In defense of the stego...

[JohnM81]

Are stegos stronger than every other dinos on the map? Yes. Does that make them OP? No.

Hear me out here.

For all their massive HP pools and huge damage attacks they have one short coming that no other dino has. The inability to engage on a target that doesn't want to fight. Every dino in this game can simply choose not to be killed by a stego by simply walking away. And there is nothing a stego can do about it. The one exception, which really isn't an exception, is if the deinosuchus choose to leave the proximity of a body of water it can't escape. But then again it was the deino that put itself in this position and could have simply chosen not to do that.

The stego literally must get permission from any other dino to fight it as it is the other dino that can simply choose not to fight.

And so, for all its strength the above is a huge weakness. And this balances it out. Now let me ask you what happens if the stego with its weakness losses its ability to be a brick wall and hit like a truck? Then it is free meat. It can't fight. It can't run. So its very design at its core forces a set up like this. There is no way to adjust the stego that doesn't make it free meat meal. It can only be left as it is or undergo a complete redesign from ground up.

Now I will admit I am new-ish to this game. So tell me if you think I am off on this and why.

[Khanivore]

Stegs will have to deal with far bigger incoming predators, they are too slow to run away, their current build is to deal with that future threat

But saying that even a pack of skilled smaller preds have a chance against them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-bIUjY8ak&t=523s&ab_channel=Kav

[Eldrum]

You're right that in normal circumstances predators can choose whether or not to risk it with the stego, but stego has a bad reputation for more reasons than just its place within the normal ecosystem. Some reasons: It is usually used by mega herds and mixpackers to defend a camping herd, it is used to body guard (it is perfect for this specific spiteful waste of everyone's time), and it takes up server slots as an untouchable dinosaur, allowing players to play as it if they do not wish to be challenged by anything in the game (plays like a big, scary ptera... except it uses violence instead of flight).

The main downfall with it in regards to normal gameplay falls down to two things:

1. It suffers from a similar issue to utahraptor's pounce (up until the recent stress test build for utah) where it is frankly broken... but in favor of the stego. You can get utahraptors after they have successfully landed a pounce by timing your swing in coordination with when their stam will deplete, or in some cases while they are in mid air, creating a near inescapable situation for the one type of dinosaur that can feasibly take it down in the current balance.

2. Deino can't touch it. Stego's swing does damage that is around 1-1.3k damage per swing and deino's bite is only 500 damage; by comparison it is a murder, and in practice it is also a murder. Stego can swing fast and easily hit the head of an attacking deinosuchus leaving even a good deino player no option but to roll over and die if it tries to attack a stego. To me this seems like a huge balance inconsistency that a giant crocodile cannot take on an equally large creature that ventured near its waters. A new player isn't going to think "Oh I can't attack a stego as a giant crocodile, it does 1k more damage than me!" It's just not intuitive that the idea isn't even possible to any degree.

Those are the two main reasons why stegosaurus itself is IMO an unbalanced class. If they were fixed/adjusted stego would actually have threats to itself within the game world and wouldn't be what is essentially admin mode. My last nitpick for it is that stegosaurus is slow and miserable when it is fully grown. It will have decent speed until around 90% grown but then it turns into a moving rock. But that is just a nitpick, it is not a reason to make it out as a huge gameplay flaw that must be fixed for it to be enjoyable for some.

[JohnM81]

Originally posted by Eldrum:

2. Deino can't touch it. Stego's swing does damage that is around 1-1.3k damage per swing and deino's bite is only 500 damage; by comparison it is a murder, and in practice it is also a murder. Stego can swing fast and easily hit the head of an attacking deinosuchus leaving even a good deino player no option but to roll over and die if it tries to attack a stego. To me this seems like a huge balance inconsistency that a giant crocodile cannot take on an equally large creature that ventured near its waters. A new player isn't going to think "Oh I can't attack a stego as a giant crocodile, it does 1k more damage than me!" It's just not intuitive that the idea isn't even possible to any degree.

Those are the two main reasons why stegosaurus itself is IMO an unbalanced class. If they were fixed/adjusted stego would actually have threats to itself within the game world and wouldn't be what is essentially admin mode. My last nitpick for it is that stegosaurus is slow and miserable when it is fully grown. It will have decent speed until around 90% grown but then it turns into a moving rock. But that is just a nitpick, it is not a reason to make it out as a huge gameplay flaw that must be fixed for it to be enjoyable for some.

I don't see that as a reason why stego is unbalanced if you consider one factor. The deino is actually very good at killing stegos if they use the tools they are given. They were made to be ambush predators in rivers. Once a stego loses its tail swing option in water the deino can attach with impunity. Deino can also using his alt attack and body block to slow down the stego from advancing across the river while landing hits in.

[JohnM81]

Originally posted by Khanivore:

Stegs will have to deal with far bigger incoming predators, they are too slow to run away, their current build is to deal with that future threat

But saying that even a pack of skilled smaller preds have a chance against them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E-bIUjY8ak&t=523s&ab_channel=Kav

Yes, and I am assuming the larger dinos that are coming later that are in the stego
'tier' have similar mobilities to balance out their hp / dps just like the stego.

[Rhibirr]

Originally posted by Eldrum:

You're right that in normal circumstances predators can choose whether or not to risk it with the stego, but stego has a bad reputation for more reasons than just its place within the normal ecosystem. Some reasons: It is usually used by mega herds and mixpackers to defend a camping herd, it is used to body guard (it is perfect for this specific spiteful waste of everyone's time), and it takes up server slots as an untouchable dinosaur, allowing players to play as it if they do not wish to be challenged by anything in the game (plays like a big, scary ptera... except it uses violence instead of flight).

The main downfall with it in regards to normal gameplay falls down to two things:

1. It suffers from a similar issue to utahraptor's pounce (up until the recent stress test build for utah) where it is frankly broken... but in favor of the stego. You can get utahraptors after they have successfully landed a pounce by timing your swing in coordination with when their stam will deplete, or in some cases while they are in mid air, creating a near inescapable situation for the one type of dinosaur that can feasibly take it down in the current balance.

2. Deino can't touch it. Stego's swing does damage that is around 1-1.3k damage per swing and deino's bite is only 500 damage; by comparison it is a murder, and in practice it is also a murder. Stego can swing fast and easily hit the head of an attacking deinosuchus leaving even a good deino player no option but to roll over and die if it tries to attack a stego. To me this seems like a huge balance inconsistency that a giant crocodile cannot take on an equally large creature that ventured near its waters. A new player isn't going to think "Oh I can't attack a stego as a giant crocodile, it does 1k more damage than me!" It's just not intuitive that the idea isn't even possible to any degree.

Those are the two main reasons why stegosaurus itself is IMO an unbalanced class. If they were fixed/adjusted stego would actually have threats to itself within the game world and wouldn't be what is essentially admin mode. My last nitpick for it is that stegosaurus is slow and miserable when it is fully grown. It will have decent speed until around 90% grown but then it turns into a moving rock. But that is just a nitpick, it is not a reason to make it out as a huge gameplay flaw that must be fixed for it to be enjoyable for some.

I would like to make a few points on these points.
1. That sounds like bug issues rather then a problem with the stego's power level. Bad hit detection really shouldn't be blamed on the stego when it's on both the Utah and the Stego's end in that example. Good to bring up though, I had not heard of that tail timing one. But maybe a Utah should detach before they run out of stam so they can run away? Cause a lot of bleed then run. It would also make it much harder for a stego to time. They can't see your stam meter after all and must guess based on experience. Fixing the Utah raptor's pounce would go a long way for this. Because then a couple raptors doing a few bites and then jumping off rather then one chewing for as long as their stamina would allow would be a more viable method.

2. Yeah...this is kind of dumb. But I think it's a problem with the dieno rather then the stego. I would not mind at all if dienos were more powerful and some folks have said that they are suppose to be in the future but are currently temp nerfed because of the current roster. Dienos kind of suck right now in a lot of ways. They're beautifully designed and feel fun to cruse along rivers with but they are not very good at PvP right now. I can kind of understand why they take a long time to balance because crocs by their very nature use an unfair hunting method. To balance it for a game is not an easy task. They might need some kind of tug of war mechanic for them when they go against larger things so they still have a chance of dragging larger things under.

[Rhibirr]

You know what I don't get? The deino is temp nerfed and the stego is not. Maybe they should either extend temp nerfs or not temp nerf at all. I mean...I'm guessing it's set up this way because the stego is a herbivore and so is expected to be less PvP then the carnivores but...in the isle's community that's never the case. So if the clearly early stego is here maybe let the deino also be strong?

[JohnM81]

Originally posted by Rhibirr:

You know what I don't get? The deino is temp nerfed and the stego is not. Maybe they should either extend temp nerfs or not temp nerf at all. I mean...I'm guessing it's set up this way because the stego is a herbivore and so is expected to be less PvP then the carnivores but...in the isle's community that's never the case. So if the clearly early stego is here maybe let the deino also be strong?

Maybe the stegos terrible mobility in land and water along with stam that only lets it run like a overweight out of breath man is its temp nerf?

[Eldrum]

Originally posted by JohnM81:

Originally posted by Eldrum:

2. Deino can't touch it. Stego's swing does damage that is around 1-1.3k damage per swing and deino's bite is only 500 damage; by comparison it is a murder, and in practice it is also a murder. Stego can swing fast and easily hit the head of an attacking deinosuchus leaving even a good deino player no option but to roll over and die if it tries to attack a stego. To me this seems like a huge balance inconsistency that a giant crocodile cannot take on an equally large creature that ventured near its waters. A new player isn't going to think "Oh I can't attack a stego as a giant crocodile, it does 1k more damage than me!" It's just not intuitive that the idea isn't even possible to any degree.

Those are the two main reasons why stegosaurus itself is IMO an unbalanced class. If they were fixed/adjusted stego would actually have threats to itself within the game world and wouldn't be what is essentially admin mode. My last nitpick for it is that stegosaurus is slow and miserable when it is fully grown. It will have decent speed until around 90% grown but then it turns into a moving rock. But that is just a nitpick, it is not a reason to make it out as a huge gameplay flaw that must be fixed for it to be enjoyable for some.

I don't see that as a reason why stego is unbalanced if you consider one factor. The deino is actually very good at killing stegos if they use the tools they are given. They were made to be ambush predators in rivers. Once a stego loses its tail swing option in water the deino can attach with impunity. Deino can also using his alt attack and body block to slow down the stego from advancing across the river while landing hits in.

Yeah strats like that are probably the main reason why deino's bite force is only 500. I've gotten a stego pretty low before using body blocking and head shots but it's never quite enough when I've done it, stego always gets across the river in time. I'd hope they would increase the bite force a few hundred points at least.

[Eldrum]

Originally posted by Rhibirr:

Originally posted by Eldrum:

You're right that in normal circumstances predators can choose whether or not to risk it with the stego, but stego has a bad reputation for more reasons than just its place within the normal ecosystem. Some reasons: It is usually used by mega herds and mixpackers to defend a camping herd, it is used to body guard (it is perfect for this specific spiteful waste of everyone's time), and it takes up server slots as an untouchable dinosaur, allowing players to play as it if they do not wish to be challenged by anything in the game (plays like a big, scary ptera... except it uses violence instead of flight).

The main downfall with it in regards to normal gameplay falls down to two things:

1. It suffers from a similar issue to utahraptor's pounce (up until the recent stress test build for utah) where it is frankly broken... but in favor of the stego. You can get utahraptors after they have successfully landed a pounce by timing your swing in coordination with when their stam will deplete, or in some cases while they are in mid air, creating a near inescapable situation for the one type of dinosaur that can feasibly take it down in the current balance.

2. Deino can't touch it. Stego's swing does damage that is around 1-1.3k damage per swing and deino's bite is only 500 damage; by comparison it is a murder, and in practice it is also a murder. Stego can swing fast and easily hit the head of an attacking deinosuchus leaving even a good deino player no option but to roll over and die if it tries to attack a stego. To me this seems like a huge balance inconsistency that a giant crocodile cannot take on an equally large creature that ventured near its waters. A new player isn't going to think "Oh I can't attack a stego as a giant crocodile, it does 1k more damage than me!" It's just not intuitive that the idea isn't even possible to any degree.

Those are the two main reasons why stegosaurus itself is IMO an unbalanced class. If they were fixed/adjusted stego would actually have threats to itself within the game world and wouldn't be what is essentially admin mode. My last nitpick for it is that stegosaurus is slow and miserable when it is fully grown. It will have decent speed until around 90% grown but then it turns into a moving rock. But that is just a nitpick, it is not a reason to make it out as a huge gameplay flaw that must be fixed for it to be enjoyable for some.

I would like to make a few points on these points.
1. That sounds like bug issues rather then a problem with the stego's power level. Bad hit detection really shouldn't be blamed on the stego when it's on both the Utah and the Stego's end in that example. Good to bring up though, I had not heard of that tail timing one. But maybe a Utah should detach before they run out of stam so they can run away? Cause a lot of bleed then run. It would also make it much harder for a stego to time. They can't see your stam meter after all and must guess based on experience. Fixing the Utah raptor's pounce would go a long way for this. Because then a couple raptors doing a few bites and then jumping off rather then one chewing for as long as their stamina would allow would be a more viable method.

2. Yeah...this is kind of dumb. But I think it's a problem with the dieno rather then the stego. I would not mind at all if dienos were more powerful and some folks have said that they are suppose to be in the future but are currently temp nerfed because of the current roster. Dienos kind of suck right now in a lot of ways. They're beautifully designed and feel fun to cruse along rivers with but they are not very good at PvP right now. I can kind of understand why they take a long time to balance because crocs by their very nature use an unfair hunting method. To balance it for a game is not an easy task. They might need some kind of tug of war mechanic for them when they go against larger things so they still have a chance of dragging larger things under.

I've heard the utahraptor actually has a few invincibility frames when jumping off the stego but I can't say I've actually seen it in practice so in theory if they extended/fixed the iframes utah would be able to safely use its special attack.

The deino could definitely use a biteforce buff I think it would resolve the inequality between stegos and deinos quite a bit, maybe stegos would start considering safer, narrower river routes.

[JohnM81]

Originally posted by Eldrum:

Originally posted by Rhibirr:

I would like to make a few points on these points.
1. That sounds like bug issues rather then a problem with the stego's power level. Bad hit detection really shouldn't be blamed on the stego when it's on both the Utah and the Stego's end in that example. Good to bring up though, I had not heard of that tail timing one. But maybe a Utah should detach before they run out of stam so they can run away? Cause a lot of bleed then run. It would also make it much harder for a stego to time. They can't see your stam meter after all and must guess based on experience. Fixing the Utah raptor's pounce would go a long way for this. Because then a couple raptors doing a few bites and then jumping off rather then one chewing for as long as their stamina would allow would be a more viable method.

2. Yeah...this is kind of dumb. But I think it's a problem with the dieno rather then the stego. I would not mind at all if dienos were more powerful and some folks have said that they are suppose to be in the future but are currently temp nerfed because of the current roster. Dienos kind of suck right now in a lot of ways. They're beautifully designed and feel fun to cruse along rivers with but they are not very good at PvP right now. I can kind of understand why they take a long time to balance because crocs by their very nature use an unfair hunting method. To balance it for a game is not an easy task. They might need some kind of tug of war mechanic for them when they go against larger things so they still have a chance of dragging larger things under.

I've heard the utahraptor actually has a few invincibility frames when jumping off the stego but I can't say I've actually seen it in practice so in theory if they extended/fixed the iframes utah would be able to safely use its special attack.

The deino could definitely use a biteforce buff I think it would resolve the inequality between stegos and deinos quite a bit, maybe stegos would start considering safer, narrower river routes.

Or maybe give them a small knock back on an alt LMB / RMB ?

[Eldrum]

Originally posted by JohnM81:

Originally posted by Eldrum:

I've heard the utahraptor actually has a few invincibility frames when jumping off the stego but I can't say I've actually seen it in practice so in theory if they extended/fixed the iframes utah would be able to safely use its special attack.

The deino could definitely use a biteforce buff I think it would resolve the inequality between stegos and deinos quite a bit, maybe stegos would start considering safer, narrower river routes.

Or maybe give them a small knock back on an alt LMB / RMB ?

That would be an interesting way of going about it and would create some interesting strategies.

[Krajak85]

Basically I agree with John. The slower and more immobile a dino is, the more damage it must be able to take and deal at the same time. A simple calculation that hopefully everyone can understand.

But now I don't understand why the discussion focuses so much on the fight between Deino and Stego. An adult Deino can drag and drown all other Dinos except for the Stego. The Deino don't currently have any natural enemies to fear - apart from cannibals of the same species - and now it's being claimed that the Deino should also be able to kill an adult Stego? We're talking about the two dinosaurs with the longest growing times, and maybe it's time to just accept that these two dinosaurs should just stay out of each other's way. As a Stego grows up, the Deino has plenty of opportunities to catch one.

Some argue that if a giant animal like the Deino bites a Stego in the head, it should suffer immense damage. But as has been described countless times: A crocodile doesn't hunt like this! A crocodile's forte is to firmly grasp its prey and pull it into the water - and not to face its prey and dish out single bites. Probably every predator that has ever lived has had to carefully consider whether and when to attack its prey in order not to injure itself. And I think the Deino does that job well in The Isle. He can use his ambush attack to take down adult Carnos and Tenos. What more do you want?

[Rhibirr]

Originally posted by Krajak85:

Basically I agree with John. The slower and more immobile a dino is, the more damage it must be able to take and deal at the same time. A simple calculation that hopefully everyone can understand.

But now I don't understand why the discussion focuses so much on the fight between Deino and Stego. An adult Deino can drag and drown all other Dinos except for the Stego. The Deino don't currently have any natural enemies to fear - apart from cannibals of the same species - and now it's being claimed that the Deino should also be able to kill an adult Stego? We're talking about the two dinosaurs with the longest growing times, and maybe it's time to just accept that these two dinosaurs should just stay out of each other's way. As a Stego grows up, the Deino has plenty of opportunities to catch one.

Some argue that if a giant animal like the Deino bites a Stego in the head, it should suffer immense damage. But as has been described countless times: A crocodile doesn't hunt like this! A crocodile's forte is to firmly grasp its prey and pull it into the water - and not to face its prey and dish out single bites. Probably every predator that has ever lived has had to carefully consider whether and when to attack its prey in order not to injure itself. And I think the Deino does that job well in The Isle. He can use his ambush attack to take down adult Carnos and Tenos. What more do you want?

That is true....but crocs do still bite necks and heads to start the dragging. It's a conveniently grab-able place for an animal that's leaning down to drink. Maybe dieno could use more grappling based moves and more tug of war style fighting dynamics.
The biting is just easier to program though I bet.
Utah pounce should really be able to do neck latches too when you stop and think about it. It's a little weird that they leap on the side of an animal and chew there to cause bleed instead of going for the jugular. But that would be an even more finicky target to get to look good.
Plus...dieno IS currently temp nerfed for the current mostly smaller critter roster. So the people who say it should have more bite force....actually yeah...it WILL anyway.

(But who knows...maybe Stego will end up with a buff then too when people find out how not OP it is and then people will complain again about it being OP because they wanna rush up and mindlessly button mash kill a tank with a thorny tail. People are probably going to complain about anky too. Just watch. I don't think some folks have caught on to the nobody and nothing is suppose to live an entirely safe life on the isle thing yet)

[Eldrum]

Originally posted by Krajak85:

Basically I agree with John. The slower and more immobile a dino is, the more damage it must be able to take and deal at the same time. A simple calculation that hopefully everyone can understand.

But now I don't understand why the discussion focuses so much on the fight between Deino and Stego. An adult Deino can drag and drown all other Dinos except for the Stego. The Deino don't currently have any natural enemies to fear - apart from cannibals of the same species - and now it's being claimed that the Deino should also be able to kill an adult Stego? We're talking about the two dinosaurs with the longest growing times, and maybe it's time to just accept that these two dinosaurs should just stay out of each other's way. As a Stego grows up, the Deino has plenty of opportunities to catch one.

Some argue that if a giant animal like the Deino bites a Stego in the head, it should suffer immense damage. But as has been described countless times: A crocodile doesn't hunt like this! A crocodile's forte is to firmly grasp its prey and pull it into the water - and not to face its prey and dish out single bites. Probably every predator that has ever lived has had to carefully consider whether and when to attack its prey in order not to injure itself. And I think the Deino does that job well in The Isle. He can use his ambush attack to take down adult Carnos and Tenos. What more do you want?

I just don't think that stego should be ROFL-stomping deino like it does currently. I would want both of them to be on equal footing so at least every fight is a struggle (as it should be IMO). There shouldn't be one that objectively kills the other in every fight, it should be situational. The reason being that while deinosuchus can wreck every other dinosaur (given the right opportunity), not only is it limited to water but is the only other apex in Evrima that has the same relative size and "prey range" to be capable of killing stego. That and the fact that the matchup as it stands just seems too artificial and too specific and unintuitive.

The developers balanced deino with the logic you brought up regarding "it can kill everything else stego is the one thing it shouldn't touch" and now we have ~7 shot deino and 12+ shot stego whenever they fought; they are outright incapable of fighting with this balance unless the stego is under very specific situations (and bad). If stego doesn't want to fight deino, there are many locations on the map that can be used to cross small rivers and essentially avoid deinos entirely.

[^vo0d0ochild^]

I love how every server just has a line of Stegs in the water hunting the Deino's down with impunity