ASA Cave Improvements

[Logan96]

On almost every official PvP server, there is at least one (usually more) artifact cave or obelisk that is blocked. I understand that in PvP this is not against the rules, so I have not held this tactic against anyone who uses it. That being said, I think there are some improvements to be made here when ASA rolls out.

For starters these areas should simply not be build zones. Caves and artifacts are a crucial part of the game in PvP too. When an alpha tribe blocks off one of the artifacts and then defends that cave with tek, they have effectively created a monopoly on that server and the only real challengers by that point are the tribes coming in from other servers who have also claimed a cave. It's a true power gap in Ark that has never been addressed and it puts a hold on your own progression unless you are in one of these larger tribes. 

Caves need to be rebalanced for cryopods. I think that cryopods are such a neat idea, but we should take a look at what can be thrown out inside of a cave and if it makes the cave too easy (such as bringing a megatherium into the swamp cave). Furthermore after coming up with a list of allowable tames for each cave, we should then rework the density and levels of the threats inside the caves to make sure that it is the just right level of challenge for the cave we are in. 

Loot rebalance for cave drops. Most of my experience of Ark has been on the Island, something about this beautiful nostalgic map keeps me from switching. I always regret making the island my home, especially when I get a ramshackle cloth hat from a loot crate, knowing full well that I could be collecting mastercraft saddles and blueprints from scorched earths desert, for a fraction of the effort. I understand that power creep is a necessary evil, but seeing as how we have already purchased the DLC and are now buying ASA, I think that its fair to buff the loot drops for some caves and tone down others, to make all maps viable to start on. Maybe even make map specific gear available on other maps as extra incentive to go spelunking!

Edit: Corrected some punctuation and removed the most resource intensive suggestion, for practicality. 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Logan96

[Vaugsy]

Making artifact caves not build zones just ruins pvp as there’s way less places to build, which means way less players overall. Some maps have artifacts outside for a reason.

[Logan96]

On 6/20/2023 at 8:48 PM, Vaugsy said:

Making artifact caves not build zones just ruins pvp as there’s way less places to build, which means way less players overall. Some maps have artifacts outside for a reason.

So there are like what 10 artifact caves at most on a map? Since only one tribe typically occupies the cave we are talking 10 less spots to build on a map...at most. That is what you consider "way less places to build"? 

The only reason you would take that stance is because you understand that cave building is the meta and I will not disagree with you there. If we accept that cave building is the meta in PvP then yes, I suppose removing artifact caves from the list would shorten the number of build zones by a good amount. 

 The cave meta in general and base strength as a whole should be addressed as well, but that is a whole separate topic. Speaking from strictly the PvP point of view, artifact caves are too powerful. Imagine building 10 turret towers around your base, but your opponent is forced to deal with every single tower before they can reach your base. Doesn't that sound powerful? Thats exactly what caves do. 

 

[purplewargreymon]

4 hours ago, Logan96 said:

So there are like what 10 artifact caves at most on a map? Since only one tribe typically occupies the cave we are talking 10 less spots to build on a map...at most. That is what you consider "way less places to build"? 

The only reason you would take that stance is because you understand that cave building is the meta and I will not disagree with you there. If we accept that cave building is the meta in PvP then yes, I suppose removing artifact caves from the list would shorten the number of build zones by a good amount. 

 The cave meta in general and base strength as a whole should be addressed as well, but that is a whole separate topic. Speaking from strictly the PvP point of view, artifact caves are too powerful. Imagine building 10 turret towers around your base, but your opponent is forced to deal with every single tower before they can reach your base. Doesn't that sound powerful? Thats exactly what caves do. 

 

10 spots ironically is actually more than 50% of the available build spots for big tribes. even more so when even bigger tribes take more than 1 cave (center is a very extreme example here, as well as island and valg have less extreme examples of this). I do agree with a few of your points, but i believe largely this is why supply drops were made open to start bosses from since obs were blocked so often.

Caves however do have some significant strength to them that could be balanced by limiting what can be unpodded or even teleported into them. or it could upset more players than it helps, idk. its hard to say without actually being able to implement changes like that to see how players work around it. I think just making caves more raidable would encourage more people to hold both a cave and something outside, so breeding space can be retained but valuables end up safer outside. RN that just aint the case.

TBH though, only certain artifact caves even have value to build, if there were alternatives to say... make the artifacts using apex drops or something, it might remedy that issue entirely. 

[purplewargreymon]

On 6/20/2023 at 11:48 PM, Vaugsy said:

Making artifact caves not build zones just ruins pvp as there’s way less places to build, which means way less players overall. Some maps have artifacts outside for a reason.

The reason being because thats how the map's original mod author designed it, as a mod. I severely doubt any of them expected to be told "hey we wanna put ur map in the game" before it even existed and planned those locations out specifically because thats what the game needs lol

[Logan96]

5 hours ago, purplewargreymon said:

10 spots ironically is actually more than 50% of the available build spots for big tribes. even more so when even bigger tribes take more than 1 cave (center is a very extreme example here, as well as island and valg have less extreme examples of this). I do agree with a few of your points, but i believe largely this is why supply drops were made open to start bosses from since obs were blocked so often.

Caves however do have some significant strength to them that could be balanced by limiting what can be unpodded or even teleported into them. or it could upset more players than it helps, idk. its hard to say without actually being able to implement changes like that to see how players work around it. I think just making caves more raidable would encourage more people to hold both a cave and something outside, so breeding space can be retained but valuables end up safer outside. RN that just aint the case.

TBH though, only certain artifact caves even have value to build, if there were alternatives to say... make the artifacts using apex drops or something, it might remedy that issue entirely. 

I would be content with the artifacts being made available through alternative means and caves being made more raidable, but I really would like to see the caves become a larger part of the game. For most PvPers in smaller tribes the caves are simply a place you ignore, unless you are trying to grab a quick dung beetle or something, because they are almost always blocked. 

On the subject of making caves making caves either more raidable, non buildable, base defenses also need to be buffed up big time, which is why I think so many players resorted to hiding in caves. Part of the issue is that we need more defenses that are actually effective, but the biggest problem is that it takes far longer to get a defensible number of turrets, than it does to get geared for raiding. 

Players aren't locking down their bases anymore. They are staying hidden, while trying to wipe every other tribe on the server. 

[purplewargreymon]

3 hours ago, Logan96 said:

On the subject of making caves making caves either more raidable, non buildable, base defenses also need to be buffed up big time, which is why I think so many players resorted to hiding in caves. Part of the issue is that we need more defenses that are actually effective, but the biggest problem is that it takes far longer to get a defensible number of turrets, than it does to get geared for raiding. 

Players aren't locking down their bases anymore. They are staying hidden, while trying to wipe every other tribe on the server. 

on that topic, regarding base defending,
and granted most of my experience comes from playing in those big tribes, so i often tend to struggle with that build up part of the game near the beginning.

but large parts of that is the duping of tames that absolutely destroy structures because they have like 500 melee and deal 1k structure dmg per hit. (Yes, im talking about meks), as well as the introduction of quality armored saddles such as tek tape and tek tex saddles exceeding the primitive 45 armor value.

idk, i build alot of outside stuctures anyways mostly because i hate cave building. I recognize its part of the game, but its just not my thing.

but i mean honestly speaking, how would they increase base defense capabilities without completely overpowering the early game of, well, the game? heavy and tek turrets already hurt WAY more than autos and once u hit tek it becomes infinitely harder to raid them due to the bonus dmg they do to golems and their ability to splash riders off tames like trikes and, at certain higher angles, stegos.

[Logan96]

9 hours ago, purplewargreymon said:

on that topic, regarding base defending,
and granted most of my experience comes from playing in those big tribes, so i often tend to struggle with that build up part of the game near the beginning.

but large parts of that is the duping of tames that absolutely destroy structures because they have like 500 melee and deal 1k structure dmg per hit. (Yes, im talking about meks), as well as the introduction of quality armored saddles such as tek tape and tek tex saddles exceeding the primitive 45 armor value.

idk, i build alot of outside stuctures anyways mostly because i hate cave building. I recognize its part of the game, but its just not my thing.

but i mean honestly speaking, how would they increase base defense capabilities without completely overpowering the early game of, well, the game? heavy and tek turrets already hurt WAY more than autos and once u hit tek it becomes infinitely harder to raid them due to the bonus dmg they do to golems and their ability to splash riders off tames like trikes and, at certain higher angles, stegos.

Agree on the upper points. The mek felt like a great way to counter spam, but feel pretty dang cheap when someone walks one into your 3x3 starter base. 

As far as increasing defense capabilities...Its a tough one. I agree that heavy turrets are pretty solid deterrents once established. My problem is that getting established takes time and most small tribes hit a wall where they cannot rebuild at the rate of raids coming in. I'm not exactly looking for a more powerful base defense, but instead a solution to fill the gap between being a super defensive base and being a laughable cake walk. At the moment it seems like there is no middle ground. 

[acat]

12 hours ago, purplewargreymon said:

but i mean honestly speaking, how would they increase base defense capabilities without completely overpowering the early game of, well, the game? heavy and tek turrets already hurt WAY more than autos and once u hit tek it becomes infinitely harder to raid them due to the bonus dmg they do to golems and their ability to splash riders off tames like trikes and, at certain higher angles, stegos.

To find an answer to that question i think it helps to look back on what caused the cave meta to establish. Imo, it were the following things: cryopods, turret limit, breeding, and to some degree teleporter and transmitter.

I have played many seasons of conquest and classic and ive had some experience on an unofficial server with cave building disabled. And i can say it works, if cave building simply gets disabled, but there are some things to consider. At the start you are very vulnerable to attacks, becasue it is easier to tame soakers and craft a couple explosives, than it is to get the means to defend. But that is just a very short time frame, until you have a decent amount of heavies to defend. With tek turrets coming on top of that, it is very much possible to have a well defended base outside of a cave. You have to consider tho, that this is with attacker and defender tribe having similar numbers, cuz with land bases the player numbers play a much bigger role than with cave bases. As soon as the breeding has advanced a little tho (couple of months of professional breeding), the advantage shifts again from defence to offense. At some point the turret limit is just too strict to keep up with the continuously growing strength of tames.

So to answer the question above from my point of view, an increase in turret limit would be a first step that doesnt affect early game but helps land bases late game. The limit was mainly introduced for performance reasons, and i assume on ue5 the performance should be a lot better. It would alrady help to just say the plant x get a seperate limit to other turret type (especially if they finally manage to stop ini abuse). A second step, and this one is most important imo, could be to heavily limit breeding. ive made a suggestion for that in this forum a while ago if ur interested in details. The advantage of limited breeding would be that caves are less needed for storage of hundreds of breeders, cuz you wouldnt need that many overall, and it would be that attacking dinos arent as ridiculously strong as they are in ASE currently. Limited breeding is the most important balance change im hoping for in ASA.

I have seen ppl suggest to limit what can be unpodded in caves, but that wont really help imo, since teleporters and transmitters exist, and it does not help the core issue why cave meta is a thing, while at the same time making it annoying to run caves for loot/artifacts.

[Logan96]

8 hours ago, acat said:

To find an answer to that question i think it helps to look back on what caused the cave meta to establish. Imo, it were the following things: cryopods, turret limit, breeding, and to some degree teleporter and transmitter.

I have played many seasons of conquest and classic and ive had some experience on an unofficial server with cave building disabled. And i can say it works, if cave building simply gets disabled, but there are some things to consider. At the start you are very vulnerable to attacks, becasue it is easier to tame soakers and craft a couple explosives, than it is to get the means to defend. But that is just a very short time frame, until you have a decent amount of heavies to defend. With tek turrets coming on top of that, it is very much possible to have a well defended base outside of a cave. You have to consider tho, that this is with attacker and defender tribe having similar numbers, cuz with land bases the player numbers play a much bigger role than with cave bases. As soon as the breeding has advanced a little tho (couple of months of professional breeding), the advantage shifts again from defence to offense. At some point the turret limit is just too strict to keep up with the continuously growing strength of tames.

So to answer the question above from my point of view, an increase in turret limit would be a first step that doesnt affect early game but helps land bases late game. The limit was mainly introduced for performance reasons, and i assume on ue5 the performance should be a lot better. It would alrady help to just say the plant x get a seperate limit to other turret type (especially if they finally manage to stop ini abuse). A second step, and this one is most important imo, could be to heavily limit breeding. ive made a suggestion for that in this forum a while ago if ur interested in details. The advantage of limited breeding would be that caves are less needed for storage of hundreds of breeders, cuz you wouldnt need that many overall, and it would be that attacking dinos arent as ridiculously strong as they are in ASE currently. Limited breeding is the most important balance change im hoping for in ASA.

I have seen ppl suggest to limit what can be unpodded in caves, but that wont really help imo, since teleporters and transmitters exist, and it does not help the core issue why cave meta is a thing, while at the same time making it annoying to run caves for loot/artifacts.

These are some good suggestions. I've always felt like plant x should be separate as they seem to work pretty well when supporting turrets, but they aren't really worth losing an actual heavy for. 

Limited breeding could also be cool-if done right. I'll have to check out your suggestion later tonight or tomorrow. It is sort of weird how we tend to mass hatch eggs and slaughter the bad stats lol. Feels more like a dino assembly line which definitely favors large tribes.