ark-2

[stray elm]

"Prepare to face the terrifying forces lurking in the Abyss as you unravel the origin story of Element"

[blissful perch]

Oh that’s a hoot

[stray elm]

So it's fucking Snail Games that'll be handling the very, very touchy subject of Elments origin. Not an actual writer from Wildcard's team.

[blissful perch]

Would you want it any other way?

[stray elm]

I'm calling it now.
They're gonna fumble so hard with this, that Wildcard wont accept this being canon.

[blissful perch]

Can you fumble what you never caught?

[stray elm]

Yes

[stray elm]

Yes

[blissful perch]

Prefumble

Cause it’s a fumble before it starts to say “let’s make new content as a dlc to ase” lol

[stray elm]

Honestly, that's not as much of an issue compared to Snail Games making the new content

[blissful perch]

It’s a waste of time to release anything for that buggy mess imo

Though I also find it weird that wc is not developing…their own game in any sense

I suppose the question of “will this be made to pressure wc to add it to Asa” has to be asked

[stray elm]

I have been informed that they stated on a post that this isn't canon

So I am even more confused of why they're wasting time and resources in making a narrative that isn't going to matter.

[blissful perch]

The narrative imo is less interesting than the creation of what is well known to be a potential dlc priority (oceans and aquatic gameplay) for even ark 2…by not wc

Though kinda wack to put a key prequel narrative into ASE at this point around the same time as lost colony…seems very weird

[agile panther]

weird side note, do y'all think the song "We'll be fine" would be good for Helena, Rockwell and the MC?

[stray elm]

Not for The Survivor or Rockwell.

[agile panther]

why so?

[stray elm]

Don't think the tone of the song fits either.

Rockwell is deranged, and The Survivor is more protagonist energy.
I can see it slightly fitting Helena though.

[agile panther]

my mind it had Athena as Helena, the survivor as Telemachus and Rockwell as Odysseus

[fathom crag]

GUY

[agile panther]

i mean it's Helena pretty much reflecting on how she failed with Rockwell and how she should have been better, which is how she feels in canon

[arctic plover]

Keep waiting for ARK 2... lol. When it comes out it will already be surpassed by too many games that are the same or better than ARK Survival Evolved, since Ascended is nothing more than a remake just to make money. I gave up a long time ago, I'm just following here to have a laugh...

[ripe flicker]

Ok

[blissful perch]

…are there any such games out right now or are slated to come out? If so, would love you to recommend them so I can play them XD

[fresh saffron]

"I am just merely here to watch you all suffer!" 🤓 ☝️

[white pasture]

Peak

"I am the wolf and everyone else is the sheep.." ahh

[tribal chasm]

I honestly just want to see something in Ark be difficult again. Like, something you have to really prep for, have to use skill to complete

Ark 2 should have some content which allows certain tribes/players to stand out over other tribes. Maybe the bosses at the very least requiring minimal mechanics / cheese strategies removed

[sterile knot]

A leaderboard is what everyone wanted, such as how many times a tribe defeated bosses.

[untold ingot]

Why would that be interesting

[spice cloud]

Isn’t the nemesis mod notorious for being extremely difficult?

[blissful perch]

Difficult how matters a lot

Mechanically difficult? Tedious difficult?

[untold ingot]

Difficult to keep playerbase?

[fallen fiber]

its a 10 year ase anniversary dlc

[shell lintel]

anything on ark 2?

[blissful perch]

do you realize how dumb that sounds considering there is an ase "remaster" which could easily host said 10 year anniversary dlc (and is already getting a new story map on said 10 year anniversary)?

ark 2 coming out on the 10 year makes sense. Content for asa makes sense. Content on the currently unsupported ASE is just laughable

[fallen fiber]

its just not the same....

[blissful perch]

It’s objectively the same game…

The entire irritation of half the people in the ark 2 chat is that so much effort is going into yet another ark 1 lol

[true viper]

Story hints coming with Lost Colony. Meeka is in the trailer.

[stray elm]

Technically her voice is, not her herself. 🤓
Sorry, had to pull an "umm acshually"

[true viper]

Dawg

[latent grail]

yo is this shit ever coming out

[shell lintel]

meeka?

[shell lintel]

"actually" sorry had to do that

[stray elm]

ashhhhhulay

[shell lintel]

lol

[coral urchin]

Is there more people hoping that the engram system should be a little more complex?
Like quests/missions or accomplishments to unlock certain engrams.
I really hoping for some more live game, not only Bosses to do, but side quests and so on. As soon as you defeated the Bosses in asa, the game is dead and just waiting on the next map.

[elder snow]

Y’all are praying for a game that will never come out and if it does it will be just as half baked as asa

[fiery sonnet]

I guess they don't even got ark 2 in their plans

[fiery sonnet]

Very low chances

[harsh spear]

does ASA work with unreal nanite system ? asking cuz i hope ark 2 will.

[stray elm]

Yes, most UE5 games do. It also uses Lumen

[restive lance]

ASA should have been a complete rewrite imo, the game crashes are beyond patience level at this stage, no new content should be released until they find someone New, that has the actual talent, to fix whats been broken with Ark all along lol, its legit just 'if we release more content, people will pay.., dont stress about how unstable the game is' 😉 unfortunately

[blissful perch]

Only point of disagreement is that it’s completely correct that releasing more content makes more people play, with polish coming later. Seen extremely clearly through all the dlc and game purchases 🤷‍♂️

Much as I think it’s odd to have a remaster with all the potential for polish be a bit lackluster in that department

[restive lance]

No disagreement on that part, never said it didn’t make people play, I’m still playing after 10 years as well 👍🏼

I was referring to them just potentially wanting/needing people to “pay”.

🤙🏼🫶🏼

[blissful perch]

Yes the biggest issue imo is actually the hard pivot to “pay for a specific creature that spawns on the map you’re playing on for free”. Extremely bad choice imo that I will prolly refund ark 2 over

[dim zinc]

Hi

I'm now playing

[restive lance]

🤣 and no doubt I’ll buy into that as well, minus the game crashes hopefully 😂

[true viper]

The daugther character in Ark II

[coral urchin]

But they did actually mention that they are still at full work with ark2 in the latest weekly update, but i think it will not release until they got the last content of asa out.

[shell lintel]

ahh ty!

[true viper]

That's more than likely what's happening. Narratively, we're moving in that direction.

[stray elm]

Think that's what they're gonna do.

Wildcard seems pretty good so far with only releasing story content in chronological order.
So if they're gonna keep that trend, ARK-2 will likely come out post Gen2 rerelease.

(that's assuming they don't do any other story expansion for ASA.)

[true viper]

The only exception being Lost Colony

At the very least, we're getting close the marketing campaign

[stray elm]

How so?

[true viper]

I take that back actually, I was thinking in terms of when the idea was concieved

Been working with snap points in the dev kit all night, bit fried at the moment.

[stray elm]

Been trying to figure out how cave volumes work in ASA all day. 🐟

[true viper]

That must be hell

[stray elm]

[lyric geyser]

Ark 2 will be published by snail games?

[stray elm]

They own the ARK IP.

[lyric geyser]

Because what they are doing with evolved its ruining everything

[deep idol]

They ruined all of their games

[hard veldt]

they are notorious for strangling every game they come across to death.

[untold ingot]

Microsoft would be no better

[ruby drift]

hi

[agile sundial]

Watching the development of ark is like watching a pet die its sad af

[strong harbor]

Ark 2 will be ruined within a few weeks upon launch, if it ever does. Unless you enjoy the mega tribe nonsense it will suck just like ASE and ASA official always have

These devs seem to have no comprehension of how many potential players they have lost due to their unwillingness to address the mega tribe problem. Beyond all the technical issues, mega tribes are by far the biggest albatross hanging over this game

[true viper]

I think it's a bit of an overreaction to say that they're ruining everything. Aquaticas reveal was less than good, but it isn't so bad that the IP as a whole can't recover from this.

[blissful perch]

Over…officials? Which is but one group of players?

[high egret]

When?.:0

[rotund pike]

I havnt played official in years. No point to it. Still enjoy the game about 100hrs a month so i wouldnt say that about ark2 at all. Especially if they actually make a close combat system like they said. Honestly the only thing holding the game back is the shitty servers and too much greed for dlc

[loud star]

Case #52722 @jade talon has been muted for 2 hours.
Reason: Mass Tagging

[wild pine]

No way they made a channel to talk about how ark 2 is still delayed

[untold ingot]

... It's been here for 5 years...

[stray elm]

I was here when it was formed

[true viper]

I was there Gandalf

[chrome pawn]

Will ark 2 come to 2025?

[stray elm]

Likely not, since Gen2 wont be releasing until late 2026 at minimal.

[wild pine]

Wasn't it supposed to release last year

Stop slackin

[shrewd flame]

Ya 2026 said 2027 but that was until 2028 got involved!

[languid hamlet]

No it was supposed to release 2 years before that

[severe gust]

Petition to rename Ark 2 to Ark Survival Undeveloped

[fallow niche]

@analog storm #unofficial-setup-help

[vast mortar]

Looks like lost col is s test run for some of ark 2s core features

How exciting

[vast mortar]

If they are implementing things that are going to be in ark 2 in losf Colo that means they are still working the problem in some way just not the way everyone is hoping for

[tawdry token]

Heloo

[true viper]

WC did state prior to ASA's release that it would be used as a test bed for features and mechanics in Ark II.

Personally I think we've seen that visualized in the form of

• Gigantoraptors saddle (does some cool physics stuff with the thistles)
• Battle Rigs
• Armadoggos companion mode and various harness types

All of what those offer are pretty similar in scope to what WC wants to introduce to Ark II, we've just seen them in very bite sized portions.

Some things are more technical than not, like the rigid bodies on Gigantoraptors saddle, and pouches on the player character that move when you run etc. Other things like the Battle Rigs are directly in line with the idea of a components based crafting formula.

What's been talked about with Lost Colony so far, the skill trees, and multiple factions are other examples of things that are in line with that idea.

[coral cloud]

Hoping too see somthing not too dissimilar to Ark 1 with an elden ring style pve/pvp UI. I really hope that's their direction

[compact yacht]

Is ark 2 still coming out?

[lyric geyser]

We know that it's still in development

[loud star]

Case #52747 @honest dock has been muted for 2 hours.
Reason: Mass Tagging

[tawdry token]

[mild bolt]

Late 2026 🙏🏼

Ragnarok probably gonna get delayed a bit but who knows

i just want to play Ragnarok in peace

[stray elm]

Gonna be honest, gonna more realistically expect a mid 2027 release date.
Mostly because every ASA map is bound to get delayed, which WILL extend ASA's development timeline.

Then ARK-2 will probably get delayed once it's fully being developed onto a September to late 2027.

[mild bolt]

I dont really care if the maps get delayed or not I just want the game to be actually playable and visually appealing without crashing

[true viper]

Given Snails recent behavior, I'm hesitant to say that there might even be a late 2026 in Arks future

[polar cypress]

Given snail game recent behaviour i am hesitant to say that ark 2 will even come out at all

[untold ingot]

Tbh, snail has always behaved this way. Just not as openly.

[true viper]

Right, but this is a dramatic escalation on their part. Never has Snail took it upon themselves to directly make content for the sandbox games before. And the way they revealed it to? It's done nothing but hurt the image of the game, and what it could be, which is what we're hoping for with Ark II.

Why would they not want WC to make more content for the IP to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the game, Ark II news or not? It's the first of it's kind.

[untold ingot]

I think there was a major fallout between wc and snail

But Asa and Ark2 are contracted with other parties, so I would bet they'll still continue

[hidden ice]

they gon drop another A.I trailer for ark 2 💔

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[worldly garden]

They'd never drop an AI trailer for Ark 2, nor ASA for that matter. Wildcard appears to have much more control over those titles.

[languid otter]

Myth to keep player community playing until ARK2 Will never comeout 🤣

[jagged wing]

We need to see some form of gameplay by the end of the year. Unless you count the trailer from 2022, the only “footage” we’ve seen from the game was the render of Helena in the lc teaser. Neither of which are real footage proving development, just an animation/render.

[blissful perch]

It’s seriously concerning, and implies WC has somehow defaulted on what I understood to be sole ownership of ASE’s development. I’m hoping there’s some assurance that this won’t occur for future ark titles

[true viper]

The IP has been owned by Snail ever since they acquired Wildcard

[stray elm]

Wildcard never had sole ownership post Snail acquisition.

Snail has always tried to pull shit like this since they got the rights to ARK.

[elder gulch]

They’re waiting for AI to be really good so it can generate Ark 2 for them 🙂

[chrome kestrel]

This must be the channel of lost hope.

[blissful perch]

I did specify development rather than IP, since yes that was sold in 2016 lol

[dapper field]

So ark 2 is basically none existent

[versed cosmos]

Should make a ark 3 tab

[patent pumice]

Am I the only one thinking WC is going to be bankrupt before Ark 2 comes out ? With all those dumb decisions lately it's bound to happen..

[blissful perch]

Kinda hard for WC to be bankrupt, but snail (who owns them) is certainly making moves that indicate less than ideal financial straights

But there’s no world where ark 2 doesn’t come out. Even if they go completely bankrupt, they’re gonna release whatever they have of ark 2 to try to recoup some of their losses

[patent pumice]

Snails is known to drop companies that don't bring them money though 😐 so I wouldn't put that out of the table, WC is in debt to snails big time, in turn they can decide to cut short and move on and it wouldn't be surprising. Let's see how the water dlc for ASE sales go.. lol

[blissful perch]

Wc is snail’s largest earner

Unless I read their public financial docs wrong, which is possible

[patent pumice]

For now, until it runs dry because the fan base is done with their practices

[blissful perch]

True, at which point…they’ll still push out whatever they have of ark 2 to try to make a buck

Zero reason for snail to not force that content to market

[patent pumice]

Unless everything they put out before tank miserably and they loose faith. Time will tell though it will be a sad day but it will happen

[blissful perch]

Well everything is…Asa?

WC is only really doing Asa and ark 2. That weird aquatica dlc for ase is snail and not wc

And the ark fan base doesn’t appear to have really responded whatsoever to pretty (imo) unpleasant monetization practices in Asa

[tiny needle]

Ark 3 when

[sonic umbra]

3030

[vast mortar]

Souls like dino game is gonna be so hype

[lyric geyser]

We didn’T got any News about art concept or building since the launch of the Ascended for ark 2

[worldly garden]

because its too early, Ark 2 is probably still at least 2 years away. Also the community whine about stuff like that too. 😆

[harsh spear]

it was supposed to launch last year and i think they havent even said anything regarding the delay

[worldly garden]

yeah i know, and they won't, not until development is much further along. There's little point really.

[harsh spear]

i have to disagree with u on that because there is definetly a point. the community should be knowing on whats going on, why the delay has happened, what their plan is and what release date seems realistic at this point. but i guess with all the stuff thats going down hill they dont even bother anymore.

its sad really

maybe theyre not telling us so they can milk ASA more

[blissful perch]

What’s there to say? “Game isn’t out, it’s under development” is what you’d assume WC would say, and there’s not much point endlessly repeating it

They’ll likely release trailers and other marketing things like for lost colony once the game is closer to release. Like almost any other studio

[tribal chasm]

Well other companies do frequent status updates, Rust, Terraria, Runescape etc

[blissful perch]

On their existing games

Which WC does for Asa every single week

I’d love a road map too btw, but let’s not hold people to a standard that is hardly the norm

[tribal chasm]

good point, yeah same here

[blissful perch]

Would I love to hear more design talk in the crunches? Yes

Is that what the average player wants? I’m guessing no, since WC has tried doing that and people seemed hostile to learning why certain choices were made

[worldly garden]

The average player wants FiX TeH GaMe. 🥸 There's little point in the team talking about Ark 2 because people will do what they always do, moan and whine that they are talking about Ark 2 instead of FiX TeH GaMe.

[blissful perch]

Sounds about right. And as soon as the game is fixed enough people will complain “why make a new game when you can add more content to this one”

Classic cycle I suppose

[untold ingot]

The average player would rather have a hysterical fit than consider the possibility that they don't know how settings work

[finite jackal]

You call it ‘moan and whine’ but the rest of the community calls it getting what we paid for.

[blissful perch]

You got exactly what you paid for. You can watch people play and see how it runs, and see what content is available before you buy

If you buy a game with full knowledge of what you bought…you’re not “owed” anything on the principle of “that’s what I paid for”

Obviously content and polish are good, but it’s not “owed” by any means

[untold ingot]

You paid for a remastered version of ase in ue5. Thst is what you have

[true viper]

Lets be real though, it barely counts as a remaster. Maps, absolutely, the rest of the game? Not so much.

[untold ingot]

No one went into this thinking it would be that much different. If they did that's because they didn't look up anything about asa

[true viper]

To be fair, if Snail hadn't rushed ASA out the door, it probably stood a much better chance of being the remaster WC had the intention to create.

WC did say they wanted to explore the possibility of remaking gameplay systems during Extra Life.

[untold ingot]

This is true, but it was rushd

[vast mortar]

Lost Colo is going to be the testing ground for that!

So everyone who plays it will be in charges of giving a compressive break down if it at least I feel responsible

[blissful perch]

Yea I mean this was meant to be what we saw in the island, so I’d say it’s fair to lament that lost potential

But that’s different than feeling scammed or entitled to something that…didn’t ever actually exist

[untold ingot]

Imo Asa didn't lose much potential

It was designed to be a new image on Asa, and I is that

[true viper]

Right, but I get the impression that whatever comes to Lost Colony will just be a micro inclusion of XYZ feature. It won't effect the totality of the game, which in my opinion needs to have some kind of comprehensive change. And TBH, those changes are probably field tests for Ark II more than not.

[untold ingot]

That's what Asa was tho

It was supposed to be a field test for ark2

[true viper]

Certain features yeah, in the form of BTT and whatever else. That's not it's main objective as a title though. It was intended to be a 'from the ground up' remake of ASE, and it's the exact opposite in a lot of ways.

[vast mortar]

I don't think they would make the changes just for the map I think they are going to implant the movement system without the base game once lost is released

Lost is just the map it's all coming with

[true viper]

I could be wrong, and I hope I am

Cause at the very least LC is new content that could improve Arks gameplay for both ASA and Ark II

[vast mortar]

That's not how game files normal work you gotta features to the entire game in order for the features to actually work

So I'd hope it would he game wide

[true viper]

Right of course, but in the dev kit there are checks in place that actively look for if a DLC has been purchased. Premium mod authors use that a lot in their freemium packages. LC is offering early access to gameplay systems with the pre-orders, so that very same kind of check will probably be used for that.

So in a sense it would be game wide, but you'd have to meet certain requirements in order to experience those changes/mechanics/features.

[blissful perch]

I mean take the hexagon shop in ASE. New mechanic but it’s only available in the dlc itself - I imagine LC will do the same. Very eager to see the impacts for potential ark 2 mechanics though

[vast mortar]

Yeah I guesssss but I feel like movement is a little more of a big deal ya know

[blissful perch]

Exactly this - understandable that it wasn’t a ground up remake, but it’d still fair imo to lament that it would be nice if WC had the time and resources to push a full from the ground up remaster

[blissful perch]

I agree if would be nice, but there’s a dozen ways it stays on that map 🙃

[vast mortar]

Ngl if that's the case they better have good caves cause I'd be living on LC

Although raiding with the ability to climb and flip and dodge roll sounds soo cool

Dodge rolling a Bola

[true viper]

This is just my personal opinion, but the ASE style of gameplay feels like a burden that's just gotten to heavy to bare at this point. I'm excited to see what gameplay changes come with Lost Colony, and the implications we can all make in regards to Ark II. I just personally think that a massive gameplay overhaul is very much needed for ASA. New content in the sense of creatures and maps are always nice, but it continually neglects a very underdeveloped gameplay loop that Ark noticeably has as a game.

Just makes the need for Ark II all the more necessary imo.

Regardless of entry into the series and what not, Ark needs to feel fresh and better to play. Maybe ASA will evolve into something like that, I have my doubts, but it's never a bad thing to have a positive opinion about these kinds of things. Whatever chances Lost Colony will introduce will be in a micro-dose format. Present on a few things, but not a broad sweeping change that effects the totality of the game.

[blissful perch]

My opinion since 2020 has been that ark direly needs a fundamental change to its gameplay loop. However Dollie herself confirmed here that Asa will not deviate from the ASE system because Asa was intended to appeal to people who wanted “more ark 1” including its gameplay loop

So I’m not only unsurprised that’s remaining consistent, I’m expecting that the basic gameplay loop will remain exactly the same until ark 2

[true viper]

In some ways that is good, because yes Wildcard is keeping their word in regards to that specifically, but at the same time it's heavily derailed Wildcard from developing anything new. I'd personally like to see the Ark 1 gameplay loop retired for good. I'm still excited to see what Lost Colony brings about, because the very least it's the start of the build up to something new imo.

[vast mortar]

They needa fully commit to the souls like bit I swear people will be on board for it

I know I'm not tripping

I can't be the only super excited fot that idea alone

A souls like dino mmo rp with solid pvp cause this game has lived and developed their pvp to a fine tuned science

There is no pvp experience quite like ark

And ngl fromsoft souls like fans has been drooling for that for years

[true viper]

I'm very eager to experience Ark in that format.

Not enough people really think about how Ark can be the best of both surivival mmo, and a play as dino game. The game naturally supports both of those perspectives.

[vast mortar]

Being able to dodge roll out of a Bola or someone trying ti pick you sounds so cool

And like it should have been a thing a long time ago when you say it out loud

[blissful perch]

yea I mean from my understanding, the move was to ensure the folks who would not move to ark 2 have "a place"

[blissful perch]

true, because there is no pvp that's so uhhh. strangly poor lol

it's almost good, but it's so lacking in fairplay that a complete rework is likely required to get it where it deserves to be

[true viper]

But they had one you know? IMO WC does more the player base than they otherwise deserve. The ASE die hards were completely up in arms about Ark II even before we had a firm idea about what the game was wanting to be. I personally think that if things were different, ASA should have been the 10 year anniversary announcement. But there's plenty of reason why that could have never been the case.

I just dislike that rushed remaster of the original game has taken the place of a wholly new entry into the series. That's just me though.

[blissful perch]

well yea, the rushed remaster imo was the worst ending beyond a hard studio shutdown

originally the plan was a free UE5 remake and ark 2 (rip), then the plan was asa and shortly after ark 2 (rip too), and now we have "ase but ported to UE5" and an undetermined timeline for ark 2

followed by the weirdest monetization model ark has ever seen

absolutely true that WC treats the playerbase as best they can despite some horrific people who throw abuse and whine about everything...but it's also true that ark 2 is a departure from what a lot of die hard ark 1 players were doing, and that creates friction

ase tho was functionally dead after genesis 2 though. The bloat and general code base were so awful that I suspect new content would have been near impossible to push on a reasonable schedule as WC applied more spit and duct tape (good luck snail)

[true viper]

To be fair, that bloat has only been mildly trimmed in ASA. There's still a decent bit that could be cleaned up. I personally think that the ASE brand of game has run it's course.

I wish things were different, but maybe I'm just mildly blackpilled about it

Cause it's not like ASA doesn't provide things that I'm grateful for, I just wish they were more present in the game at large.

[untold ingot]

Wdym the brand of game? The survival genre?

[true viper]

The simplistic play style

cookie clicker, left click being the only button in game

[untold ingot]

They did do a major rework of the entire backend. It's not that noticeable to a player, but for me that's the big good part of Asa, because they'll be able to use that backend for Ark2

[untold ingot]

Fair enough, that is one of the "real* complaints. But even with different combat styles the survival base building genre is falling off.

[frigid holly]

F bishes in the back door

[untold ingot]

Look a rat

[blissful perch]

true, and credit where due on that

[blissful perch]

god so true and so frustrating. It's why I have I think 4 hours in asa?

[untold ingot]

Imo its the most significant sign they are still planning on ark. Doing a rework like that for basically a placeholder (which imo is what Asa is) would be business suicide

[blissful perch]

i guess? it's monetized as a way to limp along until the resources materalize for ark 2

wouldn't really argue it's profound so much as making the best of a bad situation

[ripe flicker]

I wonder to what extent the Lost Colony systems are going to change anything when it comes to gameplay

i would assume not as drastic as ark 2, but i dont want it to change basically nothing at all

[blissful perch]

from the looks of things it'll be major. A test run of the NPCs, skill trees, and movement alone is pretty major

[ripe flicker]

been dealing with the same gameplay loop for so long I almost dont believe that itll change much even though Im sure it will

[blissful perch]

don't hold your breath

since again...it's been decided since ASA's inception that asa IS ase's gameplay loop at its core

[ripe flicker]

which is why i just wish they wouldve done things in reverse, with ark 2 first and ASA after, I am boreeeeed

[true viper]

Chances are that whatever changes come with lost colony will be in a BTT micro-dose kind of fashion

Very interesting to experience, but not present in the game at large

Like I don't expect the skill trees to be applicable to the hatchet or sword, but I do see it being utilized on the tek staff

which would be our first taste of 'souls like combat'

[ripe flicker]

just gotta wait until June to get our answers

[true viper]

Yeah, but there's still plenty of crunches left until then

Either way, even with how things are now, Lost Colony is signaling the beginning of the end so far as the wait for Ark II goes.

Once it comes out we'll get enough narrative detail to chew on till then

Cause after that is Bobs True Tales

So we'll likely get more Ark II information in much smaller doses, but info nonetheless

[untold ingot]

I expect with lost colony there will be major news on ark2. I still think it'll release after gen2 relaunch

[true viper]

That's not up for debate, unless WC is able to ramp up production and just spit the remaining ASA content out.

At the very least, I doubt that Ark II has just been untouched since ASA released. I have to imagine that there are occasions where WC has given the game attention, just not enough to really show off anything

I have to imagine a decent amount, if not all of the art assets are done.

[untold ingot]

Me being me, the art assets are the hard part 🤣

[shell lintel]

Why June?

[untold ingot]

June will either make or break the future

[ripe flicker]

Pre order to Lost Colony which lets us preview the new systems that are apart of that map

[shell lintel]

So we get to see like a preview of ark 2stuff?

[true viper]

I don't follow?

[true viper]

Lost Colony stuff specifically, but what's been talked about with Lost Colony is indicative of Ark II than anything that's come to ASA before.

[untold ingot]

I can't even draw stick figures, but code is ez

[shell lintel]

I don't quite understand what you mean?

[true viper]

We might get a taste of what Ark 2 has to offer through Lost Colony. It's not overtly confirmed, just heavily implied.

[shell lintel]

Thank you! I would like to see that!

[untold ingot]

That's literally in the description on the steam page

[harsh coral]

what is ark 2 is it the same as asa?

hårdt

[fallow niche]

No, please see pinned messages. English while in the main channels.

[polar rock]

If you guys think anything good will come of ark2 you're absolutely wrong. Look at the way they flunked with asa

[finite jackal]

How can I watch people play a game that had no trailers or early release game play? Try again dev lover

[blissful perch]

…wait 24 hours?

I’m all for holding people accountable for poor practices, but day one people had complaints about Asa’s quality that, if you really thought made it not worth the money, you could have either refunded or chosen not to purchase the game

[finite jackal]

And lose any edge in pvp? Clearly you dont understand how pvp works

[blissful perch]

Ok but if you don’t enjoy the game why does an edge in PvP matter?

[finite jackal]

This is ark not cod. Servers dont reset. You get your base spot or fight as a underdog until your wiped.

[finite jackal]

When did I say I dont enjoy it? You are literally fabricating words

I explicitly said fix the game we paid for before building a new one and like I also said yall are still riding the devs for sending out a half finished game

[blissful perch]

Saying “this isn’t the game I paid for” implies you’re substantially not satisfied with the game in its current state

[finite jackal]

I am not satisfied your right. I didn’t realize paying for something and wanting it improved means I don’t enjoy it?

[fallow niche]

Can take ASA complaints to #ark-survival-ascended

Leave this for Ark2

Attempting to insult someone for a basic channel reminder is unnecessary

[blissful perch]

I suppose one issue is the pressure to purchase Asa or ark 2 day one for PvP might be so strong it forces that community to play past the refund period

[untold ingot]

That's not wcs issue though. They said the game would be Ase with a new look, so not their issue when people get mad that it is ase with a new look

[blissful perch]

Correct, though I would say it’s an unfortunate consequence of games with “you get a huge boost day one” as a feature of how they work. Not really avoidable for WC

[harsh spear]

there can easily be issues, f.e. pathfinding, that u couldnt easily see right off the bet and by the time u notice it will be past 2 hours of refund timer.

[pliant badge]

Dinosaurs 🦖 🦕

[fallow niche]

.

[true viper]

It needs the souls like (combo/root motion attacks). Combat needs to be more dynamic.

[shell lintel]

I hope for mhw style combat, some storyline, and classic taming, breeding and building, maybe a bit better building tho

[blissful perch]

Gut the stat breeding (cause monster hunter combat collapses when you are so OP you one shot everything) and I agree

Would be great to change the resource economy for fewer “high quality” kills too. In monster hunter 20 hide is a huge deal, but in ark that’s basically worthless. Even worse it makes people just meatrun the whole map and completely ruins the feeling of “I’m a small piece of a bigger ecosystem”

[true viper]

I had that exact thought while playing Wilds. If Alphas return in Ark II, having them be more dynamic so far as combat would be nice. That any HVT/mini-boss orc enemy NPCs. Something about the interaction that makes the engagement memorable.

[shell lintel]

I'm looking for more the mechanics of the combat, not the stat scaling

[true viper]

Like say if a raptor pounces on you right. Once it's got you pinned, you're met with a button prompt and a meter that needs to be filled to shake it off

[vast mortar]

I Agree because even the raptors we have now they jump on their prey pretty much pinning them to the ground to rip them apart if you don't do the prompt in time you should get ripped apart

[true viper]

imo, animal husbandry should be more useful than just stats in Ark II. Like if we get genes in Ark II, or something similar to that, it should be utilized towards farming.

Some kind of prehistoric female cow has a high milk production stat, and if partnered with right mate, the female calve has a higher output of milk production when it matures. Assuming farming/animal husbandry will be that indepth.

[true viper]

It's one of my favorite parts of Shadow of War when you're met with a difficult, locked into combat situation, you're tasked with getting out of that situation. If you fail, the player has the agency to win or lose in that scenario. You're not just met with an instant loss of health.

[vast mortar]

I think If you get impaled by a stego there should be a little thing where you can struggle against the tale that would be kinda cool for ark 2 idk

[true viper]

Ghost Recon Breakpoint has something similar to that. If you're severely hurt, your character is forced into an alternative walk cycle that hinders your combat aptitude. Typically a limping like walk cycle and can only use your side arm if severe enough.

[vast mortar]

If someone kills your dinosaur and the body falls on you you should take damage and your character should react accordingly

[blissful perch]

Would be awesome to see some similarity to alpha doshagama

[blissful perch]

IMO this is two things: 1) is moving breeding from upgrades to sidegrades (or an upgrade via getting the right mix of traits) and 2) traits and the ability to make better use of tames as a complex resource system - if I get this right

[shell lintel]

Or like if you have a certain weapon you could knock the raptor off

Alphas should be like a mini boss, a special fight, not just munch through them.

[blissful perch]

IMO nothing should be “just munch through it”

[shrewd flame]

They used to have the pin feature than people complained and they got rid of it

[shell lintel]

Yeah an argie with good stam and mele make short work on them

[shell lintel]

I remember that on abb

[vast mortar]

Damm that sounds dope

[shell lintel]

I hope we get some in the way of special weapons, like use parts from dinos to mix and match weapons an armor, would be cool

[shrewd flame]

It was on the island too

[true viper]

Dawg, Doshagama wiped me across the floor

[shell lintel]

Cool!

[blissful perch]

G Doshagama was my only faint in low rank lol, but what I loved most about them was their presence in the game’s environment. What I hope to see in ark 2 is something like this, where you fear a carno or an allo throughout the game unless you’re willing to really commit to a fight

Doesn’t have to be a crazy fight, but just enough to say “maybe you shouldn’t aggro everything that moves, chew through it, then run off with another 300 hide for the vault”

[shrewd flame]

Ya be cool if each fight was not so much of an ordeal but at least a battle and make them behave like animals not just stuff that spins in circles

[blissful perch]

True, but what’s the “ordeal” right? Beyond a couple of bosses, most ark fights are mashing left mouse button knowing you’ll win or lose a fight entirely based on the stats of you vs the other creature

I don’t need 200 layers of perfect ai and combat mechanics, but at least a sprinkle of knowing not all attacks are “bite” or “spam the same attack” would be a huge step forward. It feels amazing to bring down a huge target in a lot of games with hunting, and I see no reason ark 2 can’t do that

[untold ingot]

Don't expect too much of that. If the Ai were to be massively improved it would cause massive computations required for each. That's very very hard to optimize to a playable point in a complex environment like an ark map

[shrewd flame]

Not massively but a little more stuff like cmon

[untold ingot]

Add that to wc not really excelling at agent design, and it's a tough problem 😅

[tribal chasm]

They will have to be mindful of single player vs multiplayer too
A lot of Gen1 and 2 content for example was at times impossible to do in multiplayer

[stray elm]

You mean singleplayer?

A lot of Gen1's alpha brute missions are basically impossible without a fuck ton of players, or cheesing.

[tribal chasm]

oh, well both I guess. Some content requiring teams to complete, other content too hard to do on multiplayer servers due to lag

[stray elm]

If I recall, only Gen1 had missions where you needed other players. Which was mostly just the dodo ball ones.

Which I don't think you 'needed' to do them for alpha CMC. As if I recall, you can skip up to five missions and still be able to do alpha.

[untold ingot]

Yeah, there were barely enough missions on gen1 to to cmc solo

[sacred matrix]

im from the future ark 2 will release in 2023 trust me guys

[stray elm]

Sir, you're in the wrong timeline.

[humble forge]

Too much to read does anyone have any official news or update regarding ark 2?

[stray elm]

Most recent is just random lore bits in Bob's Tall Tale.
That's about it outside of the store page back in like 2023.

Oh, sorry. Also in like a Twitch stream back in 2024 if I recall, Jeremy states ARK-2 will have less food/water management.
Can't find the clip, so take it with a grain of salt.

[shell lintel]

I need to look at the asset release they did a while back

[burnt solar]

Meow :3

[untold ingot]

Good thing it's not elden ring type combat. It's ark. It'll be way easier and probably more like conan

[chilly junco]

Chill

[burnt solar]

Meow :3 ?

[blissful perch]

What mechanics? LMB spam and grind?

As far as I’ve felt, ark 2 is adding mechanics that ark 1 would have always benefitted from

[shell lintel]

I hope so, I would like some more exciting combat mechanics

[wraith saddle]

"souls-like-combat" sounds perfect to me. imo it could bring the immersion and intenseness of a battle that ase never had.

[blissful perch]

The only unknown is how much relative health the creatures have. Souls like is cool, but if it’s three hits to kill a dino or Dino’s are so overwhelmingly strong at melee range you have to sit and camp with a bow…it doesn’t really do as much as I’d love to see 😔

Though I could be wildly wrong and bow combat could be improved similar to MH, Horizon, etc

[harsh spear]

isnt souls-like combat usually where u can either dodge or block attacks ?

[wraith saddle]

i would think it would be similar to elden ring, where trash mobs like dodos don't necessarily require an in depth battle, but things like rexes could be fought more like a boss

[harsh spear]

i can see ur point though. even if u have the ability to dodge or block attacks, it would likely be at cost of a risk of death so ur probably better off making cheesy plays by camping around objects or ur base and shooting at ur enemy. and i dont see how u would be able to change that except by removing ranged weapons

if the slingshot was the best u could have, it might work out

or spear throwing

[wraith saddle]

well yea theres always ways to cheese fights in games like that, but if done right, i think that each battle could be far more unique than stabbing something with a spear repeatedly and just spamming left click

they could certainly implement a system to prevent bows being the best option, like maybe they dont do as much damage and its not as quick of a kill, but far safer

[harsh spear]

would be cool if creatures can aim with their attacks and hit weak points to deal more damag

[harsh spear]

that would be boring though and u could still just craft more arrows

spear throwing comes with the cost of weight so u cant carry that many and slingshot forces u to be fairly close to the enemy so its harder to cheese but still possible

[wraith saddle]

well its just one idea, im sure they could do more, but either way i think the souls like combat sounds cool

i also dont think theres any chance that they dont include a bow in the game, it seems like a staple of combat to me, especially for early game ark

[harsh spear]

i think it would also be cooler if creatures could insta kill you so u cant just tank with op armor. like if a rex chops you up, ur done for. it would feel more realistic. but at the same time, it would also make cheesy strats even more of a thing u need to rely on so idk.. needs good balancing thats for sure

[wraith saddle]

yea in souls games there are plenty of bosses that can grab you or bite you and deal tons of damage, ofc being able to dodge those attacks is probably the best balance they could have imo

and i would say an insta kill attack like that would be really cool on something like a giga, just to really set them apart from the other apex predators and make them more formidable

[untold ingot]

Any Dino larger than a theri should be able to instakill imo.

Kinda like it is in Asa rn. A tamed theri or giga will nearly instakill you even with the best armor

[wraith saddle]

i think any dino that big should be able to do enough damage to oneshot, but the idea of bypassing all armor for insta kill was kinda what i think should only be on a giga

[tribal chasm]

Megalosaurus in Ark 1 was kinda annoying for that very reason, I don't know how I would balance it

[untold ingot]

I don't think gigas are that interesting. Tbh they shouldn't even be counter player dinos at all. They should almost not even be able to hit a person since they are so big

I think counter player/counter Dino should be differentiated better in Ark2.

Like theri vs thyla for example

[wraith saddle]

ark 2 was only gonna be pve right? i guess thats what i was thinking and thats kinda why i would want more interesting battles and attacks

[untold ingot]

Having a single Dino that excels at both is thoroughly uninteresting

[untold ingot]

No... It's not just pve 🤣

Either way, a massive Dino like that doing a special one shot still isn't an interesting ability. It literally wouldn't change gigas at all

[harsh spear]

it would be amazing if big dinos like a rex or giga could swallow u and ur camera would follow inside so it really gives u that feel of being eaten

[untold ingot]

And I am in the camp that gigas and creatures like them in Asa are already too much

[tribal chasm]

It was better when those dinos were hard to protect and obtain, that's how game balance should be

[wraith saddle]

yea i was more so thinking of a wild encounter where you're kinda 1v1ing a giga, ik right now they instakill pretty much no matter what on a player, but if they fought like a soulsborne boss is what i was thinking

[harsh spear]

i wanna have that feeling that when i cross through the world and i see a big creature that i just wanna run and get away from it. not this cheesy stuff where i can see it way before it can see me and itll only chase if get close and i can easily avoid it

[wraith saddle]

yea kinda what i was thinking, more scary dinos and cooler fights

[harsh spear]

maybe u could make it so u leave a scent on the ground that wild creatures will follow along when they cross over it.

so they will track u down

[wraith saddle]

honestly anything to give the dinos some life, and make them feel more realistic

[untold ingot]

Tbh, doing that requires there to be less dinos, and will by extension make the world feel more empty

[tribal chasm]

Do they still reduce dino spawns in ASA when the server is high population?
I would rather they not have to resort to that in Ark 2

[harsh spear]

u can make the world feel full by adding more plants and stuff. in a real forest u also dont see animals that often but it feels alive.

[wraith saddle]

i wouldn't think that necessarily means less dinos, there could be plenty of them around still, just they are more life like and intelligent

[untold ingot]

They change view distance significantly.

[shell lintel]

Add more in the way of background sounds

[untold ingot]

Being more lifelike and intelligent by default means less of them. There is a limited amount of hardware capability, and if you don't know Ai systems use a lot. Even simple ones

[harsh spear]

the isle is a good example of how to make the world feel alive. its not feeling alive from addings stacks of dinos. it comes much more from hearing distant sounds and not being able to see everything around you.

[wraith saddle]

i mean look at games like elden ring and grounded, there is no shortage of things to fight, but each one just acts like a sentient being, thats all im asking for, not really intelligent dinos

[untold ingot]

Tbh, the isle feels dead as a rock

[untold ingot]

They have fight mechanic in a certain region. They don't have complex behavioral mechanics. And when their region isn't loaded they are not active. In Asa it's different, and it'll be different in Ark2 as well

Doesn't have to be really intelligent to be computationally intensive

[shell lintel]

I'm going to need something better than a 2070 won't I lol

[untold ingot]

Just rest assured that they won't be too intelligent

[wraith saddle]

i dont see the problem i guess, if other games can do it, why cant ark? i know asking wildcard for a polished game is a longshot but i think its possible

[untold ingot]

Other games don't do it tho. Everyone has to cut corners and make exceptions. Wc chose to use less "advanced" Ai in order to have tens of thousands active in the world at the same time nondeterministically. Elden ring chose deterministic Ai and used way less, but because of that the action set could be more advanced.

It's a tradeoff that every game inherently has to make

The way ark vs elden ring renders is also substantially different

[wraith saddle]

since when are all dinosaurs active in ark? is it not possible to have it be similar to elden ring in the way of optimization?

[untold ingot]

Dinos are not all active. But they are passive. They don't disappear when you derender them, but they aren't statically coded like elden ring stuff

[harsh spear]

tbh i dont think it would make the performance that much less if they would follow a scent. Ark is already where wild creatures will wander in a way that is synchronized across clients, which means that the server already is calculating the movement for each creature

[untold ingot]

It's literally not an optimization thing. It's a methodology.

[untold ingot]

If it were just that, probably not. It would make the Ai harder to code and would require temporary lines of path history, but in ad of itself that particular addition wouldn't be an issue. Adding in complex combat systems etc does make it a much harder problem

Not to mention it'll bloat the code massively

[elder olive]

They could have different ai animations for different classes. For example Like pts having there wings out drying in the sun like a modern bird. Herbis having herds

[untold ingot]

That would be cool

[elder olive]

Like those ais would be exclusively used in those classes

So not every creature has the animations see what I mean lol

[harsh spear]

its as simple as making the next direction for a creature where itll walk random, u would make it look for a nearby player.

[wraith saddle]

so even when they arent rendered in, there cant be as many dinos in a world because they are more sophisticated? makes sense ig but i still think the trade off is worth it for immersion imo

[untold ingot]

That's not Ai that's an animation set. The herd mentality would be an ai thing tho

[elder olive]

Ah lol

[untold ingot]

That's not that simple in practice but it's not overly hard

[elder olive]

I seen good herds in games tho in rdr2 u can see bisons in herds and sometimes u can see 2 males fighting

Would be nice for trikes and pachys

[untold ingot]

Well, think about how much memory has to be loaded for each Dino. Asa servers already struggle. If you kept the same number of dinos and increased the complexity of the Dino drastically, then yeah it would be a major problem. Even when not rendered ark is still loaded across the whole world on a server, that's why sp has issues that servers don't

[harsh spear]

love how u always disagree but never explain further. very helpful conversation.

[untold ingot]

You can try to right up the code for that. It's probably year 3 university level complexity. Nothing challenging for someone who does this kind of thing tho

[harsh spear]

like yourself ?

how does it work then, pls explain

[elder olive]

This conversation reminds me of the paleo mods their Dino mods are so cool they feel more alive they actually do have these animations in the wild. But I can tell they want to make it more detailed but are limited due to ark

[untold ingot]

...

Tbh I'm not even gonna respond to that one

[harsh spear]

yea cuz ur just pretending

[untold ingot]

...sure

Whatever makes you feel better

[wraith saddle]

but what would require more memory for the dino? the behavior of it doesn't need to be known until rendered in does it? thats pretty much what i was wanting is just dinos that act slightly more complex than attacking everything they see

[untold ingot]

Having a large number of dinos load all their actions in only when rendered would cause a lot of lag/jittery frames, and if there were too many it would literally cause crashes due to ark spawns not being deterministic. You can't guarantee there won't be issues with that formulation, which is probably why they do it the way the do

I want better Ai for dinos too. And I also know (in part) how to do thst. I don't work with game engines but I do work with Ai/Ai agents

But the baseline is it probably won't be anywhere near realism, nor even elden ring quality of combat/mechanics, because let's be real that's not wcs speciality

[wraith saddle]

yea honestly i don't expect much from wildcard, but if possible i would love to see it. also ig i didn't realize it would be that complicated, either way i think theres large room for improvement from the first ark

[elder olive]

Well with the ai conversation out the way. Something i really want is that dinos actually move like a real animal when riding the turning in direction. i never understood where the huge turning radius in animal games got so popular. Why i love the additional Dino and paleo mods. They all have turning in direction

[untold ingot]

There is, but it is incredibly complicated to do that much improvement.

[wraith saddle]

honestly the trailer quality got me hyped, i was hoping to see similar in game footage, without the cinematics ofc

[untold ingot]

The Ark2 trailer? Tbh the animations weren't that good. So if that's what you are hoping for, it might actually reach that 😅

[shell lintel]

What issues would it cause if the special ai was just for alphas and bosses?

[shell lintel]

That would be pretty awesome, I don't like having to do a five points turn on my raptor

[untold ingot]

Probably none

Bosses are deterministic and their arenas aren't loaded if no one is there

[shell lintel]

That's kinda what I was thinking, and alphas are not that common I think

[untold ingot]

Yeah, or open world bosses, cave bosses etc. Basically anything deterministic that has set spawn locations etc and isn't super common

[shell lintel]

I would be happy with that. I should build a better PC just in case lol

[rotund thistle]

Will ark 2 have Dinosaurs

[wraith saddle]

yea no a lot of those animations were choppy, but what i mean is the combat and more specifically the rexes behavior

[blissful perch]

I think reducing bow and general projectile range (and removing hitscan weapons) would be a strong start. I kinda like short bows for example for this sort of thing, especially if (as said here) there’s a focus on weakspots for spear throws/bows/slingshots/etc

[shell lintel]

Maybe?....

[wraith saddle]

also yea alpha creatures being the ones to have actually interesting fights would be alright with me, if not possible with all dinos

[blissful perch]

Elden ring’s creatures are mostly static until a player gets close…they don’t generally interact with each other or the world that much

[blissful perch]

In the founder’s note they did state creatures will use senses rather than circular detection radii…so at the very least we should see that implemented at a basic level for player detection

I also don’t see the issue with fewer creatures on the map. Ark has a massive amount of creatures that are spaced out…but they also repeatedly die all the time because of the “meat run” gameplay design. If a single trike kill was a big deal for a player, you wouldn’t need 1000 of them, you’d just need some herds dotting the landscape

Instead of carnivore island with 10 rexes and 30 raptors, maybe a patch of forest has 1 rex and 5 raptors

[wraith saddle]

quality over quantity for creatures absolutely, but i also think elden rings mobs, even when not doing much blend in and look natural to their environment, so i would love to see some better designs for creature idleness

[blissful perch]

As for the question of turning. Part of it is balance, part is likely animations/model clipping for large models (if I understand it right). I can say for balance it would be pretty awful to hit the back of a giga and suddenly the head whips around and you get chewed up lol. I see this as a huge “can fix” for ark 2 though if WC invests in more attacks that compensate for slower larger creatures - if you have a powerful bite maybe you can swipe with the tail or feet to get a weaker hitbox out while you turn around

[blissful perch]

IMO for Elden ring their “sit there and wake up when you come close” behavior makes total sense. What makes ark engaging however is that the world operates around you and without you

I’m not naive enough to believe ark can do 1000 creatures with monster hunter AI, but at minimum it would be great to see a slightly slower paced environment where everything isn’t constantly killing each other and where you the player aren’t treating all the game’s spawns as “yep I gotta get meat better wipe the map”

[wraith saddle]

for sure, if they could find a balance between chaos and slower paced while keeping dinos feeling natural i think that would be great

[blissful perch]

Yea cause I 100% think the isle is too bare lol

But ark tbh is just cluttered at times. Id rather have fewer creatures clustered into herds and several solitary predator species than a map clogged with creatures (looking at you swamps)

[untold ingot]

That can be interpreted many different ways. The simplest way would be just los. They didn't say dinos would be able to follow a scent trail, so that is speculation

[untold ingot]

For sure. However if levels are still a thing in Ark2 this will make having decent dinos an absolute grind. For this to work well, I think they need to scrap the level system in favor of a fully trait based design. Kind of like the current one in Asa, but more useful

[untold ingot]

Yeah, but irl dinos would be idle. So while camouflage would be nice, the elden ring design choice of not doing anything when not engaged does not work for ark

[wraith saddle]

well they could have sleeping animations or something like that, and i dont mean absolutely still, if they could make them interact with their environment a little more, instead of just wandering in circles until seeing something to attack

[untold ingot]

Yeah, I'm just trying to think how that would be feasible

That would literally double (at minimum) the current animation set of every Dino.

[wraith saddle]

it could be something maybe just a few dinos have, like the bigger ones ofc, while small creatures like dodos wouldn't really need them

[blissful perch]

Not wrong, but I’m also of the opinion that LOS is generally sight based. Usually games with hearing or smell use a binary “on/off” detection radius that’s unique to those senses, so that would be fine

[blissful perch]

Well yes. As I’ve been hinting at, you’d need to increase the benefit per kill (resources,exp, etc) to account for the loss in number of kills. Quality > quantity

The benefit would be to many of the issues you correctly pointed out - tons of complex entities and species leads to a lot of restrictions that can be avoided if both things come down a peg in ark 2

[tribal chasm]

I wouldn't mind seeing the dinos being hard to level again in Ark 2, a bit like 2015-2016 era Ark I guess. Not the 'well it's been in a cryofridge for a week, should be mostly good'
Even Pokemon does this, you level only one at a time for the most part... (ignore xp share/daycares), not magically have all Pokemon level to 100 automatically

[blissful perch]

Actually I’d prefer Dino levels be a bit easier but provide less “stats” benefits

OR tames work like armordoggo where they can’t die, but they level very slowly (you’d of course have to severely limit tame caps to avoid this being cheesed)

[tribal chasm]

We will fall into a debate about what Ark identifies as, it has changed a great deal since 2015

Idk I guess I am just trying to say, I hope Ark 2 is still familiar, and not a complete overhaul from the mechanics found in Ark 1

[main girder]

is ark 2 just a community joke

[blissful perch]

Ah, that’s where we may split lol. I want the same feeling of “tame creatures to survive in a hostile world”, but with entirely new mechanics lol

[untold ingot]

This is true. It would be a decentish approach. But there still has to be enough concurrent dinos in the world to balance out 70 players, otherwise it'll be really really empty

[blissful perch]

true, but that's still at least 2 or even 3x less than ark 1 spawn rates

[low trout]

Wasn't ASA Ark 2?

[stray elm]

No

[low trout]

Oh I kinda figured it was

[true viper]

In a better timeline it wouldn't be thought of that way

[low trout]

Well with the free ASA costing me so much then insulting me with the Aquatica trailer lol I better be getting Ark 2 for free as promised.

[stray elm]

ARK 2 was never promised to be free.

[low trout]

ASA was though

[true viper]

ASA being free was the intention until Snail lost 600 million on their EV venture. Ark II is going to be a paid for product, because it's wholly new game.

Not wanting to make a profit of a new title is insanely stupid unless (God forbid) they make it free to play

[stray elm]

If we 'really' stretch it. Technically the UE5 upgrade for ASE was suppose to be free, but scrapped for ASA.

[low trout]

Is that what happened?

[stray elm]

Technically, yeah. As the UE5 upgrade wouldn't had any massive changes to stuff like the maps.
Original plan was to upgrade ASE to UE5 then move onto ARK-2.

Though you can also argue ASA is a evolved form of the UE5 upgrade, and so they did break the promise.
So it can go either way.

[low trout]

Yeah Okay that makes a bit more sense but still yeah like you said

[long sparrow]

the UE5 update to ASE would've broken way more then it improved, and it wouldn't have been able to improve much at all since oldgen consoles would've still been there.
ASA having crossplay, console mods, etc, wouldn't have happened. at most it would've been slightly better graphics but even that would've been minor since oldgen

[stray elm]

Yeah, there's also that.
Last gen hardware users would've been left behind and FORCED to upgrade to be able to play ASE 2.0 efficiently.
As much as people complain about it. Separating it into two games at least made it that last gen hardware users could still play the product they purchased years ago.

[true viper]

The good timeline

[wraith saddle]

pretty much what i want, more specifically i want more in depth gameplay, more unique creatures, and more immersion focused on a story based sandbox survival

[stray elm]

The timeline ARK-2 is half baked and the gameplay is dogshit since they never got a testing version of it to send out into the community to adjust it.
Hate that ARK-2 is delayed all you want. At least they're actually testing most of these mechanics in LC to see if the community will even like them before we get a game that has a 50/50% that no one will like.

LC is going to be the perfect testing grounds for these mechanics.
Majority of people dislike them? Then they'll probably rework how that system plays out completely in ARK-2.
Majority of people liked the systems? Then they'll probably just recreate/port the LC system into ARK-2 and refine it to work with the souls-like combat.

It's seemingly a win-win either way for them.

[true viper]

I guess there is that to consider, I just wish that it wasn't as dramatic as it has been

[stray elm]

Now, I will say.
Whoever is their art director/main map designer for the recreated ASA maps REALLY need to up their a-game for ARK-2.
Because so far, this ain't it chief.
Most of the ASA maps have looked worse artistically then their ASE counterpart, at least personally. (with exception of Scorched/Ext. With further exception that specific places on said maps do still look worse.)

[harsh spear]

and yea depending on how they wanna make creatures track down players, it could definetly do some better than just having a radius that auto-aggros once u entered. like at the very least, you could make the radius bigger when u run so it makes u wanna crouch or go slower to avoid being detected.

and ghullie suit could lower your radius

another option would be to have forest ground have a random chance of wood-sticks breaking beneath ur feet which would cause noise that would alert nearby creatures, make them curious to walk towards that location.

[shell lintel]

lc?

[stray elm]

Lost Colony

[shell lintel]

oh duh..... ty!

[stray elm]

Pretty sure that's how it is already in ARK-1.

Predators can track you from further if you run, and lower distance if you crawl. Even futher lowered with ghille.

[shell lintel]

horses kinda prove this

[stray elm]

Yerp

[shell lintel]

i hope for some new taming mechanics, like taming a carno with a meat filled cage to lure them in, then passive tame when the get hungry.

[harsh spear]

u mean in ASE ?

[stray elm]

ASE is ARK-1.

[harsh spear]

if this is already a thing i didnt know then i guess it needs to be more clear that its doing that.

[dreamy tusk]

How many staff do they have on Ark 2? It feels like they’re stretched thin as is with ASA lol

I can’t imagine this will end well. Wish they’d have not re-released the first game if they’re so focussed on making a completely new one with new mechanics. I’ll never understand dividing your player base over 3 active games as a business move.

[stray elm]

Just a term I've been coining around.
ASE/ASA is considered ARK-1 to me.

They're mechanically and narratively the same game.

[stray elm]

Dividing player bases is a really, really common thing in long-running series.

[dreamy tusk]

Not when one isn’t monetised and the other is basically dependant entirely on percentage profits off of modders

[stray elm]

Fallout 4/Skyrim.
Only difference here is that the ARK community actually pay for mods. Making the system work.

[dreamy tusk]

They’re hardly at the same level regarding popularity. They haven’t even released all the maps for ASA that we’ve paid for yet and they’re splitting work across multiple games. They delay every single drop of anything official. I think it’s a terrible time to be trying to drop another game lol

[stray elm]

They're 100% not working on ARK-2.
Want to know why?

Because Lost Colony literally is reusing aspects from the ARK-2 storepage.
LC is going to be the testing grounds for ARK-2 mechanics.
If they're doing that this in ASA and not developing that stuff for ARK-2, that likely means they're not even working on ARK-2 outside of conceptual works, and planting the seeds in ASA. So they can later on strip that code from LC and refine it more when they're 'actually' working on ARK-2.

Also, forgetting that ARK-2 and to some degree ASA is in collaberation with Grove Street.

Also seemingly with the old AF ARK-2 rex saddle leak, it seems like they also outsource some assets.

We'll see how the end of this year will look for ASA when LC comes out.
But let's be real here, people complain all the time since Scorched Earth released back on ASE about not buying expansions, yet here we are almost a decade later.
The ARK community are too much of chumps to 'not' buy anything Wildcard dangles in their face.
Only real long term issue is Snail Games themselves.

[wraith saddle]

can wait for them to admit that they haven't been working on ark 2 and push the release date back another 3 years, just for it to probably not even be playable for another 2 years after that

[harsh spear]

another thing that could be cool is if u can use stealth to avoid creatures such as hiding in bushes

thinking of something like assassin creed

if ark 2 was solely pve they could add way more interesting dynamics

[blissful perch]

Unfortunately it’s PvP and PvE, but imo that doesn’t mean much

More complexity to PvE doesn’t mean any PvP quality has to be lost

[harsh spear]

no its more about your ressources on how you can develop the pve environment because its reliant on the server so you have to make sure it isnt ressource intense. if it wasnt, you can add way more dependencies.

so essentially, because it will be PvP, the PvE will automatically be worse because it needs to be in line with the pvp experience

what i was referring to is the server-less pve though. online pve is basically the same as online pvp

[blissful perch]

Ah I see your point about online vs offline for sure. But what’s this about “PvP experience”? Is that in pure reference to PvP requiring online play?

[untold ingot]

Server less pve, or single player. You know most pve in ark is done on servers, and if ark2 were to go server less it would literally die overnight

Either way, running on a server actually takes less client side resources, since even sp ark technically runs a server in the background. When using a dedicated server on a different machine you lessen the load on the client allowing for better graphics, framerate, etc.

The only real issue with pve vs pvp is when you try to make the different game modes too different, which ark doesn't do all that much. You will always have pve players complaining about nerfs to stuff, but you would have that even if pvp wasn't in the game

[tidal coral]

The need to nerf wouldnt be the same if pvp wasn't a thing as nobody would complain something is overpowered

example: managarmr

[blissful perch]

Agree about “PvP need”, but imo PvE design balance is almost more critical than PvP balance - because people can all use an OP thing and counter each other as people. If the PvE is unbalanced, the game simply loses fun factor or otherwise becomes stale

[slim epoch]

Brachi could use a buff

It’s tail whip tickles

[winged dome]

Sweet - take it to the appropriate channel

[sharp bison]

this game has one minute chance to not be a steaming pile of ass on early release thats riddled with dlcs and micro transactions, and thats if vin diesel has full artistic control over ark 2

[slim epoch]

?

[fallow niche]

This channel is for Ark 2. It is not for Ascended. Move to #ark-survival-ascended .

[true viper]

I doubt Vin Diesel himself would be in control of those elements specially

[untold ingot]

Thank you for being the exact example I needed for this point lol

[tidal coral]

No i'm actually making a counter point.

[untold ingot]

That's not a counter point tho

[compact bear]

When you talk about the opinion that people would complain about pve nerfs and someone replied that people wouldn't complain about overpowered pve aspects because it's pve, that's a counter point

[harsh spear]

all u saying is that them trying to do something different, would make it die overnight. i disagree with that.
honestly i think the main reason why ASA fails so much is that it is essentially just the same game so it does seem like people want something new, something different.

if Ark 2 was serverless, they would have way more freedom in design space

and they could spend their time purely on making the game rather than having it work with server stability

[long sparrow]

limiting a heavily multiplayer focus game to singleplayer won't help at all.
if you just mean no officials then thats not serverless, they'd still have to deal with unofficials and any peer to peer servers (non-dedi in ark)

ark is all about persistence. singleplayer removes most of that.

[harsh spear]

from chatgpt: A truly serverless version of ARK should, in theory, run better than a server-based version because your PC isn't wasting resources on networking, player syncing, or a hidden local server. However, ARK itself still runs a background server even in single-player, which is why its performance is often worse than expected. If the game was properly optimized to be 100% single-player-focused, you'd see a noticeable FPS improvement.

[winged dome]

Persistent open-world survival

[long sparrow]

thats not true at all. chatgpt is just lying.
singleplayer runs worse because the client has to do more then if its just loading it.
all those AIs moving around, all the process like harvesting, breeding, etc. all would be done on the client instead of the server. singleplayer running without the internal server won't improve much if anything at all.

[harsh spear]

stop bsing pls. all the best looking games are singleplayer games for a reason

[long sparrow]

that has nothing to do with anything.

[harsh spear]

performance gets worse with server being involved

[long sparrow]

correlation doesn't equal causation.

minecraft java runs way worse then minecraft bedrock despite bedrock running an internal server with singleplayer.

there is way more involved then just. servers are bad.

[harsh spear]

minecraft , the one game that is made with java

[long sparrow]

there is more then just minecraft written in java. but sure

[blissful perch]

…are you talking about ping? About tons of players building large structures and loading multiplayer servers with tons of tames?

[untold ingot]

Their counter point was a complaint about the mana nerf. So not a counter point

[untold ingot]

I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that a full sp game would die quickly. That's pretty much a trend for games like that

[jovial hemlock]

hello

[untold ingot]

It's different people working on those, so it wouldn't actually save any time, it would just mean skittle would lose his job

[untold ingot]

Client performance actually dramatically increases. I locally host a dedicated server, my fps difference is 30 on a 3060.

[untold ingot]

I literally can't believe this lol. Using chatgpt in a debate 🤣

[jovial hemlock]

how

[untold ingot]

?

[jovial hemlock]

What

What are you talking about?

[untold ingot]

How

[long sparrow]

I'm just wondering why it thinks "networking, player syncing, or a hidden local server" is equal to everything that happens in ark that the client doesn't need to worry about when playing on a server.

oh not just equal to but somehow takes more performance away because of it 😂

if networking was that bad the internet wouldn't function

[blissful perch]

I mean I can see the argument that loads of tames and structures on a server is more “painful” than one player’s stuff…but not sure what else is being referred to

[long sparrow]

that part is true, why officials has more issues then unofficials and especially private servers.
way more things happening. but imagine a singleplayer with the same amount of stuff lol.

offloading stuff to the server and not the client makes it run better. networking and other connection stuff is gonna be WAY smaller in comparison.

[true viper]

Realistically both perspectives are being catered to with what WC wants to do with Ark II. The random world events, and Orc raids provide a PvP experience in a single player and PvE server setting, while in PvP they may very well serve as a counter balance against successful tribes in PvP, giving the underdog(s) a leg up.

[stray elm]

I do kind of hope that they're recruitable/can have some peace between specific tribes.
I can't imagine, unless they make this really video-gamey that every Aratai is under one flag. There's bound to be differing tribes with different motives for survival.
I would really like to see their encampments being procedurally placed around the world, and having a RNG chance of that tribes aggression towards their neighbors on like a 1-3 scaling.

Aswell, unless there's something funky with them narrativly. It'd just leave a bad taste in my mouth that our own personal tribe can't have peace with specific Aratai's, as they 'ARE' the natives here.

[true viper]

I think that's exactly what's going on with the Aratai, they'll only ever be an antagonistic force. It's more likely to think there might be other tribes of humans that you can form relations with.

I would personally perfer that tbh, I'm of the mindset Orcs should be killed on sight

[stray elm]

Eh, I don't know. They mentioned an unknown third-party that wants to control all life. (likely Element)
If Destiny has taught me anything, they'll probably be the antagonists in the base game, but eventually might be allies if Element goes wild on this planet.

[true viper]

I'm from Gondor and I say kill em' all

Even if that were the case, I don't know how well something like that would work in the end game (narratively) once you've done all the quests, and presumably side missions, and in the narrative an alliance is borqured between you and the space orcs, what takes the place of the PvE force? Just the Orcs wanting you dead again?

[stray elm]

Aye, just gonna say. ARK has always had some ties to biblical events to some degree. So I wouldn't be too surprised if this might be an allegory for colonizers. 🐟

[true viper]

That's most likely the allegory, and it's tiring imo.

It's such a 1 dimensional view of a centuries long phenomena that can't be so easily boiled down to a black and white kind of narrative.

[stray elm]

I'd imagine if they don't separate the Aratai's in tribes in the base game. That they could narratively add some form of civil war inside of the Aratai's then add some of those rebelled Aratai's to whatever NPC world hub they have. Same place Santiago likely is.
So, basically Destiny.

[true viper]

What would the point of introducing themes of Colonialism do that would serve the story? If anything the humans who land of Arat are begrudgingly colonialist. The only way to solve that problem is if Santiago and the others kill themselves once they land on the planet.

It would be a George RR Martin thing of 'This thing really sucks, but I won't bother trying to offer a solution'

[true viper]

Could be yeah, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I personally can't see the Aratai being friendly towards humans in any regard. Their physical presentation screams antagonist.

[stray elm]

That's kind of why I really hope that the Aratai's aren't under one flag, and other smaller tribes can be allied with.
They're primitive, but we don't know how smart or if they can/can't communicate with us.
If we can figure out a way to communicate with them, then some Aratai's might understand that we 'had' to come here for our own survival due to a mass extinction event.
Those Aratai's that would understand this could then possibly be persuaded to at least 'attempt' an alliance with other human tribes.

[true viper]

Possibly, but they look far too feral and unadvanced as a civilization for that to be plausible imho. Ark II is going for a more primitive feel, and to give the Orcs any amount of civility would detract from that aspect I feel. Something like that would lend itself to political themes (not IRL 4th wall tired nonsense).

The steam page overtly refers to the Aratai as hostile. Whatever that dark force seeking to control all life is either a vestige of Rockwell, maybe even he himself, at least his conscious, or another alien race that either created Element or weaponized it before humanity.

[stray elm]

Rockwell is dead, like actually dead dead.
And it's likely just Element, since if we're to assume the Eden ring 'did' crash down onto Arat. There's now unregulated Element that the Stryders where previously recycling to keep its growth a minimal.

Said Stryders would likely be destroyed in the crash.

[tawdry token]

[true viper]

NGL, I wish Helena stayed dead too

I have absolutely no idea why she would be on Arat with Meeka

[stray elm]

To be fair, she never died. Just became a Homo Deus.
Now, how she's a human again? 🤷
Probably just transferred her engramic matrix to a new cloned body.
Issue.
If that was possible. Why didn't literally any other Homo Deus do the same thing?

But yeah, I do dislike how ARK-2 is seemingly just recycling the old roster instead of giving us replacements.

[long sparrow]

she could also just be a clone like santiago is.
bob and santiago know about what they did on the arks/extinction afterall

[true viper]

Yeah, I'm starting to get the impression that with the animated series, we're seeing a remake of the story, which I don't think it really needed to be changed in anyway

Cause as far as I can tell, the animated series is supplanting the narrative of the explorer notes.

[long sparrow]

the animated series isn't the same story.

think alternate timeline or whatever

[true viper]

I think that's how it started, but with ASAs launch, and the BTT cutscenes, the new character designs have taken the place of their appearances in the notes and other media.

Hell, even Henry is in the ASA main menu. To the best of my knowledge, he's an animated series original. Not to mention the love affair between Helena and Mei Yin. Helena directly references it when talking with Meeka in the Lost Colony trailer.

That coupling was previously between Mei Yin and Diana starting during the events of Ab

[long sparrow]

visuals have changed because they didn't really have a visual before the animated series. the ASA main menu is probably the animated series skin pack that just released lol.

[true viper]

This was on launch

[long sparrow]

yeah no idea on the romance stuff have heard that

[long sparrow]

where do you mean then?

[true viper]

Henry being in the ASA main menu.

[long sparrow]

which one is henry lol.

I only watched like 3 episodes of the animated series so far

[true viper]

He was one of the characters from the redwoods village, black guy

[long sparrow]

oh you mean the picture on "host/local" or whatever.
i'm gonna put that under "doesn't really matter lol"

this one

[true viper]

Yeah, that's him

[long sparrow]

bob was also from the animated series and he died on the island so BTT bob isn't the same one.

[true viper]

Right, because he's more than likely another 'he who tries again'. To the best of my knowledge Helena was the one to alter the code of the Arks to respawn survivors. He shouldn't be able to respawn if Helena hasn't become a homo deus yet.

[long sparrow]

overall it seems more like ark 2 isn't the exact same as ASE/ASA which gives them more options 🤷 like the animated series isn't

[true viper]

Isn't the same how? Part of the same timeline?

[long sparrow]

bob existing kinda means it isn't he wasn't in any notes until BTT.

not to mention other changes like the romance and stuff

more feels like each are their own thing while related are slightly different rather then ASE/ASA/Ark2 are continuations or remakes

[true viper]

That's why I think the narrative of the animated series is taking the place of the prior canon laid out in the notes.

Both stories start and end at the same point, so to me it just seems messy to remake the nuances of the story, when there wasn't really anything wrong with the narrative of the notes. Outside of them only being told from a first person perspective.

[long sparrow]

it wouldn't have worked in a TV show. adaptations almost always require changes.

could they have been closer. probably but them going a bit farther means things that are different can just be its not the same story.

instead of people nitpicking tiny differences like they do anyway

[true viper]

In some ways yes, but I think there was enough wiggle room to elaborate on the events that were occurring outside of characters respective note entries. Cause really, we just learn about the universe from their perspectives, not reality of what's going on around all of them at once.

I will admit though, if season 2 is any better than 1, I might come to like the new narrative

[untold ingot]

Chatgpt has no such thing as quantitative reasoning. It's literally a next word predictor.

[stray elm]

That's what I said above.

New cloned body, same engramic matrix.

[stray elm]

That's what I'm getting as well.
ARK-2 kind of seems like a soft reboot of the narrative with seemingly so far, most of the key characters.
Wouldn't be surprised at this point if they brought back Rockwell in a new body, have Nerva as an antagonist again that this time gets influenced by Element, and Mei Yin somehow fitting into all of this.

And Train has a point.
Ever since Gen2, they have been replacing the older design of characters with the Animated Series versions.

[true viper]

It just seems so unnecessary you know what I mean? There wasn't a glaring flaw with any of it to warrant the necessity of a total uprooting of the timeline.

[stray elm]

Rockwell no longer looks like a late 60 to 70 year old man. Now he looks more like his late 50s.
Helena is no longer the poster art woman.
Santiago is just Vin Diesel, and that's probably how he'll be in TAS. Even though we have multiple depictions of him in the notes of being more of a smaller-ish guy with hair and a beard. (ironically Vin's brother looks more like the original Santiago design)

[stray elm]

Yeah, I get it.
Seems with LC also stating that Arat Prime is the birthplace of the ARK's instead of Sanctuary. It starts to seem like they're trying to burry the old/Marc's version of the narrative for a new canon.

[true viper]

To my way of thinking, characters are people you'd otherwise think are real, because they're treated as such in the story. So to see two versions of most characters makes me register them as completely sperate people.

[stray elm]

You just described an example of narrative dissonance.

[true viper]

There are few exceptions where stuff like this is plausible. The Walking Dead is a perfect example of this.

[stray elm]

When something in the narrative doesn't make sense/is inconsistent that it breaks the immersion of that world.

[true viper]

It's why I dislike Halo 4 so much, what you did in 3 has no meaningful effect on the events of 4.

At least in the grand sense, the galactic scale events. Outside of that I like Chief and Cortana dynamic.

[stray elm]

Wait, but you're up for changes in sequels that completely make the last game's audience be alienated due to how different it is.
I'm fucking with you, love you. ❤️

[true viper]

"I thought we had a truce with the Covenant"
Completely decimated them 4 years prior

This is getting off topic, my bad

[long sparrow]

probably meant the elite group that the arbiter was.

yeah not the covenant but probably talking about that group not the group they were literally fighting last master chief saw lol

[stray elm]

Don't forget that they made the Forerunners a different race. Completely defeating the trilogies irony of the Covenant worshipping the Forerunners while they where slaughtering their said gods. All because the prophets knew and wanted to stay in power, as they knew that if that information got out, that they'd be dethroned and humanity would be the rightfully be the very gods the Covenant worships and dedicate their lives to.

[long sparrow]

pretty sure books made prior to halo 4 made it clear they were different.

[true viper]

Na, that was a Elite from the Storm Covenant, not the Swords of Shangelios (Arbys hingeheads). The Covenant remnant faction in 4 was treated as if it were still the Covenant, not a splinter faction

[fallow niche]

A little, even pumpkin over here smhh

[stray elm]

Contact Harvest confirms that the Forerunners where human.

[true viper]

Slowly dismantling the power structure of this server.

piece by piece, mod by mod

[stray elm]

I'll just tag Pump in general with my message.

[long sparrow]

👀

[blissful perch]

Not only does it say that, but I’d also fear a replacement of creature tames with Aratai “human servant NPCs” which would gut ark’s core

[stray elm]

I don't really see that happening.
Already in ARK-1, no amount of high quality pick will replace a high melee/high saddle anky.
A shotgun has the range, but no shotgun can out damage a Giga/Carchar if it's up close.

I see human NPC's more like Sir-5rm8 where they can do stuff that players can. But can never be better then you.
That's what tames are for.

[blissful perch]

it's a quantity thing

you can only use ankys = to the number of players. However...you could get an army of human NPCs

[stray elm]

Unpod some anky's on a mountain and put them on wander.

They'll still auto harvest.

[blissful perch]

🤨 that can't be serious

[stray elm]

I don't see your point.

[long sparrow]

an army of sir 5rm8 isn't gonna help you lol. they hate groups.

I very much doubt we'll be able to tame or have an alliance with the aratai. they are supposed to be a hostile PvE force.
the steam page also only says "Hostile 'Aratai' hunt & attack you riding their own tamed creatures, as they seek to drive human interlopers from their world."

just would be weird to make them join when every says the opposite.

[blissful perch]

it's also weird

[true viper]

There's room for both I think. With a game like Ark, there's no reason why 3 or more things can't be true at the same time.

[blissful perch]

there is basically no function that can't be done by a non-human creature

is my take - it feels like every other NPC when you add what is ultimately a human

[true viper]

They would have a roll fighting the Aratai along side, especially in enclosed spaces

[shell lintel]

Aratai?

[true viper]

I personally think that the lack of NPCs in Ark currently makes the current gameplay feel hollow

[true viper]

The space orcs

[shell lintel]

????

[long sparrow]

the hostile PvE force in ark 2.

[shell lintel]

I'm very lost

[blissful perch]

story or tamed npcs

[blissful perch]

ark 2 lol, not asa - stuff that doesn't exist yet

[long sparrow]

we know basically nothing except they are hostile so they are theory crafting we'll be able to tame them for some reason

[true viper]

Both would exist in the same playspace I would think

[shell lintel]

Ohhhhhhhhhh, the big guys in the trailer?

[blissful perch]

i mean genesis 2 has story NPCs

but (thankfully) no tamed NPCs

[true viper]

Right, but they're very underwhelming given Arks current gameplay context

That might change with Lost Colony

Survivor Mate, was the gateway to that I think

[shell lintel]

I hope we get some terrifying monsters in one or to caves

[long sparrow]

"But beware, the frozen wastes of Arat Prime are not devoid of intelligent life; on the contrary, the city has become a war-torn battleground between twisted Element-powered 'factions' seeking to undo what was accomplished at the end of ARK Extinction. Together with generations of heroes, you'll unite the past and the future of ARK!"
it'll have factions but what that means for us we don't know. good news is that this is likely a test for ark 2 so if you can't ally them or anything then thats probably how the aratai work.

[shell lintel]

Is that in the lost colony trailer?

[long sparrow]

thats from the steam page.

don't think its connected to ark yet but it has a store page

[shell lintel]

Lost colony page? I think I've read it.

[long sparrow]

yeah

[shell lintel]

Okay, I'll have to read it again, I'm looking forward to the possible storyline of ark2

[long sparrow]

lost colony is ASA.

[shell lintel]

I understand that, but if they are using it as testing ground. It makes me a bit more excited.

[long sparrow]

ah, yeah ASA has been a bunch of tests like the king titan event.

[shell lintel]

I have not gotten to see that yet. I like ASA though. It would be awesome if they are able to iron the game out some before releasing it.

[true viper]

That's probably alluding to the world events talked about in Ark II

[shell lintel]

Talked about in ark 2?

[true viper]

Yeah the steam page

Wildcard wants do random world events that happen in the game at random

[shell lintel]

Awesome!!

[true viper]

I take that to mean either natural disasters of some kind or bands of Orcs mauling other human NPC survivors

Have you ever played Ghost Recon Breakpoint or Wildlands?

[shell lintel]

Nah, I haven't played it

[true viper]

It would be like encountering convoys in those games. They always exist in the world, but you can chose to engage with them or not.

Great games

[shell lintel]

Ooooh, choice to engage or not sounds pretty awesome.

[true viper]

Yeah, it makes the world feel more alive

[shell lintel]

I really hope for more interactive fights for alphas

[true viper]

That and the Orcs. I hope they have dedicated combat roles like the Covenant does

[shell lintel]

I've never played Halo, but dedicated roles would be pretty cool, if I understand it .

[true viper]

Oh man, you need to. Some the best games you could possibly play

[true viper]

Yeah like archers, brawlers, lancers etc

[shell lintel]

Little too violent for me

[true viper]

Don't let that get in the way. It's such a deep universe. Don't forcibly rob yourself of an incredible narrative

[shell lintel]

Would be interesting, maybe dinos with special attack based on class

Like being able to use soroundings too fight you

[true viper]

Yeah, that would be cool. That might be difficult in a persistent gameplay enviornment, but I could be wrong

[shell lintel]

Not sure what persistent gameplay environment is, but like alphas, and a few smaller dinos around them knocking down trees to kill you or knock you off a cliff or something.

[true viper]

Persistent means that the game is always active, think about servers. Even fi you're not on the server, things are still happening on it.

[shell lintel]

Hmm, would it be necessary to have it be persistent? Or just when that part of the server loads in?

[true viper]

There's little difference tbh

To the best of my knowledge anyway.

[shell lintel]

Okay, may not save enough processing power, or something.

[true viper]

Even if that part of the server hasn't loaded on your client (your system) I might be for someone else.

[shell lintel]

Ohhhhhhhhhh

[true viper]

It's not so much that to my way of thinking as much as it is than it is the potential for those spots to be camped by tribes and used as a defense weapon against NPCs and other players. It's not an inherently bad thing, just something I think might get annoying in the same way mega tribes block off caves from other players in PvP. Because wherever that actor (a boulder that can fall, and tree that can be felled etc) that would have to respawn in that exact same place every time an individual instance of the actor is interacted with.

[shell lintel]

Yeah, that actually makes total sense, that would be very annoying!

What if it spawned in only while the boss or alpha is there?

[true viper]

I may require an octree overlap, or some kind of event (possibly Event Tick in Unreal) to determine when it should spawn if the alpha or boss has. But at the same time it also depends if alphas or bosses will have their own set places in game where they could spawn, and not just roam freely around the map.

[shell lintel]

I would hope for same spawn location, but random respawn time.

[dry rain]

This shit aint coming out gangs 🥀

[harsh spear]

i think its cooler if the spawn location of bosses is random but u have a way to track them down

kinda like u would see titans on the map, it makes them like a threat u wanna stay away from

or like in evolve u were able to track down the monster. via footsteps.
weve also seen this in genesis 1 with the alpha missions.
but it would flow much better if those type of bosses would spawn naturally and give good loot.

[spiral steeple]

This finna be the new GTA6 meme

[harsh spear]

i liked how in far cry pimal u had different story lines for bosses where u would track them down, through a cave for example, and then at the end u would face them. and after defeating it, it was also tamed. thats a cool reward that ark hasnt really taken into account.
they could easily do something like that for caves, gives them a deeper meaning than just artifacts.

[blissful perch]

I’d like more non buildable areas so stuff like this can happen

[dry rain]

this aint gonna comeout at all

[untold ingot]

If the map sections weren't loaded into server memory whenever the server was on, then everytime anyone would join, the server would have to load it into memory. So anytime anyone joined the whole server would have to go through loading. It would be unbearable. The trade off is keeping the server passive but loaded.

8f it were about saving processing that part of the server would be (mostly) not loaded, but that does come with bugs most commonly known as single player bugs. Like stuff not respawning. Having server areas loaded in but hibernating if no one is there is the primary reason server gameplay is less buggy and more smooth than sp

[shell lintel]

Okay, thanks for explaining it to me.

Do you know how no man's sky does it without much lag?

[untold ingot]

They don't have multi-player do they?

[stray elm]

No Man's Sky has been an online game for like...four-ish years?

There's a hub area that's basically the Death Star that you can meet other players.

You can also invite friends to a squad of four to actually play with.

[golden breach]

ark 2 yet?

[wraith saddle]

no theyre gonna milk asa as long as possible

[long sparrow]

no man's sky isn't persistant like at all. once you leave an area nothing is happening. bases just run a calc to figure out what should be done in terms of automation/timers.
as far as I know nothing in no man's sky runs without people actually there.

besides the bases I don't think anything actually stays when you leave.

I don't think they'd lean away from the persistant aspect in ark 2

[shell lintel]

yeah but since its proc-gen and multiplayer it seems like there would be a ton of lag

[shell lintel]

probably

[long sparrow]

not sure, no man's sky doesn't have nearly as many moving parts as ark. and I don't think the server actually does much except make sure everything is stored properly.

don't even think terrain changes save unless its inside a base.

its the reason nms multiplayer sucked at the start lol.

whatever magic they are using to prevent lag isn't really something that can help ark 2 since in ark the lag is caused by other stuff

[stray elm]

To be fair, most stuff in ARK is like that as well.
Just that the smaller play space makes it that a higher pop server will always render a good portion of the map at a time.

If I recall, bio grinders just don't work without a player nearby.

[long sparrow]

definitely just a lot more in ark.
no man's sky is client side tho. servers don't do it

[stray elm]

And I think that's more tied to the server then the actual game itself.

[long sparrow]

you can edit anything you want from your save lol

[stray elm]

ARK renders both client and server side.
If it didn't have client-based rendering, no one could play it.

[long sparrow]

no, no mans sky

[stray elm]

Ooh, I see.

[long sparrow]

afaik no man's sky server is just storing things like the planet names and doing the multiplayer hub thing.

[stray elm]

But yeah, I bet you a lot of server issues are more tied to Nitrado just having shitty server boxes then it actually is the game itself.

[long sparrow]

its more of overuse then bad servers.

too many packed into one server box instead of fewer.

ark is still heavy tho

[stray elm]

Right, compared to ASA servers that have to keep track of 300+ creatures per tribe, massive player made bases with multiple actors (as in walls/foundations/etc) any active breeding going on that needs to be calculated, food that has to be calculated, and then health if food reaches 0, etc.

Oh, oh

And having to keep track of every single entities color regions and save them so they don't get wiped in a server restart.

[long sparrow]

yeah lol.

[stray elm]

Then of how ARK handles creature spawns. While only like 2k or something like that active wild creatures can be active, there's like 30k in queue and prepped for spawning.

[shell lintel]

Terrain doesn't save at all really

[long sparrow]

I've noticed its more likely to near a base but my base has reset the terrain before lol.

[shell lintel]

I've loaded into so many bases in the terrain

[long sparrow]

lol

[shell lintel]

I enjoy nms still

[untold ingot]

I just found out that nms has multi-player lol. Wierd. Anyway, the reason that nms would be less laggy than ark is that at any point ark has to load heaps of information about 10k(dinos) at a time, and send that info to 70 players, on top of everything else that has to be loaded. Nms doesn't have anywhere near that complexity. Literally no game does. (not quite true, games like Mc do have nearly that level of complexity, but typically have a different loading system).

If you think about it too hard, the complexity is probably polynomial rather than constant if O means anything to you. Which just means the more entities, the much more computation needed

It's at least O(n^2) and I would hope that's the average

[candid mica]

Multi-player in NMS? Bet it's like watching paint dry. And comparing it to Ark's chaos? That's like comparing a kiddie pool to the ocean, bro.

[untold ingot]

That has nothing to do with what I was talking about.

[shell lintel]

I think I understand that

[frigid merlin]

Pls add brachiosaurus

[split dove]

Brachiosaurus is confirmed for Ark 2

[shell lintel]

Looks so cool

[warm current]

They aren’t really worth taming and they are a pain to tame u have to shoot there knee in order to knock them out

[fallow niche]

Have no idea what the taming methods will be for Ark2.

[warm current]

They have that Dino on Asa it’s a modded Dino. I’m hoping it’s way easier to tame in ark 2 it’s a nightmare now

[fallow niche]

I'm aware. This channel is for Ark2 though, so no taming methods are known.

[twilit atlas]

ARK 2 when? Never? I thought so.

[untold ingot]

Other than the fact that they have the highest dps of any dino

[hard narwhal]

When ark 2 gonna drop?

[true viper]

Presumably sometime in late 2026 or 2027 if there are no further hiccups.

[warm current]

I doubt that we will even see it then since they can’t even get this game correctly put out that we have now I think it will be 2028-2029

[true viper]

We'll have to wait and see what 5.5 brings about, I was very happily surprised with Fridays crunch and the patch notes

[wanton pike]

Aren’t there a lot of things on the roadmap for Asa pushed to 2027? Don’t think Ark 2 will release before all of that is released tbh

[main sedge]

You guys think Ark 2 will launch before the Ps6?

[hard narwhal]

Nah

Not even before gta 6

[simple star]

I thought Ark 2 was releasing this year, but apparently it wont

[worldly garden]

If PS6 is planned for 2027 or beyond i'd say very possible, but not if it's planned for 2026.

[untold ingot]

I still bet early 2027

[shell lintel]

Ehh, that's only about 2years away

[untold ingot]

Yeah? Theyve been working on it for like 4 years already

[long sparrow]

and ASA is them testing and getting ready for it they've also already said ASA will continue after ark 2 releases.

[gleaming tree]

Ah hell nah

Making us pay again for ark 2?

[stray elm]

It's always been a game they where going to charge.

[gleaming tree]

Just say they’re greedy

[stray elm]

With ASA, sure.
But ARK-2 is a separate project.

[blissful perch]

The phrase “how dare they make us pay for a new game” is hilarious

[stray elm]

Talking about paying for a new game. Just pre ordered the collectors edition for DOOM: The Dark Ages.

[untold ingot]

You probably don't have a job. This is their job.

[mellow forge]

i swr we was gonna get ASA free with ark 2

😭

[stray elm]

It wasn't for free, it was in a bundle that came with both ASA 'and' ARK-2 before it got canned becaue people complain how they where bundling ASA with a game we know virtually nothing about outside of a storepage.

[mellow forge]

well i hope ark 2 isnt as bad performance ASA was on release

i was suffering payed 40 for a buggy game 🤣

[stray elm]

It will

[blissful perch]

Nah it’ll be worse

[stray elm]

That's a steal.
Most people deal with ASA level buggines in most AAA games that're 60$ USD to 70$

[mellow forge]

for the dev time it should not be

[stray elm]

I'm not disagreeing. But just saying, most AAA games that're in the oven for 3+ years just come out as dogshit.
Starfield, Concord, Cyberpunk, Halo Infinite. All buggy piece of shit games. (with one being not even available to purchase anymore for other reasons that aren't bugs..)

[mellow forge]

helldivers 2 on the other hand

one game that did it right

[stray elm]

Helldivers 2 was kind of buggy on launch. But more 'haha funny' bugs then actually something that is unplayable.

[mellow forge]

yh even rockstars remaster game was terrible just money grabbing

[mellow forge]

yh they need to invest more in testers icl

(thats games in general)

[stray elm]

Only reason why I give Wildcard even remotely a slight pass, is because UE5 is a dogshit engine with performance in the first place, and their team is around only 100 employees, which is really small for a development team that a game like ARK should have.

[mellow forge]

wildcard is the goat the owners are terrible there ai ad was horrendous

[stray elm]

You'd be surprised that most AAA do have QA testers.
What dev's do/can do with that information is up in the air though.

[mellow forge]

burned out devs or lazy

[stray elm]

Well, more like CEO's that don't care.
Dev's are just doing what they're paid/told to do.

[mellow forge]

its kinda like minecraft ig ppl think there lazy but theres alot more that goes into games especially triple a

[stray elm]

If I recall, Cyberpunk had QA testers but due to investors starting to pull out due to how long the game was taking to release and them not getting anything in return. The higherups decided to release Cyberpunk prematurely.

[mellow forge]

yh ppl complain about sports games for example but the ceos dont change stuff bc there sales are higher every year

[mellow forge]

when is Ark 2 even releasing

[stray elm]

We have no idea. But presumably late 2026 to 2027 if we're to assume sometime after Gen2 gets rereleased.

[mellow forge]

is ark 2 again on the floating worlds

the ad looks like it

[stray elm]

No, it's on Arat which is an alien planet. The one you see at the end of Gen2.

[mellow forge]

why on earth are we on an alien planet i thought we go back to earth mb if im wrong i havnt done story in so long

honestly i hope we get bigger oceans that are deep voids

would be sick

kinda like the void in subnautica but there a ocean floor ofc im just describing what i would think it to look like

[stray elm]

Okay, let me give you a tl;dr.
Aberration is the last ARK we go to in the story.
Ext is set on Earth and at the end, the ARK's return home and purge the planet of all of the Corruption/Element on it. As that shit is what caused the apocalyptic event that even needed the ARK's/Genesis ship to be constructed.
Lost Colony, the first new story expansion for ASA is going to fill the gap between Ext and Gen1, as there's a huge time jump between those two maps back on ASE.
We don't know how LC will go, but we do know the ending, in which Rockwell goes finds the super luminal uplink on Arat Prime and transfers onto the Genesis ship.
Him being the last remnants (that we know of) of Element is seeking to spread, and we can't allow that so we go after him onto the Genesis ship and the events of Gen1/2 happen.
Only way to fully kill him is to blow up the entire ship so we do as the rest of the life on it get ejected onto Arat, a planet that can hold Earth-like species for ARK-2 to be set on.

[mellow forge]

oh yh the asa expansion looks sick

i wish the atlantis one was on asa not ark

yk the one they made a ai video for

[mellow forge]

the name ark is well thourght for the games plot

[stray elm]

Yeah, fuck that. I rather not have that dogshit Snail games created expansion touch either product. But if I had to choose one, I rather ASE as it's the non-supported game.

[mellow forge]

i always wondered why there was dinosaurs but we have tech ig it is a game after all but time wise makes no sense

[frigid merlin]

I still want it tbh its cool

[stray elm]

Ehhh, there's some hiccups and retcons I wont go into that Genesis/LC introduced.

[mellow forge]

like noahs ark

[stray elm]

What?

[mellow forge]

ok so i always thourght ark was a good name for the game because noahs ark the bible story how he took animals and sent them to safety while a disaster happened on earth

both game and book story have a tie in

[stray elm]

Well, yeah. That's a given due to the in-game ARK's purpose is to preserve life.

[mellow forge]

yh thats what im saying its genuise thinking

i gotta say the center is my fav map on asa though

not liking aberration so much rn

[wraith saddle]

crazy take

[gentle karma]

Ark2 is supposed to come out in 2025 right?

[stray elm]

No

[gentle karma]

:(
Is there a predicted release date?

[stray elm]

Late 2026 to 2027.
Gen2 isn't rereleasing for ASA till late 2026, and highly unlikely that ARK-2 would release before their narrative is done, as they'd want every newcomer for ASA to get hyped for ARK-2 via the Gen2 promo's, and it being a prequel to ARK-2.

[gentle karma]

Oh, okay.
Thank you!

[swift tundra]

Gg

[onyx crow]

It's because Ark has actually been a science fiction game all along. Even from the beginning on the island. Even before the boss fights were added. The obelisks have always been there. And it's also an explanation for why we have creatures from all different times in Earth's history together, who were separated by millions and millions of years. Because it's Science Fiction and they were brought back by futuristic technology… The game was never a prehistoric primeval survival game even though it made us think it was at first. Twist... it's not the far past, it's the far future! I remember how mind blowing it was to find out that actually we weren't somewhere on earth at all… But on something orbiting the Earth.

[stray elm]

Boss fights where always a day one thing, just saying

Just boss arenas where later on implemented.

[harsh spear]

isnt gen2 free ? i doubt they would wanna promo something thats free

[glossy zodiac]

what he is trying to say there is gen 2 is the primer for ark 2 as it directly proceeds gen 2 in the story without gen two you don't have a Segway into ark 2

[shell lintel]

I wonder if there will be any changes to gen2 storyline with asa

[limber drift]

Ark2 is a myth

[glossy zodiac]

I think snail games is going to force ark 2 as a live service update to asa and were not going to get an actual stand alone product but that's just my opinion based on everything we have seen thus far with asa and now ark Aquatica with ase

[untold ingot]

Nothing we have seen in Asa would support that. And I would say Aquatica actually shows a rift between snail and wc, snail doesn't get everything it's way

[limber drift]

Possibly, not sure how that would work since ark 2 is supposed to be an entirely different game type. Aquatica looks similar to atlas which I believe was supposed to be a dlc map for ase originally

[true viper]

Aquatica just looks to be Ark unda da sea, its borrowing some assets from Atlas, but not gameplay systems at least I think

[worn solar]

I am really wondering who is the idiot who decide to make the player base go back to the old ark. really wondering if the studio want to make the game work lmao. snail game really don't have a brain or they just want to make ark ascended disapear

[placid prawn]

when ark2 ?

[serene onyx]

when ark2?

[uncut bone]

When ark2?

[harsh spear]

when ark2?

[exotic root]

When ark2?

[eager halo]

when ark2?

[thorny cloud]

when ark2?

[stoic cipher]

When ark2?

[clever pond]

When ark2?

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

[haughty tide]

2035

When ark2?

[heady flicker]

2035

When ark2?

[viscid marlin]

2035

[lyric geyser]

2045*

[halcyon fiber]

Never

[wanton pike]

Tomorrow

[north grail]

We getting bloodborne 2 before ark 2

[agile bison]

We'll get gta 6 before ark 2

[hybrid rune]

Hello 👋

[fossil sequoia]

Minecraft 2 Before Ark 2

[serene onyx]

when??

[muted depot]

GTA 7 before Ark 2

[vestal prairie]

@muted depot no no no ark 2 not happening in your life time

[dull wind]

3025

[daring sundial]

ARK 2 on year 5000 lol 😆

[rapid swallow]

its never coming most likely

[rapid swallow]

nah lol

[rain minnow]

When ark2?
(Better if they don’t launch it don’t want a buggy game would rather they spend time fixing bugs on asa )

[tiny glade]

Ark 2 is a myth

[wanton pike]

I honestly wished Ark 2 was planned to be a better version of the concept of Ark 1. I don’t want a sequel of this 😅 just imho

[blissful perch]

That’s what ark 2 is tho 🤨

It’s a better version of “survival taming” than ark 1 has been

[stray elm]

Think they mean more of what ASA is.

[long sparrow]

ASA is supposed to be "better ASE"
ark 2 is gonna change a lot. it being a sequel just lets them do way more.

would people really want the same thing for a third time 😂

[true viper]

Oh you'd be surprised

[stray elm]

That's kind of what the OG Halo trilogy was.

[long sparrow]

different kind of game. its a first person shooter.

people LOVE playing the same game every time.

[stray elm]

Didn't specify if it was ARK.

[long sparrow]

sandbox games are not that way since they are sandbox.

[stray elm]

Call of Duty be like-

[long sparrow]

what I was pointing to lol

[true viper]

You're onto something with COD, not Halo. Hands off, heretic.

[long sparrow]

not a shooter game but most sports games especially fifa lol

[stray elm]

Depends on what we classify as a sandbox game. That genre's definition is pretty loose.

[long sparrow]

halo is way more story oriented so it won't fit it.

ark 2 will also be more story then ark

[long sparrow]

game genres don't have much definition.

its all based on feel

[true viper]

Not just that, the gameplay loop is designed to be much tighter

[stray elm]

Halo 3 is gameplay/mechanically just an objectively better version of Halo: CE.
Same gameplay loop, but with added on content, better physics engine, and graphics.

[true viper]

And it's the best of the OG trilogy

[mossy grotto]

hola