How to play ark?

Alright so I'll be straight up, the devs of this game ruined it, every patch it gets worse and worse with all the shit they add, are there any ways for my small group of friends to play on our own server? I know you can do local but that requires one of our computers to host the map which I can do, but this game is pretty brutal on your comp, so I am simply just wondering whats the best way to play this game now. I also will not pay for a server.