Clan-mates have green names, others have white names. Agreed that’s not the most obvious distinction, especially since the name tags only render about 5 meters away. (Longer distance name tags are in the patch on test.)
We can have group PvP, we just need to cause some trouble with each other. ;-) ;-)
The server is an interesting experiment that just because full PvP is on all of the time does not that people will randomly kill each other. In fact, we are all pretty well behaved.
Ok, but it doesn’t have to be about max efficiency. Even a single extra furnace will effectively double the speed that you can convert stone to brick. Or you can have one furnace working on brick while another works on iron. Furnaces are very easy to build, so why make things harder than necessary? :)
After playing way too much of this, I’ll provide my take on it. I started out solo and then switched to multi-player PVE, I have no PVP experience.
I don’t mind the harvest/craft/build part of the game. The progression in this regard seems really good. Higher end items can take a lot of material, and this is where a clan can really help. I ended up stopping my solo game because of the cost here. Certainly doable solo if you have the patience, but when you have a few people helping it is a lot faster.
Building can be a bit quirky, and I really wish they gave you the option to pick everything you place back up within a short period of time (10-15 minutes). I find it tricky to place some things correctly, and for many items the only way to try again is to dismantle and build a new one.
Regular PVE combat is okay. I found most of the opponents pretty bland. More damage sponges rather than tactics. Not that there aren’t some tricks, but for the most part it is combo then dodge/block and repeat until dead. Shield opponent gave me the most problems until I found the axe.
Bosses are a real mix. Some of them are really easy, and some can be a bit challenging. It feels like they are meant to be done while leveling up, but I didn’t fight most of them until after I hit 60. This made several of them feel completely underwhelming. Not sure how they fix this. Some can be a lot of fun, our clan had a great time taking down a dragon one evening.
World bosses are a mix. I solo farm several of them now. The easiest takes me between 5 and 10 minutes. If it will take me more than about 15 minutes to kill one, I don’t have the patience. You might be able to solo them all, but there are a couple that would be extremely difficult or take forever (at least for me).
I do think the end game gear progression is broken. All world bosses share the same loot table, so you can get anything by just farming the easier world bosses. The various high end gear pieces are also very similar, so there doesn’t feel like very much end game gear progression.
The world is pretty cool. There are certainly a lot of areas to explore, and I’m constantly finding something I didn’t see before. The ghosts can be interesting and even surprising. @Spect and I were running around one evening and found some ghosts that had a bit of a timing puzzle attached to them. I wasn’t expecting that type of thing in this game.
Loot, aside from the legendary world boss loot, is very boring. Figuring out a puzzle or clearing a camp, only to find 15 stone and 30 plant fibers in a chest is underwhelming. You definitely have to appreciate the journey more than the “reward” here.
With respec potions being pretty cheap, I use two builds, one for fighting and light harvesting and one for dedicated harvesting. An encumbrance/survival build can make harvesting runs way more time efficient. I should have a 100% fighting build, but haven’t had the patience for that.
Certainly happy I bought it and I’ve had a great time with it. I didn’t play Ark, so I don’t know how it compares to that. I think there is a lot of fun to be had. If you don’t like to harvest/craft/build, then I’d highly suggest you join an active clan that can mitigate that need (we are happy to take you on Kono’s server). Solo is certainly viable for almost everything (maybe everything).
Yeah, on a different PvP server I’ve noted the same. I think people are in survive and build mode now. PvP will probably be more rampant when players on the server are at the higher end of things and less interested in building. Then I expect to see some random rampaging and stomping.
Of course I don’t know what there is to do after you’ve built the Taj Mahal? Maybe there are still interesting PvE challenges that will keep the players from becoming bored.
I walked into my sandstone building last night and a player I hadn’t seen followed me in. I was startled. We stared at each other and then said hi, and then the player said, “Can you let me out?” And that was it – my first potential PvP encounter was the equivalent of a neighbor bringing me cookies.
I agree 100% with @Effidian and the recap he provided. I’ll also add that I think the “end game” was not finished. The final bosses are lacking any tactics. In one case, what should be one of the hardest bosses in the game, the first time we killed it, it took about 3 swings of Effidian’s axe. The next time we went back, the boss literally just fell over dead when we walked up to it. Completely broken.
Endgame pve is lacking polish for sure. Im hopeful a few patches will fix some issues.
Namely purge working, volcano mob ai and loot table, etc.
This is a picture of our second settlement, which we call either “Iron Town” or “Second Town” or sometimes “The Riddle of Steel” (since this is where we figured out how to make steel). It houses the 10 people in the clan. Its along a main road, so we kept the road open. I run a public tavern that offers free food to whomever comes by. We have most temples, and inside of the secure craft hall are most crafting stations. It grew organically over about one week. We started the settlement where we first found Iron Stone. Its where we learned about connected foundations and guard thralls.
Nice! I never have the dedication nor proper planning to ever pull off cool bases like that. I just plow through and place buildings when I need them to house stations or storage to satisfy the next thing I want to unlock or craft.
There is a really awesome place where I have my current setup where across the water there is a camp with over 1000 ironstone to harvest each cycle. You can get maybe 300 without fighting anything, but if you take out the 3-4 NPCs in the camp, you can harvest almost 1000 more. Short run inland to grab some brimstone and coal, if you want it, and you can get some steel making up quite easily.
The part that concerns me perhaps as i get into into greater time sinks with this game (10 ironstone to make 5 iron bars, which together with tar and brimstone in another process now make 1 steel bar) is theft/raiding. Yes, you can lock boxes, but stations cant be locked and so i can see things devolving into it’s easier for someone to steal steel than it is to make it. Or steal a thrall or even to steal someone’s armor or weapons…you get my point. ANd the only recourse against it would be to make everything completely enclosed…ugh.
Yes, I am curious too about the best way to secure my stuff. I can lock it in a house in a locked chest, but that seems a bit inadequate.
play solo offline :)
Or on a passworded chill server (shamless qt3 plug).
Effidan and i did some purge testing on the qt3 server lastnight. The clan bar was full but nothing was starting (known bug) so we used admin commands.
First purge hit the site of our first base which i had long since torn down. Apparently i missed a foundation so the purge targeted that. We fought waves of hyenas and werhyenas for about 30min. Not difficult at all due to us being max level in good gear. We destroyed the remaining foundation after.
Second purge tried to spawn spiders at our middle base. This purge bugged and resolved itself within 10 seconds (known bug).
Third and last purge spawned at kelans southern river base which we did not expect. Eff and i booked it down there to save his riverfront abode. Again it was hyenas. We observed the ai behavior this time and learned some things.
Seemed to be three possible vicinity spawn points a wave might appear at and travel in to base from. They would attack and destroy the first player structure they encountered. A single wave of 10 enemies made quick work of kelans sandstone fence wall. Once a hole was open some mobs came through and went for the main structure. One hyena was doing 30 damage to a wall (7000HP) every 2 seconds.
Kelan had no thrall guards to observe behavior/strength vs the purge. We finished the waves and repaired the damage. It was clear the whole place would have been razed if no one was around.
I thought the purge mobs were quite good with decent ai. Far north purges might pose a challenge. I hope this gets patched soon to iron out the trigger issues.
Purge are currently set to occur 6 to 10 pst weekdays and 10 to 10 pst on weekends. 10 minutes to prep, 30 min duration. Minimum of one player online.
Any feedback on settings from interested parties is welcome.
Hah! I expected to log on today and see everything gone and was just going to make the trek north after. I just got 3 thralls ready too and placed them just now, but they weren’t ready last night.
Thanks, guys!
You should have at least raided my stuff and took the 200 steel I had, lol.
1.4 Million copies sold so far.
Hot damn i need to beef up security on my place :P Two thralls probably not enough. Sounds like fun though.
@milspec your server is coming up as invalid now - guess that means i’m patched and you’re not…Also, we had our first murder on the server last night! lol…it was accidental though…My buddy and i ran into Folly close to the arena and we set out to explore the spider cave near there. He was slashing away at a skeleton and hacked through my buddy that was attacking the skele too…awkward.
so, by not excluding, does that mean including refunds? lol…
Ya, missed the patch due to sleeping in, should be good now.
Apologies.
Has anyone ventured onto the PS4 with this yet? I’m still ever so intrigued by this, especially with that 20% PS store coupon, but I have dozens of games backed up already. Must fight…the temptation…
Nope, still coming up as invalid…
