Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch. This week we take a look at a new sponsored mod and great fan art from the community!
New Sponsored Mod
Simple Spawners
Simple Spawners is a popular utility mod that makes it easy to customize maps to suit the desires and needs of your server. Having expanded from creature spawners the mod adds useful tools like setting up no-build zones, no-fly zones, nests, harvestable resources, radiation zones, and loot crate/beacon points. With Simple Spawners you can get quite creative with how you customize your server map!
Welcome to another edition of the community crunch. We hope everyone is enjoying their experience on the newly launched Crystal Isles! The team will be on the lookout for any issues we're seeing in the community. Meanwhile, let's take a look at some amazing community art while we prepare for upcoming events that will round out the year.
Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch!
Just a reminder that on Tuesday, August 25th, we will be releasing Crystal Isles for XBOX and PS4 console users! Additionally, we will be enabling full server transfers into Crystal Isles and our freshly launched Official PC Servers. From August 25th, PC players will be able to download items and creatures onto the map without restriction.
EVO Event
As mentioned in prior Community Crunches, the Official Network rates will be increasing to 2X following the next major version update on Tuesday, August 25th. Following the update, we'll have more information on EVO events. Until then, we'll be using the EVO event system to apply the bonuses.
Community Crunch 233: Crystal Isles Console Launch
Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch!
On Tuesday, August 25th, we will be releasing Crystal Isles for XBOX and PS4 console users! Additionally, we will be enabling full server transfers into Crystal Isles and our freshly launched Official PC Servers. From August 25th, PC players will be able to download items and creatures onto the map without restriction. Similar to PC, console users will have a period of time where item and creature downloads will be disabled.
Official Rates Increase
With the major update on Tuesday, August 25th, we'll be doubling the fun by doubling the Official Rates across PC, Xbox and PS4 as standard, along with some changes to our specialty servers. From the next major version, Official Server rates will now have increased default rates for Harvesting, Taming, and XP. What was previously ‘2x rates’ prior to today, will now become the new base rate (1x).
The increased 2x rates will be implemented directly in the game build itself. This means that Non-Dedicated Servers, Single Player Sessions and of course Unofficial Servers will also feel the increased rates. Therefore, if you’re currently using customized rates, it’s something you will want to keep in mind before this change is in place -- specifically upon the release of the next Major Version on each of your respective platforms, you may wish to reduce your server/game rates by 50% to have the same effective values as before.
Official rates will be adjusted accordingly:
Standard Official Servers: 1x harvesting, taming, and XP (which is equivalent to 4x when considering our old values)
Small Tribes Servers: Smalls will have their taming, harvesting, and XP changed to 2.5x (which is equivalent to 5x when considering our old values)
Apocalypse Servers: These will remain at 3x harvesting, taming, and XP (which is equivalent to 6x when considering our old values)
EVO Event
As mentioned in prior Community Crunches, the Official Network rates will be increasing to 2X following the next major version update on Tuesday, August 25th. Following the update, we'll have more information on EVO events. Until then, we'll be using the EVO event system to apply the bonuses.
Community Crunch 232: PC Server Transfers, Beginner Servers, & More!
Greetings Survivors,
Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch! This week we'll be taking a sneak peek at something small and cute, discuss the opening of transfers on PC Crystal Isles/new servers, and sharing awesome community fan art and content!
Crystal Isle and New (*) PC Official Server Transfers
We will be enabling full server transfers into Crystal Isles and our freshly launched Official PC Servers on Tuesday, August 25th. This means from that date, players will be able to download items and creatures onto the map without restriction.
Beginner Server Wipe Schedule
Just a friendly reminder that we're close to the next reset date on Beginner servers, which will take place on September the 8th, 2020.
For those not familiar, Beginner Official Servers are an experience for new ARK players to test the waters without the threat of thoroughly developed tribes.
Unlike our regular servers, these have undergone some changes. First of all, there have been some limitations on how much a player or dino can progress. Player levels hit their cap at 44 and the highest encounter possible for wild creatures is level 30. Tamed creatures can receive up to an additional maximum of 30 levels. Due to the progression limits, some engrams are not achievable through leveling up but are found via supply crates. Some other changes include the disabling of alliances and tribe sizes have been limited to 5 members maximum.
Once established on a beginner server survivors can choose to exit into the rest of the official server network by uploading their character and moving to another server for the full ARK experience. Downloads of any kind are permanently disabled on Beginner servers so once you upload your character and leave the server you can't come back.
These servers are not intended to be a long-term place to become established and because of this, they are regularly wiped so new players can get their fresh start.
If the mantis is always praying, what is their faith?
Varies a bit. They're all in sects after all.
We'll see ourselves out... 🐛
EVO Event
As mentioned in the prior Community Crunch, the Official Network rates will be increasing to 2X following the next major version update. Following the update, we'll have more information on EVO events. Until then, we'll be using the EVO event system to apply the bonuses.
As we gear-up for the epic conclusion of ARK: Survival Evolved’s storyline with ARK: Genesis Part 2, we’re checking in with the community on its progress. Near the beginning of this year, the studio transitioned to working remotely. While the development of Genesis Part 2 has been ongoing throughout, and significant progress has been made, going from a highly collaborative in-office workflow to remote comes with specific challenges.
Upon further evaluation, we now have a better sense of the production timeline for Genesis Part 2. The new locked-in release date is now March 2021 simultaneously on all platforms. We understand that you are eager to get into it, and this news is disappointing; however, we are passionate about delivering something genuinely special, memorable, and suitably epic. This additional time allows us to ensure a better and unique experience and is well worth the investment.
We’ll be showing an extensive first-look at Genesis Part 2 later this year, revealing more details about completing your quest for ultimate survival; the forthcoming preview will reveal some of the new creatures, items, locations, features, and more!
We do however have other significant updates locked-&-loaded for this year! Just over the horizon, you can look forward to:
‘The Crystal Isles’ Free DLC on console: This includes the map in its entirety as well as three new tamable and breedable Crystal Wyverns. We are planning to release this significant update during the last week of August 2020.
Tender Love and Care Pass 3: This patch will overhaul two classic creatures with a new makeover containing updated models, animations, visuals, and new gameplay functionality for them. We'll also be doing further general quality of life, balance, and gameplay changes to the core-game in this update. Our much anticipated TLC 3 pass is planned for a simultaneous release on all platforms in October 2020! More on that a little later ;)
On behalf of the broader Wildcard team, we want to thank you for your ongoing support. We are continuously humbled and appreciative of the community’s creativity, passion, dedication! We're looking forward to sharing ARK’s next chapter with you and a very exciting 2020 & 2021!
Studio Wildcard
Upcoming Balance Pass
We’ve spoken a lot about what players can look forward to in the future for ARK, now let’s talk about the present! This Thursday, July 30th, we’ll be releasing a minor version update on PC, Xbox, and PS4 which will contain a number of quality of life and balance changes. Here’s some of what you can expect to get your hands on. We'll share the full set of notes on patch day:
Creatures
Basilosaurus - Increased deep-sea-depth value at which damage taken by approximately 30% Bloodstalker - Reduced armour penetration by approximately 35% - Reduced durability damage by 50% Carno - Added 30% armour penetration to the Left Click attack - Added a Bleed effect to the right click attack which does up to 5% of targets health over 10 seconds, cannot be stacked but the timer can be reset. Carbonemys - Increased resistance to TEK Turrets by 10% Dunkleosteus - Reduced weight of Obsidian in inventory by approximately 75% - Reduced weight of metal, stone, crystal, and black pearls by approximately 50% - Increased swim speed by approximately 20% Liopleurodon - Increased buff timer from 30 minutes to 6 hours Megachelon - Reduced Shell Resistance by 30% (from 80% to 50%) - Reduced Health Per Level gains by approximately 15% Paracer - Reduced Health Per Level gains by approximately 15%
Breeding
- Reduced Mosasaur maturation time (now matches Yutyrannus) - Reduced Basilosaurus maturation time (now matches Gacha) - Reduced Tusoteuthis maturation time (now matches Yutyrannus) - Reduced Plesiosaur maturation time (now matches Gacha) - Reduced Compy maturation time (now matches Otter) - Reduced Equus maturation time (now matches Procoptodon) - Reduced Quetzal maturation time to approximately 5 and a half days - Reduced Phiomia maturation time (now matches Ovis) - Reduced Ichthyosaurus maturation time (now matches Roll Rat) - Reduced Dunkleosteus maturation time (now matches Mammoth) - Reduced Jerboa maturation time (now matches Otter) - Increased Rhino maturation time (now matches Doedicurus)
General
- Flying creatures will prioritise picking up friendly-creatures rather than dismounting friendly riders - Baby Creatures will no longer auto-wander when hatched - Mounting a flying creature will no longer instantly cause it to take off - Cryopods in a player’s inventory will now charge if a player is sleeping in a TEK Pod. - TEK Helm will now provide players with the Gas Mask bonus, protecting them from the Poison Wyvern and Basilisk spit. - TEK Turrets now require double the amount of shards per bullet - Metal Ingot stack size has been increased to 300 - Raw Metal stack size has been increased to 300 - Spoil time on Lesser Antidote has been increased to 3 days - Spoil time on Prime Meat and Prime Fish have doubled - Gasbags will no longer push Dinos around in PVE when landing to prevent griefing and exploits - HLNA and Chibi Creatures no longer disable the protection against Bees buff. - Yell and Whisper can now switch between the following modifier keys on PC: Left Shift, Left Ctrl, and Left Alt - Boss Fight timer on Valguero has increased from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. - We are also adding a configurable GameUserSettings.ini which allows server hosts to limit the amount of gateways that can be placed on platform saddles. This configuration is not retroactive, so applying this change will require some manual administration work to clear up any pre-existing platforms that exceed the limit.
MaxGateFrameOnSaddles=2
We’ll be enabling this on our Official PvP Network and setting the limit to 2, on all platforms. Official PvP players will have approximately 30 days to adjust their current existing platforms to remove any that exceed the gateway limit.
- Added an additional 15 seconds to all race missions on Xbox and PS4 - Added Event Emotes to the Hex Store at the cost of 50,000 hexagons
Official Rates
We’ve heard you loud and clear!
Since March, our Official Networks across those 3 platforms have been under the effect of an Evolution Event as these increased rates have now become the norm and we are happy with the results, it’s time to make it a permanent change!
Going forward, we'll be doubling the fun by doubling the Official Rates across PC, Xbox, and PS4 as standard along with some changes to our specialty servers. From the next major version, Official rates will now have increased default rates for Harvesting, Taming, and XP. What was previously ‘2x rates’ prior to today, will now become the new base rate (1x).
The increased 2x rates will be implemented directly in the game build itself. This means that Non-Dedicated Servers, Single Player Sessions, and of course Unofficial Servers will also feel the increased rates. Therefore, if you’re currently using customized rates, it’s something you will want to keep in mind before this change is in place -- specifically upon the release of the next Major Version on each of your respective platforms, you may wish to reduce your server/game rates by 50% to have the same effective values as before.
Official rates will be adjusted accordingly:
Standard Official Servers: 1x harvesting, taming, and XP (which is equivalent to 4x when considering our old values)
Small Tribes Servers: Smalls will have their taming, harvesting, and XP changed to 2.5x (which is equivalent to 5x when considering our old values)
Apocalypse Servers: These will remain at 3x harvesting, taming, and XP (which is equivalent to 6x when considering our old values)
P.S -- This is actually the second time we’ve increased the default rates if we look back to the early access days of 2015. So for you old timeys, it’s technically 4x 😜. Inb4 comments ‘back in my day, it took us two weeks to build a wooden 4x4’.
EVO Event
As mentioned above, the Official Network rates will be increasing to 2X following the next major version update. Following the update, we'll have more information on EVO events. Until then, we'll be using the EVO event system to apply the bonuses.
Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch! This week we take a look at some awesome community fan art and community content. Summer Bash will be wrapping up on July 21'st, so be sure to make the best of those wonderful summer days in ARK.
EVO Event
While Summer Bash is active from June 25th to July 21st, there will be no special EVO event rates.
Summer Bash Rates
3X Breeding (mating interval, egg hatch speed, and maturation)
Community Crunch 229: Sponsored Mods Update, and Fan Art
Welcome to another edition of the Community Crunch! This week we take a look at the new sponsored mods and some awesome community fan art and community content.
New Sponsored Mods
The Hunted
The Hunted is a mod that aims to emulate the difficulty of ARK to be more like it's early development days. The Hunted has plans and development for features like territorial behavior, nesting and new taming methods. If you don't think you should feel safe in a survival game, this might be a mod you want to check out!
While not an official TLC for the game, it is always fascinating to see new artistic approaches and styles from our modding community. Dino Hoarders' TLC has plans to do community TLCs on a lot of the games creatures with a unique art style! We look forward to seeing what is to come with this mod.
We're a little late with the official announcement but this project was a late addition that started sponsorship in June! Tiamat is a beautiful map with a focus on the ocean, an often underutilized part of the world. The visual style of this map is fantastic and deserves a look, especially if you are interested in vibrant ocean areas.
We realize some players were unable to take part in the beginning of Summer Bash and have extended our Summer Bash event an extra week. You have until July 21st to kick back and relax in the summer sun
Patch Notes Roundup
It's been a few months since we've done the last patch notes round-up and much has been added. From the launch of Crystal Isles on PC to the introduction of ARK to the Epic Games Store, there's been much going on. With hundreds of additions, changes, or fixes, we figured it'd be good to kick off an ARK summer with a recap of the past few months.
Significant Milestones - Launched Crystal Isles as a free expansion on PC - Launched ARK on the Epic Games Store - EGS Clients can now use the favourite server feature - Whisper (ALT+B) and Yell voice (Shift+B) chat have been added - New command line arg: -PublicIPForEpic= If this command line arg is used, this is the public IP that EGS clients will attempt to connect to. If this command line is missing and -Multihome is specified, then EGS clients will attempt to connect to the Multihome IP Note that if you're using Multihome and specify a non-public IP address, then players will not be able to connect to your server using EGS. Make sure to set a public IP address (e.g WAN or external) Crystal Wyverns - Crystal Wyverns can now be cryopoded - Crystal Wyverns can now be transferred between maps Bees - Queen Bee will no longer spawn bees when encumbered - Queen Bee will take 3% of health as damage when a bee of hers is killed - Queen Bee will stop spawning bees when at 10% HP MEK's - Reduced MEK pistol damage to players by 85% - Reduced MEK Pistol range by 25% - Prevented MEKS from being able to be stacked inside each other TEK - TEK Shield now has a limited number of crafts (like other TEK blueprints) - Fixed an issue with TEK durability that prevented stat capping - Made some UI improvements to the TEK Grenade Launcher and the Giant Turtle's Breath Attack Creatures (General) - Scout can no longer pushed tamed dinos - Increased Ovis corpse harvesting scaling by 4x - Reduced the Giant Turtle's bubble-blowing attack on when above ground - Valguero Ice wyvern class switched to Ragnarok Ice Wyvern - Adjusted (reduced) the Thyla cost for cloning - Argents can no longer pick up smaller wild aggressive creatures in PvE Cryopod's - Introduced an increase incoming damage multiplier from the cryopod-release debuff Genesis - Additional protection added to glitches on Genesis - Titans cannot be transferred into Genesis - Managarmr cannot be ridden on regular Genesis servers (can be ridden on flyer-allowed servers) - Lava Lizard can now be spayed or neutered - Ferox breeding/mutation movement speed has been corrected to be consistent between small and large Ferox. - X-Dinos will now receive the Active Event Colour Override General - Improved listing for Unofficial Servers on EGS clients - Re-implemented Multihome server functionality - Loot crates will now automatically open when purchased if you are flying or swimming - Created a cheat command to grant unlimited weight for admins (Cheat deeppockets or cheat infiniteweight) - Fertilized Eggs now have a warning when a player attempts to consume them - Mindwipe Tonic now warns players before being consumed - Corrupted Dinos can no longer be teleported - Set ORP activation timer to 10 seconds on Official PVE servers - Reduced scaling factor of sheep harvesting health to reduce stalls - Added additional protection to character downloads in invalid cases - Added additional logging on Official Servers to identify connection and listing issues. - Primal Crystal is now transferable - Genesis Geysers no longer restore the food stat - Jump Pad enemy foundation prevention removed - Limited the public teleport setting specifically for Official PvP - Disabled bRawSockets as they no longer function with the new game networking code - Added additional server-side transfer logging - Fixed some cases where the login lock could be bypassed Bugs - Fixed multiple level design issues related to holes, volumes, floating foliage, and more. - Fixed Dino Leash breaking on restart - Fixed a crash related to crafting items with the gamepad - Fixed a bug which would cause dinos to get stuck when using the Arctic NE teleport - Fixed players being unable to use the bunny-hop dance - Fixed a bug where using the rocket launcher could propel you backwards - Fixed a bug where some Crystal Wyverns could not be tamed properly - Fixed Tropical Wyvern from regaining health passively - Fixed Legacy Servers not showing up when transferring. - Fixed the 'Kicked by BattlEye' disconnection error - Fixed certain server map names not showing on the session filter - Fixed eggs and babies being teleported to 0,0 when in stasis - Fixed voice connection remnants after transferring to a different server - Fixed Linux servers not starting up - Fixed a client side crash when accessing inventories - Fixed Crystal Isles Map showing in all filters - Fixed a mating range bug - Fixed multiple server stalls - Fixed some missing icon related to holiday emotes - Fixed a bug which could have caused characters to fail to download - Retroactive fix for Valguero Ice Wyverns which were stuck as "Raptors" in cryopods. (Note: you'll still see the raptor icon until you deploy the cryopod) - Fixed a bug with Cruise Missiles which caused them to detonate on the player firing - Fixed a bug which prevented MEKs from attacking structures - Fixed an exploit with the Rock Drake - Fixed a bug that could cause items to transfer back to your own inventory when transferring from personal to remote with the T key. - Fixed a bug with the grenade launcher where it sometimes wouldn't use all its ammo - Fixed some bugs where XP was not being awarded properly when collecting Glitches - Fixed a crash that resulted when trying to craft an item from the hotbar - Fixed a bug where releasing from a cryopod using EnableCryopodNerf would cause them to take 10x damage for the time set. - Resolved some connection and start up issues with EGS clients - Fixed multiple start up crashes affecting some EGS clients - Fixed language overrides on EGS - Fixed EGS clients not being able to connect to password protected servers Exploits - Fixed some exploits related to ranged weapons and guns. - Fixed an exploit which allowed players to transfer items into non-downloadable servers - Fixed multiple undermesh exploits - Added some additional exploit protection to the transfer system - Added additional protection to GCM, Explorer Notes, and Glitches to address potential exploits - Improved anti mesh detection logic - Improved climbing pick logic to fix some meshing exploits - Fixed multiple exploits that allowed you to stack creatures on top of each other - Fixed several exploits with Magmasaur - Fixed a bug with certain creatures attacking through structure walls - Fixed an exploit that allowed mission creatures to be used in unintended ways - Fixed an exploit which allowed certain creatures to attack structures through walls - Adjusted several creatures for the prevention of mesh biting - Fixed an exploit with turrets and ziplines - Fixed an exploit with meshing and the cruise missile
ARK Summer Sale
Kick back enjoy a great start to your summer with the ARK Summer Sale. For a limited time, ARK will be up to 80% off!
Break out your shades and catch some rays in the 2020 Summer Bash event. If you ever needed an excuse to celebrate summer and soak in some sun, we've got you covered. From June 25th to July 14th the second Summer Bash event will be underway. Spend your time relaxing by the beach in the new Hawaiian shirts or have a fight your tribe using the new water-gun skin. However you choose to spend your summer in ARK, Summer Bash is bound to cook up a lot of entertainment.
Server Settings -activeevent=Summer
Event Start PC: 10AM PDT XBOX & PS4: 1PM PDT
Rate Boosts
3X Breeding (mating interval, egg hatch speed, and maturation)
4X Player XP
4X Harvesting
4X Taming
New Emotes
Guitar Riff
Drum Solo
Head Banger
New Skins
4 new Hawaiian-style shirt Skins
3 new Swimsuit Skins
BBQ-themed Grilling Spatula (Club Skin)
Frisbee Skin (Boomerang)
1 Sunglasses Skin w/ customizable lenses
Super Soaker style Squirt Gun Skin (Flamethrower)
New Chibi Pets
Manta
Ammonite
Cnidaria
Plesiosaur
Astrocetus
Event-Colored Wild Creatures
Dino Dark Blue
Red
White
Dino Sky Blue
Dark Red
Blue
Light Grey
Cream
Cammo
Orange
MediumTeal
DarkBlue
LemonLime
Peach
Coral
The event kicks off at 10AM PDT.
Breeding Performance Improvements
With the start of the 5th Anniversary event, we implemented some changes to the way our servers calculate growing baby dinos. By distributing these calculations we can recover some of the performance costs related to breeding calculations, which is quite cost-intensive.
In more technical terms, we have done this by measuring the stress on a server with each tick and batching the actors to process their breeding calculations over the course of several ticks rather than all of them on every tick. For a server that is already in a stable state not much might be noticed, but for a server under intense stress players may notice that breeding calculations, and the initial start of mating may be a little delayed.
The good news is that players should notice less performance issues during boosted breeding rates. Servers will always be put under extra strain during event rates, especially so in regards to breeding rates but we've sought to minimize that with these changes and we've noticed some positive improvements.
If you are on a busy server and experiencing some delays, this is why and we're currently iterating on this so these response delays don't feel like as much of a disruption.
Our Community Crunch Is Moving
We're moving the Community Crunch back to Friday's! In addition to moving the Crunch back to Friday's, we'll start to feature community content in the Community Crunch rather than its own separate day. If you are creating or sharing ARK content, be sure to tag it with #playARK for a chance to be featured!
ARK Summer Sale
Kick back enjoy a great start to your summer with the ARK Summer Sale. For a limited time, ARK will be up to 80% off!
