Primitive Plus engrams and balance

[Belthize]

In another thread I asked about opinions on solo play and how balanced Primitive plus was vs stock engram points per level.  Lacking any response I decided to see for myself.  I pulled the engram list from GameUserSettings.ini,  dumped them into a spread sheet using "," and "=", deleted the uniteresting columns and began adding up the total engram points per level for the new engrams.  I also grabbed the earned points per level from here: http://www.survive-ark.com/ark-engram-calculator/

The resulting spread sheet  is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1q_ho1LljiJM8HbpygehPHV5fttL5T_9doXTvd-I-mxg/edit?usp=sharing

The spread sheet has all the engrams on it but by default they're hidden (doc is shared fully editable so rows can be un-hidden, please don't corrupt it though I have a copy if you do).  You can unhide those rows by clicking the up or down arrows on the far left if you want to see the engram list for a level range or the full list.

A couple of things immediately jumped out that should be caught by basic build tools (which I commented on their lack elsewhere), e.g. the preserving shed has a level of 0 (I made it 40 just for sorting purposes), many engrams have an index of 0.  But that wasn't what I was really interested, my main interest was the distribution of points vs level.

It's pretty clear from the spread sheet that primitive plus adds a lot of low level engrams but not any new points are provided.  This means that the ratio of total engram cost vs available points to spend quickly climbs to 6x and then slowly drops till level 90 at which point it's back down to 2x.  To my mind this is too steep.  I get encouraging coop play but the first 10 levels are just basic keep the lights on engrams, specialization should start kicking in later.    I'd recommend using something like this spread sheet to redistribute and rebalance engrams in terms of when they appear and how much they cost. 

For my part I plan to play a solo game so since I can't change the engram costs (DLC just overwrites) I play to change the engrams per level.  The last column represents what I think is a better distribution where the ratio starts low, climbs to 3.5 (ie you can learn a bit less than 1/3rd of all engrams around level 40) and then returns to stock by level 90.

 

[Belthize]

I've added a 2nd sheet to the google doc.  It shows the necessary engrams per level to achieve the target percentages that seemed right to me.  If you want to use it just export the first two columns as a CSV file, then use an editor to change the ',' to an '=' and add "[/script/shootergame.shootergamemode]" as the first line and then paste the whole mess to game.ini.

The chart is for my own use, it matches what I'd probably enjoy in a solo game where I can only afford around 1/3rd of the engrams.  I tried to generate a smooth distribution of points per level ramping up and then down.  Others mileage may vary.  

A few things were apparent when working through the numbers.  

1. Level 25 is the worst range, it requires 50 to 60% more engram points (EP) than similar ranges like L20 and L30 (511 vs 382 and 307 respectively).  
2. Level 30 is the easiest, it requires 307 EPs.
3. L10 also has a major spike, it has similar requirements (354 EP) to L15 and L20 (369 and 382 respectively) though provides much fewer points per level.
4. The last 30 levels (60 to 90) demand very few engrams but provide the bulk of the points in stock which means they predominately serve to soak up points acquiring lower level engrams.  The sheet 2 table reverses that and provides more points in the middle levels and less in the later.  It seems unreasonable to have to wait to level 60 to afford a level 30 engram, by then the novelty has warn off.
5. Due to how the base game treated level expansions level L80 and L85 has a much higher requirement than L70 and L75 or L90, by then it doesn't really matter but it does show a 'welded on' type approach to new content.

If there's ever a balancing pass I'd suggest lowering the cost of L10 engrams and some L25 engrams and raising the cost of some L30, or consider moving some L25 to L30.