Dino TLC: Feedback! Suggestions?

[jcmeyer5]

My son had some reactions to the new models. 

He thinks the change to the rex's snout is too significant.  He likes the bulbous snout.  He also thinks that some of the spines/plates on the neck are getting too pointy... they should lay flatter.  He also believes the rex roar is missing the bass.  It went from great to puny, then got better, but still needs some deepness to it.  He also doesn't like the cooldown on the roar.  He is okay if it doesn't induce poop everytime... just wants to be able to roar non-stop... and while he is moving.

On the dire bear, he liked the original snubby snout.  The new fur and bristling fur on the neck he loves though.

Argy he loves the new stance/neck position, but doesn't like the enhanced vulture look.  I told him that was what Argy's looked like (best we can tell), but he said "its a game, it can vary from real life a bit."

[RexManRex]

1 hour ago, Umber0010 said:

How in high hell are they immersion breaking? immersion doen't break in any magic centered game. Imersion doesn't break in a game like TF2 or Overwatch when a medic or mercy heals you with a beam of something, so why should immersion break if a pig can heal allies? as i said, there's a thing called "suspension of disbelief" and the only thing breaking it here is you.

And while i agree that dino combat could be better, that doesn't help with the situation.

while i do admit i failed to make that distinction. i can't see you being right about "innate differences" What advantage would riding a Raptor give me over a Baryonyx? Baryonyx can swim over large bodies of water. Why would i use a Baryonyx over a spino if the bary didn't have the tail spin? .the Spino is much stronger in every way. Why would i use a Basilosaurus over a mosasaur if it didn't have it's CC immunity, insulation buff, and depth mechanics? why would i use a Pachyrhino over a trike if it didn't have it's Pheramones? may not be the most useful dino, but it can still find it's use with them.

And regarding survivorship bias, has it occurred to you that ARK has tons of issues that may have chased people away instead of "magical powers"? Terrible optimization, Bad PvP systems, poor stability, Terrible player behavior on official servers, Incredibly grindy official servers, the list goes on. but the point is claiming that most of the people who left because of dino abilities is just plain ignorant.

The baronyx is a lower tier dino  than the spino, it would be a Dino more used by smaller tribes,or they would be disposable dinos for the bigger tribes. An example would be that  I have plenty of wyverns but still use my pteranodons for scouting or as throwaways when on other servers..

Abilities for the dinos are not a problem at all, it would just be preferable if these abilities matched the animal. A megalosaurus having the ability to grab flyers such as an argent while a rex cannot makes basically no sense.

[LouSpowells]

6 hours ago, RexManRex said:

Anything magical just ruins the immersion for me like I'm sure it does for many others.

Magical things? Like infinite-lives achieved through storing of personalities and memories downloaded to and uploaded from electronic implants found in the arms of cloned humanoids? Magical things like a floating and force-field protected/sealed series of land masses and biomes orbiting a dead planet where seemingly infinite extinct animals from various eras on Earth have been cloned and then genetically modified to serve as inhabitants? 

That's all cool? Sweet. So what bothers you? Is it that these genetically modified- physically and behaviorally - animal clones don't look and act exactly like their "real world" counterparts? 

That's a you-problem duder. Your immersion is being broken by the game's own canon. The only way to fix that would be to demand that Wildcard scrap their Ark canon and instead replace it with your canon so that your immersion isn't broken when you play the game they created. Classic.

[SubtendedCrib8]

11 hours ago, Ihmislehma said:

Oh I know. I'd also love to see dino activity change according to time of day. Not full on Megalosaurus style, the sleep deprivation sucks, but more like Troodons: make day predators less active during the night, night active less active during day. And have flyers come down and roost/sleep on the ground. Or you know what would be cool? Tapejara landing sideways on a redwood tree to rest. Have pack animals actually form packs, have solitary animals avoid each other. And for all the world's sake, have certain animals aggro other things than just players and their dinos! I'm looking at you, Therizino. Oooh, and make Titanonurma spawn from anthills? And ignore you during the night because ants are mostly not night active.

Predators don't attack certain herbivores (or even other predators) in the wild, yet they attack them if they're player tamed, and I'd really like to see a change to that

[Waxa]

I like the new look of the rexes. Hope to see more.

[DromaeoSapiens]

I have a few ideas for mechanic/gameplay tlc for some creatures bouncing around in my head and was wandering if I should post them in "General Discussions" or "Game Suggestions" and where the Devs would be most likely to read it as I'm sure there's quite a few posts they have to sift through.

And if anyone is curious about which creatures specifically, my current list includes the Carnotaurus, the Megalania, the Scorpion, and the Eel or Electrophorus.

[Joebl0w13]

6 minutes ago, DromaeoSapiens said:

I have a few ideas for mechanic/gameplay tlc for some creatures bouncing around in my head and was wandering if I should post them in "General Discussions" or "Game Suggestions" and where the Devs would be most likely to read it as I'm sure there's quite a few posts they have to sift through.

And if anyone is curious about which creatures specifically, my current list includes the Carnotaurus, the Megalania, the Scorpion, and the Eel or Electrophorus.

This would be the place

[Umber0010]

4 hours ago, LouSpowells said:

Magical things? Like infinite-lives achieved through storing of personalities and memories downloaded to and uploaded from electronic implants found in the arms of cloned humanoids? Magical things like a floating and force-field protected/sealed series of land masses and biomes orbiting a dead planet where seemingly infinite extinct animals from various eras on Earth have been cloned and then genetically modified to serve as inhabitants? 

That's all cool? Sweet. So what bothers you? Is it that these genetically modified- physically and behaviorally - animal clones don't look and act exactly like their "real world" counterparts? 

That's a you-problem duder. Your immersion is being broken by the game's own canon. The only way to fix that would be to demand that Wildcard scrap their Ark canon and instead replace it with your canon so that your immersion isn't broken when you play the game they created. Classic.

you hit the nail on the head. Mind if i copy pasta that?

[pixelrobot]

just because a game takes place in a sci-fi environment doesn't mean that it should throw all realism out the window.

infinite lives serve a gameplay puprose, other arks existing in space expands the universe and allows for different environments.

having wild carnivores team up together and endlessly eat every living herbivore on the island 24 hours a day serves no gameplay purpose and is just lazy.

so no, he didnt hit anything on the head except for a lazy excuse.

 

 

[Umber0010]

1 minute ago, pixelrobot said:

just because a game takes place in a sci-fi environment doesn't mean that it should throw all realism out the window.

infinite lives serve a gameplay puprose, other arks existing in space expands the universe and allows for different environments.

having wild carnivores team up together and endlessly eat every living herbivore on the island 24 hours a day serves no gameplay purpose and is just lazy.

so no, he didnt hit anything on the head except for a lazy excuse.

 

 

it also doesn't mean that realism should be expected

[Milsurp]

11 hours ago, RexManRex said:

The baronyx is a lower tier dino  than the spino, it would be a Dino more used by smaller tribes,or they would be disposable dinos for the bigger tribes. An example would be that  I have plenty of wyverns but still use my pteranodons for scouting or as throwaways when on other servers..

Abilities for the dinos are not a problem at all, it would just be preferable if these abilities matched the animal. A megalosaurus having the ability to grab flyers such as an argent while a rex cannot makes basically no sense.

+1

Just wanted to add, we really can't judge how varied and useful different dinos would be unless they get some actual TLC, methinks. And we're not going to see that if we just handwave their current state and accept abilities literally ripped from magic-based games and pasted onto a dino survival game as compensation. The good news is quite a few realistic combat abilities have been developed one at a time for new dinos. The bad news is that the TLC patch notes don't  make mention of spreading those abilities around at all.

I think it's an issue with creating the animations for the dinos in question, and that's very bad news. WC has never been a full development shop, they've always had a partial staff and hired outside help to make things happen. What with the expansion plans for opening a new studio, it looks like the studio leadership has redirected enough resources so that only minor changes will be part of the TLC pass. These minor changes are going to be good and interesting, but they're nothing like the changes that could be made if the leadership were intent on reinvesting into the game. 

[ISurvivedTheArkForums]

Regarding Bigfoot Update;

If you are reworking the animal's animations, can you also rework the human's mounted weapon use position? If you're looking at bigfoot again (thank you animal planet <3) then I probably don't have to remind you guys that when you pull your weapon out while riding bigfoot, the player's legs are still wrapped around the neck in the same way, but the rider suddenly leans back in a fixed horizontonal spinal cord-breaking gym move, to what? Attack the sky? Please fix, so I don't have to awkwardly shoot ziplines off the back of my bigfoot so she can climb them without me needing to get off. Otherwise, I will have to awkwardly get off the poor thing to shoot anything, as I refuse to have my avatar look that damn stupid.

[RexManRex]

15 hours ago, LouSpowells said:

Magical things? Like infinite-lives achieved through storing of personalities and memories downloaded to and uploaded from electronic implants found in the arms of cloned humanoids? Magical things like a floating and force-field protected/sealed series of land masses and biomes orbiting a dead planet where seemingly infinite extinct animals from various eras on Earth have been cloned and then genetically modified to serve as inhabitants? 

That's all cool? Sweet. So what bothers you? Is it that these genetically modified- physically and behaviorally - animal clones don't look and act exactly like their "real world" counterparts? 

That's a you-problem duder. Your immersion is being broken by the game's own canon. The only way to fix that would be to demand that Wildcard scrap their Ark canon and instead replace it with your canon so that your immersion isn't broken when you play the game they created. Classic.

Erm no I'm not a fan of the majority of Sci fi aspects, what first attracted me to ark was that it had dinosaurs.  I'm sure this is the case for many other people too. Once all the tek stuff came out I accepted the direction that the game is heading towards, whatever.. I still have my dinosaurs BUT I would prefer it if they were more like their real life counterparts yes. 

[Slvr]

4 hours ago, RexManRex said:

Erm no I'm not a fan of the majority of Sci fi aspects, what first attracted me to ark was that it had dinosaurs.  I'm sure this is the case for many other people too. Once all the tek stuff came out I accepted the direction that the game is heading towards, whatever.. I still have my dinosaurs BUT I would prefer it if they were more like their real life counterparts yes. 

While I understand this, there are multiple hints as to why Wildcard does not have to adhere to this, and if you ask me, shouldn't.

1. It's very clear that this is a scifi-ish world. You have an implant in your arm literally called a "Specimen Implant," there are giant obelisks in the sky that canonically radiate energy and their forces are used as a basis for the technology you later develop in the game. Case and point, something much larger is at work here. Whether it be aliens or the works of a dream is up to the player to decide, but whatever it is, it ain't realistic.

2. The animals all have scientific names that reference what they're based on, but are not the same. For example, the spinosaurus in the game has the scientific name of Spinosaurus aquareliga. All recognized species  (that I can find plenty of proof for anyway) of spinosaurus have these scientific names: Spinosaurus maroccanus, Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis. These animals are not their real life counterparts. They are different, biologically engineered or evolved, whatever the case may be, they are different. In the game's canon, there is absolutely no reason not to believe that whatever is controlling the ARK either engineered the spino to stand on all fours, or it simply evolved that way to increase its mastery of the rivers. 

3. The different "magical" powers of the animals that people are debating about... are gameplay mechanics. They aren't something if, say, you were writing a story based in the ARK, you would talk about your lystrosaurus giving your other animals fountains of knowledge. That wouldn't make any sense. But these gameplay mechanics give a REASON for progression. There's almost always an animal for the job on Ark at any given point in time. Why else would you get a lystrosaurus if not for the xp buff, or its kibble? 

I suppose that last point can be seen as the problem for some people, and granted, I can see why: if you have a limit of 150 tames per tribe, having 50 or so animals that were gotten to just sit there and be paperweights can be annoying. As a mainly singleplayer player, I can afford to have 500 animals all to myself, half or more being "paperweights." I'm not going to dispute that my sight on the matter is horribly skewed, lol. That all said, I really like the feeling of progression in Ark, from starting with animals from the dodo bird and parasaur and ending up with beasts like the giganotosaurus, rex, etc. 

To combat this issue of magic vs. realism, though... I think some animals could be given some more realistic, prevalent abilities. Take our lystrosaurus buddy for example. All he does now is more or less get carried around or slapped in one part of your base to be a living xp farm. What if he had a more realistic use for those that don't want to use something they see as gimmicky or silly? Perhaps, since the lystro gets a max taming effectiveness using the rare flower, lystros on wander will gather rare flowers, rare mushrooms, etc from nearby plant life. Not quickly, mind you, but they still gather it. This would, if the player so chose to pet them, also offer a mobile xp boost while giving the lystro another ability that's more "realistic." 

Rex vs. Megalosaurus: perhaps all of them (them being all predators as large as rex or larger) can bite flyers out of the air, but only certain ones can hold them the longest. Megalosaurus is deadliest at night, and perhaps it can hold flyers much longer at night (when biting a mounted flyer, the debuff "Bitten" is applied; the flyer's health drains slowly and the length of the debuff depends on the dinosaur and the time of day). The rex can hold flyers, but not for long, inflicting more damage than all the other predators. Spino's stature will probably prevent it from reaching most flyers, but due to the shape of its muzzle I would say that it probably shouldn't be able to grab large flyers such as the argentavis. 

But then there are animals that I think work just the way they are. The daeodon's passive healing ability seems a bit weird, sure. But again, biologically engineered, probably controlled by aliens and/or some crazy government experiment... Not to mention I find the daeodon can handle itself just fine outside of a job as a passive healer. If you don't want to use these "immersion breaking" mechanics, then... don't. You don't have to pet the lystro. You don't have eto turn on passive healing for the daeodon. You don't have to use megalosaurus. You don't have to tame a pachyrhino. Even in singleplayer on brutal wholly unboosted settings, I tamed higher tier dinos than the pachyrhino and such at the start. You don't even have to tame these animals unless you're a perfectionist like me and want 100% taming effectiveness on everything, or like looking at all your paperweights (I've recently started going back through my singleplayer world to gather my "missing" dinos  )

But anyway. Again, I'll reiterate: I dont have much experience on servers. Feel free to tell me why everything I said matters less than the poop your characters take on servers, especially official.

[RexManRex]

44 minutes ago, Slvr said:

While I understand this, there are multiple hints as to why Wildcard does not have to adhere to this, and if you ask me, shouldn't.

1. It's very clear that this is a scifi-ish world. You have an implant in your arm literally called a "Specimen Implant," there are giant obelisks in the sky that canonically radiate energy and their forces are used as a basis for the technology you later develop in the game. Case and point, something much larger is at work here. Whether it be aliens or the works of a dream is up to the player to decide, but whatever it is, it ain't realistic.

2. The animals all have scientific names that reference what they're based on, but are not the same. For example, the spinosaurus in the game has the scientific name of Spinosaurus aquareliga. All recognized species  (that I can find plenty of proof for anyway) of spinosaurus have these scientific names: Spinosaurus maroccanus, Sigilmassasaurus brevicollis. These animals are not their real life counterparts. They are different, biologically engineered or evolved, whatever the case may be, they are different. In the game's canon, there is absolutely no reason not to believe that whatever is controlling the ARK either engineered the spino to stand on all fours, or it simply evolved that way to increase its mastery of the rivers. 

3. The different "magical" powers of the animals that people are debating about... are gameplay mechanics. They aren't something if, say, you were writing a story based in the ARK, you would talk about your lystrosaurus giving your other animals fountains of knowledge. That wouldn't make any sense. But these gameplay mechanics give a REASON for progression. There's almost always an animal for the job on Ark at any given point in time. Why else would you get a lystrosaurus if not for the xp buff, or its kibble? 

I suppose that last point can be seen as the problem for some people, and granted, I can see why: if you have a limit of 150 tames per tribe, having 50 or so animals that were gotten to just sit there and be paperweights can be annoying. As a mainly singleplayer player, I can afford to have 500 animals all to myself, half or more being "paperweights." I'm not going to dispute that my sight on the matter is horribly skewed, lol. That all said, I really like the feeling of progression in Ark, from starting with animals from the dodo bird and parasaur and ending up with beasts like the giganotosaurus, rex, etc. 

To combat this issue of magic vs. realism, though... I think some animals could be given some more realistic, prevalent abilities. Take our lystrosaurus buddy for example. All he does now is more or less get carried around or slapped in one part of your base to be a living xp farm. What if he had a more realistic use for those that don't want to use something they see as gimmicky or silly? Perhaps, since the lystro gets a max taming effectiveness using the rare flower, lystros on wander will gather rare flowers, rare mushrooms, etc from nearby plant life. Not quickly, mind you, but they still gather it. This would, if the player so chose to pet them, also offer a mobile xp boost while giving the lystro another ability that's more "realistic." 

Rex vs. Megalosaurus: perhaps all of them (them being all predators as large as rex or larger) can bite flyers out of the air, but only certain ones can hold them the longest. Megalosaurus is deadliest at night, and perhaps it can hold flyers much longer at night (when biting a mounted flyer, the debuff "Bitten" is applied; the flyer's health drains slowly and the length of the debuff depends on the dinosaur and the time of day). The rex can hold flyers, but not for long, inflicting more damage than all the other predators. Spino's stature will probably prevent it from reaching most flyers, but due to the shape of its muzzle I would say that it probably shouldn't be able to grab large flyers such as the argentavis. 

But then there are animals that I think work just the way they are. The daeodon's passive healing ability seems a bit weird, sure. But again, biologically engineered, probably controlled by aliens and/or some crazy government experiment... Not to mention I find the daeodon can handle itself just fine outside of a job as a passive healer. If you don't want to use these "immersion breaking" mechanics, then... don't. You don't have to pet the lystro. You don't have eto turn on passive healing for the daeodon. You don't have to use megalosaurus. You don't have to tame a pachyrhino. Even in singleplayer on brutal wholly unboosted settings, I tamed higher tier dinos than the pachyrhino and such at the start. You don't even have to tame these animals unless you're a perfectionist like me and want 100% taming effectiveness on everything, or like looking at all your paperweights (I've recently started going back through my singleplayer world to gather my "missing" dinos  )

But anyway. Again, I'll reiterate: I dont have much experience on servers. Feel free to tell me why everything I said matters less than the poop your characters take on servers, especially official.

That was a good post man, you are right that because they have different scientific names they don't have to be entirely accurate.. 

Just the dinosaur fan boy in me coming out I guess ? thanks for your input. 

[Chazz]

I think Allos look great but are useless as a tame, the visual appeal to them is great but the lack of stats and a the buff only applying to the alpha renders  them useless by most players. I would like to see them with a higher melee and hp stat. They don't need to be boss lvl dinos but they could be more fun. 

[HoganRyan01]

Please update the zomdodos to get the feather/fur pass?

[Topherallen07]

Water Wyvern.....

[Vaculity]

There was an "upcoming feature" for Trikes which has never saw light after the mentions a long time ago. Could that be added inside, or will it only be exclusive with Kentro?

 

3 minutes ago, Topherallen07 said:

Water Wyvern.....

We have Ice in Ragnarok.

[Umber0010]

1 minute ago, Vaculity said:

There was an "upcoming feature" for Trikes which has never saw light after the mentions a long time ago. Could that be added inside, or will it only be exclusive with Kentro?

 

We have Ice in Ragnarok.

water for center then? the center has one of the better oceans to my understanding

[Topherallen07]

Yeah ice Wyvern is nice. But one that lives under the sea, with cool looking frill,can come on land, but very fast, agile, and strong underwater would be nice to have. Along with resource golems, mushroom golems, Hydra, and Chimera. Imagine Golems that produce what you need but your not sure what they produce till tamed. Alpha tribes block resources so tame these and over time you can collect from them? Could be nice. I just hope we get actual ships soon.

[SubtendedCrib8]

47 minutes ago, Vaculity said:

There was an "upcoming feature" for Trikes which has never saw light after the mentions a long time ago. Could that be added inside, or will it only be exclusive with Kentro?

 

We have Ice in Ragnarok.

Not to mention water would be somewhat odd, as at least the other wyverns have some form of their attacks in mythology, but I don't remember there ever being a water breathing dragon/wyvern

[Vaculity]

6 hours ago, SubtendedCrib8 said:

Not to mention water would be somewhat odd, as at least the other wyverns have some form of their attacks in mythology, but I don't remember there ever being a water breathing dragon/wyvern

Eastern Dragon seems to fit the bill here (Resembling almost similar to Rock Drake, minus every other benefit, but can fly up... you can look that up in google), but they don't breathe fire, just able to maneuver in water as well as flying.

[DarkRaptor13]

I just saw the gameplay video of ARK Park VR. It would be great to add some creatures or rework some of Survival Evolved to look like creatures of the Ark Park gameply video. A bigger pachycephalo looks so much better !

Different size for insect like the scorpio too ! (small unrideable, medium like the actual model and a big alpha scorpio !) 

It would be good to have megapithecus looking like the black gorilla in the video, to get big apes not bigfoot-like ! 

And adding small toad in the swamp fauna would be great to, they look cool in this video ! 

[leondimitri]

Someone probably had already said this, but anyway: I think dimetrodons really need a visual improvement, something similiar of what you've done with the spinosaur in TLC phase 2.