Re-balancing the Fliers, Mk. 2!

[Probitas]

32 minutes ago, Spyrho said:

flyers need the nerf let people fight like real men and don't fly off on their pter with 550 movement speed buffed on it its pussie mode

kids always complain about each nerf any any other game there is because it was their only way to steal stuff raid people with and now they can't anymore cuz they suck as much in the sky as on the ground

Good nerf wildcard !

playing for 3 years was waiting for this

Go play on a no dino taming server and put your money where your mouth, er, typing is. And no matter how much people officially claim this was not really meant to be a pvp nerf, players keep signing in to give examples from a pvp viewpoint to defend it. I think you guys need to have a meeting and get your stories straight.

[invincibleqc]

Just now, Cucharon said:

Being honest I got used to slow fliers. I didn't feel they needed to be faster.

Devs, don't yield to the pressure!

I've liked your post, to dislike it. Just because YOU think they are okay that way, doesn't means that we are obligated to feel the same. We are free to tell the devs how we want to play but in no way this is "pressure"; this is feedbacks and opinions. I respect your, so respect mine.

[invincibleqc]

Just now, Cucharon said:

Being honest I got used to slow fliers. I didn't feel they needed to be faster.

Devs, don't yield to the pressure!

I've liked your post, to dislike it. Just because YOU think they are okay that way, doesn't means that we are obligated to feel the same. We are free to tell the devs how we want to play but in no way this is "pressure"; this is feedbacks and opinions. I respect your, so respect mine.

[Taylos]

What TheRightHand wrote made me literally laugh,... two Things happen either they really actively want to get us to never touch their game again, who knows maybe earned enough and just don't want to bother anymore or they absolutely don't know what they are doing.

Let's take two examples: Ptero - Fast, sprinting scout, with low hp/stamina, but quicker stamina recovery. Fastest flier in the game (except for wild wyverns).

So the so called Ptero should be the fastest except for wild wyverns, what are the implications ? You Need to tranq wild wyvern females to get to the milk for Baby wyverns. How if you cannot outrun them ? Also, eggs will be impossible to be gained.

Secondary, Wyvern - Lord of the skies. Low stamina, moderate move speed, poor agility, but extreme power and versatility. , so wild wyvern are the fastest flying animals but once they are tamed they are slow ? Are you guys drunk ? Poor agility you might as well remove them from the game. Stamina use since nerf is way too high breath weapon uses Stamina. So you can only use a wyvern as a land based dino else it will just drop out of the sky. Thus Rendering Wyvens completely useless. I urge you redo you crappy changes as fast possible maybe take a look how your steam Reviews take a dive. The changes you are planing will further ruin the game.

[Cucharon]

6 minutes ago, invincibleqc said:

I've liked your post, to dislike it. Just because YOU think they are okay that way, doesn't means that we are obligated to feel the same. We are free to tell the devs how we want to play but in no way this is "pressure"; this is feedbacks and opinions. I respect your, so respect mine.

Part of Ark game means use some neurons to solve problems. Every change is a challenge. Sorry, I am not a crying baby who needs everything done, everything easy.

[tidalblade]

I am quite frankly ecstatic that you have made this thread. 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.

"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.
 

[SlipperySquid]

I think we need to start looking in to the future as players. This issue with speed is going to affect everyone and everything in this game once they fine tune it they will start on ground dinos and players making them not have the ability to change their own stats. 

 

I can not wait for a truly balanced game its gonna be awesome. #KEEP IT UP

[Amris]

Hello, Wildcard staff,

I appreciate that you respond here and try to get feedback. Having said that I beg your understanding for the immense anger I and many players feel by your cavalierly throwing months of our lives' work just out of the window.

Now we have to go forward. I offer constructive criticism - meaning I have ideas on how you can achieve your goals while still keeping the fun in the flyers. I have presented those ideas in some posts and want to use this opportunity here to bring them together in a unified alternative suggestion for you to use:

Let's start out by analyzing the problem. What is it that makes flyers so effective in combat?

It is not the stats:

You designed their stats within your overall dino stat system. And while some stats are off realism IMO (for instance the birds' carry weight), health, stamina and melee damage all are broadly in the range other dinos of similar sizes have. If you are looking for a solution the stats are the wrong place to look at!

What is the problem then?

The problem is that the tamed fliers are unrealistically easy to fly. People can use a Quetz as a gun platform because it can just hover in place (although the thing isn't a frigging helicopter! It has wings that should need speed to create lift through airflow!) Similarly the flyers high effectiveness in strafing ground targets (I am looking at you, barrel-roll) comes from the fact that you have not implemented any collision damage for when a flyer impacts into the ground (or a rock or a tree or whatever). So pilots in combat (don't blame them since that's how you set things up) strafe ground targets with impunity. And those targets are unrealistically helpless against it.

The problem stems from ARK's lack of a realistic flight simulation. And that leads to flyer advantages which they shouldn't have - and which of course get used (or abused, depending on point of view) by the players.

Where to look for a solution then?

The solution is a realistic flight engine! Instead of nerfing flyer stats (which takes the fun out of the game) adding a challenge to steering air dinos and preventing them from crashing and injuring themselves would actually add fun to the game. At the same time it would bring the flyers into line where combat effectiveness is concerned. If a ptera has to keep moving and can't hover it is harder to steer. If it has to be very careful to not crash into the ground it can't barrel-roll half as easily! And ground animals can take cover effectively, use terrain features to their advantage etc because the flyer has to avoid obstacles. All much more interesting! The same goes for Quetz which if it has to keep moving can't use a gun effectively. An Argent on the other hand should be able to not only fight from the air but also on the ground, using its beak and small hops (look up what real eagles do on the ground). That would make it much more ground-animal like in a fight which would also bring it in line. Also birds this huge never were able to take off from level ground unassisted! Look if up on Google. The larger a bird is the harder it is to get it into the air. There is a reason why flying birds have an upper size limit. Thus the gigantic flyers in ARK should need a cliff or similar thing to launch from. This would be realistic, would also add to the challenge and further limit their tactical versatility.

My list of changes thus is:

1) ridable ARK flyers need to launch off cliffs or other high places to get airborne (much like a hang-glider)

2) to make up for the lack of starting capability on level ground they should have some ability to fight on the ground (especially the Argents since eagles are awesome on the ground) and make some fluttering hops

3) flyers get severely damaged if impacting the ground or other hard obstacles at speed (much like falling damage). In fact IMO they should even risk damage when impacting large dinos at speed!

4) ptera barrel roll damages the ptera too (see 3)

5) all rideable flyers need to maintain speed to avoid sinking down to the ground (they don't have rotors - they have wings!)

6) whether landing also should be harder is debatable. IMO some speed adjustment prior to landing would be realistic and cool but that's not a vital change. However since the flyer needs an elevated place to launch itself from again suitable landing sites are automatically tactically limited

7) Speed and Stamina should be returned to their former values. If anything they were low compared to ground dinos (birds can fly huge distances at high speeds for heaven's sake). Fast transport is what a bird is and should be perfect for!

(However if you ask me weight carrying capacity should be reduced for Argents and Quetz. Leave the heavy lifting for the ground animals. But I know you love Argents and Quetz as heavy freighters, unrealistic as it is and if you keep it I won't complain.)

 

I think these measures would bring the flyers 'in line' as you are fond of putting it while making a stat nerf unnecessary. It would keep your customers happy and in fact increase the fun of the game in general and of flyers in particular.

Also this would help you to preserve your stat system intact. Your current proposal means you break your own system because you treat flyer stats differently than other animals by penalizing them and preventing them from receiving imprinting bonuses and speed levelups.

And one last thing: please don't view the player bases love of your flyers as something negative. On the contrary! Enjoy that you had done a great job on these beasties! You created something that people really, really loved. Don't hold it against us if many of us prefer riding a ptera to riding a parasaur. it does not mean your game is broken. It just means we are human and love fun.

See you in game I hope,

Amris

 

 

[MimiNuyasaka]

Honestly, my only issue is with the wyvern stamina. I've already gotten used to the reduced movespeed, and even when I picked up a wyvern for the first time, I was like "why the hell are they this fast?" But low stamina renders their breath attacks borderline useless, they can barely get any off before being forced to land. I think wyverns, even though I love mine to death, are in a fine spot now, aside from the stamina nerf. I think you guys should look into that more. If you're intent on keeping the stamina nerfs for them, as an alternative I suggest you boost the power of their breath attacks so they count a lot more during the few times you can use them.

Secondly, as someone who runs a server out of their own living room for a group of 20 friends or so, I do think we should be able to have control over dino stats on private servers. Not just for the sake of wyverns either if you choose not to adjust their stamina, but for the fact I make sure to keep the server exciting and run events. Scavenger hunts, mini bosses, etc. I'm planning to build an obstacle course through the water filled with piranhas next. For example, it would be extremely useful if I could bulk up the piranha health considerably so they're a viable threat that you have to outmaneuver and can't just smack your way through them, just for the duration of the event, since killing isn't the goal of this event. In fact, just as a whole, I think you guys should give server owners far more creative options in general. I'd very much appreciate it and I'm sure others would too.

[Raynnfalu]

so i gotta say that i find it odd that you defined these roles you envision for fliers, and that's what you're going for with this nerf, but they were already basically like that, so i can't imagine it would have taken much tweaking to make it perfectly in line with that. pteras were indeed the main scouting mount and used for transporting people around the island, quetzals were the weight birds, the tank birds, and mobile forts. and maybe they needed some nerfing, but that could have been done individually i think. argents and pelagornis and moths were hardly used because the weight argents could carry didn't make up for their lack of speed (i do think they need to be faster overall by the end of this or else they just won't ever get used aside in pve), and then the other two were just too squishy among other things. tapejara is easily my favorite air mount, and i liked how it was a larger mount that could have a bit more hp and weight compared to a ptera, but less than an argent, but had that great maneuverability that argents lacked, and wouldn't go so fast as to break your game like pteras. however i just....don't think that tapejara are as useful with those seats as you guys seem to think. i know in theory it's cool and you have guys with assault or tek rifles mounted on there shooting at other birds, but in reality most tribes just don't have the manpower to waste on multi seat dinos. why would i put 3 guys on one flier when i could just take 3 fliers? or two and an extra rex? maybe, maybe somebody gets on the back occasionally to fire a rocket launcher or something, but otherwise i can't really see any realisitc pvp applications with it. certainly not against tribes who operate within the metagame (the only ones that last any amount of time). and while the seats can be useful for downing wild quetzals, it has to be able to catch them haha, which my tapejara pre nerf struggled to do even with 25 points in speed, which is a lot to devote to that considering it's very hard to level them up. but i digress, seems weird that these birds all basically fulfilled their roles and yet you had to go and nerf all of them. hopefully by the time this is all done i'll see what the master plan was

[DocHolliday13]

3 minutes ago, Raynnfalu said:

so i gotta say that i find it odd that you defined these roles you envision for fliers, and that's what you're going for with this nerf, but they were already basically like that, so i can't imagine it would have taken much tweaking to make it perfectly in line with that. pteras were indeed the main scouting mount and used for transporting people around the island, quetzals were the weight birds, the tank birds, and mobile forts. and maybe they needed some nerfing, but that could have been done individually i think. argents and pelagornis and moths were hardly used because the weight argents could carry didn't make up for their lack of speed (i do think they need to be faster overall by the end of this or else they just won't ever get used aside in pve), and then the other two were just too squishy among other things. tapejara is easily my favorite air mount, and i liked how it was a larger mount that could have a bit more hp and weight compared to a ptera, but less than an argent, but had that great maneuverability that argents lacked, and wouldn't go so fast as to break your game like pteras. however i just....don't think that tapejara are as useful with those seats as you guys seem to think. i know in theory it's cool and you have guys with assault or tek rifles mounted on there shooting at other birds, but in reality most tribes just don't have the manpower to waste on multi seat dinos. why would i put 3 guys on one flier when i could just take 3 fliers? or two and an extra rex? maybe, maybe somebody gets on the back occasionally to fire a rocket launcher or something, but otherwise i can't really see any realisitc pvp applications with it. certainly not against tribes who operate within the metagame (the only ones that last any amount of time). and while the seats can be useful for downing wild quetzals, it has to be able to catch them haha, which my tapejara pre nerf struggled to do even with 25 points in speed, which is a lot to devote to that considering it's very hard to level them up. but i digress, seems weird that these birds all basically fulfilled their roles and yet you had to go and nerf all of them. hopefully by the time this is all done i'll see what the master plan was

Well put.

[Tacitus]

2 hours ago, TheRightHand said:

Our overall goal with this re-balance is to define roles specific to each of the fliers. This is a monumental task for land dinos, and that is why we didn't do that now. There are like a hundred land dinos, and not many fliers, comparatively.

Okay, let me start off by saying I do enjoy this game, and I do believe it's a fun game with a lot to offer in many respects.  I appreciate all the work that you and the other devs have put into it, and I am happy to have supported you.  I feel that I've gotten more than enough enjoyment for the money I paid for both this game and for the Scorched Earth DLC, and given the choice I would gladly do it all over again.  I also agree that changes to fliers needed to be made, and I have no problem with the idea of a game changing to fit the needs of players, the desires of developers or out of necessity for other reasons.

I do, however, have several thoughts on this particular update and the broad, sweeping flier nerf.  I'll address them one by one.

1) A warning would have been nice.  I knew that eventually fliers would be looked at and updated/changed/rebalanced, and it matters very little to me when it happens.  My only wish was that we, as players, had some kind of head's up on the matter.  I don't know if it was stated ahead of time, but to me it felt like these changes were just kind of "sneaked in" to the update leaving many of us very confused and unpleasantly surprised.  I presume a lot of the outcry over this could have been handled much better if you or your team had given us ample warning about the changes and assured us back then as to your intentions.

2) PvP balance issues is a bad excuse.  I'm not saying PvP balance isn't a serious issue: it absolutely is.  But, please, don't make the excuse that problems in one game mode should affect all game modes.  As players, how we play the game should matter to you as much as it matters to us: PvE players are nothing but hurt by these changes, with no immediate, visible counterpoint to show for it, whereas PvP players at least can come to the understanding that these changes do a lot to make PvP more engaging and balanced.  Essentially, these changes potentially help a portion of Ark players while hurting others.

3) If you feel the Quetzal is too powerful, then limit what it can do.  In your post, you describe an always-aloft base that could rain down destruction on others.  I feel for you, insomuch as that I feel for all players who enter PvP servers and find that if they or their tribe cannot tame a Quetzal, they are severely lagging behind on the arms race and can never truly compete with tribes that are older, more established or who form monopolies on animal tames.  It's aggravating to always be the underdog, and underlines why PvP balance is very important.  So, if you think the Quetzal is an issue, then consider options rather than just simply changing numbers; consider removing the ability to attach cannons, turrets and other artillery pieces to it; consider allowing Quetzals to stay aloft a long time with regular saddles, but less time (and with slower movement) with platform saddles equipped; consider disallowing Quetzals to grab animals/people with a platform saddle equipped; consider improving the chain bolas and how they work against large fliers.  There are many options that you can go with to help balance out PvP play that don't involve crippling the dino outright.  Just identify the issues and work on what it can and can't do based on those issues.

4) Point #3 can be applied to any other flier as well.  Identify the problems of each animal and address them individually rather than changing the entire group.  While I understand that you'll be improving animals based on roles, the problems with the Quetzal (as an example) shouldn't affect the Wyvern or the Argent or any other flying animal.

5) Add animals that predate on fliers.  While our giant bird buddies and scaly winged friends already exist, the Argent and Wyvern attack anything and everything that gets close to them.  If you want flying to be a less-safe alternative in a survival game (which is 100% understandable), consider adding animals or variations of animals that are naturally aggressive to flying creatures.  Aerial combat is a dangerous prospect already, so adding the "natural element" to the skies as it is on the ground isn't a bad idea.

6) Allow us to increase flier speeds again, with some adjustments.  If someone wants to make a very fast flier of any kind, let them, but either scale back the numbers for each invested point (depending on the animal) or make a "start/cap" that is different for each animal.  For example, if a player wants to make a fast Argent, cap out the number of points they can invest so that even the fastest Argent is just barely faster than a Ptera that has no points put into movement speed.

7) Defining flier roles is a good idea.  I know this is supposed to be a giant wall of complaint text, but honestly the definition of roles for fliers is a great idea.  How you're implementing these definitions isn't so great in my opinion, but that's been covered extensively in this post and others as well.  This actually goes well with points #3 and #4: knowing what you want an animal to do helps a ton in figuring out what works about it and what doesn't.

8) Mistakes were made, but we can learn from them.  As you previously stated, the way things were handled could have been done much better.  Personally, I'm fine with huge changes if you announce them ahead of time (covered in point #1), but smaller changes over time or changes to one animal at a time would have been okay as well.  People all react in different ways, and I have faith that you and your fellow developers will take the lessons learned from this whole thing to heart.

9) Continue to work on changes.  I understand that fliers will never be the same as they were, and I might be in the minority here when I say "that's perfectly fine, fliers needed fixes."  Getting a fast flying mount trivialized getting around on most maps.  They are disruptive to PvP.  They turn the options of survival into a non-option (why run through the jungle and get murdered when I can fly safely over it?).  Limiting stamina on flying animals I can get behind.  Limiting speed on flying animals I can get behind.  Doing both at the same time is exceedingly painful.  It's a huge change, and not one I can rationalize as a net positive for any player.  I'm glad to see you are pushing ahead with the idea of defining flier roles (and they are pretty much how I believe they should head in), and you should definitely keep tweaking things until everyone is happy or at least come to a satisfactory, acceptable conclusion.  I'm okay with the Argent being slower but durable and strong.  I'm okay with the Ptera being the fastest thing in the skies.  I'm fine with a Quetzal being a long-flight transport animal.  I'm pretty much happy with all the slated changes you intend to make; just make sure you do them sooner rather than later.  Don't put these adjustments on the back-burner, make them priority number 1 for yourself and the other developers involved with them.

10) This one is for the players rather than the developers:  A lot of us are very upset and most of us have legitimate complaints, criticisms and comments to make on the subject.  As TheRightHand said, he wants to hear from you, and he's willing to listen no matter what you have to say, constructive or otherwise.  That, to me, is an excellent token of goodwill.  We don't always agree with everything the developers do (and if my rant says anything, you know I don't), but let's give them the time and space to work on improvement.  Maybe take a break from Ark for a bit while you wait for things to improve.  Maybe find other things to focus on in-game while fliers are being worked on.  Maybe go on a "ground adventure" while your winged friends recover (that's basically what I'm doing; it's a good excuse to go out and tame a horse).  Being upset at how things were handled, how the changes impacted you or having to adjust your gameplay are all perfectly valid things to be upset about, though it leads to a simple conclusion if you think about it: if you didn't enjoy or care about the game, you wouldn't be upset, you'd just move on to a different game all together.  So, give it some time; If things never improve to a point where you can say "okay, this isn't what it was, but I can work with this," then that's okay, too.  Hopefully though, the developer staff will make something that we all can agree with, and hopefully sooner rather than later.

As a final note to the developers: take what you've learned from all this and when you get around to land and water animals, hopefully we can get through this much easier next time.  Please continue to improve Ark and make it more and more fun for everyone involved.

[Mythos]

Good changes except for the moth and Pelagornis. The moth is a bit harder to tame than a pteranodon and it can't spin, attack, grab and is slower. It really needs a better niche then some rarely useful slow. I suggest slightly higher weight than an Argent or lots of stamina or something to make it useful mid to late game. Then it would be a good early to mid game hauler until a quetzel.

The Pelagornis is rarely used as well. Not many tames need prime fish meat and with mutton so aviable that niche isn't very useful. Sure it can land on water but what we really need is for it to be able to dive into very shallow water or it takes dmg like the whale. Then it would be great for drop hunting and an even better prime fish gather. Honestly it should probably be just a hair slower than the pteranodon so it gets used more. 

 

I feel like a lot of these problems stem from how easy to tame and versatile the pteranodon is. Maybe make it a much longer tame and swap the kibble for something further in the chain. You basically have a flyer that has good damage (spin), can grab AND is the fastest. Talk about versatile. 

 

Lastly I think imprinting should give SOME small speed bonus. Breeding is a lot of time and investment and there should be some minor reward to show for it. Otherwise I'm all for the nerf and upcoming changes. 

[Tacitus]

Whoops!

[Sam110]

2 hours ago, Iguanodon said:

I'm glad this post was made. Fliers did need to be nerfed to some degree, and I'm interested to see how you make land dinos more viable for pvp and pve. 

why the hell for pve what harm will it do ??if it was fast for pvp i understand but pve not really

[Scrysis]

@TheRightHand

 

I appreciate what you're trying to do.

 

Issues/Concerns (which you probably heard before, but it's worth saying again):

 

Wyvern egg-hunting -- you should not need another wyvern (thus causing the chicken-and-egg scenario) or a small army to gather wyvern eggs.  Argents were chosen to hunt wyvern eggs because they were tanky enough to take an accidental hit or two, but had to be given a speed of at least 180% in order to out-fly angry wyverns.  Solo or duo-hunting eggs has a thrilling and risky challenge to it.  Nerfing argents limits who can steal eggs, when, and how.  If you want to keep the argent speed nerf, this can be solved by other things. . . perhaps by the creation of a wyvern-lure that you can drop that will attract all nearby wyverns and distract them for like 10 minutes or something (just remember it has to distract them long enough with the nerfed flight speed!).  But I do want to point out that the flyer rebalance does create a problem in this area.

 

Solo/duo Quetzal taming without a cage -- This is another area that the flyer rebalance may affect (not sure about relative sprinting speeds. . .).  Argents with some speed on them were used to chase down wild quetzals in order to tame them.  Now this may not affect servers where people trade quetzal eggs regularly, but it would affect new servers/players/etc.  There was a certain thrill to hunting quetzals being suspended from an argent and not knowing where the chase would take you.  I honestly don't know how players will be able to tame quetzals from scratch with the rebalance now.  The only thing I can think of is that perhaps wild quetzal speeds will be lowered so that you can still chase them on an argent.  Pteras won't have the stamina to chase after one now, and I'm unsure how argents would catch a wild one, or even stay in the air for a chase now.

 

Quetzals and bugs -- This is a problem now that you can't increase speed on Quetzals and that they have to land for stamina.  Quetzals are very large, slow, expensive investments.  Flying bugs are very fast, small-moving targets that like birds.  Bugs, with their stamina drain, may keep a Quetzal from using it's large stamina pool.  Worse yet, without additional speed, it will be difficult to attack the bugs with the quetzal, and hard for the player to attack them without hitting their own dino.  I'd like to suggest that maybe bugs become . . . dis-interested in Quetzals.  There will be more than enough things to come and attack it when you come in to land for stamina.  (Edit:  For those of you who suggest to put the bird on neutral and fight the bugs themselves. . . let me remind you about the death-spiral to the upper stratosphere that fighting flying dinos like to do. ..)

 

Ground-pathing on following dinos -- I'm not sure how much control over the coding for this you guys have.  Setting up caravan trains is very diffcult in busy areas with ground dinos.  If possible, can we get dinos that are on follow to climb over rocks in addition to some of the larger dinos knocking over trees?  This may have the effect of enticing more players to tame ground dinos for caravans.

 

Quetzals and stimulants -- I know that we shouldn't get our dinos addicted to drugs, but can we have stimulants give an increased effect on Quetzals (and maybe argents?) for players who have a desire to remain aloft for greater periods of time?  This way, the amount of time airborne can be extended, but at a cost.  This could apply for things like Quetzal cage taming, regular cage taming (like when you're using a Quetz to bring home that perfect dino, and don't want to risk dropping it on the ground and losing it), or even base raids.  Quetzals have a lot of utility outside of mining runs and raids that other dinos don't have (unless you want to give rexes or gigas the ability to carry dinos in their jaws. . . ), and it would be nice to preserve some of it, even if the players have to do a little extra to have it.  

[Sam110]

can you please give us away to reset the lvls of the  flyers so we can arrange them the way it needed now please 

[Necro89]

2 hours ago, TheRightHand said:

There were also PvE implications. The ground game was essentially trivialized. You could live on the back of a Quetz perpetually after getting one, never even having to land... ever, really. 80% of the game was easily ignored because the air is safer, more straightforward, etc.

so you think us pve players are gods of the skies and are safe, okay heres where your wrong, we have to grind metal which is far from safe ive lost quezts after being knocked on my dino from a purlova then being knocked out by troodons and getting the dinos being eaten, the game isnt super easy like you say when you tame a pteradon or a argie or a quezts it does make the game a tad easier in assists for taming other dinos and doing tivial task like grinding mats, us pve players could have handled the speed nerf but you also took away the stam, the nerf took away days of hard work of breeding of taming, the all the main points you said are pvp problems. its player vs environment and we still battle that everyday i lost several wyverns to stop a giga that was kited to my base are you going to program dinos to stop griefing..... if it was a problem of fliers were too strong add a flier that is untamable and strong but restricted to mainly the air... most of the upset is the time youve stolen from people. my 2 cents thats all .....

[Mythos]

Some other ideas:

Flier saddles have a speed stat on them with better qualities having more speed (you could even have weight stats)

Allow players to put points into speed with diminishing returns and a soft cap (e.g. .001% increase or something) 

 

[Raynnfalu]

i also agree with what a lot of people have said about being a bit more open about this stuff with us. when you initially DESTROYED dino stats at the end of 2015, my tribe who had been playing since launch lost so many animals to some guys sitting outside of our base with a minigun turret and killing them because they had lost literally 90% of their max hp. and not just pve little trikes, i mean a dozen kibble tamed rexes, kibble tamed quetzals and brontos and all sorts of stuff. and we heard nothing about this change or what it would entail until a day or two before, which really screwed us over and basically drove us to leave that server, and official servers in general for good. but i'm not even mad about that, i'm just saying that's an example of what happens when you don't broach the subject with the community first, don't give us any warning, people get raptored over big time. we clearly have a lot to say about the state of fliers in the game, thousands of well thought out suggestions as to how to balance them indidvually and as a whole, and i think those should be looked at beforehand, not after. you tend to do a decent job about staying in touch with the community, and i commend you for that, but i think testing the waters beforehand and having us in the know from the beginning makes a big difference

[OnePotatoChip]

32 minutes ago, Monkeypuzzle said:

It's tough though because you've also been making the ground a much more annoying place to be with so many things now that can knock you off your mount, knock you out, or steal your stuff. You have to be really unattached to your precious things.

This is something else that needs addressing that detracts from people using the ground. I'm fine with the mechanic, but it feels as if the player doesn't have much in the way of defending against it. I think that something as simple as audible 'heads-up' would greatly decrease frustration. For example; a series of high-pitched shrieks in the Redwoods would tell you Microraptors were nearby and that you might wanna pick up the pace. A hissing burble in the swamps would warn you of encroaching Kaprosuchus. You'd hear earthy digging sounds when nearing Purlovia and guttural growls in the Redwoods would signify Thylacoleo nearby. Raspy trills would mean Pegomastax are close. This way, players have a chance to take action and their inattention would be their own worst enemy. Might not seem like it's related to the flyer issue, but everything that's a point against using the ground has a sort of relevance here, I feel.

@Jat @TheRightHand 

Are these things that're possible? 

[shikamaru]

1 minute ago, Necro89 said:

so you think us pve players are gods of the skies and are safe, okay heres where your wrong, we have to grind metal which is far from safe ive lost quezts after being knocked on my dino from a purlova then being knocked out by troodons and getting the dinos being eaten, the game isnt super easy like you say when you tame a pteradon or a argie or a quezts it does make the game a tad easier in assists for taming other dinos and doing tivial task like grinding mats, us pve players could have handled the speed nerf but you also took away the stam, the nerf took away days of hard work of breeding of taming, the all the main points you said are pvp problems. its player vs environment and we still battle that everyday i lost several wyverns to stop a giga that was kited to my base are you going to program dinos to stop griefing..... if it was a problem of fliers were too strong add a flier that is untamable and strong but restricted to mainly the air... most of the upset is the time youve stolen from people. my 2 cents thats all .....

Totally agreed. PVE environment is very different from PVP.

How many of u DEV actually plays PVE or actually plays the game legit as in farm and raise dino not admin commands

[Chair Breaker]

1 hour ago, sal said:

I must say i am pretty dissapointed in the way the flyers are nerfed. I would have loved to get better flight physics making flying an actual chalange.

The Birds fly like spaceships.

You can crash your bird strait into the ground without taking any damage. Every bird can hover mid air, that should be a special feature of a single bird at best. The Quetz should fly more like a jumbo jet, but its more like a harrier.

Please look into tweaking the flight model itself to make flying more fun =)

THIS! +1

[Rupture]

okay so I have a few concerns about the re-balancing of all fliers but mainly of wyverns. I would simply like some information as to the intent of what you plan to do for Scorched Earth and those of us who had to take just brief naps in a full four day period to raise what is supposed to essentially be the "lord of the skies", but have actually 100% of useless implement now with having to land every few mins if you are lucky the issue is not so much a challenge as it is boring. why would are they not have  versatility or perform the needs to function other than looking pretty now. they can not farm milk because welp you run out of stam every two seconds, then can not fight wild wyverns in the air forcing you to land and have a fist fight with what is supposed to be a graceful creature of lore. honestly they were overpowered, but not as to how you would think, they were over powered because of health and damage not stamina, but also yes they were too fast. so how to balance you ask? soft caps instead of hard caps based on level, you need to do battle similations and make level an actual need on them not a want, make it so you need a high level wyvern to take out an alpha and soft cap the hp so that it can not sit on the bottom of the scar for 10 minutes being attacked and not dying. I think  I like to think of them as basically a gliding T-rex now because what you have done to them is make it so you have to basically use it as a land dino now. okay the breath attacks were a bit overpowered so the increased drain oh okay w/e .moving on though,  I am not truely understanding the imprint because it should act like a connection between the rider and creature as to wit that you can train it slightly out run or out damage wild creatures. The issue I am having is that the lore of most dragons/wyverns/drakes is to what makes them so scary is that they can travel vast distances I understand the speed lock but also think they should be 5% or so faster than a wild. it seems that the biggest thing the nerf patch has done is rendered countless hours useless which is why the outrage is happening. I do understand that you need to balance things because lets be honest the game does feel a bit easy from a PVE stand point. the thing that concerns me however is the stamina drain this in and of itself does not balance as much as it makes the game incredibly grindy. as to what I mean by that is if you wanted to truly make it to where there is an enjoyable and a use for things, so the fact of the matter is you tried to do too much at once and instead of balancing speed and stamina should have actually been more focused on damage hp level. anyways, I am not a developer nor am I even that smart and even I know you dun broked it.

sincerely,

Rupture

[invincibleqc]

12 minutes ago, Mythos said:

The Pelagornis is rarely used as well. Not many tames need prime fish meat and with mutton so aviable that niche isn't very useful. Sure it can land on water but what we really need is for it to be able to dive into very shallow water or it takes dmg like the whale. Then it would be great for drop hunting and an even better prime fish gather. Honestly it should probably be just a hair slower than the pteranodon so it gets used more.

I remember in one of the digest, they said they would make it so you can use fishing rods on them. This would actually be a nice/original feature for the pelagornis.