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In depth analysis of the flyer Blanace


tidalblade

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I am creating this thread to highlight the changes that the flyer nerf caused.  It's been almost a month since the changes, and there have been a number of informative, if not heated discussions about the nerf.  What I want to do is highlight some of the real world changes that players have experienced because of the nerf.

 

First I want to highlight the reason given to the players for the nerf:

Quote

 

There were many PvP implications in flier speed, not only did it make snatching, C4 bombing, and Quetz Grenading huge, easy issues, but it had underlying repercussions in the overall pvp gameplay space with regards to trivializing the land dinos which we actually want to see in battle, and giving people the option to remain endlessly airborne with giant mobile chaingun/gatling/rocket platforms high above the world and out of range of any threats.

 

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.

 

 

I am addressing these changes from the "Endgame" perspective, which encompasses 90%+ of the time spent playing the game. 

I want to point out that I am a PVE player on TheIsland and SE.  I have not played PVP at all, BUT I have a gaming history that includes games that are as punishing in PVP, so I understand the need to Balance PVP. I do frequently watch PVP videos, so while I have no firsthand experience, I have watched some of the tactics, but obviously do not understand all of the minutia of the gameplay.

 

My position on the flyer nerf is that it has only locked Flyer speed and reduced stamina, while buffing all the other stats of flyers(except on Pteras).  What this means for all players and their game-play experience is that activities that involve travel, take more time.  In PVP it also means that Pteras cannot snatch ~as easily?  Basically flyers could have been balanced in ways that actually address their listed problem areas.

 

To address the PVP issues TheRightHand mentioned:

c4 Bombing was fixed separately.

I didn't see snatching as such a huge problem that it needed to even be addressed, there were counters to it(whip).

But Perhaps a healthy reduction to Ptera weight, or a healthy speed penalty while carrying a player would better address this.  Snatching still occurs rather frequently, so I am not sure if the speed lock has really solved or effected this.  If you look at PVP, and the strength of some of the weapons(longneck/sniper), pumping speed in a Ptera was as much of if not more a defensive stat, as it was offensive.  Moving fast enough to make it difficult for players to 1 shot you is a viable tactic.

I don't think Quetz grenading has changed at all, aside from it taking longer to get into position, I don't see how this has changed.

Every PVP video I have watched has involved land dinos.  Five'ish were used in almost every video I watched pre-nerf, and five'ish are used in all of the videos I have watched since the nerf.

 

Why is this happening?

Some other things that need to be considered that bring about these tactics and behavior, is the very nature of this game.  The assets players acquire in the game are valuable because of the time needed to acquire them.  Players will go to great lengths to defend these assets.  This causes things like huge quad wall vault dropped 1000 auto turret bases.  When things escalate to that level, players have to get creative to raid them, finding new ways to breach these bases without exploiting is part of the charm of the game.

Another thing I have seen mentioned as a problem are turrets not being able to keep up with fast pteras, which can be addressed by increasing turret turning speed.

 

To address the PVE issues TheRightHand mentioned:

-Flyers caused the trivialization of content.

I do not feel that this is the case, and 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.

 

Facts about End-Game play.

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 games 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 or kill anything else they encounter.

 

Human Nature vs Choices.

There is a lot of content in this game, and it is great. Unfortunately in a time intensive game like ARK(or any activity), players naturally gravitate toward using the most efficient tool for the task they are trying to accomplish. Because of this natural tendency, certain tools(dinos) will be used while the majority of others will be ignored. This cannot be solved in a game as diverse as ARK unless most of the tools(dinos) are normalized to have incredibly similar stats. This is an unfortunate side effect of choice and diversity.

 

With that said, the majority of players(at least on my PVE server, and in PVP videos) are using the same dinos the same amount, with one exception, the Ptera.  In that respect the flyer nerf was a success. However the broad stroke taken to achieve that small change is, in mine and many other players opinions, detrimental to the game in the bigger picture.

 

The nerf was actually a BUFF to flyer stats, and a lock on speed.

A new aspect of the 'nerf' has recently been realized. Flyers actually got an OVERALL stat BUFF because of the change in the way stat points are allocated on flyers.  Not only do post-nerf flyers have ~15% HIGHER base stats, but people cannot spend points in speed anymore, so all of those other stats can be increased another 19% if equally spread around(assuming all stats used to be put into speed).  Yes Ptera's had their max possible HP reduced 20% and damage reduced 6%, but that changes to -5% and +9% respectively because of the new stat allocation(also their weight was reduced).

 

Actual effects of the changes.

Secondly I wanted to point out that the only real consequence of the flyer nerf is an increase in the amount of time needed to do all travel. This is an important detail because much of the travel in the game, before and after the nerf was/is essentially a white-noise activity(something that is/can be done by sticking a nickel in your keyboard, and going AFK). Ideally this is not a prevalent part of a game.  Before the nerf it was possible to lessen this if you chose to. Currently it is a noticeable if not substantial amount of gameplay.

This kind of travel has to be separated from the activity that the travel is being used for.  Traveling to do a metal run is separate from the actual metal run because gathering metal requires actual input from the user, flying there and back does not. This is an important distinction because it basically means the travel is a loading screen.

 

Adressing the actual problems.

Here are mine and other's ~simple suggestions on how to balance flying dinos.  These suggestions are based off the stats of flyers PRE-NERF (before the March update).

-Pteras were overall too strong for the time investment needed to get them.

-All Flyers may actually be too strong for their utility. 

-Flyers had distinct advantages in PVP because they could ignore obstacles.

 

Pteranodon

Pteras were too strong because of one distinct thing, the spin attack.  With their current stats, and without the spin attack, they may still be too 'powerful' in various PVP situations. With these things in mind I would suggest a few changes:

Reduce all base stats except speed by 25%

Reduce spin damage by 50% or increase stamina use by 50% or remove spin from the ptera and give it to the Argent

 

All Other flyers

Reduce all base stats except speed by 25%

 

General Changes

Increase ranged damage to TAMED flying dinos by 2x and/or create an anti-air auto turret

 

Let's try to keep this thread civil and constructive so that the Devs can get some feedback, or possibly/hopefully chime in with some of their own insight.

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Pteras were too strong because of far more than the barrel roll attack!

Whenever starting up on a new server, we found the most efficient way to rush to a decently defended metal base, was to rush ptera.

You rush a 150 ptera, breed em quick as poss to get imprinted pteras on the board and BOOM. You got a speed scouting ptera that lets you get crates from the edge of your view distance in like 2 mins, that same ptera could be used for open world pvp.

You could pump ptera's weight up and be able to quickly farm enough for a medium sized base with lots of very quick, slightly small metal runs. You could pump health and tank an early bases first couple of turrets, combined with rider imprint.

It was just too versatile for something you had access to early on.

TBH It still made sense to use it for a lot of things late game, only really the tanking and the metal runs changed with acquisition on a quetz. But really all in all it was a quetz n ptera game and for me it was boring.

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In fact the flyers were SO useful that we (admittedly fairly early in our arking) once had an upside down base underneath the floating center island. Never bothered us, you could use ptera/quetz/argent for basically everything we needed. Obviously with the bosses and increased endgame content it's not as feasible now, but we got to a largish well defended metal base under there no problem.

We actually ran out of things to do down there; we were defended enough, had plenty of loot etc, had no space for land dinos obvs, but we were literally all set up at the time just off the back of a low key ptera breeding program and a couple of quetzes. We could have gone on to raid people non stop and I don't think we'd have ever suffered any sort of penalisation for only using two dinos. Lame if you ask me.

Quote

General Changes

Increase ranged damage to TAMED flying dinos by 2x and/or create an anti

Got a lot of time for this suggestion, feels kinda natural.

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2 hours ago, Griffin1984 said:

A suggestion that i have also had in my mind: Make quetzals aggressive against flyers. These birds would've never ran from a pteranodon in reality. This would make the sky more dangerous so the trivialization would be a lot less then.  

I'd rather them making wild Dimos (and vultures) faster, and aggressive towards hoomans on tamed flyers.

2 hours ago, tidalblade said:

I didn't see snatching as such a huge problem that it needed to even be addressed, there were counters to it(whip).

Not everyone has access to SE. So in a sense it is a P2W mechanic and thus using it to prove or disprove something is not appropriate imo. Alternative are grappling hooks, but those are heavy, way more costly and clunky to use.

2 hours ago, tidalblade said:

Another thing I have seen mentioned as a problem are turrets not being able to keep up with fast pteras, which can be addressed by increasing turret turning speed.

Its not that simple. You cannot infinitely decrease reaction time (scan spherical area for targets in range takes some time, assuming amount of turrets players put on their bases - there is a limit to how fast you can make it without crippling server perfomance) and i believe devs already tried to do that and it still wasn't enough.

 

As for general changes and suggestions: they sound an awful lot like usual stat clamping (aka treatment of symptoms) without addressing underlying problem with stat progression.

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33 minutes ago, DarthaNyan said:

I'd rather them making wild Dimos (and vultures) faster, and aggressive towards hoomans on tamed flyers.

 

I wouldn't, a big bad-ass quetz can wreck you if your not carefull, dimo's would just be annoying pests like those bugs.

I know they see the quetz as a flying bronto but it can be a dangerous one to :) 

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16 minutes ago, Griffin1984 said:

I wouldn't, a big bad-ass quetz can wreck you if your not carefull, dimo's would just be annoying pests like those bugs.

I know they see the quetz as a flying bronto but it can be a dangerous one to :) 

I havent said anything about quetzes. I specifically pointed out Dimos: they are carnivorous animals and yet they are completely passive. Those "flying piranhas" gotta act their part.

I think giving them behavior similar to one that Meganeuras have or making them aggressive towards players on flying mounts (or both) would add a bit of a thrill.

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7 hours ago, DarthaNyan said:

Its not that simple. You cannot infinitely decrease reaction time (scan spherical area for targets in range takes some time, assuming amount of turrets players put on their bases - there is a limit to how fast you can make it without crippling server perfomance) and i believe devs already tried to do that and it still wasn't enough.

It is that easy, until a dev says otherwise.  No offense, but I am reluctant to take your assumed opinion on how the game does calculations, both client side and network.

I use Unreal, and the turn speed of turrets is as easy to alter as changing the number it is set to.  I doubt they have the auto turret optimized(since nothing else is) out of everything.  It is most likely set at what it is set at, BECAUSE it was intended that dinos be allowed to outpace the turn speed of turrets.

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very good post. i dont agree with it but its a well written well mannered post.

my opinion is that speed was THE most broken part about the fliers. all other problems came forth because of the speed problem. 

example. why did people get these ridiculous bases lagging pve servers? because farming them was very fast with the quetzal. 

bases werent strategic anymore, not even in pvp because the quetz just flew over the entire map in 2 minutes. 

i dont really care alot about the other stats on fliers. i find the damage of pteras to be too much but with the stam nerf its kind of OK. but for the love of god please dont buff speed back up to pre nerf.

the game has finally started slowing down after months of spiraling out of control and thats thanks to 2 changes. 

1 the quetz anky exploit

2 flier nerf.

and im really really glad they did it.

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I'm not sure how a faster quetz makes it more possible to make huge bases.

I mean, I routinely farm out the entire volcano, fly a full quetz home and back (15-20 mins), and maybe 5 metal nodes have re-spawned...  If I flew home and back in 3 mins even less metal nodes would have re-spawned.

There is literally a limit on the amount of metal that can be farmed in a 24 hour period from the entire map.  That number did not change with the flyer nerf patch.  It might have lessened the amount a single player could farm in a 24 hour period because of the time spent flying the quetz means nodes somewhere else were not being used.  But that is negated if more than one person is farming metal.

ALSO it doesn't stop/slow or force bases made from stone or wood to be smaller AT ALL.  Another solo player on my official server has herb island built up, hes built a bridge from herb island to the mainland, and has a bridge and huge platform around the green ob(all stone).  He build the bridge and platform around green OB in the past 3 weeks BECAUSE it is faster to walk rex's for boss runs then to load them onto quetz's.  AND he could build more if he wanted to.  Another solo player on my server(who has only been resetting timers for the past 5 months, maybe more, that's when I started) has a huge castle base north east of the green OB, over the stream that connects the north ocean to the river around redwoods.  That entire thing was built before rates were increased.

I'm not getting the correlation between slower flyers and limiting the build size of anything.

I'll agree that the game has slowed down, at least for me.  I am reluctant to do things like scout for new tames, or look for new places to build, its just too boring now.  Instead I've been doing a couple metal runs here and there, farming wyv eggs, and SE crates.  While that might not sound like slowing down much, much of it is done by sticking a nickel in my keyboard and watching TV, I can easily say I used to do a lot more before the flyer nerf.  Part of the problem is the force feeding timer, a bigger time-sink than the flyer nerf... But whatever my reasoning is selfish, I want to continue to enjoy this game for a long time.

 

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A bit off topic but I felt like it needed to be said anyway.

When the nerf dropped originally I remembered that a lot if people were saying that if you wanted to use land dinos you could, don't nerf flyers because of that.

The thing is when I started ark I imagined a world of raptor riding knights, trike caravans, and the occasional sneaky ghillie assassin longneck in hand.

Granted back then I had very little understanding of the game and its mechanics, and I've fallen into the meta now too.

The point is when I started not only did I want to use land dinos myself, but I wanted to see the majority of others on the server doing it as well. Finding them out in the wild. That being said flyers should still be available just not as widely used. Unfortunately the re balance didn't exactly realize my initial dream but it's gone a long way. People won't give up on flying and that's fine, but I hope to see a time when MinMaxing isn't as accomplishing in games anymore.

It's human nature to resist having something taken from you when it's already yours. Wildcard waited to long to fix this, but it's done now

To the main topic though, flyers should not get the speed upgrade ability back. It's not good for the game, not fun, and ruins the survival evolved experience we all came for. Argents shouldn't be given preference as combat tames either. The era of air superiority is coming to an end in my eyes, and I couldn't be happier.

Long live Direwolves, the princes of the tundra!

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On 5/4/2017 at 0:14 AM, tidalblade said:

I am creating this thread to highlight the changes that the flyer nerf caused.  It's been almost a month since the changes, and there have been a number of informative, if not heated discussions about the nerf.  What I want to do is highlight some of the real world changes that players have experienced because of the nerf.

 

First I want to highlight the reason given to the players for the nerf:

 

I am addressing these changes from the "Endgame" perspective, which encompasses 90%+ of the time spent playing the game. 

I want to point out that I am a PVE player on TheIsland and SE.  I have not played PVP at all, BUT I have a gaming history that includes games that are as punishing in PVP, so I understand the need to Balance PVP. I do frequently watch PVP videos, so while I have no firsthand experience, I have watched some of the tactics, but obviously do not understand all of the minutia of the gameplay.

 

My position on the flyer nerf is that it has only locked Flyer speed and reduced stamina, while buffing all the other stats of flyers(except on Pteras).  What this means for all players and their game-play experience is that activities that involve travel, take more time.  In PVP it also means that Pteras cannot snatch ~as easily?  Basically flyers could have been balanced in ways that actually address their listed problem areas.

 

To address the PVP issues TheRightHand mentioned:

c4 Bombing was fixed separately.

I didn't see snatching as such a huge problem that it needed to even be addressed, there were counters to it(whip).

But Perhaps a healthy reduction to Ptera weight, or a healthy speed penalty while carrying a player would better address this.  Snatching still occurs rather frequently, so I am not sure if the speed lock has really solved or effected this.  If you look at PVP, and the strength of some of the weapons(longneck/sniper), pumping speed in a Ptera was as much of if not more a defensive stat, as it was offensive.  Moving fast enough to make it difficult for players to 1 shot you is a viable tactic.

I don't think Quetz grenading has changed at all, aside from it taking longer to get into position, I don't see how this has changed.

Every PVP video I have watched has involved land dinos.  Five'ish were used in almost every video I watched pre-nerf, and five'ish are used in all of the videos I have watched since the nerf.

 

Why is this happening?

Some other things that need to be considered that bring about these tactics and behavior, is the very nature of this game.  The assets players acquire in the game are valuable because of the time needed to acquire them.  Players will go to great lengths to defend these assets.  This causes things like huge quad wall vault dropped 1000 auto turret bases.  When things escalate to that level, players have to get creative to raid them, finding new ways to breach these bases without exploiting is part of the charm of the game.

Another thing I have seen mentioned as a problem are turrets not being able to keep up with fast pteras, which can be addressed by increasing turret turning speed.

 

To address the PVE issues TheRightHand mentioned:

-Flyers caused the trivialization of content.

I do not feel that this is the case, and 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.

 

Facts about End-Game play.

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 games 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 or kill anything else they encounter.

 

Human Nature vs Choices.

There is a lot of content in this game, and it is great. Unfortunately in a time intensive game like ARK(or any activity), players naturally gravitate toward using the most efficient tool for the task they are trying to accomplish. Because of this natural tendency, certain tools(dinos) will be used while the majority of others will be ignored. This cannot be solved in a game as diverse as ARK unless most of the tools(dinos) are normalized to have incredibly similar stats. This is an unfortunate side effect of choice and diversity.

 

With that said, the majority of players(at least on my PVE server, and in PVP videos) are using the same dinos the same amount, with one exception, the Ptera.  In that respect the flyer nerf was a success. However the broad stroke taken to achieve that small change is, in mine and many other players opinions, detrimental to the game in the bigger picture.

 

The nerf was actually a BUFF to flyer stats, and a lock on speed.

A new aspect of the 'nerf' has recently been realized. Flyers actually got an OVERALL stat BUFF because of the change in the way stat points are allocated on flyers.  Not only do post-nerf flyers have ~15% HIGHER base stats, but people cannot spend points in speed anymore, so all of those other stats can be increased another 19% if equally spread around(assuming all stats used to be put into speed).  Yes Ptera's had their max possible HP reduced 20% and damage reduced 6%, but that changes to -5% and +9% respectively because of the new stat allocation(also their weight was reduced).

 

Actual effects of the changes.

Secondly I wanted to point out that the only real consequence of the flyer nerf is an increase in the amount of time needed to do all travel. This is an important detail because much of the travel in the game, before and after the nerf was/is essentially a white-noise activity(something that is/can be done by sticking a nickel in your keyboard, and going AFK). Ideally this is not a prevalent part of a game.  Before the nerf it was possible to lessen this if you chose to. Currently it is a noticeable if not substantial amount of gameplay.

This kind of travel has to be separated from the activity that the travel is being used for.  Traveling to do a metal run is separate from the actual metal run because gathering metal requires actual input from the user, flying there and back does not. This is an important distinction because it basically means the travel is a loading screen.

 

Adressing the actual problems.

Here are mine and other's ~simple suggestions on how to balance flying dinos.  These suggestions are based off the stats of flyers PRE-NERF (before the March update).

-Pteras were overall too strong for the time investment needed to get them.

-All Flyers may actually be too strong for their utility. 

-Flyers had distinct advantages in PVP because they could ignore obstacles.

 

Pteranodon

Pteras were too strong because of one distinct thing, the spin attack.  With their current stats, and without the spin attack, they may still be too 'powerful' in various PVP situations. With these things in mind I would suggest a few changes:

Reduce all base stats except speed by 25%

Reduce spin damage by 50% or increase stamina use by 50% or remove spin from the ptera and give it to the Argent

 

All Other flyers

Reduce all base stats except speed by 25%

 

General Changes

Increase ranged damage to TAMED flying dinos by 2x and/or create an anti-air auto turret

 

Let's try to keep this thread civil and constructive so that the Devs can get some feedback, or possibly/hopefully chime in with some of their own insight.

I totally get you on all counts. I may not agree with some but I do get you. The thing is the wipe people had threads as well. A lot of them got deleted because there was too many. In my personal opinion there is way too many nerf threads going on. Hey I could be wrong, that is up to the mods. I am just wondering if there is a pick and choose thing going because there is only 2 wipe threads, yet there is over 6 nerf threads. Just trying to realize what is going on here on these forums.

i think they are pretty balanced the way they are.

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15 minutes ago, Volcano637 said:

i think they are pretty balanced the way they are.

Well my issue is that the reasons the senior designer posted for the nerf do not match what the nerf actually did.

The reason I suggest a reduction in stats is because lower hp/st/weight/dmg will encourage players to spend points on things other than speed.  BUT if players want to only spend points on speed, their flyers will be noticeably weaker in the other areas.  Things could easily be adjusted from there.

As a  player with 750 hours played I am thinking of the time I've spent traveling (as I never actually had a flyer with all points in speed before the nerf), and all the extra time I have to spend traveling now...

Flying around the island the first few times was cool, I enjoyed the scenery etc.  But after I have traveled around it hundreds of times or more, it is just repetition that serves no purpose to me, except to discourage traveling.

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750 hours is enough to be considered seasoned. I will not talk about the amount of hours I have had because that would be on bad taste.

yes, if what they actually said they were trying to and is it that way, it would be different. And yet again, I realize what they said. The thing is they did what they thought needed to be done. Try to look at this like it's the United States. A lot of people think they don't need the U.S. to tell them what they need, yet they do it anyway. Same with wildcard, they are doing something because it needed to be done. It really didn't matter what people thought, or how many people would get mad. Sometimes you have to make the bad decision.

can you imagine if all of the idiots in this country actually had a say in what goes on? We would be a third world country in a matter of weeks. You think alphas will build as fast as they say they would? Ok those same people would drive this country into the ground faster then they could build up in ark.

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3 minutes ago, Volcano637 said:

A lot of people think they don't need the U.S. to tell them what they need, yet they do it anyway.

Discussion about the level of socialism in the US aside, citizens do vote for politicians based on their political agendas. (whether this works as intended or not) Citizens are supposed to be the ones deciding on policy through the people they vote for.

So you are advocating for a vote to determine whether 'classic' flyers be brought back or not?

I am not making posts like this for no reason, the Devs HAVE asked for feedback, and have said they intend to make decisions based on player feedback with regards to the nerf.  I am making a case for an alternative to locked flyer speed, One that I think would better serve all play styles while not alienating either.

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37 minutes ago, tidalblade said:

Discussion about the level of socialism in the US aside, citizens do vote for politicians based on their political agendas. (whether this works as intended or not) Citizens are supposed to be the ones deciding on policy through the people they vote for.

So you are advocating for a vote to determine whether 'classic' flyers be brought back or not?

I am not making posts like this for no reason, the Devs HAVE asked for feedback, and have said they intend to make decisions based on player feedback with regards to the nerf.  I am making a case for an alternative to locked flyer speed, One that I think would better serve all play styles while not alienating either.

No they didn't not say they would base decisions on players feedback. I never remember hearing that. I heard they wanted feedback. But they most certainly will not base it on that feedback unless they deem it to be wise to do so. 

Think about how this Country would go if they actually listened to what civilians say. Food stamps for days. 

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1 minute ago, Volcano637 said:

No they didn't not say they would base decisions on players feedback. I never remember hearing that. I heard they wanted feedback. But they most certainly will not base it on that feedback unless they deem it to be wise to do so. 

Think about how this Country would go if they actually listened to what civilians say. Food stamps for days. 

OK.

But they said they wanted feedback, and that's what i'm doing.

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Just now, tidalblade said:

OK.

But they said they wanted feedback, and that's what i'm doing.

And hey man, I have no problem with that. I never once said you couldn't do that.

even though I am completely pro nerf, I have said on multiple occasions that I feel for some of the people and actually agree to giving some buffs.

I did not like the fact of what you just said in the last post. 

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Yeah give AA turrets and/or increase flier turret damage by 2-3x.  I forget who I saw mention it first, but I think one thing they need to do is replace the barrel roll attack with a barrel roll defense special. Make them immune to damage during the roll and increase the cooldown timer. Give the argent a special attack, it's the war bird. 

 

 

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I would have rather had an AA turret than the flier nerf.

 

pterandons needed nerfed for sure, but taking everything else down with it was not needed.

 

Buff all fliers to whatever their 200% speed was except pteranadon and wyvern put them at 120% put quetzal at 150% keep stamina where it is except wyvern needs more staying power.

 

add an AA turret that needs to lock on and isn't insta hitting like normal turrets. make it fire slowly too.  maybe have a mechanic where only a few could be in a certain zone so you don't have 1 kills on quetz (maybe 1 per electric grid?)   and make it use a new ammo type or homing rockets.

 

frankly they should have more turrets of multiple types.  gimme a sleep dart auto turret, gimme a shotgun turret, give me a flame arrow or flame thrower turret.

 

another idea is make a plant species Y finally useful, you plant it and it shoots tangling webs and these webs can reduce flier speed by 50% and land tames by 25% (stacks with plant x)

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I think the flyers are pretty balanced now. They balanced the barrel roll (3 second delay) and they re-increased the speed to a healthy extent. My main problem (and probably the same for majority of the players) is that land dinos get stuck on the smallest obstacles, making flyers the only option. The devs should fix this problem first.

But it seems that the main reason for the nerf was because of pvp unblanaces, so the devs could just increase the pvp damage multiplier on flyers. How's that?

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13 minutes ago, rororoxor said:

I think the flyers are pretty balanced now. They balanced the barrel roll (3 second delay) and they re-increased the speed to a healthy extent. My main problem (and probably the same for majority of the players) is that land dinos get stuck on the smallest obstacles, making flyers the only option. The devs should fix this problem first.

But it seems that the main reason for the nerf was because of pvp unblanaces, so the devs could just increase the pvp damage multiplier on flyers. How's that?

First off I'm curious about what you think about flyers is balanced now?  What did they change to make you think flyers are as powerful as they should be? (Aside from the barrel roll cooldown)

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4 hours ago, tidalblade said:

First off I'm curious about what you think about flyers is balanced now?  What did they change to make you think flyers are as powerful as they should be? (Aside from the barrel roll cooldown)

Well, ptera and others are decently fast now (except quetz) and overall, their stats have increased since the nerf. Did you see the spreadsheet?

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They're still slow as hell. You may not need a 750% bird (somebody claimed to have had one on a Steam forum), but this is why Classic Flyers has had over 100k downloads. Flying things are normally faster than land-based things. This is true in both nature and mans machines. Sure, there are things which defy that basic fact such as a cheetah or an F1 race car, but those are not the norm. The fact is that people living farther from ores (metal, obsidian, etc) and crystal now have two choices. Spend an hour or more fighting your way on the ground up there to the mountains, OR attempt to fly a quetz up there, stopping every few minutes and praying nothing attacks.

The big problem was implementation. The devs did not do a normal implementation. Normally you reduce a bit and see. Reduce some more. And then again, until you get the sweet spot. This keeps players happy and ratings high. Going from where they were to nothing was too much. Think of it like this. You're doing 65mph in your car. The speed limit drops to 35 for a school zone. Do you slam on the brakes and completely stop, then slowly creep up to 35, or do you release your accelerator and possibly hit your brakes gently in advance? The devs pulled the freaking hand-brake on flying dinos, and that is what killed off a lot of players. It was too sudden.

Combine that with not only fixing the barrel roll via cooldown, but also by destroying speed so a damn dilo can catch your ptera and you have a big mess. I never tried numerous rolls back-to-back, but the CD is all that was needed there. Combining two things made an over-nerf.

Then there's the turret issue. This was so simple to fix I cannot believe they used an atomic bomb in place of a piece of tissue. The answer was to make turrets a tad faster. Hell, make it an upgrade for the turret. Make them more accurate. Give them more range. These could ALL have been upgrades. Every Play Unreal Fortress or TFC? The stock turret sucks. You upgrade them so they don't suck!

The biggest issue is that this was done ENTIRELY for PvP. Not all of us play PvP. It ruined PvE for about a day, then we got the Classic Flyers mod. If this was such a big deal in PvP then fix it in PvP! In WoW many spells and skills work one way in the overworld and another way in arenas and such. Same can be said for many other games. Why couldn't we do that here?

With that said I am not ENTIRELY against the patch. From what I read, there were some fairly stupid speeds being attained. I am all for caps, but reasonable caps. Ptera/Tapejara at 250% for example. Argent at whatever. Quetzal at 160% or so. Simple fix. What is so damn hard about introducing caps? You could even cap wild dinos lower and require breeding to attain higher caps, which would encourage players to check out the breeding functionality, thus making it more useful. This crap of "no matter how damn good you breed, your birds will always be slow" is too much of a cap. Let the players have the ability to adjust speed. Just cap it!

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