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

[Kammerz]

Lol, you guys are funny.

[perk8504]

11 hours ago, Lindsey said:

 

Why have a quetz plat after this patch? what could it really be used for?

these "why even have a quetz now, they're useless" including this one specifically about the platform saddle, are very gross exaggerations

calling the people pointing out the exploit "whiners" but can't stop whining themselves when wildcard changes the game to better fit what they want it to be

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

9 hours ago, Lindsey said:

Right right I hear you but this is what I'm saying. As 'unfair' as it is it is a NONViolent time saver. If you want to grab a pick and an argy be my guest. there are like 300+ nodes per map. can they all be used at once? no. Why have a creatures Inventory limit even SURPASS its carry weight? To fill it. simple as that. It will only change in the aspect of we'll find a new way for y'all to complain. just stop complaining with the game while it's in its infancy and maybe, just maybe it will get released. it isn't a tribes fault that another tribe starts late. there are literally hundreds of exploits. hundreds. to patch them all would create an unplayable pos. we create huge bases to defend ourselves from other people. we create massive laggy structures to defend ourselves. to complain that people build fast is your own issues. to complain that people gather rescources fast is your issue. not the devs. 

I play a center map where we got none of the Halloween stuff but who cares? should I complain about it? no it's a game in the process of completion. it WILL have exploits. duh.

You guys are players not testers. have No opinion and just play.

Like it has been pointed out... mechanic was not intended so it was "fixed", I don't think the driving force was "whiners". And the BIG thing that benefits everyone is the deeper, more enriching pvp experience because now you have to leave your base more often and probably on a more comprised tame, thus increasing the chance of shenanigans and "fun". I'd say if you want to sit there and gather a vast quantity of mats and build big bases to lag ppl out (just as bad as offlining imo) then go play single player or dedicated.. I'm in favor of anything that increases pvp opportunities (which can mean friendly or non). And I'm an Alpha player,  I've been owner of alpha tribes and I've found my way to alpha tribes,  so I'm no noob crying because something is too OP.

[Dustrider]

12 minutes ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

Like it has been pointed out... mechanic was not intended so it was "fixed", I don't think the driving force was "whiners". And the BIG thing that benefits everyone is the deeper, more enriching pvp experience because now you have to leave your base more often and probably on a more comprised tame, thus increasing the chance of shenanigans and "fun". I'd say if you want to sit there and gather a vast quantity of mats and build big bases to lag ppl out (just as bad as offlining imo) then go play single player or dedicated.. I'm in favor of anything that increases pvp opportunities (which can mean friendly or non). And I'm an Alpha player,  I've been owner of alpha tribes and I've found my way to alpha tribes,  so I'm no noob crying because something is too OP.

While I am in support of the change to the platforms saddles, I do not think this will lead to the PVP encounters like you think it will. People will not stop using the quetz/anky combo. It will just mean having to fly back and unload more often. It will still be faster than hoofing it with a paracer.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

6 minutes ago, Dustrider said:

While I am in support of the change to the platforms saddles, I do not think this will lead to the PVP encounters like you think it will. People will not stop using the quetz/anky combo. It will just mean having to fly back and unload more often. It will still be faster than hoofing it with a paracer.

Maybe not at first,  but any smart tribe will learn the routes of their opponents and either have more opportunities to attack the quetz or the base if no one else is home. Not everyone can seize that moment,  that's up to players,  but this increases those moments. It's part of why I love SE, sure, lots of the power tribes will be doing wyvern things when they get there,  but there's a lot of open area and ground tame things going on so you tend to get more interaction that you wouldn't normally get on the island. 

[TimeSpiral]

8 hours ago, Smash said:

This, 100% this!

Quetzal mining has effectively removed any dynamic pvp from the game.  Now the only PvP that happens is the biggest tribe just shows up at your base with 5 quetzals and a few turtles (mostly while you're offline) and wipes you because they got to 85 first and got their monolith base built before you.

Game was never more fun than randomly coming across people out and about on Raptors while exploring the map.

I think you and I--while we disagree on some stuff--agree on more than we might think, but to continue the discussion I guess we have to give a couple things:

1. The game will eventually experience a retail release. Personally, I don't see this happening (why would they?), but for the sake of argument I suppose we must assume that it will.
2. New official servers will be released. You cannot have a fair, competitive, and adversarial experience when one or more of your opponents benefited from rules that you do not have access to.

I get why they don't want to wipe the servers--even though such a game-breaking nerf essentially requires it--but a fair compromise could be, "hey, we get that this breaks the game, so to test it out, instead of wiping servers, we're going to open up these server clusters right here and collect some data and feedback." In my opinion, this would actually allow us to ferret out these assumptions that many of us are making. Will the meta be to power-level to 80 for the Quetzal platform saddle? Probably. But maybe not! Let's test it.

However, and this is a big however: if they do, they--in my humblest opinion--absolutely cannot allow character transfers to start. Once the clusters are up and running, sure, absolutely include the Scorched transfer mechanic. Or, if they are going to allow transfers to the new servers, do not allow any item or dino transfers from any outside server that is not part of the test.

Trying to move the discussion forward. 

A few things are beyond argument at this point:

1. WildCard has--via a community moderator--confirmed that this was unintended behavior.
2. It breaks the game on existing official servers, from a competitive standpoint. 
3. It is a nerf to late-game gathering. 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

34 minutes ago, TimeSpiral said:

I think you and I--while we disagree on some stuff--agree on more than we might think, but to continue the discussion I guess we have to give a couple things:

1. The game will eventually experience a retail release. Personally, I don't see this happening (why would they?), but for the sake of argument I suppose we must assume that it will.
2. New official servers will be released. You cannot have a fair, competitive, and adversarial experience when one or more of your opponents benefited from rules that you do not have access to.

I get why they don't want to wipe the servers--even though such a game-breaking nerf essentially requires it--but a fair compromise could be, "hey, we get that this breaks the game, so to test it out, instead of wiping servers, we're going to open up these server clusters right here and collect some data and feedback." In my opinion, this would actually allow us to ferret out these assumptions that many of us are making. Will the meta be to power-level to 80 for the Quetzal platform saddle? Probably. But maybe not! Let's test it.

However, and this is a big however: if they do, they--in my humblest opinion--absolutely cannot allow character transfers to start. Once the clusters are up and running, sure, absolutely include the Scorched transfer mechanic. Or, if they are going to allow transfers to the new servers, do not allow any item or dino transfers from any outside server that is not part of the test.

Trying to move the discussion forward. 

A few things are beyond argument at this point:

1. WildCard has--via a community moderator--confirmed that this was unintended behavior.
2. It breaks the game on existing official servers, from a competitive standpoint. 
3. It is a nerf to late-game gathering. 

Agree on 1 and 3, but number two is arguable on a per server basis.., plus stores will eventually run out and the metal gathering will balance out.. only takes naked survivors and health turtles to run auto turrets out of ammo and since servers are up months and months,  it's a battle of attrition.

[TimeSpiral]

1 minute ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

Agree on 1 and 3, but number two is arguable on a per server basis.., plus stores will eventually run out and the metal gathering will balance out.. only takes naked survivors and health turtles to run auto turrets out of ammo and since servers are up months and months,  it's a battle of attrition.

Just realized there are two list-items (1) and (2). Oops! But I know what you meant.

For the second (2), I'm speaking generally. Of course there will be exceptions. As far as your tactical suggestions, I think that is beyond the scope of this thread.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

Just now, TimeSpiral said:

Just realized there are two list-items (1) and (2). Oops! But I know what you meant.

For the second (2), I'm speaking generally. Of course there will be exceptions. As far as your tactical suggestions, I think that is beyond the scope of this thread.

Beyond or not,  it's a part of the picture. On a numbers basis you can call it a nerf, but the game breaking part is factually incorrect because of the scope of the game and the many ways to overcome opposition other than who harvests more metal. 

[TimeSpiral]

16 minutes ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

Beyond or not,  it's a part of the picture. On a numbers basis you can call it a nerf, but the game breaking part is factually incorrect because of the scope of the game and the many ways to overcome opposition other than who harvests more metal. 

I won't argue whether or not it's a nerf. Don't be silly. 

Allow me to elaborate, since it may not be coming through. Competitive fairness requires a reasonable--and that's the concept--reasonable and proportional response. It's my position that it is unreasonable to expect newer (non-Alpha) tribes to compete with Alphas who have mined degrees of magnitude more metal. Is it technically possible? Sure, of course it is. Is it fair or reasonable? No. That's why it is game breaking. 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

3 minutes ago, TimeSpiral said:

I won't argue whether or not it's a nerf. Don't be silly. 

Allow me to elaborate, since it may not be coming through. Competitive fairness requires a reasonable--and that's the concept--reasonable and proportional response. It's my position that it is unreasonable to expect newer (non-Alpha) tribes to compete with Alphas who have mined degrees of magnitude more metal. Is it technically possible? Sure, of course it is. Is it fair or reasonable? No. That's why it is game breaking. 

By that definition the game is/was already game breaking and this nerf changes nothing either way.  How can it be reasonable to expect a single player or smaller tribe to compete against a 10 man tribe,  or a 25 man tribe,  or how about a 40 man tribe, regardless of how anything else is stockpiled/nerfed/balanced out.. ALPHAS ARE NOT ALPHAS BECAUSE OF THEIR EXTRA SUPPLIES... they are alpha by politics, attrition, tenacity, what have you.. if someone is merely "alpha" because they have lots of stuff then they are merely "playing" top tribe till someone with competence comes thru and wrecks them,  throwing all their precious stuff on the floor to despawn.... I've seen it time and time again at a rate to be considered more than an "exception".

[Takridrunkkobold]

Huh... well there doesn't seem to be any announcement but I noticed today the patchnotes have been ninja changed to say 33%... and 85% of the inherent carry weight? My guess is this is the Dino's weight thats reported in the stats to the right when the dino is placed aboard a platform dinosaur. Which... if I calculate it right, thats the drag weight of the dino multiplied by 0.85...

So the formula is now...
(DW*0.85) + (DI*0.33) = Weight added to the platform. 

DW= Drag Weight
DI = Dino Inventory

Drag weight for each dino can be found here:http://ark.gamepedia.com/Boss_Arenas#Compatible_Tamed_Creatures

The inherent carry weight seems to match up with the drag weights when plugged into the formula.

[mronemanmob]

3 minutes ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

ALPHAS ARE NOT ALPHAS BECAUSE OF THEIR EXTRA SUPPLIES

If anything Alphas having their own extra supplies lowers the chances of taking other peoples garbage.

[TimeSpiral]

37 minutes ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

By that definition the game is/was already game breaking and this nerf changes nothing either way.  How can it be reasonable to expect a single player or smaller tribe to compete against a 10 man tribe,  or a 25 man tribe,  or how about a 40 man tribe, regardless of how anything else is stockpiled/nerfed/balanced out.. ALPHAS ARE NOT ALPHAS BECAUSE OF THEIR EXTRA SUPPLIES... they are alpha by politics, attrition, tenacity, what have you.. if someone is merely "alpha" because they have lots of stuff then they are merely "playing" top tribe till someone with competence comes thru and wrecks them,  throwing all their precious stuff on the floor to despawn.... I've seen it time and time again at a rate to be considered more than an "exception".

You're tough tough cookie.

It is reasonable to expect that tribes can compete with membership because all tribes have access to membership, lol. Are you trolling me or do you really not understand the concept of fair and reasonably-balanced competition?

Because of this nerf, it's not possible for a tribe newly acquiring a platform saddle for their Quetz to compete with tribes who have already benefited from one pre-nerf because they don't have access to the same thing, i.e., the rules of the game have actually changed. That thing also happens to be--and has been for some time--the dominant strategy in the meta game. 

Am I getting trolled, guys, or am I genuinely missing Epic's position? 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

18 minutes ago, TimeSpiral said:

You're tough tough cookie.

It is reasonable to expect that tribes can compete with membership because all tribes have access to membership, lol. Are you trolling me or do you really not understand the concept of fair and reasonably-balanced competition?

Because of this nerf, it's not possible for a tribe newly acquiring a platform saddle for their Quetz to compete with tribes who have already benefited from one pre-nerf because they don't have access to the same thing, i.e., the rules of the game have actually changed. That thing also happens to be--and has been for some time--the dominant strategy in the meta game. 

Am I getting trolled, guys, or am I genuinely missing Epic's position? 

You aren't factoring in every option for the newer tribe,  thus you can't really say if it's balanced or not.  It'd be like having random things on both sides of a scale but only knowing one  thing from each side but then saying it won't be balanced before even removing your hand. Newer tribes could raid other smaller tribes for resources, fighting tactics could change due to having less metal,  tames could come into play.  But above all else,  if an alpha wants to stomp a newer tribe, they will,  regardless of the resource disparity. That's the issue you aren't seeing,  resources don't make you alpha, there are many more factors that must be included to wager whether actual balance is better or worse.

[TimeSpiral]

3 hours ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

You aren't factoring in every option for the newer tribe,  thus you can't really say if it's balanced or not.  It'd be like having random things on both sides of a scale but only knowing one  thing from each side but then saying it won't be balanced before even removing your hand. Newer tribes could raid other smaller tribes for resources, fighting tactics could change due to having less metal,  tames could come into play.  But above all else,  if an alpha wants to stomp a newer tribe, they will,  regardless of the resource disparity. That's the issue you aren't seeing,  resources don't make you alpha, there are many more factors that must be included to wager whether actual balance is better or worse.

I understand your position. 

[WontonFreak]

Nice patch and all, but the real question is: Do we have a .ini config to turn off the quetzal weight limit again? Or do we need to mod the game to get it back.

 

The devs said specifically in a post a few months ago that if they removed the ability to ankylo/quetzal farm, they would add another method of bulk farming to compensate, which they have not done.

¨~ Chris

[RilyHaryToze]

8 minutes ago, WontonFreak said:

Nice patch and all, but the real question is: Do we have a .ini config to turn off the quetzal weight limit again? Or do we need to mod the game to get it back.

 

The devs said specifically in a post a few months ago that if they removed the ability to ankylo/quetzal farm, they would add another method of bulk farming to compensate, which they have not done.

¨~ Chris

Except they haven't removed it...itst been needed and even then nothing else comes close

[Takridrunkkobold]

42 minutes ago, WontonFreak said:

Nice patch and all, but the real question is: Do we have a .ini config to turn off the quetzal weight limit again? Or do we need to mod the game to get it back.

 

The devs said specifically in a post a few months ago that if they removed the ability to ankylo/quetzal farm, they would add another method of bulk farming to compensate, which they have not done.

¨~ Chris

As of the time of this post, there isn't an ini file configuration to modify the quetz weight limit. I've asked for such repeatedly in the steam forums since the nerf was mentioned as coming, but I'm pretty sure I've been ignored on that front.

So we probably need a mod to do so now. I'm not very knowledgeable on how to make mods though, so if a worthy modder would step forward to make such a mod I'm sure people would use it.

[WontonFreak]

54 minutes ago, Takridrunkkobold said:

As of the time of this post, there isn't an ini file configuration to modify the quetz weight limit. I've asked for such repeatedly in the steam forums since the nerf was mentioned as coming, but I'm pretty sure I've been ignored on that front.

So we probably need a mod to do so now. I'm not very knowledgeable on how to make mods though, so if a worthy modder would step forward to make such a mod I'm sure people would use it.

Thank you for your answer, that clears up a lot. Do you happen to know of any good methods to work around this tedious system?

[Takridrunkkobold]

Just now, WontonFreak said:

Thank you for your answer, that clears up a lot. Do you happen to know of any good methods to work around this tedious system?

Unfortunately I do not. I've been working with it, experimenting, and doing a lot of math to figure out what I can and can't do with this nerf. There was someone on the steam forums claiming he had a platform setup that was unaffected by this nerf, but he refused to share details so I'm skeptical of the claim. I'll let you know if I do find something that works.

See my previous posts in this thread before answering you if you want the exact formulas I have discovered so far.

[MinhJoe]

As an active member of an alpha tribe on an official server, i found this change quite sad but at the same time, quite balance. The quetzal's platform farming method greatly accelerates the speed of gathering resources "without much efforts". For example, metal farming, it is not hard to collect 200k of raw metal or 100k ingot or more than 3 vault of ingot in 4 to 5 hours on weekend where x2 event occur with only 2 people, the number can depends on the quality of the anky (melee) but you guy should get what i mean. I expect the alpha tribe to be those who put much efforts in the game to achieve great result not those who bullies over other smaller tribe. This change can potentially be the turning point since they separate those who put their passions and effort to what they precious than those who don't. You spend more time, more effort on taming creature (quetzal and ankys), you would get better creature and for that, you would farm faster, and instead of farming all the metal notes on one trip your are required to do so if you want to gather more resources in many trip. Overall, i think this change is somewhat fair and interesting, and i hope my comment is understandable (my English is not really good)

[sal]

4 minutes ago, MinhJoe said:

As an active member of an alpha tribe on an official server, i found this change quite sad but at the same time, quite balance. The quetzal's platform farming method greatly accelerates the speed of gathering resources "without much efforts". For example, metal farming, it is not hard to collect 200k of raw metal or 100k ingot or more than 3 vault of ingot in 4 to 5 hours on weekend where x2 event occur with only 2 people, the number can depends on the quality of the anky (melee) but you guy should get what i mean. I expect the alpha tribe to be those who put much efforts in the game to achieve great result not those who bullies over other smaller tribe. This change can potentially be the turning point since they separate those who put their passions and effort to what they precious than those who don't. You spend more time, more effort on taming creature (quetzal and ankys), you would get better creature and for that, you would farm faster, and instead of farming all the metal notes on one trip your are required to do so if you want to gather more resources in many trip. Overall, i think this change is somewhat fair and interesting, and i hope my comment is understandable (my English is not really good)

Well it still hurts the "normal" players more than the alpha

Here is what i did.

Used an already imprinted ready "raw" lvl 190 quetz leveled in weight and speed and build a platform on it.

I bred some more ankys with 375% base dmg, imprinted up to 440% without any level up.

Now we have 7 ankys ready to farm sitting there.

Just grab one, fill it up, drop it and grab the next, a tribe-mate can unload while you continue to farm.

What happened is basically that you need one more guy to unload and you loose some efficiency due to traveling greater distances to change anky. Or if you are just 2 guys you just fill all ankys up and then unload.

But how is a small tribe gonna compete with that?

 

On the patch: I see that it was neccesary, but it still does not make me happy to do more to achieve the same =)

[MinhJoe]

23 minutes ago, sal said:

Well it still hurts the "normal" players more than the alpha

Here is what i did.

Used an already imprinted ready "raw" lvl 190 quetz leveled in weight and speed and build a platform on it.

I bred some more ankys with 375% base dmg, imprinted up to 440% without any level up.

Now we have 7 ankys ready to farm sitting there.

Just grab one, fill it up, drop it and grab the next, a tribe-mate can unload while you continue to farm.

What happened is basically that you need one more guy to unload and you loose some efficiency due to traveling greater distances to change anky. Or if you are just 2 guys you just fill all ankys up and then unload.

But how is a small tribe gonna compete with that?

 

On the patch: I see that it was neccesary, but it still does not make me happy to do more to achieve the same =)

i dont think you got me clearly.

Like you said above, your anky got 375 melee and almost perfect imprint to get it to 440 melee and you own 7 ankys which is in my opinion, an achievement. Because in order to get a high melee anky, you have to constant search for the high level until you got the stat that you want (in anky case melee), and to have enough anky to go on multiple metal run, you have to breed those anky to create a few with good melee and most likely imprint on them, that is another achievement. Also, a good weight quetzal is essential, to have a high level is not an easy task since there spawn rate is not high and to for the quetz to be able to carry more weight for farming purpose (in this patch) you must breed and imprint them for higher weight. Stacking those thing i just mentioned above, one has to put much efforts in order to achieve those thing and for that they can farm faster than others. Our farming quetzal now is a 100% imprint with 4k5 weight and or ankys got base melee of 369 (comparable to yours) by the way :3. I feel the same way as you that i do not feel happy about do more to achieve the same, but i think it is fair that other people have to do much more in comparison to previous patch in order to have the same level of farm as us.

[ItsCronos]

13 hours ago, MinhJoe said:

i dont think you got me clearly.

Like you said above, your anky got 375 melee and almost perfect imprint to get it to 440 melee and you own 7 ankys which is in my opinion, an achievement. Because in order to get a high melee anky, you have to constant search for the high level until you got the stat that you want (in anky case melee), and to have enough anky to go on multiple metal run, you have to breed those anky to create a few with good melee and most likely imprint on them, that is another achievement. Also, a good weight quetzal is essential, to have a high level is not an easy task since there spawn rate is not high and to for the quetz to be able to carry more weight for farming purpose (in this patch) you must breed and imprint them for higher weight. Stacking those thing i just mentioned above, one has to put much efforts in order to achieve those thing and for that they can farm faster than others. Our farming quetzal now is a 100% imprint with 4k5 weight and or ankys got base melee of 369 (comparable to yours) by the way :3. I feel the same way as you that i do not feel happy about do more to achieve the same, but i think it is fair that other people have to do much more in comparison to previous patch in order to have the same level of farm as us.

You both must play pve or pd, this update ruined pvp, fact #1 your tribe joins my server where I'm already set up, 300 turrets, 100 vaults, thousands of rounds, etc. how is it fair that I have ALL this and now it's gonna take you an entire month to make a small metal base with turrets.... a large tribe can now take out small tribes with just numbers alone ...... it's so sad people think this will balance all smh