Take this as an attempt to improve the current ark scenario and give devs an insight from a player that has been meshed, has meshed, and understands a lot than most people about meshing. Its been a long time since we've had this reception from the devs and hopefully this is a time to show them the full scenario while they are willing to make a change

-Fixing meshing. How long have we been having bugs in ark? Remember legacy? Yeah thats where i play on. Remember all those dupes with lampposts, catapults in the lava? Years ago. After that do you remember the first meshing methods that came to public? The infallible sleeping bags that had no colition and were able to be placed halfway into a wall. Meshing has been going on for years now and still hasnt been fixed. Let me tell you why. The problem is that everytime the devs patches a way we find another one, which drives it useless to be patching them time after time.

-Unreal Engine and Map Making The problem with the current engine is the fact that the meshes are way sided. This is most likely due to performance improvement so the client doesnt have to render two sides of the same mesh. The problem with this is that it allows the player to exploit this to be able to use the "invisible/no colition" side of the way to get an advantage over other players. Fixing this would require too much effort into remapping all the official maps.

-Why is it so spread? Videos is the most popular way. However there are other ways which im not gonna disclose since i dont want even more meshers in the game. However heres whats going on. The whole aspect of exploiting on ark is multiplatform. The whole reason of this is the fact that pc gets an update always before console. Let me develop this a bit more. The reason why people complain so much about console is the fact that they only need to go to survivetheark.com and check for the latest patches on pc to see what is exploitable. Its effortlessly for them to do so while pc struggles to find new ways of abusing ingame mechanics.

-Server Stabilty This one is a lesser known one but i dont know how reliable it would to be fix. Most cases the server laggs (allowing players to dupe character and items) or crashes (which allows for duping because of the way the cloud is syncd with the savefile). 2 ways i could think of this is to actually print out an error instead of shutting down the server if an error appears. The second one would be the order that the server shutsdown. Closing the steam data sync before the save occurs when crashing or forcing a save WHEN it crashes instead of using rollbacks, either way would prevent saving the game before someone uplpads an item for duping purposes.

-Solutions I'll be going in order of topics adressing each one with ideas of how it can be fixed. Its up to the devs to either see if its doable or if they have a better approach.

Teleport zones everywhere behind meshes. Its been 3 years of meshing already and fixing methods clearly isnt cutting it as we find a new one every update. Now hear me out. What if there wasnt any reason whatsoever to mesh? I mean, you go inside the mesh and poof. You are out. No matter how many methods you would know it wouldn't matter. Also no buildzones along with no tp zones (there are ways currently to bypass tp zones, make sure its a non buildable zone also to prevent meshed bases). This is by far the most consuming out of all due to them having to completely adapt the whole map. I would recommend starting from rag(which is the lesser exploitable one as of today and setting it as a "safe map" for everyone to be on while the others are worked on. Then ext and ab would be priority. Island also little effort. The center in my eyes is a lost cause due to the way its built. The meshes extend way too far it would need a complete redone. Removing items from the game would ruin content aswell as not fixing the issue. There are tons of way i personally know of exploiting, and removing all the items that are used would mean removing half of the games content.

I dont see how the devs would be able to fix one way meshes but if the above is followed and tp zones are implemented (HAS TO BE TP ZONE otherwise players can get it and shoot your base up, not "no build zone") there wouldn't be anything else needed to address one way meshes. Only clip a bit of the unused areas (like flat spots behind meshes, try to make ground meshes stop close by of the wall instead of using it for too long areas.

To fix the console side of the story and remove a lot of the karma that ark has gotten it would be as simple as releasing updates both for console and pc together. Small patches will be prioritized if a bug is found and worked asap to be released at both platforms. The content updates that does not include patches or balancing can be more time consuming since it will need to be delivered at both so taking more time for updates will be understandable. Removing what exploits have been patched will work to a certain extent from survivetheark but keep in mind that will only make meshers go to youtube to find them.

Another idea would be copyright claiming videos. I dont fully know the extend as to a company being able to claim a video on youtube showing meshing as a policy breaking activity. I am aware that nintendo has done similar stuff and got away with it. With moderation and no power abuse taking down meshing videos would as a short time fix a lot of the "mainstream meshing". As a big company wildcard could contact YouTube to check whether or not this is possible. Keep in mind discord and other apps will be used to show this kind of stuff but it will greatly reduce the amount as for a quick solution

And as for server stability it would be good to redo the order that the server does functions as its shutting down. Meaning making sure the save is either the last thing that happens or making sure data upload is not possible after a save. The first would probably be better. This will greatly reduce duping. Idk if theres any way to print an error instead of a shutdown if the server finds an error. This would prevent people crashing server on base defense. Also improvement on servers needs to be done on official servers MAINLY. Some servers caps at 70/70 players and it can get VERY laggy. Also 255 ping capped all the time untill everyone times out. I wouldn't recommend upgrading all the servers but only the ones with big activity and that have rached 50+ players in the past month as a starting point.

A way to gather new ways of exploiting would be a reward system. Lets just say survivetheark gets a new feature like a ticket system for showing exploits. The only thing is that only the devs can see. As for a reward i cant think of much apart from ingame cosmetics. Like a full armor skin that you would get a piece per exploit shown. Or anything else would work. The jist is to incentive players to report those exploits in a non public way alongside with rewards that will not give unfair advantage and unbalance servers. Skins would be a great way to start. Also for proof if someone would be going to do so would be making sure there are rules to be followed in order to attain prizes. Such as making video proof unlisted if it is on YouTube, just small measures to prevent another meshing outbreak.

Now heres what i have to tell you that dont want to wait for fixes

I play legacy. I make mesh protection. I havent been meshed in over a year because of that. I have been disappointed in the enforcer behaviours before with warnings instead of bans. Losing a whole base and not being able to defend nor get your stuff back/rolled back. Legacy is indeed less populated than official for sure but the ability to make even meshing "fair" (as you can defend from it) makes it great for me

Also as a last side note since i do expect wildcard to be looking at this, ive never exploited on official even though im active on it. Legacy is where i play and abuse a couple things. But you should also be aware of all the players in there are doing it aswell. Its the way we like it.

This is a video i made a while ago. Its sounds a bit of a rant but i did not have that intention. Most of the arguments are there but its a 30 minute video. Be aware https://youtu.be/mKYOPBiHoSg

Best regards. Erwin

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