Survival Ankylosaurus & Stegosaurus

[Why Watt]

So. As everyone well knows there is the perpetual conundrum between the balance of herbivores and carnivores, in terms of maneuverability and lethality. Carnivores generally have both, but herbivores tend to only have one or the other given, well, they supposedly have easy existences, as if AI does not offer a walking buffet but it's whatever.

Now one can make valid arguments why this should or shouldn't be, but ultimately it boils down to: do we want herbivores to be able to take the initiative, and if so, do we want them to be able to win and, effectively, play like predators? As a Dibble or Trike or Para, you see something and you are going aggro. Is this a bad-thing? That's up to you. However arguments as to why they should not be inherently powerful tend to focus on them playing like predators, thusly they are put into positions that limit their offensive viability; Triceratops having an easily avoidable stomp that costs stamina, is stationary, leaves them open but is their primary means to inflict damage, likewise for Parasaur who has speed and, to counteract... absolutely atrocious stamina regen and dies to a paper cut. Dibble is able to be outrun by most things and has a low attack speed, as well as having mediocre health and bleed heal.

But with Anky and Stego, I feel like they could deserve to have absolutely overwhelming lethality. Why? It's actually very simple. They cannot hit what is infront of them. They can driveby something slower, sure, but have their weak-spot be directly infront of them. Meanwhile their dangerzone, if you will, is behind them. They have to go partially on the defensive to be a threat.

Therefore I personally feel like each should absolutely hard-counter a specific threat: Ankylosaurus completely flexes on Tyrannosaurus, and Stegosaurus completely flexes on Giganotosaurus. How would this be handled?

Well, Ankylosaurus already resists the huge % factor of T.rex bites and does substantially more damage. To further assert dominance, it would have a 100% bonebreak resistance while having a 70% bonebreak chance itself. It would, however, have lower speed and stamina than T.rex, by a fair amount. But put simply, given it does over 1000 base dmg... a T.rex would just lose to it. However, to keep this monster balanced, who, mind you, cannot actually KOS anything given its slow and can only hit behind it? It would have a weakness to bleed; poor bleed heal and poor bleed resistance, as well as mediocre turn - better than T.rex, mind you, but not good...

On the other hand, Stegosaurus would have an ungodly bleed resistance and bleed heal. No Allos or Gigas or even Dilos will want to tango with it. It would deal similar damage and bleed to what it does now, as well as maintaining its speed, stamina and agility. Packs of bleed-specialized dinosaurs would not handle it well at all. What would keep it balanced? Absolutely atrocious walk turn radius, aka, when bonebreak'd, as well as having a very long bonebreak heal time, as well as low HP regen (high bleed heal but it doesn't get HP back quickly), and to show some mercy it would have, despite good turn, speed and stamina... only regen when resting, like Giga/Rex.

Both would be incredibly deadly to anything dumb enough to get near da booty, and specifically just scoff at certain opponent types, flat-out hard counter: if an Ankylosaurus showed up at a lake with 3 T.rex, they run. If they are cocky they wind up crow food. But that Anky wants to gtfo if it sees a Giga, or even skilled Dilos.

Bonus balance idea for Triceratops;
It would be given the % factor T.rex has as well as debuffing bleed resistance like Dilophosaurus, however it would not deal Bonebreak or truly insane amounts of bleed. This would make Triceratops the middle-man; it can handle Giganotosaurus or Tyrannosaurus, but does not do so in a hard-counter kinda way, rather a 50-50 but unlike Anky who beats T.rex 100% but loses to Giga 100% / Stego who beats Giga 100% but loses T.rex 100%. It would have good bleed heal and bonebreak resistance but mediocre bleed resistance and HP healing. It would have low speed but good stamina. Its gore and stomp would both do the % factor however both would get less dmg than they do now to mitigate how powerful that would be. Its turn would still be good when walking/trotting but would be bad when running - must be hard to steer if you've got such a huge frill, hardly aerodynamic...

[MrZSFG]

anky wouldn't give 2 ♥♥♥♥♥ about giga or dilo. tbh its a 60/40 in ankys favor vs a single rex but if theres 2 or more that honker is dead. anky is the quintisential slow ass solo dino because if small enought to hide but strong enough to fight but would take FOREVER to grow for its size compared to stego wich can be killed by most other big dinos but would grow faster then trike if not the same grow time as para.

[Why Watt]

Originally posted by MrZSFG:

anky wouldn't give 2 ♥♥♥♥♥ about giga or dilo. tbh its a 60/40 in ankys favor vs a single rex but if theres 2 or more that honker is dead. anky is the quintisential slow ass solo dino because if small enought to hide but strong enough to fight but would take FOREVER to grow for its size compared to stego wich can be killed by most other big dinos but would grow faster then trike if not the same grow time as para.

I'm not referring to current stats in the game, rather, balance.

Ceratosaurus back in Progression was a total joke. Too big for its breeches. It was loud, obvious and slow, while being proportionally puny.
Now it got upscaled and turned into a beast and a half. It has an amazing ambush speed. Pretty much immune to bleed. Its really strong for its size.

Dilophosaurus in progression was just a Utah that couldn't jump and did more bleed. That was it. No special mechanics, no stellar stamina regen, no freaky calls and ungodly night vision and bleed. Now it's a small dinosaur quite capable of hunting larger ones.

And that's the angle I am coming from.

[Lambalot {Lamb-Bah-Ghini}]

As much as I would love for something like this, I can't see the Dev's pushing it for testing because people would spam 'herb's have an easier life so why did I lose my T-rex even though I face tanked it' excuse that is void of any meaning now that AI is in. This is one of those cases where I would love to see it in action before coming to a conclusion. Any herbivore that puts a T-rex into the ground even though they know not to mess with it is good in my books.

[mhmmm]

Why watt, are you in the discord by chance? You should really put your suggestions there because 1) I think it’ll be noticed more.
2) really there sadly aren’t enough players who even give a damn about herbs at all.

It also doesn’t help that in a recent suggestion soo many people agree on them being removed temporarily AND dondi basically said so in a stream recently.

[Why Watt]

Originally posted by mhmmm:

Why watt, are you in the discord by chance? You should really put your suggestions there because 1) I think it’ll be noticed more.
2) really there sadly aren’t enough players who even give a damn about herbs at all.

It also doesn’t help that in a recent suggestion soo many people agree on them being removed temporarily AND dondi basically said so in a stream recently.

Nay I'm not. Deathlyrage banned me when I was one of the devkit testers, and I never banhopped. Or appealed really. Maybe I should have.

[mhmmm]

Originally posted by Why Watt:

Originally posted by mhmmm:

Why watt, are you in the discord by chance? You should really put your suggestions there because 1) I think it’ll be noticed more.
2) really there sadly aren’t enough players who even give a damn about herbs at all.

It also doesn’t help that in a recent suggestion soo many people agree on them being removed temporarily AND dondi basically said so in a stream recently.

Nay I'm not. Deathlyrage banned me when I was one of the devkit testers, and I never banhopped. Or appealed really. Maybe I should have.

Aww dang, you got banned from the one person who gets trigger happy easily. Yeah, the future of herbs aren’t looking too great.

[Why Watt]

Originally posted by mhmmm:

Originally posted by Why Watt:

Nay I'm not. Deathlyrage banned me when I was one of the devkit testers, and I never banhopped. Or appealed really. Maybe I should have.

Aww dang, you got banned from the one person who gets trigger happy easily. Yeah, the future of herbs aren’t looking too great.

What's really frustrating is that fixing the balance of herbivores isn't hard, rather the devs just won't go about it the right way, with the right mindset.

How to fix herbivore gameplay? Have food that yields growth, but only spawns in areas with landmarks. Therefore, herbivores could progress in half or even less of the time. But they'd be in an area where predators know to hunt, and be competing with other herbivores. Say each plant yields +0.005 growth. They'd spawn around things like Radio Tower, the rocks near Triplets, the log bridge near Nursery, etc.

It really peeves me. A lot. That I could balance dinosaur stats to where they'd actually excel in specific regards, while having specific matchups that are just bad, and come up with these ideas very easy, quickly and in ways that don't require huge changes.

[mhmmm]

Originally posted by Why Watt:

Originally posted by mhmmm:

Aww dang, you got banned from the one person who gets trigger happy easily. Yeah, the future of herbs aren’t looking too great.

What's really frustrating is that fixing the balance of herbivores isn't hard, rather the devs just won't go about it the right way, with the right mindset.

How to fix herbivore gameplay? Have food that yields growth, but only spawns in areas with landmarks. Therefore, herbivores could progress in half or even less of the time. But they'd be in an area where predators know to hunt, and be competing with other herbivores. Say each plant yields +0.005 growth. They'd spawn around things like Radio Tower, the rocks near Triplets, the log bridge near Nursery, etc.

It really peeves me. A lot. That I could balance dinosaur stats to where they'd actually excel in specific regards, while having specific matchups that are just bad, and come up with these ideas very easy, quickly and in ways that don't require huge changes.

That’s just it too, people don’t even TRY to make herb gameplay appealing but rather just submit to “meh, herbs are boring all you do is eat plants, boooorrriiinnngggg remove them.” That’s literally 80% of what I read on the discord.