balance Request for a PROPER Managarmr nerf

[Slekee]

Request for a PROPER Managarmr nerf

Managarmrs role in the game is the same as that of a cheating software: a user has two options - use them as everyone is doing OR get your user experience ruined every time you encounter someone who uses them.

Managarmr is the most hated creature that ruins game balance and fun of playing on pvp servers. The issue has to be addressed.

In 275.4 patch a previously overpowered creature (Griffin) was properly nerfed with 50% dmg reduction and significant health reduction. Now its long time since Extinction release but Managarmrs still ruin the game by being (1) super overpowered stat-wise and (2) extremely skill-free. A managarmr must get a nerf that will bring it to the level of creatures of its category.

Rationale

Most pvp creatures in ARK have a set of advantages and shortcomings. Managarmr is directly overpowered stat-wise when compared to other creatures.

We should keep in mind that the following parameters affect how much the creatures are effective: 

- Mobility is the key to victory. Here "Mobility" is the ability of a creature to engage its target at its desire and avoid the fight back. It doesn't matter how good your stats are if you can't catch your target. That's why flying creatures are preferred in pvp. It should be noted that attack range and how hard it is to land a hit (sway, the ability to hit where you aim at).

- Speed - the amount of time required to get from point A to point B as well as the ability to chase down your target when it is fleeing away or flee when odds are not favoring you to fight.

- Toughness - the ability to tolerate riders mistakes and withstand enemy damage. NOTE: good saddles reduce damage by 60 or even 80% which means that most saddle-wearing creatures you encounter can withstand 5x more damage than their respective HP stat.

- Control - the ability to reduce enemy mobility or render him unable to use his strengths at full potential.

- Cost - how hard it is to obtain a good creature with desirable stats. Translates into "how much time it will take for a good player to obtain the desired creature with suitable stats".

- Damage - the ability to kill the target on its own.

 Let's take a look at what creatures are mostly used in PVP (mostly based on SmallTribes experience) except of mana: Ptera, Owl, Griffin, Wyvern, Rhino, Giga. 

Ptera is easy to obtain but it is squishy and it has relatively low damage. It has low mobility compared to griffin or owl. Ptera has the ability to pick off enemy riders which is a usable control ability. It deserves its place by being mass-producible and easily breedable.

Owl is mobile, agile, super tough (because of saddle) and easily producible but it lacks damage and control abilities. You will have hard times killing a player with primitive flak with an owl. The best thing you can do is to dismount and fight your foe on foot which brings fighting to the level of foot pvp.

Griffin is mobile, agile and it has high damage output but it is not really tough (a player with shotgun can kill it). In addition obtaining a good griffin is a harder task since every griffin must be tamed individually unlike Owls and pteras. Once a good breeding line of owls is established obtaining 20 good owl's is as hard as collecting raw meat. Obtaining 20 good griffins require taming them all in the wild which means that most of them will have relatively bad stats thanks to the stat distribution randomness.

Wyvern is not really mobile but it is still fast and it has high damage output. It is tougher than a griffin but not really overpowered as a player with shotgun can still kill it within a reasonable timeframe.

Rhino and Giga are only usable as cryopodded companions which can inflict significant burst damage but not really fight on their own. Inability to fight on their own as well as the inability to chase down and kill their targets saves most players from getting their user experience ruined by this creatures.

As we can see most creatures have a number of advantages and disadvantages. If something is tough then it lacks damage. If something cannot be beaten face-to-face then it can be out-controlled, out-maneuvered or simply avoided.

Unlike other creatures the Managarmr has the highest toughness (only Giga with good saddle is tougher), the highest damage output thanks to the free 5 seconds of DPS it gets when engaging foes, the highest agility and movement speed which makes it capable of chasing down everything except of very good flying creatures. A managarmr can be easily mass-producible and it has low maturation timeframe which means that managarmrs are super frequent encounter on pvp servers. Every decent player may have dozens of them in no time. Alpha tribes may have 400+lvl managarmrs with capped saddles which are completely unkillable unless you bring something that costs way more than the mana you are going to kill.

Even in case it is possible to kill a managarmr the risk of getting killed is still very high. If you make a single mistake trying to use plant Z to dismount the rider then you are insta dead. Even if you managed to dismount the rider then you are still far from winning the encounter as he can mount again after a couple of seconds and he can still be a good opponent on foot. 

The most nasty thing is that managarmrs have extremely low skill ceiling.

Managarmr vs Managarmr fight is a matter of stats but not skill. The one with better stats&saddle wins almost automatically. If you encounter two managarmrs while riding your own one without a teammate then you have almost no chances to win. There is only one thing that a mana rider should do - spam jump and breath. Not really hard, not really creative and no field for tactic or maneuvering.

A griffin vs griffin/ ptera vs ptera/ wyvern vs wyvern combat is more skill-requiring as you should understand how to dismount, how not to get dismounted, what to do if you got dismounted etc.

A strength difference between the mid-tier creatures and the strongest possible option for top-tier players must be taken into account. Prior to managarmr release the strongest creatures were wyvern, reaper, griffin. All these creatures are definitely good and you have hard times beating them 1v1 but you can still HAVE CHANCES with a low grade ptera/ grappling/ shotgun. Managarmr brought this difference between "what the strongest players can bring" and "what others can have" to the new level as the strongest possible Managarmr is orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest possible wyvern/griffin. Even if you manage to kill alpha mana then your enemy will not even be upset as he can have 5 new ones in no time.

There is no creature capable of beating managarmr 1v1 as managarmr has a combination of all possible advantages: mobility, movement speed, toughness (only beaten by Giga in that matter), damage output (also beaten by Giga), effective range, cost-efficiency.

General balancing: it is a good idea to compare each creature to what a foot player can do. It is possible to kill a wyvern on foot by shooting at it or shooting the rider. The wyvern moves predictably and it is possible to snipe the rider with long-range weapon. It is a hard task and wyvern rider has greater chances to win than a foot player but a skilled player can deal with a wyvern. It is also possible to use the grappling hook to attach yourself to a wyvern and kill it WITHIN A REASONABLE TIMEFRAME. It is also possible to kill a griffin, argy or ptera. It is possible to use terrain obstacles, water and other features to escape a giga/rhino and kill the rider. It is possible to use plant Z properly and bring the encounter to foot-vs-foot. In case of a managarmr it is not even possible to deal with it on foot. I'm not talking about 80lvl managarmrs, but I'm talking about best possible manas as these are what you encounter 95% of time. There is an extremely short time window between the moment it renders in and the moment you are in its laser-accurate insta-killing breath. 

What needs to be done in order to make managarmrs viable but not overpowered:

- Reduce or completely remove its breath damage component. The ability to freeze griffin before it will even have a chance to land a hit or the ability to have seconds of free DPS and positioning against a much-squishier yet way more expensive wyvern is overpowered on its own. Bring damage output of the breath to the level of an owl. Otherwise it remaing overpowered.

- Reduce walking and running speed. Managarmr is the fastest creature in the game thanks to its dash dive ability. All the "super-fast" creatures in the game are critically immobile while landed - griffin, ptera, argy, wyvern etc. Reduce the walking speed and sprinting speed to that of a griffin.

- Reduce breath accuracy.

 

P.S. Some could say that it is possible to kill a managarmr with Y, Z or turret raft or a pocket giga or 20 teammates grappling it with 500 weight from every direction. The fact that it is the only creature that can beat everything 1v1 hands down but it is not the most expensive creature in the game is already enough to consider a massive nerf. It is definitely possible to invent any number of ridiculous strategies that will work. The problem of balance is that its creature is the only "right answer" to the fighting preferences question.  

[Shayaan21]

So true My argies keep getting killed on official by level 26 managarmars. The argies have 10k health 47.9 armor saddles and rapid regenaration. They died in 2 seconds. 

 

 

 

Like if Helpful

[Xii]

Manas surely deserved a great nerf. They are still the only pvp mount just like it was only pteras everywhere before the flyer nerf. They have nearly the best dps in the game and nearly the best speed which is a dead end combo. Combine it with the toughness and no 3x headshot multiplier of flyers. Simply op. Simply the only pvp creature that can fight not only run

I lost a 255lvl bloodstalker on Highlands at Ragnarok today at smalltribes40 to a 420lvl mana. My bloodstalker had almost 9k HP and it was wrecked completely BEFORE the freezing effect ends. I was completely unable to do something after approached the mana breath range insta dead. Tried to dismount the rider but yeah effective range of bloodstalker webbing is so short that a mana can simply cover it in no time and once breath starts freezing the outcome of a fight is decided. Guess my bloodstalker is harder to tame and it will be harder to breed than raising this fckn mana. Spiders eat hella meat or blood which is so annoying to craft.

[NuggzieBogez]

Bruh the Mana has gotten nerfed so much its not even anything near to what it was when introduced. Its breath used to shoot past turret range. Unlimited jumping. You must be a new survivor to ark. They really dont need a nerf as theyve been nerfed to all hell already. Sounds like you just need to get good.

[iMrReMember]

MANAS NEED A NERF!!!!!!

Anybody saying manas DONT need a nerf are most likely one of the many trolls running around on level 400-500 manas killing everybody’s tames.

FOR THOSE SAYING GET GOOD. I’ve been playing ark since the start! I’ve been alpha multiple times. I’ve thrived in mega tribes. My friends and I ran a server WITH NO TAMES. I’ve played solo and owned the center. I am not new or trash

 It’s impossible to defend against a mana when you’re trying to grind to even get metal. I’ve tried over 15 servers in the last month and every single one of them I was minding my business and the second I tame ANYTHING in comes mana. Argys dead, stegos, pteras, trikes, jerboa, anklo EVERYTHING EVERY SERVER. NO CHANCE AT ALL. MANAS ARE RUINING EVERYBODIES ARK EXPERIENCE.

I honestly like the idea of manas and love jumping around on them, but with everything I’ve experienced, I don’t even think they should be in official servers at this point.

[Joebl0w13]

12 minutes ago, iMrReMember said:

MANAS NEED A NERF!!!!!!

Anybody saying manas DONT need a nerf are most likely one of the many trolls running around on level 400-500 manas killing everybody’s tames.

FOR THOSE SAYING GET GOOD. I’ve been playing ark since the start! I’ve been alpha multiple times. I’ve thrived in mega tribes. My friends and I ran a server WITH NO TAMES. I’ve played solo and owned the center. I am not new or trash

 It’s impossible to defend against a mana when you’re trying to grind to even get metal. I’ve tried over 15 servers in the last month and every single one of them I was minding my business and the second I tame ANYTHING in comes mana. Argys dead, stegos, pteras, trikes, jerboa, anklo EVERYTHING EVERY SERVER. NO CHANCE AT ALL. MANAS ARE RUINING EVERYBODIES ARK EXPERIENCE.

I honestly like the idea of manas and love jumping around on them, but with everything I’ve experienced, I don’t even think they should be in official servers at this point.

Go watch some youtube videos of people destroying manas.