egg incubator Giant Moa - A Fast Flightless Bird with a Small Platform Saddle

[Karoar1776]

I don't get what people see in this. It's just an oversized dodo.

[PEDRODAMAS]

On 15/4/2023 at 1:45, DrawolfKnight said:

Amo a esta criatura, una de mis favoritas sin duda. Hice este pequeño arte que espero ayude a ver las posibilidades de poder traer esta criatura a Ark (claramente Wildcard nos dará un diseño memorable). Un efecto que podría ayudar sería compartir algo de invulnerabilidad a las tormentas de arena a otros amigos criaturas, no tendría un gran alcance o no sería tan bueno como el suyo, pero proporcionaría una ventaja para usar tus criaturas más poderosas si es necesario. Pero en general es una criatura bastante completa.

wildcard = diseño memorable? pero tú has visto lo que le han hecho al anterior ganador? XD

[LavenderDreams]

Holy cow! It's at 800 votes! Now I'm confident it'll win the next round.

[andre4376]

Boa escolha para começar a jogar eu vou ter um concerteza.

[ashgcy]

6 hours ago, Karoar1776 said:

I don't get what people see in this. It's just an oversized dodo.

People are just happy to see something that isn't just a "I'm big and strong and kill everything because I'm very OP!" suggestion. Despite the feedback and constructive criticism you're about to see, I really love the Moa's design!

I think a lot of Moa's abilities are actually pretty strong! The niche is pretty interesting, and the abilities are very much useful for Scorched Earth. The only gripes I have are the taming mechanic, the egg weight reduction, and the fact that a lot of other submissions in the top 10 fill out Moa's abilities in a more "specialist" way.

Feel like only being tameable via sandstorm will make the creature much less favourable to get, especially if one could simply wait to be able to KO a paracer (for a platform saddle) or craft an egg incubator, my personal thoughts to the two main draws of the suggestion.

Egg weight reduction is great, and could be useful, but Moa's flightlessness makes it limited in what it could do with that mechanic. Won't really be stealing any wyvern eggs any time soon if you can't fly out of the trench!

Finally, when it comes to other top 10s, their abilities are a little more focused, doing more than just being immune to one weather effect, but instead getting buffs from all of them/doing more for breeding than just incubating eggs, giving them much more late game staying power and more use. 

At the end of the day, second round of the vote could go either way! So if you're still not sold on Moa's design, you can vote for alternate fellows in the top 10, lots of strong concepts this round, so make sure you're reading all of em!

[CosmicSkeleton]

2 hours ago, LavenderDreams said:

Holy cow! It's at 800 votes! Now I'm confident it'll win the next round.

Even if it's nice to see more avians make it in you shouldn't be too quick to claim victory. Everyone thought last vote came down to gorgonopsid and bastion and yet rhynio swooped in to claim the prize. Things are never set in stone.

[captainfatdog]

2 hours ago, ashgcy said:

People are just happy to see something that isn't just a "I'm big and strong and kill everything because I'm very OP!" suggestion. Despite the feedback and constructive criticism you're about to see, I really love the Moa's design!

I think a lot of Moa's abilities are actually pretty strong! The niche is pretty interesting, and the abilities are very much useful for Scorched Earth. The only gripes I have are the taming mechanic, the egg weight reduction, and the fact that a lot of other submissions in the top 10 fill out Moa's abilities in a more "specialist" way.

Feel like only being tameable via sandstorm will make the creature much less favourable to get, especially if one could simply wait to be able to KO a paracer (for a platform saddle) or craft an egg incubator, my personal thoughts to the two main draws of the suggestion.

Egg weight reduction is great, and could be useful, but Moa's flightlessness makes it limited in what it could do with that mechanic. Won't really be stealing any wyvern eggs any time soon if you can't fly out of the trench!

Finally, when it comes to other top 10s, their abilities are a little more focused, doing more than just being immune to one weather effect, but instead getting buffs from all of them/doing more for breeding than just incubating eggs, giving them much more late game staying power and more use. 

At the end of the day, second round of the vote could go either way! So if you're still not sold on Moa's design, you can vote for alternate fellows in the top 10, lots of strong concepts this round, so make sure you're reading all of em!

You make some good points, thanks, I will think about them. But I'm hesitant to change too much with the post at this stage. If it does end up winning, I'm pretty sure they will read through these comments and take into consideration the things that you and others have said.

[Havokpaintedwolf]

an emu that can have a a gazebo on its back beats out the legitimately creative bastion beetle, the devs should really add the bastion beetle later on just as they did the carcharodontosaurus, it getting beaten in every creature vote is ridiculous.

[margifish]

On 4/18/2023 at 1:54 PM, Karoar1776 said:

I don't get what people see in this. It's just an oversized dodo.

And what's wrong with an oversized dodo? Seriously...one of the few things I wish they could import from ark mobile is the ability to breed different sized dodos >_>; Maybe a lot of us (and there ARE a lot of us who like this creature, going by how many people have voted for it) are just happy that someone's suggested a creature that ISN'T just "giant meat-eating dino #354", and would be an interesting creature that would make pve'ers/breeders/rp'ers/builders etc happy instead of just catering to the PVP crowd with another 'destroy my enemies!' creature. We have less than 10 birds across all maps, how many dinosaurs (especially carnivores) do we have?

[captainfatdog]

2 hours ago, Havokpaintedwolf said:

an emu that can have a a gazebo on its back beats out the legitimately creative bastion beetle, the devs should really add the bastion beetle later on just as they did the carcharodontosaurus, it getting beaten in every creature vote is ridiculous.

There are a couple of issues with the beetle this time. One is that a flying insect only just won the last vote. And another issue is that the guy who posted it this time wasn't the original artist, and he kind of messed things up.

[SarraceniaUser]

I hate to be critical, but there is a very good reason why the only permanent tame platform saddle creatures are super slow and not something like even diplodocus speed. It doesn’t really matter for pve and singleplayer, but in pvp “platform tube” strategies are a thing. Unfortunately, this means people can run this thing right up to your base, hop off it while they’re still in the protective tube, and rocket launcher your wall down. Without enough turrets to kill it before it gets next to the wall (which is a ton, remember that both health and speed are taken into account) or plant x(which can and will be flame arrowed, not much of a counter,) there isn’t really a way to defend against this. Wildcard would have to somehow stop this by either giving it a mortal weakness to bullets like an arthro, or so low health it will be unusable for pve players.

[captainfatdog]

22 minutes ago, SarraceniaUser said:

I hate to be critical, but there is a very good reason why the only permanent tame platform saddle creatures are super slow and not something like even diplodocus speed. It doesn’t really matter for pve and singleplayer, but in pvp “platform tube” strategies are a thing. Unfortunately, this means people can run this thing right up to your base, hop off it while they’re still in the protective tube, and rocket launcher your wall down. Without enough turrets to kill it before it gets next to the wall (which is a ton, remember that both health and speed are taken into account) or plant x(which can and will be flame arrowed, not much of a counter,) there isn’t really a way to defend against this. Wildcard would have to somehow stop this by either giving it a mortal weakness to bullets like an arthro, or so low health it will be unusable for pve players.

Good point, definitely something that would need considering. Maybe it could take knockback from tek turrets too.

[Somes]

7 hours ago, SarraceniaUser said:

I hate to be critical, but there is a very good reason why the only permanent tame platform saddle creatures are super slow and not something like even diplodocus speed. It doesn’t really matter for pve and singleplayer, but in pvp “platform tube” strategies are a thing. Unfortunately, this means people can run this thing right up to your base, hop off it while they’re still in the protective tube, and rocket launcher your wall down. Without enough turrets to kill it before it gets next to the wall (which is a ton, remember that both health and speed are taken into account) or plant x(which can and will be flame arrowed, not much of a counter,) there isn’t really a way to defend against this. Wildcard would have to somehow stop this by either giving it a mortal weakness to bullets like an arthro, or so low health it will be unusable for pve players.

If speed is the concern than just give it a debuff to speed while using the platform like I stated with my submission. It is already going to have less health than something like a Bronto. You complain about this but what about Titanosaurs? Sure they are limited but even with them limits it reflects the same problems you point out for this.
Another thing they can do is set structure limits to the platform.
There are plenty of ways to balance it out...not to mention serverside settings can do quite a bit as well. It does not need an ultra weakness or anything.

[GoldenIrishRose]

I'm really liking this idea. It has both PVP and PVE applications. Not to mention it's not over the top and seems quite reasonable. It's also something we seem to have a lack of. Where the dodo seems to be just an early game meet and hide source, and the terror bird is pretty much useless at this point. The therizinosaur has a select fan group. This seems like something that will add to the game more than just a new dino to tame. It might change the meta for both play styles. Both early game and even mid to late game. 

[Xalkyrr]

Truly something we need!

[LavenderDreams]

Hahaha big ostrich go brrr

[CosmicSkeleton]

1 hour ago, LavenderDreams said:

Hahaha big ostrich go brrr

Emu* big emu go brrr. Also wins a war with the Ark government like their descendants did Australia 

[LavenderDreams]

Just now, CosmicSkeleton said:

Emu* big emu go brrr. Also wins a war with the Ark government like their descendants did Australia 

That'd be hilarious. But let's wait and see who will win. We already had a insect win the last vote, so the Bastion Beetle can piss off. 

[CosmicSkeleton]

1 minute ago, LavenderDreams said:

That'd be hilarious. But let's wait and see who will win. We already had a insect win the last vote, so the Bastion Beetle can piss off. 

Honestly after it was handled this time about the moa would be preferable. Even if I myself can't use it. At this point it and gorgon's submitters should've taken a page from the bison's book and just opted out.

[janesta]

On 4/15/2023 at 7:30 AM, captainfatdog said:

Looking back now, I wish I had. Out of the current top 10, mine was the last to be posted, which meant I had to catch up on a lot of votes, so I took advantage of my platform to do so. I had no idea at the time how well it was going to be received. Once I realised I was quickly rising to the top of the list I stopped promoting it. It's difficult to say how much of an impact it's had, but what I do know is that it's still gaining the most votes even though I'm not bringing any traffic in any more, I don't think that's because of my name, I think people just like the idea.

Anyway, if I ever do another one in the future I will do so completely anonymously

First of all, I do like the concept. Now let's be honest, the moment you turned to your platform to get an edge is where you went wrong. You took away the ability of others to get their creatures submitted in the top 10. You say you wish you had not, but you knew what you were doing by using your platform of basically 100k followers to promote this creature. Did you really think you were in the right to do so? Big names like yours always have an excuse for cheating the little guys out of a vote. This doesn't matter to you, I know lol. I have followed you for years and you have severely disappointed me with your choice. You're a community leader, you should have known better and done better than this.

[katann77573]

So happy this made it, I  love this idea and I hope it dose well.

[captainfatdog]

1 hour ago, janesta said:

First of all, I do like the concept. Now let's be honest, the moment you turned to your platform to get an edge is where you went wrong. You took away the ability of others to get their creatures submitted in the top 10. You say you wish you had not, but you knew what you were doing by using your platform of basically 100k followers to promote this creature. Did you really think you were in the right to do so? Big names like yours always have an excuse for cheating the little guys out of a vote. This doesn't matter to you, I know lol. I have followed you for years and you have severely disappointed me with your choice. You're a community leader, you should have known better and done better than this.

Sorry Mum

[SarraceniaUser]

7 hours ago, Somes said:

If speed is the concern than just give it a debuff to speed while using the platform like I stated with my submission. It is already going to have less health than something like a Bronto. You complain about this but what about Titanosaurs? Sure they are limited but even with them limits it reflects the same problems you point out for this.
Another thing they can do is set structure limits to the platform.
There are plenty of ways to balance it out...not to mention serverside settings can do quite a bit as well. It does not need an ultra weakness or anything.

If it has lowered speed with the platform saddle, people won’t want to use it for purposes outside of the rocket tube I mentioned because it will be too slow to put a little base on. Remember, this is somewhat competition with quetzals, so if it isn’t faster, and quetz can actually fly, the Moa will be unfortunately rendered obsolete.
 

Brontos are and have been a meme soaker and base attacker ever since their nerf years ago. They are suuuuper slow and too tall for the rocket tube to work properly (remember the tube shoots the rocket forward, not down,) and don’t have the resistance to bullets to back them up unlike say stegos or trikes. There’s a reason why you never see a modern raid conducted with brontos outside of extremely niche circumstances.
 

Note the wording in my original comment. Permanent tames. Because Titanos are absurdly expensive and time consuming to even attempt to tame and people will actually fight you for it. Same goes for extinction titans (even if I hate desert titan transfers to abb.) Compare the 50 or so cannonballs and a quetz or skiff needed to tame a titano, or the extremely good gun coupled with a full on pvp war to tame a titan, to a tame you get the annoying way for 2-3 of to start, and then just breed them. They become so disposable, especially on the not atrocious official rates, that sacrificing 3-4 to get into someone’s base isn’t really that big of a deal.
 

Structure limits again propose the aforementioned problem of why use it at all if you can barely place on it. I proposed the bullet weakness instead of lowered hp since it could at least be a healthy part of pve instead of rocket racer 2.0, or worse yet, go the way of the megalosaurus (by which I mean excellent creature stats on paper, awful weakness and unusable in pve and pvp outside of abb in practice.)

 

I don’t know. Maybe I am making this out to be a bigger deal than it actually is. Maybe I am wrong, it won’t be a problem, and that’ll be that. I honestly hope I’m wrong. I have nothing against the Moa and I find it to be a very cool tame for pve. My issue is with possible what-ifs for pvp.

[ProfileTS]

Really love this idea and creature! Ark could benefit from having more birds, and a giant flightless one seems like a great addition. An ability I'd suggest would be to do something with its eggs, maybe have them give very substantial nourishment benefits or have them be useful for taming larger creatures as an alternative to kibble? During previous votes an idea I saw thrown out for these guys was to have them act as living incubators, that way no matter the hot days or freezing nights on scorch they'd serve the added benefit of being able to passively incubate eggs. For taming methods, I'd imagine that either a passive tame or egg collection method would make the most sense. If I could tack on another suggestion based on my own submission for a very similar creature, perhaps give it the ability to act almost like a slingshot? Large ratites, which are the family moas belong to, often swallow stones to help grind up the food they eat. I think a fun idea would be for it to have the ability to spit stones when they're placed in its inventory. It could act as an additional attack that inflicts topor. Regardless of what you choose to add, good luck with your suggestion. 

[Teratus]

Out of all the winners I think I have to go with this one for the best and most fitting choice for a new SE creature.

 

I'm not exactly a fan of the small platform saddle though, not in the way they currently work on other creatures anyway.

So my little idea contribution to this creature is rather than having a small buildable platform I really think I would prefer if this creature had a pre existing structure saddle instead based on the Tent item that was introduced with SE.
Kind of like the Mammoth does these days with a built in drum kit.

Essentially what i'm thinking is a large tent saddle, in my mind i'm picturing something akin to a medieval pavilion style tent which players could also have a lot of fun colouring and personalising with dye's as well as painting on if they feel like it.

This tent saddle would protect the rider from both Scorched Earth's Sandstorms and Heatwaves and would also contain a few basic crafting structures inside like a small basic forge, mort and pestle, preserving bin and basic workbench.

These would all naturally function from the creature's inventory instead of having their own individual inventories, offering a very high level of crafting convenience for a lot of early game resources and items but would also be limited by the Moa's weight stat even with any weight reduction benefits WC seem fit to give the moa for any particular resources.
Personally I think a small weight reduction benefit given to a large amount of resources used by the 4 saddle stations.. maybe 5-10% tops would be the better option rather than large benefits given to a few specific resources.
That imo would still make other creatures with those large weight reduction benefits to specific resources like Anky's (Metal) and Thorny Dragon (Wood/Stone) still very useful to have in your convoy of SE creatures as farmers and packmules.

For a more detailed example, after popping a tent saddle on your Moa bird you'd put materials in the Moa's inventory like normal, for starters Wood and Raw Metal.
Then when the Forge in the tent is turned on, it would use the Wood to burn and smelt Metal Ingots while also producing Charcoal like a normal forge.
You could then access the Workbench in the same tent saddle and craft items using any of the Wood, Metal and the new Metal Ingots and Charcoal the forge has produced in the Moa's inventory.
The same would apply to the Mort and Pestle and the Preserving Bin as well.
You would be able to craft Sparkpowder using any Flint and Stone in the Moa's inventory using the Pestle, which you can combine with the Charcoal made by the forge to make Gunpowder.
The Sparkpowder would also be used to power the Preserving Bin in the tent drastically increasing the spoil timers of any Raw/Cooked Meats, Berries and Spoiled Meats in the Moa's inventory.
Any Narco/Stim Berries and spoiled meat the moa is carrying/preserving can also be used in the Pestle to make Nacotics and Stimulants as well.

So.. yeah you are getting a whole lot of convenience from a single saddle and that should force you to be careful about weight/inventory management with your Moa.
Especially since one of the primary selling points of the moa is it's speed, it's ability to flee while carrying a small base on it's back, protecting your valuables.

For that reason I think the armour value of the saddle.. which again is a tent, should basically be nothing or very very little at most, and I also think the Moa's health stat should be on the low side as well to further compliment this.
Moa's are supposed to run away when threatened not fight.. so I think this is definitely one of the trade offs it's should have, and if you get greedy and overburden your moa with resources, you could end up in a situation where it is too heavy and slow to run away and easily gets killed by predators as a result... the fault entirely being on the player in those situations.

This limitations would also greatly contribute to players wanting/needing to have other creatures around for protection and as pack mules for their heavier resources.

I think these ideas would greatly add to the Moa creature's utility, especially for those who want to play Scorched Earth in a more nomadic way as opposed to the usual build a base playstyle.
This is especially fitting due to the lore for Scorched Earth as well, an ARK which we know actively resists efforts by survivors to conquer it's harsh environment and destroys any civilisation that foolishly dare's to show it's arrogance and attempts to tame this ARK.

Which leads me to another small thing I kinda hope Wildcard will add to the Scorched Earth map in the UE5 remake.
I would really, really like to see something similar to the Purge mechanic in Conan Exiles, added as a feature to the new Scorched Earth map.
If you build a normal, static base on Scorched Earth, then you essentially agree to participate in this mechanic and after a set amount of active player time has passed your base will be attacked by waves of hostile SE creatures.

The bigger your base/structure count the more dangerous these purge events can be.
You may get packs of wolves, mantis and terror birds coming for you if your base is small.
Or larger predators like Rex's, Rock Elementals and Wyverns, even Alpha creatures could come for you if your base is big and powerful.
These events could be really fun and rewarding to players who successfully defend their bases against these natural Scorched Earth Raids, not to mention these events would drastically increase to popularity and usefulness of many in-game items that are practically ignored entirely in PvE such as turrets and other base defence structures.
It would also give the map more of a challenge as well as something mechanically very unique that could increase it's popularity among some fans while also being something very new that was not part of the original map which pretty much all of us current ARK players have played already, likely a lot.
On top of that the mechanic would fit perfectly within the lore for the map as well and players who do not wish to engage with this mechanic at all can avoid it by playing the map nomadically, living on and using platform creatures.
Or in the case of Single player and private servers, they could simply disable this mechanic in the options.

Personally I would love to see this become a feature of Scorched Earth in ARK Ascended.