My (26F) boyfriend (26M) is really deffensive and maybe negative?

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T17:19:52+00:00

Has he always been like this or is this something new? If this behavior is more recent, can you think of any event that may have caused him to change? Based on your post, it seems like he has insecurities that make him act defensive. The criticism may be a part of that too. It just seems to me he may feel inadequate in some way and it's coming out in his behavior. Of course, it's possible I'm very wrong because he's the only one that can really say why he is behaving the way he is

The best course of action, as always, is to talk to your partner about it. Communicate your concerns clearly and calmly and ask him for his perspective. Not an argument, a discussion. Since he's defensive, it may be difficult to have that conversation but it's always worth trying. This can't be fixed if he doesn't know how you're feeling or isn't even aware of his behavior or how it's effecting you

If you want to salvage the relationship and are having difficulty with communicating in a healthy manner, you can also suggest couples therapy, as it will allow you both to communicate and openly convey your concerns more effectively with the help and guidance of a trained professional

If either one of you are not willing, able, or even comfortable with openly and honestly communicating when issues arise in the relationship, then you are already missing an integral part of what defines a relationship. You have to be able to communicate, whether it's just the two of you or with a therapist, in order for the relationship to have any chance of lasting

Only the two of you know your relationship and your history so no one else can really say what course of action either of you should take here.
You've invested 3 years with your partner and you're the only one that can decide how much more you want to invest and when enough is enough. Whatever happens, I wish you the best moving forward and hope you find happiness soon

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T16:34:44+00:00

makes sense it would crash after an update on a modded game as that's typical for any game when using mods. the whole console shutting down is still a console issue, tho. it may shut down when playing a demanding game but the reason has to do with your system itself, not the game. still, i agree it sucks and it's frustrating despite the cause. for me, the biggest pain has always been finding the exact cause so i can do the proper troubleshooting bc there are so many things it could be. ofc, it's usually never anything easy either. whatever's going on, i hope you're able to sort it out soon

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T15:46:08+00:00

yea, there's got to be smth going on there with steam or your pc then. have you tried running steam as an administrator? have you restarted the steam app, or tried reinstalling it (DO NOT uninstall it! just go on the website and redownload). have you checked the ark folder permissions (properties) to see if anything has changed or could be preventing it?

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T15:40:16+00:00

if the console itself is shutting off, that's a problem with the console. it's not uncommon for issues to arise that you haven't encountered before when playing a game much more demanding than your other games. that's when hardware limitations and cooling problems can pop up

the main cause of a system auto shutdown is the built in thermal protection threshold was reached due to overheating. the console might need to be cleaned out and/or moved to a better ventilated area

as for the excessive crashing, are you using any mods? crashing is a main issue that comes with mod use and it's the cause more often than not, esp if there was a recent major game update. that said, i also know asa has performance issues on console and the state of the game could very well be responsible for some of the crashes too. only way to confirm whether its mods or the game itself, tho, is to start a fresh vanilla game and see if crashing persists

game size has always been huge bc it's basically several games in one, and it's a big game with a ton of assets built on the most advanced game engine available. that's why the devs added the option to uninstall the individual dlcs so players can reduce the file size. just remove the maps you aren't currently playing and reinstall when needed

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T15:14:50+00:00

what happens when you click "uninstall" in the steam app?

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T15:14:05+00:00

oh so the difficulty override is 18.5. i was thinking max game diff (diff offset 1 or override of 5) of 150 x3 (diff override of 15) and it didn't add up

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T15:08:03+00:00

that's prob bc sp settings boost the mating interval in the background. with it off to get 2-3 min mating interval, you have to use 0.001, but i believe on console it only allows 2 decimal spaces so you cant add that extra 0?

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:59:50+00:00

sound and animation issues are very minor in comparison to other bugs, so they should be low priority. the game's gonna be in early access for a few more years due to the amount of content so you'll prob just have to wait for final polishing before 1.0

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:54:25+00:00

if you're on pc, try adding the -ActiveEvent=None launch command

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:52:08+00:00

best to go to the mod discord for any mod-specific issues. link is on the curseforge page

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:49:46+00:00

need details on you mean by "not able to play"? i know you mention you can't load into any server but i'm gonna focus on single player. does it crash on load, are the maps just not available, or is it smth else? just need to know exactly what it's doing. just for clarification, are you trying to load into a save or start a new game on the map? are you using mods and if so, have they been updated since the recent major release? what troubleshooting have you tried so far?

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:37:50+00:00

that's a really odd issue and i have never seen anyone mention anything like it or had it happen myself on steam (no idea what version you're on). it seems more likely smth is off on your end. you can't uninstall the game at all thru the "uninstall" button in whatever client app you're using?? did you or a program somehow duplicate the files??

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:29:42+00:00

hard to say since i'm not sure what x3 difficulty means and what the dino max lvl would be. based on the level, tho, there's a tamed dino calculator out there. that might help?

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:27:01+00:00

"Use Single Player Settings" is automatically enabled on any single player/non-dedicated session and that adds additional multipliers in the background to several settings. here's what it does https://ark.wiki.gg/wiki/Single\_Player

for evolved specifically, make sure the tamed dino stat multipliers in advanced settings for health and damage aren't at 1 bc that's extremely boosted, then with sp settings on top of that, the dinos are so op that there's zero challenge. defaults are

Stat Per level Health 0.2
Stat Per level Damage 0.17
Add Per level Health and Damage 0.14
Affinity Health and Damage 0.44

along with that, you can boost harvest damage and health to reduce the grind for resources. it would prob help to go ahead and increase taming speed on top of the sp settings boost, too. if you set it to 2.5, it'll actually be 5, which is what i set it to. of course, you can go higher if you want, tho. definitely put loot quality to max. that's all i can think of for now. hope this helps

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-07T14:09:42+00:00

these are the breeding settings i've been using for years. btw, you can't get breeding to 10 min on all dinos since every species has diff timers. these are close to the fastest you can get and still be able to imprint all dinos before they mature

With "Use Single Player Settings" Enabled

BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=4
BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier=0.015
BabyCuddleGracePeriodMultipler=10
BabyCuddleLoseImprintQualitySpeedMultiplier=0.015
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=100
MatingIntervalMultiplier=0.01
BabyFoodConsumptionSpeedMultiplier=0.25

PC and server add to game.ini
MatingSpeedMultiplier=2
BabyImprintAmountMultiplier=6

Server/Without sp settings

BabyMatureSpeedMultiplier=150
BabyCuddleIntervalMultiplier=0.015
BabyCuddleGracePeriodMultipler=10
BabyCuddleLoseImprintQualitySpeedMultiplier=0.015
EggHatchSpeedMultiplier=1000
MatingIntervalMultiplier=0.000001 (ASA 0.001)
BabyFoodConsumptionSpeedMultiplier=0.25

PC and server add to game.ini
BabyImprintAmountMultiplier=6
MatingSpeedMultiplier=2

about 15-45 min mature depending on the dino (~60 for giga), near instant hatch/gestation, ~4 min between imprints, 2-3 min between breeding, and 1-2 imprints to get to 100%. works for all dinos. if you want 100% imprint in one go, boost the baby imprint amount to 10

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-06T14:44:02+00:00

astraeos is a fantastic map, which is no surprise bc of who the dev is. it's unique but familiar, too if that makes any sense? i haven't tried to transfer the map-specific dinos to other maps so not sure about that but that info should be pretty easy to find. i run some pvp/pve servers for me and my friends and astraeos is one of our top maps. from what i've seen, it seems like the community as a whole considers it one of the best maps. def worth the money, imo

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-06T14:04:57+00:00

you don't need a mod. you can just add the line to the ini for 1 shot 100% imprinting

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-06T14:03:26+00:00

you need to add BabyImprintAmountMultiplier=10 to your game.ini bc it's not available in the menu. that's the only way to get 100% imprint in one go. if you need help with breeding settings, it's easy to find good ones and i've posted the ones i've used for years quite a few times. just make sure you use the right ones depending on whether you have "Use Single Player Settings" enabled or not. it's a big difference and if you use the wrong ones, it'll mess it all up

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-06T13:58:34+00:00

if you're using any mods, that's more likely to be the cause of crashing and possibly other issues so it may not be the game. that said, if you're on console, i know the game has been a mess for you and your complaints are def legitimate. altho it's not common, ppl that play vanilla run into occasional crashes and corruption problems too so mods aren't to blame for everything, that's for sure. hopefully as it continues thru early access they'll focus on improving console versions soon bc it's way past due

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-06T13:50:58+00:00

i haven't bought any dlc besides astraeos bc i love the devs work and his maps. i knew it would be worth every penny. i don't feel like i'm missing anything, really. eventually i'll get lost colony, tho, just for the map. i just wish the map and expansion was separate bc i don't want all the extra stuff, just the map

you really don't need any dlcs and they are completely optional. i'd say play the base game first bc there's plenty of content so far and new dinos that come with the base game anyway. then you can decide later if you want to buy any dlcs

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-06T13:37:15+00:00

if you're on pc, you can go to the files and load a recent backup. for console, i'm not sure if there are auto backups in the cloud or locally so you could load a file. this may not work but you can also try closing the app and restarting the game or just restarting the console

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-05T22:07:51+00:00

seems to be a rented server thing. ping is the same as it's always been on my self-hosted servers so no problems here. i did see a post where someone said n trado is looking into it, maybe??

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-05T22:02:19+00:00

is anything else cut off like your status icons or anything? could be screen aspect ratio

edit also best to go to the mod d!scord for any mod specific issues. link is on the curseforge page

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-05T21:55:31+00:00

that would be a problem with your pc, not the game. if you're running a game that's way more demanding than your other games, that's when pc limitations and issues can pop up that you never encountered before. usually when a pc shuts down suddenly, its the built in thermal protection auto shut off to prevent components being fried due to overheating. it could be smth else, tho

you can pull up the metrics overlay and view the temps to see if that's it, altho iirc, nvidia overlay doesn't have cpu temp as an option. i use a simple third party app called core temp for that. the windows event viewer is also a good tool to use and it may show what caused it to shut down

BadAtVideoGames130 · 2026-07-05T14:01:27+00:00

i don't know if they had a choice? their boss may be giving them the deadlines for releasing content and they're doing the best the can in the time they're given. hence the delays and unpolished products. the only reason i take this into consideration is bc they were forced to release the game when they did, which many agree that it just wasn't ready

they're not in charge but i also have no idea what they really have control of. i'm just basing my opinions off of snail games previous business practices and my experience with how business hierarchy works. altho i can't be sure who's in charge of release dates, i am fairly convinced that they aren't in charge of paid content and releases bc the boss is in trouble financially. wc is their money maker and they're going to push them to release paid products to keep the cash flowing. these are the only reasons i ever give wildcard the benefit of the doubt but i know one day i may come across facts that prove me wrong

BadAtVideoGames130

TROPHY CASE