Troodon and Difficulty- Why people don't enjoy it

[DawnTyrantEo]

Hiya guys, Eo here.

I've been using this format over on The Isle's community, and it seems to be working well for getting some nice debates on touchy topics. So, let's get started! (Note, I personally haven't had enough experience with the Troodon to comment myself, so this is just a general summary of how the community feels about it.)

First, a quick video from Extra Credits. This should help educate us on how game design works, so we can make informed decisions on what's helpful for the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM2dDF4B9a4

Okay, with that out of the way, let's go through a quick summary.

Most modern games use a menu setting in order to change their difficulty. ARK does not. However, this worked because it previously had a Dark Souls-like difficulty. (And I sincerely doubt anyone of the 'git gud' variety can say Dark Souls isn't an example of good game design.)

Difficulty in ARK is based not on weapon, but on biome. The 'easy' difficulty is the beaches. As you improve, however, you work your way through more challenging and more rewarding biomes- the rivers, the grasslands, the jungles, the mountains, the redwoods, the tundra, the swamp and the ocean, by my reckoning (though don't quote me on it). This improvement can be either in-game, via better tames and equipment, or by 'gitting gud'. And a few biomes- cough swamp cough- are the equivalent of challenge runs, for those who REALLY want the difficulty.

(As a side note, Scorched Earth lacks this- but as additional content, it can get away with a higher difficulty because you can still choose a base-game biome if you're not enjoying yourself.)

And this system has been quietly sitting in the background, with the precise dinosaurs within them adding up to teach it to you. It's an enjoyable method of difficulty for both starter and experienced players, letting both groups coexist on the same server without any player-by-player difficulty changes. This is why the Troodon is disliked on the beach, even when people can't properly articulate why 'gitting gud' isn't appropriate here.

Let's examine the animals one by one. You have big but slow herbivores to teach you that messing with large animals is a bad idea, but that aren't so strong or fast you can't kill, outrun or tame them. You have plenty of small, harmless animals- dodos and lystros- to provide resources before you learn how to hunt. You get a few animals that are hard to kill or tame- pteras, ovis, trilobites- to incentivise gitting gud so you can figure out what they're for.

And then you have the raptor and the sarco. Both of these predators are dangerous, teaching you to fear predators. However, the raptor is visually distinctive and attacks nearby dinosaurs, letting you immediately spot and deal with it appropriately, while the sarco is slow and can't one-shot you, letting you escape and teaching you that the ocean and swamp are dangerous before you make the mistake of going in. And both are solitary, meaning it feels awesome when you actually DO git gud, learn their tricks and kill them- letting you know you're ready to take on the world.

Troodon, however, don't fit neatly into this organisation- they're small, unassuming, harmless to wildlife, live in groups, aren't affected by the tricks that kill other dinosaurs, and are very dangerous. Being small, unassuming and harmless to wildlife means they're hard to spot and avoid. Being unaffected by dino-killing tricks means there's nothing to 'git gud' using- you either have the correct equipment requiring prior game time (a mount or end-game ground equipment) or they eat you. Being harmless to other dinosaurs means the only way to get rid of them is to kill them. Living in groups means they're both hard and unsatisfying to kill- if you kill one, there's still three more to get rid of. And being dangerous makes all of this matter.

So, the solution to this problem is to figure out how to make Troodon fit into the game's difficulty slider. There are two ways to do this- either make Troodon fit the scale, or make the scale fit Troodon.

To make Troodon fit the scale, we need it to have a purpose on the beach- beyond 'murdering you', of course. This is rather hard to do- your average Troodon (level 75, 1/8 levels in each stat) is going to have a little under 600 health and do 15 damage/30 stamina damage/?? torpor damage per bite. This means that you can't deal with it like you would a raptor- its stamina drain and torpor damage mean that straight-up stabbing it or luring it into the water will likely just result in a stabbing-less KO or drowning respectively. So even a lone Troodon, while fitting into ARK's difficulty scale better, is likely still problematic on the beach.

So, the logical thing to do is make Troodon fit ARK- that is, to see which of the Biomes is enhanced by the presence of Troodon. And the obvious answer is to put it there as an overnight beef gate to say 'Whoah, you better have a mount and base-building before you carry on', much like how the cold of the tundra or the depth of the ocean is a beef gate to say 'Whoah, you better have high-level engrams before you carry on'. So, where does the Troodon work in this regard? Probably the Jungle and Redwoods, since they're higher-difficulty areas that have the enclosed space to make them a nasty surprise instead of a death you can see coming from a mile off.

With this in mind, how do you think the Troodon is best used in ARK? Is it something that should be nerfed, to make it appropriate for use on beaches? Should it be modified to make it fit into the beach better, to teach mechanics such as torpor? Should it be moved out to a new biome, so that it can continue to be the terror of the night and bane of noobs-with-spears? Or is there a reason you feel the Troodon improves the game in spite of how it's upended the difficulty curve?

[DawnTyrantEo]

Messaggio originale di Attack Kitty:

Messaggio originale di treechain:

I imagine a good solution to this would be a combination of a nerf of troodons altogether, single spawns of troodons on the beach with pack spawns of troodons in the interior and something like the compy pack scaling to buff the troodons back up to what they are now if present in large enough numbers

they already get a compy-pack bonus, at night a large pack seems nearly invincible.

True, but it might not apply for a nerfed Troodon, if the devs choose to go for the nerfed-solo route instead of the beef-gate route. Depends what they decide, really.

[Solvitur Ambulando]

Messaggio originale di Nanotyranus:

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

Granted, however, is it easier for the devs to scale down the torpor or simply make them less damaging on the beaches? Beach-dwelling dilos don't inflict as much damage per bite as the Troodon does... at least, in my experience. Yes, the pack Troodon should be relgated to interior, at the very least.

One issue with zone-related damage is that it makes the difficulty less obvious in other places where Troodon lives. If a lone Troodon is easy to beat in one place, it shouldn't be any more difficult to beat elsewhere- that's not fair. Having easy Troodons that get much harder as a pack is probably the best solution- 'A pack of Troodons' is immediately obvious as different from 'A lone Troodon', while 'A lone Troodon' is not immediately different from 'A lone beach Troodon'. Difficult dinos are fine, as long as they're fair- hidden changes between biomes aren't.

From a software standpoint I concede it may be more of a confusing issue, but from the player's perspective--at least those on the servers I frequent--the differnce in zone diffuclty (i. e. beach VS plains) seems already widely known & accepted.

[White, the Loiterer]

With how good and mature this post is it pains me to say this, but....

Wrong subforum.

[DawnTyrantEo]

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

From a software standpoint I concede it may be more of a confusing issue, but from the player's perspective--at least those on the servers I frequent--the differnce in zone diffuclty (i. e. beach VS plains) seems already widely known & accepted.

It's more specifically between identical Troodons- for example, there's no problem with Yetis being much stronger than Gigantopithecus because even a noob player can deduct (new look + new environment + special environment + good vision) that the Yeti is definitely different and probably stronger, while a Troodon (small + standard environment + works best when not seen) is a lot harder to deduce.

However, there is such a thing as normal and giant Troodon IRL- perhaps there could be 'Troodon' in Redwoods and Tundra that are larger with red eye shine and dark colours, and 'dwarf Troodon' in Beach and Jungle that are smaller with yellow eye shine and bright colours.

EDIT:

Messaggio originale di WarlordOfRome:

Wrong subforum.

Eh, we can probably get away with it as 'a rebuttal to all the Troodon hate threads/community education' instead of 'feedback'. Besides, I'm sure the devs appreciate a good well-discussed thread more than all the 'NERF IT NAO' they get normally. :P

[Solvitur Ambulando]

Messaggio originale di Nanotyranus:

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

From a software standpoint I concede it may be more of a confusing issue, but from the player's perspective--at least those on the servers I frequent--the differnce in zone diffuclty (i. e. beach VS plains) seems already widely known & accepted.

It's more specifically between identical Troodons- for example, there's no problem with Yetis being much stronger than Gigantopithecus because even a noob player can deduct (new look + new environment + special environment + good vision) that the Yeti is definitely different and probably stronger, while a Troodon (small + standard environment + works best when not seen) is a lot harder to deduce.

However, there is such a thing as normal and giant Troodon IRL- perhaps there could be 'Troodon' in Redwoods and Tundra that are larger with red eye shine and dark colours, and 'dwarf Troodon' in Beach and Jungle that are smaller with yellow eye shine and bright colours.

That makes sense. (*ahem* ARK devs) Second the vote for Troodon region-specific subgroups with nuanced visual cues and scal-able torpor.

[Spider-Mimic]

i have seen troodons attacking wild creatures.....hell i even saw a pack of 4 kill a wild low lvl spino at night

[Solvitur Ambulando]

Messaggio originale di GwenPool:

i have seen troodons attacking wild creatures.....hell i even saw a pack of 4 kill a wild low lvl spino at night

I'd up-vote a screenshot of that

[DawnTyrantEo]

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

Messaggio originale di GwenPool:

i have seen troodons attacking wild creatures.....hell i even saw a pack of 4 kill a wild low lvl spino at night

I'd up-vote a screenshot of that

Seconded.

Perhaps it's only creatures that attack Troodons that get wreck'd by them? A Spino would probably do that, and we know that they defend pack-mates.

[Solvitur Ambulando]

Messaggio originale di Nanotyranus:

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

I'd up-vote a screenshot of that

Seconded.

Perhaps it's only creatures that attack Troodons that get wreck'd by them? A Spino would probably do that, and we know that they defend pack-mates.

Spinos pretty much attack anything that look at it funny, or wanders into the same water, or makes a noise 3 city blocks away...

[DawnTyrantEo]

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

Messaggio originale di WarlordOfRome:

With how good and mature this post is it pains me to say this, but....

Wrong subforum.

Thank you for the concern. In your estimation, to which sub-forum does this thread belong?

The Feedback subforum :P

[Solvitur Ambulando]

Messaggio originale di Nanotyranus:

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

Thank you for the concern. In your estimation, to which sub-forum does this thread belong?

The Feedback subforum :P

lol... or the Bugs forum

[Spider-Mimic]

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

Messaggio originale di Nanotyranus:

Seconded.

Perhaps it's only creatures that attack Troodons that get wreck'd by them? A Spino would probably do that, and we know that they defend pack-mates.

Spinos pretty much attack anything that looks at it funny, or wanders into the same water, or makes a noise 3 city blocks away...

lol i saddly don't have a screen shot but it was funny. I have also seen wild troodons attack herbivores

[Attack Kitty]

Messaggio originale di Forest of Lorien:

Messaggio originale di GwenPool:

i have seen troodons attacking wild creatures.....hell i even saw a pack of 4 kill a wild low lvl spino at night

I'd up-vote a screenshot of that

a pack of 4 troodons will kill any wild dino in their path at night. except a wild giga.

[Attack Kitty]

honestly, even as a 'hard zone' dino, the troodon is still way out of balance at night.

during the day its mainly their torpor which is way too strong. but at night they gain so much speed (and attack speed it would seem), and so much damage resistance, (and possibly other things as well), that they become wildly out of proportion to everything else on the map except gigas.

If I was on foot, and had to fight six level 250 dire wolves from the advanced ice-cave, or 3 level 75 troodons at night, I'd much rather fight the 6 dire wolves. They are so broken at night it's just silly.

edit: i like the troodon concept, and I like high-challenge content, but the night-time troodon is just wildly out of proportion to the rest of the game. I would like to like troodons, I would like to say "they mostly come out at night, mostly", and I would like to say "the night is dark and full of troodons", and I would like them to be hard, and scary, but they are just game-cancer at night right now.

[Natjur]

Tamed Troodon Scout can now find corpses and loot bags.....
I really need to get one tamed so I can find my corpse when I get killed by.....a Troodon Scout