ARK: Survival Evolved

ARK: Survival Evolved

Skies of Nazca
Kodiak 29 Apr, 2017 @ 11:12pm
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So friend decided to run this map on another server. Here's a list of things I found while playing. I know a big update was released today, if that fixes some of these things great.

1. Biggest issue I noticed was the terrain pop in. There's much of the world that simply "pops in" when you get close enough. An example is the bridge on the SW side of the main landmass in that canyon. It's there, but not until you get too close. The lake to the east has the same issue with a large rock in the middle of it. This happens all over and in a few cases I've gotten stuck in them such as a Raft on the SW side of the main landmass where a rock suddenly popped in trapping me and my raft there.

2. Many of the spawns seem wacky. For example Ovis are very common on the south beach where there's no predators. The whole point of the Ovis being near equal to Kibble is they are on an incredibly difficult to survive location on Island (northern mountains) and die a lot. There wasn't a time I couldn't just pop on down to the south coast, grab 2-3 sheep, and mutton tame for days. Other areas like the redwoods lack redwoods biome style spawns such as Thylaco and such. I read all about Deathworms at Mt Doom and saw absolutely nothing there for Deathworms. Many of the Mosasaur and Testotuthis spawns are too high so they just sit there and you pelt them or kill them. Deep sea creatures on the eastern edge of the map (Amenonaes and Euryptids) are all above Basilosaurus non-crushing depth. Basic things like Wooly Rhinos (Broth of Enlightenment) and Mammoths (huge now after wood changes) seem non-existent. I'm know they're hidden away, but why there's a huge snow area that doesn't use anything snow related spawn wise. The mountain spawns all just get trapped in the mountain's divets. The Dagger for example is one big flat area and many pockets of random dinos/trees where they are stuck. Same for the mountain to the south of that (with Rock Golems on it).

3. The large waterfall canyon to the west of the Volcano that has the 3 biomes in it (cave, winter cave, and then some sort of scorched earth) spawns things that (on 1 difficulty) spawn up to 300 and can be flown into, pulled out of the cave, AND tamed. Hello super dinos.

4. Many of the caves are very buggy. For example the "Pack" cave half the things spawn above it rather than on the floor meaning you can run right on down to the artifact, grapple hook back up. Also the entrance of that cave can be buggy and cause you to get stuck because you're swimming but you're not so you can't move unless you come at it entirely from the floor of the water. The split cave under the Volcano is hit or miss. The frozen side is very challenging with 200-300 direwolves and yetis but the loot is only blue loot crates. The other side you can fly a Pteranadon into and loot 4-5 yellow loot crates without ever taking a scratch cause everything is pooled below. Any spawns fall off the ledges there into the numerous canyons/pools below leaving only a single area with spawns (that contains nothing of value). The tall cavern above the Artifact of the Pack (I forget which Artifact, Devourer?) you can't fly a Wyvern into from above, but you can fly a Wyvern in from the ground entrance. Rubble golem? Oh noes, fly over it.

5. Wyverns are, frankly speaking, completely broken. Soon as you trigger their spawn on our server they immediately fly off to the west abandoning their single nest. This made gettings eggs a total joke since they just fly off abandoning their spawns. Wait an hour, repeat. Not sure if they are too high or what but it's just broken.

6. Much of the world is unbuildable. Many "cool" locations for bases are basically impossible to build in because can't find a ground location to snap to.

7. Many of the custom cliffs that are added to the game teleport you up top when you stand under their cliff edges. Great examples I ran into (and fell to my death) were at "horse shoe island" south or in Bzarka that is crescent shaped where originally I wanted a base along that cliff up the ramp only to find the ramp unbuildable and if you stand under the cliff you get teleported up top. This same thing happened at the area in between Bzarka and Mt Doom where the Arthulopods and Vultures spawn.

8. Obelisks are, simply put, annoying to get to. We run a server cluster and traveling to and fro between servers basically requires beacons, of which there's like 3-4 beacon spawns. Couldn't even build on the White Obelisk area which is the only one not surrounded by the "standard" map spawn that seems to cover 50% of the map of Carnos, Thorny Dragons, Argies, etc. There's zero underwater beacons so transferring water dinos is basically impossible. Since most Bosses require multiple Rexes to complete, trying to truck 20 Rexes to the Red beacon would be an unimagineable chore.

9. Finally, respawning seems random anytime you choose it. I chose Hatchet Isla and ended up west side of the Dragon's Tail. Many areas are extremely hostile to start out in. Not sure why an area like the northern coast isn't an option since ultimately I ended up there to start out with in peace. Many too many hostile spawns in areas that you spawn in with feels like beyond the usual raptor threat.