The end of 0% weight Quetzal harvesting? Upcoming patch.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

3 minutes ago, Eichkater said:

 

Try carrying a cement bag in your hands for a mile and then try carrying the same sack on top of your shoulders.

Yea.. but when you're talking the difference between an anky's weight and 10s of thousands of weight your analogy doesn't really hold up that well.. the difference is quite exponential

[Eichkater]

Just now, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

Yea.. but when you're talking the difference between an anky's weight and 10s of thousands of weight your analogy doesn't really hold up that well.. the difference is quite exponential

 

Its not exponential, its just x5.

 

[Dustrider]

2 minutes ago, Eichkater said:

Try carrying a cement bag in your hands for a mile and then try carrying the same sack on top of your shoulders.

I see you point. However, if this was an intended function as you suggest then a regular quezt saddle should defer a lot of my inventory weight, but it doesnt. 

 

On 11/4/2016 at 1:17 PM, mronemanmob said:

So you think the Alpha tribes complained about quetzal platforms, maybe the almost alpha tribes.  There was nothing "broken".  It was all just a bunch of cries about inequality, "people with quetzals can blah blah blah, cry cry cry". I completely agree with @AnimalMind that they were just jelly they didn't have a quetz.  They still won't because anyone silly enough to complain about something that is available to ALL will still not "go for it" because of the lack of effort.  You're right quetzal taming is not a skill, but requires tries not cries.

You shouldnt assume that everyone who is happy with this nerf are noobs who cant play the game. I come from one of the largest tribes on my server and we have 5-6 quetz's and often do double anky metal runs and have gotten very good at it (literally one anky on each ramp, on both sides of the quetz). The majority of my tribe is upset that we soon will not be able to harvest near infinite amounts of metal (this nerf is not live on xbox yet). However some of us feel that it will add balance that was sorely lacking back into the equation. Ultimately I think everyone will adapt to this new feature and figure out ways to work around it. Even with a 20% nerf, you can still carry ridiculous amounts of metal with the quetz. So you have to ferry it back to your base once or twice during your farming run, so what? 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

3 minutes ago, Eichkater said:

 

Its not exponential, its just x5.

 

Ok.. so go grab a 90 lb bag of concrete and carry It with your arms for 100 yards then go grab a 450 lb bag and carry it on your back for 100 yards and tell me how that works..

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

8 minutes ago, Dustrider said:

I see you point. However, if this was an intended function as you suggest then a regular quezt saddle should defer a lot of my inventory weight, but it doesnt. 

 

You shouldnt assume that everyone who is happy with this nerf are noobs who cant play the game. I come from one of the largest tribes on my server and we have 5-6 quetz's and often do double anky metal runs and have gotten very good at it (literally one anky on each ramp, on both sides of the quetz). The majority of my tribe is upset that we soon will not be able to harvest near infinite amounts of metal (this nerf is not live on xbox yet). However some of us feel that it will add balance that was sorely lacking back into the equation. Ultimately I think everyone will adapt to this new feature and figure out ways to work around it. Even with a 20% nerf, you can still carry ridiculous amounts of metal with the quetz. So you have to ferry it back to your base once or twice during your farming run, so what? 

This is how I feel.. whether it hurts me or doesn't,  I just want more balance.

[Eichkater]

4 hours ago, Dustrider said:

 

 

You shouldnt assume that everyone who is happy with this nerf are noobs who cant play the game. I come from one of the largest tribes on my server and we have 5-6 quetz's and often do double anky metal runs and have gotten very good at it (literally one anky on each ramp, on both sides of the quetz). The majority of my tribe is upset that we soon will not be able to harvest near infinite amounts of metal (this nerf is not live on xbox yet). However some of us feel that it will add balance that was sorely lacking back into the equation. Ultimately I think everyone will adapt to this new feature and figure out ways to work around it. Even with a 20% nerf, you can still carry ridiculous amounts of metal with the quetz. So you have to ferry it back to your base once or twice during your farming run, so what? 

 

I agree but also disagree.

 

People`s equations on that topic are mostly flawed as they are heavily influenced by personal experience. A lot of ppl failing at the game dont admit their own faults but blame the mechanics. The "blame game" is nothing new and everybody of us knows it. As ARK is tough and ppl fail fairly often the "blame game" is ofc played more regularly as with other games. The boards, especially toxic steam, is proof of that.

There are a lot of assumptions hold by the saltiest of the critics which are imo plainly wrong. Those faulty assumptions led a lot of ppl to believe that the ramp "exploit" is the core of their problem. But i can assure everyone here who thinks that: It is not.

 

Assumption 1: Alphas are alphas because of the ramp.

I dont know how often that "argument" was brought forward and i cringe everytime I read it. Alphas are alphas because of very different reasons: Because they have the numbers, the skill, the time or simply because they were at the time and the right server. There is no single reason why anybody becomes alpha or not. The quetzramp is just a tool that can be used by ANYBODY to become a strong tribe.

 

Assumption 2: Once alpha those tribe will forbid/kill Quetzalfarming

Please explain how a nerf of the rampmechanic does change anything about it. Even with 100% weight the Quetz + Anky combo is the most valid form of metal farming. If you dont have a Quetz on a server, ramp or not, and another tribe has it, you have the disadvantage.

 

Assumption 3: Alphas will be alphas

This is one of my favorites. It assumes that once an alpha tribe has gained power on a server it will hold it forever. I`ve played on a couple of servers and I`ve never seen that happen before. Tribes, also alphas, come and go. The vast metal fortresses built today will be RUINS or just gone on most servers within the next 6 month. This is just the works of the game.

 

Assumption 4: A metal base is the way to victory

People talking about metal bases as if they were invincible just have never been raided. I dont know what else to say about that. I mean, there is not a single base design out there, no matter how much metal you put into, which can be considered "unraidable". So no matter how much metal some alpha tribe pours into their base... There is always a way to smash it. Easy as that.

 

Because of the simple fact that ATTACK in Ark is cheaper then DEFENSE all your "arguments" for a nerf are invalid. It takes ages and a good infrastructure to effectivley farm all you need for defense (pearls, cp, obsidian, metal metal metal, wood en masse for charcoal, flint+stone etc.) while it takes literally nothing to strap c4 to a ptera or tame/breed turtles.

 

 

[WarlordAlye]

I dont understand why people are asking for servers to be wiped. If you started people off at square one, the same alphas will still be alphas. They will know how to be as efficient as possible already and have the numbers to do so. Wiping wont change it.

[Smash]

4 hours ago, TimeSpiral said:

Are you suggesting that end-game gathering should be done with pick axes and land-based pack animals?

So ... I leave my electrically-defended metal base, with metal armor, guns strapped to my back, and electronic navigation, to then, what--hit a rock with bronze-age tech (i.e., the pick)? Early game: pick. Mid-game: pick. Late game: pick? Really? Come on, Smash.

Because it's 5x better than mining with my quantum jackhammer and putting it into the space-saddle bags on my rhino?

 

4 hours ago, TimeSpiral said:

A huge bird with gigantic wings would be able to take advantage of air draft and would be able to create incredible amounts of near-effortless lift. Not that physical logic or realism is needed in this game design question--but wouldn't that help you make sense of a 20% transfer (i.e., 50-97% nerf)?

Let me stop you right there.  If you're going to use realism to argue that pterasaurs should have some natural tendency to carry more weight than quadrupeds you're just going to embarrass yourself.  Here's a link to someone who's actually thought about it:

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/whats-wrong-flying-pterosaurs-jurassic-world/

[Sn1per0]

8 minutes ago, Smash said:

Because it's 5x better than mining with my quantum jackhammer and putting it into the space-saddle bags on my rhino?

 

Let me stop you right there.  If you're going to use realism to argue that pterasaurs should have some natural tendency to carry more weight than quadrupeds you're just going to embarrass yourself.  Here's a link to someone who's actually thought about it:

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/whats-wrong-flying-pterosaurs-jurassic-world/

This would be like seeing a bald eagle picking up a not too tiny dog (in the small to medium range). In fact, a bald eagle can only lift a maximum of 5 pounds (or just a tiny dog).

Pulled a quote from the article and this is just not true at all. 

I have seen videos of eagles picking up deer, granted they do not get much lift but think of how heavy a deer is and how much an eagle can legitimately pick up.

Not taking away anything that this article has said because some of it is most definitely true.

[Smash]

5 minutes ago, WarlordAlye said:

I dont understand why people are asking for servers to be wiped. If you started people off at square one, the same alphas will still be alphas. They will know how to be as efficient as possible already and have the numbers to do so. Wiping wont change it.

It's pretty simple really.  When you introduce a change like this you advantage the people who've been able to exploit the mechanic before the change.  That's only going to make new players less likely to stick around.  Now I'm no economist but if you're a business that allows something to continue to drive off all your potential new customers then eventually you will no longer be a business.

But that aside, you maybe right.  If the same groups with their 2-5k hours each got together on a new server they would probably dominate it, but that's not really the point.  Imagine a game of battlefield where after your side won the match the game didn't restart.  You just kept logging in for 18months with only the occasional spawn who now has to make his own guns before he can participate in the game.  That's pretty much Ark now on official. 

I can't understand why people don't want to wipe the servers.

[WarlordAlye]

I watched my tribemates go into a different server and wipe the server without even having a base, having to farm basic materials every day to accomplish it. 3 weeks later the entire server was wiped of multiple alphas and their allied friends, just because they had way more experience with nothing. This was an Official server btw.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

1 hour ago, Sn1per0 said:

This would be like seeing a bald eagle picking up a not too tiny dog (in the small to medium range). In fact, a bald eagle can only lift a maximum of 5 pounds (or just a tiny dog).

Pulled a quote from the article and this is just not true at all. 

I have seen videos of eagles picking up deer, granted they do not get much lift but think of how heavy a deer is and how much an eagle can legitimately pick up.

Not taking away anything that this article has said because some of it is most definitely true.

When you say "deer" what size of deer? How much lift? How far can they "fly" with said deer? And are you referring to bald eagles or larger known eagles? 

[mronemanmob]

1 hour ago, Smash said:

It's pretty simple really.  When you introduce a change like this you advantage the people who've been able to exploit the mechanic before the change.  That's only going to make new players less likely to stick around.  Now I'm no economist but if you're a business that allows something to continue to drive off all your potential new customers then eventually you will no longer be a business.

But that aside, you maybe right.  If the same groups with their 2-5k hours each got together on a new server they would probably dominate it, but that's not really the point.  Imagine a game of battlefield where after your side won the match the game didn't restart.  You just kept logging in for 18months with only the occasional spawn who now has to make his own guns before he can participate in the game.  That's pretty much Ark now on official. 

I can't understand why people don't want to wipe the servers.

In your first paragraph I feel as if you are insinuating people shouldn't "win" the battle you are imaginatively speaking of in your second paragraph.  Your last line is "pretty simple" to explain/understand, if you have progress WORTH losing you don't want to lose it.  For the people that want the servers wiped, I suggest creating some real Ark goals and immerse your self in the game a bit for a better understanding of why wiping servers is such a wretched idea.

[Dustrider]

1 hour ago, Smash said:

It's pretty simple really.  When you introduce a change like this you advantage the people who've been able to exploit the mechanic before the change.  That's only going to make new players less likely to stick around.  Now I'm no economist but if you're a business that allows something to continue to drive off all your potential new customers then eventually you will no longer be a business.

But that aside, you maybe right.  If the same groups with their 2-5k hours each got together on a new server they would probably dominate it, but that's not really the point.  Imagine a game of battlefield where after your side won the match the game didn't restart.  You just kept logging in for 18months with only the occasional spawn who now has to make his own guns before he can participate in the game.  That's pretty much Ark now on official. 

I can't understand why people don't want to wipe the servers.

Smash, most of your arguments I have followed on these forums I agree with but I cant agree wiping the servers. Many tribes simply have invested a lot of time and effort establishing themselves on their respective servers. If all servers were wiped I have a feeling a large percentage of the player base would lack the motivation to start over (myself being one of them) and would move on to other games. With that being said I can certainly understand your point of view. That is why WC has already stated they will be re-purposing empty and low pop servers, anyone who wants a fresh start will have the option of starting on one of these. Eventually the established servers with the megabase alpha tribes (like mine  ) will either decline or come into a sort of equilibrium as the harvesting nerfs take effect and maintaining said bases become much harder. Also your analogy of vanilla ark being like a battlefield match isnt a fair comparison. I think an extinction server is a fairer comparison to a battlefield match.

[TimeSpiral]

1 hour ago, Smash said:

Let me stop you right there.  If you're going to use realism to argue that pterasaurs should have some natural tendency to carry more weight than quadrupeds you're just going to embarrass yourself.  Here's a link to someone who's actually thought about it:

https://www.wired.com/2015/06/whats-wrong-flying-pterosaurs-jurassic-world/

Let me stop you right there, lol. In the quote you're responding to I specifically said "Not that physical logic or realism is needed in this game design". You're just obsessed with winning an argument you're already winning ; )

They nerfed it. They won't wipe, and the game will remain broken. Are you arguing that this isn't going to happen? This is a game-breaking change. 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

3 minutes ago, TimeSpiral said:

Let me stop you right there, lol. In the quote you're responding to I specifically said "Not that physical logic or realism is needed in this game design". You're just obsessed with winning an argument you're already winning ; )

They nerfed it. They won't wipe, and the game will remain broken. Are you arguing that this isn't going to happen? This is a game-breaking change. 

I'm just trying to understand your view point here.  Are you saying the game is broken because without the quetz combo working like it used to, the grind is too much? And tribes who have already used the combo will be in great enough number to disadvantage those who have not had the combo at its greatest effectiveness?

[Dustrider]

2 minutes ago, TimeSpiral said:

 the game will remain broken

Thats a pessimistic view of things. Just because there are bugs (Im looking at you server disconnect) that have been in the game since launch and the devs frequently make promises that they dont keep doesnt mean the game will remain broken . Things have generally moved in the right direction, albeit slowly. Performance has improved, new content added and fixes have come to many large bugs. 

[Takridrunkkobold]

I did some math, and heres what I found that you have to calculate in to figure out how weight each creature adds to the platform. This only holds true if they remained at 20%...

DW+(DI*0.2) = Weight added to platform dino.

DW= Dino's weight.
DI= Dino's Inventory weight.

See each dino has a set amount of weight it adds in. For a couple examples, an ankylo this appears to 136, keep in mind that the saddle weight of 20 in the ankylos inventory also adds the percentage of its weight to the platform too. While bears add 250.8 weight to a platform. To get these numbers I simply put each animal on the platform, made sure their inventory was empty, and pulled their saddles off, then stepped off the platform to check the quetz's weight with me standing next to it, that way I don't add my own weight to the platform too.

Now the bear can hold 4464.71 max weight, hes one of my box bears specifically tamed and raised to just carry loads. If I fill that to the brim to the point the bear can't move and won't take anymore into its inventory, the weight he adds to the platform formula will look like this:

DW + (DI*0.2) =
250.8 + (4464.71*0.2) =
250.8 + (892.942) = 1143.742

A second example is the ankylo, shes an old workhorse of mine but has retired to just laying eggs after I bred her to produce twin sons who with imprinting far outshine their mother. But I'll use her to use lower numbers. She has a max weight of 1195.04, so if I fill that to the absolute brim the formula looks like:

DW + (DI*0.2) =
136 + (1195.04*0.2) =
136 + (239.008) = 375.008

HOWEVER!

This is not what happened. After doing a test in game by loading the ankylo above with exactly 1000 metal, which is exactly 1000 weight, I got... 466 added to my quetz platform. See if my math was right the formula should look like:

DW+(DI*0.2) =
136 + (1000*0.2) =
136 + (200) = 336 added to platform dino.

But... thats not what happened. Even after pulling everything off including the saddle, and stepping off the platform, it was 466 added to the platform dino... so if I plug that number into the formula, and assume the percentage is wrong... then use algebra to solve for the percentage...

DW+(DI*P) =
136+(1000*P) =466
(1000*P) = 330
P = 0.33

... This means the percentage added is 33%. Not 20. So... Da fuggery, its even stronger nerf then advertised. I'm gonna have to redo my estimations and take even longer to haul back the metal I need for the projects I work on.

TL;DR Version: its 33% added to platforms, not 20%, so you've been hit harder with the nerfbat then you realize.

[TranqRex]

8 pages of people arguing whether because WC didn't use a specific word in their notes then it means x or y, others using other analogies to try and justify reasons for this... lol absolute madness.

Whilst nobody can really claim anything in this game is grounded in reality because, well, it's a game involving taming and riding long-extinct creatures - you can't ignore this weight glitch/exploit/whatever you want to call it is just absolutely wrong and was going to be patched at some stage. I mean seriously how can anyone make a logical argument for it?!

[BobRoss]

1 hour ago, TranqRex said:

8 pages of people arguing whether because WC didn't use a specific word in their notes then it means x or y, others using other analogies to try and justify reasons for this... lol absolute madness.

Whilst nobody can really claim anything in this game is grounded in reality because, well, it's a game involving taming and riding long-extinct creatures - you can't ignore this weight glitch/exploit/whatever you want to call it is just absolutely wrong and was going to be patched at some stage. I mean seriously how can anyone make a logical argument for it?!

some people dont understand that a broken mechanic MUST be fixed, even tho that fix will cause them to have to put in more effort to reach the same goal. They claim they are the hardcore survivors but in reality they are big babies that like to be pampered

[Farris]

The thing is that balance is now completely skewed in the favour of long established tribes. It was possible for new tribes to come on to a server and within a few days have a full metal base with turrets etc and basically be ready to fight within a week or so. That will not happen now without a large investment from the invaders SE server. 

As an alpha on SE i feel safer than ever now. Its just going to take me a bit longer to completely fill our turrets and complete the pillar/spike walls etc than planned. On the other hand any tribe attempting to invade our island server will probably just show up ready to fight after farming on SE instead of building up and farming before attempting to fight giving us less time to react.

As an invader on other servers i'm feeling insecure about how to go forward. The best option now seems to mass almost all the needed resources on SE and take it to the server to be invaded. You can't really build up on the new server quickly by taming a low lvl quetz+highlvl anky and go ham on mining for a few days as we previously could.

I think overall this change is a loss for large scale pvp ( large tribe vs large tribe ). Its just going to happen a lot less now  

 

[Dustrider]

5 hours ago, TranqRex said:

8 pages of people arguing whether because WC didn't use a specific word in their notes then it means x or y, others using other analogies to try and justify reasons for this... lol absolute madness.

Whilst nobody can really claim anything in this game is grounded in reality because, well, it's a game involving taming and riding long-extinct creatures - you can't ignore this weight glitch/exploit/whatever you want to call it is just absolutely wrong and was going to be patched at some stage. I mean seriously how can anyone make a logical argument for it?!

For the record I support the nerf of the weight glitch. I support it because it obviously wasnt a game mechanic working as intended. There is no other game mechanic that allows you to harvest unlimited amounts of a resource and still carry it around freely. But those who are upset about this change are upset not because they are whiners but because they are worried that the reduction in metal harvesting will make it that much harder to build and maintain base defenses. Lets face it, offline raiding is incredibly easy. The resources needed for offence are considerably less than than the amount needed to defend your base successfully. Until WC addresses this imbalance there will be controversy.

[TimeSpiral]

2 hours ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

I'm just trying to understand your view point here.  Are you saying the game is broken because without the quetz combo working like it used to, the grind is too much? And tribes who have already used the combo will be in great enough number to disadvantage those who have not had the combo at its greatest effectiveness?

Okay, sure. A few things:

1. Nerfing late-game gathering to this degree--without any additional steps to balance the game moving forward--breaks the game. Is this even a controversial thing to say?
2. It breaks the game because it puts an unreasonable barrier against newer tribes (read, any non-Alpha) to "win" (if you suppose that the win condition is to become Alpha / not get wiped by larger / Alpha tribes). 
3. This last bit is far more subjective, but yes, this game is too grindy (and don't get me wrong here, I love a good grind!) but I also don't want to spend a week grinding enough metal, with 150 back-and-forth trips on a neutered quetzal to mine enough metal to build a tower large enough for four behemoth flyers (and that doesn't count any of the necessary operational and defensive infrastructure). That's just .... bad. 

2 hours ago, Dustrider said:

Thats a pessimistic view of things. Just because there are bugs (Im looking at you server disconnect) that have been in the game since launch and the devs frequently make promises that they dont keep doesnt mean the game will remain broken . Things have generally moved in the right direction, albeit slowly. Performance has improved, new content added and fixes have come to many large bugs. 

Hmmm. Am I more of a pessimist or a cynic when it comes to this game? Hard to say. Because I see and play this game, and love it, and think, "imagine if you could actually play this game the way it was intended?!" It would be so much better. But, I've seen very little from Wild Card that suggests that they are genuinely interested in fixing the actually and technically broken elements of the game (lag, rubber banding, disconnecting, falling through the world, dinos glitching through ceilings, walls, and whatever ...). 

[Dustrider]

1 minute ago, TimeSpiral said:

Hmmm. Am I more of a pessimist or a cynic when it comes to this game? Hard to say. Because I see and play this game, and love it, and think, "imagine if you could actually play this game the way it was intended?!" It would be so much better. But, I've seen very little from Wild Card that suggests that they are genuinely interested in fixing the actually and technically broken elements of the game (lag, rubber banding, disconnecting, falling through the world, dinos glitching through ceilings, walls, and whatever ...). 

Lol I hear you loud and clear. I think they are interested in fixing these issues, however some of them come down to optimization, which is a hard thing to do properly when all of the content isnt in the game yet. If you fix all the bugs now then introduce 30% more content, youre very likely to introduce the same bugs back into the game. Meaning you would have to spend all the time and energy to fix it twice. A lot of the game breaking bugs they have addressed (at their own snails pace of course). Most of whats left feels like server optimization. I see in the PC patch notes that some upgrades are in the pipeline, which means xbox will not be far behind. How far down the pipeline is another story . Anyways, ill step off my soapbox now as I feel we are drifting somewhat from the original topic.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

47 minutes ago, TimeSpiral said:

Okay, sure. A few things:

1. Nerfing late-game gathering to this degree--without any additional steps to balance the game moving forward--breaks the game. Is this even a controversial thing to say?
2. It breaks the game because it puts an unreasonable barrier against newer tribes (read, any non-Alpha) to "win" (if you suppose that the win condition is to become Alpha / not get wiped by larger / Alpha tribes). 
3. This last bit is far more subjective, but yes, this game is too grindy (and don't get me wrong here, I love a good grind!) but I also don't want to spend a week grinding enough metal, with 150 back-and-forth trips on a neutered quetzal to mine enough metal to build a tower large enough for four behemoth flyers (and that doesn't count any of the necessary operational and defensive infrastructure). That's just .... bad. 

Ok, ty, I get where you're coming from