Hostile World & Endgame: Difficulty and End-game Content for ARK

Hostile World was conceived on the notion that the PVE side of ARK lacks end-game content and that, once you get your first couple of dinos, the game rapidly loses any real difficulty.
(PvP servers could also benefit from both aspects of this mod, but it is being developed with the PvE community in mind.)

Because of this I’m in the process of creating two different mods.

Endgame:

This mod is focused solely on endgame content for ARK and is a MOD for the game (not a total conversion or a map).
This MEANS creating bosses and creating gear that is crafted from boss drops (as well as any special crafting stations, etc, required for that gear.)
Hopefully this will create a more engaging endgame and allow for a variety of activities (and some that aren’t just crafting-oriented.)

Ideally, this will include “raid-boss” style encounters at some point in the near future.

Hostile World:

This mod, a TC, will incorporate Endgame, but will be primarily focused on tuning the difficulty curve of ARK and introducing mechanics that extend the PVE challenge of ARK beyond the first few hours.
This means tuning dino difficulty and spawn rates, but will also involve developing new mechanics to make the game itself more hostile to the player.
The goal is to turn a 300-hour play-through mastery of the PVE game into an experience that remains dynamic and difficult even when a player reaches full development.

I would love to make this an entirely specialized, reactive system that works alongside the current game’s AI with the specific aim of defeating the player.

What am I looking for?

Basically everything is open here. I AM a jack-of-all-trades and will do everything myself if it becomes necessary (or more likely fill the spaces that others prefer not to), but I would love to have a couple of other modders’ input and help.

Whatever you want to do, I can find room for you.

Biggest current need:
TESTERS!!

Immediate needs include:
Models and editing (New armor and weapons, new objects, etc)
AI reworking (new dino behaviors and actions)
Spawn rewriting/editing (level design, essentially)
*More (I’m not posting all of my plans and ideas publicly. Feel free to inquire.)

hey there you can count me in if you need a hand with the meshes and the scripting

you can add me on steam [MAD]

Steam friend request sent. Would love help with meshes and scripting.

I’m also doing a very similar thing. Well, done a very similar thing (my mod will go from beta to release tomorrow night).

Maybe we can collaborate on PVE endgame ideas and share approaches?

My approach is more tied to realism… but i suspect we’ll use similar approaches to achieve it (AI tweaking, special attacks, customised spawns, raids for artifacts protected by boss dinos etc)

Sounds similar, at least as far as boss loot goes. What do you mean by realism though? Add me on steam. Brightstar (with a blue planet icon.)

Updated. Need testers!

I can Test of you like.

Hey Brightstar… I think I’m going to start investigating AI more. I think it’s going to be a real differentiation… especially for more challenging end-game bosses. I’ll let you know how I go.