Do people enjoy 3+ Hour Tames?

[LilNastyGurl]

I play on Official Servers so this is more prevalent to me, but from what I've seen on the ARK Community, nobody actually enjoys the current taming system at all. Thats a rather large blanket statement, but I've never seen anybody hype Taming dinos on ARK as something comparable to a match of Overwatch or fighting a Boss from Shadow of the Colossus, or even speedrunning a Super Mario Maker level. It's basically an experience that you hit Alt + Tab with and just set a stopwatch to. 

The reviews I read of ARK never even SPEAK about taming dinos except the results that come after the Narcotic dosing and the food taming, where somebody is the master of the island with a Rex. Never about the game-play part where somebody is sitting next to an unconscious one for an hour. Taming plays a big role in this game, and its weird that nobody ever warned me that much of my in-game time will be spent tending to unconscious dinos.

You've heard all of this before, from hundreds of people on this very forum, or the steam forums, or even in-game. From California, to New York, to Europe, Australia, even from China. Nobody raves and cheers as they're sitting next to a dino clicking "remote use item". It's such a tedious chore that it doesn't even have its own memes. Not that having memes about taming in ARK would make it any more tolerable.

There's the excuse that "If you don't have the time, you don't get the dino" kind of reasoning, along with the "nobody should have a Giga in less than 1 hour" but the same garbage line is used for F2P cellphone games where they actually have a way to speed up the more tedious BS in their games: microtransactions.

Wildcard stated they will never add microtransactions to the game to speed things along or make paying players at an advantage over non-paying, but then comes to the issue of Time. Unofficial Servers are at an all-time high because of how hated the current state of taming times are, and how every new creature that is added has never taken a step closer to fixing this unfun mechanic.

But you've all heard this before every single day, for at least a year, so I'll get to the point.

I tamed my first Level 120 Spinosaurus today, and found it generally tiresome and unrewarding. Three Hours and Fourty Seven Minutes of me using nine hundred and five Narcotics while I watched a bar fill up and see Argentavis Kibble I made slowly go down. I don't even know how long that Kibble took to make, The Prime Meat Jerky took a long time to cook, but thankfully Preserving Bins and Large Crop Plots work when you're asleep. The eggs were tedious to find and gather, since taming Argents takes just as much work. This was so not worth it. You would think getting those resources would be enough to justify a faster taming time for such a powerful creature. But nope, more time is always needed.

It's not a measure of skill either. I have no job, so I CAN sit by a Dino for this many hours and tame it, and so can my unemployed tribe mates who collected the eggs and found the 120. But really, I wish that 3 hours and 47 minutes was a lot more fun, something I could tell people about. "Hey, you should try ARK. Taming dinos in there is one of the best experiences I had! Once you take it down the real fun begins!" Ewww, no. Did you know I'm taming something right now as I write this? ARK's running in the background, tabbed out. I can tolerate the taming system as it is now, but I wish it didn't take so long. It's like this crappy icing on such a beautiful cake that you just "tolerate" to enjoy the rest of it.

So, other ARK Players, is this an isolated thing? Do you actually like taming dinos the way it is now? If something takes hours of time to babysit before you can use it, do you enjoy it? I think I'm just bitching about something people actually like so I'm not sure. Who all here enjoys the taming system as it is now?

[loops73]

I would be happy if they cut the time in half for taming, the current system is way too long.

[Lockjaw]

I refuse to play with official taming times. Some call it a 'challenge', which in a way I suppose is true, but that's not the kind of challenge that I'm looking for when I sit down to play a game. I want my skills to be challenged, not my ability and willingness to waste an entire day staring at a progress bar.

[Slaughterman167]

I jsut started to play on an official server. One of my friends and I have played about 3 hours the past 3 nights and we really have nothing to show for it. Last night we decided to tame our first trike. It was going to take an hour and 45 min per the taming calculator. About an hour and 10 min into it a level 108 Raptor came in and killed our trike and us. We both work full time jobs and have families we love the game but do not have all this time to waste. It set us back about 2 days of the 3 days we have been playing. Everyone is going to say find an unofficial server. We have tried they are either not much better or the rates are outrageous. Cant find a happy medium. This is on xbox one btw

[Haagsehopjes]

The times it takes its not only stupid but just insane and I'll say why. Ark now on a official server is for players that are free or have no job. How can someone that play 2 hours a day enjoy ark with friends and yes I know about single player or private server. It madness if you take the time to get the kibble get the veggies get the darts and everything ready you already got hours of doing things just to be able to tame and then you still need to sit down doing nothing for 5 hours. So yeah I support everyone that is against the taming as it is. 

Btw breeding isn't the subject but that is total madness for a casual player and with the new breeding update even more!

[LadyofHats]

my problem with it is.. that well it used to be longer. when i started playing i spent 6 hours taking care of a mammoth just for it to die walking down the mountain. and the point is that well. walking it down the mountain was the "game part". Taming doesnt feel like playing.  

[Dam Son]

please, you're giving me flashbacks to my 120 quetz tame... (close to 5 hours) and the torpor drops real quick

to make it worse, I can't build a wall around my tame because I am surrounded by pillars in a PvE server.

nowadays I don't even feel like taming anything, it was most obvious when they introduced the bear, even the thought of 3 hours makes me sick

[OnePotatoChip]

I don't think anyone likes taming. It's just something you suffer through to get to the meaty bits of the game. And passive tames aren't much better. At least with the tranquilizing method you'll get the fun of actually bringing the creature down, provided you didn't cheese it and stand on a ledge or the back of a Quetzal. Passive taming is literally walking behind a creature, hoping nothing aggros onto it or you, and hoping that your perspective tame doesn't simply decide to off you if you got too close with the whole 'trying to stuff things in its butt' shtick. 

And the bad part is that I don't know if there's anything Wildcard can do about it now. They're too far in. If Ark's really gonna launch in Q4 of this year, I don't think they've got the time to go back and reinvent the whole taming process. Taming was just built on a really... shoddy foundation, I guess? 

[orionwinterfire]

3 hours ago, LilNastyGurl said:

nobody actually enjoys the current taming system at all. 

I'm with ya. 

3 hours ago, LilNastyGurl said:

and its weird that nobody ever warned me that much of my in-game time will be spent tending to unconscious dinos.

Indeed it is. Hadn't really thought about it before but it does seem odd, eh?

3 hours ago, LilNastyGurl said:

Wildcard stated they will never add microtransactions to the game to speed things along or make paying players at an advantage over non-paying, but then comes to the issue of Time. Unofficial Servers are at an all-time high because of how hated the current state of taming times are, and how every new creature that is added has never taken a step closer to fixing this unfun mechanic.

I've often wondered if wc is getting money from the server rental providers.

3 hours ago, LilNastyGurl said:

It's like this crappy icing on such a beautiful cake that you just "tolerate" to enjoy the rest of it.

I could think of a few other issues with that cake too but thanks for the lol

 

3 hours ago, LilNastyGurl said:

 

[Rippy]

I agree the x1 taming is not fun for me personally. Luckily we have access to dedicated server with extra speeds. It is on x3 on my server, But I really enjoy the experience on that. Building walls around the tame, protecting it etc.

[NukeZX]

5 hours ago, LilNastyGurl said:

 

So, other ARK Players, is this an isolated thing? Do you actually like taming dinos the way it is now? If something takes hours of time to babysit before you can use it, do you enjoy it? I think I'm just bitching about something people actually like so I'm not sure. Who all here enjoys the taming system as it is now?

Simply said for me: no.

 

I play other games, also I am at a age where I need 2x many hours in a day to do all my stuff now.

Family, very demanding job etc etc etc. Plus I don't want to spend a entire day in the game. I know some that are unemployed and play the game pretty much the whole day, 6-7d/week.  That's not my thing.

I have to reserve my time for playing games, and I can not play a game like ARK for >3hrs just like that. 2 hours unplanned is already pretty much atm.

Last week I did a EVE Online fleet campaign for 4hrs straight, (commanding some 300 ppl so can not walk away like that in a FFA PVP game), and had not enough time to do my other stuff, incl social family time. I miss the days when I was a teen and in my early 20s where  I had more then enough time to play games AND go out and have fun.

So as for my ARK experience: any high level (lvl 100+) tames HAVE TO BE 100% kibble tames, and even then I have to plan it, log in and find a suitable tame within 30mins after logging in. For example a 120 argentavis, it is a 2+hr kibble tame so I have to prepare and find the bird asap after logging in. Giganato lvl 100 is a 3+hr tame, impossible to get for me, lvl 100 quetz is even 4+hrs. I do not buy from other players. I enjoy the tranqing and taming, just the time needed is a bit ridiculous. I played numerous MMOs in the past, incl old EQ1, SWG Jedi powergrind, old Korean MMOs and did 12hrs+ EVE Online sessions when I was really into it, up to 3-5hrs/day while being a commander and manager, but I can't/won't do that anymore.

Like I said: I enjoy the hunt, tranqing dinos, guarding them, just not that long as it takes right now.

 

 

Breeding.

Yes please! I have the maxed tamed dinos to do it, looks like fun.

 

But I can't.

 

Got the incubation room, got thousands of meat and even more berries, np.

But I can not afford to babysit dinos for 2-3-4-5 or more hours.

A saber baby phase is already 5 hours. Umm, just no.

 

I agree with effort = reward, but as a (solo) player that is not addicted to ARK and someone with a RL + my own business that content is simply a no go for me.  

 

[TheRealTFreezy]

Agreed. Though i think the 6x or 20x pvp servers ruin the experience. Pvp is not fun when a team has 20 gigas on a 20x server. Sure you could do the same but where is the fun. The nice thing at the 1x core is that when people have Dino's it means more because not everyone can get them.

however I think that the ideal fix is to cut down the time needed but make taming harder. 

Picking up Dino's and putting them in a box is going to basically ruin almost any tame that can be picked up. Period. 

But I think an interesting way to maybe change things would be maybe to make a Dino's wake up a certain amount of times and you have to retranq them. Or once you get to a certain point of the tame they wake up and you now have to "prove yourself" to them by riding them like a bronco. Or killing something with their help or something. I'm totally spitballing with no real thought so please give ideas. 

All in all I think time needs to be cut in half or thirds but made to actually be difficult to do so anyone that has 29 gigas still "earned" them and to keep tamed meaningful.

[wanderere]

yeah the taming is way to slow, x3 is a good amount.

If the knocking out the critter part was more exciting and the actual taming time was shorter that would also be great.

In the small amount of time my group and I have played on official we have only ever tamed 1 argent and nothing more exciting, because it took ages and was boring. Since then we only play on unoffical with decent rates.

[LilNastyGurl]

3 minutes ago, TheRealTFreezy said:

Agreed. Though i think the 6x or 20x pvp servers ruin the experience. Pvp is not fun when a team has 20 gigas on a 20x server. Sure you could do the same but where is the fun. The nice thing at the 1x core is that when people have Dino's it means more because not everyone can get them.

however I think that the ideal fix is to cut down the time needed but make taming harder. 

Picking up Dino's and putting them in a box is going to basically ruin almost any tame that can be picked up. Period. 

But I think an interesting way to maybe change things would be maybe to make a Dino's wake up a certain amount of times and you have to retranq them. Or once you get to a certain point of the tame they wake up and you now have to "prove yourself" to them by riding them like a bronco. Or killing something with their help or something. I'm totally spitballing with no real thought so please give ideas. 

All in all I think time needs to be cut in half or thirds but made to actually be difficult to do so anyone that has 29 gigas still "earned" them and to keep tamed meaningful.

I had an idea similar to the retranq or proving yourself methods too,

[TheRealTFreezy]

14 minutes ago, LilNastyGurl said:

I had an idea similar to the retranq or proving yourself methods too,

The relative I see with retranqing would be the damage you do to some Dino's when not using darts is pretty nuts. Like a dire bear or any flier. And I'm not sure they want to restructure how the damage and tranq on arrows work. But just adding one or two new things into taming to make it interactive and difficult would do wonders for the game. 

Right now tame times are so high to make it so official servers aren't full of small tribes with stupid amounts of quetz rexes and gigas. With times so high it really becomes a joint effort to take the big stuff and while I know very well that this game is meant to be played as a tribe, the times still aren't fun even when splitting it up into shifts.

[Dasilva]

heres the problem, when ark first started some tames were 10+ hours long yeah thats right TEN hours. heres the thing though, we VALUED our tames, now as the game gets dumbed down more and more daily catering to the casuals, you see more and more abandoned dinos being thrown by the wayside, heck on our server even gigas are left abandoned to die, why? because all difficulty in obtaining and breeding them has been removed, we have a tribe who spits out gigas like its a friggin puppy mill, this is a problem, and quite honestly its detracting from the whole point of ark. ark SURVIVAL as the days go by ark is less and less about survival and more and more about catering to either the pvpers or the casuals depending on what the change is. and if you look at the actual playerbase numbers? there is far far less players now that the game has been dumbed down, than there was when the game was actually a survival game.

 

BTW I hate to say it but the new breeding system is a huge failure, I have a complete and valid solution to the breeding system where it can be implemented and actually be worth while, if any of the ppl who count would like to talk to me about how to make this system both fun and truly rewarding, feel free to contact me, id be glad to discuss it. but im not gonna discuss it here cause I know there really isnt much interaction from the people that be.

[NukeZX]

1 hour ago, wanderere said:

yeah the taming is way to slow, x3 is a good amount.

If the knocking out the critter part was more exciting and the actual taming time was shorter that would also be great.

In the small amount of time my group and I have played on official we have only ever tamed 1 argent and nothing more exciting, because it took ages and was boring. Since then we only play on unoffical with decent rates.

For all I care they make tranqing the beast 10x harder.

I like the hunt (tranqing and surviving) 100x better then the guarding + feeding.

 

I am guilty of taking shortcuts myself.

I shoot a dino, run to a place where it can't reach me (it's blocked by rocks/trees, I am standing on a simple rock/ hovering quetzal or on some beefy dino that can tank the damage), it falls down and then the waiting game starts.

For all I care tranqing a dino makes any dino do like x5, x10 damage (rrraaaage!), make torpor go down faster, let it consume way more kibble/food, but the pure babysitting taming time >2/3hrs is what breaks it for me.

[Chris86]

I agree the times are crazy. But it does feel like an accomplishment for your first high level tame. The ones after that is when it gets boring. 

Maybe if the reduce the time and what it takes to tame them if you already have that dinosaur it might make it better. But as someone else mentioned with the dinosaurs waking up and having to be retranqed could be a side effect of having the smaller taming times. 

[Grimm]

Yes, 

the tames are long, etc.....but what we need to remember and I'm trying not to preach it, nor am I trying to cover for the developers, maybe I just see it as it is and can more easily accept it (I work 40+ hours, have kids as well so understand where some come from), but we know that they aren't going to change that system anytime soon, as they are adding more content, again to which we all know.    

I do agree though, that there should be more to do when taming.   Maybe having to check the dinosaurs pulse/temperature with some tool, and if say the narcotics are having some crazy effect, you need to apply a medical item to counter that to bring it into equilibrium.  And the said item could be something made via cooking with a recipie with berries, and other resources.   Giving it not only the risk of being attacked by a wild dinosaur, but also the possibility of if given too many narcotics in too quick a fashion could kill it out right, similar to tranqing an animal today.  Too much will overdose it, and potentially kill it.   

[Jey123456]

I personally have no problems with the taming time and i do work 40hours+ a week as well. Sure it mean i can't go and do a large tame during the week, but i can prepare for it to do so over a late evening on a weekend or something. 

 

The taming time, especially on pvp server do matter. Its time you have to stop your enemies from acquiring new dino's. Its time you must guard your tame or risk losing them to a player. Without the time, taming become essentially risk free, which in turn remove one of the few area where online pvp may happen (not frequent mind you) but it may happen. 

[Haagsehopjes]

I agree with you on PvP side but that doesn't mean that pve can get a boost in taming maybe a high end item or a artifact of taming that reduce the Dino to half food so the tame goes faster. Still hard to get but give casual player at lease a chance to get a big high Dino.

Btw iam not a casual player but even I think the timers are madness

[Janx]

I think the obvious reason Taming takes so long is as a game balancer to players getting too many tames.  I don't know how well that works, but it sounds like ona  busy PVP server, you should have a devil of a time getting a Giga because you can't sit still for that long and not get jacked with.

 

Which maybe the hint is, if the Devs don't want us to have that many animals (aka reaching the limit), maybe they should just change the game mechanics to limit how many animals we can have, rather than make the taming times ridiculous (which then folks with no jobs can easily handle).

 

At the extreme end, the Devs could just say "fine, you can only have 4 animals per player".  Rather artificial and artbitrary, but sets a hard limit and forces players to make a choice and not gather up an army of gigas. Alternatively, they could alter the food economy, so larger animals eat a lot more, such that it is much more difficult to keep a huge menagerie fed.

Ideas like that set an upper bound on head count, the part of the game where somebody with lots of free time gets an undue advantage.  That should then free up room to change the Taming mechanics to "make it easier".  Note, I put that in quotes as that's not exactly the intent.

The OP noted the problem to her is that taming isn't fun.  It is probably less that the Tame took 3 hours, it's that it was the most boring 3 hours possible,  And it's not even "realistic" anyway.  Taming a horse is not about drugging it and standing there supervising.  Taming a dino shouldn't be that way either.  The process should have stages (which allows working players to go offline).  It should involve making choices and taking risks.  It would probably be better designed if taming took 5 steps, with time gaps between for the animal to rest.  Thus you could say it still takes 3 hours to tame, but you only had to spend 15 minutes with the animal doing actual "cool taming things" that might be more fun and still respect the time it takes.

[NukeZX]

7 minutes ago, Janx said:

I think the obvious reason Taming takes so long is as a game balancer to players getting too many tames.  

Which maybe the hint is, if the Devs don't want us to have that many animals (aka reaching the limit)

 

Then it backfired. At least on my official servers.

Some players that have the opportunity to be ingame whenever they want are mass breeding highend dinos and selling them to anyone by spamming the chat.

 

[Jey123456]

Just now, NukeZX said:

Then it backfired. At least on my official servers.

Some players that have the opportunity to be ingame whenever they want are breeding mass highend dinos and selling them to anyone by spamming the chat.

 

whats wrong with people taking the time to get stuff getting more stuff than people who dont / cant ?

[NukeZX]

6 minutes ago, Jey123456 said:

whats wrong with people taking the time to get stuff getting more stuff than people who dont / cant ?

You're not getting my point.