When trying to explain ark to new people, I usually just say you gonna get murdered..
But after you get over being murdered you have to learn strategies. As while there's no main story or specific thing to do.. it is yours to master the Island.
Some of these strategies are obvious, like punching things to get materials and to knock them out. If you can quickly pick up enough of these strategies by yourself, like agro'ing creatures and getting them stuck on rocks or between trees BEFORE trying to knock them out with projectiles, quickly enough, the rest of the game can be a very enjoyable struggle learning other strategies and then applying them to your game.
Early on I decided that Doeds are a creature that needed to die. But it is hard to kill them. There are many strategies but a few times I just gave up because the god damned things are kill proof. They do succumb to narcotics though.. but getting enough arrows or darts into them before they ball up can be challenging.
And they swim good.
Plus they bash rocks like nobodies business thus making them excellent minions.
So after giving up trying to murder them all.. as it had got expensive, boring.. and tedious.. I tamed the few that I needed, still don't have the saddle because it is expensive, and made the mistake of breeding more of them.. and am now back to just hating the wild ones and wishing they would all just die.
Occasionally I'd find a random Doed floating dead in the water. In the year in ark, just about, I've never otherwise seen a dead one.
That's peculiar I thought.. and I went too bad for you you little turd. I'm glad you dead. And would greedily chop up the corpses for invaluable keratin to make a couple of units of cementing paste. Besides Castoroides and Phiomia, which I have decided should be the only mammalian stock I need to feed to snakes.. If the damned things would stay in their box.. I don't like killing the mammals in the game that aren't expressly extant for the purpose of murdering me. Other than Doeds.
The game has been designed so that there's virtually no herbivorous mammals that try to attack the player.
Other than Doeds.
They would be a grey area of simply being irritating except they fuck up my point defenses and then actively try to destroy my base.
But it's still expensive to loot the few corpses.. which again oddly would only turn up in the water, because NOTHING kills them. Some predators will nibble but then lose interest. Good.. that's the natural adaptation that allowed such creatures to thrive in the wild. Great design! Now how do I one shot kill them?!
I have had a plan in mind to grab my Kill Proof Posse and try to take down an Alpha T Rex. But one of them had the temerity to attack my point defense line of X plants. It one shotted them.
K so only me, bullets and a T Rex versus Alpha T Rex next time.. and so it has been.
Sadly the little fuckers won't fight each other. Even if arranging to have an alpha T Rex fight a gaggle of wild Doeds was doable.
Separate fights.. and separate strategies.
I'm good with bullets versus any Alpha a T Rex can't take out by itself but even then the cost of bullets and gun repair has proven prohibitive.
Mulling this all over in my base again whilst babysittering a hatchling T Rex... such a mistake, awaiting its eventual pubescence.. more god damned Doeds outside the walls. Where I only even have walls to keep the damned things out. I noticed another Doed.. dead in the water.
It finally dawned on me.. wa-ter... I've seen it in the strategy to murder an Alpha T Rex as being the single best strategy.. because they can't swim fast. However getting an Adult T Rex into deep water is ridiculous. Alphas are chicken shit and just say fuck that and run away.
I wondered if the Baby T would at least be good enough if set on aggressive to hunt fish.
Nope.
Worse.. he can't even swim at all. Doesn't even kick his legs. Had to try to have Morgcules the 2th pluck him back out of the water.. nope can't do that either because he's in too deep from where I air dropped him. At least the baby Doeds could swim.
So.. swimming is hard for some creatures. Making Water an excellent weapon to against some of them. Air dropping Doeds into water didn't work so I'd given up with trying to drown them not too long ago.
Drown them though... Just agro them and have them ball up in the water.
Seconds later they dead. 3 of em... Their blood still dripping from my blade... my armor still soaked and heavy from the river water.. I conspired with my Bronto to murder the remaining 3 up on the beach.
Dead.
Blessed be. After so long, being harassed by these slow crawling waves of Doed spawn.. just kite them to water and let the fuckers drown. And then collect the keratinous looty goodness.