ashgcy

1 minute ago, Gorosaurus said:

I really like this idea, you should share this to some of the ark Reddit groups to get some more voters if you haven't already.

I have been sharing it around there, just don't want to be too obnoxious haha.

Will probably save the further advertising for round 2 of the vote, if enough people vote it 1st, it has a good chance of winning, even if it isn't number 1 in the top 10! I don't think any of the more recent votes' winners were the number one spot in round 1 of voting

The top 10s are strictly a long neck household! You must have a long neck to enter!

Jokes aside, this is a very well thought out and interesting suggestion, glad to see it about to break the threshold and get into the top 10!

7 minutes ago, loudplatipus said:

I have some art for the gigantoraptor.

appreciate the reference material, but I feel like the custom dossier might get the point across haha. Combines the more naturalistic look of these reference images with a good old ARK-ified concept

11 hours ago, loudplatipus said:

i think it would be cool if ark did add the moa that they would add the coloration and some crests of the cassowary.

I mean... there is another bird-like suggestion in the top 10 with a heavy cassowary theme 👀

Jokes aside, Moa definitely is going for the more emu feel, seeing as it's a desert themed animal. Adding in cassowary features to an animal that doesn't even have a crest would look cool, but not really fit the design

As much as I hate to say it, I really can't vote for the beetle this contest.

The original idea, while powerful, still had a good idea of balance and niche and a realistic scope for the suggestion. While not every mechanic gets in, it was feasible enough that a majority of the idea could translate well to the game if it was added.

This new concept doesn't have that. Each title and tag update just seems to make it more wholly OP for the sole purpose of gaining votes. It's just piling more and more abilities on a creature to the point it feels really uninteresting. The fact that not even all of the original art from the previous content made it into the post originally really rubs me the wrong way. In short, it lacks the polish and attention to niche that most of the other top 10 suggestions have.

In addition, it doesn't even touch on the potential new changes that would benefit the concept with ASA's incoming code, it's just OP for OP sake. 

If there's another contest, I hope it returns in a much more reasonable suggestion of mechanics.


Edit to address what may be the final iteration of the concept: Still have the same concerns as before, while a lot of the "OP for the sake of being OP" has been done away with, the suggestion still struggles from waaaaay too much bloat compared to previous iterations of the concept. Will make it much more difficult to narrow down what the community actually wants with the creature were it to get in.

Also, the whole Scorched theming still feels very tacked on, and every other member of the top 10 seems to have a more unique niche that actually brings something to the game without having to sacrifice parts of their concepts

Also also, it just completely invalidates the dung beetle. Dung beetle's niche is fine! There doesn't need to be something that just completely replaces it

Secondary edit to address yet another change: While it's nice to see the creature return to its original concept, it doesn't fix what happened. The concept was already dragged through way too many a change and it just feels disingenuous to change it back just before the contest were to conclude after all the vote pandering and flip flopping.

Tons of more interesting and unique concepts in the top 10 now, all of them suiting scorched earth more, though I still hold true to the fact that I'd like to see this thing in one form or another in future contests

I definitely think this is my favourite of the two spider submissions on the front page! Hoping this one can pull through to the top 10 (without knocking out my gigantoraptor's chances in the process haha)

I absolutely love the personality that you gave it through just the artwork alone, and the mechanics are a really wonderful translation of the real world biology of jumping spiders into ARK-based game mechanics!

Love this goofy fellow! Sad I lost the 10th place with Gigantoraptor, but hopefully can pull back through without knocking it out in the process! Giant silly bird for the win! Maybe even two birds/bird-like suggestions!

In terms of taming, perhaps it could be KO'd by using chain bolas to make it trip over? Those long legs may be great for transport, but also would mean it could probably be knocked over quite easily

Edit: Okay so in the past few days Gigantoraptor blew up, honoured to share the top 10 positions with a fellow "giant silly bird" enjoyer!

1 hour ago, Normandem said:

Using the egg theme, it would be cool if they had a buff when near eggs or babies

I mean, the main suggestion has that in place already under the Abilities section

I love this concept a lot, however I feel like what it has now is a bit much.

Either it should stick to having the original claw sharpening abilities from the earlier dossier, or it should have the new “utilising wyvern talons” ability. Otherwise it feels like a bit too much in terms of mechanics, and starts to lean towards the repeated trend of “OP because I want it to be”.

Either or, Megaraptorans are a severely underrepresented grouping so I’d love to see this in the game!

Edit: Great to see that feedback come to the suggestion! Really strengthens the concept and I'm excited to see this in the final round! 

TO THE REPOSTERS OUT THERE: Gigantoraptor will return for future contests! If I think my concept will fit thematically, I will very much be posting it again. 2nd place in the whole of the ark community is no small feat! It also indicates to me people really want the creature in game! Expect to see it return for an Extinction, Genesis 1/2 or heck, a The Center themed vote (if the theme suits it of course). Either or, I'm very happy with the results of the vote, Fasolasuchus is going to be an awesome addition!

If you wish to repost this thread in future contests, please make sure you are properly crediting myself and ZCI5250. All the information you need is right here and should be relatively easy to copy/paste through. If you've reposted and want access to high quality versions of the dossier art and reference material please feel free to reach out on Twitter, same name as my account here. I can also give tips and such on how to put in multiple images and the like.

I'd really like to avoid a Bastion Beetle situation happening with my concept, meaning having someone gut my concept entirely and try to pass it off as their own. If you have a separate idea for a Gigantoraptor, by all means, you are free to post it, but if you're thinking of reposting any of the concepts in the Top 10 for future votes, please be mindful of the original authors, and the time they spent creating art, interesting mechanics and the like for their creatures. Don't be plagiarising other people's art and ideas! It's really not cool.


Gigantoraptor returns for another creature contest! With the promises of Dino/Baby management QOL in ASA, alongside the theme of the contest being Scorched Earth, this ultimate nanny of an oviraptor fits right in! In addition, Gigantoraptor was one of the many shelved concepts that Dave Melvin (the old dossier artist) shared quite some time ago, meaning that it was already planned to be added in some way or another into the main game!

I am well aware that it's never promised that all of a creature's mechanics will get in. However, I've noticed that WC tends to keep the general vibe of the submitted creature when it comes to the game, in the form of at least one shared mechanic. In addition, I've done my best to try to balance the mechanics of the creature as much as possible. I'd be more than happy if the creature got in with most of its nanny themed abilities, in addition to its unique baby-based ability to turn the tide of battle!

Enough talk though! Let's jump into the concept!

Table of Contents
1. Artwork
2. Dossier Text
3. Potential Base Stats and Spawning
4. Taming
       - OSD Styled Nest Defence
       - Egg Steal
5. Abilities and Controls
       - Controls
       - Abilities
       - Gigantoraptor's Imprinting
       - Saddle
6. Supplementary Links

Artwork
MASSIVE THANK YOU to ZCI5250 for creating a fully fledged dossier for Gigantoraptor! ZCI is an incredible artist and an even more incredible friend, and I'm beyond happy to see how much the community is enjoying my submission in this contest! Hopefully we get to see Gigantoraptor come to ASA!

I'll be putting my original concept art in the Supplementary Links. My concept is still near and dear to my heart, so it'll still be on this post, as it's what got me to where I am as an artist today, and sparked my passion for ARK modding and creature design!

THIS IS MEANT TO BE A CREATURE A LITTLE BIGGER THAN ALLOSAURUS. I realise the dossier's human-to-scale has confused a few folks thinking the thing is gonna be absolutely massive, it's not intended to be that big! Just Allosaurus height at the shoulder, maybe a little shorter than a Rex with the neck

Gigantoraptor would join the Yutyrannus, being a fully feathered medium-large theropod! It would also have dramatic sexual dimorphism, males sporting huge display feathers on their shoulders and elaborate patterns on their tail fans. This would make it really stand out among the other theropods in the game, bringing something new to a group of dinosaurs usually shown as mostly scaly, combat oriented creatures in ARK. Yes, this creature has combat prowess, but it's far from your usual bruiser/chomper you're used to seeing in ARK, it's a fully fledged battle "bird"! With the graphical and technical upgrades we could expect from ASA in UE5, a large, fully feathered creature like Gigantoraptor would look incredible! I'd love to see how detailed and dynamic feathering would look with improved textures. Could you imagine seeing the weight of its big coat of feathers as this giant stomps around?

Interestingly enough, there actually aren't any other dinosaurs (I mean the grouping, not creatures in general) in the game that would share the "omnivore" diet with Gigantoraptor! So I guess it's kinda unique in what it eats too!

Its colour palette is based off of the Forest Red Tailed Black Cockatoo! This Australian species of cockatoo is found nowhere else, and let's be honest with ourselves, Scorched Earth is really just ARK: Australia Evolved. What would fit better on that map than a giant cassowary/cockatoo oviraptor?

Dossier Text
Common Name : Gigantoraptor
Species : Gigantoraptor regalimaia
Time : Late Cretaceous
Diet : Omnivore
Temperament : Loyal

Wild
Gigantoraptor is quite the peculiar theropod. With formidable claws and strong kicking legs, this Allosaurus sized theropod almost appears like an apex predator. However, in most cases, this doting parent is never seen far from its mate and clutch of eggs. Their bond seems to run far deeper than any other species I’ve observed, as whenever they perceive their brood to be in danger, it manifests into a rush of adrenaline colloquially dubbed “Mother’s Fury”. This allows them to grapple with threats far larger than other animals their size! I guess there’s nothing more powerful than a mother’s love!

Domesticated
Short of the incredibly dangerous task of stealing an egg from the nest, it seems the best way to gain the trust of these parents is to lend a hand! Nesting individuals tend to get quite hungry, spending so much energy protecting their brood, so will happily accept food from humans. However, predators will take their chance to steal an egg while they eat. One must defend the nest from these pesky foes, but once these are dispelled, your efforts will be rewarded! Both parents will happily follow you home, trusting someone who cares just as much about their young.

Gigantoraptor make for the perfect nursery aid, as their naturally protective nature extends to any egg or newborn, even of vastly different species! I’ve even noticed them playing with all manner of babies, imprinting them with the scent of their owners!  Some tribes go so far as utilising teams of Procoptodon to carry babies into the battlefield to power up their Gigantoraptors, activating a “Mother’s Fury” to turn the tide of battle!

Potential Base Stats and Spawning
Health: 750
Stamina: 275
Oxygen: 150
Food: 3000
Weight: 380
Melee Damage: See "Abilities and Controls" section for base damage values
Torpidity: 950

Gigantoraptor would always spawn in mate boosted pairs, with both individuals being the same level. One member of the pair would randomly be assigned to sit on top of a nest structure, while the other moves freely about nearby. I personally think that they'd fit best into the oases and valleys of Scorched Earth, but I could see them also being found in the forests around the bases of the mountains.

This vote may be Scorched Earth themed, but Gigantoraptor's thick coat of feathers would help them stay insulated from the temperatures of a variety of environments, meaning they could potentially be found on other maps. This would be up to WildCard's discretion though, and colour palettes/patterns may have to change depending on the map.

Taming
Gigantoraptor has two taming methods, each offering its own advantages and disadvantages:
- Mostly conventional egg steal (boooring!)
- OSD styled nest defence!

OSD Style Nest Defence:
This unique taming method would require you to offer a meal to the hungry parent sitting on the nest. This part of the taming method would function like a conventional passive tame. The foods that Gigantoraptor would accept, in order of preference, are Superior Kibble, Raw Mutton, Raw Prime Meat, Crops, etc etc., though I could see it requiring Exceptional kibble given its powerful abilities. Being a small survivor, you're able to approach the nest on foot, as the doting parents don't see you as a threat... however don't run right in! Rushing towards the nest might aggravate the parents, so calmly walk up to the nesting individual to avoid spooking them, and feed them to start the taming process.

While you are passive taming the parent, pesky predators will start to appear. Small creatures like Oviraptors, Troodons and Dilos will frequently be appearing (spawning in) to try to break into the nest and steal the eggs inside. Similar to Megachelon taming, you'll have to dispatch of these predators before they get a chance to attack the nest! Rarely, comparatively larger predators like Raptors, Titanoboa or even Carnos may appear to try their luck! Thankfully, the mate of the seated Gigantoraptor will assist you in battling these creatures, becoming temporarily allied to you for a time much like Carchar taming! Dispatch of the thieves attacking the nest with new your bird-like friend to complete the taming!

However, be careful not to let the seated Gigantoraptor take too much damage! The damage from these predators won't only ruin your taming effectiveness, but can cause the mother and father will turn on you. The distraction of food took their attention away from its nest for too long, and they don't take kindly to anything threatening their babies!

The advantage of such a difficult taming method is that, after all is said and done, you'll be getting two tamed Gigantoraptor! Both individuals will become tamed to you after you successfully protect the seated Gigantoraptor, giving you instant access to a (hopefully) well statted breeding pair! The nest will be destroyed after successful taming in this way though, so you won't get the egg.*

With the AI improvements coming to wild dinos in ASA, I feel like this style of taming will be both more enjoyable and more rewarding. It'll really feel like you're fighting alongside a wild beast to earn its trust!

Egg Steal:
Unlike most other egg steal tames, Gigantoraptor eggs are not found in the overworld. Instead, they must be directly looted from the nest structure, like looting a beaver dam. This will force the player to have to remain stationary and make stealing the egg much more risky! In addition, these angry parents will stop at nothing to see you dead, staying aggressive even after they've killed you!

This unique egg mechanic is to prevent the egg from simply being taken after taming the parents OSD style.

*For handwavy lore reasons, this nest is a bit of a shrodinger's nest. Why would such devoted parents leave behind their baby to follow this human? Obviously it's because there wasn't actually an egg in the nest yet, this couple only just got their roots down. At least that's how I'd explain this balancing in non-game-mechanic terms. As another option, it could make more sense if the mate pair awarded you with a single egg for your efforts, again this is up to WC's discretion.

Abilities and Controls
I've considered applications for both PvP and PvE play with the Gigantoraptor. While I have done my best to balance them for official play, please note these are only potential ideas, and the Gigantoraptor’s mechanics could always be balanced according to what WC sees fit.

Firstly, it would join the Maewing and Procoptodon as a valuable nursery aid, functioning like a blend of an Air Conditioner and the S+ Nanny*, incubating eggs dropped near it, feeding babies too young to eat from troughs and helping to imprint on growing dinosaurs by completing cuddle interval requests. Of course, it would require the relevant food and imprinting comfort foods for these respective actions. For example, if a baby asked for Prime Meat Jerky as comfort food, it would require Prime Meat Jerky to successfully raise imprinting percent.

In addition, both wild and tamed Gigantoraptor will receive a buff when near any fertile eggs and babies (any growth stage from baby - adolescent) of all species, Mother’s Fury. This buff will increase their damage resistance and damage output by 20%, and increase their speed by 10% and decrease their stamina usage by 10%. Not only will this help in the defence of nurseries from enemy factions trying to kill or steal babies, but it could also synergise with Procoptodons! By bringing baby creatures into the battlefield, the Gigantoraptor could gain an increase to their combat abilities as long as there are living babies nearby! In addition, with wild babies coming to ASA, you may not even have to bring a baby to the fight, they'll just be around and allow you to power up! The reason for this outlandish concept/synergy is to reward interesting strategy/play and to give some use for all those breedjects... alongside continuing the running gag of how baby creatures are treated in ARK. We stomp on them for XP, sacrifice them to things like Troodons and Carchars to tame them, and mass murder them when they don't get that stat mutation we wanted. Bringing them onto the battlefield as "ammunition" for a giant cassowary nanny's signature ability is the least of the horrors!

*An important thing to note here is, S+ and other similar mods could take time to update to ASA. This would mean people potentially wouldn't have access to the structures for a bit of time. Having a creature that, if the abilities were to come in the final concept, fills those roles would be highly useful and may even suit some people's playstyles more! Everyone benefits from not having to sit there and fulfill cuddle timers, it's not a skill based thing, just a massive time sink. The balance just comes in the fact that you'd still need to provide it with potentially every cuddle food option for your creatures, alongside more balance options touched on in the "Gigantoraptor's Imprinting" section.

In terms of controls:

• Left Click : A double claw swipe. Hits twice for 30 base damage each swing. While slow-ish, its big AOE makes it great for dealing with larger targets or small groups! This can harvest meat.
• Right Click : A powerful kick that deals heavy knockback. The lower the drag weight of the target is compared to the Gigantoraptor, the further it gets knocked back! 25 base damage. This attack can also be performed while jumping. For how the jumping kick could look, looking at how cassowaries kick things would be a good, but terrifying, reference!
• C : A simple peck attack, that hits much faster than the claw swipe and is better suited to dealing with singular targets. 35 base damage. Harvests berries
• Spacebar : Basic Jump
• X : Roar/Taunt, the Gigantoraptor will flare its tail feathers and give a shrill cry. Purely cosmetic.

In terms of abilities:

• Tamed Gigantoraptor can be told to sit via the radial menu. When sitting down, a short animation of digging a nest plays, and once seated it functions like an air conditioner and incubates eggs. (with the existence of the egg incubator, I feel like this mechanic will be a little bit less needed, and isn't as important if it doesn't make the cut were Gigantoraptor to win)
• Seated Gigantoraptor are also able to imprint nearby dinos! See "Gigantoraptor's Imprinting" below for a more in depth look at the mechanics behind this game changing feature
• Gigantoraptor are the only creature attentive enough to notice when a Maewing is swooping in to steal babies! Babies nearby a Gigantoraptor will be completely immune to being stolen by Maewings, offering some counterplay to the kidnapping marsupial/monotreme/hybrid thing! This will function as an anti-theft AOE around the creature. I've been told that people don't generally use the Maewing's theft ability, but it always felt odd that something so powerful as stealing someone's breedline had no real counterplay other than "build a wall" (that could be broken down).

Gigantoraptor's Imprinting:
Balancing the imprinting is quite a tough one! As I mentioned above, imprinting isn't skill based, just time consuming. The point of the mechanic on Gigantoraptor is to just make it so that people don't have to be wasting time watching their pixel dinosaurs when they could do other things. Breeding is one of those necessary, but highly laborious and monotonous activities people will have to do in game. I don't think it's fun or fair that you have to be waking up every few hours to log on just to hit "E" on your growing baby because you want those extra stats. A vanilla balanced version of the S+ Nanny would save people so much time, especially for people on official who won't have access to crossplatform mods!

However, automatic imprinting all the way to 100% would be very powerful, especially if you could fit a bunch of babies into the imprinting range. But, on the other hand, having the automatic imprint cap out at a certain percentage, even with lots of stat investment, nullifies the whole point of leaving one out there to do its job of imprinting if a player still needs to interact in some way (other than comfort food refuels). 

There's two options I can think of:
Option 1:
Imprinting would remain the same as the original concept. Gigantoraptor simply needs to be loaded up with comfort foods and the like, and will imprint all babies in its range to complete 100% imprint. Only limit is how many babies you can fit into its range of effect, and the amount of comfort food stored in its inventory (wants to cuddle/wants to walk would just be automatic).

Option 2:
Imprint quality could be capped by a "Imprinting Quality" stat, functioning either like Gacha's mutatable crafting skill, or Maewing's "tamed level up only" nursing range ability. This would mean that a growing baby would still require additional input from a player to achieve the 100% imprint, unless the Gigantoraptor in question had been sufficiently levelled up. I think the best course of action would be to have this be a tamed stat to level up, but to make it possible to reach 100% imprint by levelling up this stat. Maybe it requires 50 points pumped in, maybe all tamed levels, who knows. But having it have no way to fully imprint a creature makes it a lot less useful.

In terms of a cap to the amount of babies that Gigantoraptor could imprint at the same time, perhaps this could scale with the Imprint Quality stat, or even the level of the animal? One Gigantoraptor would have a certain number of babies that could be assigned to it to be imprinted. This could be something like 5-10 at base, but higher level/higher pumped Gigantoraptor are able to imprint more babies at once, incentivising the taming and levelling up of strong "imprinter" Gigantoraptor.

Hopefully these options provide enough of a framework for WC to make the decision on what would fit best in game, if the concept were to win in round 2!

In terms of saddle:
I wanted to avoid giving Gigantoraptor a baby carrying saddle like the Maewing to avoid overlapping niches too much, and encouraging synergistic play when using it in a combat setting. However, after some thought and feedback (editing a concept based on useful information? Preposterous!), I feel it would benefit the concept. Maewing won't be coming to ASA, according to the roadmap, until 2024, so one of the more useful breeding creatures would not be present for a very long time, so giving some baby carrying capacity to Gigantoraptor seems appropriate.

The saddle would also make using the "Mother's Fury" buff a little easier, as well as making it harder to steal a baby from under its watch (regardless of the maewing anti-theft aoe). To make it not completely invalidate the Maewing though, it would only be able to hold one baby, and won't be stealing any children any time soon!

This is, again, one of the many things in the submission that is up to WC's discretion. 
 

Supplementary Links

Real world Gigantoraptor here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigantoraptor

Size reference for real-world Gigantoraptor (the thing is huge!). Art by Gabriel N. U./@SerpenIllus


Originally planned Dave Melvin Gigantoraptor:


My original Gigantoraptor concept art:


Forest Red Tailed Cockatoo reference:

While it seems the initial (quite frankly a bit unwarranted) kneejerk reaction to this information is to call out WildCard for being moneyhungry cashgrabbers, we gotta take a step back about all this.

I think what we know so far is entirely reasonable. All of the recent, massive content updates WC has given us, despite community controversy in the votes, has all been entirely free of charge, all while they're continuing the sponsored mod program that gives money to the community to make more things for the community.

I hope that we get another roadmap soon that explains the situation better, because the community really needs to know more about what's going on with this bundle before jumping to conclusions. I'd love to know if people who already own ARK 1 would get any discounts buying the game, and if the costs of all the DLCs are going to be included. While I do think $50 USD flat is a big sum of money for a remaster, it's important to remember it's the remaster, ARK II and access to the closed beta for the game. This may be the first time WC giving the option to the wider community in playtesting one of their games.

At the end of the day, these delays (which I'm happy to hear about, delyas suck, but it gives WC more time to polish the game) means that WC is going to be in a period of not earning much money, so giving a way to buy ARK II early, while still delivering a fresh spin on existing content, isn't that terrible of an idea. WC is a huge company now, and people's livelihoods depend on the studio.



Hopefully people read this, and take a step back to re-consider what's going on with all this. Then again, I'm talking about a community who can't help but complain when their "precious evo event" doesn't run on the official servers, when singleplayer/unofficial/non dedicated exists for you to have settings yourself. If an extra 2x blingo blango rates means that much to you, pay for your own server, WC offers hundreds of official servers for free, and it ain't cheap to rent that much server power

Really excited to see a new creature submission in the works, I just hope it's managed a lot better than last time