Another Message to Studio Wildcard

[prodigy1202]

Dear, Studio Wildcard,

It’s me again. And for those of you saying “oh no not this guy again.” Don’t worry. This won’t be anything like my last message to SWC. I was, you could say, inspired to write this because I was reading my old message and frankly, in my frustration, I don’t think I managed to get my point across at all and much of the comments in the post ended up just being pointless SWC-bashing comments. So I’m here to try again.

This time I’m not going to address the Arkaeology event in particular as I know that there are plenty of people who are thrilled to have dino skins and Tek animals. Instead I’m going to talk about your general problem solving. I will full-heartedly admit that I am making multiple assumptions in this post based on things that seem to me to be unusual. 

As a disclaimer I’ll also say this: I don’t understand your own situation as well as you do. I realize that much of your decision making may be heavily influenced by Snail Games, but despite this I hope you from now on are making the best decisions you can based on what your consumers want.

So the basic gist of what I wanna say is that it seems to me that a lot of your problems will go away if you were to just make one change in how you solve problems. First let’s look at how you solve problems:

Problem: Announced a full paid DLC for an Early Access game and many in the community are furious.

Your solution: Double down on the Mostly-finished DLC, and try to explain away doubts by saying “we had an entirely separate division of the company working on it.”

Problem: Officially released the game, doubling the price, with the game still having many of the same bugs and issues as day one, still didn’t have all of the content planned implemented into the game, and conveniently, nearly simultaneously released a trailer for a new paid DLC, which you were once again working on while this game was in Ea.

Solution: Pretend like nothing’s wrong and double down.

Problem: You made a 18 day countdown to an event that ended up setting people’s expectations WAY too high, and now once again people are livid.

Solution: Divert as much attention as possible by putting up a countdown to Extinction DLC and at the end of it releasing a trailer and announcing a multi-month event leading up to the release of the DLC.

So, basically the pattern that I see from these events is that after NONE of them did you guys actually bother to put out a statement acknowledging the angry fans. (I realize that totally content fans were also in the mix, but many were angry during all of these examples.) The fact of the matter is the reason that angry fans are as they are is because they feel unheard. In the statement you put out it wouldn’t even need to acknowledge what you did as a mistake if you didn’t want to. It’d purely be an acknowledgement of these people’s voices. A good idea would be to explain the reasoning behind the decision instead of giving a purely corporate, disingenuous response. In pretty much all of these cases you can’t exactly take back what you’ve done, but you can at least learn from them. The reason people get mad every time you make a mistake is because you seem to do something to just subvert it or to pretend like nothing ever happened instead of taking the brunt of the resulting poopstorm, which in turn turns the poopstorm into a poophurricane. Anyway I think I’ve made my point here, but now that I’ve gotten the serious stuff out of the way I’ve got some other stuff to say:

Wildcard, thank you. Thank you for providing us a game that combines Sci-fi (my favorite genre) with prehistoric fauna and megafauna (the best kind of fauna.) I was just spending my time yesterday raising a baby Rex named Princess, and I thought to myself: Ya know? I know it’s had some unfortunate problems in its development cycle, but I’m really glad this game exists. Ark is pretty much my favorite game of all time. Before it there were really no high quality dinosaur games out there. So for every little suggestion or statement out of frustration that I make: know that it’s all because I wanna see this game continue to grow and expand and I want as many people as possible to understand why I think so highly of it.

Thanks again,

Prodigy

[invincibleqc]

1 hour ago, prodigy1202 said:

Problem: Announced a full paid DLC for an Early Access game and many in the community are furious.

Your solution: Double down on the Mostly-finished DLC, and try to explain away doubts by saying “we had an entirely separate division of the company working on it.”

I'm not sure where you saw an official statement saying the reason behind the release was that they had a different division of the company, but from what I remember, they stated it was a necessity in order to develop their technologies for future expansions, cross-ark transfers system, etc. which make total sense if you ask me and making it free would have been a stupid move as a business standpoint. I enjoyed SE a lot, and it was well worth the $20 at the time.

58 minutes ago, prodigy1202 said:

Problem: Officially released the game, doubling the price, with the game still having many of the same bugs and issues as day one, still didn’t have all of the content planned implemented into the game, and conveniently, nearly simultaneously released a trailer for a new paid DLC, which you were once again working on while this game was in Ea.

Solution: Pretend like nothing’s wrong and double down.

They already stated why, and that multiple times. For release, they had to make sure they had price parity across all platforms in order to work with retailers. I'm not entirely sure why you say the game "didn't have all of the content planned" because they originally advertised there would be a total of approximately 70 creatures, and they ended up adding like twice as more and even extending their original release date goal in order to add more content they planned to. That being said, they did cut out some content they discussed about (bridges, etc), most likely for technical reasons or changes in their vision of the game. To be honest, I personally think the game is well worth the current price. I bought some games for the same price or even more that I only played few hours and there was no more content or replay value while ARK is a game that you can play thousands of hours and still discover or learn new things every sessions.

1 hour ago, prodigy1202 said:

Problem: You made a 18 day countdown to an event that ended up setting people’s expectations WAY too high, and now once again people are livid.

Solution: Divert as much attention as possible by putting up a countdown to Extinction DLC and at the end of it releasing a trailer and announcing a multi-month event leading up to the release of the DLC.

I don't really see the issue here. Nowhere they promised the first countdown was for Extinction. Your disappointment has been the result of your assumptions and you can't really blame them for that or even ask them to acknowledge their "mistake" when it clearly wasn't.

Anyways, I'm not trying to take a side or another. I'm mainly just pointing out that your arguments seems to be driven by the same hate wagon that only take their own perceptions/expectations into consideration without considering the facts or reality that Wildcard is a business and they have to make money somehow if only to run their official clusters, pay the bounties, the community crunch prizes, etc. And that they surely care even more than all of us about their game; after all this is their work and they have been working hard on it for the past years.

[GabrielUFO]

I paid this DLC, wasn't FREE, in end i received most bugged MAP ever in ARK WORLD ! I seen after 6 months your team is not serious. They dont wont fixing BUGS but continue forcing new content like extintion and other dinos like TEK STEGO. You treat us like idiots. PLS have u some respect and delite buged resorce from map, because i lose my face front of my friends when i started building base on PVP server small tribe on 75% buged resorce. DELITED IT FROM MAP IF U CANT FIX IT AFTER 6 MONTS OF ABERATION. WHERE IS PROBLEM DO IT ?

[prodigy1202]

3 hours ago, invincibleqc said:

I'm not sure where you saw an official statement saying the reason behind the release was that they had a different division of the company, but from what I remember, they stated it was a necessity in order to develop their technologies for future expansions, cross-ark transfers system, etc. which make total sense if you ask me and making it free would have been a stupid move as a business standpoint. I enjoyed SE a lot, and it was well worth the $20 at the time.

They already stated why, and that multiple times. For release, they had to make sure they had price parity across all platforms in order to work with retailers. I'm not entirely sure why you say the game "didn't have all of the content planned" because they originally advertised there would be a total of approximately 70 creatures, and they ended up adding like twice as more and even extending their original release date goal in order to add more content they planned to. That being said, they did cut out some content they discussed about (bridges, etc), most likely for technical reasons or changes in their vision of the game. To be honest, I personally think the game is well worth the current price. I bought some games for the same price or even more that I only played few hours and there was no more content or replay value while ARK is a game that you can play thousands of hours and still discover or learn new things every sessions.

I don't really see the issue here. Nowhere they promised the first countdown was for Extinction. Your disappointment has been the result of your assumptions and you can't really blame them for that or even ask them to acknowledge their "mistake" when it clearly wasn't.

Anyways, I'm not trying to take a side or another. I'm mainly just pointing out that your arguments seems to be driven by the same hate wagon that only take their own perceptions/expectations into consideration without considering the facts or reality that Wildcard is a business and they have to make money somehow if only to run their official clusters, pay the bounties, the community crunch prizes, etc. And that they surely care even more than all of us about their game; after all this is their work and they have been working hard on it for the past years.

Oh I don’t think SE should have been free at all: I just think it could have waited until release. I also don’t see a problem with developing their technologies for future expansions except at the time the game was still dreadfully optimized and they could have instead spent the resources fixing bugs OR adding content to the base game, both of which would be options that would push the base game further towards completion. And I’m not saying I don’t like SE: frankly I haven’t bought any of the expansions yet, but SE looks cool.

As for my second point: when I’m talking about not having all of the content planned I’m referring more to the fact that the official release was really out of nowhere. I’d pay 60 dollars for Ark as well, hell I’d pay 120 dollars (and eventually will for the DLC’s. My point was that the price crank was not handled well, and that the entire thing seemed to be for the sake of being able to release Aberration without having the same backlash as Scorched Earth. I guess you could say in that regard that they learned from their mistakes, but they didn’t really learn the lesson the consumers wanted them to.

And regarding the countdown: I’ve had this debate with people before. If it were just me then it’d be one thing, but it seems like over half of the fan base was disappointed that no new dinos were coming to Ark and instead just the skins. And it was a fairly reasonable assumption on the fans’ parts. The thing is with PR: it’s not the consumer’s fault for misinterpreting your message. It’s the PR team’s fault for sending a misleading message. That’s how PR works with businesses.

I’m not gonna dent that WC has been working hard. I realize that. All the more reason that they should learn from mistakes to make their lives easier. What I will say is that your “they need to make money somehow” argument really is hardly valid at this point. Ark has sold 20 million copies and DLC money on top of that. Also while I’m responding to this I fail to see how that’s relevant to anything I argued. I wasn’t against the price hike I was against how they handled it. I wasn’t against Scorched Earth I’m against how they handled it. I’ll gladly throw my money at SWC I’d it means more content and bug fixes.

One last thing: at this point I’m not so much criticizing them as I am giving a simple suggestion. All of the ways that they handled these situations had a common thread and I’m trying to point it out to help WC deal with difficult situations in the future.

[ChargingParacerParacer]

Wildcard/Snail Games/The fanboys simply don't care who they piss off or how much. The only thing that matters to them is profit and since luckily for them most people don't get pissed enough to stop supporting them they are going to keep right on repeating the same  crappy behaviors. Why stop when they keep getting away with it.

[ToXiN]

On 7/21/2018 at 6:12 PM, invincibleqc said:

I don't really see the issue here. Nowhere they promised the first countdown was for Extinction. Your disappointment has been the result of your assumptions and you can't really blame them for that or even ask them to acknowledge their "mistake" when it clearly wasn't.

Because no game devs would be dumb enough to make a 14 day hype countdown for 3 skins.

[stargatedalek]

SE was slated for after the games release, but release was delayed by an entire year so they gave us SE early instead of sitting on it.

[RipRavage]

On 7/21/2018 at 12:12 PM, invincibleqc said:

And that they surely care even more than all of us about their game; after all this is their work and they have been working hard on it for the past years.

Come on buddy, let’s not sugar coat this, they put very minimal work into ARK and only bust butt after they delay an expansion they already sold to everybody for several months.  If they actually put hard work into their own game there wouldn’t be persistent bugs that have been present since early access still in the game. Nobody has a problem with them trying to make money, everybody has a problem with them ignoring bugs that get reported and instead focusing on selling DLC with release dates outside of their ability to deliver.  Maybe people would give WC a break if they proved to be reliable, but the delays and persistent bugs don’t indicate any reliability or “hard work”.

[prodigy1202]

8 hours ago, RipRavage said:

Come on buddy, let’s not sugar coat this, they put very minimal work into ARK and only bust butt after they delay an expansion they already sold to everybody for several months.  If they actually put hard work into their own game there wouldn’t be persistent bugs that have been present since early access still in the game. Nobody has a problem with them trying to make money, everybody has a problem with them ignoring bugs that get reported and instead focusing on selling DLC with release dates outside of their ability to deliver.  Maybe people would give WC a break if they proved to be reliable, but the delays and persistent bugs don’t indicate any reliability or “hard work”.

While I see what you’re saying with regards to the bugs: saying that they put the minimum amount of work possible into ark isnjust not true. They initially planned to have 70 creatures in the game plus DLC. They now have doubled that. The TLC passes would not qualify as the minimum amount of work, and before you say it’s because Aberration was delayed for months, the TLC passes were announced to happen long before Aberration was.

 

21 hours ago, ChargingParacerParacer said:

Wildcard/Snail Games/The fanboys simply don't care who they piss off or how much. The only thing that matters to them is profit and since luckily for them most people don't get pissed enough to stop supporting them they are going to keep right on repeating the same  crappy behaviors. Why stop when they keep getting away with it.

And I suppose that includes you since you’re still here populating their forums? Also a common mistake that people make with SWC is referring to them as a single entity. I think SWC’s problem is that one or a few of their higher-ups (perhaps snail games or perhaps one of the higher-ups of SWC) don’t really know the gaming industry or the players in it very well, and attempt to run the company like they would any corporate market, which as EA has so elegantly shown, works about as well as driving a car with no tires. However despite those individuals that treat ark like a cash cow I do think there are many people in SWC for whom Ark is a passion project. They’ve done too many unnecessarily consumer-friendly things for there not to be.

[ToXiN]

7 minutes ago, prodigy1202 said:

While I see what you’re saying with regards to the bugs: saying that they put the minimum amount of work possible into ark isnjust not true. They initially planned to have 70 creatures in the game plus DLC. They now have doubled that. The TLC passes would not qualify as the minimum amount of work, and before you say it’s because Aberration was delayed for months, the TLC passes were announced to happen long before Aberration was.

So they doubled the original 70 creatures. And how many of them exactly serves a purpose?
Weird you came up with the creatures because many of them still need a TLC, this showing, they didn't put much effort in the creatures of ARK.
Same with items. There are many items in the game that are totally useless and dumb, and there are countless awesome item ideas around that are ignored by the devs.

[ChargingParacerParacer]

32 minutes ago, prodigy1202 said:

While I see what you’re saying with regards to the bugs: saying that they put the minimum amount of work possible into ark isnjust not true. They initially planned to have 70 creatures in the game plus DLC. They now have doubled that. The TLC passes would not qualify as the minimum amount of work, and before you say it’s because Aberration was delayed for months, the TLC passes were announced to happen long before Aberration was.

 

And I suppose that includes you since you’re still here populating their forums? Also a common mistake that people make with SWC is referring to them as a single entity. I think SWC’s problem is that one or a few of their higher-ups (perhaps snail games or perhaps one of the higher-ups of SWC) don’t really know the gaming industry or the players in it very well, and attempt to run the company like they would any corporate market, which as EA has so elegantly shown, works about as well as driving a car with no tires. However despite those individuals that treat ark like a cash cow I do think there are many people in SWC for whom Ark is a passion project. They’ve done too many unnecessarily consumer-friendly things for there not to be.

? As for the first line why is it some people have it in their heads that just because a person posts on a forum that also means they are still buying things? ? i haven't bought anything since the main game and still won't since they lack the intelligence to make the flyer nerf optional on unofficials.

As to the rest of your post I really don't care who's at fault for the bad decisions when someone does something I don't like I tell them. When they refuse to fix the bad decision and pile even more bad decisions on I gladly point out they are being bad at their jobs. 

[RageQuitter]

The 3 points a laughable to be honest and sum up internet mob mentality, gotta be outraged by everything ?

Paid DLC in early access, no biggy to me, would've been if they'd cut and run but I'm a trusting kind of guy, all I can remember from after buying the base game was updates, and more updates, I struggled to run the game at first and didn't play much for the first few months after release but every time Steam started up there seemed to be an update which left me pretty confident they weren't going to give up on it so had no problem shelling out for Scorched Earth before the game was fully released, did pick it up in a sale though ?

The price rise before full release got a lot of bad press, no idea why really? it was announced in advance it would be going up so anybody sat on the fence could either take a gamble on the cheaper price or wait a few weeks and pay top whack, prior to that the game and DLC and both been on sale a few times and have since, they didn't hide anything, yeah they have trouble hitting deadlines but so what, as for the bugs and state of the game on release I'll say a bit more about that later, I bought Elite Dangerous in beta, when that game was fully released* (*same as Ark, not complete and is still in development despite being released over 2 and a half years ago) it was cheaper than what I'd paid and considerably cheaper than it was in alpha, I got a small discount on the Horizons DLC but it still worked out more than what new players were paying, didn't bother me but can imagine the fume if WC had done something similar with Ark, the torches and pitchforks were coming out either way cos you gotta be outraged ?

The countdown thing, ?never have I seen part of a community lose their heads over so little, they didn't have to do anything but it's a little something for those who are interested, if not no big deal, deffo not worth a 2nd thought never mind losing your head over.

I think I've spent about £40 on the PC version + DLC then PS4 set me back about £23 for base + SE plus whatever the discounted pass was, so £75-80 for a game that has given me over 4500 hours on PC and god knows how long on PS4 I've got no complaints, if it was that bad it would be sat in my Steam & PSN libraries not getting a look in along with the other 150-200+ games, yeah it's got it's problems like the countless bugs, I've not had any major game breaking ones on PC for over over a year and not seen that many issues on PS4, the only ones that really annoy me are the reloading bug and not always being able to place items after standing on a ladder bug, nothing game breaking though, the biggest issue for me is the way they've handled servers, all the duping that went on, to wipe or not to wipe then forcing people into migrating or starting fresh anyway, allowing large tribe to dump tames on server taking them up to cap without intending to actually play on them etc, there's a few issues to kick a fuss up over but paid DLC, a full retail price rise & a countdown for a few skins aren't them.

I'd say WC have done a good job, considering how the games industry has gone they've been brave to take on something new and ambitious and should be applauded for it, it's been a long and still ongoing process which isn't cheap to do so they've had to try and keep the money coming in, just the servers alone will have cost a small fortune to keep running, I think it would be unfair for anybody to accuse them of making a cash grab as they could've easily given up or gone down the pay to win route, I'm not their biggest fan, would've happily seen them hand the code over to another developer to finish the game 18 months ago, but respect the work they've done since then, there's bound to be hardware & engine limitations (consoles are a big problem to me but they'd be mad to ignore that market) but I can live with that as I (mostly) enjoy the game and always come back for more even after a good rage quit, hopefully they can get Extinction released and any game breaking stuff fixed then dump this iteration and start work on Ark 2 with a better engine and the knowledge they've hopefully picked up over the past few years.

[prodigy1202]

3 hours ago, ToXiN said:

So they doubled the original 70 creatures. And how many of them exactly serves a purpose?
Weird you came up with the creatures because many of them still need a TLC, this showing, they didn't put much effort in the creatures of ARK.
Same with items. There are many items in the game that are totally useless and dumb, and there are countless awesome item ideas around that are ignored by the devs.

Seems to me that tons of creatures have unique uses. The amount of creatures that are truly useless is a very small minority. What items in the game are really useless? I don’t know if I could name three items in Ark that I haven’t seen used at some point. Can you?

 

2 hours ago, ChargingParacerParacer said:

? As for the first line why is it some people have it in their heads that just because a person posts on a forum that also means they are still buying things? ? i haven't bought anything since the main game and still won't since they lack the intelligence to make the flyer nerf optional on unofficials.

As to the rest of your post I really don't care who's at fault for the bad decisions when someone does something I don't like I tell them. When they refuse to fix the bad decision and pile even more bad decisions on I gladly point out they are being bad at their jobs. 

I didn’t say you were buying anything. Being on this forum is still a form of support for SWC no matter what you’re saying to them. That’s really just how the internet works. The more attention something receives, good or bad, the more attention it will continue to get. If you really wanted to hurt business for SWC, if that is your goal, the most effective way to do so would be to ignore Ark altogether. Don’t go on the wiki, the forums, Facebook page, and obviously don’t play the game.

59 minutes ago, RageQuitter said:

The 3 points a laughable to be honest and sum up internet mob mentality, gotta be outraged by everything ?

Paid DLC in early access, no biggy to me, would've been if they'd cut and run but I'm a trusting kind of guy, all I can remember from after buying the base game was updates, and more updates, I struggled to run the game at first and didn't play much for the first few months after release but every time Steam started up there seemed to be an update which left me pretty confident they weren't going to give up on it so had no problem shelling out for Scorched Earth before the game was fully released, did pick it up in a sale though ?

The price rise before full release got a lot of bad press, no idea why really? it was announced in advance it would be going up so anybody sat on the fence could either take a gamble on the cheaper price or wait a few weeks and pay top whack, prior to that the game and DLC and both been on sale a few times and have since, they didn't hide anything, yeah they have trouble hitting deadlines but so what, as for the bugs and state of the game on release I'll say a bit more about that later, I bought Elite Dangerous in beta, when that game was fully released* (*same as Ark, not complete and is still in development despite being released over 2 and a half years ago) it was cheaper than what I'd paid and considerably cheaper than it was in alpha, I got a small discount on the Horizons DLC but it still worked out more than what new players were paying, didn't bother me but can imagine the fume if WC had done something similar with Ark, the torches and pitchforks were coming out either way cos you gotta be outraged ?

The countdown thing, ?never have I seen part of a community lose their heads over so little, they didn't have to do anything but it's a little something for those who are interested, if not no big deal, deffo not worth a 2nd thought never mind losing your head over.

I think I've spent about £40 on the PC version + DLC then PS4 set me back about £23 for base + SE plus whatever the discounted pass was, so £75-80 for a game that has given me over 4500 hours on PC and god knows how long on PS4 I've got no complaints, if it was that bad it would be sat in my Steam & PSN libraries not getting a look in along with the other 150-200+ games, yeah it's got it's problems like the countless bugs, I've not had any major game breaking ones on PC for over over a year and not seen that many issues on PS4, the only ones that really annoy me are the reloading bug and not always being able to place items after standing on a ladder bug, nothing game breaking though, the biggest issue for me is the way they've handled servers, all the duping that went on, to wipe or not to wipe then forcing people into migrating or starting fresh anyway, allowing large tribe to dump tames on server taking them up to cap without intending to actually play on them etc, there's a few issues to kick a fuss up over but paid DLC, a full retail price rise & a countdown for a few skins aren't them.

I'd say WC have done a good job, considering how the games industry has gone they've been brave to take on something new and ambitious and should be applauded for it, it's been a long and still ongoing process which isn't cheap to do so they've had to try and keep the money coming in, just the servers alone will have cost a small fortune to keep running, I think it would be unfair for anybody to accuse them of making a cash grab as they could've easily given up or gone down the pay to win route, I'm not their biggest fan, would've happily seen them hand the code over to another developer to finish the game 18 months ago, but respect the work they've done since then, there's bound to be hardware & engine limitations (consoles are a big problem to me but they'd be mad to ignore that market) but I can live with that as I (mostly) enjoy the game and always come back for more even after a good rage quit, hopefully they can get Extinction released and any game breaking stuff fixed then dump this iteration and start work on Ark 2 with a better engine and the knowledge they've hopefully picked up over the past few years.

Okay the thing with this is, I dunno whether you’re actually arguing something against my post or are just stating your opinion so I’m just gonna respond as if you’re arguing something:

 Did you not read the whole thing before responding? If not I encourage you to read the last paragraph. It’s  where I thank SWC for all their hard work on a game that I LOVE TO PLAY. I’m not some mindless SWC hater. I want to see them and their game perform better.

Also you’re making the mistake of saying that the three issues I brought up are non-issues because they didn’t bother you. That’s fine and dandy and all, but the thing is LOTS of people would disagree with you! I’m not even saying that I would. The fact of the matter is that a large percentage of the playerbase got pissed and BY DEFINITION these were issues that Wildcard had to handle.

You mentioned the price shift with Elite Dangerous, but you don’t take the comparison far enough actually. Tell me what’s the difference between Elite Dangerous’ fan base and Ark’s? It’s pretty simple. They’re the playerbases of two different games by two different companies. Whether you agree with this or not, it is a fact that it is the company’s job to build up a working relationship with its consumer base. Clearly the developers of Elite Dangerous did a decent job of this, while SWC has at least thus far, not done as well. I’d actually even take it a step further and say that this is because for the two years that Ark sat in Early Access, players were reporting bugs left and right, not all of them game-breaking, and instead of hearing back from their developers or seeing the bugs fixed they were answered with more content that in some cases exacerbated already bad issues in the game. This is why SWC has so many haters in the first place. These are people who never felt heard by the company so they started screaming.

[RipRavage]

Just for consistencies sake, how many of those 70 creatures are variants of already existing creatures.  Not to mention no new Dinosaurs have been released since early access that aren’t part of a paid dlc(and none of the dlc creatures are actually dinosaurs either).  They only put work in for DLC, both TLCs were botched on release.  They screwed up Rex color region 3 with TLC 1 and released TLC 2 with the argentavus crafting not working.  This shows how little effort and testing they actually put into their game.  Rex color region 3 is still broken on all my pre patch born rexes.

[prodigy1202]

1 minute ago, RipRavage said:

Just for consistencies sake, how many of those 70 creatures are variants of already existing creatures.  Not to mention no new Dinosaurs have been released since early access that aren’t part of a paid dlc(and none of the dlc creatures are actually dinosaurs either).  They only put work in for DLC, both TLCs were botched on release.  They screwed up Rex color region 3 with TLC 1 and released TLC 2 with the argentavus crafting not working.  This shows how little effort and testing they actually put into their game.  Rex color region 3 is still broken on all my pre patch born rexes.

Um...none? I can’t tell if you’re using the Ark definition of “variant” but variants aren’t taken into account when counting creatures. And by the regular definition of variant I’d still say no creatures are similar enough to be called a “variant” of a different creature besides the actual variants.

Also I wouldn’t call a faulty color region and a faulty crafting bug “botched.” The TLC still fixes far more than it broke. It’s not even comparable. and once again: they could have just not done the TLC passes at all. THAT would have been minimal effort.

[RipRavage]

9 minutes ago, prodigy1202 said:

Um...none? I can’t tell if you’re using the Ark definition of “variant” but variants aren’t taken into account when counting creatures. And by the regular definition of variant I’d still say no creatures are similar enough to be called a “variant” of a different creature besides the actual variants.

Also I wouldn’t call a faulty color region and a faulty crafting bug “botched.” The TLC still fixes far more than it broke. It’s not even comparable. and once again: they could have just not done the TLC passes at all. THAT would have been minimal effort.

Had they done even the minimalist of testing those wouldn’t have been an issue.  Their own promo pics for the TLC showed the rex with the busted color region.  How do you release a redo of the argentavis where the whole focus is it’s crafting ability and release it without that working.  Every creature we have gotten since full release has been part of paid DLC, so explain to me how the game, which is riddled with bugs that have been around since pre release has had hard work put into it.  Like I said before they only put work in to make money with DLC.  The TLC passes didn’t fix issues like dinosaurs falling through the map, beacons morphing into rocks, or any of the other numerous glitches that still plague the game.  They just updated the models and made minor function changes on a small fraction of dinos.  Oh my they  gave us 3 wonderful skins and didn’t even bother to adjust the saddle for the brachiosaurus, so it’s body clips through the saddle.  It’s either extreme laziness, or extreme incompetence, you pick.

[prodigy1202]

I see what you’re saying. I do, but despite all of that my point still stands that they could have just NOT done the TLC passes at all and they still would have made absolute bank off of this game (because they already had) and they would have been able to move right along to making the Extinction DLC.

You’re argument that they only put hard work into paid DLC also falls apart when you look at the amount of bugs and glitches present at the release of every DLC. By your own definition, hard work is visible through a lack of bugs and glitches. Seems to me by that definition they just don’t work hard ever. 

Also im not sure whether you’ve ever developed a game or not, but bug fixing in itself is a royal pain in the ass. Where bugs were fixed hard work was done, and whether you’ll admit it or not, A LOT of bugs have been fixed, and by that definition a lot of hard work has been done.

You act like what they did with the TLC pas was some kind of easy little do-it-during-my-lunch-break kind of thing. It’s not. Making or editing models? Hard work. Coding in major changes in the workings of a dino (not what I’d consider “minor functional changes)? Hard work. Redoing animations? Hard work. And yes it was for a small fraction of dinos. What? Did you expect them to overhaul fifty dinos in two updates? That’s not how game development works.

Lastly: many of the glitches you bring up have been fixed. Are you really going to be pissed at SWC because on the initial release of a content update there were obvious glitches that have as of now been fixed and we’re fixed pretty quickly?

I could pick apart more of what you said that is straight up illogical, but instead I’ll leave it at this. By definition game development is hard work. Whether you are adding content or fixing bugs you are slaving away over a keyboard. A lack of hard work is not SWC’s problem. Communication is.

[ChargingParacerParacer]

It seems to me the real purpose to this thread seems to be 'no one except me is allowed to complaim'

[prodigy1202]

20 minutes ago, ChargingParacerParacer said:

It seems to me the real purpose to this thread seems to be 'no one except me is allowed to complaim'

It’s a shame that you think so. If you look through my post again and then through the replies you will find two things: 1. That I agree with just about every point regarding bugs: they need to be fixed and the way that WildCard handled early access was unacceptable. And 2. I haven’t complained at all actually. I’ve offered constructive criticism and people  like you have made the incredibly productive points of “work harder” and “WildCard Is sausage.”

[ToXiN]

1 hour ago, prodigy1202 said:

Seems to me that tons of creatures have unique uses. The amount of creatures that are truly useless is a very small minority. What items in the game are really useless? I don’t know if I could name three items in Ark that I haven’t seen used at some point. Can you?

Okay, let's start. We will count Official PvP servers as deafult because the devs do the same.
I will need a counter-argument to each creature/item I listed, since you are convinced there are (barely) no useless creatures/items.

Creatures:

Allosaurus
Araneo
Archaeopteryx
Baryonyx
Carbonemys
Carnotaurus
Chalicotherium
Compy
Dimetrodon
Diplodocus
Gigantopithecus
Hyaenodon
Ichthyornis
Kairuku
Megalania
Onyc
Pachy
Pachyrhinosaurus
Pulmonoscorpius
Titanoboa
Troodon


Items:
(this includes many RPG items - even tho the devs turned down every suggested RPG item saying "a mod maker will surely do that, but we won't make it in the original game")

Camera
Compass
Radio
Heavy Miner's Helmet
Night Vision Goggles
Wardrums
War Map
Wooden Table
Mirror
Wooden Elevator
Boomerang
Charge Lantern
Electric Prod
Fabricated Pistol
Lance

I would also list the TEK armor set, because it's just simple terrible, and no one uses it (PvP or PvE).

 

42 minutes ago, prodigy1202 said:

Also im not sure whether you’ve ever developed a game or not, but bug fixing in itself is a royal pain in the ass. Where bugs were fixed hard work was done, and whether you’ll admit it or not, A LOT of bugs have been fixed, and by that definition a lot of hard work has been done.

Fixing bugs is not "hard work". It's called WORK.
I don't know if you are familiar with that, but most of us do that. Especially we do that if that was caused because of us. So fixing the bugs that they made; is just common sense, is it not?

[stargatedalek]

Doesn't matter if the devs pretend Official PVP is the default, it's a minority of the playerbase. Check Steam player counts at any time and compare to the official server populations.

[prodigy1202]

29 minutes ago, ToXiN said:

Okay, let's start. We will count Official PvP servers as deafult because the devs do the same.
I will need a counter-argument to each creature/item I listed, since you are convinced there are (barely) no useless creatures/items.

Creatures:

Allosaurus
Araneo
Archaeopteryx
Baryonyx
Carbonemys
Carnotaurus
Chalicotherium
Compy
Dimetrodon
Diplodocus
Gigantopithecus
Hyaenodon
Ichthyornis
Kairuku
Megalania
Onyc
Pachy
Pachyrhinosaurus
Pulmonoscorpius
Titanoboa
Troodon


Items:
(this includes many RPG items - even tho the devs turned down every suggested RPG item saying "a mod maker will surely do that, but we won't make it in the original game")

Camera
Compass
Radio
Heavy Miner's Helmet
Night Vision Goggles
Wardrums
War Map
Wooden Table
Mirror
Wooden Elevator
Boomerang
Charge Lantern
Electric Prod
Fabricated Pistol
Lance

I would also list the TEK armor set, because it's just simple terrible, and no one uses it (PvP or PvE).

 

Fixing bugs is not "hard work". It's called WORK.
I don't know if you are familiar with that, but most of us do that. Especially we do that if that was caused because of us. So fixing the bugs that they made; is just common sense, is it not?

I play PVE o wouldn’t know what’s useful in PVP so pointing out which creatures are useful to me and comparing my list to yours is pretty much moot. Your list contains 21 animals in a game that contains 140 ish not counting DLC creatures. I’d say that fits my description of a very small minority. Us even discussing this, however is pointless because in the end I agree with your point that these creatures, however small of a minority need to be rebalanced to be made useful.

I concede on the items part on the grounds that I have literally not used any of those items.

Also, yes, not sure if that inquiry was rhertorical or not, Working Man of America, but as a matter of fact, I do know hard work. I imagine that fixing not one, but perhaps hundreds of bugs in Ark would qualify as hard work. Was it initially their fault that the bugs were in the game? Sure, arguably. They made mistakes and they’re fixing them, however they were also a new company that had never developed a game before.

[AngrySaltire]

16 minutes ago, ToXiN said:

Okay, let's start. We will count Official PvP servers as deafult because the devs do the same.
I will need a counter-argument to each creature/item I listed, since you are convinced there are (barely) no useless creatures/items.

Creatures:

Allosaurus
Araneo
Archaeopteryx
Baryonyx
Carbonemys
Carnotaurus
Chalicotherium
Compy
Dimetrodon
Diplodocus
Gigantopithecus
Hyaenodon
Ichthyornis
Kairuku
Megalania
Onyc
Pachy
Pachyrhinosaurus
Pulmonoscorpius
Titanoboa
Troodon
 

Very few of those if any are completely useless. 

Without even trying just picking out a few

Baryoynx? A useless tame ? Eh ? Anything but a useless tame, probably one of the best cave runner in the game in my opinion.

Hyaenadon, great for running the hard swamp cave for me. 

Ichyornis. Love that tame, very speacalised tame but great for prime fish meat.

Gigantopithicus. Never tamed one myself because i hate them but fiber collection.

[ToXiN]

1 minute ago, prodigy1202 said:

I play PVE o wouldn’t know what’s useful in PVP so pointing out which creatures are useful to me and comparing my list to yours is pretty much moot. Your list contains 21 animals in a game that contains 140 ish not counting DLC creatures. I’d say that fits my description of a very small minority. Us even discussing this, however is pointless because in the end I agree with your point that these creatures, however small of a minority need to be rebalanced to be made useful.

I concede on the items part on the grounds that I have literally not used any of those items.

Also, yes, not sure if that inquiry was rhertorical or not, Working Man of America, but as a matter of fact, I do know hard work. Our definitions of hard work appear to Ben different. I have spent hours and sometimes days just trying to find a bug in some incredibly basic code (I’m still learning) and I imagine SWC has spent quite a bit of time doing the same. And yes, fixing bugs is just common sense.

I was listing the tamable creatures, since to any other creature we could say, they are just part of the enviroment (also variants). That said there's around ~100+ tamable creatures, and my list contained roughly 20% of the dinos. And I was generous, since I'm using like 10 dino types on PvE. There is absolutely no need to use more than any of the basic dinos (like Anky or Griffin, etc).

Currently I'm playing PvE too, but since PvE is more likely to turn into a RPG aspect later in the game, any of the dinos can be used for something (mainly decoration or bragging right). If you want we can include these dinos to a PvE list. In this case, which dino do you think is useful?

[prodigy1202]

17 minutes ago, ToXiN said:

I was listing the tamable creatures, since to any other creature we could say, they are just part of the enviroment (also variants). That said there's around ~100+ tamable creatures, and my list contained roughly 20% of the dinos. And I was generous, since I'm using like 10 dino types on PvE. There is absolutely no need to use more than any of the basic dinos (like Anky or Griffin, etc).

Currently I'm playing PvE too, but since PvE is more likely to turn into a RPG aspect later in the game, any of the dinos can be used for something (mainly decoration or bragging right). If you want we can include these dinos to a PvE list. In this case, which dino do you think is useful?

Well I suppose we should start with actual numbers:

First off looking at the wiki I can now see that SWC was taking variants into account when counting dinos. I didn’t think they were. My mistake. The actual number of vanilla creatures is 104 with 11 of those being totally untameable. At this point those 21 dinos are no longer what I’d call a small minority.

So here would be my list of dinos that are completely useless:

Megaloceros

Diplocaulus

Dodo

Dimetrodon

Kairuku

Titanoboa

Araneo

Archaeopteryx

Trike

Carno

Onyc

Compy

 These 12 dinos I would say knock it back down to the range of “small minority.” In PVE most dinos can be useful in some scenario so long as they have some kind of ability or combination of abilities that is unique to them. The dinos above have none of those things.