Okay Okay Okay. I Changed My Mind. This Nerf Kinda Sucks.

[LilNastyGurl]

Yeah, for an Official PvP player sick of playing bird games, woefully wishing that seatbelts existed on dino saddles, and wishing Pteranodons weren't the "No duh what are you some kind of braindead idiot" default PvP mount in the game, the PvP nerf rumors were magical.

Dreams of having the Pteranodon being reduced to a skilled veteran-only dino, or a basic travel dino seemed more real. That flying around tanking auto-turret bullets with a 250 Pteranodon or Argent with a MC saddle WASN'T viable anymore. That simply flying around with an Argent/Ptera and a Pickaxe wasn't better than putting the effort into bringing an Anky to a metal node and then bringing it back. That the vulnerability you felt with that Level 5 Pteranodon, still kinda remained even with your 3rd generation Godbirds. That stupid risky behavior could be punishable by swift death (not related to disconnects I mean). However with over 2,600 Stamina, Base speeds climbing over the 1,000 mark (not percentage wise), with a Saddles that makes bites from Wild Gigas do a measly 200 a hit, and a c-spin that could dish out over 200 damage to multiple targets (with the c-spins able to be done repeatedly and costing barely any stamina), you could gas your bird, land right in the middle of a battle with high level threats, gain enough stamina to C-spin right out of the fight, and regen somewhere safer. High level Pteras were dumb. Enjoyable, guilty pleasure game ruining levels of dumb. Killing Rexes in 3 spins was rewarding, after you ran and hid from those things so early in the game. Wiping out clusters of T-birds in a one swoop was cathartic.

However, reaching this level of stupid power was really easy. By the time you could unlock the Sarco's saddle (lol who even uses those anymore T_T) you could opt your points towards the Godbirb. Bola one of these over-trustworthy dopes on the beach, throw some meat on it, and do SOOOOOOOOO much work with it. Prime Gathering? Fly over stones, forests, lava and predators and deliver it directly to your current tame. C-spin argents to death with that wealthy stamina pool. Leave that Gallimimus and that Terror Bird in the barn, you can fly now, and effectively kill everything in the wild provided you're not outnumbered. Breed these things in a day and a half* on Official. Watch as your generations improve quickly to the point where you're sitting on 240s before your 2nd generation of Rexes finished growing up (which could easily have died to another player using their Ptera and its magical C-spin of death).

I could go on and on about the Ptera. It was my favorite BS creature in the game, and eventually became the only one I used because everything else, with its gimmicks, was so, limited in comparison. Ptera meat runs, Ptera Prime runs, Ptera Mining runs, Ptera Grind runs, Red Drop Ptera Runs. Ptera 150 scouting missions, Ptera trade delivery runs, Ptera Ptera Ptera Ptera Ptera. In a game of hitting things with picks and going there to hit it with picks, this dino was the god damn best. Couldn't swim tho, so the 200% speed Ichthyo did the pearl runs.

Was the Lymantria or the Pelagornis a problem at all? Not really. Never once did I see somebody sitting on one of those during a raid and causing riots and "nerf plz" mumbling. Argents were raising some flags, but the fact that you needed to spend so many levels in speed, or imprint on it heavily to get it to godly speeds seemed okay. I complained that it was too slow in some cases. Fighting with Mr Kicky Bird was a dumb experience compared to the easy art of killing with Mr. Ptera. The Quetzal, the Big Q, was always a question raiser. Difficult for people to acquire by themselves, the first quetzal was usually the hardest. A long ass time to raise. However, in time, with the right saddle, you could shoot this thing in the head with an Ascended Shotgun and not even have it bleed. You could fly it over plants and guns and leave it there for a few seconds before it thought "hey, I just lost 2,000 HP, can we maybe NOT do this?" Plus with the ANKY PLATFORM GLITCH (2016 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED) your metal problems were over and done. Those 200 ore runs you did with the mountainside and a pick felt trivial, and eventually you expected 3000-10000 in a single run to be THE NORM. Wasn't okay with that, but like everyone, seeing an Industrial Forge maxed out, and being able to craft everything you wanted was so good.

I still accepted this nerf with open arms, however what I expected and what I got were two different things.

What I wanted was the C-spin cooldown, and a major turn-down of its damage. No more Wyvern-slaying, herd-destroying, "Hey just hunt for prime with your Ptera" tomfoolery with high level Pteras. Make it a special attack, rather than their default attack you can use 27 times in a row before needing to rest.

I wanted picking a player from a saddle not be the "no duh do you NOT want to win the game?" option. Having you rip people off their land tames be a skillful thing one had to practice at, and at times, not be an option. 

And have high level flyers just be squishier. 

What this is, is just kind of gross. 

PvE players, as much as I don't agree with them, and look down on a majority of them, have a point. This WAS a PvP nerf. Fast Flyers give you too much control over the game and actually cause issues with balance.  Having the entire base game changed to suit PvP and crap on the PvE players was a bit dumb. 

My Pteras are not useless, as I am still mining with them, still hunting for 150s with them, and maintaining some semblance of dominance when fighting with them. They can't outright wipe out entire mountainsides anymore, which is what I like. Agree that the number one problem with them was their god damn speed, and the only thing I can think of that can solve the PvP issue is 1) better Auto targeting and 2) on PvP servers, capping their speed at a point where they CAN'T outspeed turret tracking or be untouchable by a veteran sniper. People like fast birbs. I do too. However I'm willing to accept a slower Ptera for the sake of keeping PvP from being annoying and stupid.

After consideration, I agree that the changes to the Quetzal are dumb. I'd get into the grinding bit of this post but I'm sick of writing this so I'll finish up.

Don't nerf PvE with PvP at the same time. All you get is angry ass people wanting their god dinos to stay the same. Let them have OP 250% speed murder monsters, they literally don't give a sht about balance. Sandbox words game survival "choose the way you play" whatever the hell. 

People hate this nerf because Grinding is dumb AF. Like, yeah, everything should be worked on, and early-game grinding is logical and rewarding. Getting your first bow, campfire, thatch house, etc. However, on Official PvP you waste so much god damn time trying to even PREPARE FOR WAR. It's one thing to balance it out with time investment, have it so if you DO want the best base and the most c4/rockets, and the most powerful dinos, you can't just hit Tab and type in everything. And yes, you COULD just go to one of the many superior Unofficials for less grinding action, but currently your Officials are the only servers people feel like "legitimacy" matters so, yeah, building anything takes too many god damn materials, in contrast with how easy they are to raid. A day or week for a metal base with guns, and an hour or two to raze it to the ground. Make the end-game grind not so dumb and people will recieve your Quetzal nerf way better. (REALLY I JUST BELIEVE THAT OFFICIALS IN GENERAL ARE DUMB BUT THATS A DIFF TOPIC)

TL;DR: the nerf kinda sucks in some places and the people I disagreed with have okay points I guess.

[Griffin1984]

Just want to thank you for this post, means a lot to me as i am a lame-ass and cowardly PVE player .

For me birds were just fun to fly and  get me somewhere, never used them to mine a lot, fast metal runs with my argy was about it, how the nerf is now is just to much and i really hope they bring back a bit of the fun.

[GobboKirk]

Good post!

[Bradley1928]

11/10.

 

I used to play a game called Wurm Online. It had 2 servers, one was PVE and one was PVP. Same situation, something was in PVP and PVE took the hit, over and over and over. PVE always suffered because majority of the time PVE were happy with the way it was going but with PVP you always get the whining losing side. "NERF THIS" - "THIS IS OP ITS NEEDS FIXING" Etc etc.

Luckily they listened to the community after a year and countless players quitting. But they finally seperated patches for PVE and PVP. Needless to say, everyone was happier and all was well.

We play PVE because we don't want stress, we want fun. I don't think a single PVE person has ever went "omg bobbybobo over there has a 250% ptero, this needs nerfing now". At least I haven't and none of the servers I play care. There people with lvl 280 gigas running around on PVE but no one gives a poop because heyho its PVE.

[Extraterrestrial]

5 minutes ago, Bradley1928 said:

11/10.

 

I used to play a game called Wurm Online. It had 2 servers, one was PVE and one was PVP. Same situation, something was in PVP and PVE took the hit, over and over and over. PVE always suffered because majority of the time PVE were happy with the way it was going but with PVP you always get the whining losing side. "NERF THIS" - "THIS IS OP ITS NEEDS FIXING" Etc etc.

Luckily they listened to the community after a year and countless players quitting. But they finally seperated patches for PVE and PVP. Needless to say, everyone was happier and all was well.

We play PVE because we don't want stress, we want fun. I don't think a single PVE person has ever went "omg bobbybobo over there has a 250% ptero, this needs nerfing now". At least I haven't and none of the servers I play care. There people with lvl 280 gigas running around on PVE but no one gives a poop because heyho its PVE.

THANK YOU.

[TheN00B]

I still believe if they gave us unofficial server admins the ability to modify the flying dinos statslike  we used to prenurf none of this would really be an issue, server admins would either leave it be or increase the stats that they and the server feel it should be, but by disabling any ability for us admins to control how the dinos stats are on our server is a clear msg from the devs telling us its they're game and not ours, even though we pay for the servers ourself

There is official and un-official for a reason

[waterKeeper]

Yeah wildcard, all your future updates should aim at alleviating the grind in your game. It's not fun. It plateaus in a bad way. I always play until I find the most efficient way to do something, at that point it just becomes repeat same actions indefinitely, gets so boring.

 

Honestly, u probably could have replaced this nerf with just bringing the pvp difficulty back down to like 1.0. Would cut tame times and make things squishier.

[Jostabeere]

I cracked the code. Leedsichthys is introduced so people stop building rafts and start build TEK underwater crap.

Flyer nerf is introduced solely for the purpose that people will be forced to use TEK teleporters.

[Bradley1928]

5 minutes ago, Jostabeere said:

I cracked the code. Leedsichthys is introduced so people stop building rafts and start build TEK underwater crap.

Flyer nerf is introduced solely for the purpose that people will be forced to use TEK teleporters.

They're trying to trick us into a 2 month grind to gather all the materials for TEK teleports without fliers so they can take a lovely vacation with our money

[Rickyh24]

37 minutes ago, TheN00B said:

I still believe if they gave us unofficial server admins the ability to modify the flying dinos statslike  we used to prenurf none of this would really be an issue, server admins would either leave it be or increase the stats that they and the server feel it should be, but by disabling any ability for us admins to control how the dinos stats are on our server is a clear msg from the devs telling us its they're game and not ours, even though we pay for the servers ourself

There is official and un-official for a reason

As server admins we can't even balance off these changes?

[ncola7]

@Jat @Jen good comments here. please read This thread.

I agree 250% pteras that can out pace an auto turret is broken. but what's wrong with 150% or 175% or even 200% speed pteras?

Please bring back speed upgrades, just put a cap on them. This game is brutally unfun without it. Long Travel times is not a fun game mechanic. Why do you think every game ever has a fast travel option?

[abundzu]

This was not simply just a PVP nerf. 

In my opinion a change to fliers was needed. I'm not saying that the degree changed was warranted but a change was needed and not because of PVP but rather its impact on PVE. When I first started playing the game I remember taming a scorpion. I was so happy with this tame, up until this point I had primarily tamed only dodos, dilos, raptors, and trikes. I loved how his little feet moved and greatly enjoyed the experience of exploring with him. Eventually on this server I tamed a Beelzebufo and was blown away by its utility and the fun of hopping everywhere I went. As I continued to play, I began to better understand the game and was even able to tame an Argentavis. It was around this time that I ended up getting wiped and decided to take a small break from the game.

 

After a little bit, I thought about what I did wrong with my base setup and defense. I began anew with a better plan and more knowledge of the game. This time I was going to tame Spinosaurs (because I liked how they run) and Sabertooths (saberteeth?) for caves. In order to do this, I knew I needed to tame either a Pteranodon or another Argentavis. I remembered how useful it was to have one. Using this strategy, I was quite successful in taming quite a few Spinosaurs and cats.This play through lasted a good deal longer than my original, however I was eventually wiped and again used this opportunity to take a break from the game.

 

On my third playthrough, I once again re-evaluated my strategy. I considered how much I enjoyed my Spinos and cats but they were a lot of work. The real utility was with fliers. I ignored all dinosaurs except the fliers and would only tame dinosaurs that I came across who were either max level or very close to. This usually would collect dust as egg layers or eye candy at my base. I breed them but really only to get more females for more eggs. I concentrated almost entirely on  Pteranodon and Argentavis.

 

Needless to say, I have been wiped since this playthrough but each time my subsequent strategy to rebuild was fliers, fliers, fliers. Anywho, while much of my playthrough was on an unofficial server which was PVP, I played a largely PVE style. My tribe was small but I was nice and generally folks left me alone. I did get wiped but in my view it was all part of the game. The unofficial servers I played on ranged from 1-3x rates for the most part (this was prior to the inclusion of the 2x -> default).

 

I would enjoy other people's input. I do realize there are certain issues plaguing PVE servers, such as people building on the mountains. I also think their is simply an over concentration of metal at the volcano on the Island and not enough spread throughout the map (as it is on the Center). It would be surprising to me if over the next week or two, Wildcard does not buff fliers in the tune of 10-50% on particular stats of fliers. Perhaps the cost on certain engrams is out of touch with the lack of fliers being god haulers. All that stated, I believe these are the issues we should be discussing and there are solutions which do not include fliers in their previous form.

[DomiDarko]

31 minutes ago, Jostabeere said:

I cracked the code. Leedsichthys is introduced so people stop building rafts and start build TEK underwater crap.

Flyer nerf is introduced solely for the purpose that people will be forced to use TEK teleporters.

I did it yesterday. Maybe the devs want to go all to a HALO 5-clone, because futuristic stuff sells better?!

[OnePotatoChip]

To be honest, if we just fixed the resource distribution, people wouldn't need to fly across the map to get acceptable amounts of metal and other heavy materials and there'd be no issue. That or cut prices on a lot of endgame structures and items. Then again, what do I care? I mainly play Primitive + where metal isn't really all that essential given no one's making metal structures, auto turrets and God knows what else. You need it for bullets for your Musket and Flintlock Pistol, but round trips around the map aren't necessary for that when you've got a decent Ank and a few metal nodes nearby. Lemme just stay in my lane. 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

20 minutes ago, DomiDarko said:

I did it yesterday. Maybe the devs want to go all to a HALO 5-clone, because futuristic stuff sells better?!

How did that work for CoD? Maybe people were exploiting rafts and flyers and they decided to make flyers refuel more often and rafts actually have to watch where they are going... hmmm, no more mindless travel or raiding..

[TheN00B]

47 minutes ago, Rickyh24 said:

As server admins we can't even balance off these changes?

nope we cannot change the base speeds of flyers wild and/or tamed via the ini files anymore, they removed that from us too...

[DeweyDecimal]

+1

[sectek]

The reason PVE got a nerf is obviously because the more the code base is different between PVP and PVE the more difficult and time consuming patches become.

 

Otherwise I agree with a lot of what the OP said.  The 40 vs 50% vault reduction size, the change to 1:1 ratio of weight carrying on quetz with ank, the lack of full refund of points spent on flyers....these changes are, in best case scenario, without thought or concern to player invested in the game.  Worst case is our reactions have become entertainment and fuel for office laughs at WC and they are competing to one up each other.

[Vairent]

Thanks for this post as i play PVE with a little friendly PVP on occasion. I am fine with the stamina nerf even the quetz dmg nerf i can live with but taking speed away all together is not the way to handle it. That limits options to us in a game that is about options and choices and adds to the grind of the game. I have a family and work so i dont have hours to play. I miss my flyers.

[Facebunz]

Yea I question the ethics of PvP official. I've seen people miss out on a lot of things, skip work or school because they're terrified that hundreds of hours could just vanish. I've never seen that kind of behaviour before ARK, but I'm also not a pc player lol. Not to mention 50 percent of the threat comes from bugs in the game. This is why I was so happy to see 2x rates become permanent. 

Would be SO nice to see a revival of survival of the fittest. Or any kind of instant PvP action. All we get for options atm are grind your life away in official or... grind less in pve lol. 

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

1 hour ago, Facebunz said:

Yea I question the ethics of PvP official. I've seen people miss out on a lot of things, skip work or school because they're terrified that hundreds of hours could just vanish. I've never seen that kind of behaviour before ARK, but I'm also not a pc player lol. Not to mention 50 percent of the threat comes from bugs in the game. This is why I was so happy to see 2x rates become permanent. 

Would be SO nice to see a revival of survival of the fittest. Or any kind of instant PvP action. All we get for options atm are grind your life away in official or... grind less in pve lol. 

It's not an ethics issue.. ark is a 24/7 open world were things happen whether you are there or not,  it is purely up to the buyer whether or not they feed into that "omg I might lose everything" behavior.. but a sotf or other "quick action" outlet for the more hardcore pvpers/griefers might help the official pvp scene not be so chaotic..

[LadyCreature]

1 hour ago, Ep1cM0nk3y said:

It's not an ethics issue.. ark is a 24/7 open world were things happen whether you are there or not,  it is purely up to the buyer whether or not they feed into that "omg I might lose everything" behavior.. but a sotf or other "quick action" outlet for the more hardcore pvpers/griefers might help the official pvp scene not be so chaotic..

Not until someone has a heart attack directly related to people not sleeping so they can 100% imprint bred dinos. Yeah it sounds stupid. But if the news picks something like that up. Doesn't matter if it isn't the Devs team's fault and the person did it of their own accord. Flak is heading their way.

 

And thank you for this post. There are merits to it. Plus. Pve is already different because people can't pick up/carry wild dinos. If anything. Leaving out the flyer nerf would have given them LESS work.I can always agree to disagree with those who are against agreeing with me. 

[Robersdee]

Good Post.

 

Not sure how you can justify saying you "look down on people" who play PVE, everyone has a preference. When I was on my 7th night of 1 hour sleep because I was the last defender of our base on PVP when 68 player chinese zerg aimbot invasions happened EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, I realised this wasn't fun for me any more. On PVE I can breed, play with the mechanics and new useless dinos, actually do caves! experience content I couldnt do on PVP as a solo player. Different strokes for different folks.

I play PVE, the nerf has literally taken our server from 30- 50 regulars to about 7, a staggering seven whole players at peak time.

 

 

[Smash]

I've still yet to hear a compelling reason for why birds need to be overpowered in PVE, but not PVP as PVP is just PVE with other players (and no bird pick-ups) I just don't get it.

The argument that stuff takes too long to grind is also nonsensical.  If everyone has the same restriction, why does it matter?  Just grind less and have a smaller base:  Problem solved.  Your enemies won't be able to grind as many explosives.  Does your barn really need to be made of metal?  Surely 90% of it's purpose is to stop trolls sniping your dinos while you're offline.  If it was stone and had turret/species X defence are your dinos really that much more vulnerable?  There's no 200% rockets anymore right?

If the issue is that stuff is too expensive them maybe rates need to be higher on official?  Or material costs need to be reviewed?  Anything with behemoth or industrial in it's name could probably do with a 50% cost reduction.  Who cares if people make walls with gates?  Surely it only helps server performance?  

So all those things are still on the table, but the balance between land and air dinos can't be.  Flying is a massive advantage, but it should come at a massive disadvantage, whether it be PVP viability, weight, stamina or all 3.  The dino tier argument doesn't hold water, if it still took months to get out of stone tier and get to quetzals like it did in 2015 before we discovered XP grinding then maybe, but if you and your tribeys know what you're doing you can be in Quetzals at official XP rates in a matter of days.  (That's why they should make XP x1 again, but that's an argument for a different thread).

V3 can still change things.  I'm 100% for the nerf but even I'm open to change.  They could up all the speeds by about 30% and reduce the stam cost for flying but I'd expect Pteradons to lose all their PvP viability (roll and grab), argys to lose 30-40% weight and health and quetzals to do more or less the same (with obvious torpor adjustments as well).  If it was up to me I'd make picking only work on wilds, it's just far too effective at neutralizing everything in PvP.

[DaGoodNamesWereTaken]

On ‎4‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 4:15 AM, LilNastyGurl said:

 

I agree with everything you said and grinding is crazy unbalanced atm. Raising is another problem since I spend 2 weeks of my life getting 100 percent imprint on a tame that's going into war and more then likely gonna die because I dc of its back mid battle lol.

The metal glitch atm makes base raiding damn near impossible if the people grinded out bullets and set them up. The age of no inf weight glitch will be one of utter base destruction and sleepless nights trying to grind out half a forge worth of metal lol.