Why flying making content trivial isn't a bad thing.

[chrisnt64]

18 hours ago, iAmE said:

 

Or just do what most people in reality do, and walk a giga/therizino five feet outside your base and get 5k meat in 10 minutes. No one seriously goes out and FARMS meat with a Ptera. Maybe if you just need 1-200, but then it's just a quick errand. When flyers are about speed, that's kinda fair, no?

I live on one of the glaciers on the island map and i always just take out my wyvern or pteras to get meat, cause whats the point of spending 30 mins taking a rex across when you can collect the same amount on a wyvern without having to use a raft, load up a quetzal or walk a land dino up the cliff to gather meat. My gigas are kept in the swamp which means to use them to farm i have to fly over to the swamp farm and then fly back on a quetzal to get the meat back... Why do it then?

 

[iAmE]

2 minutes ago, chrisnt64 said:

I live on one of the glaciers on the island map and i always just take out my wyvern or pteras to get meat, cause whats the point of spending 30 mins taking a rex across when you can collect the same amount on a wyvern without having to use a raft, load up a quetzal or walk a land dino up the cliff to gather meat. My gigas are kept in the swamp which means to use them to farm i have to fly over to the swamp farm and then fly back on a quetzal to get the meat back... Why do it then?

 

That's kind of the point I've been making. Ptera's aren't the best at gathering stuff, neither are wyverns. The issue is that getting from point A to point B takes longer then accomplishing the task with a flyer does. That doesn't sound like an issue with the flyer. Sounds like an issue with the ground dinos taking hours to get anywhere. 

[Bogger]

2 hours ago, iAmE said:

You can flame arrow plant species to death. Rock elementals are completely immune to plant species and eat them for breakfast. Rexes with 20-30k HP can ignore 150-200 plant species and just eat one alive.

 

Ptera's Barrel Roll does 50 base damage. My ptera's hatch with 536 base melee. That means they do about as much damage, in one barrel roll, as a bite from a rex with 400 melee or so. Rexes bite twice as fast as Barrel Roll happens, and can do so for about 15-20 minutes without needing to get more stamina. Meanwhile, even though my Pteras hatch with 2k Stamina, they can only Barrel Roll 22-24 times before running out of stamina. Meanwhile they have like a tenth of the HP of a Rex.

Ptera's can indeed kill Plant Species (Though if all you have is Plant Species, your base was always vulnerable), but as I said, there's about 6-12 dinos that do it better. 

Ptera's Barrel Roll has already been nerfed. Heavily. To the point where it's rarely even used on PvP servers because everything can kill you well before you can kill them.

I play prim+since the base game is a complete poopshow and the ptera is much more a problem there than probably in base game,but the fact remains that we're talking a beginner dino that can wipe out defence,has none of the disadvantages a ground dino will have to deal with like buggy terrain or pillared defenses and can easily reach the best situated bases while ground dinos like a rex or giga won't,or at the least in case of non gigas will take more planning to do so with a quetz.Teras barel roll is not balanced,and i use breed a lot of them too.

[iAmE]

4 minutes ago, Bogger said:

I play prim+since the base game is a complete poopshow and the ptera is much more a problem there than probably in base game,but the fact remains that we're talking a beginner dino that can wipe out defence,has none of the disadvantages a ground dino will have to deal with like buggy terrain or pillared defenses and can easily reach the best situated bases while ground dinos like a rex or giga won't,or at the least in case of non gigas will take more planning to do so with a quetz.Teras barel roll is not balanced,and i use breed a lot of them too.

So we should nerf Ptera's, based solely on the fact that it is broken in a game mode missing half, or more, of the content of the base game, including all of the better flyers, and the counter to Ptera's?

I mean, I'll be realistic. You try barrel rolling someone on one of the PvP servers that isn't modded (like Prim/+), you're liable to eat a 3k damage metal arrow to the face in short order. I can't count the number of Ptera's that I have one shot. Including ones well over level 400. 

[DragonEnchantress]

On Tuesday, March 28, 2017 at 6:18 PM, Lumitesi said:

So you're telling me you can cross the whole Island in 8m with a Terror Bird or Thyla? Without putting every point in speed and making it absolutely useless for everything else? Also notice that if you have a mount that can do the whole island in 8m you're basically trivializing content again because not even a wild Giga can catch you. So I guess ground mounts should be nerfed too?

You absolutely can get around the map efficiently withing 8-10 minutes with a thylacoleo. I go everywhere on mine now and haven't boosted any extra speed what so ever. The reason is because they can jump high and climb cliffs, they're amazing and really useful land mounts. They hold their own with tanking and taking down rexes and such and when you don't want to deal with annoying troodons you just climb a cliff and they're left behind in your dust. You really need to try other dino options before judging them because the one minded train of thought people have with only using flyers is why they want to disable them as much as possible in the first place.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

4 minutes ago, DragonEnchantress said:

You absolutely can get around the map efficiently withing 8-10 minutes with a thylacoleo. I go everywhere on mine now and haven't boosted any extra speed what so ever. The reason is because they can jump high and climb cliffs, they're amazing and really useful land mounts. They hold their own with tanking and taking down rexes and such and when you don't want to deal with annoying troodons you just climb a cliff and they're left behind in your dust. You really need to try other dino options before judging them because the one minded train of thought people have with only using flyers is why they want to disable them as much as possible in the first place.

I heart my koala kitty!

[DragonEnchantress]

Just now, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

I heart my koala kitty!

 omg I'm gonna call them that now lol! They're crazy amazing and also add the danger to flying I feel that the game could use in place of a nurf. You don't need to take away from everything but add more risk and challenge to it and getting tackled by a marsupial is a cool way to do that.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

Just now, DragonEnchantress said:

 omg I'm gonna call them that now lol! They're crazy amazing and also add the danger to flying I feel that the game could use in place of a nurf. You don't need to take away from everything but add more risk and challenge to it and getting tackled by a marsupial is a cool way to do that.

Spread the new name!! I'm even going to lambchop tame some for transport, definitely my new favorite tame! 

[hsaK]

On 30.3.2017 at 11:29 AM, iAmE said:

I'm not even sure what that means or why it matters. I'm well aware how Grappling hooks work. You don't barrel roll people grappled to the ground. They will kill you long before you kill them, unless they are brain dead.

It means, that you also can free yourself from being grabbed by grappling hooks... fire to the bird or the ground.

[Anakr0n]

You could once fly above everything and for the most part avoid getting attacked by anything except the drone insects in the air.  Now, what once took two minutes takes upwards of 30, with multiple stops along the way.  I don't care about the content once I'm flying; I use the flyer to get to the content that I want.  Forcing me onto the ground to avoid trivial content means there will be walled highways on my map soon and if I have to keyboard macro the walk because it takes hours to get where I want; I won't be buying any DLC after official release.  As if the repeated dying in the beginning wasn't enough, the point is you 'earn' the right to fly yourself somewhere to play.  Drops and Raptor Claus too - you didn't trivialize *that* content you made it inaccessible to most of the player base.

[JoeBob1024]

On 3/29/2017 at 5:52 PM, skeeta said:

I've just moved up near the snow biome but my first base was at the red obs (Island map). I have always used my Rex for meat though. Even down there. Just going from my base up the river beach a few hundred yards and back down the other bank used to give me enough and on a good trip would encumber the poor girl lol.

My point though was that I don't see the need to nerf the fliers too much. The Ptera could do with it's spin attack calming down yeah but that wouldn't bother me in the slightest because I have better critters for doing what that does. It's speed is irrelevant and altering that will only have the effect of making journeys take longer. I won't stop travelling long distances on it just because it takes 10 minutes now instead of 5.

I can't think of a reason to use the birds for anything but taxis and carrying things a long way. I can't comment on Quetz's as I've never had one but doing mining runs with a Ptera or Argent is safer sure but you pay for that with the shear amount of runs you have to do vs a single ground based mining train. It's a trade off in the end. I could escort an Ank and a Doed into the mountains with 2 Paras and 2 Trikes and bring back a weeks worth of stuff but it would be dangerous. Or I can do a couple of trips per day with a bird. The choice is mine now but that choice would go if they nerf the birds too heavily.

This would be true IF my dinos had enough AI brains to figure out a few simple things... For example: If there's a rock there, try walking around instead of running straight into it until you're out of render distance because I forgot to babysit you...Also, if dinos could nock down trees with an attack like they can with a rider. The main reason that people use flyers IMO is that they never get stuck on crap while following... We mine with a "Tappy Train" because the tapejaras will never get stuck on a tress, and we can have 5 or 6 of them on follow lol.

[ncola7]

On 3/28/2017 at 11:42 AM, Lumitesi said:

So it is finally upon us. The flying nerf will come. No numbers have been announced yet but I fear for it. Supposedly in the dev's eyes, flyers make content trivial because you can avoid everything on the ground. I agree. What I don't agree is that it is a bad thing. Let me tell you why: 

First of all:

Most Land mounts already trivialize most content. I mean, hop on a parasaur (considered by most the most useless Mount in the game) and with a few points in speed you can outrun a Rex. Let alone something fast like a saber or a carno. By making us use ground mounts the only content you're really making us face is bad terrain geometry/design together with a really bad following mechanic that males ground caravans not viable.

Second: 

Sometimes players WANT to trivialize some of the content. Sometimes I just wanna visit a friend's base on the other side of the Island. And I really don't wanna spend 30m just in the travels. It makes no sense. Everything is very time consuming in this game, you don't need to add travelling to that list.

Third:

Forcing players to do content is NOT a good idea. I mean, currently we have the option to use land or flying mounts. We choose flying most of the time we have to do long travels. It's much more convenient. If you force me to use land mounts, my decision may just end up being "nah that will take too much time by land, I'll just log and go do something else." Why is that? When I have lots of time to play, sometimes I hop on my Giga and go to snow biome, kill stuff and look for high lvl wolves, rexes, rhinos. It takes me about 1h just travelling back and forth but I got the time and it's fun so I do it. Other times I only have about 2h so I hop on my Tape and go look for said animais. Given that the Tape is much faster I have a much higher probability to find one on time and tame it. If this option is taken away from me, most of the times this happens I will probably log out and go do something else because I just wont have time. So in order to untrivialize 80% of the content, you actually made 100% of it useless. 

Forth:

You already make me face your ground content way too much. This one is router in another flawed system, which is breeding. Anyone breeding carnivores knows that if you breed more than 3 at a time, most of your ingame time is spent out and about gathering meat for the babies. After spinning at least 2h a Day running around killing things and gathering meat, is it really a bad thing that I'm allowed to ignore these ground dinos when visiting friends? 

Fifth and to me, the most important of all:

You can fix this by adding sky threats, instead of nerfing things to the ground (heh). Add,  for example, a giant eagle that is all around the Island and hunts flying dinos. Or maybe alpha Argies. Or maybe weather effects that affect flying mounts. Adding depth to sky gameplay (as long as it isn't overly complicated) is a much better solution than straight up nerfing dinos.

I know that it is probably too late, and I'm speaking before I even know what the nerfs are, but I still wanted to leave my opinion here on why the flyer nerfs will probably be negative for the game and how there are better solutions.

TL,DR:

Some flyers do need nerfs. Ptera is too fast and barrel roll does too much damage for example, but overall I think a huge flying nerf would be negative for the game and it isn't a bad thing that flyers currently allow content to be trivial. 

@Jat @Jen @TheRightHand

This player knew What was gonna happened and has ideas on how things should of been fixed before they even implemented a nerf.

You sir are some kind of Oracle. i agree with everything you said. And the changed you suggested I think would add to the gameplay tenfold.

The current state of the game is depressing to me and unfun, I log in and walk around for 10 minutes, realizing I don't want to do any of the things I had planned cause it will just take way to much time and is not worth the reward.

Traveling is not fun, if I want to just quickly stop in at my friends base or find a wild 150 I should be able to do that quickly. I want an equus but I can't find one cause I don't know their spawns yet and have tried to travel the whole map looking for them but it just takes way to long.

[Lumitesi]

17 minutes ago, ncola7 said:

@Jat @Jen @TheRightHand

This player knew What was gonna happened and has ideas on how things should of been fixed before they even implemented a nerf.

You sir are some kind of Oracle. i agree with everything you said. And the changed you suggested I think would add to the gameplay tenfold.

The current state of the game is depressing to me and unfun, I log in and walk around for 10 minutes, realizing I don't want to do any of the things I had planned cause it will just take way to much time and is not worth the reward.

Traveling is not fun, if I want to just quickly stop in at my friends base or find a wild 150 I should be able to do that quickly. I want an equus but I can't find one cause I don't know their spawns yet and have tried to travel the whole map looking for them but it just takes way to long.

This is it. For example, when the patch hit, after trying the flyers and noticing how utterly useless they are now, I hoped on a bred Thyla (probably one of the fastest ground mounts) to find one of the new horses... Long story short, it felt so slow that after taking 5m just to get to the Redwoods, I felt like it would take hours to scout a decent area of the map let alone find a horse.. And you didn't even make me face content (which was supposedly the intent of this nerf) because the Thyla is fast and agile enough to Just ignore most things. Actually, even a Carno is. So now you're going to nerf most ground mounts too I take it? All Wildcard accomplished with this nerf is make every thing involving travelling take 2, 3x the amount of time it took before. And this game was time consuming enough.

So do you know what I did when I got to the Redwoods? I got bored, turned around, did a meat run for the babies, logged off and went to play wow. That's all this nerf accomplishes. Yes you have 1 in 5 players who couldn't handle getting picked up in pvp who are very happy with these changes, but then you have the other 4 players who are very unhappy with how this turned out. My 2 tribemates have been playing less since the update, and they're getting very disappointed with the game. I'm affraid they might quit. If they do, I will follow. And I bet that thousands more players are in the same situation. Please realize this before it is too late. Ark is the best damn game I have ever played. No game has gripped me this much, no game has made me feel so immerse in such a living, beautiful world. But you will kill it if you don't undo at least some of the damage this nerf has made. And fast.

[ncola7]

@Lumitesi I agree with everything you said. let alone the complete sight line disadvantage the ground dinos have when scouring. it's a huge chore. i spent my time last night once I for bored looking for a new game to buy on steam...

The other point id like to make, and I'm almost sacred to post cause im worried theyll nerf my last chance at viable travel.

According to the wiki, (assuming the values are correct, an iguanadon is faster then all flyers besides pteranadon and wyvern at base speed, 1.5 or 2 times faster actually. An iguanadon is a first day tame and DOESN'T USE STAM WHEN SPRINTING. It Also can jump to avoid some obstacles. i leveled an iguanadon to 200% speed. My speed is now around 2903.7 units of speed. that's faster then a wyvern... by a decent amount. There is no such thing as danger on this mount as no wild dino can even try to keep up with it. i run in and out of aggro range so fast it they don't even try to attack. Plus I have like 600 base weight.

With more research I would guess that most of the problems people had with pteranadons, in respect to their speed and Stam, will be mirrored in the iguanadon. How can you justify this nerf while releasing the iguanadon at the same time?

Will your answer be to cap the iguanadon speed at 100%? Cause everything in this game is suppose to take days right? And if you're not willing to spend 16 hours a day playing you're a stupid noob?