Any elaboration on what the flyer nerf will entail?

[GelhadQC]

I second that the boss mechanic sucks not only with the teleport bubble being too small, the quantity of Rexes needed to achieve that is just ridiculous on public servers. Oh and the Eeeeeels lol. I dont even get my moso out now in fear of the eel, imagine that...

[Morloa]

Just now, iAmE said:

I mean, god forbid PvE players not wanting to take 45 minutes to cross the Island to get metal with a Terror Bird. Everyone knows that arbitrarily increasing travel time without adding any difficulty or reward is good game design. Who doesn't like spending literally half your game session running to a place so you can do what you want to do. Not like this game doesn't have huge, AFK inducing, arbitrary no-difficulty involved tasks like Taming, where people just open the game and afk for literally hours at a time. I mean, why not add more of that to the game? 

 

Realistically, there is absolutely no good game design reason to just arbitrarily increase traveling time in a game where people can already spend hours a day traveling. The issue is, the developers have shown they don't play their own game, so I actually think that it will come to pass. Which is sad, and depressing. At the same time, even though the developers don't play the game, I don't have any faith that the testers will point this stuff out either, because stuff like the PvE Bosses being unbeatable without exploiting, and Eels, completely passed those people by as well. 

It's almost as if mining bases were never a thing?

Like Trivializing 80% of content is good game design just so we can go a few minutes faster!

It doesn't "arbitrarily increase travel time" it wants you to experience the Survival part of Ark a core game feature is built around surviving your environment not getting from point A to B with 0 Danger and as fast as possible.

[OnePotatoChip]

5 minutes ago, iAmE said:

I mean, god forbid PvE players not wanting to take 45 minutes to cross the Island to get metal with a Terror Bird. Everyone knows that arbitrarily increasing travel time without adding any difficulty or reward is good game design. Who doesn't like spending literally half your game session running to a place so you can do what you want to do. Not like this game doesn't have huge, AFK inducing, arbitrary no-difficulty involved tasks like Taming, where people just open the game and afk for literally hours at a time. I mean, why not add more of that to the game? Just rename the game to Ark: Netflix Evolved

 

Realistically, there is absolutely no good game design reason to just arbitrarily increase traveling time in a game where people can already spend hours a day traveling. The issue is, the developers have shown they don't play their own game, so I actually think that it will come to pass. Which is sad, and depressing. At the same time, even though the developers don't play the game, I don't have any faith that the testers will point this stuff out either, because stuff like the PvE Bosses being unbeatable without exploiting, and Eels, completely passed those people by as well. 

No disrespect, but if you're going 45 minutes away from your location to get metal, then you're not doing something right. There are metal node locations all over the map; they're not bunched in one specific place. Bring a Bear or a Rhino. 

[Morloa]

Just now, OnePotatoChip said:

No disrespect, but if you're going 45 minutes away from your location to get metal, then you're not doing something right. There are metal node locations all over the map; they're not bunched in one specific place. Bring a Bear or a Rhino. 

Ikr, hell set up a mining base with a Paracer and an ank. Then use Quetzels to ferry the forged materials back to your base there not getting deleted probably just a little stam nerf.

[iAmE]

3 minutes ago, OnePotatoChip said:

No disrespect, but if you're going 45 minutes away from your location to get metal, then you're not doing something right. There are metal node locations all over the map; they're not bunched in one specific place. Bring a Bear or a Rhino. 

No, I'm exactly 10 minutes away with my Mining Quetz, I would be around 45 minutes away via Terror bird (Like the quote I was responding to said.)

3 minutes ago, Morloa said:

It's almost as if mining bases were never a thing?

Like Trivializing 80% of content is good game design just so we can go a few minutes faster!

It doesn't "arbitrarily increase travel time" it wants you to experience the Survival part of Ark a core game feature is built around surviving your environment not getting from point A to B with 0 Danger and as fast as possible.

The Survival aspect of Ark is trivialized the moment you get a Raptor above level 40 meat tamed. Excluding a Giga, Alpha creatures and a Titan, you literally don't have to worry about anything except the normal bugs that we live with in Ark. 

So. Trivialize you say? You act like Flyers are the only things that "Trivialize" content, and further, you act like trivializing content in a progression based game is a bad thing.

You know the entire point of progression (You know, Leveling), is to trivialize content right? As in that's the express purpose of progression?

 

[OnePotatoChip]

3 minutes ago, iAmE said:

No, I'm exactly 10 minutes away with my Mining Quetz, I would be around 45 minutes away via Terror bird (Like the quote I was responding to said.)

I'm not sure what to tell you, man. It doesn't take a Terror Bird 45 minutes to even get across the map; that's some serious exaggeration you've got going. I know, because I've done it. Don't take a Terror Bird for mining, though. Take it to scout the area and find those metal nodes that're in your own location. Because claiming that you need a flier for resource harvesting on a PvE server is the biggest load of bull I've heard. Do people seriously not know that they don't have to fly to the volcano to get metal? Do they not know you don't even have to climb a mountain? 

[Morloa]

13 minutes ago, iAmE said:

No, I'm exactly 10 minutes away with my Mining Quetz, I would be around 45 minutes away via Terror bird (Like the quote I was responding to said.)

The Survival aspect of Ark is trivialized the moment you get a Raptor above level 40 meat tames. Excluding a Giga, Alpha creatures and a Titan, you literally don't have to worry about anything except the normal bugs that we live with in Ark. 

So. Trivialize you say? You act like Flyers are the only things that "Trivialize" content, and further, you act like trivializing content in a progression based game is a bad thing.

You know the entire point of progression (You know, Leveling), is to trivialize content right? As in that's the express purpose of progression?

 

Not true your level "40" raptor still has to worry about getting grabbed by things like kapro's or stunned by a purlovia, You could argue that as soon as you get flack and a pike you can kill everything in the game besides those things you mentioned but you can still die to the environment. From a PVE stance the only time you die to the environment in the sky is when you accidently hit E and plummet to your death. I'd rather experience the environment instead it's currently since I'm level 35 I never need to see any of it again because I've unlocked the pteranadon

If the entire point of progression in a game like ark was to trivialize content wouldn't that mean the Pteranadon a level 35 tame wouldn't be regarded as the strongest tame in the game completely outclassing any other flier with it's capabilities. Shouldn't an Argentavis be better because it's a later progression animal?

[iAmE]

1 minute ago, Morloa said:

Not true your level "40" raptor still has to worry about getting grabbed by things like kapro's or stunned by a purlovia, You could argue that as soon as you get flack and a pike you can kill everything in the game besides those things you mentioned but you can still die to the environment. From a PVE stance the only time you die to the environment in the sky is when you accidently hit E and plummet to your death. I'd rather experience the environment than since I'm level 35 I never need to see any of it again because I've unlocked the pteranadon

If the entire point of progression in a game like ark was to trivialize content wouldn't that mean the Pteranadon a level 35 tame wouldn't be regarded as the strongest tame in the game completely outclassing any other flier with it's capabilities. Shouldn't an Argentavis be better because it's a later progression animal?

My level 45 raptor doesn't have to worry about any of those things because A, I can outrun them (Which you know, is basically the same thing as flying, just arbitrarily longer) and B, I could probably turn around and kill a 150 of any of those with the pike and 200 odd melee I have. 

And yes, the Argentavis *should* be better then the Ptera. For the most part, it is, it isn't faster, but it's much stronger in Combat then a Ptera. The only time that isn't true is when you have Ptera's with thousands of generations, versus kibble tames. I have level 400 Ptera's, and a level 380 Argent. My Argent kills faster then the Ptera. My Ptera has 516 melee on hatch. 

People seem to think that they can blindly cry and exaggerate everything out of proportion. It doesn't work when you're discussing it with someone who actually plays the game. Ptera's are strong. Yes. They're about as strong as the Argey. The issue is that the Argey has been nerfed, multiple times. You do know that, way back when, Argeys were what Ptera's are now, and everyone QQ'd until they got nerfed into the ground right?

 

 

Just now, OnePotatoChip said:

I'm not sure what to tell you, man. It doesn't take a Terror Bird 45 minutes to even get across the map; that's some serious exaggeration you've got going. I know, because I've done it. Don't take a Terror Bird for mining, though. Take it to scout the area and find those metal nodes that're in your own location. Because claiming that you need a flier for resource harvesting on a PvE server is the biggest load of bull I've heard. Do people seriously not know that they don't have to fly to the volcano to get metal? Do they not know you don't even have to climb a mountain? 

I live in the ocean mate. I wouldn't use a Terror bird or a Quetzal to farm metal either way. The person I quoted was using extreme hyperbole, so I picked the garbage back up, and threw it in his/her face to see how she liked it when someone disregarded reality and just threw a bunch of exaggerated stuff at you.

 

My problem with the whole "Flyer nerf" is this:

Metal is gathered the same way you gather Flint/Gunpowder. Nerfing the ability to get one, nerfs the ability to get another. In the current PvP meta, nerfing anything related to gathering is just rubbing salt in the wound. Flyers are overpowered in PvP, but realistically, from everything I've seen, they're getting nerfed because the devs "Think" they're overpowered in PvE. Which is problematic because Flyers are an extremely delicate balancing point in PvP.

 

Literally the only thing that's broken in PvP about flyers is picking. Literally the only reason any of them are used to fight. 

[Morloa]

6 minutes ago, iAmE said:

My level 45 raptor doesn't have to worry about any of those things because A, I can outrun them (Which you know, is basically the same thing as flying, just arbitrarily longer) and B, I could probably turn around and kill a 150 of any of those with the pike and 200 odd melee I have. 

And yes, the Argentavis *should* be better then the Ptera. For the most part, it is, it isn't faster, but it's much stronger in Combat then a Ptera. The only time that isn't true is when you have Ptera's with thousands of generations, versus kibble tames. I have level 400 Ptera's, and a level 380 Argent. My Argent kills faster then the Ptera. My Ptera has 516 melee on hatch. 

People seem to think that they can blindly cry and exaggerate everything out of proportion. It doesn't work when you're discussing it with someone who actually plays the game. Ptera's are strong. Yes. They're about as strong as the Argey. The issue is that the Argey has been nerfed, multiple times. You do know that, way back when, Argeys were what Ptera's are now, and everyone QQ'd until they got nerfed into the ground right?

 

 

I live in the ocean mate. I wouldn't use a Terror bird or a Quetzal to farm metal either way. The person I quoted was using extreme hyperbole, so I picked the garbage back up, and threw it in his/her face to see how she liked it when someone disregarded reality and just threw a bunch of exaggerated stuff at you.

 

My problem with the whole "Flyer nerf" is this:

Metal is gathered the same way you gather Flint/Gunpowder. Nerfing the ability to get one, nerfs the ability to get another. In the current PvP meta, nerfing anything related to gathering is just rubbing salt in the wound. Flyers are overpowered in PvP, but realistically, from everything I've seen, they're getting nerfed because the devs "Think" they're overpowered in PvE. Which is problematic because Flyers are an extremely delicate balancing point in PvP.

 

Literally the only thing that's broken in PvP about flyers is picking. Literally the only reason any of them are used to fight. 

This is a good argument.

The point I'm trying to convey is when fliers Trivialize the balance of the game to the point of oppression does it not warrant a nerf? as soon as you gain access to a flier in there current state you gain the ability to skip a large portion of Ark's experience. Fliers are definitely a delicate point in PVP (maybe not the quetzal) there a necessary counter to ground tames if the nerf turns out to be a Stam nerf it'll just take more efficient and skilled fliers. I'll be the first to admit that if its a nerf that makes them take more dmg something silly like that is bad balancing and not addressing the issue of fliers from a PVE aspect just poopting on there PVP capabilities.

As for gathering statement I'm on the fence with this one, as what you say is true enough. However if it balances the obnoxious abilities of the bird in question the Quetzel "ability to cluster bomb" there would then need to be methods to replace cluster bombing that don't take 1000 hours to achieve. We could argue that till the cows come home.

[iAmE]

2 minutes ago, Morloa said:

This is a good argument.

The point I'm trying to convey is when fliers Trivialize the balance of the game to the point of oppression does it not warrant a nerf? as soon as you gain access to a flier in there current state you gain the ability to skip a large portion of Ark's experience.

My counter point to this would be, is the trivialization of that content good, or bad, for the gameplay experience. Most people would say it's good. For a variety of reasons. Just to skim the top:

The island was made with the knowledge that Flyers existed in mind. It is not easy, fun, exciting or challenging to transverse via land. It is just tedious. In a game with many multitudes of "Tedious" activities (Raising babies, current PvE Boss fights, taming and farming in general), you should attempt to not add even more tedium to the daily routine of the player. Which is what travelling is, and by lengthening the travel time, you do, indeed, increase the tedium. 

Does anyone, really, anywhere, think that a 150 kibble tame ptera completely trivializes all pve content? That's not true. At all. You can kill Alpha's, but as I mentioned before, it's incredibly tedious, and most players won't do it. 

A level 3-400 Ptera can, and does, trivialize almost all pve content, but think about that, and ask yourself whether the amount of time someone somewhere sunk into that, if it's worth it.

Ark's experience, is, by far and by large, not challenging or fun to experience. It's the exact same mechanics, over and over. The people who the devs would want to experience this content, usually will, because they won't "Ptera-rush". The people "Ptera-rushing" are the people with a semblance of experience, who really don't need to experience it all over again for the sake of tedium.

 

2 minutes ago, Morloa said:

Fliers are definitely a delicate point in PVP (maybe not the quetzal) there a necessary counter to ground tames if the nerf turns out to be a Stam nerf it'll just take more efficient and skilled fliers. I'll be the first to admit that if its a nerf that makes them take more dmg something silly like that is bad balancing and not addressing the issue of fliers from a PVE aspect just poopting on there PVP capabilities.

There are two problem PvP flyers. Only two of them. They are Quetzals and Ptera's. The other flyers are kind of irrelevant because guns will shred them faster then they can do anything in any major fight. 

Quetzals are problematic because you can't shoot/kill the rider (Platform with a box) before they pick someone. They have too much HP. We have Quetzals pushing 70k HP. That's crazy.

Pteras are problematic because they're too fast to shoot or kill before they pick someone. Lag combined with inherent speed makes them unrivaled at picking. To boot they're cheap tames and quick breeds, which means most Ptera's are incredibly developed, DNA wise, compared to literally any other dino out there (Seriously, I have seen base level 401 Ptera babies on Official.)

The common root of all these problems is this: Picking is an underdeveloped/discussed concept. Someone needs to explain to me why we have space suits and laser guns, but we can't put a bloody seatbelt on a Giga. Picking is the only issue with Flyers in PvP

 

2 minutes ago, Morloa said:

 

As for gathering statement I'm on the fence with this one, as what you say is true enough. However if it balances the obnoxious abilities of the bird in question the Quetzel "ability to cluster bomb" there would then need to be methods to replace cluster bombing that don't take 1000 hours to achieve. We could argue that till the cows come home.

 

The Clusterbombing issue is borderline exploitative in and of itself. The issue with both Cluster Bombing and C4 Wyverns is that, in an active Official Server, the ping is too high for the turrets to shoot all of the targets they need to, fast enough. Cluster Bombing can't be a reason to nerf the Quetzal, and saying it is, is only valid if there's no hardware or software route to improving the fact that 20 people on an official server makes the server nearly unplayable. In many cases, if a server lags hard enough, turrets stop working entirely. That's the issue at hand with that concept, not Quetzals. 

 

[Danny118]

How do people feel about a large aggressive flier that will go after tamed birds before going after anything wild and therefore making the skies more treacherous in general. I was imagining something would essentially be a giga/mosa of the sky.

I feel like this would make the skies more challenging without adding tedium. We need something to fear when we're in the skies that isn't other players. 

I have suggested it in the Game Suggestions page too but I thought that, since you guys seem much more well informed with fliers than me, you might be able to chime in with thoughts.

Also I think some stat debuffs for said creature in the event that tribes tame it could be good at keeping it balanced. I love flying and I'd love to see it develop so that when people get a flying mount it doesn't mean that they are virtually immune to threats from the ground.

[theronin]

If I had to guess it would be stam and weight in terms of stats and revisiting barrel rolls for pteras in terms of combat.  I do hope they buff some other aspects of flyers to compensate.  Flyers are one of the few reprieves for solo / small tribe players.  Just the act of nerfing any aspect of flyers is yet another vote for large tribe playstyle.  At some point, they may as well just cut to the chase and make it so you can't play at all unless you are part of a 100+ member cross-server tribe.

[Rofelo]

Everyone chill, they are just going to remove the quetz platform and reduce the weight stat by 50% and call it a day.

[monomania]

So again we are likely to see PVE nerfs really aimed at PVP where game dynamics are completely different, great ...

[iAmE]

1 minute ago, monomania said:

So again we are likely to see PVE nerfs really aimed at PVP where game dynamics are completely different, great ...

From what the devs said on Reddit, it sounds like the other way around. 

[monomania]

1 minute ago, iAmE said:

From what the devs said on Reddit, it sounds like the other way around. 

Any link to that ?

 

[iAmE]

Just now, monomania said:

Any link to that ?

 

There's multiple quotes where they state it. I don't have the link on hand (Yay Mobile), but TheRightHand said it most specifically. The developers "Dislike how Flyers invalidate the Ark Experience", or something along those lines.

 

Flyers are overpowered in PvP, no doubts, but the majority of the discussions about the subject shifted to how dominant Ptera's and other Flyers are/were in the PvE scene, as the PvP fix is relatively easy and straightforward, but doesn't address all of their concerns apparently. 

[monomania]

2 minutes ago, iAmE said:

There's multiple quotes where they state it. I don't have the link on hand (Yay Mobile), but TheRightHand said it most specifically. The developers "Dislike how Flyers invalidate the Ark Experience", or something along those lines.

 

Flyers are overpowered in PvP, no doubts, but the majority of the discussions about the subject shifted to how dominant Ptera's and other Flyers are/were in the PvE scene, as the PvP fix is relatively easy and straightforward, but doesn't address all of their concerns apparently. 

Interesting, hope its not a fantasy of getting us all back to a dayz kinda experience where we die and lose our stuff all the time that got old after a week.

[iAmE]

1 minute ago, monomania said:

Interesting, hope its not a fantasy of getting us all back to a dayz kinda starting experience where we die and lose our stuff all the time that got old after a week.

No, I apparently the Developers think that Land Dinos are underutilized, and the best way to fix that is to gut birds. Some of the "Popular" ideas included stuff like removing Barrel roll, removing the ability for Ptera's to pick, reducing all flyers stamina to like a hundred. Etc. The devs have given no inclination either way, but whenever the Devs nerf something, it ends up useless like the Giga or Trilobyte, so I'm a bit fearful for what's going to end up happening. 

[monomania]

Just now, iAmE said:

No, I apparently the Developers think that Land Dinos are underutilized, and the best way to fix that is to gut birds. Some of the "Popular" ideas included stuff like removing Barrel roll, removing the ability for Ptera's to pick, reducing all flyers stamina to like a hundred. Etc. The devs have given no inclination either way, but whenever the Devs nerf something, it ends up useless like the Giga or Trilobyte, so I'm a bit fearful for what's going to end up happening. 

Sounds horrible all of that, its a patience nightmare just to fly a 200 speed Q from farm area to base, slowing it down further will be the death of the game for me at least.

[iAmE]

Just now, monomania said:

Sounds horrible all of that, its a patience nightmare just to fly a 200 speed Q from farm area to base, slowing it down further will be the death of the game for me at least.

Yeah, not much we can do but sit and wait to see the details. Some of the discussion was disheartening. One of the Wildcard Employees said he "Missed the days of Bronto Trains for moving resources". I can agree, that if it ever gets to THAT point, it'll probably be the death of Official for many. 

[monomania]

2 minutes ago, iAmE said:

"One of the Wildcard Employees said he "Missed the days of Bronto Trains for moving resources".

Omg they in live their own little outdated gaming bubble it sounds like, that sounds about as fun doing again as watching a loop of never ending days of our lives reruns.

I wish they could prioritize more important stuff like making sure new tribe members cant kill every single dino while your logged off, one of the many reasons in PVE almost nobody recruits members and end up with 500 dinos 1 guy.

[ciabattaroll]

16 minutes ago, monomania said:

Any link to that ?

 

It's not tied to PVP or PVE at all. It's just to do with the overall ark experience.

https://www.reddit.com/r/playark/comments/5tup2l/pve_players_please_voice_your_opinions_re_flight/ddpn2zl/

 

 

[–]WildcardTheRightHandSenior Technical and Gameplay Designer 13 points 1 month ago 

Just to speak "officially", fliers, at least from our vision on the development team, are currently grossly overpowered in a way that has nothing to do with pvp or pve, it has everything to do with the overall gameplay progression/experience.

As with all things we do, we'll be monitoring feedback on this as we go forwards, but fliers currently do something that pretty much all of us dislike that has nothing to do with metagame.

They, from a very early point in the game, open up the island and make it trivial for players to move across the island without consequences.

This was never what they were intended to do, and unfortunately it was something that got away from us in a lot of ways.

The re-balance (and also why we want player feedback on this.) has more to do with making it so that some of the first things a player does is not get airborne and trivialize 80% of the game content.

The point of fliers was never to make the player able to fly laps around the island with their eyes closed and not even think about ground-based threats, it was to provide a decision about how to transit based on all sorts of factors like weight, stamina, health, risk, can I take a dino train with me, etc.

We just didn't do that right the first time, and development often moves on without us and we have to come back to it later

So, we're going to collect feedback on it as much as we can and make changes going forward that try to accommodate the player desires while trying to maintain our vision inside of that framework.

• The Right Hand

[monomania]

5 minutes ago, ciabattaroll said:

It's not tied to PVP or PVE at all. It's just to do with the overall ark experience.

https://www.reddit.com/r/playark/comments/5tup2l/pve_players_please_voice_your_opinions_re_flight/ddpn2zl/

 

Thanks for that, now you got me really really worried for those of us that like to build that sounds like the death warrant for this game having to kill my way through an ocean of dinos to get back and forth to base just not happening. But hey great way to clean up the servers before release cause I doubt the majority of old school players will remain with that nerf  now if only I could get 4500 hours of my lif3 back hehe

[Rofelo]

Bronto resource trains wont work like they used to now that there are overpowered wild gigas to kill all your poop.