DiabolusUrsus

Okay, I'll bite. New mechanic: changing climate via seasons (even if it's not enough to cause total scenery changes, cyclic shifts in minimum/maximum temperatures and weather patterns) that make it so survivors need to consider stockpiling food for the harsher months. Sub-mechanic of seasons: advanced farming. Instead of limiting players to throwing down a bunch of crop plots, introduce a new item: tilling markers. Place them, configure how they should connect, and the space in-between them on the ground is re-textured into a tilled field capable of growing crops. Players can still create greenhouses with plots, but this allows survivors to produce larger quantities of food at a time. Tilling markers could also be affected by the type of ground available in different parts of the island. Growing things in the snow biome or on a mountainside is going to yield less than say, a fertile and temperate field. Sub-mechanic of seasons: advanced food & preservation. Spoil-timers are already in need of a serious rework, but with the need to stockpile food survivors need options for making food items last longer. Dried vegetables and fruits, better primitive refrigeration, and different types of meat yielded from different creatures. If flesh from an insect or dilo is less satiating/downright poisonous, survivors might have a reason to consider hunting some of the larger creatures. It would also be nice to see the possibility for actual "fish farms" of Coels, etc. This system would have a lot of room for expansion that I'm not going to drone on about here. Sub-mechanic of seasons: advanced creature behaviors. An interesting way to mix things up in terms of survival knowledge would be to have different creatures change their behavior depending on the season. For example, certain herbivores might become much more aggressive and violent during a breeding season in the spring, or certain carnivores might be particularly active during spring and summer but hibernate during winter. This would go hand-in-hand with polishing up the food-chain relationships between the various creatures already in-game so that the PvE experience is something a little different than getting periodically (or constantly, in some areas) mobbed by a ragtag interspecies alliance of the island's carnivores. Keep in mind that this is a rough concept that doesn't even begin to cover all of its bases, but this alone would start fleshing out the rather neglected "survival" aspect of "ARK: Survival Evolved," and done correctly it might start building a foundation of PvP motivations beyond simply griefing for the sake of griefing. It also took me all of 5 minutes to brainstorm. But you kinda missed the point as to why I dismissed breeding as a worthwhile mechanic. Technically speaking, yes, it is a mechanic. But it's a crappy mechanic, because there's nothing really significant it brings to the table. More tamed creatures? We already have those. Grind? There's already plenty of that. It's not like you can do anything different with bred creatures as opposed to wild creatures. I'm glad you enjoy breeding, but you have to be honest about what it really is: a time-sink, and nothing more. Provided you enjoy it, it will distract you from exactly how empty and meaningless the rest of the game currently is. If you don't particularly enjoy it, though, you're poop out of luck because there's no real reason to do it if you don't care about special coloring or superfluous stat increases. It'd be one thing if your tames had a life cycle and you needed to replace them every once in a while, but they don't. That's also kinda beside the point. It's not actually unreasonable to claim that the devs need to do a, b, and/or c without offering up an example every single time because they are the devs. It's their job to build a complete game. I'll be happy to comment on planned features or roughly-implemented ones with ideas for improvement, but it's kinda unfair to expect the community to come up with all the ideas, don't you think? Or are you suggesting that it's acceptable for the devs to have such a narrow consciousness of their own product that they need players to spell out what's missing? It's all well and good to say "well they're almost done with all the dossiers," but didn't they just release a new one? What makes you think they won't simply continue to do that? Note that I'm not even complaining about bugs. I just want for there to be more to ARK than "tame X dino to harvest Y resource." Yes, there's PvP and all that jazz, but if the PvE side of the game had a more complex set of concerns and motivations the PvP might actually start to be worthwhile. As it is now players PvP just because, and PvE is just a hurdle to be swept aside in preparation for joining the griefing. Why did I comment on your post? Because it embodied that kind of mentality that I think is damaging to the game because it enables the sort of directionless development we're seeing. Sure, the game is still in EA and sure, things are still subject to change. But I haven't seen any indication that they will change, which is why I'm concerned whenever I see whatever pointless new hype-generator has been announced. Nothing against you, personally, I'm just fed up with the pot calling the kettle black because waving around the EA excuse without questioning how things are actually progressing is just as pointless as suggesting that development should be completely halted just to fix bugs.

Question: Why is "new content" limited to additional items, creatures, structures, etc? Because it really shouldn't be. When was the last time the devs added something substantially different and meaningful in terms of gameplay? ARK is still essentially the same game it was back in June of 2015. Breeding? That's just an extra time-sink to stack on top of taming. Nothing really new. Your Giga with better stats is still just a Giga. Tek tier? It's at least a semi-formed reason to progress to the level cap, but people were already motivated to do that anyway, and in terms of function Tek items really only add to the PvP griefing platform... which was already effectively complete from the get-go. I'm definitely willing to appreciate new content, but not redundant, narrow-minded content that creates an entirely new niche for something that really ought to apply to multiple creatures as a blanket mechanic. It's like when the devs rejected the idea of a pack bonus for raptors simply because the Allosaurus was getting one. I agree that simply crying over spilt milk isn't constructive, but I also think that this whole "it's still in early development content-dumping!" excuse is also getting worn out. Content dumping is fine, but it would be nice to see some semblance of design coherence and overall direction applied to said content. It would also be nicer to see some content dumped into the areas of the game that are actually lacking at the moment instead of yet more dinos to cram onto an already-overcrowded map. Essentially, what I'm trying to say is that there needs to be a line drawn in the sand. ARK is already long overdue for its original scheduled release, and while the reasons for that make sense, one would think that the devs might do well to address how they intend to deal with that delay and start working toward making up the time that was lost. Give us something, anything to show us that they can do more than simply brainstorm. I have yet to see anything like that, and it's making me more and more concerned that ARK is going to lapse into development Hell. Not the kind where the creators are out of money, but the kind where the creators aren't entirely sure how they want to finish up. I really don't want to see the ARK devs draw this process out for another five years before slapping a "finished" sticker on a rough and cobbled-together product because they're bored and want to go do something else.

Really? REALLY? You're going to add a new and rather redundant, given how many "large theropod" archetype dinos you have in the game already, creature to implement a one-off gimmick mechanic instead of spreading the love around to the creatures that really should have this mechanic already? Don't get me wrong. I'm sure plenty of people are hyped up over this release, and I certainly wouldn't want to deny anyone the chance to see their "favorite" dino added officially if that's the case. But I'm getting rather fed up with interesting mechanics that have been suggested multiple times getting stuck to one specific creature to add to an already-extensive laundry list of tames instead of some polish begin applied to the existing creatures. I would much rather see "new" creatures with so much overlap (like this one) released as alternate versions of existing dinos available on expansion maps (e.g., Yutyrannus might be a Carno replacer on a new ARK) with additional features like roar-based fear added retroactively to help alleviate some of the older creatures becoming mostly obsolete with time. ARK is not free-to-play. There's no good justification for this sort of power creep. Your spawns are getting diluted. Your "ecosystems" look like a six-year-old dumped out their toy drawer on the floor, and your game is horrendously rough and unpolished after going so long overdue for the original release date. You've got a halfway-decent construction system and people can have a decent amount of fun collecting new creatures... but outside of that your game is entirely one-dimensional. Grind, grind, grind. (I refuse to acknowledge "grief, grief, grief," as a core mechanic.) I don't hate ARK. I'm heartbroken that one of the most promising starts I've seen in EA has devolved into this. You've shown us all that you can add in neat new things. Please show us all that you can take all the neat new things you've already added and make a solid game that isn't 95% reliant on its multiplayer factor for longevity considering how much time players need to sink into it. And that's coming from someone who plays primarily single-player with occasional non-dedicated thrown in.

This is... really disappointing, and I think it reflects the tendencies of the devs to cover new features by adding new content... instead of updating existing content with those features as appropriate. It's pointless power-creep in its most annoying form, where new content invalidates old content just because, rather than to support some contrived micro-transaction economy. This is the kind of crap I hoped to avoid with a game that was bought straight-up instead of F2P. What's more... ARK is swiftly losing its mystique. Before it was a unique alien-made island of dinosaurs and other exotic prehistoric creatures... now it's an aimless mish-mash of a bajillion different creatures that make zero ecological sense and a Frankenstein's monster-style island with biomes stitched together in a nonsensical fashion. Willing suspension of disbelief will only go so far. Farther for some than others, sure, but please consider actually starting to polish what you've got into a finished product. The survival aspect of "Survival Evolved" needs a lot of work (unless you meant "Survival Transcended and Left Forgotten in the Dark Closet of Vestigial Mechanics"). Older creatures could really use some model and function updates. The progression system needs to be made more sustainable across updates instead of mandating max levell increases to accommodate new engrams. Did you just abandon the notion of a dedicated single-player mode? Basic animation refinements when? Proper ecosystems when? Getting real fed-up with the constant hype-training while the actual important stuff is continually delayed.

Yes, it is deceptive. The difference between me and ARK is that I am capable of independent thought and have a record of personal decisions that only I can be held accountable for. Such is not the case with a video game. It is built entirely off of the merits (or demerits) bestowed upon it by its creators. They and they alone are responsible for the types of experiences it can provide to the player, so of course their business and development practices should be factored into reviews... especially when said reviews are for an Early Access product where a solid assessment of developer integrity and reliability are absolutely crucial. Thus boasting a paid DLC in Early Access is a trait that must be attributed to ARK, the product in question. It's one thing to say "this game sux" because it has EA DLC. It's another thing to say "I can't recommend this game because it has EA DLC."

Deceptive analogy. What would be more accurate is to say "Imagine if you were a convicted felon." The business practices of game creators are actually a fairly large consideration for a number of players, so it's entirely reasonable for those practices to influence the review. That's the catch to independent player reviews. If the devs want an impartial review of the product and the product alone, they should send review copies to professional critics. Reviews by the players for the players are going to incorporate everything that is relevant to the players... so that's not exactly something that can be considered inappropriate. Sure "Lol, EA DLC, this is BS" isn't exactly a high-quality review... but that doesn't mean it is entirely unwarranted or useless. It's the same kind of decision as not eating at Chick-Fil-A or shopping at Hobby Lobby, and things like Steam reviews are an excellent medium for that sort of information. Nobody really takes any individual review all that seriously, but it still gets a general message across.

Thank you for taking the time to address some of the more pertinent issues spawned by the Scorched Earth expansion. I feel a little reassured about the whole ordeal, but not entirely. Unanswered questions: When is your best guesstimate release date? Are we talking another year of development? Six months? More than one year? I don't mind games being in EA for extended periods of time, but I feel a lot better about it when there's a concrete release date rather than nothing but a "we're working on it," development limbo. I don't mind if this ends up getting delayed... but I appreciate it when I know you guys are aiming for a solid goal. Are all the other ARKs going to be paid as well? I think this is an important one... because while it may just be my imagination playing tricks on me I could have sworn that you guys were intending to release at least some of the additional maps as free updates instead of paid expansions. Not that I'll be particularly concerned about it provided you can pull off passable procedural generation, but it'd be nice to know. As a bit of early feedback... please allow us to influence the proportions of biomes when generating procedural ARKs. Please note that I'm not counting community-spawned ascended-mod content among "free" official releases. When do you expect to get into the nitty-gritty polish? I can definitely understand the merit of saving the polish for later, and the reasoning behind it has definitely been explained. However... it's not very reassuring when what I consider to be the most critical part of development - making sure everything meshes together well, that there's a decent amount of depth to the gameplay, and that it looks and feels great to play - is continually postponed. I don't see the sort of survival mechanics I was hoping for coming together. I don't see the sort of detailed ecosystems I was hoping for coming together (It's just a mish-mash of creatures with little to no bearing on each other, and dinosaurs out of the original Carnivores on PC behaved more believably than some of the creatures wandering around the ARK.) I'm not too excited by what amounts to NG+ in a game that is currently little more than a resource grind. Please... give us a more immersive experience. I would love to see dino animation and control brought up to the quality of something like Primal Carnage: Extinction. Are you going to take steps to ensure this doesn't happen again? Unless development is done in the next few months, I'm sure there will be other questionable decisions to make that you will hopefully make for the right reasons. A lot of antipathy can be avoided by explaining your reasoning in this sort of detail when we first hear about it and when it actually goes into effect. Please take the time to do so.

The 30 bucks we originally paid was supposed to make the game. They even did way better than they expected to in terms of sales. They never let down? I feel pretty let down right about now. The fact that they've made DLC isn't the problem... the fact that they've made DLC and their base game isn't even starting to resemble a finished product is.

This is disgraceful. I'm really disappointed; you guys were going so strong with the "these devs do Early Access the right way," momentum you had going from the beginning. Frequent updates. Responsive to feedback. You made me feel confident that this game would actually reach full release, and not stay in development Limbo for years on end like so many other "early access" models. And then you do this. "We're holding off on polish because there's no point in making improvements that might get overwritten by future development." Okay, but you're well over your projected deadline for release already, and you still don't seem to have a coherent end-goal for the game's content. You're just piling on hype-generating fluff while continuing to ignore the core gameplay. Sure, I'll give you some slack because of the legal trouble you ran into earlier this year... but I should think that would make you redouble your efforts to catch up, not waste development resources on paid content before you even finish with the game you initially sold to us. Which brings me to my first question: why?! Didn't you guys make buttloads of money off of initial sales? Off of the publicity you got from streamers? Why is this not playing out similar to the way Starbound did, where the developers made enough to continue development without any additional sales for the next decade? Starbound took forever and a day to come out, but it did, and the devs didn't need to dangle any paid content before customers who had already paid up-front before they even finished their first obligation. Did you give it all away in SoTF tournaments? I haven't been too happy with those, either. Where is the polish? Where is the end-game? Where is the story? Where is the dedicated single-player experience? You pump out new content heaped on new content, but none of it seems to have any direction. It's just fanservice. Don't try to give me that whole "Ascension" mechanic you guys seem set on either. That's basically just NG+, and it doesn't do a darned thing to address how flat the base game is. Yes, multiplayer makes it dynamic, but I didn't get this game to relish in competitive FPS crap. The PvE game needs attention too, and at this point it doesn't have much meat to it outside of a resource grind. I can't even begin to sufficiently express how completely this disappoints me. Please... Finish. Your. Game. New toys and dinos are fun and all, but there comes a time when you actually need to get around to doing your homework. When you get around to touching up awkward animations. When you get around to addressing the progression that has blistered out of control into a meaningless grind. When you get around to balancing your game so that players can be challenged by something other than an arbitrarily vast difference in stats. When you get around to making sure your game runs beautifully like your trailers on hardware that isn't quite top-of-the-line. I wait for updates to the product I've already bought, not additional cash-grabs, and it is endlessly aggravating to think that you've spent time working on this thing. I firmly believe that your fanbase needs to be patient with the speed of development... but patience has its limits when you do stuff like this.

Well, yeah, territorial/defensive behavior is the key reason why any herbivore that isn't abnormally aggressive would be dangerous. I'm thinking it'd be safe for something the size of a bronto to ignore you, and Ankylos might not care as much given how armored they are, but Trikes and Stegos at least should make you think twice before running up and patting them on the head. I'd also like it if herbivores like the Parasaurs that tend to just flee were a bit more skittish around you. Get too close, and they move away. Not a full-on sprint, but they keep distance. As for carnivores, I want them to all stalk you to some extent, but under different circumstances and in different ways. For example, smaller predators like raptors might actively hunt you while larger predators like rexes might ignore you unless you get too close, anger them, or they're starving and can't find anything else nearby. When it comes to things like Carnos, I feel like they should attack you suddenly if the opportunity presents itself as they're stalking other prey.

Honestly I dislike this whole "Predators are the sole threat to your survival" thing (at least disregarding PVP content). Herbivores can and should be dangerous, even without needing to be prodded with a spear first. I have my fingers tightly crossed for an iteration of ARK where some species of herbivores present the constant-but-moderate danger of death by violent attack, and predators are sparser but are the animals that will actively stalk you.

Well, I was operating off of the (I'd like to think fairly sound) assumption that they wouldn't be tinkering with spawn rates all that much, at which point they'd need to introduce more herbivores than carnivores to present anything other than a perpetual bloodbath around spawn zones. I would definitely be satisfied if predators in general were rarer.

The dossier looks nice, as always, but... Carnivores, carnivores, carnivores. Carnivores everywhere. Frickin' nothing but carnivores. Is that what this game is going to look like as a finished product? A "survival" game that plays more like an FPS because 75% of the animals on the island want to eat you, and you can't cross the next hill without running into four different species of predator? It's hard to imagine interesting predator-prey relationships arising from this population, and even more difficult to imagine that once you guys get improved AI in the mix certain species of herbivore will become excessively rare for no other reason than too many different things are trying to eat them.

I certainly hope that's the case, though at which point I'm still going to be irritated that they intentionally misinterpreted the question they were responding to trying to be clever.

I've got two huge issues with this digest: 1. A desert biome? REALLY? On THIS ark? Your landmass is already small and cluttered enough as it is... unless you plan on redoing the design of the island or expanding the size of the map "The Island" is going to seem less like an island and more like a sad little assortment of dioramas. The new biomes (while they have some interesting content) are already not that much fun to explore because they're so small. It's too easy to wander out of the swamp while exploring it, and the snow biome feels like it doesn't even belong on the map. Adding an expansive desert that further depletes the existing jungle biome is a terrible idea without some major changes. 2. No pack bonus for raptors? Why not? Because Allosaurus is going to be a pack hunter, so it's 'taken?' Raptors... > Are not fast enough to warrant choosing over another, stronger mount outside of aesthetic preference. > Have no outstanding stats or utilities, even compared to the Pachy. > Are exceptionally fragile compared to comparable mounts. "Raptors are early-game mounts." Okay, but why does "early game" need to equate to "obsolete the second you get another carnivorous mount?" They're already disadvantaged by the fact that players earlier in the game will likely need to tame lower-level creatures. I think much of the community also develops some degree of sentimental attachment to their pets, so why not keep them useful throughout the game? This is ridiculous. Obsolete gear? Fine. Obsolete creatures? Lame. "But they're easy to tame, so having a pack bonus would be too easy to spam and OP." Okay, implement a limit. Another player on the steam forums suggested implementing a cap where having too many pack members induces potentially lethal infighting. That was a good idea, and it ought to be implemented for all creatures with a pack bonus. Problem solved.