What is going on with Veggie Cakes?

[ImmortalNights]

There has now been three patches with direct changes to veggie cakes. Each time it seems to make the veggie cake healing buff even more complicated.

First it was simple:
* 500 HP and then another 15% over ten seconds.
* 10 second cooldown
* Long spoil time.
* Herbivores got a damage reduction.

Then, clearly that made the Doedicurus and Carbonemys too tanky, so this happened:
* Doedicurus and Carbonemys do not receive the 500 HP boost when fed veggie cakes.
* Healing over time limited to 3000 HP.
* Herbivore damage reduction reduced.

And then another change:
* Limited healing over time to 10% for Herbivors with 500 to 2500 HP, over 30 seconds (down from 10), with a shorted spoil time...

Why are there so many special cases? Is it because they add both healing and damage reduction at the same time? Or because the dinos are already so unbalanced that they instead are trying to mold Veggie cakes around that imbalance. Or, are they intentionally making Veggie cakes the most complicated game mechanic.

I guess I am just missing the discussion about this. The reason for the changes. Is there actually any discussion at all?

(Please correct me if I got the Veggie cake changes incorrect. It's nice easy translating the patch notes into bullet points)

[drazan]

pro bronto + veggie cake could drain a decent base's turrets empty
now bronto gets reduced health per level up

veggie cake was the worst thing that could ever come :p

[Naerah(Qc)]

* Limited healing over time to 10% for Herbivors with 500 to 2500 HP, over 30 seconds (down from 10), with a shorted spoil time...
That line is a bit confusing for me to read.
500 to 2500hp .. if i understand it right, if my dino has somewhere in between 500 and 2500hp, the cake heals only 10% of max heath (so maximum 250hp) over 30second + an instant 500hp( unless it's a doed or a carbo).
Under 499HP and over 2501hp it remains 15% over 10 sec+instant 500hp. Is that what im supposed to read?

[ImmortalNights]

Originally posted by drazan:

pro bronto + veggie cake could drain a decent base's turrets empty
now bronto gets reduced health per level up

veggie cake was the worst thing that could ever come :p

Having something which can provide healing isn't a bad thing. Many games have healing potions/bandages or whatever. I think what would be nicer would be something that required team work (like the Team Fortress medic gun) which would prevent a solo player becoming some obscene tanking machine.

I feel they are attempting to balance Veggie cakes against already unbalanced dinos. It's not going to end well.

Originally posted by Naerah(Qc):

* Limited healing over time to 10% for Herbivors with 500 to 2500 HP, over 30 seconds (down from 10), with a shorted spoil time...
That line is a bit confusing for me to read.
500 to 2500hp .. if i understand it right, if my dino has somewhere in between 500 and 2500hp, the cake heals only 10% of max heath (so maximum 250hp) over 30second + an instant 500hp( unless it's a doed or a carbo).
Under 499HP and over 2501hp it remains 15% over 10 sec+instant 500hp. Is that what im supposed to read?

I paraphrased the patch notes but it's not clear if they mean 500 to 2500 total health, or current health. I suppose that is part of my issue with all this being in the patch notes and no rreal discussion or explanation.

[jey123456]

Basically those tons of changes are a clear sign that this change was not discussed among the devs and was instead ninja patched in by an individual. Altho ciabattaroll on official forum flat out denied that saying
"I can assure you that it was discussed at great length and no programmer can just "ninja" things in."

Then if we take him at his words, it mean that they planned to change it multiple times in a short period, or somehow, that all the devs expected to balance and add things to the game, had no idea that dinos could have the hp they have. I'm not sure which one is worse.


Relevant official post: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/113553-revert-2527-2528-and-25282/

[Nec]

Originally posted by jey123456:

Then if we take him at his words, it mean that they planned to change it multiple times in a short period, or somehow, that all the devs expected to balance and add things to the game, had no idea that dinos could have the hp they have. I'm not sure which one is worse.

Once a patch is released into the wild, there is no way for them to fully tell what will happen. Otherwise there would have only been one patch and this game would already be released. They are still humans as well guys and all the planning in the world never survives contact with the enemy. (To butcher a famous quote lol)

[jey123456]

Originally posted by Nec:

Originally posted by jey123456:

Then if we take him at his words, it mean that they planned to change it multiple times in a short period, or somehow, that all the devs expected to balance and add things to the game, had no idea that dinos could have the hp they have. I'm not sure which one is worse.

Once a patch is released into the wild, there is no way for them to fully tell what will happen. Otherwise there would have only been one patch and this game would already be released. They are still humans as well guys and all the planning in the world never survives contact with the enemy. (To butcher a famous quote lol)

Offcourse not, but look, if i sit with you, and ask you what could go wrong if we gave an item 10sec cd and 15% max health regen ? Would you not think of high hp dinos ?

[Nec]

Originally posted by jey123456:

Originally posted by Nec:

Once a patch is released into the wild, there is no way for them to fully tell what will happen. Otherwise there would have only been one patch and this game would already be released. They are still humans as well guys and all the planning in the world never survives contact with the enemy. (To butcher a famous quote lol)

Offcourse not, but look, if i sit with you, and ask you what could go wrong if we gave an item 10sec cd and 15% max health regen ? Would you not think of high hp dinos ?

True, I probably would. I just hope it isn't a 'throw it out and see what sticks' kind of development they are doing. Though from the way veggie cakes are being patches every day, it does kinda seem like it for this case at least.

[ZánÐêr]

this whole thing was because of the snail + veggie cakes.. they modified it to adjust for the snails wjich in turn made other dinos OP.

Best solution would have been to leave veggie cakes alone, add a different snail veggie cake that only they can eat. This still could be done with a rollback on bronto stats etc..

[Slordar]

My question is why are they fixing veggie cakes when they have more important stuff to do >.>

[jey123456]

Originally posted by ZánÐêr:

this whole thing was because of the snail + veggie cakes.. they modified it to adjust for the snails wjich in turn made other dinos OP.

Best solution would have been to leave veggie cakes alone, add a different snail veggie cake that only they can eat. This still could be done with a rollback on bronto stats etc..

how did the cake healing 15% hp have anything to do with the snail ? i mean i understand the autoeating part. but the heal (which caused this whole mess of quick changes patch that had obviously no foresight to them) had no reason to be here.

[ImmortalNights]

Originally posted by jey123456:

Basically those tons of changes are a clear sign that this change was not discussed among the devs and was instead ninja patched in by an individual. Altho ciabattaroll on official forum flat out denied that saying
"I can assure you that it was discussed at great length and no programmer can just "ninja" things in."

Then if we take him at his words, it mean that they planned to change it multiple times in a short period, or somehow, that all the devs expected to balance and add things to the game, had no idea that dinos could have the hp they have. I'm not sure which one is worse.


Relevant official post: https://survivetheark.com/index.php?/forums/topic/113553-revert-2527-2528-and-25282/

That thread was pretty much the same point I was trying to make. I guess I didn't miss the community discussion after all.

We can't, and I don't think anyone does, expect the devs not to make mistakes. There is always an adjustment to a balance change, but with three successive changes it just felt this wasn't really thought through.

Furthermore, balancing by making special cases is just irritating. "Veggie cakes work like this, except for them and under this situation." Having them work differently for some Herbivors and not others feels ugly to me.

It stands to reason that if one was adding a healing buff, one would find the highest tanking dinos, by HP and damage reduction, and ensure they were not over powered.