Mutagen is a massive disappointment

[Mordeth Kai]

2 1/2 mutations worth of levels in the major stats before you start breeding might sound great if you've never super bred dinos before, but to understand my disappointment we need to go over a few things.

First, dino's can have up to 255 wild levels in a given stat, ideally you want to get at least 40 in a stat you want to mutate to that extreme.

Second, breeding is a massive time investment. Adding an incubator and a nany dino were really nice, a shame mamal and insect breeding got neglected. If you play on official servers you have a level limit of 450 which is a bit of a mixed blessing because it means you will probably only max one stat, but then you have to do it at 1x settings. Playing on a server with breeding rates boosted around 15-20x depending on the multiplier and choosing one of the easiest dinos to breed still took over half a year working at it daily, without mods. Breeding has multiple levels of ♥♥♥♥♥♥ RNG and takes an insane time investment, which desperately needs addressed.

The problem with mutagen is that it cannot be used on bred dinos, forcing players to continue sacrificing millions of babies to RNGesus to actually finish a project. If it could be used each generation it would take RNG out of the equation almost completely, it would remove the need for 1-2k breeders per line (the server admin eventually removed egg laying intervals to reduce the sheer amount of strain I was putting on it) and the piss poor frame rate that goes with having that many dinos in a small area. Sadly, this singular limitation gimps mutagen into near worthlessness.

Yay, 5 free wild levels, only 200 more to go, yipee! (Somebody kill me, please....)

Edit:

https://youtu.be/Q5Bmk6rjuq4

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by Lordbufu:

Can you name any content, beside PvP, that actually requires mutation stacking to the extend your describing to complete\finish it ?

Genesis 1 missions. Ruffle some Feathers is impossible without ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cracked rexes. Gigas are off the table because instarage

[Lordbufu]

Originally posted by Mordeth Kai:

The current breeding system has not changed since its introduction in early early access, intended or not the devs have rolled with it and balanced the game around it.

And there is the point, changing it would simply have a to big impact on the eco system they allowed to build, because they opted to not change it for so long. Your picking apart a specific example, while failing to see the bigger picture, its not just the 'muh breeding market' with a few 'asshats' in it.

Originally posted by Mordeth Kai:

The devs have always had their heads up their asses when it comes to respecting the players time. Is it really so wrong for the average player to be able to experience the content without wanting to kill themselves?

I fully agree with the first part though, even the second part up to a certain extend, just as i would not oppose a config option to allow for it be applied to bred dino's.

Originally posted by Mordeth Kai:

nothing is worth that grind, not even a dino that 1-shots alpha bosses and ♥♥♥♥♥ nuclear warheads. I know, I've done it.

To you, and a decent portion of unofficial players, yes that is mostly true. But there is more to Ark then just us, so expecting it to have that much impact on others, seems a bit unreasonable to me.

And tbh; Despite being frustrating to get, i actually find my pocket Gigas very much worth it, heaps of fun on some maps.

[`r0'it^-Alio]

Does Mutagel not work anymore? It use to work instead of mutagen. It seems after the update two hours ago it stopped working on our private servers; however, worked on single player?

[Lordbufu]

Originally posted by Ezkill:

The video mentions a smart breeding app, what is he talking about?

The best and most popular breeding app, basically a big library to store you tame information, and helps mix and match stats (plus a bunch of other stuff).

Originally posted by Rotiart:

Originally posted by Lordbufu:

Can you name any content, beside PvP, that actually requires mutation stacking to the extend your describing to complete\finish it ?

Genesis 1 missions. Ruffle some Feathers is impossible without ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cracked rexes. Gigas are off the table because instarage

Yeah the Gen 1 Brutes are rough, but not impossible, for farming just like the other bosses yes that is a different story.

[Charcharodonto]

So your problem with mutagen is that you not can easily boost your tames to the stat cap...

First off, ARK is build around official. So the 450 level cap applies. You are not gonna reach the stat cap easily anyway. And even with all others stats at 0 you will reach one stat and the other at 200. which is inadvisable beacause stamina is a thing and weight to a degree.

The purpose of Mutagen is 2 things.

Increasing the base stats by 5 points per major stat before mutating.
Does not seem much. Until you realise that finding wild dinos with very high numbers is extremely rare.
It is quicker to farm the mutagen to boost a 45 melee dino to 50 melee. then to find that 50 melee. Even more so if you boost 50 melee to 55.
No worth it if you have a rex line 20+ mutations in already of course. but splendid if you wanna try mutating any of the new creatures.

Second. Boosting stats of unbreedables. Rockdrakes, Reapers can now get a nice boost from this.

So it is hardly useless, your expectations are to high/unrealistic

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by Charcharodonto:

First off, ARK is build around official. So the 450 level cap applies. You are not gonna reach the stat cap easily anyway. And even with all others stats at 0 you will reach one stat and the other at 200. which is inadvisable beacause stamina is a thing and weight to a degree

If ARK is built around official, Mutagen should be far far stronger than it is now. It is super easy to get insane lines on official if you're willing to trade.

[Shahadem]

Originally posted by Lordbufu:

Originally posted by Mordeth Kai:

Does breeding need to even be in the game? Do you need to level up? Do you need to have a base? Why do anything at all?

And then there is also the rather huge player trading of mutated dino's on officials, the changes you suggesting could have a rather negative impact on that market over time, seem a bit harsh for those that spend there time getting something worth selling.

This is not a valid reason to decide not to do something to benefit the majority. The fact that a minority engage in an activity doesn't mean the devs should decide not to benefit the majority. If anything this is why the official servers have been a cancer on the game since day 1.

[Charcharodonto]

Originally posted by Rotiart:

Originally posted by Charcharodonto:

First off, ARK is build around official. So the 450 level cap applies. You are not gonna reach the stat cap easily anyway. And even with all others stats at 0 you will reach one stat and the other at 200. which is inadvisable beacause stamina is a thing and weight to a degree

If ARK is built around official, Mutagen should be far far stronger than it is now. It is super easy to get insane lines on official if you're willing to trade.

Why should it be far stronger?

Why should somebody who farms mutagen for a few days or lets say even a week be able to boost a freshly tamed dino it's stats beyond what somebody else took months if not years to breed in?

Mutagen not being usefull for the heavily stacked mutation lines is not an indicator of the mutagen being ineffective, but the payoff off those mutated lines.

[Rotiart]

Originally posted by Charcharodonto:

Originally posted by Rotiart:

If ARK is built around official, Mutagen should be far far stronger than it is now. It is super easy to get insane lines on official if you're willing to trade.

Why should it be far stronger?

Because otherwise it's completely worthless. It's for people who breed their own lines, but on Official why would you bother when you could get stupid good lines for cheap?

Originally posted by Charcharodonto:

Why should somebody who farms mutagen for a few days or lets say even a week be able to boost a freshly tamed dino it's stats beyond what somebody else took months if not years to breed in?

Because the breeding system is a stupid slog. And regardless, people who've invested in making good lines not only have already gotten their effort's worth back 100 times over already, but they're still going to be getting business. Mutagen is hard to farm, it'll still be 1000000000x easier to just trade for lines on official

Originally posted by Charcharodonto:

Mutagen not being usefull for the heavily stacked mutation lines is not an indicator of the mutagen being ineffective, but the payoff off those mutated lines.

No, mutagen is ineffective. They had the perfect opportunity to marry resource farming with breeding grind and they biffed it as hard as they possibly could. If Mutagen was super powerful the only thing that would change is some tribes that are well-off on Official would be able to breed their own lines. That's it.

[Lordbufu]

Originally posted by Shahadem:

This is not a valid reason to decide not to do something to benefit the majority. The fact that a minority engage in an activity doesn't mean the devs should decide not to benefit the majority.

Originally posted by Lordbufu:

Your picking apart a specific example, while failing to see the bigger picture

So far i'm still seeing more people who actually like the addition, apart from actually farming it, then people up in arms about it being next to useless 🤷‍♂️

[Mordeth Kai]

Originally posted by Charcharodonto:

So your problem with mutagen is that you not can easily boost your tames to the stat cap...

First off, ARK is build around official. So the 450 level cap applies. You are not gonna reach the stat cap easily anyway. And even with all others stats at 0 you will reach one stat and the other at 200. which is inadvisable beacause stamina is a thing and weight to a degree.

The purpose of Mutagen is 2 things.

Increasing the base stats by 5 points per major stat before mutating.
Does not seem much. Until you realise that finding wild dinos with very high numbers is extremely rare.
It is quicker to farm the mutagen to boost a 45 melee dino to 50 melee. then to find that 50 melee. Even more so if you boost 50 melee to 55.
No worth it if you have a rex line 20+ mutations in already of course. but splendid if you wanna try mutating any of the new creatures.

Second. Boosting stats of unbreedables. Rockdrakes, Reapers can now get a nice boost from this.

So it is hardly useless, your expectations are to high/unrealistic

"so what your saying is..." No

Before you can understand my issue with mutagen you need to understand that the number generator is broken. 2/3's of the time it works right with an even enough spread of results and you get your mutation within 500 eggs hatched, then the results get clumped and what I like to call 'ruts' occur. These ruts are easily identified when you start getting 1 mutation per 100 eggs, and I'm not saying the mutation you want, I mean any mutation, speed, oxygem, nothing. The ruts usually last 2k eggs the longest I recorded is 6k, it's always been an extreme jump from within 500 eggs to needing to go through thousands. I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels trying to figure out why these ruts occur, figure out their nature, a way to work around them like cycling which mutation to work on etc., but confirmation bias being a thing I honestly have no clue what is wrong with the number generator itself.

Mutagen is a disappointment because it looks like its original design was for breeding then they nerfed it into near uselessness, just my impression based on what it does and its lore. Either way it could have replaced the hideous and broken RNG aspect of breeding. You also need to understand that once you know about the ruts and ramp up your operation to compensate it means 1-2k breeders, which also means ♥♥♥♥♥♥ framerate and bringing a server to its knees, i.e. poor performance.

I demonstrated in that video that I have broken through that RNG wall and that I know what I'm talking about and what it takes. If mutagen could be used once every generation, even if the grind for it was doubled and its effects were halved I'd still take consistent results over the current broken system we have. You still have the 'idle clicker' style waiting on timers for raising babies, gestation/hatching etc., this would just allow players to achieve consistent results with a single pair of breeders each generation instead of 1-2k and ♥♥♥♥♥♥ game performance. It would also greatly close the gap between mammals and egg layers. Bear in mind even with our server settings, consistent results, and learning from my trial and error my tribemate still needed a full year to finish his yuty line, which would be about 15-20 years at base settings, so if you wanna go 'ya just want an "I win" button' pull your head out of your ass and go F yourself.

Side note:

Since theres already a wall of text I'll point out that breeding is horrible imbalanced when you look at egg timers, growth timers, and stat gains, only outliers like gigas, rex's, quetzels etc. stand out, the rest have fairly similar timers. For example allo's and carno's have the exact same timers, raptors and dilos are similar to both, and velonasaurs have better timers than raptors. My guess is they just set long lengths for immersion sake and never considered power, usefulness, or anything else for anything they didn't expect to be used on bosses. Breeding seems like something the devs put in the game then hoped no one would actually do it, hence waiting a week or so to fully raise some dinos on default settings and needing to go without sleep or work the full duration (until cryopods gave people a workaround).

[𝓝𝓪𝓬𝓱𝓸𝓫𝓸𝓲]

No, you're wrong man.

[Mordeth Kai]

Originally posted by Lordbufu:

Originally posted by Shahadem:

This is not a valid reason to decide not to do something to benefit the majority. The fact that a minority engage in an activity doesn't mean the devs should decide not to benefit the majority.

Originally posted by Lordbufu:

Your picking apart a specific example, while failing to see the bigger picture

So far i'm still seeing more people who actually like the addition, apart from actually farming it, then people up in arms about it being next to useless 🤷‍♂️

Most people don't breed past getting a stat line.

[I-NOCHT]

Gaming would be better without min maxing meta players.

[Mordeth Kai]

Originally posted by Punished-Johnny5:

Gaming would be better without min maxing meta players.

That word, you keep using it, I don't think it means what you think it means....