New Mechanic-Follow System (Herd Mechanic) Idea for ARK2!

[DiploSapien]

Hello everyone, forgive my lack of photoshop skills but i had this system/idea come to mind for a potential new tamed dino follow or wild dino herding mechanic that the devs could maybe use in the next ARK 2 game! Essentially instead of the whistle follow all command that we have right now (which is difficult to use and not very good at actually having dinos follow you in a decent way) the game would have a follow grid pattern as portrayed below in figure one. With this you would get a new UI for dinos following you in a specific pattern on a grid. Each would be assigned to a specific spot in the formation, blue signifying your location and the pivot of the formation, orange showing slots already taken and green showing open slots for other tames top take positions. While roaming around the map this formations system would add way more emersion and less frustration to the follow mechanic. 

 

As with this format you could have dinos follow you a specific way. having some stronger creatures take the lead and cover your flank! Along side this these creatures could be dynamic, instead of opperating in their fixed location this could simply be a "return to" spot, so dinos ai will do their best to stick to this formation but should an obstacle come up such as a tree, cliff, rock, or wild dino, the tamed dino will 'reroute' around the obstacle and then return to its designated position as best it can. I think this is a much needed and easy update to the follow mechanic that essentially has your dinos acting like body guards moving with you in the direction you go instead of clunkily all following you and getting stuck on one another, additionally this could prevent some wild dinos from attacking you as you'd essentially have body guards protecting you. Imagine as well the opportunity for flying and underwater formations! How cool would that look to have a v formation of argys in the sky! Maybe depending of different dinos the follow patterns could even be different having 'V' shapes for flying and water dinos and this diamond shape above for land dinos. Perhaps you could also choose your own position in the formation as well having the other dinos revolve around a different point as shown above in figure 2. 

Finally, My last idea would be to add a 'herding' mechanic with this system in place for wild dino packs. Having creatures loosely follow each other in their formations around the map sticking to their herds, then when a threat arises the herd could reform its position and reroute following the pack leader as shown in figure 3. In that example the wild herd also has baby dinos, and are following a chosen leader, the pack notices an oncoming threat (the rex as indicated by the red markers) and thus chooses to reroute and avoid the threat while also forming a protective wall for the weaker dinos in the pack forming a sort of shield also indicated in red. This would be a pretty simple yet effective system for adding roaming herds of dinos that can be reactive to threats they come upon. 

 

 

TLDR: Add a grid follow system to put dinos in different slots to follow you around. You could change position as well changing the group pivot point.  Wild dinos could use same system to herd up, roam around, avoid threats and protect younglings. 

 

 

Let me know your guys thoughts and what you think, if a system like this could exist in ark 2 and if it'd work? What flaws could this potentially bring, would you add different formations depending on the dinos riden? Also would the group all still travel at different speeds, would they find a median 'average speed' of all the dinos in the pack and travel at that, or would the pack as a whole travel at the slowest speed of all dinos in the pack? Lots of questions but i hope something similar gets added and the devs see this post so any upvotes or shares would help! Good luck survivors!

[Mangost]

great idea but the devs will never do this*, could possibly be added as a mod in the future?

 

 

 

*probably

[RTGLoot]

It is possible ark two would include something similar to it as the Exo-Mek has a almost identical ability.

[MMaas]

Interesting idea!

Setting up a flock of argies in a decent formation (each followed by 1 or 2 with different distances) is fun for a show but takes ages as it is now!
Done it once, never again