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23 hours ago, SlipperySquid said:

Breeding will always be an issue because by design it is a mechanic to keep you logging in it adds nothing to the game, In-fact it nerfed the original gameplay if you think about it by nerfing every creature to the ground just to cater for the long term progression gameplay that is breeding.

Breeding is the daily/weekly equivalent of MMORPG's. People hate it but can not stop doing it because it helps with the long term progression goals. This means even with improvements to the system you mite as well just scrap breeding altogether because no change will have a positive affect on the game and it would just upset the majority loyal players who play because they can get advantages over others with the long play hours they have.

Totally correct that breeding has evolved into what you describe. But it doesn't have to be that way in the next game, nor does it have to be the system players rely upon for massive benefits over each other and the environment. Ark 2 has no reason to cater exclusively to loyal veteran players, just as it has no reason to only cater to people who won't dedicate time to grind, and it certainly has no reason to break its own balance with the mutation system we have now. Hopefully we agree that ark 2 is the place to develop better progression systems than the mutation system we have now.

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2 hours ago, Shifter6 said:

Totally correct that breeding has evolved into what you describe. But it doesn't have to be that way in the next game, nor does it have to be the system players rely upon for massive benefits over each other and the environment. Ark 2 has no reason to cater exclusively to loyal veteran players, just as it has no reason to only cater to people who won't dedicate time to grind, and it certainly has no reason to break its own balance with the mutation system we have now. Hopefully we agree that ark 2 is the place to develop better progression systems than the mutation system we have now.

Mutations is only part of the issue but we do agree that they can improve systems for Ark 2 or better yet for me remove systems that just did not work as intended. Breeding even if you remove mutations is still extra HP/ATK and so on due to the dino itself. 

The only feature they could add to fix this is a dino aging mechanic so they die but i feel like a mechanic like that would be a feels bad man type feeling every time a creature died. The reason aging mechanics are the only fix is that eventually people end up breeding 100-200...hell or even 1000 dino's at any given day of the week because they have so many breeders. This creates a situation where mutations simply do not matter because you could just throw extra numbers at your enemies instead of higher stat dino's thus resulting in the same problem we currently have.

There is cool things they could do to improve breeding tho i do agree with that.

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4 hours ago, SlipperySquid said:

Mutations is only part of the issue but we do agree that they can improve systems for Ark 2 or better yet for me remove systems that just did not work as intended. Breeding even if you remove mutations is still extra HP/ATK and so on due to the dino itself. 

The only feature they could add to fix this is a dino aging mechanic so they die but i feel like a mechanic like that would be a feels bad man type feeling every time a creature died. The reason aging mechanics are the only fix is that eventually people end up breeding 100-200...hell or even 1000 dino's at any given day of the week because they have so many breeders. This creates a situation where mutations simply do not matter because you could just throw extra numbers at your enemies instead of higher stat dino's thus resulting in the same problem we currently have.

There is cool things they could do to improve breeding tho i do agree with that.

There are tame limits per tribe right? However, while I agree that spamming creatures at something is bad, I don't see it too often in the big PvP raids I've watched...instead people use overbred personal tames (and breed limited spares). My biggest issue with mutation breeding (after the enormous time commitment) is that one creature can become way stronger than the rest of the environment's creatures and put wildcard in a sticky balance situation (do they make creatures near impossible without mutations or let mutation breeders make a joke of their challenging creatures?). I'm currently pondering best solutions for ark 2 but I can't think of any reason to keep the current mutation system as part of the game.

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In truth, Ark 2 breeding should be simplified, competitive breeding shouldn't be a thing at all, and mass mutating dinos beyond their initial capped values should be disallowed.  It shouldn't be who can exploit the system wins the race, it shouldn't be a race at all.  As long as the game balance supports a non exploitable breeding system, it should simply be a matter of taming, raising, breeding, and attempting to get those mutations to bring the dino to it's max potential.  I don't think anyone in Ark 1 can dispute that a 2k md Rex is ridiculous or a 1500md Giga.    Not saying there shouldn't be "any" mutations allowed, but a hard cap needs to be enforced code-wise with no way to circumvent.   Just my initial thoughts on things atm. 

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17 hours ago, Rio4201 said:

In truth, Ark 2 breeding should be simplified, competitive breeding shouldn't be a thing at all, and mass mutating dinos beyond their initial capped values should be disallowed.  It shouldn't be who can exploit the system wins the race, it shouldn't be a race at all.  As long as the game balance supports a non exploitable breeding system, it should simply be a matter of taming, raising, breeding, and attempting to get those mutations to bring the dino to it's max potential.  I don't think anyone in Ark 1 can dispute that a 2k md Rex is ridiculous or a 1500md Giga.    Not saying there shouldn't be "any" mutations allowed, but a hard cap needs to be enforced code-wise with no way to circumvent.   Just my initial thoughts on things atm. 

Agree that at minimum mutations need a cap to keep mutated things in reason compared to basic creatures...because a hard cap of 255 in a single stat is just...bad lol.

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Just my two cents here...breeding and taming both need reconstruction. a level 12 and a 150 giga should not matter when i see it in game. A giga is a frigen giga and i should be both exited and terrified by the site of one...not looking at one and saying "oh its a level 100, guess ill kill it".

Rather than levels we need to incorporate traits. A freshly tamed dino will have 20 traits and a dino that has been bred and mutated will have 20 traits. The only difference being that the bred dino can possess a specific 20 traits, based on breeding choice.

Traits can vary from common to extremely rare...just as equipment does, but these traits can have different effects. Extra hungry for instance can be a undesirable trait that increases how much a dino must eat to stay alive and can be elimated through breeding, but night hunter may be an extremely rare trait that increases melee damage at night by 25 percent which could also be passed on, but with a lower chance. Breeding will ensure that these traits may be eliminated and/or stacked into a list of 20 possible effects, but also mean that getting a dino line with 20 good traits is exponentially harder than getting a dino with 5-10 good traits, ensuring that medium tribes can hold their own against higher tier tribes.

Breeders will be rewarded because they can quickly gather 5-10 traits for specific cirumstances, but to create a super dino that possesses 20 out of 20 good traits will take considerable time and energy. Additionally 20/20 good trait dinos may be highly desired, but the rewards will be diminishing when compared to a 15/20 good trait dinos, where the last 5 traits could be very circumstantial. 

This system could also mean that two dinos that are fully bred with 20/20 good traits can vary greatly, given that there are enough traits provided in game. We already have stats that are based off of night and day, with the megalosaur (night/day) and dinos based of feed intervals (babies/ raid dinos) as my proof of a possible implementation. This is my opinion...

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5 hours ago, Logan96 said:

Just my two cents here...breeding and taming both need reconstruction. a level 12 and a 150 giga should not matter when i see it in game. A giga is a frigen giga and i should be both exited and terrified by the site of one...not looking at one and saying "oh its a level 100, guess ill kill it".

Rather than levels we need to incorporate traits. A freshly tamed dino will have 20 traits and a dino that has been bred and mutated will have 20 traits. The only difference being that the bred dino can possess a specific 20 traits, based on breeding choice.

Traits can vary from common to extremely rare...just as equipment does, but these traits can have different effects. Extra hungry for instance can be a undesirable trait that increases how much a dino must eat to stay alive and can be elimated through breeding, but night hunter may be an extremely rare trait that increases melee damage at night by 25 percent which could also be passed on, but with a lower chance. Breeding will ensure that these traits may be eliminated and/or stacked into a list of 20 possible effects, but also mean that getting a dino line with 20 good traits is exponentially harder than getting a dino with 5-10 good traits, ensuring that medium tribes can hold their own against higher tier tribes.

Breeders will be rewarded because they can quickly gather 5-10 traits for specific cirumstances, but to create a super dino that possesses 20 out of 20 good traits will take considerable time and energy. Additionally 20/20 good trait dinos may be highly desired, but the rewards will be diminishing when compared to a 15/20 good trait dinos, where the last 5 traits could be very circumstantial. 

This system could also mean that two dinos that are fully bred with 20/20 good traits can vary greatly, given that there are enough traits provided in game. We already have stats that are based off of night and day, with the megalosaur (night/day) and dinos based of feed intervals (babies/ raid dinos) as my proof of a possible implementation. This is my opinion...

I completely agree with the concept you propose here (although I may quarrel somewhat with specifics). Breeding should be about assimilating parent traits, be they stats, abilities, etc, not about stacking random boosts that require thousands of hours and then can be spam reproduced to break the game's balance. I also think that what's key here is time spent for reward granted. Time spent should be enough to discourage griefers and encourage meaningful investment but it shouldn't be so insane that it mandates thousands of hours. Reward should be enough to encourage investment but not so great it mandates a thousands of hours grind to in essence invalidate the PvE system and dumpster PvP creatures who are not on par.

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I personally think Mutations weren't implemented in a healthy way. In my eyes, I think it would be best if creatures either could only have 1 mutation but that mutation was worth like 20-30 levels into that stat, or if they fixed the system to actually cap(I think people bypass the 20 and 20 limit, though correct me if I'm wrong). A more heavy handed approach could be to not make mutations passable between generations, but make it so that multiple mutations can occur in one baby(So you can get lucky and get a Rex with 10 muts in one stat) or to just remove them altogether and buff the bonuses you get from imprinting. 

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5 hours ago, Qwertymine said:

I personally think Mutations weren't implemented in a healthy way. In my eyes, I think it would be best if creatures either could only have 1 mutation but that mutation was worth like 20-30 levels into that stat, or if they fixed the system to actually cap(I think people bypass the 20 and 20 limit, though correct me if I'm wrong). A more heavy handed approach could be to not make mutations passable between generations, but make it so that multiple mutations can occur in one baby(So you can get lucky and get a Rex with 10 muts in one stat) or to just remove them altogether and buff the bonuses you get from imprinting. 

So my understanding was that mutations were initially added as a way to generate special (not obtainable in the wild) coloring with some sneaky extra stat bonuses. Since the mutation cap was set to 20, I imagine the system was intended to work as a way to make superior but not overly broken creatures that carried bonus stats. However, clean mother breeding allows you to stack mutations such that an infinite number can be obtained, that is until artificial stat caps and level caps were introduced. A new system (imo) should reward imprinting and consolidating parent stats above mutations, meaning that mutations would act as a minimal advantage or as a method to obtain interesting colors, etc, rather than a requirement to defeat alpha bosses and genesis hunts (or to compete well in official PvP). 

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 1/26/2021 at 7:25 AM, TheDonn said:

Your numbers might be right.  Regardless of that, you are saying that ARK breeding needs an overhaul in the 11th hour of the game's development and lifespan because it takes too long to get 200 (two hundred) points in a desired stat.  Are you speaking with a sense of hyperbole to get a point across, or is that what you want out of the game of ARK?

What is necessary? 

What is "endgame?" 

What is overkill?

Who are you competing against?  Trying to get a self-tamed/bred/owned Rex line that's better than @BertNoobians' line so you can "compete" with a "superior" product, even though one is a Rex that bites hard and the other is a Rex that bites hard?

200 pt melee Rexs.  And here we all were killing all land-based Bossfights with Rexs in the 50s (birth melee) like they were a joke!  We could've been done with those bossfights 4 times faster!  All that extra time, we'd have some kind of a profit-margin of time spent, displayed along the X axe-icks.

All bad Office jokes aside, why?

11th hour!!!!

That would be assuming it is being released next month!

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