Back on Xbox it was slow going with Ark for a long time until I figured out I could just quit the game and go back about 10-15 minutes. Because every now and then there would be a set back. Generally they were of the WTF I FUCKING DIED AGAIN FUCKTHISFUCKINGSHIT.. etc.. or just something I did turned out to be stupid. Mostly it was the death thing though.
But it wasn't even that often! And there are some deaths that I'm willing to accept. At least the Island made sense. Scorched Earth is pure ludicrous nonsense.
If it weren't for the time put into it I'd just say fuck it and go back to the Island. But that would mean starting over again.
The one memorable one was when I'd set off into the frozen north for who knows what and didn't have any winter gear. Probably I went out to get fur from mammoths OR a mammoth to help cut down trees.. but ended up crossing into an arctic biome and slowly froze to death.
Actually getting back to the area to ages and it was fun to see that my tames were still there when I finally got over there again.
It was a learning experience. That's what Ark is about.
Eventually though there isn't much learning left to do and each death is just utterly infuriating. Because most of these Scorched Earth deaths have just been randomly getting shit on by insanely powerful creatures that I have no fucking hope of every conquering until I'm max level. And getting there is hard when I'm too furious and attention deficient to just sit and grind out levels.
Scorched Earth is just so blood boilingly annoying because of this stupid bullshit. So much more bullshit than the Island. That seems like a garden party and distant memory.
Shit.. It's like Jurassic Park versus Star Ship Troopers. Not even the benefit of space marine weapons because it is really hard to survive long enough to craft them.
I'm only about half way to having enough metal to make a cannon. Then about half a dozen cannon balls and I can try murdering that golem again.
In the last few weeks I've been forced to research things and all I end up seeing is hundreds of threads of people with various complaints about the game's design. I agree with most of them.. but only because the way the game is now.. there's just so much bullshit.
But the point was that reading up on the forums most people that aren't complaining either play on modded servers or have the ludicrous bullshit sliders set to something easier.
Same as on the Island where most people didn't play vanilla and even fewer played on a harder difficulty setting than normal.
I just hate that people who aren't already playing the game on vanilla or anything harder insist on chiming in saying the game is fine as it is. And that people that are complaining should just tone it down.
Like loooook.. 1, I paid for this game. 2, it is my decision to play the game the way the devs designed it, 3, I do feel compelled to say that the core design is fucking stupid.
This IS why there are mods.
What they fail to grasp is that the devs insist on changing that design, for better or worse.
Honestly though decades ago we suggested a UN like body for players where we could have a say in game design since as we paid for this shit, it should be our right to have some control.
That aside, Studio Wildcard does listen to feedback and they have embraced their community and do appreciate great mods. So much so that they do incorporate mod content into the vanilla game.
It isn't just bitching then but some concerned players trying to get the devs to implement better core design from the community rather than making the game harder to play.
At this point, anything harder than what I call abuse, aka, playing the Scorched Earth on vanilla in solo, and yes sure some people manage just fine. My luck is too bad to play this.
Example?
I perched my Argy on a rock, very high above a rock elemental that has been bothering me for weeks. I know what weapons to use and how much ammo to use.. but the good stuff is too expensive. More importantly they things are everywhere so I could never afford to kill them all OR to store all the drops any. Like the giga, I just need to get rid of the threat of it.. but unlike the giga, taming it doesn't even matter because it is useless to me in single player mode.
I have several dozen oil jars to make a sea of fire. I have dozens of fire arrows to ignite that holy hell fire which should melt that rock golem to glass.
BUT the mother fucker hit me with a rock. So my Argy which I'd even gone out of my way to put on neutral so he'd ignore us fighting.. decided to go and attack it. 3 seconds later it dead. fkn ded. mthafkn BERD y u DED AGAIN.
Somehow I jumped down off the rock pillar.. and quit.
It never hit me before. It's like there's no way for it to have thrown the rock high enough for it to have hit me.
Fuck it.
I went back to the forums. Finally discovered what I was looking for several weeks ago. How to roll back a save.
I have several saves now.. and have learned almost everything I needed to. The only thing that still isn't working is whistling. I cannnnnnot get whistling to work. Like telling that asshat Argy to disengage. I'm smacking semicolon to tell it to go passive.. nothing.
I was pressing period to get a couple of predators to attack something else. Doesn't work. I'm bashing my head against basic controls that do not work. So fine. I'm going to go back to what I was doing on Xbox. I'll just roll back saves.
I'm going to have my 2 birds back.. and that's about as far back as I need to go.
Just need to be able to control my luck a little. Because all I've learned is that Scorched Earth isn't a place for people with luck like mine.