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[ARK: SE] Genesis: Part 2 released. Flying Platypus and Robo-Giraffe, ahoy

124

Posts

  • Magic PinkMagic Pink Tur-Boner-Fed Registered User regular
    Thanks, I'll try.

  • cncaudatacncaudata Registered User regular
    So, this is free on EGS. Y'all are forming giant mechs, and I'm like... how do I build a roof? This game is something else.

    PSN: Broodax- battle.net: broodax#1163
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    It's really an amazing game! With default settings, it can be very grindy, and it gets criticized for that a lot. With PvP, it's 100% a complete mess where you have to join a megaguild and/or quit your job, or perish. But as PvE, it has a ton of stuff to do. And it very easily lets you tweak all of the values in the game to make it as not-grindy or grindy as you would like. Once you find the sweetspot with harvesting, XP, and taming multipliers, it really is an awesome game.

  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    I originally downloaded this with the xbox game pass but the crossplay and support blows. So instead i got the epic version which can at least play with steam users and isnt like 2 years behind on patches. Been playing crystal isles most of the day on an unofficial pve server. Been having much more fun than the constraints of running nondedicated with my wife. Now we can both go out and collect different stuff and come back and manage everything. Even managed to get a really pretty blue and rainbow winged wyvern.

  • Dr. Phibbs McAtheyDr. Phibbs McAthey Registered User regular
    I just let my server lapse, I’d been running for friends and interest had waned hard in the last month, myself included. I think part of it is my settings and mods were heavily geared towards just having fun taming and creative building. Everyone hit that point where they were on cruise control really fast. Maybe the next time I run a dedicated I’ll have it more dialed in, it’s hard to find that balance between grind and fun.

  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    Yeah, it's ultimately something that everyone decides on their own. I think the XP curve for the latter levels is absurd, just because they're tied to some really useful recipes. With Ark Server Manager, it's really easy to custom configure how much XP you need for each level, on top of probably boosting XP gain a bit.

    But yeah, if you go too far in one direction you can take the sense of progression out of the game, and that will ruin your interest fast. I tweak a lot, but generally wind up somewhere around 5x EXP (if it's your first time I would say maybe 3x), 3x resources, and around 5x tame depending on what level you have your dinos capped at. On that note, the game is not balanced well for starting out at level 1 with max level dinos running around. So I typically gradually increase the level cap as the server goes on to make the ballooning HP levels not feel so spongey.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    Personally, I was happy back during the very early days of the game when the dino level cap was something like 40. Then the level cap jumped off a cliff and there became WAY to big a of disparity between the potency of dinos within the same species. I liked when riding around on a dino made you feel roughly like a peer against the dinos in the wild. Not where your dino is an invincible death machine that only needs to worry once you get outnumbered 30 to 1.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    Id been playing for free on the epic version. Theres a sale on every platform for it and the dlc now so i picked it up on steam. Now i have all the maps and can delve into the world of mods too.

  • Sir CarcassSir Carcass I have been shown the end of my world Round Rock, TXRegistered User regular
    Enigmedic wrote: »
    Id been playing for free on the epic version. Theres a sale on every platform for it and the dlc now so i picked it up on steam. Now i have all the maps and can delve into the world of mods too.

    Get Structures+

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    You need the improved taming mod. Maybe it was called realistic taming?

    WAY better than the default taming method of "drug a creature and then spend hours force feeding it food" that somehow got greenlit for the vanilla game.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    Personally, I was happy back during the very early days of the game when the dino level cap was something like 40. Then the level cap jumped off a cliff and there became WAY to big a of disparity between the potency of dinos within the same species. I liked when riding around on a dino made you feel roughly like a peer against the dinos in the wild. Not where your dino is an invincible death machine that only needs to worry once you get outnumbered 30 to 1.

    You can still do that if you want! Capping dino levels is super easy. Obviously you need to be the one controlling the sliders (have your own server or play locally), but that one's pretty easy to do.

  • EnigmedicEnigmedic Registered User regular
    You need the improved taming mod. Maybe it was called realistic taming?

    WAY better than the default taming method of "drug a creature and then spend hours force feeding it food" that somehow got greenlit for the vanilla game.

    Ive been playing on a server with like 20x taming. I can tame even the biggest things in just a few minutes. But ya, i can see how it could be rough on official servers. But everything i read before istarted playing basically said dont touch official with a 10 foot pole.

  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    The realistic taming method was actually fun. The more docile dinos will come up to you and eat out of your hand after you earn their trust through less direct feeding. The aggressive ones submit after you assert your dominance.

    The default "tranq and stuff full of food" method always felt like an alpha stage placeholder system that stuck once they made the mistake of courting the "pvp" crowd.


    PvP in quotes, since the pvp in the game is raiding bases while all of the occupants are either asleep or at work.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    edited June 2020
    I'm pretty much good with the taming system as it exists, and prefer it to the modded versions. Passive taming and the alternatives just feel a lot more manual to me, and the "tame by drugging" system is so heavily integrated into the game that I feel strange cutting it out of the loop entirely. It's a big thing that pushes me to progress -- getting a better gun to kill dinos faster isn't super motivating, because you can tame dinos for that, but getting a better gun/crossbow/what have you to make knocking out and taming dinos easier is a huge hook and I like having that goal to work towards

    I 100% think it's terrible at default taming rates, because it is. But with modified taming rates, or my personal preference, the taming sedative mod, I think the system works well. I like the taming sedative because the resource requirements are pretty non-standard, and push you to go to a variety of biomes to get what you need to tame them. I think Ark is at its best when the crafting or taming pushes you to explore and get out of your comfort zone, and the taming sedative does a great job of working with that loop instead of cutting it out entirely.

    Fiatil on
  • FoefallerFoefaller Registered User regular
    edited July 2020
    So, now that I have a new graphics card I've playing this again not that the dinos no longer look like half melted stop-motion figurines. Still don't have any DLC, but I'm still having enough fun with The Island and Free DLC maps, that I can wait for a sale to get Meks and whatnot (though I'm happy they made the pokeballs a base game item.)

    Right now I'm just shy of the point where I can start thinking of taming a dino army to finally do the Island boss fights for the first time, with a mating pair of low-level brontos slowly supplying me the eggs to make the kibble to tame high-level Rexes without having to hope for a second Rex nearby for prime meat. Also need to find better tames to help harvest for chitin or cementing paste so I can get a tree platform built for a redwood forest base; since I'm crazy enough to try for a metal platform just scouting for beaver dams isn't quite enough.
    Fiatil wrote: »
    I'm pretty much good with the taming system as it exists, and prefer it to the modded versions. Passive taming and the alternatives just feel a lot more manual to me, and the "tame by drugging" system is so heavily integrated into the game that I feel strange cutting it out of the loop entirely. It's a big thing that pushes me to progress -- getting a better gun to kill dinos faster isn't super motivating, because you can tame dinos for that, but getting a better gun/crossbow/what have you to make knocking out and taming dinos easier is a huge hook and I like having that goal to work towards

    I 100% think it's terrible at default taming rates, because it is. But with modified taming rates, or my personal preference, the taming sedative mod, I think the system works well. I like the taming sedative because the resource requirements are pretty non-standard, and push you to go to a variety of biomes to get what you need to tame them. I think Ark is at its best when the crafting or taming pushes you to explore and get out of your comfort zone, and the taming sedative does a great job of working with that loop instead of cutting it out entirely.

    I feel the thing that Tranq-&-Feed is missing is quirks for the taming process after the creature is unconscious. Aggressive carnovores having a chance of snapping at you for damage when you get close, pack animals calling for assistance, prey animals attracting their predators, etc. I believe the only weird thing is that one nocturnal tame that will wake up at the beginning of nighttime regardless of their topor level, requiring you to tranq them again if you started too late in the day. Just some sort of risk you can't always 100% eliminate by murdering everything else in a mile radius or air lifting it into a pre-built prison cage.

    As for the taming rate, apparently the double xp/taming/resource rates they've been doing on their official servers for the last few months is going to become the new 1.0 setting defaults, so I guess they've come around to realizing the default rates are terrible too... Though I might have to tweak my own tame rates down lower, trying to make it less of a waiting game without negating the need for kibble and I'm struggling to find reasons for kibble, though it might just be I need to up the difficulty again so I start running into tames above level 45 to gun for.

    Foefaller on
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  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    So, let's talk Genesis 2. I... think I kind of like this map.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvXsx7cOaRY


    I'm mulling over a very casual server just for people to explore and try the new stuff, and I want to gauge interest. Thoughts?

    First impressions from some solo play:
    This seems like a pretty well done map. Not quite as exciting as say, Ragnarok, but still neat.
    You start out wearing Tek armor, it respawns with you, and doesn't seem to need charging ever.
    Maewings are very fun to glide around on.
    Supply Drops seem less annoying, maybe even... useful, now.

    MuddBudd on
    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I haven't kept up with the game since Extinction. That mind-control gremlin looks dumb, but we don't do PvP so that's a non-issue. That flying platypus thing looks fun.

    The big problem that I had with the Extinction map was that 99% of the map was non-viable for base building since most of it was a swarming with enemies that were resistant to automated defenses. Also, the sandswept wasteland look got old after a bit.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    On single player at least, the spawns seem very reasonable to me. No spinos in the rivers of the easy start area, for example. But spawns between singleplayer and a server can been quite different.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    The egg incubator looks amazing for cutting down on the "I want to breed the perfect animal, so I guess now I'm stuck with ten billion animals standing around and lagging up the server" problem.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    The egg incubator looks amazing for cutting down on the "I want to breed the perfect animal, so I guess now I'm stuck with ten billion animals standing around and lagging up the server" problem.

    or the constant stream of baby death announcements.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • NEO|PhyteNEO|Phyte They follow the stars, bound together. Strands in a braid till the end.Registered User regular
    So I suppose the inevitable question, is there a solid "make all the costs reasonable for small-group PvE" option yet or is everything still stuck on large pvp tribe balance?

    It was that somehow, from within the derelict-horror, they had learned a way to see inside an ugly, broken thing... And take away its pain.
    Warframe/Steam: NFyt
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I suppose the following is dependent on that marketplace mod and the exchange rate that MuddBudd used for buying/selling things, but back during the extinction server I felt pretty comfortable building my little outpost during the leveling and growing up stage of the game and then in the late game selling dino eggs for coins was kinda OP at generating huge sums of resources, but it felt ok IMO since that was the "build megastructures" phase. The problem was that there wasn't much in terms of places to build on that map. You were a bit constrained in what you could do within most of the city, the mini-biomes felt kinda phoned-in, and 80% of the map was barren wasteland full of corrupted dinos that were practically immune to automated defenses.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Re: Market... it might not be needed honestly. Helena bot will trade resources to you for hexagons, which I think are earned doing the various missions?

    As for the map, it is much less constrained. There is a Tek trench that reminds me of the city on Extinction, but also plains, plateaus, grasslands, rivers, plus the more extreme biomes that might be less safe, but doable with metal or tek walls and turrets.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlvaV0kcuMI

    examples.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • cshadow42cshadow42 Registered User regular
    I've got an Ark itch caused by playing Conan Exiles, and wouldn't mind playing with some PA folks. Where might I find ya'll?

    MTGO Handle - ArtfulDodger
    Diablo 3 - ArtfulDodger#1572
    Minecraft - ArtfulDodger42
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    NEO|Phyte wrote: »
    So I suppose the inevitable question, is there a solid "make all the costs reasonable for small-group PvE" option yet or is everything still stuck on large pvp tribe balance?

    That option has been in for several years! They put it in roughly 3 weeks into early access I believe, soooo since 2015.

    There are sliders to tweak virtually everything in the game. Tamed dino HP, wild dino HP, drop rates, XP rates, spawn rates....and a hundred more.

    It's a pretty common misconception about Ark; it's been viable to play solo or in small groups for virtually the game's entire existence and have it be as grindy or not as you want the entire time. If you have the resources to host your own server, download Ark Server manager. It has an awesome interface and gives you easy access to tweaking everything. It's not necessary for tweaking the rates, but I like it a lot!

    Fiatil on
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    cshadow42 wrote: »
    I've got an Ark itch caused by playing Conan Exiles, and wouldn't mind playing with some PA folks. Where might I find ya'll?

    Right now there isn't a server, but I am thinking I'll get one set up tonight or tomorrow maybe? Nothing crazy, just some decent settings and a few of the more essential mods.
    Fiatil wrote: »
    It's a pretty common misconception about ark; it's been viable to play solo or in small groups for virtually the game's entire existence and have it be as grindy or not as you want the entire time. If you have the resources to host your own server, download Ark Server manager. It has an awesome interface and gives you easy access to tweaking everything. Not necessary to tweak the rates, but I like it a lot!

    You can do a surprising amount of tweaking with a basic text file.

    MuddBudd on
    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • FiatilFiatil Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    cshadow42 wrote: »
    I've got an Ark itch caused by playing Conan Exiles, and wouldn't mind playing with some PA folks. Where might I find ya'll?

    Right now there isn't a server, but I am thinking I'll get one set up tonight or tomorrow maybe? Nothing crazy, just some decent settings and a few of the more essential mods.
    Fiatil wrote: »
    It's a pretty common misconception about ark; it's been viable to play solo or in small groups for virtually the game's entire existence and have it be as grindy or not as you want the entire time. If you have the resources to host your own server, download Ark Server manager. It has an awesome interface and gives you easy access to tweaking everything. Not necessary to tweak the rates, but I like it a lot!

    You can do a surprising amount of tweaking with a basic text file.

    Totally! Ark Server Manager is just writing all of the stuff it does to the config files at the end of the day. It just gives you a nicer interface, particularly for the weird stuff like disabling spawns and stuff (all of the dinosaurs that steal your items get disabled immediately when I play). But yeah it's all totally do-able in the base game, no mods required.

    I would have hated Ark if they didn't let you tweak so much stuff. But it's an awesome sandbox since you can, and you can tailor the experience for pretty much any playstyle.

    Fiatil on
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Yeah I'm just gonna commit here, I'll have a new server up tonight.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I'm in. I've been burnt out by a lot of games having tons of FOMO battle-pass grinds, and I remember Ark being pretty laid back and comfy.

    DAMN though. That installation size. This is going on the high capacity HDD instead of my SSD.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    We're up and running.
    PA Server Details:
    Server name: [PA] Genesis 2 Platypus Boogaloo
    Address: 193.176.29.53:27075
    Password is the usual (pm me if you don't know it)
    Discord Server: https://discord.gg/JFuhZS697t

    OP updated.

    MuddBudd on
    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    I'm exploring a little bit. This starting tek suit is neat. Jousting with the spring mode seems to be the best way to do early combat. I haven't found a place to start building quite yet. I have made some campfires though. The flames from the campfires are a bit more intense than I remember.

    edit:
    haha, I think I'm dead. The game bugged up when a raptor attacked me. I started running away, but the bug stopped me from changing my camera heading or using any of the tek suit sprint/flight powers. I was swimming in a straight line on towards the alternate shore with an intent to relog upon reaching the other side, but then the server went down. So I guess I'm sleeping with the fishes. Not that it matters. The most important thing on my person is a stack of cooked meat.

    edit2:
    Server's back up. It seems to have rolled back to a few minutes prior when I was standing around a couple campfires cooking said stack of meat.

    edit 3:
    I'm setting up a small outpost at ~43, 67. It's on a rock bridge formation above the lake with the beavers. It's basically just a thatch foundation with a cooking fire and mortar/pestle for now. I've got some simple thatch walls to hopefully keep random dinos from entering the area. No gates yet, but you all have jetpacks.

    edit 4:
    While traveling to a supply drop, I found a site that I think I'll probably want to build at. Easily defensible in the mountains with a nice view. I'll come back to that later. I found a gasbag saddle though. Are gasbags even on this map?

    edit5:
    stayed up too long. Tamed a maewing though. I've left my smithy and forge unlocked if anyone wants to use it. Bring your own materials and clean up after you're done.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    Something I learned in singleplayer btw. Missions aren't cakewalks. Some might be easy, some might be very hard. Some might expect you to have a certain level of equipment.

    Also, if they teleport you somewhere, it looks like you get all your stuff back if you die, but any dinos you lose there? They stay dead.

    MuddBudd on
    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    I'm trying to come up with a plan for mass resource transport. On extinction I just used my gasbag, or occasionally those gasbag balloon crates.

    We have the awesome teleporter, but I really don't want to start putting platforms down until I have a serious established base since it would IMO be dumb to clutter the interface. I'm more open to using the awesome dino trackers to safely recall my dinos in the event that I die, but again I don't want to go crazy with trackers for the same reason.

    I saw some argents earlier. Maybe I'll start there.

    edit:
    Maybe I should look into getting my hands on one of those tek stryders.

    edit2:
    Looks like stryder taming requires running missions? So I guess I'll try to find some easy missions.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Best bulk transport dinos are probably the Stryder (depending on its equipment), Gasbag, Quetzal, Brontos and I think I've seen Paracers.

    There are argents on this map and they are pretty decent haulers too.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    I don't think gasbags are event present? I'm not opposed to using the wiki to track down spawn locations, and the spawn map page doesn't list gasbags. Might be for the best. Gasbags were a bit OP with their mobility, tankiness, and off the charts carry capacity. Watching some videos about stryders, they do seem appealing. Kinda slow though. Guess the awesome teleporter can fix that. I wonder how good stryders are at taking care of themselves if I just left them in the wilderness?

    I haven't found a good source of oil yet. The wiki's resource map claims that there should be oil deposits near that beaver lake, but I might be blind and can't see them. That or maybe they're in the underground sea? I got some oil from killing a low level enforcer near the tek trench. I've read that stryders can drop them too, but I haven't killed one yet. Also there is hexagon trading in a pinch. So far I've traded for some crystal to make a spyglass, and traded in a good chunk of hexagons for a pokeball.

    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    I don't think gasbags are event present? I'm not opposed to using the wiki to track down spawn locations, and the spawn map page doesn't list gasbags. Might be for the best. Gasbags were a bit OP with their mobility, tankiness, and off the charts carry capacity. Watching some videos about stryders, they do seem appealing. Kinda slow though. Guess the awesome teleporter can fix that. I wonder how good stryders are at taking care of themselves if I just left them in the wilderness?

    I haven't found a good source of oil yet. The wiki's resource map claims that there should be oil deposits near that beaver lake, but I might be blind and can't see them. That or maybe they're in the underground sea? I got some oil from killing a low level enforcer near the tek trench. I've read that stryders can drop them too, but I haven't killed one yet. Also there is hexagon trading in a pinch. So far I've traded for some crystal to make a spyglass, and traded in a good chunk of hexagons for a pokeball.

    There are absolutely gasbags wandering around the Eden zone. They are rare, but they exist.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • General_ArmchairGeneral_Armchair Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    I hadn't seen one, and the table here didn't have an entry for Gasbags so I assumed that they weren't present.

    https://ark.fandom.com/wiki/Spawn_Map_(Genesis:_Part_2)

    However apparently there are R-Gasbags. Ok. So that's new. That's good news.

    General_Armchair on
    3DS Friend Code:
    Armchair: 4098-3704-2012
  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    edited June 2021
    Oh, right.

    R-type dinos have different colors, and 3% less health, but 5% more damage than the regular versions.

    I am... not sure if Immersive Taming handles them yet.

    MuddBudd on
    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • BeornKBeornK Registered User regular
    Immersive taming works fine on R types.
    I have an R type dire wolf.

    DS0mQJS.png
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