Dreadcthulhu

From the community crunch Disabled leveling of movement speed on creatures and players on Official Network (Unofficials can change this via config, of course) -- we see the conversations, we already did it a while back 😜

"Previously, mutations were based on a creature's wild stat multiplier, and now we’ve given it its multiplier. This has led to some creatures receiving some buffs/nerfs in particular stats, but we intend to rebalance this over time as we evaluate their roles in the meta." I would like to see more info on how exactly this works; as I understand it the levels from mutations will now be different from wild levels. I.E. right now a freshly tamed rex with 40 levels/points of health will have exactly the same health as a bred rex that had a 38 health parent and one health mutation to boost its stat by +2 to 40. But under this new system, a fresh tamed rex with 40 H could very well have more or less health than a rex with a 38 H parent and 2 mutation levels, depending on how much health a mutation level adds. Is this correct? Also will those mutation levels be inherited separately from the regular wild levels, or will they be "stuck" together? I.E., if I start mutating with a 40 health rex, and get 10 mutation levels added, and then a tribe mate goes and tames a 48 H rex, would it be possible to transfer those 10 mutation levels on top of the new 48 H wild stat? It also mentions that server owners will be able to set a stat cap, and official will have each stat capped at 255. Will both the wild levels and the new mutation ones have separate caps, or will the cap be wild + mutation added together? If the latter, that would complicate the mutation game; if some creatures happen to gain more from a mutation stat than a wild one then you would want to tame super low (or zero) before you begin mutating, while if a creature gains less from a mutation level you would want the best possible wild stat from the start. I also could be completely misunderstanding how this new mechanic works, so more info would be good.

Here is my idea for a cryopod replacement that is not quite so OP - have special buildings you can upload your tames into that place them in stasis. Maybe a barn for land tames, aviary for flyers, marina for water tames, and nursery for babies. Would look cool, and offer a lot of the same server performance benefits (would also make baby raising tolerable). Another option would be to increase the number of tames you can store in the Ark Data upload, and not have an expiration timer on it, along with a better UI to manage tames in upload. That would be really simple to implement, and just storing tiny data files for people's tames would only use negligible amounts of server storage space. Maybe just have a limit on the number you can download per day on the PVP servers, for balance purposes.

You use other tactics to deal with the wyverns then. Last time I did a Scorched playthrough I simply set my boss fighter rexes & a daedon near the trench, and lead the wyverns into rex pile; was good way to farm talons and level the rexes up too. Or you could set up turrets near the trench. Or use mass flock of argies to kill wyverns. Or you can get good at leading the wyverns into other wild creatures to lose aggro, etc.

I do like the whole idea of mythological creatures - something like Big Foot, the Loch Ness Monster, Mokele-Mbembe, the Thunderbird, or even a Chupacabra would fit right in with Ark.

When I started Gen2 I got lucky and tamed a female tek rex with really good health & melee early on. I named her Queen Jocasta and mated her with a random male until she had a son with the same health & melee - I named him Oedipus Rex. You can guess how I bred out a good rex army, lol. I also bred up a large group of megalodons to do the hard water cave & Gen 1 water missions with - I named them Sharknado #1 through #20. Made the hard water cave almost easy.

PC is better in my opinion, even without mods, simply because it gives you more access to the file system & more options for server hosting. I can do tweaks to the .ini file for stuff like stack sizes and pick up timers, in single player, while my understanding is that console players would need to rent a server to do the same .ini tweaks. It is trivial to make a back up of single player saves on PC as well, I can simply copy paste the save files onto my external hard drive, while I believe things are more complicated on the console end. And for server hosting, there are several companies that host Ark PC servers, or you can relatively easily host your own, while correct me if I am wrong, console players have to use Nitrado for hosting

Along that idea, of giving lesser used creatures tek saddles, I have a couple. One would be a tek equus saddle, that functions as a full on chemistry bench, as an upgrade over regular saddle's mortar & pestle function. The humble Pachy could use an upgrade, how about a tek saddle that include a head armor component that boosts the Pachy's torpor dealing ability to a point where it is an actual KO option. Terror birds could get a tek saddle with jet boosters that shoot them into the air, making their flippy flappy gliding more useful. And maybe some of the smaller tames should get tek options that boost their usefulness. Tek lights for light pets that boost their charge light range, for example. Or special tek vests for pegomastix, microraptors, and troodons that make them both much faster and higher armor could be really fun for PVP. A tek stealth unit for Purlovia that makes them invisible to parasaurs would also be useful.

Instead of a new creature they should just add rock drakes to the area that has them on the original mod map. Alternatively, some sort of creature that masks detection from parasaurs, for primarily PVP usage would be interesting. Or maybe a shoulder pet that adds armor to your character.

I really like thyas, and adding something like a tek saddle that has cloaking abilities would be really cool. Would be no more unbalanced than shadowmane & rock drake cloaking. I also like therizinos; what would be cool for them is a tek saddle that does weight reduction on assorted harvested materials, since they are great harvesters but not so good at carrying the stuff they harvest. For quetzals I would like to see a tek platform saddle that adds thrusters and makes it move faster, not silly fast mind you, maybe on par with an argentavis.

End game wise, on Gen 2 I have seen people using to harvest their cloned level 5 karkinos that they kill for organic poly. Apparently that ended up being the most efficient way to get polymer on that map.

The Center is a pretty easy boss fight; I have done it with just a single kangaroo & a good shotgunosaurus. But if you do want help, you should also mention what platform (PC/Xbox/Playstation) you are on.

This tactic is well known; however there is quite a bit of danger from it from the dimorphs, which can harm you on the back of a saddle. I have found that the lowest stress tactic is to ride a magmasaur during the fight (since its saddle protects you from dimorphs, and is immune to the dragon fire breathe & lava in the arena) while you use your deinonychus army to kill the dragon. I did a mix of shadowmanes, deinos, and a daedon last time I fought alpha, and the fight went easy peasy. Usually I skip the daedon in boss fights (better to have another combat dino) but since most of the damage was from the bleed I figured the healing would be worth it.

I did beta recently on my single player play through with 19 mediocre megatheriums (15k health, like 400% melee), 80 to 90 armour saddles, and a yuty. They won, but I lost 7 of them. Your tames will not stand a chance against beta OP, and for that matter gamma would kill them easily as well.

Ah, but having a large enough base to trigger those attacks would be optional; simply build a more compact base and you don't have to worry about event creatures coming to attack it, would just need the normal anti-wild creatures defenses you do now. Tribes could choose if they wanted to deal with the challenge.

I have found that narcoberries work better than narcotics for keeping creatures with fast dropping torpor (like therizinos or gigas) asleep. Narcoberries take longer to apply their torpor than narcotics; which is good, that slower torpor rise makes them sleep longer. You want to wait to use the narcoberries until right before the theri wakes up, to maximize the amount of time they sleep before needing another dose. A high level theri will wake up in about 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to farm up lots of narcoberries.

I think PVE needs some more dangerous E portions that specifically target large advanced bases, while ignoring smaller ones. This sort of thing is even supported in lore; the backstory of Scorched Earth has the City of Nosti being destroyed by the overseer for getting too large. Not only would this encourage more modest bases to improve server performance, it would also provide more of a late game challenge - you could have a big base, but would need to put in constant effort to refill turrets and repair stuff. Another thing to consider is the whole mutation system; right now the best way to get better tames is to have a ton of breeders out while hoping that the RNG fairly blesses you with +2 on the right stat. So people will have tons of tames out. If that was changed people would have a lot less tames around. My personal suggestion is to ditch mutations or strictly limit them, and instead have rare substances in the dangerous caves that provide one time stat boosts to your lines, similar to mutagen.

Get better at dodging is one option. Bring plenty of medbrews to chug & extra armor too, granted with the console UI switching might be an issue. Another option is to ride a magmasaur; its saddle protects you from the fire breathe & the dimorph minions, and its high drag weight means it will usually draw the dragon's aggro while your other tames attack it. Last time I did alpha dragon I rode a magma and used 10 shadowmanes, 8 deinos, and 1 daedon following a shadowmane, ended up being a pretty low stress fight.

Gen2, in my opinion. It has huge flat areas for building big dino display bases, resource gathering for most items is trivial, especially once you get a stryder, and once you run some missions & get a hex reserve you can always buy meat or berries for trough filling, if you are too lazy for meat run.

I downloaded all the saves my tribe had bases on. I tested the Crystal Isle save in single player, did not have a character on that server during the save, so made a new one. Things were running slowly, but everything was there, and I was able to forcejoin tribe no problem.

Fjordur would be a good choice; the only boss environmental hazard would the lava in the Dragon arena; and honestly the lava in the Fjordur version is much easier to avoid than the Island version of the fight. The Big Bad Wolf you face after beating the three Island bosses can be done with standard boss rush strat, just make sure to keep your distance on the tame you ride (usually a yuty), as the boss has a nasty dismount attack. It is also a good idea to include a few high health rexes in your boss army for that; if you go with smaller tames, like shadowmanes or therizinos, the Wolf will often ignore them and go straight for your yuty.

Here is a utility that will generate the admin commands to spawn in creatures with specific stats & colors. For example, if you want a maxed out giga cheat SpawnExactDino "Blueprint'/Game/PrimalEarth/Dinos/Giganotosaurus/Gigant_Character_BP.Gigant_Character_BP'" "" 0 1779 0 "254,254,254,254,254,254,254,0" "0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0" "Generated" 0 0 "" "" "" 0 1 "67,67,67,67,67,67" 0 0 0 20 20 that command will give you one with 254 base levels in every stat. https://arkutils.netlify.app/tools/spawnexact

OP, here is a simple trick to make spotting desired mutations easier - simply name your breeders after their key stats. When you have a rex named 44 M showing up as the father, it is obvious that you are looking for a 46 melee egg. Now, it would be really nice to have a way of checking stat points on tames directly, especially when you are starting a breeding project. Right now without mods you either have to use external calculators (like Ark Smart Breeder) or mate creatures a bunch and check eggs to work out the stats of your initial wild tames. (Well, single player you can use yellow admin gun, IIRC). Maybe stat checking could be added to the magnifying glass, or a new item (microscope perhaps?) could be added.

Maewing; very fast when gliding, a quick swimmer as well, durable enough to take a few hits, and trivial to tame replacements if you do lose one.

Maewing too, give the PVE side a use for the maewing baby steal ability.