Just me or is the meta really stagnant?

[Smash]

Pterdons should be a scout only dino.  Early game now is pretty much a race to 35, get the first pteradon and then just bully the other tribes into making zero progress while your tribe just keeps rolling along.  They pretty much need a speed nerf, remove the barrel roll, and remove their ability to pick up humans (maybe allies).

1 hour ago, Cullis said:

Meta might be stagnant, but bear in mind that people who know meta-breaking stuff won't raptoring say anything. I know of dinos that are arguably better for land pvp than the giga, but I won't say what they are. Neither should you, if you have a clue. 

Give me a break.  I really can't stand when people non-contribute to threads with this "You're wrong and I know better but I'm not going to tell you" intellectual lightweight rubbish.  Put up or shut up. 

  If there is some amazing meta out there where there are land dinos that poop all over gigas then no-one is using it.  You probably think your little pet squad of rhinos is really the way to go but it's not as amazing as you think it is.  That's not to say that you probably can't kill gigas with non gigas.  I'm sure a co-ordinated squad of allos, rhinos and dudes on sabres with rocket launchers could deal with one, but yeah, that's 5 guys vs 1.  It doesn't make gigas weak or even balanced, It just makes them mortal.

[Volcano637]

On 12/9/2016 at 11:39 AM, MrDynamicMan said:

It seems like since launch the meta hasn't changed much. The only things I can think of are quetz + gig over Rex + argie when they where added, fishing and Beaver. It just seems like there are a lot of very useful dinos being added but not being used. 

I think gigas, quetz, and the dragon should all have life timers on them like the titan. Even if it is more than 24 hours. Let's say a week. Then you have the whole "use it or lose it" thing going on. That would stop these so called alphas from just trying to get an army of end game Dinos and letting them just sit there. 

I am a Dino lover and when I see these useless alphas on these servers just ignoring and neglecting them I just get mad.

and to take it even a step further I wouldn't mind having a life timer on everything. That would make the game more exciting and make people use the Dinos they take before it is too late. 

How awesome would that be?

[OnePotatoChip]

14 minutes ago, Smash said:

Pterdons should be a scout only dino.  Early game now is pretty much a race to 35, get the first pteradon and then just bully the other tribes into making zero progress while your tribe just keeps rolling along.  They pretty much need a speed nerf, remove the barrel roll, and remove their ability to pick up humans (maybe allies).

Give me a break.  I really can't stand when people non-contribute to threads with this "You're wrong and I know better but I'm not going to tell you" intellectual lightweight rubbish.  Put up or shut up. 

  If there is some amazing meta out there where there are land dinos that poop all over gigas then no-one is using it.  You probably think your little pet squad of rhinos is really the way to go but it's not as amazing as you think it is.  That's not to say that you probably can't kill gigas with non gigas.  I'm sure a co-ordinated squad of allos, rhinos and dudes on sabres with rocket launchers could deal with one, but yeah, that's 5 guys vs 1.  It doesn't make gigas weak or even balanced, It just makes them mortal.

To be honest, I think that's WC's intentions with the Giga more or less. They want us to counter brute force with cleverness; Allos and fire arrows, large bear traps, the works. 

[CriD]

I like people that think gigas are all that, maybe its me being from se mainly now, but they are horribly slow. I can kill one with a buddy, some homing rockets, decent launcher, riding a galli.

Its just smarts. I wouldn't take a Rex 1v1 vs a giga, but I will take our tribes battle bronto, 1v1. Maybe 1v2. If you know what your doing, brontos about as op as gigas. Just put spikes all over the platform, even on walls going down, n laugh when the giga bites and does more damage to itself then you.  

Everything in this game can be countered, everything. Sometimes you just got to think outside the box.

I envy those ps4 ark fans. Fresh game, fresh servers. New ark players. Anyone member when the island was it, n the middle of the map was SO FRICKIN HUGE. When ptera could two shot a Rex. All the bases on the beach, people on raptors, people taming phiomias to actdually ride them.

I miss the good ol' days of ark in its infancy. The meta will change when balancing is done, just like those pteras that could clear 1300% melee n wipe a base by itself lol. It changed then, the meta, n will again.

[TheRealTFreezy]

6 hours ago, Volcano637 said:

I think gigas, quetz, and the dragon should all have life timers on them like the titan. Even if it is more than 24 hours. Let's say a week. Then you have the whole "use it or lose it" thing going on. That would stop these so called alphas from just trying to get an army of end game Dinos and letting them just sit there. 

I am a Dino lover and when I see these useless alphas on these servers just ignoring and neglecting them I just get mad.

and to take it even a step further I wouldn't mind having a life timer on everything. That would make the game more exciting and make people use the Dinos they take before it is too late. 

How awesome would that be?

I think all of this is the lazy way out and a horrible idea. You want tames with timers? Extinction servers.

[BulletForce]

I think one of the best and most realistic ways to make flight more balanced would be to introduce physics to it. Atm birds act like helicopters. All of them can magically hover in place in the air in the same spot until their stam runs out. If you removed this and instead made it so that they had to keep flapping their wings to stay airborne it would add a greater degree of challenge to it.

[BulletForce]

7 hours ago, Volcano637 said:

I think gigas, quetz, and the dragon should all have life timers on them like the titan. Even if it is more than 24 hours. Let's say a week. Then you have the whole "use it or lose it" thing going on. That would stop these so called alphas from just trying to get an army of end game Dinos and letting them just sit there. 

I am a Dino lover and when I see these useless alphas on these servers just ignoring and neglecting them I just get mad.

and to take it even a step further I wouldn't mind having a life timer on everything. That would make the game more exciting and make people use the Dinos they take before it is too late. 

How awesome would that be?

The dragon should be DLC servers only. It really doesn't fit in the vanilla base game and as it stands is way too strong. At the very least its auto aim bs needs to go. Make the rider actually have to aim to hit players, secondly its speed needs a massive nerf. For a dino that large its ridiculous it can move faster then a Pteradon.

[eESTlane]

3 hours ago, BulletForce said:

I think one of the best and most realistic ways to make flight more balanced would be to introduce physics to it. Atm birds act like helicopters. All of them can magically hover in place in the air in the same spot until their stam runs out. If you removed this and instead made it so that they had to keep flapping their wings to stay airborne it would add a greater degree of challenge to it.

birds can fly like helicopters irl too but it's solely from the lift they create. minimal air flow used to their advantage, if even that. that is why hovering should deplete more stam.

 

and i also agree that dlc monsters (golem and wyv) are in need of a serious balance. 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

7 hours ago, BulletForce said:

The dragon should be DLC servers only. It really doesn't fit in the vanilla base game and as it stands is way too strong. At the very least its auto aim bs needs to go. Make the rider actually have to aim to hit players, secondly its speed needs a massive nerf. For a dino that large its ridiculous it can move faster then a Pteradon.

Riders do have to aim.... it's actually not the easiest.  I'm from primitive too, and our wyverns got nerfed really hard so now even a 10 foot fall will kill them.. and pteras are stupid op, I don't think any complaint can hold weight when using them as some kinda standard.

[TheRealTFreezy]

Just now, Volcano637 said:

I have noticed all of the people in this forum use the words lazy, fair, and whiner way too much. 

Please try to come up with new words to use. You are not even using them properly 

Ha ok? Saying that Dino's should have timers is lazy. It avoids all reasons to balance, change, and adjust things to create a fun and interesting meta and just says "we can't make things balanced so let's just make them temporary".

and I'm not sure if you don't know English well or really are that arrogant but I used one of those words and it was used properly.

[Volcano637]

1 minute ago, TheRealTFreezy said:

Ha ok? Saying that Dino's should have timers is lazy. It avoids all reasons to balance, change, and adjust things to create a fun and interesting meta and just says "we can't make things balanced so let's just make them temporary".

and I'm not sure if you don't know English well or really are that arrogant but I used one of those words and it was used properly.

You do realize I said all the people and not just you right? Anyways, a timer is not lazy it's makes people even more active which once again is the opposite of lazy. 

Fun and interesting meta? Lol what game are you playing? Every server is the same old thing. How can you even argue with that.

race to the quetz and giga. Build massive base with lots of turrets. Stop others from growing. Yes, I forgot a couple of smaller steps in between but I just wanted to stick with the main steps.

most alphas are actually very bad at pvp. All it takes to be alpha is following those steps and of course have more people than the other tribe. It doesn't make you good players or even mediocre.

being alpha simply means that you got a lot of people and followed those steps.

congrats you managed to follow all of those steps a few more times on different servers. Good job on being consistent atleast.

[TheRealTFreezy]

1 minute ago, Volcano637 said:

You do realize I said all the people and not just you right? Anyways, a timer is not lazy it's makes people even more active which once again is the opposite of lazy. 

Fun and interesting meta? Lol what game are you playing? Every server is the same old thing. How can you even argue with that.

race to the quetz and giga. Build massive base with lots of turrets. Stop others from growing. Yes, I forgot a couple of smaller steps in between but I just wanted to stick with the main steps.

most alphas are actually very bad at pvp. All it takes to be alpha is following those steps and of course have more people than the other tribe. It doesn't make you good players or even mediocre.

being alpha simply means that you got a lot of people and followed those steps.

congrats you managed to follow all of those steps a few more times on different servers. Good job on being consistent atleast.

I'm not even sure at this point if you can read and comprehend much of anything. It's lazy for the devs. You want them to throw a timer to balance things instead of actually looking at their abilities and changing them to come in line with other Dino's. And anything artificially making you log is dumb. 

And where did I say that the meta is fun and interesting? It sucks. But changing things, tweaking Dino's, and an overall balance could make a fun and interesting meta and that will never include timers. Each of your posts hold almost no real thought and seem to be some mindless babbling because you think you are just so smart. Look through this thread, there are really good ideas here. Yours is not in that list.

[LilNastyGurl]

As a concept, we need more counter play. Right now you tech up to giga, and now you have the best land dino. Simple as that. Unless somebody truly spams you with a dozen 150+ rexes, you're not losing your imprinted giga with a red saddle. You're just not losing that thing. Instead I would like a scenario where if you see someone with a giga build, you should be able to select a different build that the giga build is weak against. Now, technically, the giga cannot attack up, so teching to fliers is a counter play, but it's really the only counter play. 

19 hours ago, TimeSpiral said:

I favor buffs over nerfs, as a general rule. So keep that in mind while I address a few things.

1. As a concept, we need more counter play. Right now you tech up to giga, and now you have the best land dino. Simple as that. Unless somebody truly spams you with a dozen 150+ rexes, you're not losing your imprinted giga with a red saddle. You're just not losing that thing. Instead I would like a scenario where if you see someone with a giga build, you should be able to select a different build that the giga build is weak against. Now, technically, the giga cannot attack up, so teching to fliers is a counter play, but it's really the only counter play. 
2. Counters could be accomplished with damage types. We already have some damage types, but they aren't really creating effective counter play. What if the giga did bonus damage to large and behemoth sized dinos, but suffered a massive debuff vs. medium and small dinos? Now, instead of a pack of raptors getting one-shotted and doing nothing, they might be able to get some work done. Give some of the small dinos a slashing damage type, or armor piercing damage type that doesn't work well vs. other small dinos, but wrecks large and behemoth dinos. You know, more ideas like this would be awesome ... you'd actually have to scout your opponents and plan your defenses (though cross ark makes scouting opponents actually impossible sometimes). 
3. Humans are far too weak. You cannot fight dinos as a human. Again, let's work on damage types to create counter play. Let's make all guns (bullets) do bonus damage vs. fliers. If you could pull out an assault rifle and do meaningful damage to a dragon, quetzal, or ptera, then people would do it, but right now, at 1 ingot per shot, it's just not worth it. (1 ingot per shot is outrageously expensive for how weak the guns are)
4. Give x-plants more versatility. Maybe by fertilizing plants with black pearls (or something, you get the idea) they can shoot corrosive blast damage (as a damage setting). This will specifically damage structures, including metal. However, the corrosive blast would not blind, slow, or damage players or dinos.
5. Stealth. There aren't enough stealth options in the game. If someone has turrets you actually have no choice but to shield or drain. Radar jamming or stealth would be an interesting mechanic. Now you might have to worry about a stealth tech running up to your building and c4-ing it. You'd have to take other measures, like building detection devices (or tames), or other types of barriers. 
6. Saddles should break. Simple as that. Hope you brought supplies to repair your saddle. All saddles should be able to be repaired on the dino they fit. A broken saddle debuffs movement, armor, and attack. Introduce more attacks that specifically damage armor.
7. Fliers being strong is fine, imo, even though I know that is a controversial thing to say. Air superiority is always a good thing to have. But instead of nerfing it, let's consider adding buffs to the ground game and defenses to create counter play.
8. Cut all costs and taming times in half. In other words; make the evolution event permanent. And for those saying the double xp is too much, fine. (But power leveling makes that moot anyway)
9. Friend vs foe. This isn't really related to buffs vs nerfs, but it's a serious problem in large-scale conflict. It is almost impossible to tell friend from foe. There should be a battle-mode toggle that has a clear visual indicator for friendlies. 
10. Another pet peave ... cut the spyglass draw time to near-zero. For real. Combine the insanely-slow draw time with the lag, and the silly-small field of view, and you have a truly broken device (that is also one of the most important items in the game)
11. Allow all behemoth dinos to "knock over" vaults. Vault walls are just stupid. This wouldn't break them, or damage the item contained within, but the fact that a giga or bronto cannot just walk over or past a vault wall is insanely stupid. You want to delay an attack? Build a real wall.  

On the stealth options, they only affect people who run their game on medium to high settings. Literally 0 stealth attempts work on me because when you run Low settings, you can see everyone before the trees, rocks and other things pop up. Great for finding your body when you die. greater for finding people who dont want to be found.

The humans vs dinos thing is kind of a double edged sword (pun). Dino tames don't respawn, but humans do. While you can make plenty of bad decisions you like (human wave tactics, suicide bombing) your dinos die and that's it, they're gone forever. Giving humans more power over dinos may cause them to be obsolete. Why tame and breed Rexes when your Journeyman Assault Rifle can kill everything in less time? I do agree that humans need better weaponry to fight dinos, but not too much. A man in Mastercraft Flak and Mastercraft Pike should NOT be able to solo a high level end-game tame, but a team of them working together would be fine.

The damage types does actually seem to make sense (except for Theropods which should have the same abilities as the Megalosaurus anyway) but many of them would pertain to the underused Herbivores which are more various in combat than "Click M1 to bite". Specialization would be great, but might favor generalist damagers, like it does in many other games. What might create variety might cause a general-dependant meta and then things are different but still stagnant.

A Giga with a Red Saddle isn't going anywhere except for the ocean, to be chewed on by Mosas while Pteras keep the riders away...but regardless I get your point. Once you get a Redsaddle Giga only DPS Pteras can put a good dent in them without dying.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

9 minutes ago, LilNastyGurl said:

As a concept, we need more counter play. Right now you tech up to giga, and now you have the best land dino. Simple as that. Unless somebody truly spams you with a dozen 150+ rexes, you're not losing your imprinted giga with a red saddle. You're just not losing that thing. Instead I would like a scenario where if you see someone with a giga build, you should be able to select a different build that the giga build is weak against. Now, technically, the giga cannot attack up, so teching to fliers is a counter play, but it's really the only counter play. 

On the stealth options, they only affect people who run their game on medium to high settings. Literally 0 stealth attempts work on me because when you run Low settings, you can see everyone before the trees, rocks and other things pop up. Great for finding your body when you die. greater for finding people who dont want to be found.

The humans vs dinos thing is kind of a double edged sword (pun). Dino tames don't respawn, but humans do. While you can make plenty of bad decisions you like (human wave tactics, suicide bombing) your dinos die and that's it, they're gone forever. Giving humans more power over dinos may cause them to be obsolete. Why tame and breed Rexes when your Journeyman Assault Rifle can kill everything in less time? I do agree that humans need better weaponry to fight dinos, but not too much. A man in Mastercraft Flak and Mastercraft Pike should NOT be able to solo a high level end-game tame, but a team of them working together would be fine.

The damage types does actually seem to make sense (except for Theropods which should have the same abilities as the Megalosaurus anyway) but many of them would pertain to the underused Herbivores which are more various in combat than "Click M1 to bite". Specialization would be great, but might favor generalist damagers, like it does in many other games. What might create variety might cause a general-dependant meta and then things are different but still stagnant.

A Giga with a Red Saddle isn't going anywhere except for the ocean, to be chewed on by Mosas while Pteras keep the riders away...but regardless I get your point. Once you get a Redsaddle Giga only DPS Pteras can put a good dent in them without dying.

I've been a proponent of having damage/armor types. Since day 1. This game is more or less an elaborate rts and all good rts games use this kind of system to help build counters (multiple) and balance out units (tames). I think having dinos be stronger than humans is just how is gonna be, till the new tech armor hits.. and flyers need to take bonus damage as a whole. Far too fast, far too much utility, and extremely easy at getting to anywhere on the map with little to no risk.

[TheRealTFreezy]

2 hours ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

I've been a proponent of having damage/armor types. Since day 1. This game is more or less an elaborate rts and all good rts games use this kind of system to help build counters (multiple) and balance out units (tames). I think having dinos be stronger than humans is just how is gonna be, till the new tech armor hits.. and flyers need to take bonus damage as a whole. Far too fast, far too much utility, and extremely easy at getting to anywhere on the map with little to no risk.

Don't fliers already take significantly more damage? Like 6x I thought? Or is that just by ranged weapons?

[Volcano637]

21 hours ago, Cullis said:

If an alpha has a base that doesn't melt the titan in a few seconds, it's no alpha. It's halpha. 

Honestly. I was once involved with reducing an absentee alpha tribe base to scrap, and one guy raptored up with titan and went into the wrong spot. The thing died in a few seconds. 

Titans are really kind of weak, defensively. 

_______________________________

ITT: people who aren't creative at all. 

Meta might be stagnant, but bear in mind that people who know meta-breaking stuff won't raptoring say anything. I know of dinos that are arguably better for land pvp than the giga, but I won't say what they are. Neither should you, if you have a clue. 

 

 

Umm. How about you paint your armor. Also, why? Friendly fire is a real thing, and soldiers have to take care to avoid it. Why should the game dumb itself down because you guys don't want to improve your logistics (war paint or signs) or communication? 

 

And building a metal base that weights tons on top of a quetzal is realistic? Lmao come on dude.

[Dukaan]

14 minutes ago, TheRealTFreezy said:

Don't fliers already take significantly more damage? Like 6x I thought? Or is that just by ranged weapons?

flyers have a 3x headshot multiplier

[Cullis]

20 hours ago, Smash said:

Give me a break.  I really can't stand when people non-contribute to threads with this "You're wrong and I know better but I'm not going to tell you" intellectual lightweight rubbish.  Put up or shut up. 

 

Why should I? You can verify what works and what doesn't with some two dozen console commands on local game and ten minutes of gameplay. You won't. People are lazy, and stupid. Those who aren't can find out. Why should I help those who don't really care?

[Cullis]

20 minutes ago, TheRealTFreezy said:

Don't fliers already take significantly more damage? Like 6x I thought? Or is that just by ranged weapons?

They patched that out last year. Umm... when was the last time you like, you know, player Ark?

[Grounded]

On 12/10/2016 at 8:54 AM, TheRealTFreezy said:

The problem is that the Dino's they are adding have small roles to fill while the original (or close to it) Dino's do it all. 

First of all, flying is op. Period. T

That's why I started my No-Fly server.  It is more of a challenge, but unfortunately 98% of the player base don't like a hard and challenging game, so very few players return after a couple of days, building a player base for No-Fly is really hard.  It seems a lot of people like the idea in theory but not in practice.

[Cullis]

18 hours ago, CriD said:

 

Its just smarts. I wouldn't take a Rex 1v1 vs a giga

FYI, people have won  fights of 1 breeded rex vs 2 (unridden) neutral gigas. 

[Cullis]

2 minutes ago, Grounded said:

That's why I started my No-Fly server.  It is more of a challenge, but unfortunately 98% of the player base don't like a hard and challenging game, so very few players return after a couple of days, building a player base for No-Fly is really hard.  It seems a lot of people like the idea in theory but not in practice.

No, building a playerbase for an unofficial server is hard. How can people know you won't start abusing admin privileges or just flake out on paying server costs or just disappear one day. 

I'd be all for official no-fly servers. 

[Grounded]

Just now, Cullis said:

No, building a playerbase for an unofficial server is hard. How can people know you won't start abusing admin privileges or just flake out on paying server costs or just disappear one day. 

I'd be all for official no-fly servers. 

I hear you regarding admins being lame and abusing power, and so on, but we are not all like that, the problem is getting people like you to trust us.  I own my server hardware, I don't rent it, it's at my home where I have fibre optic internet right to my door, the only copper is from the router to the server, like 10m of Cat6.  So it essentially costs me nothing, I would have the fibre optic connection any way, and I did before starting the server, so its a few cents of electricity a day to power the server which is not noticeable on my monthly power bill.

I think a large problem is there are 20+ thousand unofficial servers and I suspect most of them are started by someone who has just got the game, and then gets bored or has no clue about how to run it so they ignore it.  And most people joining a server want it easy, too many 100X rates servers so that game gets boring in 2 days.

But before we went no fly we had a regular user base of over 50-60 players and peaks of 30+ in the evenings online, now we have a peak of 5 with an average of less than 1 person online, Here on battle metrics with the 3m view of players online you can see the drop off, we went no-fly in early September and never really got past 10 players.  But the server is a hard server and that is also a problem for most players.  There is an advert for it in the server advertising section on this forums here.

https://www.battlemetrics.com/servers/ark/311077?timePlayed=3M&uniqueFirst=3M

[TheRealTFreezy]

41 minutes ago, Cullis said:

They patched that out last year. Umm... when was the last time you like, you know, player Ark?

You can leave now troll. Not only are you not contributing to anything by acting like you have some inside knowledge we all know you don't have but you are annoying too. 

 

48 minutes ago, Dukaan said:

flyers have a 3x headshot multiplier

Thanks for reminding me. Couldn't remember what the actual multiplier was.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

2 hours ago, TheRealTFreezy said:

Don't fliers already take significantly more damage? Like 6x I thought? Or is that just by ranged weapons?

I think it's just ranged atm