So what I mean by adopted maps is maps that were originally mods that Wildcard included into being officially supported. This currently only includes Ragnarok and The Center.
Anyone that spends a lot of time cycling creatures on different maps will quickly notice that Adopted Maps have a different level distribution. This means that particular levels don't spawn on The Center or Ragnarok and where they are in the maximum level range varies. So even though both maps are set to max level for creature is X (Official is currently level 150) you are more likely to get something higher within the range on an adopted map versus an official map. The following link actually goes into detail on these differences...
What this means is that DLC-exclusive creatures are much more difficult and time consuming to get breeding stats for than vanilla creatures on adopted maps. Its a contributing factor to Ragnarok's success over Scorched Earth, especially when it comes to getting Wyvern eggs. This affects both early game difficulty and late/end game difficulty. For Early Game players it means there will be more difficult creatures to tame or to fight on adopted maps. For End Game players, it means they will have to spend more/less time cycling an taming to get the launching point stats for their breeding line depending on the map.
Currently there is 2 ways for Unofficials to deal with this and no way for an Official player to really deal with it other than just accept it. Unofficials can override the spawn entries for all the creatures or some creatures in particular. Most commonly this is done to Official maps to make them equal in distribution to adopted maps. However this is a lot of work for owners of Unofficials and some may be wary to make such extensive modifications that aren't feasible for them to test. It would be a lot of work to try to make sure they did it right. There are some copy/paste override entries that appear every now and then with updates for owners to copy and paste. There was one recently, which I imagine was for recent changes including the addition of Hesperonis spawns on Extinction. From patch notes, it doesn't appear that spawns changes happen very often, but its a lot of work currently to adjust your server when it does happen or you have to wait for someone else to do it and share their work. The other option is to find a mod to do this and accept the risks of adding a mod to your cluster.
How to fix this? I'm not supporting one change over another, just that I would like Wildcard to see this and to consider using a few resources to resolve this. I know they have much bigger issues that most of their development resources will go to such as Meshing and balancing between PvE and PvP game modes. They could just nerf Ragnarok and The Center, but many would probably dislike this, this game is already incredibly time consuming and that would make it more so. I personally would not like that course of action, I'd rather the other maps get made equal but I'm sure there's someone else on the side of the fence that feels like Rag and Center make it too easy.
If possible, I think it would be a good idea to consider making this a customizable setting akin to a slider or a numeric value like the current difficulty setting that changes Max Creature level. This wouldn't fix it for official players, so it may have to come along with something else, like adding a new adopted map that includes Extinction and Aberration exclusive creatures to compensate.
Feel free to share what you agree/disagree with and any solutions to this issue you would like to see. I'm sure there's many out there even if a perfect fit for everyone doesn't exist. Part of what makes Ark great and attract players with so many different play styles and desires is its level of customization.
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Avekube
So what I mean by adopted maps is maps that were originally mods that Wildcard included into being officially supported. This currently only includes Ragnarok and The Center.
Anyone that spends a lot of time cycling creatures on different maps will quickly notice that Adopted Maps have a different level distribution. This means that particular levels don't spawn on The Center or Ragnarok and where they are in the maximum level range varies. So even though both maps are set to max level for creature is X (Official is currently level 150) you are more likely to get something higher within the range on an adopted map versus an official map. The following link actually goes into detail on these differences...
What this means is that DLC-exclusive creatures are much more difficult and time consuming to get breeding stats for than vanilla creatures on adopted maps. Its a contributing factor to Ragnarok's success over Scorched Earth, especially when it comes to getting Wyvern eggs. This affects both early game difficulty and late/end game difficulty. For Early Game players it means there will be more difficult creatures to tame or to fight on adopted maps. For End Game players, it means they will have to spend more/less time cycling an taming to get the launching point stats for their breeding line depending on the map.
Currently there is 2 ways for Unofficials to deal with this and no way for an Official player to really deal with it other than just accept it. Unofficials can override the spawn entries for all the creatures or some creatures in particular. Most commonly this is done to Official maps to make them equal in distribution to adopted maps. However this is a lot of work for owners of Unofficials and some may be wary to make such extensive modifications that aren't feasible for them to test. It would be a lot of work to try to make sure they did it right. There are some copy/paste override entries that appear every now and then with updates for owners to copy and paste. There was one recently, which I imagine was for recent changes including the addition of Hesperonis spawns on Extinction. From patch notes, it doesn't appear that spawns changes happen very often, but its a lot of work currently to adjust your server when it does happen or you have to wait for someone else to do it and share their work. The other option is to find a mod to do this and accept the risks of adding a mod to your cluster.
How to fix this? I'm not supporting one change over another, just that I would like Wildcard to see this and to consider using a few resources to resolve this. I know they have much bigger issues that most of their development resources will go to such as Meshing and balancing between PvE and PvP game modes. They could just nerf Ragnarok and The Center, but many would probably dislike this, this game is already incredibly time consuming and that would make it more so. I personally would not like that course of action, I'd rather the other maps get made equal but I'm sure there's someone else on the side of the fence that feels like Rag and Center make it too easy.
If possible, I think it would be a good idea to consider making this a customizable setting akin to a slider or a numeric value like the current difficulty setting that changes Max Creature level. This wouldn't fix it for official players, so it may have to come along with something else, like adding a new adopted map that includes Extinction and Aberration exclusive creatures to compensate.
Feel free to share what you agree/disagree with and any solutions to this issue you would like to see. I'm sure there's many out there even if a perfect fit for everyone doesn't exist. Part of what makes Ark great and attract players with so many different play styles and desires is its level of customization.
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