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Populations in the ecosystem


Shrekasaurus

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Populations in the ecosystem

I really think the devs should soon focus on properly distributing the creatures on the maps. The Island seems a little crowded and some creature populations/habitats don't make too much sense

(Rex in the snow, thousands of Pteranodons in the redwoods, nothing in the caves, rampant Therizinosaurs, 10k Brontos at the foot of the volcano along the river, 1 Quetzal every millennia,)

Am I wrong in saying this would be an easy fix? Or is it actually difficult?

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I think it is harder that you think it might be.

You are trying to balance tons of numbers(percentages and priorities and such), via multiple spawn points, and then keep that within a certain server population.  And, since there are overlaps in what spawns in the spawn points, that makes it harder.

And then, I believe, some of the spawn points are shared between the Island and the Center, so I can only imagine the headache that causes.

I sometimes notice on our servers certain populations increasing while others seem to reduce or simply not respawn; usually leading me to do a dino wipe of that map.

Plus, they have not implemented all of the wilds yet, so getting it totally in tune today, it will likely break tomorrow.

With that said, once they move out of the content adding phase, and into a beta phase, I do hope there will be more balancing of the spawns, and maybe moving a few things around.  They have already done that.  I remember when certain parts of the map were filled with trikes.

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  • 1 month later...
On 3/9/2017 at 3:57 PM, Jerryn said:

I think it is harder that you think it might be.

You are trying to balance tons of numbers(percentages and priorities and such), via multiple spawn points, and then keep that within a certain server population.  And, since there are overlaps in what spawns in the spawn points, that makes it harder.

And then, I believe, some of the spawn points are shared between the Island and the Center, so I can only imagine the headache that causes.

I sometimes notice on our servers certain populations increasing while others seem to reduce or simply not respawn; usually leading me to do a dino wipe of that map.

Plus, they have not implemented all of the wilds yet, so getting it totally in tune today, it will likely break tomorrow.

With that said, once they move out of the content adding phase, and into a beta phase, I do hope there will be more balancing of the spawns, and maybe moving a few things around.  They have already done that.  I remember when certain parts of the map were filled with trikes.

Do you think, once all the creatures are in, that balancing the ecosystem would even be feasible?

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I think they should put creatures in their more "natural" places too (no snow-Sarco or Woolly Spinoceros!), but even the "Helena Note #4" states, that it seems a little bit weird:

"What a day! There I am, putting the finishing touches on the mammoth dossier, when all of a sudden, a Tyrannosaurus starts attacking the herd. Strewth! A Tyrannosaurus wading through the bloody snow!

I asked The Howling Wolves at the nearest camp, and apparently, this is a common thing. They’re not new to the region. It just doesn’t make sense. How can a Tyrannosaurus survive in this climate? And how can the introduction of an apex predator not shift the entire ecosystem?"

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The ecosystem on ark in general should change, one thing i find that needs to happen is diminishing the amount of predators and increase the amount of herbi's. 

Make the plains heavy on herbi's and keep carnivores more on the mountains/forests/swamps this would add a whole new level of difficulty as taming a trike might not just be an easy task. (imagine shooting one trike and having 10 others defending it)  Also predators would actually get wrecked to (especially lower levels) so we'd automatically get a more "realistic" view i know it's a fantasy game but imagine riding on a stego in the plains surrounded by herds of herbi's B|

the second difficulty that this would add is finding a rex for example, with lesser spawns you might have to search more and not directly be king of the island.

What do you guys think of this?

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3 hours ago, Griffin1984 said:

The ecosystem on ark in general should change, one thing i find that needs to happen is diminishing the amount of predators and increase the amount of herbi's. 

Make the plains heavy on herbi's and keep carnivores more on the mountains/forests/swamps this would add a whole new level of difficulty as taming a trike might not just be an easy task. (imagine shooting one trike and having 10 others defending it)  Also predators would actually get wrecked to (especially lower levels) so we'd automatically get a more "realistic" view i know it's a fantasy game but imagine riding on a stego in the plains surrounded by herds of herbi's B|

the second difficulty that this would add is finding a rex for example, with lesser spawns you might have to search more and not directly be king of the island.

What do you guys think of this?

Except that the explorer notes already say that the number of predators outnumber prey and the ecosystem still somehow works. Then again you have predators which will prey on other predators given the chance.

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1 hour ago, GeneralTalon said:

Except that the explorer notes already say that the number of predators outnumber prey and the ecosystem still somehow works. Then again you have predators which will prey on other predators given the chance.

It's because respawning is canon in the game, as in, relevant to the lore. So any ecosystem can work if the creatures magically come back to life (one of Nerva's note refers to this if I remember correctly) so it wouldn't matter in the slightest how chaotic the population distribution is.

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5 hours ago, DomiDarko said:

I think they should put creatures in their more "natural" places too (no snow-Sarco or Woolly Spinoceros!), but even the "Helena Note #4" states, that it seems a little bit weird:

"What a day! There I am, putting the finishing touches on the mammoth dossier, when all of a sudden, a Tyrannosaurus starts attacking the herd. Strewth! A Tyrannosaurus wading through the bloody snow!

I asked The Howling Wolves at the nearest camp, and apparently, this is a common thing. They’re not new to the region. It just doesn’t make sense. How can a Tyrannosaurus survive in this climate? And how can the introduction of an apex predator not shift the entire ecosystem?"

There is also a mention for this in 8th SE note of Helena as well.

I wish for more action between wild dinos to occur. Especially in the sea where everything is against you and/or your tames but not each other. And in the swamp.

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16 minutes ago, Kaelnayyan said:

They became huge areas of nothing but trikes. Typically the entire grassy plains south, and west (prior to the swamp being there) of the green would end up just miles and miles of trikes. 

In a very early Digest there was mentioned, the trikes were some kind of stress test for the server. They were placeholders for the other dinos to come, because of stresstesting the server infrastructure. Now there are almost all dinos are implemented, they have diminished to their normal spawn rate i guess.

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8 hours ago, Shrekasaurus said:

Do you think, once all the creatures are in, that balancing the ecosystem would even be feasible?

Yes, I think so.

Of course, there will be some diversity in the results, based on the server:  high pop vs low pop, over built vs 'normal' built (yeah...didn't know how to word that).

I played with some of the setting through the INI (the more global ones) for increasing sheep and Equus.  When I first did sheep, I screwed up and we didn't get anything.  Then I went too far the other way, and there were sheep all over the place(not as bad a dodo's, but you could find them without much work).  Now, I got them down so they are more plentiful than standard, but, you still have to go and find one.

And, I remember once, a while back, on the Center, when the megapiranhas were getting out of control, especially in the treasure cave; swam my shark in and got totally jumped; I actually had to admin cheat to clean up the area, and bet I killed over 1,000 of those things.  Just glad I found that before any other player did; they would have lost everything, which I would have replaced since I would not count that as player error.

Now, on a bigger scale, I am not sure if they will continue to localize the animals and spawns, like they have done with the mammoths and direwolves, or as  they have done in the redwoods(though I would like to see an occasional direbear roaming the countryside other than the Redwoods).  Heck, I would like to see few predators, but more territoriality, and less constant aggression; with maybe an aggession level and range that increases as hunger increases; or if there is fertilized egg or baby in the area.

My big wish is that we would eventually be able to customize the wilds(without using a mod), so that we can create different types of play.  I would like to create one where you can only tame mammals, a few birds(like the Pela), and some of the repiltes, amphibians, aquatics, and few of the smaller dinos.  Rexes and Spinos would be off the taming list.  But, I would also buff things like the Rexes and Spinos, and reduce their spawn; that is make them danagerous(but not Giga dangerous), where you have consider if they are worth attacking, but also making them a less common sight.

So, in short, create my own Eco system in the game for a certain type of game play.

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I know they said they will not expand The Island, but they keep adding more dinosaurs that eventually do scrap the spawnpoints of all wild dinos. 

I wonder if it would be hard to expand the map, maybe on the southern side, add some islands that are only accessible by boat (now that flyers are risky over water). 

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Heh... Let's mention how often Spino spawns nowadays... 

The Island is overcrowded totally. In redwoods we have hundreds of Terrorbirds and Pteras, other spawnpoints do not make sense whatsoever ie. why on the Earth would Trex live in the snowy biom? Why did 3 brontos spawn on the tall rock formation that in no way they could have reached that peak on foot.

This game has a lot half done or half fixed mechanics that decreases the belieability and immersion of the ARK a lot.

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I made a post with some relation to this one in the game suggestions section asking about changing the creature behaviors. Similar to the OP's complaint about finding Rexes in the snowy mountains, I found it annoying that the predators agro nearly every prey within sight and go on a gluttonous killing spree. 

There's no conclusive evidence on how predator dinos behaved because all dinos are dead, but maybe most can agree that they didn't behave much different from today's predators. I'm sure WC can easily set it to where wild predators would not hunt until its food level is around 50 percent low.

It'd be nice to see wild herbivores and carnivores duel for alpha status. Animals today do it. I'm sure dinosaurs did it too. Include harems for certain types of creatures (deer and elephant types) as well.

As for populations, I also think it'd be a great idea to introduce wild baby creatures too. It'd be cool to see a wild Argent nesting her eggs on a mountain corner or atop a redwood.

 

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4 minutes ago, Cronogenvic said:

I made a post with some relation to this one in the game suggestions section asking about changing the creature behaviors. Similar to the OP's complaint about finding Rexes in the snowy mountains, I found it annoying that the predators agro nearly every prey within sight and go on a gluttonous killing spree. 

There's no conclusive evidence on how predator dinos behaved because all dinos are dead, but maybe most can agree that they didn't behave much different from today's predators. I'm sure WC can easily set it to where wild predators would not hunt until its food level is around 50 percent low.

It'd be nice to see wild herbivores and carnivores duel for alpha status. Animals today do it. I'm sure dinosaurs did it too. Include harems for certain types of creatures (deer and elephant types) as well.

As for populations, I also think it'd be a great idea to introduce wild baby creatures too. It'd be cool to see a wild Argent nesting her eggs on a mountain corner or atop a redwood.

 

In some digest player suggested to add "hunger" mechanic, so carnivore would attack something if it was hungry. However, the dev rejected this suggestion saying they didn't want to do that. He said It was more suitable for a mod. So yeah, unless they changed their minds, we have animals on constant killing spree. Soooo "realistic". Animals are never on constant killing spree. They have to judge if the effort is worth losing energy in the hunt.

I don't expect any behavioural changes till they release all creatures (thank God only 9 left) and then they move to beta stage. At that point they will start improving that primitive AI hopefully.

 

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On 10.3.2017 at 0:57 AM, Jerryn said:

I think it is harder that you think it might be.

You are trying to balance tons of numbers(percentages and priorities and such), via multiple spawn points, and then keep that within a certain server population.  And, since there are overlaps in what spawns in the spawn points, that makes it harder.

And then, I believe, some of the spawn points are shared between the Island and the Center, so I can only imagine the headache that causes.

I sometimes notice on our servers certain populations increasing while others seem to reduce or simply not respawn; usually leading me to do a dino wipe of that map.

Plus, they have not implemented all of the wilds yet, so getting it totally in tune today, it will likely break tomorrow.

With that said, once they move out of the content adding phase, and into a beta phase, I do hope there will be more balancing of the spawns, and maybe moving a few things around.  They have already done that.  I remember when certain parts of the map were filled with trikes.

I'm searching for a Dunkleosteus for 5 days now. Wiping twice a day. So far I've encountered 4 Dunkleosteus in the whole ocean in 5 days. And they're common.

The devs should address it somehow. By managing population, or make dinos despawn on their own. The Ocean is full with sharks and mantas, which make crowds of like 100 around every Basilosaurus...

Another example are Equus. The beach where they should be the most common on the map does not have any. For days.

That's happening with many dinos who seem to have a very bad chance to spawn despite being common of very common.

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On 3/9/2017 at 6:57 PM, Jerryn said:

I think it is harder that you think it might be.

You are trying to balance tons of numbers(percentages and priorities and such), via multiple spawn points, and then keep that within a certain server population.  And, since there are overlaps in what spawns in the spawn points, that makes it harder.

And then, I believe, some of the spawn points are shared between the Island and the Center, so I can only imagine the headache that causes.

I sometimes notice on our servers certain populations increasing while others seem to reduce or simply not respawn; usually leading me to do a dino wipe of that map.

Plus, they have not implemented all of the wilds yet, so getting it totally in tune today, it will likely break tomorrow.

With that said, once they move out of the content adding phase, and into a beta phase, I do hope there will be more balancing of the spawns, and maybe moving a few things around.  They have already done that.  I remember when certain parts of the map were filled with trikes.

It will be hard, but it needs to be looked at. Whatever they do on officials needs to happen for dedicateds. We dont want to have to keep wiping the dinos everytime each biome gets to only 1 populated dino.

Seriously, Snow biome, mostly wolves.

Lava island/carnivore island, mostly raptors

Redwoods, Mostly Ptera's

Its a little ridiculous.

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2 hours ago, Jostabeere said:

Another example are Equus. The beach where they should be the most common on the map does not have any. For days.

Yeah, I had been looking for horses for hours one day. In the place they were suppoused to be uncommon I've never seen one. However, they spawned in areas which, were marked as rare way more often than in uncommon areas.

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Spawning is a real issue for me right now. I have to do a wipe before I go to the redwoods and swamp, otherwise my game will freeze up.

Pteras clogging the redwoods, and literal clumps of boas and dilos in the swamp. I'd love to see some improved spawn points to follow, if not ecology, some sort of territory hierarchy. 

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  • 1 month later...
2 hours ago, Shrekasaurus said:

I bring this topic back again because it seems the Pteranodon populations in the redwood forest have gotten completely out of control! It's almost the only spawn! (I'm on SP by the way).

single player does that quite often, its more 'contained' on unofficials and even more so on officials.

i know when i was playing around with some settings in SP i too would see 100 pteras at the river north of redwoods.

what i hope they do is when they release more ARKS and add them to the cluster that they tranfer over some dino types to these ARKS. The same way you can only get certain dinos in scorched and not on the island or center. Because right now i feel its getting a bit too crowded and starts feeling unnatural. there are predators everywhere. 

When i first started out ARK the first day of steam release i remember there being an occasional rapotor and dilo and maybe a carno once in a blue moon. but now, if you start out on the beach you get robbed blind by pelicans and pegos and if that doesnt do it you get insta jabbed by troodons etc. its a nightmare atm :) 

i hope they 'clean up' the map a bit and export dinos to other ARKS when they get released so it starts to feel more balanced and natural, this in time creates room for herding mechanics and wild babies. if they would add that right now im not even sure if there would be place for human survivors on the ARK

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