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ARK: Survival Evolved >  Workshop > Legendarsreign's Workshop > Super Structures > Discussions
Super Structures
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Amris Oct 31, 2020 @ 3:52am
Mutator stacking is too powerful
I noticed only recently that it is possble to stack mutator buffs, using several mutators.

This causes a massive, MASSIVE balance problem:

The game does not notice that stacked SS Mutators make several mutations happen at once and so the game only increases the mutations count of the breed line by 1 even if the mutated babies get several mutations simultaneously through the stacked buff.

That means that when the game thinks your breed line has reached the 20/20 mutation max - in reality the breed line can have like 200 mutations on a single stat!!

The result is obvious: The game gets completely ridiculous.

Think about it: Even a normal, legal, 20/20 mutated animal is already uber in the game. You can already do everything the game needs you to do with legal 20/20 animals (boss fights for instance). Especially if you have mutated and bred 2 stat lines and crossed them (20 mutations health, 20 mutations damage). So far so good. Game works.

But now: imagine if you instead have 200/ 200 mutations per stat through SS mutator buff stacking. When 20/20 was good enough to get everything done including the most difficult boss fights then 200/200 is just completely over the top. It is awful. It breaks the game. It is no fun.

It is like making Star Wars into Space Balls if you get my meaning.

Now I also noticed that the Super Structures mod theoretically makes it possible to disable this mutation buff stacking. Unfortunately this solution is hidden in the gameusersettings.ini config and I imagine hardly anyone ever finds it. So servers seem to run with the default SS ridiculous mutation buff settings without even knowing it. What follows is players find that out and breed their animals to ridiculousness far beyond anything ARK ever envisioned or is designed for balance-wise. And then games on those servers aren broken because of course no player would be willing to give up their illegal 200/20 mutated animals ever again. So there is no fix for the server owner anymore except for a complete wipe and restart with sane mutator buff config settings.

To prevent this dilemma I present the following solution: Please set the default mutator buff stack setting to 1.

This makes sure the default mutator does not break the game balance and only allows mutation levels that are achievable in the standard game. The mutator is still incredibly helpful then for is makes mutation much faster than in the vanilla game - but at least the end mutation cap is the same so that the game is not broken.

For server owner who for whatever reason really want to run a silly game with ridiculous mutation settings there is the gameusersettings.ini config that allows them to set the mutation buff cap higher.

But the default setting would be 1 so that all those of us who do not know of this problem can run a sane and normal game.

Thank you so much!
Last edited by Amris; Oct 31, 2020 @ 4:02am
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Showing 1-15 of 15 comments
zerassar Oct 31, 2020 @ 4:25am 
You have massively overthought this...

Going beyond 20/20 is stupidly easy even in the vanilla game. No mods or changes to settings needed at all.

Mutation stacking is already 100% configurable in the ini configs... As you already know. Default is set to 2 if you can stack any higher then that... It's because your admin set it that way.

The default is only 2 which is hardly the crazy stacking that you seem to refer to.
#1
Amris Oct 31, 2020 @ 5:58am 
You are right that the default setting on the SS mutator is 2. I tested it. However that is still twice the number of mutations that the standard game allows.

So my suggestion stands: Please put the default setting on 1 so that the mutated dinos are legit and fit the game balance. For those who want more mutations they can set the value higher in the config. This is the safer option because the mutator stacking value is pretty hidden (you have to manually add it in the first place) and people setting up their servers likely don't know that they can and should reduce the value in the config if they want their dinos to stay in the normal range (or that their even is a stacking value in the first place.)

As for 'stupidly easy' to go beyond 20/20 in the vanilla game that's completely untrue. First it's very difficult to get a useful mutation in the first place. One can get lucky now or then but on average one needs hundreds of babies each generation if one breeds for a certain stat. If you call that easy then we have different definitions of the term.

Secondly a dino can't mutate any more in the mother line if it has 20 or more mutations there. Same for father line. Of course one can crossbreed them with other mutated dinos and thus seemingly inflate the mutation counter to ridiculous numbers. But new mutations they do not get, no Sir, once they reach 20/20 (or higher) in both lines.

Now with the SS mutator stacking value set to 2 the 20/20 is not 20 mutations but really 40 mutations that get shown as 20. Thus as an example if the dino would go from 100% to 180% base health through 20 mutations it would go from 100% to a wooping 260% base health through 40 mutations. Same for damage. That is a giant, GIANT difference that changes a boss fight from moderately easy to ridiculously easy. It's no fun.

Set the default mutation stacking value to 1 please.

Thank you.

Edit: spelling
Last edited by Amris; Oct 31, 2020 @ 5:59am
#2
zerassar Oct 31, 2020 @ 6:15am 
As someone who has bread several lines through hundreds of generations. Yes is is arbitrarily simple to go beyond the 20 mutation limit in the vanilla game.

Also the vanilla game does allow for 2 mutations, hence why the default is set to 2.
It's like half the chance again to get a second mutation at the same time.

As far as difficulty in getting a useful mutation... It's simple RNG.
Difficulty isn't defined by how many rolls of the dice are needed. If there was some complex hard to accomplish mechanic then yes that is difficult.

Simply leaving a dino to auto mate for a day isn't exactly hard lol. Rock on up and hatch them all enmasse and murder the wasted babies. Time consuming, but not hard.

And to be fair what I was actually referring to was exceeding the mutation cap... Not triggering mutations themselves. With mutation stacking (of the paternal line) it is quite simple to go beyond the mutation limit.

Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:
Secondly a dino can't mutate any more in the mother line if it has 20 or more mutations there. Same for father line. Of course one can crossbreed them with other mutated dinos and thus seemingly inflate the mutation counter to ridiculous numbers. But new mutations they do not get, no Sir, once they reach 20/20 (or higher) in both lines.
Your understanding of how breeding works is incomplete. All you need is a single side mat/pat that is less than 20/20. To make it eligible for a mutation. After which you simply mate it back to the father and stack the mutations back to the pat line. Mate the new alpha male back with the harem of 0/0 females and rinse repeat.

So your statement that it "can't" be done is false. It is quite well known that it can be done and is covered by most of the youtube content creators with countless tutorials on how.

I literally have dinos with millions of mutations. So it is quite doable.



Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:

Now with the SS mutator stacking value set to 2 the 20/20 is not 20 mutations but really 40 mutations that get shown as 20. Thus as an example if the dino would go from 100% to 180% base health through 20 mutations it would go from 100% to a wooping 260% base health through 40 mutations. Same for damage. That is a giant, GIANT difference that changes a boss fight from moderately easy to ridiculously easy. It's no fun.

Set the default mutation stacking value to 1 please.

Thank you.
Again that is not how it works.
The mutator triggers a normal vanilla mutation. Ergo each "stack" you get 2 stat points and a colour. By default, with 2 stacks, that is 4 points to a single stat. Those 2 mutations still count to the 20/20 limit you speak of. So every time you mutate your babies the counter will go up by 2, or whatever you set the stacking limit to and how ever many mutations occurred.

So you're still getting exactly the same numbers of mutations, the same number of stat points, and still constrained by the same mutation limit. The only thing that has changed, is you have to do fewer breeding rounds to reach that limit.

So no... those 20 mutations are still 20 mutations, not the "40" that you state. The only difference is it will take 5 rounds of breeding to reach that rather than the usual 10.


Edit: to clarify use of "mutation stacking"
Last edited by zerassar; Oct 31, 2020 @ 6:22am
#3
zerassar Oct 31, 2020 @ 6:19am 
Just to clarify "mutation stacking" does not always refer to the mutator. It's used to describe stacking the mutations on the pat/mat inheritance lines. On re-reading thought there might be some confusion between the dual use of "stacking"

#4
Amris Oct 31, 2020 @ 8:52am 
Originally posted by zerassar:
As someone who has bread several lines through hundreds of generations. Yes is is arbitrarily simple to go beyond the 20 mutation limit in the vanilla game.

Also the vanilla game does allow for 2 mutations, hence why the default is set to 2.
It's like half the chance again to get a second mutation at the same time.

As far as difficulty in getting a useful mutation... It's simple RNG.
Difficulty isn't defined by how many rolls of the dice are needed. If there was some complex hard to accomplish mechanic then yes that is difficult.

Simply leaving a dino to auto mate for a day isn't exactly hard lol. Rock on up and hatch them all enmasse and murder the wasted babies. Time consuming, but not hard.

And to be fair what I was actually referring to was exceeding the mutation cap... Not triggering mutations themselves. With mutation stacking (of the paternal line) it is quite simple to go beyond the mutation limit.

Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:
Secondly a dino can't mutate any more in the mother line if it has 20 or more mutations there. Same for father line. Of course one can crossbreed them with other mutated dinos and thus seemingly inflate the mutation counter to ridiculous numbers. But new mutations they do not get, no Sir, once they reach 20/20 (or higher) in both lines.
Your understanding of how breeding works is incomplete. All you need is a single side mat/pat that is less than 20/20. To make it eligible for a mutation. After which you simply mate it back to the father and stack the mutations back to the pat line. Mate the new alpha male back with the harem of 0/0 females and rinse repeat.

So your statement that it "can't" be done is false. It is quite well known that it can be done and is covered by most of the youtube content creators with countless tutorials on how.

I literally have dinos with millions of mutations. So it is quite doable.



Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:

Now with the SS mutator stacking value set to 2 the 20/20 is not 20 mutations but really 40 mutations that get shown as 20. Thus as an example if the dino would go from 100% to 180% base health through 20 mutations it would go from 100% to a wooping 260% base health through 40 mutations. Same for damage. That is a giant, GIANT difference that changes a boss fight from moderately easy to ridiculously easy. It's no fun.

Set the default mutation stacking value to 1 please.

Thank you.
Again that is not how it works.
The mutator triggers a normal vanilla mutation. Ergo each "stack" you get 2 stat points and a colour. By default, with 2 stacks, that is 4 points to a single stat. Those 2 mutations still count to the 20/20 limit you speak of. So every time you mutate your babies the counter will go up by 2, or whatever you set the stacking limit to and how ever many mutations occurred.

So you're still getting exactly the same numbers of mutations, the same number of stat points, and still constrained by the same mutation limit. The only thing that has changed, is you have to do fewer breeding rounds to reach that limit.

So no... those 20 mutations are still 20 mutations, not the "40" that you state. The only difference is it will take 5 rounds of breeding to reach that rather than the usual 10.


Edit: to clarify use of "mutation stacking"

Well, no.

When I stack 2 mutators then I get 4 levels (= 2 mutations) but the counter goes up by 1, not by two as you say. And that exactly is the problem.
If the counter went up 2 then I'd be fine with the system. But it doesn't. It goes up 1 not 2 even though you get 2 mutations. So yes - you get 40 mutations instead of 20 and your dinos are much better than intended by the standard game.
#5
zerassar Oct 31, 2020 @ 8:58am 
If the counter isn't going up correctly that's a bug and should be submitted through the bug submissions.

That aside though. It remains that the standard vanilla game does allow you to go beyond 20 mutations. So even IF stacking was defaults to 1... And the bug in the counter was fixed...

You'd still have a problem with uber/super powered dino's because it's still possible to create them through stacking/moving the mutation counter to the pat line.

But that's neither here nor there. As bugs, and suggestions, are not submitted here in discussions. Details on the main mod page.
#6
Amris Oct 31, 2020 @ 9:10am 
I don't think it is a bug - it is the same in S+ after all. And its been like this from the start so the mod authors are sure to know about it.

To me this looks like they intend to make mutating dinos much more powerful than in the standard game. And that is a problem for me. This should be an option that one can activate in the .ini if one really wants to, not one that is active by default.
#7
Lord Eistee Nov 3, 2020 @ 4:55am 
Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:
I don't think it is a bug - it is the same in S+ after all. And its been like this from the start so the mod authors are sure to know about it.

To me this looks like they intend to make mutating dinos much more powerful than in the standard game. And that is a problem for me. This should be an option that one can activate in the .ini if one really wants to, not one that is active by default.


Thats right, its a Y O U - Problem. Most of the players who breed will welcome this cuz the time consumption is just half now.
#8
Hero Nov 4, 2020 @ 4:25pm 
Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:
I noticed only recently that it is possble to stack mutator buffs, using several mutators.

This causes a massive, MASSIVE balance problem:

The game does not notice that stacked SS Mutators make several mutations happen at once and so the game only increases the mutations count of the breed line by 1 even if the mutated babies get several mutations simultaneously through the stacked buff.

That means that when the game thinks your breed line has reached the 20/20 mutation max - in reality the breed line can have like 200 mutations on a single stat!!

The result is obvious: The game gets completely ridiculous.

Think about it: Even a normal, legal, 20/20 mutated animal is already uber in the game. You can already do everything the game needs you to do with legal 20/20 animals (boss fights for instance). Especially if you have mutated and bred 2 stat lines and crossed them (20 mutations health, 20 mutations damage). So far so good. Game works.

But now: imagine if you instead have 200/ 200 mutations per stat through SS mutator buff stacking. When 20/20 was good enough to get everything done including the most difficult boss fights then 200/200 is just completely over the top. It is awful. It breaks the game. It is no fun.

It is like making Star Wars into Space Balls if you get my meaning.

Now I also noticed that the Super Structures mod theoretically makes it possible to disable this mutation buff stacking. Unfortunately this solution is hidden in the gameusersettings.ini config and I imagine hardly anyone ever finds it. So servers seem to run with the default SS ridiculous mutation buff settings without even knowing it. What follows is players find that out and breed their animals to ridiculousness far beyond anything ARK ever envisioned or is designed for balance-wise. And then games on those servers aren broken because of course no player would be willing to give up their illegal 200/20 mutated animals ever again. So there is no fix for the server owner anymore except for a complete wipe and restart with sane mutator buff config settings.

To prevent this dilemma I present the following solution: Please set the default mutator buff stack setting to 1.

This makes sure the default mutator does not break the game balance and only allows mutation levels that are achievable in the standard game. The mutator is still incredibly helpful then for is makes mutation much faster than in the vanilla game - but at least the end mutation cap is the same so that the game is not broken.

For server owner who for whatever reason really want to run a silly game with ridiculous mutation settings there is the gameusersettings.ini config that allows them to set the mutation buff cap higher.

But the default setting would be 1 so that all those of us who do not know of this problem can run a sane and normal game.

Thank you so much!


This is by design. The mutators are suppose to work this way. also The max mutation levels allowed in the game are exactly the same whether you use the mutator or not. at 254 levels in any 1 stat anything above that will reset upon server reset. A lot of people have mutators disabled or dont use them at all. some servers do use them because they speed up breeding significantly.

Also You can go WAY above 20 mutations on 1 side of tree as long as the other side stays below 20. thats why people use females with 0/0 mutation trees. if you dont like that functionality then dont play on servers with mutators.

also dinos with 200/20 can be done in base game... it would just take 10 times as long... you clearly just dont know as much about breeding as you think you do
Last edited by Hero; Nov 4, 2020 @ 4:33pm
#9
Hero Nov 4, 2020 @ 4:31pm 
Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:
I don't think it is a bug - it is the same in S+ after all. And its been like this from the start so the mod authors are sure to know about it.

To me this looks like they intend to make mutating dinos much more powerful than in the standard game. And that is a problem for me. This should be an option that one can activate in the .ini if one really wants to, not one that is active by default.

also this logic is stupid. because it is a feature you can turn off in the ini... and there are a lot of things that SS or S+ does that is way more powerful than the base game... thats why its a mod...
Last edited by Hero; Nov 4, 2020 @ 4:32pm
#10
Amris Nov 5, 2020 @ 9:03am 
Originally posted by Hero:
Originally posted by *TGC* Amris:
I don't think it is a bug - it is the same in S+ after all. And its been like this from the start so the mod authors are sure to know about it.

To me this looks like they intend to make mutating dinos much more powerful than in the standard game. And that is a problem for me. This should be an option that one can activate in the .ini if one really wants to, not one that is active by default.

also this logic is stupid. because it is a feature you can turn off in the ini... and there are a lot of things that SS or S+ does that is way more powerful than the base game... thats why its a mod...

Please do not call my logic stupid. You can disagree with me but stupid I am not.

What I am arguing is exactly what you do: that the mutator stacking can be set in the .ini. Only in my opinion the default setting should correspond to the vanilla game and a more powerful setting should have to be manually activated. This is the whole difference between our opinions.
That way the mutator would still speed up mutating breed lines massively. But the end result would be no different than in the standard game. That is important for game balance.




#11
Amris Nov 5, 2020 @ 9:09am 
Originally posted by Hero:

Also You can go WAY above 20 mutations on 1 side of tree as long as the other side stays below 20. thats why people use females with 0/0 mutation trees. if you dont like that functionality then dont play on servers with mutators.

also dinos with 200/20 can be done in base game... it would just take 10 times as long... you clearly just dont know as much about breeding as you think you do

As you rightly point out it takes way more time to mutate animals in the vanilla game. And past 20 mutations it takes twice as long since one of the two lines can't contribute to the mutation chance anymore.
By taking a shortcut (not counting half the mutations) with a 2x default mutator setting things get lots easier and even faster. Which means breed lines reach ridiculous levels too easily.

A 2 times setting is not necessary to easily meet all game challenges. It just makes things too easy. So it should not be the default setting. It should have to be manually activated by people who want a super-easy game. But it shouldn't be active for serious players.

At the very least this should be documented, so that servers who do not want pimped up settings at least know of the problem and CAN set the .ini to 1x.

#12
Raggedy Annie Nov 10, 2020 @ 4:02am 
Ummmm there is no 20/20 max mutations. As long as one side (paternal or maternal) is always 0 mutations you can mutate the other side up to 1 million if you want to....and they still count. You should go watch Syntac's video about breeding mutations.
#13
Faulkal Nov 10, 2020 @ 4:13am 
so dont use the mutator? wtf?
#14
Lord Eistee Nov 10, 2020 @ 4:45am 
Originally posted by Poison Ivey:
Ummmm there is no 20/20 max mutations. As long as one side (paternal or maternal) is always 0 mutations you can mutate the other side up to 1 million if you want to....and they still count. You should go watch Syntac's video about breeding mutations.

This. But I didnt know that it works on maternal side too xD. Well, thank your for the advice :).
#15
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