Primal Survival - what will it be like?

[Ulta]

So rather than making another thread asking where Primal Survival is, how about we take a trip down memory lane and start speculating what it will be like when it finally DOEs come? What do YOU hope it'll be like? What are you hopes and fears that this new game mode might give us?

Let's see what we know for sure will be a feature:

• You get to play AS some of ARK's dinos. Some that we know of are Argent, Giga, Megalodon, Wolf, Bear, Spider, Ant, Raptor, Mesopithicus, and I think Rex since I saw it against the Giga. Possibility of still being able to be a human, or human AI being in the game.
• Breeding seems to be a thing since the trailer showed babies. Nests and dens seem to be a thing as well.

 

Now with that out of the way, let's talk about what we hope the game mode will give us beyond this!

Me? I hope it's not a The Isle clone. I'm not saying the Isle is bad, it doesn't seem like it isn't. I don't own it, but I've seen many players on youtube play it and though it looks neat, it just seems to lack enough content to keep me entertained for long.

I wanna see something where every dino you pick starting off must be at level one. And to gain levels would be like our present experience, though for dino's, most you can do is probably eat, drink, and kill. Perhaps they can give us 'goals' to accomplish that can give a slight boost in exp or just flat out exp so that the game isn't just a killing sim like the Isle kinda is. Give us some other goals. We should only need ot kill if we're getting hungry or got babies to feed. Thirst would need to be a needed stat on dinos of course too.

We all know WC looooves it's content. So other than making sure more creatures are playable, what else would be neat? Personally I would love it if NPC's were also a thing, but had better AI than our current ones so that a player can at least have a shot at 'blending' in with the NPC herd. I'm also tossing around the idea that maybe it could be almost a spitting image of our current ARK experience, except now that dino you are looking to tame could very well be a much smarter player that WON'T mindlessly run into a wall if it gets tranqed in the tail. Maybe if they DO manage to tame you, you basically 'die' and that player now has an AI version of your body. If you played as a human, I would guess being able to level the once-player-owned dino would NOT be a thing, since that would just make it unbalanced for anyone else on the game. But the stats you leveled would still be on that old body, so if you happened to pump all damage well...now you know a threat is under that guys control. A cap in how many dino's a human can own, or a 'weight' amount of them would be needed for balance. Also certain structure tiers like metal probably shouldn't be in or else only a select few dino's could even hope to break it. Something else could probably be done with this particular idea, so have at it.

I'm not quite sure what breeding would do in this mode frankly. Maybe it's the only way to populate the map? Or the BEST way instead? I guess it would depend. If they added NPC AI to wander around then maybe only make that a bit sparse so that breeding to make more and then having a way to 'recruit' NPC's is a way to go (in case you can't find someone of your species to join you who's an actual player). Might be a way for 'solo' players to be able to get a pack together to take out that 'threat' they encountered earlier too.

Oh here's an important feature that I hope the game DOESN'T have. Voice chat. Or heck maybe not even written chat! I want the dino models to have animations and calls that are meant just for communicating. The Isle does this already and I feel that is the best part about that game. Being able to communicate only with sounds and gestures? That would help the immersion soooo much and would really make the game mode feel like 'primal' survival. If humans are added, they would be the only ones to probably get to use the voice and text chat.

Would this game mode need 'endgame' to it? This I'm not sure of. I think it would heavily depend on how fun the overall experience is. Maybe making more than 'one' character per server is allowed, just you can only play one at a time. If this is allowed, but needs some sort of limit for whatever reason (server memory strain? I dunno), then maybe limit to having one of each dino species? I would love to be able to make 'alts' though, like I can make myself a Melee Therizino for killing things, but also have an alt Therizino that is built more for harvesting to make nests more quickly if people need it. If this can't be done, then I'd say allow a dino to have SOME way to 'mindwipe' themselves, so that your only Therizino character isn't limited to one build or the other. Make it difficult too probably to mindwipe, to avoid spam (if that's even a problem).

The Isle has a tier system right now that although isn't terrible, makes little sense. So how would 'progression' work instead for the beginnings of Primal Survival? I got two ideas. First one is, make it so ALL playable dinos can be picked straight from the get-go, with all of them maybe having veeeeery similiar stats at lvl 1. So similar that a small pack of Dodo's could probably kill a rival player Giga who's also at lvl 1 sounds awkward yes, but also hilarious. Maybe also make it so that the 'stat gains per level' for each dino varies, so that as they level, every stat grows, but the one you pick gets a bit more of a boost to it. So once that rival Giga reaches like 10, those Dodo's, no matter how numerous, should probably think about running. This method of gameplay would probably need a lot of balance tweaks honestly, so that players can still 'team up' against those big guns and still have a fighting chance. I don't see too many issues with this method off the top of my head, but I'm sure some exist. One being that if the different species get different max level stats (they should, it'll make each species different), then a cap should be set on each stat just in case someone actually goes full ham on one stat. For example...I make a Giga, and went and killed a ton of things. Let's say unrealistically, I killed enough to reach lvl 100, but I haven't pumped any of those level up points into a stat yet. By rights, it should still be strong, but let's say not as terribly stronger as you'd initially think...maybe it's health is high, but a player as a Trike could still be a threat, moreso if they are in numbers. what I'm saying is, the 'points' you can spend to buff a stat should have only minimal gains, not a 'make or break' kind of deal. If I used ALL my points into melee on my Giga, then yes I'll still be a killing machine...but I'll have sacrificed my health, and could still be killed if enough people gained up on me. Basiclaly, 'leveling up' is the best way to survive, moreso than 'pumping stats'. Heck the stat pumping could probably just be outright eliminated and we can just have raw stats to work with that grow as you level up. Would be simpler with minimal 'lose'.

My other idea could be that there is still a 'tier' system, but slightly different from the Isles. This route would mean, every new player would HAVE to start as a Dodo, and work their way towards an in-game 'goal' set by the game. Once they reach this goal, they unlock a new type of dino to play as. this goes on until you've unlocked all of them, even the mighty Giga. One downside I can see to this road though is that over time, new players would have quite the difficulty progressing if this is months later and most of the playerbase are Giga's. Some more thought would be needed for this if it's the route WC wants to go. Maybe it can be combined with the first method? Not sure.

What do you think? Frankly I can see how just making humans playable could make or break this mode. Perhaps making the human's only AI based could be an alternate if the humans seem too OP.

So let's here it! what does everyone else here want Primal Survival to be like? Let's talk about it (cause it's probably gonna be a while till we have it, and better now than never to give WC some nifty ideas before it's released!)!

[Shrekasaurus]

I was thinking they would make it like an ecosystem, each creature has a population limit per server, with some being higher than others (1 Titanosaurus, 100 Dodos). All creatures will have their own unique lifestyles/experiences. Some will be harder to start as, while others may begin to get more difficult as you go along. It'll all come down creature preference. 

[Ulta]

That's pretty general of a hope. Sounds fun regardless =) Would mean a more 'custom' life cycle for each species.

[LameoveR]

Few dinos and large Human survivors spawns

Hunt, prey, tame humans

 

[Nickoli1900]

I'm really excited to see the nests and dens of each dino. I'd love to see the internal structure of the ant colony. It would be cool to go out as a dino and hunt for your babies, maybe a timer for when the baby needs food again, resulting in you going out to hunt again. Would definitely be sweet to play as a beaver building up your dam. 

[Lewiatan]

That mode will look like more or less as way less sofisticated The Isle. I even thought they wanted to do PS, because of The Isle. However,  I doubt Primal Survival will arrive. After reading article about Soft on PC gamer I found out that studio is just too small to handle side project and main game at the same time. In case of Soft, WC needs seperate studio to work on it if they want to continue that project. It must be handled like a new game, not like spin off. Same problems apply to Primal Survival.