ARK Survival Evolved has been popular with players for 7 years now. Because ARK offers so much freedom on how to play the game, there are a few player types that have been evolved (hah!) over the time. I have looked into the typical stereotypes of players in ARK and found 6 different types that everyone knows and has experienced in the game. Maybe you’re even one of them?
Let’s look into the typical 6 types of players that you can meet when playing ARK Survival Evolved on a server.
The Builder
The Builder is known for their almost unreal skill to handle the ARK Building mechanics. They are often very creative to the point where they spend days and weeks to farm for the building they anticipate creating. They not only manage to build the best looking bases in PvE but also the best protected bases in PvP.
They know about all the tricks the ARK building mechanic has to offer. Things other people would call bugs are just another challenge or even game feature for them. Every time Wildcard fixes snap issues with building parts, it’s a nightmare to them because it might break game techniques they loved to use. They know how to build that the buildings are stable enough to not collapse and crash whole servers with it.
You want to have a builder in your tribe especially when you are not into building yourself. It is such a relief having someone around you that enjoys the building mechanics and understands how to build an efficient base.
The Breeder
The Breeder is the person that stuffs your base with animals, keeps killing off in your eyes perfectly fine dinos and mumbles something about “not good enough” when asked why they do that. They know the stats of all of their dinos without even looking them up. They also keep an eye on the stats everyone else has, participating in a silent competition to be the first to reach the level cap.
They get most excited about new creatures being introduced because it means they have another creature to breed. The breeder hardly leaves the base, only if the rare case happens that they have to farm meat. Usually breeding keeps itself running because the meat from the unwanted babies feeds the wanted babies. Breeders know ARKs game mechanics by heart, know all about mutation stacking, ghost mutations, level caps, and they also recognize the most important colors by IDs and look.
You want to get a breeder in your tribe because they will be up all night or even set alarms to imprint the creatures used in endgame or in raids, so you don’t have to. They provide you with a steady flow of new better creatures, so you can master the endgame.
The Tamer
The Tamer and the breeder often work together hand in hand. The breeder tells the tamer what animals they need, and the tamer goes out, taming those creatures. Sometimes breeder and tamer are also the same person, because the breeder needs to have something to do between mating cooldowns and imprint timers. Tamers either enjoy building the newest efficient traps to quickly tame what they want or they enjoy taming creatures without and make a smart use of the environment to stay safe. The tamer can get you every creature you want, as long as you provide the taming food, because cooking kibble is annoying.
You want to have a tamer in the tribe because tamers will help you get the creatures to progress efficiently by using the right creatures for the right purpose. They make sure the breeder has high level breeding animals to prepare for bosses or raids and they are always on the hunt for certain colors during events.
The Farmer:
The Farmer takes care that your resource storage is never empty. They often show up during Evo-Events to make use of the higher rates. Sometimes they recruit the whole tribe to help mass farming certain things. The farmer knows which animal to use for which resource to farm and they know which map is the best to get certain resources. They work closely together with the builder. Sometimes they are even the same person.
The farmer knows all the tricks, weight reductions, weight restrictions and stack sizes of things. They know the secret farm spots for certain resources and make sure your tree sap taps and oil pumps always get emptied.
You want to have at least one farmer in your tribe because resources are how you progress in the game. Building better saddles, better armor opens the end game to you just as much as better dinosaurs.
The Explorer
The Explorer can be seen in the base only rarely. They are most of the time out exploring, running through caves, collecting artifacts and blueprints. Explorers have a deep understanding of cave layouts, the locations on the maps and how to either solo artifact caves or lead groups to explore those caves together. When the Explorer is seen in the base, it’s mainly because they just respawned after a death and now are rushing back to their body, looting it. They love taking risks for big profit.
Having an explorer in the tribe can be very helpful if you want guidance or simply someone who can collect items needed for bosses en masse. Make sure your Explorer is well equipped to survive the adventures he is going to take. Prepare good armor, strong melee weapons and enough ammunition for their fabricated shotgun.
The Leech:
The Leecher is a player who loves to profit off of others without contributing themself. Leeches are super common in a game like ARK because you have to put time and work into progressing in the game. It also requires some knowledge about the game to understand how to work efficiently. The leech is unwilling to put either time or effort into it. They sometimes might be just new to the game and don’t know how to do things but feel ashamed to ask but often they are simply lazy and are used to rely on others’ friendliness to help.
The leech is either younger and hasn’t learned yet how to provide for themselves and how their own work might affect their standing or they are so used to be able to use shortcuts by manipulating others that it is just a very natural thing for them to also do this in game. Try to avoid this kind of player at all cost, because they will drain your resources in no time and disappear as soon, as they are empty. Don’t fall for the heartbreaking stories why they are not able to do certain things, they know which buttons to press to make people jump to their rescue.
How to counter a leech: Instead of giving them freebies, offer to help them archive their goal. Explain to them how to do a thing and offer to assist them doing it. You will quickly see if that person is thankful, because they didn’t know how to do it alone of if the person is annoyed to not get what they ask for and maybe come with excuses why that does not work.
As you can see, there are many styles to play ARK. Some are more preferable than others. There are probably a few more player styles you will encounter, depending on which game mode you play. Maybe you recognized yourself or one of your friends in this article!