Re-balancing the Fliers, Mk. 2!

[Vaelin]

So when will the buff will happen:) cant wait for it. Few things are good to get bit nerfed but this was a bit much:) ^^ i hope we get some of the points back since we invested all in stammina now  else i couldnt fly very far.

[Milsurp]

1 hour ago, Lucian said:

I didn't say the sub number isn't valuable. I am saying it's borderline dishonest comparing it to peak concurrent users. It artificially makes it look like a higher percentage of active players is subscribed to it. 

For example. 

30,000 mod subs out of 60,000 peak players is  50%.  

However if you look at recently active players from steamdb it's very different  

30,000 mod subs ou of 596,000 recently active players is ~5%  

 

Active players isn't a valid comparison, because this is a server-based game and that counts official servers and all players, not just server owners. We'd have to identify the unofficial server owners and whether or not they allow mods (my server owner does not. And everyone including me wants the nerf rolled back.) and also single-players too.

But we also need to remember that nobody is advertising this patch, it's just on the workshop, so we can't claim all of the active server owners and single-players not using the patch are happy with the nerf either. We'd literally have to contact all of them and advertise the existence of the patch and ask them if they want to use it, or are happy with the nerf.

The only thing we can be certain of is that everyone who downloaded the mod is against the nerf. Any claims about how that stacks up against the player population are unprovable by any meaningful numbers.

[Milsurp]

1 hour ago, Myj said:

That makes sense but wolves and stegos and doeds are small and/or very slow. Those wouldn't be good options. What about a high lvl Procoptodon? Or Baryonyx? Hauling something? Maybe a Fast Paracer with a platform saddle to carry things? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is an option that 100% replaces the old flyers. But I do think not only will it be about a middle compromise between the two, but also you get a very nice scenery to go along with it. When you're on the ground the game is VERY different than flying, and you may hate it completely but you also may think it's pretty cool. As long as you allow yourself to. Keep in mind it's hard to enjoy anything at all if you're just super angry about something, even if it's not related to what you're angry about. When they're related it's almost impossible.

Being on the ground is not cool, because follow is so incredibly badly broken it's unplayable. It's still so busted you cannot get animals to follow you through terrain, and you will be attacked while dismounted when trying to free them from obstacles. Which will tangle more of them up until you have a frustrating mess. I recently was buried beneath a pile of dire bears attacking a carno stuck between rocks, and we all turned into a stuck mess. I had to kill the carno then chop the rock out, all while looking at a bear from the inside of the bear. 

That's yet another part of the game that is still in a first-effort alpha state and should have been reworked to beta by now. I would count that a FAR higher priority than any balance passes.

[Milsurp]

1 hour ago, Pach said:

They don't have to rollback the server data... roll back the nerf.

 

Yes, all software shops keep versioning and can redeploy an earlier version. A minimum of one major version back is reasonably common practice with the previous versions in offline storage.

[arathein]

I still scoff when I see "Lord of the Skies" for Wyverns and look at their pitiful base stamina.
Drago: Hi I'm Drago, Lord of the Skies, lets go on an adventure Argyle the Argent.

Argyle:  Drago what are you doing on the ground AGAIN, I know you are faster than me but everytime I catch up you are huffin and puffin on the ground.

Drago:  LORD OF THE SKIES NEEDS TO RECOVER ITS STAM!

Argyle: Lord of the skies my tail feathers

Drago: What you say! *attacks Argyle*

Argyle: *evade* man you turn like a Galli! *evade*

Drago: *3 breaths later* Oh so tired now, I need to recover stam again...

[Havokpaintedwolf]

honestly if it looks as heavy or heavier than a trike it should break trees by walking into them no delay whatsoever if your gonna break the game by making fliers slower than walking make land dinos more viable also bigger dinos that were the only ones that could knock down trees by walking into them before should be able to destroy rocks by walking into them.

[Lewiatan]

1 hour ago, ranger1presents said:

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that thinks navigation and collision box issues need to be a priority now.  Or failing that, make it a bit quicker/easier to knock trees over and get over rocks... thickly clustered palm trees in particular are a problem.

One plus side to the latter solution would be an increased feeling of power as you plow your way through the jungle on the back of anything Trike size on up. 

They would have to rewritte entire AI and implement basic pathfinding in this game. Currently dinousaurs only detects the surface of the Island. They are blind to other obstacles. That's why people loath going anywhere on land with their dinosaurs on fallow mode, because they are getting stuck constantly. No wonder why people use flyers for everything.

Wildcard, do you want to encourage people using land dinos more often? Improve AI and pathfinding finally.

[tidalblade]

I am quite frankly ecstatic that you have made this thread(it is a very big relief). I'll post here what I was writing for the other thread as it was being closed, although more targeted now that you have explained some of the reasons behind the nerf.  Also repost, because 20 pages.

"needing to have distinct roles"

This is fair, albeit inconsistent with the way land and sea dinos are veiwed.  See Rexes/gigas/brontos.

"trivializing the land dinos "

Every big raid I have watched has included land dinos, BUT I think the reason the things you mentioned, "snatching, C4 bombing, and Quetz Grenading," have become so prevalent is because of things like quad-wall, 400 auto turret metal cube super fortresses.  These fortresses stem from another issue; the time investment this game takes.

This brings us to a simple question:  Do you, as the lead designer, want un-killable bases or not?

If you do, you have come slightly closer to that.  If not then no change to any dino aside from an alpha titan is going to make land dinos viable on a fresh un-harassed base.  The ability and ease of making a solid wall of auto turrets prevents land dinos from having an impact on a raid unless at least some of those turrets are disabled.  Perhaps make a turret limit.

Some issues other players have brought up:

-Ptera's being able to fly to fast to be targeted consistently by auto turrets, or to be shot down by players.

The turn speed of turrets is deliberate because it is a very simple numerical value that can be adjusted, so if this was a problem it could be solved surgically.

Players being difficult to target on fast flyers is a legit concern, if being to fast to target wasn't a legit defense.
Perhaps increasing the projectile damage multiplier to TAMED flying creatures could address this. Personally one-shotting someone off a Ptera from half a mile away with a 0 travel time projectile is as unbalanced as an incredibly fast bird swooping in, picking a player off a dino and dropping them to their death(which btw is an amazing strat, clearly intended by the designers).

-Using Pteras to blitz in, pick players and drop them.

Personally I appreciate this play style, but if this intended style was for some reason unintended it could easily be surgically addressed by removing the ability of Pteras to pick up players, or give a sizable speed penalty when a player is in a Pteras grip.

-Using Birds to soak turret bullets.

An increase in projectile damage to tamed flyers might be enough to address this, and/or increase the bullet capacity on turrets.
Create an Anti-Air turret that target only flyers(so quetz can't carry a turtle over to soak 20k dmg before the quetz takes any dmg) and have an even further boosted flyer damage multiplier on it.

To be honest an Anti-Air turret addresses all of these 'problems'.

Flying creatures allowed players to negate/byepass 100% of the dangers in the game.

Firstly this is not true, and while it is not true it also assumes there will be danger to the player if they are not allowed to fly.
It is true that the player will encounter ~100 % less OBSTACLES when flying. But much of the MEANINGFUL endgame content excludes flying creatures, or carries a healthy risk factor even when using a very strong flyer. Examples of this are: PVP, Bosses, Sea content, Wyvern hunting/raising.

What IS ignored or passed over when talking about how all danger is avoided while flying, is that players face little to no danger past a rather early point in the game because of the progression curve. If a player has a 250 Ptera, they most likely have land dinos to match. Any land dino used for speed, and around that level will face no danger from any other land dino aside from a giga or alpha rex. They will be able to outrun, tank and kill anything else they encounter.

I have recently seen some people on these forums say, 'good you should have to interact with wildlife you shouldn't be able to simply bypass everything while you are playing.'

What this argument ignores is that ARK is a huge game where many, many people spend huge amounts of time (I have 570 hours), and (this isn't necessarily a knock on the game) huge amounts of time are spent doing white-noise tasks, like farming, waiting for tames, raising dinos, and building. Increasing the amount of time it takes to do all of those things by making people run around a bunch of rocks, harmless dinos, trees, and pathing problems is not the way to make the game more enjoyable.  Instead of seeing the same thing as we fly by very fast, we will see the same things as we run by much more slowly.

I will concede that pteras were too strong(not too fast), to a point that argents were of little value.  What could be done is remove the 'c' attack on pteras and give it to Argents, and reduce the health of the ptera slightly.  This at leasts puts a mid-high teir flyer as the preffered scout/battle mount, instead of having a first teir flyer be the preference until the player gets a wyv.

I'm leaving out the glaring problem of hard capping all flyer speed, effectively making the breeding of flyers, ESPECIALLY Quetz, 7 days of wasted time.

As someone mentioned before, this is a sandbox game, where customization is paramount. Arbitrarily removing one group of dinos ability to be customized reflects poorly on you as designers. If flyers are limited, every dino should be limited. Or not.

I actually wrote this post before you made this thread, but:

Also please stop making the same mistakes countless companies have made before you. It is not 2004 when updates and patches were closely guarded secrets. This practice only hurts you as a company. I'll use Blizzard as an example, EVERY change, big or small is detailed(values, equations, everything) in patch notes for the player base to understand what is being changed, AND they also give explanations about why the changes were made and what the changes are intended to address.  They provide this information BEFORE the patch is ever sent out live.

45 pages and nearly 80k views, wowza

[Milsurp]

24 minutes ago, THEODICUS said:

 

Here's a DINOSAUR GAME, where you can NOW GET a magical UNICORN! Wheee!
Whaaat!?! When did the 9-year-old girl start running the Ark development team?

 

When they put in the level up animations for dinos, including the sickening roll-on-its-back-for-a-tummy-rub one for Doedicus. My favorite dino was my doed, he was a trusted companion through thick and thin. He kind of looked British and reminded me of Martin Freeman in that way - couldn't have asked for a more solid partner.

And then they made him roll on his back and loll his tongue out at me. O. My. God. Could you have chosen anything less dignified to make him do?

I'm still outraged. But I'm sure 9-year-old girls love that.

[Pach]

4 minutes ago, Milsurp said:

Yes, all software shops keep versioning and can redeploy an earlier version. A minimum of one major version back is reasonably common practice with the previous versions in offline storage.

Either that, or do a patch that reverses just the nerf code.

The rest of the patch had some good stuff in it.  There are some things I really like about the new interface, but if they don't fix the color scheme, I'm going to start billing them for all the aspirin I'm consuming because of it.

(and that should be a very, very, EASY thing to fix....)

[Pach]

5 minutes ago, Milsurp said:

When they put in the level up animations for dinos, including the sickening roll-on-its-back-for-a-tummy-rub one for Doedicus. My favorite dino was my doed, he was a trusted companion through thick and thin. He kind of looked British and reminded me of Martin Freeman in that way - couldn't have asked for a more solid partner.

And then they made him roll on his back and loll his tongue out at me. O. My. God. Could you have chosen anything less dignified to make him do?

I'm still outraged. But I'm sure 9-year-old girls love that.

Be nice if they turned off the level up animation when the dino is mounted, especially since the dino will not obey any commands while doing said animation.  Makes it impractical to do a level up while hunting.  Nothing worse than leveling your rex/allo/carno/raptor/whatever out in the middle of nowhere, and then you can't move while it tells you how happy it is.

... and I have to keep my Theriz with me whenever I am using the doey.  I can't tell you how many times Theriz has had to pull me out of the ground after I forgot about the doey animation, and did a level-up while mounted... headfirst into the ground.  ouch....  you'd think I'd remember by now...

EDIT:

How about a client option to turn off level-up animations?

[DragonMageCoren]

On 4/4/2017 at 0:01 AM, TheRightHand said:

If you have some thoughts on where these are going and want to take your own shot at proposing some values, go for it. I'm glad to look over anything that gets proposed, as long as you've got some reasoning behind it.
 

I've talked it over with people and we feel that a really good solution to "speed" on flying dino's could be handled by a diminishing return system.  For example each point put into speed give 2.5% speed, so make it so that the first 2 points give that, then the next 2 points give 2.4%, then the next 2 give 2.3 and so forth.  This makes sense based on game play as it forces a fully speed orientated build to be extremely weak in other areas.  It also makes sense in a real world application.  The numbers presented are just an example, and you would obviously want to figure out your own sliding scale.  It just doesn't make sense to not allow for any speed increase at all.

On a completely unrelated note... please look into the possibility of allowing quetz to carry more as the only other way to effectively transfer resources across the ocean is raft or a water dino... which isnt all that bad, but what is bad is transferring resources from one dino to another when they are heavy.  I would like to suggest a secondary level up for Quetz (like how you did the harvesting with the Therizinosaurus).  Possibly allow level up in weight reduction so each point reduces weight carried via the platform by a certain percent.  This would be good for moving allot of resources.  Other possible options could be manuverability (for fighting, etc), in flight stamina regeneration, speed, etc.  It's an incomplete thought, just would love to have them be able to carry more.  It's harsh going from carrying allot to almost nothing.  (I had just built a massive base tailored towards quetz carrying capacity, which is now essentially 1/3rd what it was because it doesn't get weight reduction from dinos on the platform carrying stuff).  On a side note regarding this, wild Quetz fly forever, a tamed one kinda should have some resemblance of that capability (i realize you have to balance game play into this and all, but it is so super cool to have a quetz hang in mid air when not being ridden, even if it didn't regain stamina, it just didn't lose stamina).

And my final thought, only loosely related to what your currently doing is the transfer of items system.  Could there be a way to transfer stuff from say a dino to a box, or a dino to a dino, without it going into your inventory, kind of a direct transfer and your just the "hands passing it along" kind of thing.  I find myself flipping back and forth hitting transfer all, and I do it allot.  It's just a little to much micromanaging (and hard on the wrists).  Would be great if we could check mark everything we want transferred (or hit a button check marking everything) and then switch to an inventory within range and hit finish transfer or something and it all transfers (even if there is a short wait while items are transferred). Also regarding this, you have keys hard coded such as O, T, etc.  When those keys are mapped for things inside the game, they no longer function properly in the interface.  In all games I have had T as my use key.  That prevents me from being able to use it to move items quickly from one inventory to another.  Please, I beg of you, add a configuration screen for those buttons so they can be remapped, and make it so they can use the same key as other key mappings, just make it so that they take priority while in an applicable interface (such as inventory) and are ignored out of inventory (so the keys can do whatever else they are supposed to do).  Thank you so very much!

My final note is just to say I am glad you are re-balancing, even if I don't like it, it did need to be done. Im glad you are reaching out to the community, as that does make a big difference, and taking the communities thoughts and ideas is helpful to both sides.  Keep up the good work and keeping working on finding the balance.

[Fatdog]

1 hour ago, Lucian said:

That's definitely something I would would like to see.

I think it should be scaled a bit based on Dino size and tree thickness. Say Rex+ gets to knock down the big trees, but trike+ gets to knock down the smaller trees.

That would make having a caravan much easier and would allow for the big Dino's to be trailblazers  

 

I agree that land issues should be a priority now. If the nerf is not going to be scaled back to a point where players have options to spec into speed/stam the way they'd like (or at least a reasonable cap put in place), the priorityabsolutely needs to go to fixing land travel.

A couple of ideas would be:

1.) Collison boxes: Need a definite fix. Dinos should not be able to get stuck in each other. I want my caravan dinos close but not up the heiney close. 

2.) Foliage: I think having increased knockdown is a great idea. Leading a caravan with a dino that has a great clearance without collison issues would be fabulous. I think knockdown scaling would be great. With a better foliage clearance and collisons being fixed, land travel would be far more bearable. I would still not take a bronto, necessarily, as their speed is too much of a misery for me, but it'd be more feasible.

3.) Natural game trails: I can't remember who suggested this but I think it is an awesome idea. There are natural trails in the wilderness to water sites/hunting grounds/around territory/etc. I would like to see these natural paths, but perhaps they'd have a trade off. Higher chances of high leveled predators spawning along them. To prevent blocking by PVE/PVP players they could be "no build" regions. You can build next to them if you'd like to have daily assualts by high leveled carnivores, but no building over.

4.) Improved Aerial Danger Idea 1: Many birds are very protective of nesting sites. I would love to see that played on a little. Perhaps areas can be added/designated as "rookery" sites where it is hazardous to fly. Reduced hazard for land travel but high danger for flyers, like with the wyverns in the Scar. High aggro in that area. 

5.) Improved Aerial Danger Idea 2: The realms of "accuracy" have been pretty much blown out of the water, so why not take the Scorched Earth tactic and add unique air dangers. If we're going of mythological critters, stick the Roc in on the Island. Maybe a Piasa or Thunderbird in on the Center. Non-tameable but with great hazard, you can retrieve an egg. Spawn in one main area but have a high aggro distance and can at times wander across the map, so they can be at any area.

6.) Land annoyances: Let's be honest...a lot of the critters on land do not present a challenge but are obnoxious instead. Do I like the jumpy fear I get when I'm snuck up on by a predator while investigating something or resource gathering? Yes!! Do I like getting trapped in the infinite Troodon loop? Nope. Do I like getting repeatedly robbed and having to worry about holding useless crap in my hot bar because good gravy, I dare not put berries anymore in there because I have a room full of 16 pegos already...? No. Do I like getting fed up because there is one area of the redwoods I can't travel in due to microraptors? Ugh. No. I can't travel in the swamps already due to spawn rates of boas and dilos causing the whole are to crash my game out (I'm on PS4), but I don't imagine that I'd like being snatched by a kapro every 10 feet either. And barys are a river issue that drive me bonkers.

What I would personally like to see are caravan guards that specifically draw the aggro of dismount critters or critters like Troodons. Only effective against one at a time or one mob at a time. Low health, high stam/torpor, low weight, low melee. Their only point is to draw aggro away from players. Maybe a tougher taming sytem to prevent abuse or maybe something like a "pack tolerance"...you can only have x amount follow you or they turn on a member of that pack. Meaning you can have fifty at your base but maybe only take 3 with you at a time. Something like that. A thylacine or small bear dog for land, something like an otter or proto cetacean for water.

Those are some random items that occurred to me. Of course, my preference would be to rollback, have disable options for unofficial and single player, or have a more reasonable cap, but that seems far away.

[TOCJAY]

7 minutes ago, DragonMageCoren said:

On a completely unrelated note... please look into the possibility of allowing quetz to carry more as the only other way to effectively transfer resources across the ocean is raft or a water dino... which isnt all that bad, but what is bad is transferring resources from one dino to another when they are heavy.  I would like to suggest a secondary level up for Quetz (like how you did the harvesting with the Therizinosaurus).  Possibly allow level up in weight reduction so each point reduces weight carried via the platform by a certain percent.  This would be good for moving allot of resources.

This would be great for harvesting dino's that can harvest more than one resource. i.e. Doedicurus (Stone/Obsidian/Sand/Metal/Thatch) or those dinos that specialize in a resource like the Castoroides has an auto lower weight modifier for wood. Would be great to see this happen to those specialize harvesting dinos.

[Khadez]

They Keep losing players

http://steamcharts.com/app/346110#48h

They keep getting bad reviews and they dont care! This is the 4 thread they start about this discussion. They only Appear to open the post and dont join the community only leave the Community Manager who me we know they dont have anything to do with Development.

[Chrisdavid42]

Another problem with land travel is that if you die while your mount is on passive, it will be dead when you return to it. They need to create a defensive state that will only retaliate if directly attacked. This would solve a lot of my fears about land travel and add a further element of reality to this as a survival game.

 

FYI Wildcard, I am waiting for the nerf adjustment before I log back on. Losing my highest level Quetzal on PVP due to your tinkering was just too much of a hit. On a positive note, it has given me more time to get back into playing Cities Skylines.  

[Ogedai]

6 minutes ago, Chrisdavid42 said:

Another problem with land travel is that if you die while your mount is on passive, it will be dead when you return to it. They need to create a defensive state that will only retaliate if directly attacked. This would solve a lot of my fears about land travel and add a further element of reality to this as a survival game.

 

FYI Wildcard, I am waiting for the nerf adjustment before I log back on. Losing my highest level Quetzal on PVP due to your tinkering was just too much of a hit. On a positive note, it has given me more time to get back into playing Cities Skylines.  

well at the risk of sounding obvious, putting it on neutral ? lol

[Ranger1]

10 minutes ago, Chrisdavid42 said:

Another problem with land travel is that if you die while your mount is on passive, it will be dead when you return to it. They need to create a defensive state that will only retaliate if directly attacked. This would solve a lot of my fears about land travel and add a further element of reality to this as a survival game.

 

FYI Wildcard, I am waiting for the nerf adjustment before I log back on. Losing my highest level Quetzal on PVP due to your tinkering was just too much of a hit. On a positive note, it has given me more time to get back into playing Cities Skylines.  

Wouldn't setting them to Neutral satisfy the need for self defense?  Granted, they will also defend you and any other tames you may have present as well.

[Murdoc]

5 minutes ago, Ogedai said:

well at the risk of sounding obvious, putting it on neutral ? lol

lol have you tried to find your dino, once its run off it was hard with flyers back then, now you might just as well tame a new one, it wwould be faster.

[Irkalla]

18 hours ago, bluebrm said:

Not for exploration? But.... that's... what I mostly use them for...

that and get mountain resources or go to snow biome, no nerf will make me go there on the ground, too many deadly stuff there, to the swamp not even flying.

Because you choose to,  but how much are you actually seeing from the air?   I play on the center,  there are a ton of cool little places that you'd never see flying around.   

[Pach]

5 minutes ago, Ogedai said:

well at the risk of sounding obvious, putting it on neutral ? lol

I don't know about PvP, but there are times in PvE that neutral isn't a good idea, either, but a "retaliate only if I'm attacked" stance would be useful.

Be really good for:

• fliers
• dinos used as haulers in convoys--defend yourself, but I don't want all my big carry dinos rushing to defend--let the rexes do that!
• egg layers or "specific use" dinos (e.g. the peligornis) kept around the base

 

[Chrisdavid42]

Just now, ranger1presents said:

Wouldn't setting them to Neutral satisfy the need for self defense?  Granted, they will also defend you and any other tames you may have present as well.

Neutral is a problem while taming because my dino always randomly attacks what I am trying to tame. More than once, I have either been out taming and been attacked, or recently tamed and forgotten my mount was set to passive. There are a lot of situations where passive makes sense, e.g. allowing a dino to tank while you are taming, but there are just as many situations where it doesn't make sense that the dino would just sit and let you kill it. A defensive mode would bridge that gap and would make more sense in my opinion. 

For example, running a caravan set on neutral results in a giant pile up that takes even longer to unsort once the battle is over. A defensive state would allow you to put your defenders on neutral and your pack mules on defensive and know that your haulers would stay out of the fray unless directly attacked. It would also make sense if they did not pursue in this state, but stayed and merely turned in place while defending their front and backsides

[DragonMageCoren]

11 minutes ago, Ogedai said:

well at the risk of sounding obvious, putting it on neutral ? lol

 

6 minutes ago, ranger1presents said:

Wouldn't setting them to Neutral satisfy the need for self defense?  Granted, they will also defend you and any other tames you may have present as well.

Neutral does NOT satisfy the need.  It creates disasters of epic proportions in fact.  Especially bird mounts, you want it to stay there and NOT come to your aid when you have everything under control and doing routine things, but if something sneaks up on it, you don't want it to stand there and act like nothing is happening until it dies, yet you also want to be able to get back to your mount, so it would be great if it attempted to stay in that area, so a defensive option where it fought back, but tried to maintain its relative position, or return to it once the battle is over would be huge.  Self defense mode is definitely needed!

[Irkalla]

3 minutes ago, Murdoc said:

lol have you tried to find your dino, once its run off it was hard with flyers back then, now you might just as well tame a new one, it wwould be faster.

Yes,  yes I have,  that's where transponders come in.    It's a survival game, not just for you but for your tames.  What exactly would be the point if there were absolutely zero danger to you or your tames?   I always put whatever dino I'm on, on neutral when I'm out.   Admittedly I seldom use transponders and I spend a lot of time searching for my tames if I die.  But it would be a really boring game if there were no element of danger at all to anything I did. 

If it ever got to that point,  I'd go play farmville.

[Chrisdavid42]

BTW Ranger1, I really like your vids.