The Big Boys (Giganotosaurus,Spinosaurus,Tyrannosaurus

[Lockjaw]

7 hours ago, MultiKore said:

Level 1 Gigas don't even exist....With the recent nerfs bringing their base damage down to 560 a 200% giga will only do 1.1k damage, you have to be super lucky to get near 185% post tame. Need i remind you that rexs do about the same damage...(possibly more)

Well I just tested it and it does seem that the Giga's damage is slightly lower than it was before. A ninja nerf?

But a Rex's base damage is still 60, so no a vanilla Rex won't be getting anywhere near that much damage. I'm guessing that you're getting your numbers from the training dummy? If so then you need to watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwZZsDQWEDc The training dummy can't be trusted.

[bo0MXxXsplatter]

<s> NO!!! The Giga should always be OP! It's a Top-Teir dino for a reason! The nerf already made it weak enough, a good giga could almost be killed by a bred Rex, ALMOST KILLED! IT SHOULD TRAMPLE THOSE PEASANTS! </s>

[Shrekasaurus]

1 hour ago, bo0MXxXsplatter said:

<s> NO!!! The Giga should always be OP! It's a Top-Teir dino for a reason! The nerf already made it weak enough, a good giga could almost be killed by a bred Rex, ALMOST KILLED! IT SHOULD TRAMPLE THOSE PEASANTS! </s>

Wouldn't it be so much more fun if all rideable(and some unrideable) dinos could take part in combat? If they made Gigas and Spinos and Rexes balanced how I said(or differently) then all three could be more equal in their respective field of use. That go's for all the combat dinos. I believe once the game is done and things are different(which I assume they will be) then all dinos can be used. My idea goes for wild Gigas to. Imagine hunting a Giga with your pack of 5 highly trained Utahraptors jumping from the flanks and such. I can't really tell if this was sarcasm but I'll assume it was. The possibilities are not limited to only using Gigas cause the developers made them so op(come on, even with the nerf they still do a bunch of damage and have looots of health and they are fast). I honestly think things will change later. 

[Shrekasaurus]

On 8/31/2016 at 1:32 PM, Lockjaw said:

Well I just tested it and it does seem that the Giga's damage is slightly lower than it was before. A ninja nerf?

But a Rex's base damage is still 60, so no a vanilla Rex won't be getting anywhere near that much damage. I'm guessing that you're getting your numbers from the training dummy? If so then you need to watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwZZsDQWEDc The training dummy can't be trusted.

Yeah I'm pretty sure the training dummy makes no sense...

[Sup3riorArs3nal]

Top tier bred Rexes and Spinos generally beat out most tamed gigas (Even high levels) 1v1. However, top tier bred Gigas are the end-all of ground tame combat, capable of soloing wild gigas and Titanosaurs with ease. The only thing that can beat them are skilled war Quetzals, Wyverns, or other top tier bred Gigas. Skillful picking by air tames in general can do it, but with potential melees out there exceeding 3.5k damage per bite (exceeding 4.4k with mate boost) that's risky with anything beyond Wyverns or Quetzals. Even then, being too cocky or unskilled could get you even momentarily trapped, causing extreme damage or death.

[LilNastyGurl]

Combat-wise, yeah, imprinted Gigas can't be beat, but I REALLY HOPE THAT SOMETHING THAT TAKES MORE THAN A WEEK OF CARE can beat something that takes less time and can be produced in higher numbers.

If they were all equalized though, Spino would ultimately be better because it has the additional benefit of Alpha Mosa hunting, where the Giga will die before it can even reach the bottom, and the Rex will die within the first couple seconds of fighting due to drowning, and not combat damage.

[vanyelxp5]

On 8/30/2016 at 9:41 AM, Lockjaw said:

On official that will never happen.

That's because no dino should just be a straight upgrade over any other dino. Every dinosaur should be viable and fill a valid niche with it's own pros an cons. Even early game mounts like raptors and Trikes should have some form of viability all the way into the end game. It's just good game design.

A health trike is almost as good of a bullet sponge as a health turtle because of one key factor. They have a greater damage reduction for headshots than a turtle does for shell shots (0.15 damage for the trike, 0.2 damage on the turtle.

 

Add to that the fact that the trike's saddle was not among those that received the 50% blanket nerf to armor, and it may actually be better than the turtle now in spite of having a lower max possible health.

[PuffyPony]

I'm of agreement with the OP. Yeah, the Giga is currently designed to be the absolute apex tame (not including the Titan, but it's a special case anyway), and so a lot of the mechanics around it are reflective of that (insanely long breeding, poor stat scaling, etc), but IMO it really shouldn't be that way. The Giga, Rex, and Spino should all be roughly equal in power within their niches, meaning that a Giga fighting a Rex in a situation that's better adapted to the Giga will result in a dead Rex, but outside that niche, the Rex wins. These can be really broad (tank vs damage, etc), but it describes how end-game tames really ought to work.

To that end, I'd make all three tames quite rare (3-4 on a map each at any given time), and I'd also make them a fair bit harder to KO and tame. Accompanying that, though, I think they and all other end-game tames excluding the Quetzal (i.e. Bronto, namely, as well as Plesi) generally need buffs to help stratify them into the niche of powerful, capital players in combat. In theory, this should play out that the majority of a player's combat forces are made of mid-to-low tier dinos, such as Allos, Carnos, Raptors, etc., with just a few very powerful dinos implemented to play key roles--not to do everything as the Quetzal and Giga currently do. I'd need to sit down and think about how it would all be implemented, but needless to say it would require rebalances of nearly all tames in the game.

[Argleksander]

On 30.8.2016 at 5:01 PM, MultiKore said:

Uh...this has been the same for ages. Best dino is added everyone uses it and complains cause "[insert most powerful dino here]are the only land dino that everyone users" blah blah. People will cry when a more powerful dino than the Giga is released saying "i wish my giga could take on an xyz, xyz being the only land dino anyone uses is a problem". Seriously get over it. People will always pick the most powerful dino in the game.

I think you are missing the point here. 

Once you have one dino who is so much more powerful than anything else it basically makes them obsolete. Spino and rex were the right idea, the rex is slightly more powerful while the spino is more versatile but can still hold its own in battle. The giga on the other hand though just completely stomps on both of them and its bad for game balance. A bit more powerful, just fine, but not like it is now. 

[Lockjaw]

Here's my interpretation of where they all stand right now:

Spino

Pros: All-terrain versatility

Cons: Less power than the other apex predators

Summary: Spino is more-or-less where he should be. He won't out-muscle the Rex or Giga, but he easily makes up for it with his versatility.

Rex

Pros: Supposedly the best pick for boss arenas. I'd be interested to see how Megalosaurus and Therizinosaurus fare against the bosses, but for the sake of argument we can say that Rex is the king of the arenas.

Cons: While it's not exactly bottom-of-the-barrel in terms of power, it's still far from the powerhouse described in the dossier. Gigas, Titans, Mosas, Plesios, Megalosaurus, Squids, Golems, Wyverns, humans with weapons, and even Yogi Bear all laugh at the Rex's puny damage output.

Summary: King of the boss killers is an awesome role and one that is fitting for the Rex. The problem is the way that it's implemented. It isn't that the Rex is actually the best choice for fighting the bosses; it just gets the title by default because anything that would have been better for the job is either not allowed in the arena (Gigas), or the abilities that would have made the creature effective are disabled against the bosses (the Allo's bleed). It's a hollow title at best, and just feels like a band aid fix that they put in so that they could technically say that Rex is an endgame tame.

Giga

Pros: Absurdly high base stats; ability to damage stone structures. Indisputably the best choice for all ground-based melee fighting.

Cons: Doesn't scale as well as the others; longer breeding times; can't enter the boss arenas; can get mad and kill you if you make him stumble off a cliff and stub his toe.

Summary: If implemented correctly, the idea that it starts higher but doesn't scale as well as the others could have added depth to the game and created a distinct niche to separate it from other carnivores such as the Rex. Unfortunately that's not what happened because it's just stupidly overpowered no matter how you look at it. It could have been set up so that the Giga starts out the strongest at low levels, but as you train the Rex and unlock it's potential it gradually surpasses even a trained high-level Giga. This would make the Giga the dinosaur of choice for those who just want to tame it and immediately have a powerful mount, but the Rex would be the dinosaur of choice for more patient players who want to earn maximum power through training.

Now, I know that there are Giga riders out there who would object to this because they think that there would be nothing in it for them, but that's not the case. If the game were more balanced it could open up a lot of things for the Giga rider. More reasonable breeding times; the ability to take their beloved pet into boss arenas; the ability to have imprinted Gigas who love you too much to kill you even if they enrage. There could be more benefits, but those are just a few that I can think of off the top of my head.

[CCRogerWilco]

From wikipedia:

[LilNastyGurl]

Just now, CCRogerWilco said:

From wikipedia:

 

You were about to drop some facts on us but your link broke.

[CCRogerWilco]

Just now, LilNastyGurl said:

You were about to drop some facts on us but your link broke.

Don't know why it does that.

I fixed it by uploading the file.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Largesttheropods.png

[Elsos]

It depends we have 2 Gigas and few rexes but i just love too much my Rex, i rather go on meat runs with him and have a argent to follow so that i can bring home about 20k meat in one run. Gigas are ok i just cant deal with the not pushing the Shift key cuz stam is gone super really quick, while my rex just keep runing like the lil bunny from the Duracells Batteries.

Also The Giga is suppose to the the maximum predator.

[Shrekasaurus]

7 minutes ago, Elsos said:

It depends we have 2 Gigas and few rexes but i just love too much my Rex, i rather go on meat runs with him and have a argent to follow so that i can bring home about 20k meat in one run. Gigas are ok i just cant deal with the not pushing the Shift key cuz stam is gone super really quick, while my rex just keep runing like the lil bunny from the Duracells Batteries.

Also The Giga is suppose to the the maximum predator.

But the whole point of this thread is to discuss how to better implement the Giga into the game. I think my op is the best way.

[skeeta]

20 hours ago, Lockjaw said:

.....It could have been set up so that the Giga starts out the strongest at low levels, but as you train the Rex and unlock it's potential it gradually surpasses even a trained high-level Giga. This would make the Giga the dinosaur of choice for those who just want to tame it and immediately have a powerful mount, but the Rex would be the dinosaur of choice for more patient players who want to earn maximum power through training......

I like this idea. Makes perfect sense to me.

18 hours ago, Elsos said:

.....my rex just keep runing like the lil bunny from the Duracells Batteries.....

Lol, yeah. I just wish they'd introduce another animation for dino's when they reach a certain movement speed rather than just making the initial one play quicker. Some of them look ridiculous after a while. Kind of like they're vibrating across the landscape. Having your Rex actually leaving the ground would be rather an impressive sight.

[Shrekasaurus]

On 3/6/2017 at 11:42 AM, PuffyPony said:

I'm of agreement with the OP. Yeah, the Giga is currently designed to be the absolute apex tame (not including the Titan, but it's a special case anyway), and so a lot of the mechanics around it are reflective of that (insanely long breeding, poor stat scaling, etc), but IMO it really shouldn't be that way. The Giga, Rex, and Spino should all be roughly equal in power within their niches, meaning that a Giga fighting a Rex in a situation that's better adapted to the Giga will result in a dead Rex, but outside that niche, the Rex wins. These can be really broad (tank vs damage, etc), but it describes how end-game tames really ought to work.

To that end, I'd make all three tames quite rare (3-4 on a map each at any given time), and I'd also make them a fair bit harder to KO and tame. Accompanying that, though, I think they and all other end-game tames excluding the Quetzal (i.e. Bronto, namely, as well as Plesi) generally need buffs to help stratify them into the niche of powerful, capital players in combat. In theory, this should play out that the majority of a player's combat forces are made of mid-to-low tier dinos, such as Allos, Carnos, Raptors, etc., with just a few very powerful dinos implemented to play key roles--not to do everything as the Quetzal and Giga currently do. I'd need to sit down and think about how it would all be implemented, but needless to say it would require rebalances of nearly all tames in the game.

Very interesting ideas. Thanks for the constructive post!

[Shrekasaurus]

On 8/29/2016 at 9:51 AM, Joebl0w13 said:

The problem is, people still see the rex as the apex predator in this game but he's simply not.

It's the same as when you tame a rex, now your carno is just another egg layer. Nobody laments that they wish their carno was still viable. So as it is with the rex. The giga is the apex predator. Once you tame it, your rex IS just another egg layer.

But it shouldn't be that way.

[vanyelxp5]

2 hours ago, Shrekasaurus said:

But it shouldn't be that way.

That's the way the game has progressed through every tier of dinosaur though, with the exception of the Ptera, the next dino up replaces the one before it in terms of usefulness.

 

Carno/Allo replaces raptor, Rex replaces Carno/Allo, Giga replaces Rex in most situations.

 

Trike replaces picking by hand, stego replaces trike, bronto/paracer replaces stego (if you don't skip the stego entirely like many do of course)

 

The only time this isn't true, is when you need a smaller dino, such as when you want to run a cave. And even then, you don't just mount up on the smallest one because it fits, you mount up the biggest/baddest one that you can safely run the cave on,

 

It's all well and good to say "That shouldn't happen!" But it absolutely should, otherwise there's no sense of progression. Each previous dino remains situationally useful, but the majority of the things you used to do with it are now covered by the new one.

[OnePotatoChip]

23 minutes ago, vanyelxp5 said:

That's the way the game has progressed through every tier of dinosaur though, with the exception of the Ptera, the next dino up replaces the one before it in terms of usefulness.

 

Carno/Allo replaces raptor, Rex replaces Carno/Allo, Giga replaces Rex in most situations.

 

Trike replaces picking by hand, stego replaces trike, bronto/paracer replaces stego (if you don't skip the stego entirely like many do of course)

 

The only time this isn't true, is when you need a smaller dino, such as when you want to run a cave. And even then, you don't just mount up on the smallest one because it fits, you mount up the biggest/baddest one that you can safely run the cave on,

 

It's all well and good to say "That shouldn't happen!" But it absolutely should, otherwise there's no sense of progression. Each previous dino remains situationally useful, but the majority of the things you used to do with it are now covered by the new one.

I don't know, dude. There's already a sense of progression when you see yourself growing from cloth to flak, from thatch to (ugh) metal. Having more useful animals wouldn't harm that. It's just like the case of the Ptera and the Quetzal, or even the Bronto and the Paracer. Neither of those sets are out-and-out upgrades to one another; they serve different purposes. A Ptera can blip you across the map and is (unfortunately) the cornerstone of most PvP, while the Quetzal, while still a cornerstone for PvP, serves more as a cargo mount. You use a Bronto when participating in a raid, but you're probably going to want to take the Paracer when going Prime hunting. 

There's no reason why the Giga, Rex and Spino can't adhere to the same principles. I mean, heck, we can apply it retroactively to a lot of mounts. Getting a pack of Wolves shouldn't have to mean your Saber just collects dust, and your pack shouldn't have to collect dust just because you got a Dire Bear. 

[skeeta]

Why do we need a single dino that is, all else being equal, pretty much untouchable? Wouldn't it be better to have a small group of top tier predators that, if used correctly, can take out any of the others? A skilled player using a Rex, Giga, Spino or even a family of Allo's should be able to deal with any of the other three rather than one being so much better that a chimp, trained or otherwise, could win a fight riding one.

Hell, I'd like things like Raptors to still be useful in a scrap at higher levels. 

[vanyelxp5]

I'd like to see more options, but I don't think those options need to be "make everything good in top tier combat" 

 

We have the Giganotosaur as our top carnivore. Why not have an herbivore of similar power?

 

The Titanosaur is greater in power, but virtually useless in anything but a massive raid. When it was originally announced, it sounded like it would basically just be a really big bronto that you could build a bigger base on. Then they made it into a raid dino that you can't feed, which makes the whole thing worthless for pve applications (like it or not, pve is a big part of the game, even on a pvp server)

 

The game does need a serious balance pass once everything is in it... But I don't think making it so you can take out a Giga with a raptor pack is the right choice. Point blank, they couldn't seriously hurt it unless it sat there and let them. It's like a chihuahua vs a grown person, if that grown person is wearing full plate. No matter how tough the little dog thinks it is, it doesn't stand a chance.

 

[skeeta]

2 hours ago, vanyelxp5 said:

I'd like to see more options, but I don't think those options need to be "make everything good in top tier combat" 

 

We have the Giganotosaur as our top carnivore. Why not have an herbivore of similar power?

 

The Titanosaur is greater in power, but virtually useless in anything but a massive raid. When it was originally announced, it sounded like it would basically just be a really big bronto that you could build a bigger base on. Then they made it into a raid dino that you can't feed, which makes the whole thing worthless for pve applications (like it or not, pve is a big part of the game, even on a pvp server)

 

The game does need a serious balance pass once everything is in it... But I don't think making it so you can take out a Giga with a raptor pack is the right choice. Point blank, they couldn't seriously hurt it unless it sat there and let them. It's like a chihuahua vs a grown person, if that grown person is wearing full plate. No matter how tough the little dog thinks it is, it doesn't stand a chance.

 

Well no, obviously not. Raptors vs Giga or any other of the dinos being discussed here would be silly. A pack of them should be able to take down prey much bigger than themselves though and be a perfectly valid option to use against almost any herbivore should you fancy a change from just jumping on your Rex. 

[OnePotatoChip]

8 hours ago, vanyelxp5 said:

I'd like to see more options, but I don't think those options need to be "make everything good in top tier combat" 

 

We have the Giganotosaur as our top carnivore. Why not have an herbivore of similar power?

 

The Titanosaur is greater in power, but virtually useless in anything but a massive raid. When it was originally announced, it sounded like it would basically just be a really big bronto that you could build a bigger base on. Then they made it into a raid dino that you can't feed, which makes the whole thing worthless for pve applications (like it or not, pve is a big part of the game, even on a pvp server)

 

The game does need a serious balance pass once everything is in it... But I don't think making it so you can take out a Giga with a raptor pack is the right choice. Point blank, they couldn't seriously hurt it unless it sat there and let them. It's like a chihuahua vs a grown person, if that grown person is wearing full plate. No matter how tough the little dog thinks it is, it doesn't stand a chance.

 

Yeah, I don't think anyone's advocating that Raptors should be able to go toe-to-toe with a Giga. However, a few guys on Raptors pelting it with fire arrows could see some results. Because the Giga just shouldn't be able to keep up with them. Not every fight has to be sit there and click click click, hoping I've got better Health and Melee. Actual strategies are far and few in between in ARK PvP. As far as using different animals is concerned, anyhow. I don't know... maybe I just need to find an RP server...

[Lockjaw]

12 hours ago, vanyelxp5 said:

That's the way the game has progressed through every tier of dinosaur though, with the exception of the Ptera, the next dino up replaces the one before it in terms of usefulness.

If that were the intended design it would be a poopy design to say the least, and Wildcard would have some very poopy devs if they stubbornly insisted on sticking to it. But that's not the intended design. You're referring to unfinished placeholders in an unfinished game. Wildcard has already been taking steps to balance the game, such as giving you the ability to use weapons while riding creatures who were bottom-of-the-barrel before. That wouldn't have happened if those low tier dinos were meant to be replaced and just rot in the egg farm.

Quote

It's all well and good to say "That shouldn't happen!" But it absolutely should, otherwise there's no sense of progression.

No it shouldn't. Having more than one apex predator wouldn't take anything away from progression. They would simply fill different roles, much like the Rex and Spino already do when compared to each other. Want something that's an upgrade over your Rex? Get busy breeding and training yourself a better Rex. Want a replacement for your Spino? Get a better Spino. An upgrade over your Giga? Get a better Giga.

And I think the main form of progression is meant to be achieved through technology tiers anyway. The guy sitting in his underwater Tek base will have a lot more progression under his belt that the guy throwing up a thatch hut on the beach.