ARK: Survival Evolved PS4 Update 1.44 Adds New Tek Items & Armor Balance

ARK: Survival Evolved update 1.44 has arrived on PS4, and it features new Tek tier items, balance tweaks and a small assortment of bug fixes. In short, its contents match what’s currently available on PC . Read the latest patch notes from Studio Wildcard below:

Current Version: v1.44

• New Weapon: Tek Sword (Charge-Attack and damages Metal & significantly pierces Armor when powered by Element)
• New Armor: Tek Shield (Reflects incoming projectiles/bullets when powered by Element)
• New Structure: Tek Light (Attaches to any surface and can be either independently powered by Element Shards in its Inventory, or traditionally powered via generators)
• Fixed issue where clients would sometimes become disconnected after demolishing/destroying structures
• Fixed a spawn issue with Ragnarok Lava Golem Boss.
• Fixed the bear trap to avoid turret exploit. Bear traps only damageable by explosion now (or demolishing)
• Reduced Flamethrower Damage from base 100 per second to 30 per second.
• Flamethrower Direct Damage is now affected by Armour.
• Flamethrower expensive foliage particle effects now eliminated for everyone except the local player using the weapon
• Chainsaw not able to attack whilst running
• Tripled the effective "ammo" of TEK armours, so they last 3x as long per element
• Shield blocks should block whip stuns/item drops (and trigger the cooldown), and whip stun on players reduced to 1 second.
• Implemented a new value to reduce indirect torpor (Gas grenades, tranq).
• Chitin, Metal, Riot, and TEK Armours now reduce incoming torpor.
• Fixed an issue where explosives would have an impact on server performance
• Fixed a bug with the Phoenix where you could set dinos alight from a far distance
• Fixed a bug with the Phoenix where it wouldn't do damage to wild targets in PVE
• Fixed a bug where you could unlock super speed with the TEK Jet Pack
• Fixed a bug where setting the server fps to 2.5 would launch you across the map
• Fixed a bug preventing players riding a Therizino from getting shot when Turrets were set to Player Only
• Fixed an issue where you weren't able to name your character preset in character creation
• Fixed an issue where Ankylosaurus would get stuck in the air
• Fixed a bug where u could tame and damage Phoenix when not in Superheat

For those who want to know exactly how those torpor reduction numbers work, Wildcard has outlined those as well.

Chitin:

• Direct Torpor Armor Mult: 0.07 (Was 0)
• Indirect Torpor Armor Mult: 0.035 (Was 0)

Metal:

• Direct Torpor Armor Mult: 0.15 (Was 0)
• Indirect Torpor Armor Mult: 0.06 (Was 0)

Riot:

• Direct Torpor Armor Mult: 0.25 (Was 0.25)
• Indirect Torpor Armor Mult: 0.12 (Was 0)

Tek (remember there are no Tek qualities):

• Direct Torpor Armor Mult: 0.7 (Was 0)
• Indirect Torpor Armor Mult: 0.7 (Was 0)

As you can see above, the torpor multiplier has been adjusted for these various armor types. It’s not a hugely significant change, but it’s worth knowing if your high-level survivors are taking advantage of that kind of gear. It makes these armor types a bit more formidable in all circumstances. Given issues with its latest update deployment, the final major platform to get the Tek Sword and Tek Shield will be Xbox One.

ARK: Survival Evolved is available now on PC, Xbox One, PS4, OS X and Linux.

What do you think of ARK update 1.44? Are these adjustments to high-level gear cool enough to keep you coming back? Tell us in the comments section!