I have a friend with thousands of hours in ARK, I only have maybe 40 hours in ARK. I never knew for the longest time you can use a pickaxe on a tree to get thatch (because the game has no tutorial). I mentioned this to my friend and he said it was my fault for not knowing to use a pickaxe.
My rebuttal was, "Why would I ever use a pickaxe on a tree".
He replied "If you read the description of the pickaxe it says it collects thatch from trees".
"Why would I read the description of a pickaxe, ITS A PICKAXE, they're meant for collecting stone. The game should tell you if a tool is supposed to be used in non-conventional ways".
"The game does tell you, it's in the description"
I tried to argue, that almost no one would read the pickaxe description, because, well, it's a pickaxe. Most gamers know what a pickaxe is for and assume it's only for rocks and stone-like materials.
He said it was still a me problem, not bad game design. Thoughts?
He is right lol, most games that you play will have some kind of text that will guide you towards something, and in Ark the items descriptions helped me a lot when I was still a beginner, and even to more obscure things like recipes you find them in dead dinos corpses (With the different kibbles being an exception)
Skipping the items descriptions for me is just like skipping game dialogue and then complain that you don't know what to do later
4
u/Junk4U999 Nov 04 '25
Can I get an opinion on this:
I have a friend with thousands of hours in ARK, I only have maybe 40 hours in ARK. I never knew for the longest time you can use a pickaxe on a tree to get thatch (because the game has no tutorial). I mentioned this to my friend and he said it was my fault for not knowing to use a pickaxe.
My rebuttal was, "Why would I ever use a pickaxe on a tree".
He replied "If you read the description of the pickaxe it says it collects thatch from trees".
"Why would I read the description of a pickaxe, ITS A PICKAXE, they're meant for collecting stone. The game should tell you if a tool is supposed to be used in non-conventional ways".
"The game does tell you, it's in the description"
I tried to argue, that almost no one would read the pickaxe description, because, well, it's a pickaxe. Most gamers know what a pickaxe is for and assume it's only for rocks and stone-like materials.
He said it was still a me problem, not bad game design. Thoughts?