Re-balancing the Fliers, Mk. 2!

[BobRoss]

16 minutes ago, LilNastyGurl said:

I think they meant the Quetz was just the better "no duh what are you a god damn idiot just take the Quetzal" choice for every other role in the game (aside from aquatic stuff). Still is in some places. Now, some roles are slightly loosened up, like Pteranodons being an okay but not ultimate choice in everything related to resource collecting. 

PvE I agree didn't need to have the nerf spill over to them. Then again PvE is WC's cuck mode that just gets the crap beaten out of it because it's not and never will be the main focus, and will probably just like Minecraft's PvP modes where tons of wacky and outlandish choices just cause it to be downright dumb without player and mod intervention.

I guess in WC's mind they wanted flyers to be a good, but not ultimately superior option. Argents are a massive advantage in taming and collecting (transporting wolves and beavers and such across the map), and Quetzals being able to carry/ferry pretty much everything with its Platform saddle and grabbing ability (bar some dinos). Plus yeah, flying Platform saddle? End-game perfection. Do literally anything you couldn't do with Bronto/Paracer/Mosa/Plesio.

They wanted to make land relevant again, and not have the game become Quetzals! (and sometimes an Ichthyo when I need pearls). 

I dunno Platform Quetzals just solve almost every problem and no other dino can do that.

The game was just outright broken. 

the game was progressing like this:

1) start off and lvl up until you can tame a berry collector

2) make narcotics untill lvl 35

3) tame a pteranodon and build your first official base

4) use pteranodon to tame argy or tapejara

5) use either argy or tapejara to tame quetzal

6) all the rest. 

once you got that first quetz everything became trivial. Unlimited stamina/moderate to high speed depending on points spend/ insane knockback/ good damage output/ very high weight/ platform saddle.

it has everything you could ever want in a dino except the ability to swim. 

i dont think PVE should be spared by this nerf, PVE players need to work equally as hard to obtain the resources they need. hell they even need to work alot less than PVP players because PVP players need to constantly replace stuff and PVE players do not, they also dont ened a million turrets filled up with bullers, multiple layered walls, and so on and so on.

in my opinion we should all grind to achieve the later game stuff and flying around on a jet fighter with a carry weight of 5k (and can carry alot more than that due to the 30% weight on platform before the nerf) was not the way. 

Quetzals are still viable, they didnt lose any weight, it just become more realistic and inline with how they were supposed to be

[Buttons551]

On 4/4/2017 at 2:07 AM, BulletForce said:

Its called fair and balanced gameplay. There is a reason why you were using the same dinos "all the time" and it wasn't because you thought they were cute. The devs want all the dinos they put into the game to have a valid use and for players to use them, not just a select few.

Well players have preferences and choose to use certain dinos they like. Making one group of dinos worse to force players to use others they don't like isn't good. This nerf isn't going to make me want to use land dinos more and even before the nerf, I was using land and water dinos more than my fliers. People are seemingly forgetting, there's an entire ecosystem entirely inaccessible to fliers. Don't know how could they be so OP when there are many different ways you can counter them, including dinos that can grab and restrain them. Doesn't matter how good that Pteranodon of yours is, you get grabbed by an enemy Megalosaurus, you're pretty much boned.

[Bugg]

16 minutes ago, TranqRex said:

No idea what you're talking about. It's black and white, right there on the page - Bugg literally says if you can't deliver something within 24 hours don't say "tomorrow".

I was talking directly to him, referencing that specific circumstance. It's no arrogance, it's pointing out a simple fact that was written by the dev.

And they literally wrote 'tomorrow'. It doesn't matter what sheepish quirky asterisk they put in after. They've said 'tomorrow' and created that expectation among the users. Better to just say "it's coming" and then say "tomorrow" when it's actually "tomorrow" than try to be funny by saying "we may or may not do anything on time". They are the ones setting all the deadlines. They can be on time 100% of the time simply by giving us realistic times. And again I really don't mind waiting. I mind people who are bad at an aspect of their business refusing to learn from making the same mistakes. What's your job? If you saw someone doing it really badly, would you want to correct them? That's all this is. From a technical perspective there is very little to fault with WC and they run a tight ship. But their service management is garbage. Engineers are poop at it. 

[GhostRSA]

12 minutes ago, BobRoss said:

Quetzals are still viable, they didnt lose any weight, it just become more realistic and inline with how they were supposed to be

Yeah a 500lbs flyer carrying a 6 tonne Rex is very realistic........ Realism here is based on the fact that it is a game and it is not only played by 8hr a day hardcore gamer but also by the 2hr a day casual and having him/her grind at the same pace as the hardcore guy will always leave them trailing and eventually falling off and eventually ARK will become like the dinos we love in game, extinct.

[BobRoss]

2 minutes ago, Buttons551 said:

Well players have preferences and choose to use certain dinos they like. Making one group of dinos worse to force players to use others they don't like isn't good. This nerf isn't going to make me want to use land dinos more and even before the nerf, I was using land and water dinos more than my fliers. People are seemingly forgetting, there's an entire ecosystem entirely inaccessible to fliers. Don't know how could they be so OP when there are many different ways you can counter them, including dinos that can grab and restrain them. Doesn't matter how good that Pteranodon of yours is, you get grabbed by an enemy Megalosaurus, you're pretty much boned.

no such things in a PVE environment  so thats off the table. and youa re right, players choose what they want to use but you seem to forget that when 95% of your playerbase only uses the same dinos there is something wrong.

right now players can choose and there are multiple options that are equally viable for the same task. Yesterday i had to get from my base to a dino i had knocked out. previously i would have just taken my ptera and flew over there. right now i took my saber and got there equally fast. I also went metal farming with my quetz lvl 262 and afterwards i went and did the same trip with my diplo, it took me about the same time. 

this would have been impossible before the patch. right now i can use alternatives to fliers without being at a disadvantage to players who choose to use fliers only.

therefor it is more balanced then it used to be

[Noompsie]

15 minutes ago, Chronosphere said:

build a raft and a closet too stuff things in..

Why?  The new fish will destroy it and all the stuff in your "closet". 

And while I am here, what's with the new sea bird that agro's when you run past on a bear, then swoops down, steals your tranq arrows, tranq darts and your ascendant crossbow?  And when you kill it, you can't retrieve your items.   I got mobbed by 5 pegomastax at the same time today.  The first one stole the berries I had in my 0 slot...after that the others just grabbed whatever they wanted from my inventory, and there's nothing you can do about it.  Therazino. which is capable of taking out a rex, is as common as dodo poo on the beaches around new player spawn areas.  Jumping Crocodiles and MicroRaptors which will dismount a rider whether flying or riding a land animal, Troondons which will knock you out and eat you alive, or tear your wooden house to pieces trying to get to you.  This is the content you want us all to "experience", so you nerf the flyers.

Over development.  Stupid, annoying creatures have been introduced in the last few patches  They do nothing to expand the enjoyment of this game and on top of that you take away from the enjoyment I used to get from my flyers. 

[BobRoss]

Just now, GhostRSA said:

Yeah a 500lbs flyer carrying a 6 tonne Rex is very realistic........ Realism here is based on the fact that it is a game and it is not only played by 8hr a day hardcore gamer but also by the 2hr a day casual and having him/her grind at the same pace as the hardcore guy will always leave them trailing and eventually falling off.

i am a casual gamer myself and i dont find the changes hindering my overall experience at all. it takes me a bit longer for some stuff to do but i always felt it was going to fast and was spiraling out of control. 

and even tho this game breaks alot of realistic barriers they should still somehow stick to some form of reality, otherwise we might aswell give the gigia flippers and a fire breathing attack. with realistic i meant more in line with the overal ecosystem and functionality the devs envisioned for the creature

[GhostRSA]

Just now, BobRoss said:

i am a casual gamer myself and i dont find the changes hindering my overall experience at all. it takes me a bit longer for some stuff to do but i always felt it was going to fast and was spiraling out of control. 

and even tho this game breaks alot of realistic barriers they should still somehow stick to some form of reality, otherwise we might aswell give the gigia flippers and a fire breathing attack. with realistic i meant more in line with the overal ecosystem and functionality the devs envisioned for the creature

I agree with you, unfortunately IRL needs to come into play as well. The map, new additions to creatures, previous chances, etc added to the nerf now makes that tasks which previously occupied only a small percentage of the game time has moved into the larger percentage game time bracket. Where in the past I could say yes I will be able to take on a 1,5 hour tame in my 2 hour game window I now have to think of the day to day admin (metal, sap, obsidian, crystal, etc collection)  as a real impact on possible taming time. 10 minutes of admin now suddenly becomes 30 minutes or even more. So now I cannot do the things I want in the game I bought, I need to decide on which element of the game I'm willing to let slide and get to it later if at all. That is also not fun.

[Extraterrestrial]

 

13 minutes ago, BobRoss said:

i am a casual gamer myself and i dont find the changes hindering my overall experience at all. it takes me a bit longer for some stuff to do but i always felt it was going to fast and was spiraling out of control. 

and even tho this game breaks alot of realistic barriers they should still somehow stick to some form of reality, otherwise we might aswell give the gigia flippers and a fire breathing attack. with realistic i meant more in line with the overal ecosystem and functionality the devs envisioned for the creature

Aside from the flippers you pretty much described the DodoRex there.

[Buttons551]

1 minute ago, BobRoss said:

no such things in a PVE environment  so thats off the table. and youa re right, players choose what they want to use but you seem to forget that when 95% of your playerbase only uses the same dinos there is something wrong.

right now players can choose and there are multiple options that are equally viable for the same task. Yesterday i had to get from my base to a dino i had knocked out. previously i would have just taken my ptera and flew over there. right now i took my saber and got there equally fast. I also went metal farming with my quetz lvl 262 and afterwards i went and did the same trip with my diplo, it took me about the same time. 

this would have been impossible before the patch. right now i can use alternatives to fliers without being at a disadvantage to players who choose to use fliers only.

therefor it is more balanced then it used to be

Fliers can't harvest berries for you, fliers can't take on wild gigas or bosses, fliers can't swim underwater, they're not gods that can do everything, but a lot of people who agree with this nerf are making it out like they were. Before the nerf, there were plenty of dinos superior to fliers in a lot of ways, fliers just helped make things faster, more efficient, and not make everything a complete chore that isn't fun. I play exclusively PVE on boosted unofficial because I like getting stuff done and don't feel like wasting many hours at a time on one singular task where I could instead get much more done in the same amount of time, but it still taking effort and work to do. Fliers are essential for me to carry resources back and forth, scout out areas, get around the map in a timely fashion, get to a place only accessible with fliers and if the stats were boosted enough, I'd make a decent battle mount or two, but I wouldn't even say I used fliers a quarter of the time out of all my other tames and a lot of servers I've played on, no one was using only fliers or almost only fliers.

[TranqRex]

25 minutes ago, Bugg said:

And they literally wrote 'tomorrow'. It doesn't matter what sheepish quirky asterisk they put in after. They've said 'tomorrow' and created that expectation among the users. Better to just say "it's coming" and then say "tomorrow" when it's actually "tomorrow" than try to be funny by saying "we may or may not do anything on time". They are the ones setting all the deadlines. They can be on time 100% of the time simply by giving us realistic times. And again I really don't mind waiting. I mind people who are bad at an aspect of their business refusing to learn from making the same mistakes. What's your job? If you saw someone doing it really badly, would you want to correct them? That's all this is. From a technical perspective there is very little to fault with WC and they run a tight ship. But their service management is garbage. Engineers are poop at it. 

This is a fabricated 'problem' based on people's interpretations. For me, there is absolutely no issue with what he wrote - the qualification of the sentence with the asterisk changes the entire context. If he'd just left it at "tomorrow" and they'd then not released a patch, I could agree with you - however, he did not. People choosing to read it as "tomorrow, end of discussion" are reading it incorrectly. I wouldn't change a thing with it, but that's my entire point - they cannot please everybody.

[Bugg]

5 minutes ago, TranqRex said:

This is a fabricated 'problem' based on people's interpretations. For me, there is absolutely no issue with what he wrote - the qualification of the sentence with the asterisk changes the entire context. If he'd just left it at "tomorrow" and they'd then not released a patch, I could agree with you - however, he did not. People choosing to read it as "tomorrow, end of discussion" are reading it incorrectly. I wouldn't change a thing with it, but that's my entire point - they cannot please everybody.

They should be anticipating people's interpretations and limiting the potential for negative perception. I see what you're saying and in a non-professional setting I agree, but these guys are running a business and managing a service, so from that perspective, they were lax. You can't rely on the user base to let you off on technicalities. You have to manage their expectations and that means not saying "tomorrow" and then adding an addendum. I get that it didn't bother you. That doesn't mean it's good service management. 

[BobRoss]

17 minutes ago, Extraterrestrial said:

 

Aside from the flippers you pretty much described the DodoRex there.

yeah so? is it tameable? or a creature that roams the ark? no its a boss monster. and seeing as you only picked that specific part out of my reply im going to assume you dont have any arguements for the rest

[Extraterrestrial]

Just now, BobRoss said:

yeah so? is it tameable? or a creature that roams the ark? no its a boss monster. and seeing as you only picked that specific part out of my reply im going to assume you dont have any arguements for the rest

No, not really. I've already stated elsewhere how I feel about realism in a fantasy setting.

I only quoted you cause the fire-breathing giga thing reminded me of the Dodo Rex. Ain't here for an argument, so no need to be defensive.

[BobRoss]

12 minutes ago, Buttons551 said:

Fliers can't harvest berries for you, fliers can't take on wild gigas or bosses, fliers can't swim underwater, they're not gods that can do everything, but a lot of people who agree with this nerf are making it out like they were. Before the nerf, there were plenty of dinos superior to fliers in a lot of ways, fliers just helped make things faster, more efficient, and not make everything a complete chore that isn't fun. I play exclusively PVE on boosted unofficial because I like getting stuff done and don't feel like wasting many hours at a time on one singular task where I could instead get much more done in the same amount of time, but it still taking effort and work to do. Fliers are essential for me to carry resources back and forth, scout out areas, get around the map in a timely fashion, get to a place only accessible with fliers and if the stats were boosted enough, I'd make a decent battle mount or two, but I wouldn't even say I used fliers a quarter of the time out of all my other tames and a lot of servers I've played on, no one was using only fliers or almost only fliers.

you can still do all of that, only in a more balanced way, and while yes fliers cannot take on gigas or bosses as you say, neither can any other dino solo. and im sure people would bring fliers to the bosses if it was allowed the only reason they dont is because they cant do it, except for the manticore and people mostly do that one with you guessed it right wyverns.

fliers as they are now essentially do what you described as what you want them to do. i still scout on my pter, i still use my quetz as a hauler, there are just other equally viable options right now. which is good for diversity. 

[BobRoss]

4 minutes ago, Extraterrestrial said:

No, not really. I've already stated elsewhere how I feel about realism in a fantasy setting.

I only quoted you cause the fire-breathing giga thing reminded me of the Dodo Rex. Ain't here for an argument, so no need to be defensive.

i get what you mean but in my opinion there should always be some sort of guidelines to follow, some limits to the things you can do. because if we were to abandon all sense of reality because some aspects arent possible in this worlds reality we would have an utterly broken game without guidelines and rules. no one wants that i guess

[TranqRex]

14 minutes ago, Bugg said:

They should be anticipating people's interpretations and limiting the potential for negative perception. I see what you're saying and in a non-professional setting I agree, but these guys are running a business and managing a service, so from that perspective, they were lax. You can't rely on the user base to let you off on technicalities. You have to manage their expectations and that means not saying "tomorrow" and then adding an addendum. I get that it didn't bother you. That doesn't mean it's good service management. 

I understand where you're coming from in a professional capacity, there's no crossed wires at all.

My point was that I don't agree (personally, I don't see why people need their hands held), and perhaps the WC devs are of the same mindset

[BobRoss]

27 minutes ago, GhostRSA said:

I agree with you, unfortunately IRL needs to come into play as well. The map, new additions to creatures, previous chances, etc added to the nerf now makes that tasks which previously occupied only a small percentage of the game time has moved into the larger percentage game time bracket. Where in the past I could say yes I will be able to take on a 1,5 hour tame in my 2 hour game window I now have to think of the day to day admin (metal, sap, obsidian, crystal, etc collection)  as a real impact on possible taming time. 10 minutes of admin now suddenly becomes 30 minutes or even more. So now I cannot do the things I want in the game I bought, I need to decide on which element of the game I'm willing to let slide and get to it later if at all. That is also not fun.

do you need to collect all these resources every single day? time is always limited, even with a 12 hour game session every day you still need to look at what you want to get done that day, there will just be more on your schedule. i really get what you mean because i need to do that for myself too, i can play 2 hours max 2.5 every week day and never weekend. and because of this i will most likely never again get to breed the way i used to when i had more time, i might not even be able to breed at all. but thats not the games fault, its my fault for not having the time. 

i have to decide beforhand what im going to do and then do it. yesterday i spent 2 hours only mining metal and smelting it up so i can expand my base. do i like doing that compared to running around killing stuff and exploring? no i dont, but it needed to be done so i sacrificed a day for it to make it happen. other days ill plan out to get a new dino and i might very well never find one in the small time frame i have but thats part of the game. we shouldnt just get things handed to us. 

and by looking at your game time i assume you play unofficial PVE or soft PVP, so do i, that means that once i built this base i will (most likely) never have to rebuild it ever again so what did i really 'waste'? nothing in my opinion, i invested a couple days hard work to get a base i can have fun in for months. nothing gets taken away from me on PVE unles i stupid myself and i die. so do you really want to hit the end game ceiling and after 2 weeks dont know what to do anymore? i'd rather have it take months to get there having fun along the way not rushing it. but thats  just me tho

[Extraterrestrial]

1 minute ago, BobRoss said:

i get what you mean but in my opinion there should always be some sort of guidelines to follow, some limits to the things you can do. because of we were to abandon all sense of reality because some aspects arent said in this worlds reality we would have an utterly broken game without guidelines and rules. no one wants that i guess

I don't disagree with that necessarily. I do believe that there should be contextual boundaries set within the game's universe to dictate how
the world is shaped within. Obviously our perception of reality is a bit subjective. Should a quetz realistically be able to haul a rex on its back and
still fly? In our reality, no, but we don't normally play games to experience reality. So in which way are we supposed to apply logic and realism
into ARK? Where do the boundries start and stop? 

[BobRoss]

Just now, Extraterrestrial said:

I don't disagree with that necessarily. I do believe that there should be contextual boundaries set within the game's universe to dictate how
the world is shaped within. Obviously our perception of reality is a bit subjective. Should a quetz realistically be able to haul a rex on its back and
still fly? In our reality, no, but we don't normally play games to experience reality. So in which way are we supposed to apply logic and realism
into ARK? Where do the boundries start and stop? 

i dont find that realistic at all, thats why ive been suggesting to take out the platform saddle for the quetz entirely. i dont like the concept nor the function of it as it contradicts with what i find this games' reality.

in my eyes where reality starts and stops is where the game starts to look ridiculous and out of place in the universe it takes place in. that would be for example a player riding a dimorphodon while carrying a bronto in its claws. these are all mechanics in the game but they wouldnt make sense. what does make sense is an argy carrying a dilo while being ridden. you see what i mean, the one feels more real than the other because we apply some sort of logic to it. 

thats my opinion on reality and logic inside a fantasy game.

[szabiferi]

43 minutes ago, Buttons551 said:

Fliers can't harvest berries for you, fliers can't take on wild gigas or bosses, fliers can't swim underwater, they're not gods that can do everything, but a lot of people who agree with this nerf are making it out like they were. Before the nerf, there were plenty of dinos superior to fliers in a lot of ways, fliers just helped make things faster, more efficient, and not make everything a complete chore that isn't fun. I play exclusively PVE on boosted unofficial because I like getting stuff done and don't feel like wasting many hours at a time on one singular task where I could instead get much more done in the same amount of time, but it still taking effort and work to do. Fliers are essential for me to carry resources back and forth, scout out areas, get around the map in a timely fashion, get to a place only accessible with fliers and if the stats were boosted enough, I'd make a decent battle mount or two, but I wouldn't even say I used fliers a quarter of the time out of all my other tames and a lot of servers I've played on, no one was using only fliers or almost only fliers.

Exactly my toughts... In case of quetz nerf, the pro-nerf evangelists forget, the quetzal itself is just HALF part of the toolset of the farmer.

It need to be paired with a ground dino - namely Anky for metal, flint and rock (fros park powder), a beawer/theri for wood gathering... So it is rather a symbiosis than an invalidation of the groud dinos. From this prospective, the dinos what gets supressed by the quetz as transporters are the brontos and paracers. But I think its a natural thing, like the stone pickaxe -> metal pickaxe -> anky progression. Surely the early transporters are the brontos and paracers, then as the player progresses they are replaced by the quetz. Just like stone pickaxe replaced by and anky.

Im strictly thinging about PVE/Farming prospective in this case, but stami/wieight/speed reduction in case of quetz is rather affecting it than PVP.

[Bugg]

21 minutes ago, TranqRex said:

I understand where you're coming from in a professional capacity, there's no crossed wires at all.

My point was that I don't agree (personally, I don't see why people need their hands held), and perhaps the WC devs are of the same mindset

How's that working out for their customer relationship ;)?

[Krow2211]

why not allow us to find birds with speed..... after you tame it. in place of it not using its speed levels add those speed levels and then lock it out.

[BLACKCAT]

hey guys,

 

beside all the farming and efficency, im a PVE player from the first hour, I bought SE dlc for a reason. All my spended time in the breeding (wyvern and argys) is just trashed by one stroke... 

well looking at my main focus in the game (i love flyers and the freedom they give me) and dont get me wrong, i still use a lot of land dinos and underwaterdinos 

after the flyer nerf the entire gameplay on PVE was changed it put a hard dent in our community - I tryed out and all the flying dosnt feel right now...

under the line for me they just took the pace out of the game.

why people use flyers? because they are mainly quick and give a lot of freedom

this is no more now, all flying is now a limitation of my gamefun, i still play - sure i need to upkeep my base and feed my breed,

 

the needed balance (if there was any in PVE) just went in the total wrong way. 

Forcing us to use more landdinos this way is not the right choise (beside all the lag of communication with the community beforehand) 

specially in PVE i see 2 mainly upcoming issues 

1st dinocap 500 tames per tribe 

2nd base (building) density on PVE servers,

 

you simply cant travel with land dinos the most recorces hotspots are just blocked by big bases, or a single pillar in some paths can make for example the entire vulcano access impossible, you need useful flyers in PVE

 

So when SWC say how we have to play - I say they have to handle and tweak PVE and PVP in different ways from now on ( it was needed earlier but now its for sure)

please Studio Wildcard make the flying awesome again

sorry about my bad english

 

greetings from germany 

have a nice one

 

[544Predator]

This all just one side ure looking at.

What is with all the people who spend months on breeding good dinos?
The Devs just made them useless! Consider you have put a month work in buidling something and someone comes buy and just destroys it.
No one that hasnt invested this time and work himself can feel that anger!

And this could habe been avoided if just thought about a solution before doing something like this nerf! Like refunding points and calculate new levels...

It has nothing to do if this nerv is necessary or not! But it has to do with a respectful dealing with customers!

So one thing is that Wildcard will adapt the nerf but what will happen to the dinos breed to a high level and just lost 50 and way more lvls!?
Or even just the tamed lvl 150 dinos after perfect tame to lvl 224 and now nerft to lvl 170 and something!?
If i now tame a lvl120 its above the "old" 150!? You rly think thats fair and good considered?!