When comparing The Novelist vs ARK: Survival Evolved, the Slant community recommends ARK: Survival Evolved for most people. In the question“What are the best Exploration games on Steam?” ARK: Survival Evolved is ranked 13th while The Novelist is ranked 24th. The most important reason people chose ARK: Survival Evolved is:
Ark has hundreds, if not thousands, of great custom servers. You can control things such as PvP, experience, gathering, and taming rates, set things up so there's no griefing (constantly bullying a player or group of players), and the difficulty of the creatures.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Longevity of gameplay though different choices
There are many different outcomes to the game, all of which can be experienced through multiple playthroughs. this makes for an extension of the time spent in the game and in so makes the game last a lot longer than a linear storied game.
Pro Difficult storytelling that can hit home
The story of the game involves a family with a learning disabled son and the trials and tribulations that occur. The father is a writer who is trying to concentrate on his newest novel, his greatest work and is torn on how to advance his career while maintaining his family. The player will choose from different options on how to balance this family life, making difficult choices that will have differing effects on the game and story. It is through these tough choices that the player will experience feeling that may have an impact on their mood and maybe even life.
Pro Increased customization thanks to player-created servers
Ark has hundreds, if not thousands, of great custom servers. You can control things such as PvP, experience, gathering, and taming rates, set things up so there's no griefing (constantly bullying a player or group of players), and the difficulty of the creatures.
Pro You can share materials, dinosaurs, and structures by forming (or joining!) a tribe with your friends
Users can form a tribe with other online users to for a community. This community can now band together in order to build and grow as well as team up against other tribes. This makes for a fun experience with friends and other players as it requires teamwork in order to be successful.
Pro You can tame and mount nearly every creature in the game
From the small, quick raptor to the massive, vicious giganotosaurus, you can mount nearly any dinosaur in the game. There's huge, flying dinosaurs, aquatic dinosaurs, some that are like walking fortresses, and others that can take those down.
Pro The game makes you want to explore, craft, and fight to make the most of its progressive crafting system
Ark is unlike many survival games in that you attain levels as you progress. As you level higher and higher, you gain access to more craftable items. Some are just more powerful versions of lower-tier items (such as leather armor vs. cloth armor), but most are brand new (such as firearms, scuba gear, and saddles for more powerful dinosaurs). This really drives you to explore more areas to find rarer resources and fight stronger dinosaurs.
Pro An absolutely fantastic community
The community for Ark is simply great. Whether you're talking about custom servers, the modding community, or just the playerbase in general, there's always people around to help out with any questions you might have.
Pro Stunningly beautiful
The landscape, creatures, structures, even other players are all gorgeous. The textures are seamless, and the character/dinosaur models are just great. The environment ranges from lush green forests, to snowcapped mountains, to incredible coastal views. When you combine all of these things, it adds up to being simply breathtaking.
Pro Good character creation
When starting a new game the player is allowed to choose between a man or woman, from there is a plethora of options for making a character with a personalized look.
Cons
Con Endings seem to obvious
The different endings in the game feel a bit too neat, to obvious for the story that is played through, something more gritty or less conclusionary would have been more fitting.
Con Anti-cheat issues
ARk has started using an anti-cheat tool called Battleye, this has so far broken Linux and Mac support for using official servers. Battleye has also had some issues with banning legit users and does not have a very good reputation. These issues add up to many angry players who paid for the game but now can not play it.
Con No more Early access, still buggy
Ark has been fully released on August 2017, but bugs are still easily found and many areas of the game lack polish.
Con The game can become a grind
At the higher levels, it begins to take a very, very long time to level up (unless you're playing on a custom server). This can make the game tedious to play for some people.
Con Hard for some PCs to run
Ark is kind of a resource hog - it's not very well optimized and that can cause many players to experience slow graphics.