get a set number of stone structures...or the resources to make those. All you are doing is getting more defense, but no offense out of it. Maybe even very good treasure maps could be spawned, and given to the person. You still have to go do it. I think that's up to each server owner and his admins. I just don't see anything wrong with the people who help keep the server up, getting a reward to do so. Everything should be public, however. Who paid, how much they paid, and what they earned for it. This keeps server admins from trying to make money off the server, by taking in more donations than are needed, and not being honest that there is a surplus for future server bills. This. Those who pay deserve something for paying your way in the game, if you are also playing on that server. The owner just needs to keep it balanced in some way, or make sure the stuff is not too OP. Either way, nobody is holding a gun to your head, forcing you to play on that server.

What is that map he has up. It appears to be a map that shows where his, and everybody else's land claims are, or is that something else?

You need ORP. We aren't even on the high population official servers. We are on unofficial, but our most recent experience shows how flawed the game design is. Let's not get into how the warped animal system drastically slows down resource gathering. Despite that, we eventually got a Brigantine built for our ten man Company. We set sail, and hit a couple of treasure spots, and sank a level 5 SotD. As we were arriving back at our island, we learned that one of our allies was just attacked, and their sloop sank by a schooner. We engaged the schooner, and damaged it, but we were heavy, and a storm popped up at that moment, allowing them to escape. Was a fun experience. So then as we started to park the ship, the AI attacked a raft that was near where we made our port. It was no match for a 6 gun broadside. The leader whistled the AI to passive, from neutral. We still aren't sure why they attacked the raft while on neutral. Anyway, we apologized to the Company, and would have replaced the raft, but they said it was cool. So, the very next day, as most of the ten were taking a break, 2 of us were online, at our base further inland, doing some gathering. We see a death message. We didn't recognize the name, but it was one of the NPC crew on the ship. We had set them back to neutral to defend the ship. A few were set to do repairs. Anyway, as we are trying to figure out if this was a new recruit we did not know, we see more red flash on the screen. Our ship has been sunk. We go down there, spawning into beds nearby with no armor or weapons, and find the guy responsible...he's on a bear. The issue here isn't that he was on land, or at sea...it's that he was able to sink a Brigantine by himself, somehow. Without people to play 24/7, this game has no adequate ability to defend your stuff. Not that ARK had adequate defenses either. It was a simple easy process to take down an undefended base. This is completely unacceptable. People did not come here to play ARK with Pirates. We don't want to sink ships at anchor, or have our sank in this manner. We want to fight on the high seas. The fight against the schooner was fun. But, unfortunately, this game just doesn't offer enough of that kind of fun. How about adding NPC cargo ships for people to go pirate, so they have something to do besides sink other player's undefended ships.

Wouldn't work for us. We would have to split into two tribes of 5, and then ally, but that then defeats the steam rolling, as we would have 10 to everyone's 5. Good idea though. I like the idea of different servers like this to fit everyone's needs.

Join us on Booty Bay. It is only 3x gathering, but they do give you enough skill points to end up with most or all of the skills by the time you max out, which is important for unofficial, since you won't likely have more than a dozen people in your company. They also allow unlimited respec. We play there, and I think we will approach them about starting our own server, and doing a handshake with them, that will allow us to connect the servers. There's is 3x3, and we will likely do the same. Honestly, that is huge. Not as huge as official, but just how far do you think you will actually travel around on official, without getting blasted out of the water? If you are interested, you can join our crew.

We will fix that with a mod, or server settings. Stupid dev decisions won't kill the game with the dev kit on the way.

BTW, I don't think they need to change the bow and arrow much, but they do need to boost the strong arm skill's effect. I have spec'd that, but the bow and arrow is still pathetically weak. You should NOT have to use fire arrows to make it worth using.

This feat system of special attacks is wonky. An F key is not the way to go. It should be one key for all weapons, since you only have one weapon type in use at a time. Most games do not use the scroll wheel for an attack, so that takes getting used to, and does not come naturally to those of us who have played combat games for decades. Not saying this is wrong, but it will take getting used to. But, this does not change the fact that animals are just too aggressive, and too powerful. I did NOT come to this game to fight animals all the time. It is seriously draining my interest in the game. And the XP points for gathering, crafting, and building, need to be boosted significantly. We have paid attention to this, and the only real boost you get when trying to level up, is when you kill things. The game forces you to move to the advanced areas once you reach level 8. Just an FYI if you were unaware of this. Oh, and while we have a good stone base now, an Alpha rattle snake somehow got in and killed our lion.

Yesterday, I shot a wolf with two pistols. Two hits. I had to finish it off with my bow and arrow. This wolf?...it was a level 4. I was quite disappointed. One was not a headshot as the wold literally spun 90 degrees to go around something. Should not matter. Animals die just fine when shot in the side, or gut area, and can't run when hit in the leg. Stop making it all about head shots. And an FYI, lions don't jump 50 or 100 feet in real life. In fact, they aren't really that good at jumping. I do see a difference at times in the level of a wolf. I was hit by a level 60 as I fled to the water. It took over half my health in one hit. This game is completely out of balance. Animals are unrealistically hard to kill, while ships are unrealistically easy to sink. Thus, most of my focus is on recovering my metal tools, guns, armor, and what I have mined so far. I know that the island I play on exacerbates this because it is one of the largest islands in the game, and has a lot of mountains, forcing all of the creatures into the valleys that you must traverse and gather resources in. As you do this, you often have no warning that wolves, or lions are charging you. It takes so long to mine one rock, that by the time you get done mining it, a set of wolves that were chasing something else, then aggro to you, and you turn to see fangs. Meanwhile, as we are taking resources to our base...me and one of the other Company Admins...we see a death message. As we try to figure out who this level 2 person was that was killed, we see a new message telling us our ship was sunk. Yeah...we got to go out one day and actually have fun with that ship before ONE guy destroyed it from shore, while none of use were there to operate it. So...this is our history in the game so far. We buy the game when it goes on sale. We set up in a lawless area to build a ship. We build a Brigantine. Much PvP happens and we have to repair the ship many times. We eventually get the ship finished, and set sail to find a claim. First voyage lasts minutes as we are swarmed by SotD. Members quit, and some get a refund. The remainder go to an unofficial. We find one that turns out to be very toxic, so we leave and find a better one. We start to get a base going, but before that's even done, people who were there from the start, and thus higher level, attack with superior weapons, and spec'd for combat. We were spec'd to get things done. The results are obvious. So we set up in a different spot, and get into stone, and develop a decent base. Then we start in on a new brigantine. We get it done, and fully outfitted. We set sail, and sink a SotD, and do a little exploring. Then, the next day (yesterday), our ship was sunk by one guy, while it sat there, near shore. So now we have to go smash rocks, and wack trees & plants to get enough to build another ship, and cannons, and ammo. In short, this game is not fun, and not what I thought I was getting into. If it does not get ORP for the ships...ORP that defends it when no crew is within a set distance, then I will leave it, and make sure everyone I know, understands that it is 99% grind, and 1% fun. Alpha animals need to be moved to boss Islands. Animals need to be more realistic in their weaknesses, not just their strengths. They should not heal while in combat. AI crew need to expertly operate the ship...near impenetrable defense, or ORP for the ship. One man should not be able to sink a large ship. Game needs a reputation system, with harsh penalties for earning the title of outlaw, most wanted pirates, etc... Skill tree is an abomination. Needs totally reworked. Need to be able to spec into multiple things at the same time. In other words, skill points only for combat types, and you choose which style of combat is for you. The skill tree should be divided into an occupation, a talent, and a combat style, with points dedicated to just that tree. Bow and arrows should not be nerfed. One arrow can kill you the same as one bullet, in real life. Range is the difference, and noise. The Bow and Arrow should be mostly silent, while the gun is very loud. And the bow is faster to reload. Right now, the bow is nerfed to the point of being near useless.

Because all large clans operate this way. The leaders have the fun, the slaves smash rocks, in the hopes of some PvP action later, which likely isn't even going to be PvP, because it will likely be against an undefended target, or a very lightly defended target. And how are you spec'd? With as restrictive as they have the skill tree, you won't likely be well spec'd for combat if they are asking you to do other things, "for the good of the company."