Getting frustrated with taming.

[ACURLEY]

I play on a single player server on the island, with a base at hidden lake. I have a decent base going, but my problem is with taming creatures. Right now I have a low level beaver and anky, and a mid level dire wolf and argy, but that’s about it. I know I need a lot more tames, but I hate spending hours only finding low-level creatures, and when I do find a high level, it is usually killed by  other creatures or I lose it. Does anyone have any tips to help?

[wizard03]

40 minutes ago, ACURLEY said:

I play on a single player server on the island, with a base at hidden lake. I have a decent base going, but my problem is with taming creatures. Right now I have a low level beaver and anky, and a mid level dire wolf and argy, but that’s about it. I know I need a lot more tames, but I hate spending hours only finding low-level creatures, and when I do find a high level, it is usually killed by  other creatures or I lose it. Does anyone have any tips to help?

Yeah, but you not gonna like it.......play any other map besides the island. It is literally the "WORST" map in the game to find any high level creatures. Even scorched earth, aberation, so forth and so on has a bit better boost in levels for some crazy reason.
As for the creature getting killed just as you wanna tame it, better than me. The only lvl 150 anything I found in this run, it was half meshed into the ground and as soon as I grabbed agro it poofed like nothing was there to begin with. x.x

[TimeBomb2003]

Is it possible to increase that boost, so that higher level creatures are more common?

[GrumpyBear]

1 hour ago, ACURLEY said:

I play on a single player server on the island, with a base at hidden lake. I have a decent base going, but my problem is with taming creatures. Right now I have a low level beaver and anky, and a mid level dire wolf and argy, but that’s about it. I know I need a lot more tames, but I hate spending hours only finding low-level creatures, and when I do find a high level, it is usually killed by  other creatures or I lose it. Does anyone have any tips to help?

raft traps can be handy, they can be moved away from the shore where you find an animal you want so you can take it to somewhere safer before knocking it out.  Also, the wilds attack things that are sleeping only when its something they would attack when its awake.  So for example, if you tame a rex, almost nothing will attack it since they wouldn't normally.  Giga, same thing.  If you knock it out, u don't have to protect it much.   Unless there's a battle between wooly mammoths and wolves at its feet.  YOu might have to watch out for things fighting near it, but not with it while its asleep.

 

There's an app / website you can use on anything you want to tame , dododex.   Its very handy in getting an idea of what you need to tame something.

[wizard03]

1 hour ago, TimeBomb2003 said:

Is it possible to increase that boost, so that higher level creatures are more common?

there was a method on PC by altering the "drag weight" of a creature type, somehow a larger drag weight of a creature type altered the level outcome, however since Im on console, there is nothing I can do or help you figure it out. With that said, you may look into some of the free maps. Lost island and fjordur are the best free maps with practically all of the creatures in the game being offered through these two maps other than gen 2 creatures. Such as tek styder and the noglin. 
And as far as levels go, pretend to switch your current play though backwards.....can't get away from high levels. Granted, perfects are rare, but everything seems to spawn over lvl 100

 

1 hour ago, GrumpyBear said:

raft traps can be handy, they can be moved away from the shore where you find an animal you want so you can take it to somewhere safer before knocking it out.  Also, the wilds attack things that are sleeping only when its something they would attack when its awake.  So for example, if you tame a rex, almost nothing will attack it since they wouldn't normally.  Giga, same thing.  If you knock it out, u don't have to protect it much.   Unless there's a battle between wooly mammoths and wolves at its feet.  YOu might have to watch out for things fighting near it, but not with it while its asleep.

 

There's an app / website you can use on anything you want to tame , dododex.   Its very handy in getting an idea of what you need to tame something.

If I could show you how many argies I have lost to sabertooth, thylo, deadons, wolves, rex's, yuties..........Im just gonna stop now, lets just say you DO have to protect your tames after they go to sleep. Maybe not so much rex's n giga's, but anything else can be nipped at while they sleep.

[Pipinghot]

1 hour ago, TimeBomb2003 said:

Is it possible to increase that boost, so that higher level creatures are more common?

No, the distribution of levels is built into each map.

[Pipinghot]

3 hours ago, ACURLEY said:

I play on a single player server on the island, with a base at hidden lake. I have a decent base going, but my problem is with taming creatures. Right now I have a low level beaver and anky, and a mid level dire wolf and argy, but that’s about it. I know I need a lot more tames, but I hate spending hours only finding low-level creatures, and when I do find a high level, it is usually killed by  other creatures or I lose it. Does anyone have any tips to help?

Taming pens (and taming rafts like Grumpy mentioned) are your friend.

If you set up taming pens in advance at locations where you see good numbers of animals, it makes it a lot easier to find high levels ones that you can tame safely. There are tons of good examples of taming pens on youtube. Having a flying mounts makes taming lots of stuff so easy, you just attack them once and then lure them into the taming pen when they chase you. If you ever play on Official Servers you'll see taming pens spread all over the map, they are a standard feature of the ARK playing experience.

There will still be some luck involved, some days you fly around and don't any high levels, other days you find more high levels than you can tame before you get tired, but by building taming pens in advance in locations where you expect to be able to tame stuff, you're setting yourself up for success when the luck rolls your way.

[GrumpyBear]

1 hour ago, wizard03 said:

there was a method on PC by altering the "drag weight" of a creature type, somehow a larger drag weight of a creature type altered the level outcome, however since Im on console, there is nothing I can do or help you figure it out. With that said, you may look into some of the free maps. Lost island and fjordur are the best free maps with practically all of the creatures in the game being offered through these two maps other than gen 2 creatures. Such as tek styder and the noglin. 
And as far as levels go, pretend to switch your current play though backwards.....can't get away from high levels. Granted, perfects are rare, but everything seems to spawn over lvl 100

 

If I could show you how many argies I have lost to sabertooth, thylo, deadons, wolves, rex's, yuties..........Im just gonna stop now, lets just say you DO have to protect your tames after they go to sleep. Maybe not so much rex's n giga's, but anything else can be nipped at while they sleep.

I covered this point with the previous statement, "Also, the wilds attack things that are sleeping only when its something they would attack when its awake."  

It depends on the dinos, argents are eaten by those things when they are awake.  Therefore they would be attacked while asleep.  It depends on the animal, they aren't all the same.   Prime example - without being provoked first, raptors won't attack rexes in the wild, they won't attack one when its asleep unless that rex had started a fight w/ the raptor before falling asleep....   

Also, following this logic - you can also tame as many rexes in 1 trap as you want. Since they don't agro on each other, they won't hurt a sleeping one in the same space.  Only accident that happens there is you accidentally shoot the one that's already tranq'ed.

[sjskdjkfa]

don't u get higher lvls from sliding the difficulty slider?? (idk haven't actually played single player in a while)

[GrumpyBear]

9 minutes ago, sjskdjkfa said:

don't u get higher lvls from sliding the difficulty slider?? (idk haven't actually played single player in a while)

The Island has a vanilla spawn rate for high level tames even with sliders maxed.  Its quite difficult to find 150s for a new player getting started on there.  It is much easier finding them on the non-canon maps and I think the Genesis maps as well.

[Pipinghot]

18 hours ago, sjskdjkfa said:

don't u get higher lvls from sliding the difficulty slider?? (idk haven't actually played single player in a while)

The difficulty slider changes the max level possible, but it doesn't make high levels spawn more often.

[sjskdjkfa]

3 hours ago, Pipinghot said:

The difficulty slider changes the max level possible, but it doesn't make high levels spawn more often.

I don't think you guys are getting my suggestion. Slide the thing so max is increased, play for a while taming "mid lvl what evers" slide it back, now your junk dinos are good.

[Pipinghot]

2 minutes ago, sjskdjkfa said:

I don't think you guys are getting my suggestion. Slide the thing so max is increased, play for a while taming "mid lvl what evers" slide it back, now your junk dinos are good.

That's not at all what you said before, but yes I could see how that would be a good idea for the OP.

[sjskdjkfa]

2 minutes ago, Pipinghot said:

That's not at all what you said before, but yes I could see how that would be a good idea for the OP.

yo guys were supposed to read my mind lolz

[wizard03]

On 12/10/2022 at 7:17 PM, sjskdjkfa said:

don't u get higher lvls from sliding the difficulty slider?? (idk haven't actually played single player in a while)

It adjusts at what level the creatures are capped at. On easy or default settings, the max level is 60 I believe. However the animals literally spawn in at any level to level 60.....you can actually get level 1 dino's to appear. However the odds of getting a max level creature remains the same.
When you adjust the slider, it allow creatures to spawn up to level 150, but now the creatures will spawn in at 5 level increments. Hence why all creatures levels are divisible by 5 on max difficulty. But the odds of finding high level creatures do not change

On 12/11/2022 at 4:56 PM, sjskdjkfa said:

I don't think you guys are getting my suggestion. Slide the thing so max is increased, play for a while taming "mid lvl what evers" slide it back, now your junk dinos are good.

Well, I suppose thats a possibility, but at that point in time, why not tame "ok" dinos and then speed up the breeding process for mutations?
 

[Dreadcthulhu]

If you are using the Steam version, there is a mod called Custom Dino Levels that lets you adjust the distribution of creature's spawn levels, which can be set to make finding high level creatures on the Island a lot easier.  

[DeHammer]

It's been said, but 'taming pen'. I usually use pitfall traps I lead them into, and then you have the option afterward of killing the dino (if crap) or taming it. My 'elite' version of the trap uses a wall around the trap area so I can close a door afterward and then tame the trapped dino undisturbed.