Is the taming mechanic flawed?

[Joanna]

Have you noticed that on 2x you can get +74 levels in a 150 argy but on 1x you can only get +71?  The underlying mechanic of effectiveness should be time independent and not be effected by the multipliers.   Both should be able to atain +74, if the correct food is used.

[AngrySaltire]

36 minutes ago, LittleRedReaper said:

Yeah that is stupid. I never thought about that. I guess obviously it comes down to the time taken. But yeah, if you down a 150 anything and feed it the required kibble for said level, it should get all the levels no matter what the multipliers are set at.

I was always under the impression that taming effectiveness was linked to the number of food items eaten. The more food eaten to tame the lower the effectiveness or the less food eaten the higher the effectiveness. Hence why during the events you get a higher effectiveness.

[PaleoJoe]

11 minutes ago, AngrySaltire said:

I was always under the impression that taming effectiveness was linked to the number of food items eaten. The more food eaten to tame the lower the effectiveness or the less food eaten the higher the effectiveness. Hence why during the events you get a higher effectiveness.

You are right. However, they are talking about the maximum number of level-ups.

-rereads post-

Well of course, OP. If it is 2x it tames 2x faster. Meaning it needs 50% less food. Thus less bites. Meaning a higher taming effectiveness. A 100% taming effectiveness awards you with a level 225 dino (hence the +74 levels for 99% on 2x weekends). That is just part of the game. It does not even make that big of a difference anyway, as those 3 extra points could go to oxygen, food, or speed.

This is an issue with many players as people now only play on the weekends when the event is active. I know I did. Why would I spend an hour farming obsidian when I get get two hours worth of obsidian for the same amount of time/effort on a weekend? Why tame a dino on a weekday when it can be a higher level and cost less to tame on a weekend? The servers get flooded and people get locked out.

[ciabattaroll]

Can't really say I know how they could fix this given how bonus levels work. Bonus levels are tied to taming effectiveness, and taming effectiveness drops for each feeding that the creature takes. The more nutritious the food, the lesser bites it takes for the creature to tame. When you raise taming rates, you increase the nutritional value that food provides in taming, hence fewer bites, which ultimately leads to that tamed level discrepancy.

[AngrySaltire]

1 minute ago, ciabattaroll said:

Can't really say I know how they could fix this given how bonus levels work. Bonus levels are tied to taming effectiveness, and taming effectiveness drops for each feeding that the creature takes. The more nutritious the food, the lesser bites it takes for the creature to tame. When you raise taming rates, you increase the nutritional value that food provides in taming, hence fewer bites, which ultimately leads to that tamed level discrepancy.

There is kinda of a way off the top of my head. Double the food consumption for taming during the event (no idea if its possible to separate taming consumption from normal consumption) and the creature eats the same as it would outwith the event but just tame quicker. Whether this is a good suggeation is another thing entirely lol

[ciabattaroll]

5 minutes ago, AngrySaltire said:

There is kinda of a way off the top of my head. Double the food consumption for taming during the event (no idea if its possible to separate taming consumption from normal consumption) and the creature eats the same as it would outwith the event but just tame quicker. Whether this is a good suggeation is another thing entirely lol

I don't really know for sure if it is possible to separate without having to go in and further refine what's already there. If I remember correctly hunger is a server value that applies to both tamed and wild dinos. That means to fix it they would need to separate the hunger multipliers for tamed dinos (so as to not have them starve to death during 2x events) and for wild dinos (so as to have them consume food faster during events).

The other thing to this is that this recommendation means that people will no longer be able to get those extra three levels from taming during an event, which I don't see the players accepting so readily.

[AngrySaltire]

17 minutes ago, ciabattaroll said:

I don't really know for sure if it is possible to separate without having to go in and further refine what's already there. If I remember correctly hunger is a server value that applies to both tamed and wild dinos. That means to fix it they would need to separate the hunger multipliers for tamed dinos (so as to not have them starve to death during 2x events) and for wild dinos (so as to have them consume food faster during events).

The other thing to this is that this recommendation means that people will no longer be able to get those extra three levels from taming during an event, which I don't see the players accepting so readily.

Yeah, thats what I  thought. Just throwing that haphazard suggestion out there lol

Which brings us back to OPs post  beautifully. While I too did love those extra levels, it does add to the point of why bother taming (or anything else for that matter) outside of the weekends. It would be nice to have standardisation throughout the week. Heck why play the game at all during the week

[Dracul]

IMO taming in ark is broken as a whole, it simply shouldnt under an cercumstances take more than three hours to tame something. Id prefer to see the system reworked where rather than raw meat/berry taming something costing you time, it costs you levels and maybe even cause the torpor to drop faster so more narcos are still required compared to favorite foods/kibbles. This would make ark as a whole less of a grueling time sink (slightly) and would would alter evo events to be more appealing for bonus levels rather than speed.  IE taming a lvl 100 trike might take 30-40 minutes but instead of comming out with a few extra levels it would come out a LOWER level than it started as a penalty for berry taming though this would take a lot of thought into the change as there are a ton of variables to consider - especially for tames that dont have kibble but the end result would handle one of the BIGGEST concerns pretty much everyone has with ark. Changing to the 'new' rates was a step in the right direction, guy on my prim server when mosas first came out spent like THIRTEEN hours cooked/jerky prime taming a 116 mosa, problem is wildcard has progressively made newer tames take pretty much as long by the NEW rate (IM LOOKING AT YOU THERI!).

[ciabattaroll]

5 minutes ago, Dracul said:

IMO taming in ark is broken as a whole, it simply shouldnt under an cercumstances take more than three hours to tame something. Id prefer to see the system reworked where rather than raw meat/berry taming something costing you time, it costs you levels and maybe even cause the torpor to drop faster so more narcos are still required compared to favorite foods/kibbles. This would make ark as a whole less of a grueling time sink (slightly) and would would alter evo events to be more appealing for bonus levels rather than speed.  IE taming a lvl 100 trike might take 30-40 minutes but instead of comming out with a few extra levels it would come out a LOWER level than it started as a penalty for berry taming though this would take a lot of thought into the change as there are a ton of variables to consider - especially for tames that dont have kibble but the end result would handle one of the BIGGEST concerns pretty much everyone has with ark. Changing to the 'new' rates was a step in the right direction, guy on my prim server when mosas first came out spent like THIRTEEN hours cooked/jerky prime taming a 116 mosa, problem is wildcard has progressively made newer tames take pretty much as long by the NEW rate (IM LOOKING AT YOU THERI!).

It doesn't take more than 3 hours to tame anything, provided you're using the right material to tame them. The only one that ever does, the Therizinosaurus, is only over that precious 3 hour mark by a mere 7 minutes.

[Dracul]

59 minutes ago, ciabattaroll said:

It doesn't take more than 3 hours to tame anything, provided you're using the right material to tame them. The only one that ever does, the Therizinosaurus, is only over that precious 3 hour mark by a mere 7 minutes.

My post was literally concerning taming WITHOUT the 'right materials' ,same page man get on it.  

[ciabattaroll]

10 minutes ago, Dracul said:

My post was literally concerning taming WITHOUT the 'right materials' ,same page man get on it.  

Then that's a matter of being woefully inefficient since you're trying to tame a prize dino (in terms of levels) using sub par materials.

[Joanna]

Thanks for all the comments everyone, really appreciated.  Some interesting ideas in there

[Dracul]

9 hours ago, ciabattaroll said:

Then that's a matter of being woefully inefficient since you're trying to tame a prize dino (in terms of levels) using sub par materials.

and end up taking anywhere from 6-14hrs in the process, and if you had taken the time to read all of my post you would have noticed I was saying instead of time being the punishment for low quality material taming it would be harsher level loss instead, ciabattroll.

[Cripling]

11 minutes ago, Dracul said:

and end up taking anywhere from 6-14hrs in the process, and if you had taken the time to read all of my post you would have noticed I was saying instead of time being the punishment for low quality material taming it would be harsher level loss instead, ciabattroll.

Perhaps this would be a good suggestion for those dinos that immediately become ridiculously long tames without the proper food.  An example would be a rock elemental tamed with stone.

I agree with the complicated tame of a theri.  It is a very valuable tame and should not be easy to obtain, but the torpor bar should be a longer so there is actually time to create more narcotics if need be mid tame.

 

[Demerus]

That's why I do all my taming on events. When you are a breeder like me, every single added point counts.

[yekrucifixion187]

1 hour ago, Dracul said:

instead of time being the punishment for low quality material taming it would be harsher level loss instead

I still don't like it. For these long tame dino's the additional time adds to the chances of something interrupting the tame. It makes you prepare accordingly not only to take it down, keep it down, but also to protect it when it's down. With your method, these tribes with extensive breeding abilities would just find and knock out a bunch of 130-150 dino's and be happy with the level 100 tame they get out of it because they can prepare accordingly for 1 or two high level perfect tames and then just breed those stats into an army of mid-level dino's. The quicker tame times have now unbalanced the game due to sheer number's being thrown at something. 

The longer tame times mean the game is still unbalanced because more people on shifts can still get these high level tames but they can get less of them and they become a much more valuable resource meaning the trade market stays flourishing, the server dino cap (which still sometimes gets crushed) is less likely to get reached, and a small tribe of say 3 or 5 still have a reasonable chance to get the same powerful dino even if they don't have the same capability to breed that dino to a more powerful state.

I think a kibble rework system makes sense but for me tame times are fine as is. (Just a fyi, I play on PVE, I am in a tribe of 3, but I solo tame quite often. I prepare accordingly with spiked walls or building materials or whatever is needed. The only things I haven't tamed to this point have been a Tuso and a Giga because on legacy i just purchased/raised them but this time around on officials I plan on taming both and will when i have prepared accordingly.)

I keep reiterating this and I know some people disagree but many agree too. These dino's are so powerful and help out in so many ways that they absolutely should take your time to achieve. We should not be trying to make things easier. Putting in the work should pay greater dividend's but most suggestion's want to dumb down the game and make it so every Tom, sausage, and Jane get the same thing. If they followed these suggestion's Ark would be dead in a month. 

 

Edit: sausage? Come on survivetheark, lol. The nickname of Richard being censored is a bit overboard. The site doesn't have a context undertanding? lol fine lets call him Harry.

[Cinnamongod]

I posted on this very issue a little while back. 

 

[ciabattaroll]

4 hours ago, Dracul said:

and end up taking anywhere from 6-14hrs in the process, and if you had taken the time to read all of my post you would have noticed I was saying instead of time being the punishment for low quality material taming it would be harsher level loss instead, ciabattroll.

It's already both though, to hammer down just how important quality of taming material selection is. In my opinion there's really no need to coddle players by removing the time aspect while keeping the level one intact.

[Cripling]

2 hours ago, ciabattaroll said:

It's already both though, to hammer down just how important quality of taming material selection is. In my opinion there's really no need to coddle players by removing the time aspect while keeping the level one intact.

I believe you missed his point again.  He is saying that a lvl 150 tame with kibble would normally tame out a 225 and without kibble could end up a 191, or some other number, but will take you something like 6+ extra hours. I'm just throwing out numbers, but you should get the point.  Instead of sticking someone with a 23 hour tame, like taming a rock elemental with stone, you would start to reduce the level of the tame ex: lvl 150 with 99.9% tame eff. & 74+ lvls with every bite of stone instead of favored food reduces a considerable amount.  After 3 hours of taming you have now gone into -55% tame eff. the tame has now lost 43 levels and is a lvl 107, but it has tamed out in 3 hours instead of 23.  You may be "coddling" the players a little by granting the ability for them to not spend their entire day on one single tame, but they are still being penalized.

[Drinkinthepink]

1 hour ago, Cripling said:

I keep reiterating this and I know some people disagree but many agree too. These dino's are so powerful and help out in so many ways that they absolutely should take your time to achieve. We should not be trying to make things easier. Putting in the work should pay greater dividend's but most suggestion's want to dumb down the game and make it so every Tom, sausage, and Jane get the same thing. If they followed these suggestion's Ark would be dead in a month. 

 

Edit: sausage? Come on survivetheark, lol. The nickname of Richard being censored is a bit overboard. The site doesn't have a context undertanding? lol fine lets call him Harry.

 

Lol, sausage. I 100% agree with your whole post, but quoted this part specifically for emphasis.

8 hours ago, Dracul said:

and end up taking anywhere from 6-14hrs in the process, and if you had taken the time to read all of my post you would have noticed I was saying instead of time being the punishment for low quality material taming it would be harsher level loss instead, ciabattroll.

I took the time to read your whole post as I am sure @ciabattaroll did as well. Like he said, no dino takes longer than 3 hours to tame if you prepare and have the right kibble. If you don't have the kibble or time to tame something, perhaps you aren't ready for that Dino. I've tamed many theriz on official, a few of them with berries or crops, theriz are insanely powerful and an endgame tame. If you have an issue with spending 3 hours taming a super strong farmer, perhaps you should play single player so you can just adminspawn in a Dino for yourself since you just want easy mode.

Being well prepared, it is extremely easy to tame literally any land/air Dino. Have everything you need before you knock it out,  and either spike wall or Dino pen it, and you can literally farm while you wait for it to starve.

pro tip, starve tame it!!!, as in wait until the full time has passed before you give it food, only giving it required narcotics to keep it knocked down. That way when/if it does get up, you can just knock it down again without losing the timer since it's still hungry and food hasn't gone back up yet; bear in mind, every time you KO it, it loses health and some dinos can only ko once before dying. To get max time between giving it narcotics, learn to use a taming timer for narcotic feeding... watch it, then when torpor is down to like 10% give it a bunch of narcotics, and it will keep going up. If you just always sit at 90-100% torpor you're doing it wrong, it's the increasing torpor time that is longest and most useful if timed properly.

Beprepared, and efficient, and you will have fun. Late game, just drop a theriz into your taming pen in your base and it takes minimal effort. 

[ciabattaroll]

1 hour ago, Cripling said:

I believe you missed his point again.  He is saying that a lvl 150 tame with kibble would normally tame out a 225 and without kibble could end up a 191, or some other number, but will take you something like 6+ extra hours. I'm just throwing out numbers, but you should get the point.  Instead of sticking someone with a 23 hour tame, like taming a rock elemental with stone, you would start to reduce the level of the tame ex: lvl 150 with 99.9% tame eff. & 74+ lvls with every bite of stone instead of favored food reduces a considerable amount.  After 3 hours of taming you have now gone into -55% tame eff. the tame has now lost 43 levels and is a lvl 107, but it has tamed out in 3 hours instead of 23.  You may be "coddling" the players a little by granting the ability for them to not spend their entire day on one single tame, but they are still being penalized.

I get his idea just fine. I just think that 1) using sub par materials already gives a lower TE which results in lower bonus levels as well as a penalty on how long it takes, so no need to change the lower bonus levels to an all out lower level on the dino 2) Due to the random generation of stats I'm just not certain how de-levelling a wild dino will go over with players and 3) personally I feel that it disincentivizes going for kibble if "all you get out of it" are bonus levels.

[LouSpowells]

9 hours ago, Dracul said:

and end up taking anywhere from 6-14hrs in the process, and if you had taken the time to read all of my post you would have noticed I was saying instead of time being the punishment for low quality material taming it would be harsher level loss instead, ciabattroll.

Add me to the list of people who read all of your posts. I noticed exactly what you were saying. You're saying you want it to be easier but you don't want to put in the work. You stated that you're willing to lose effectiveness and levels instead of time. Frankly, that's why lower-level dinos exist. If you want a fast tame without having to work for it, then tame a lower level dino.

The alternative is to do what everyone else does and build a garden (you can fit it in a 2x2) and a Preserving bin for jerky. Spend 30 minutes doing that, pickup every egg you see, and then you don't have to worry about kibble anymore. If you plan on taming a mosa, start a collection of Quetz eggs, and when you find a mosa cook this stuff up. That is how everyone else does it when they don't want to spend 10 hours taming a high level.

Eventually there will be a kibble rework that may make things easier or harder and things will change, but I highly recommend you stop with the complaining about taming times until you've actually put in the work to reduce taming times.

[Ep1cM0nk3y]

If you tame for stats before levels and you are knocking out many many tames to get the best,  those extra 3 levels rarely matter.. 2x is actually better for mass taming those egg layers that you don't have kibble for,  or honey/mutton tames that you might need for utility..

[Dracul]

2 hours ago, LouSpowells said:

Add me to the list of people who read all of your posts. I noticed exactly what you were saying. You're saying you want it to be easier but you don't want to put in the work. You stated that you're willing to lose effectiveness and levels instead of time. Frankly, that's why lower-level dinos exist. If you want a fast tame without having to work for it, then tame a lower level dino.

Contradictions aside, no im not saying easier if I wanted easier I would just play on a cranked up unofficial server what I am saying is the hard-tame process is just flat out asanine anyone that thinks time sinks are a way to add a element of challenge to a game are just flat out fundamentally using the wrong thought process. Also a higher tame would still require more tranqs to down and the idea I included of increased torpor drop speed would inherently create a need to choose between low level or a high level hardtame. I'll get back to you on this if need be but, this is all just theoreticall and like most ideas wont see the light of day outside of this thread, I need to go pick up my wife so have to cut this short.

[Guest chancho33015]

Is because that is the only way to have people play on 2x if you are hardcore ark player or a noob. Speed 2x is only a help to those who don't have kibble at the beginning. As a noob you can tame on 2x as kibble or very close to same effectiveness... except for berry eaters. But all carnivorous animals on 2x are pretty much a free grab.
Is more of a strategy to get people to play. Also, if you use kibble you get those extra levels cause you are a guaranteed 99% at least. On regular time even kibble is not higher than 97%...unless you got really lucky.