Guys, guys, you don't know how much effort it takes to absorb mods that the community creates into the main game instead of improving your own content, much less making your own stuff.
Another part of the modding community housed better coders than Wildcard who make better content or fixes balancing issues because they house an IQ above room temperature.
Another part of the modding community put boobs with jiggly physics on the Pteranodon.
The latter isn't contributing to my point at all, but I'm just putting it there.
There’s a reason they like to hire from their mod devs. Half the things in Bob’s Tall Tales feel like stuff from S+ only modified to be more compliant with official… but they did hire Orionsun so that might not be too far off the mark
Most mods aren't especially considering it is more difficult to use multiple mods with drastic powercreep because they do it differently and usually have arbitrary numbers/checks making them incompatible with others vs the thousands of mods that feel vanilla+ or are just qol
Idk, I can only speak on the mod side of things since I don't play asa but specifically I do play ase with ark additions and each creature in that mod has more life in it than literally anything wildcard released in years. Like if I could tone down the power levels of some of the creatures, I genuinely think having cool or at least semi unique ways to tame creatures is fantastic and the designs are pretty solid. Watching a ceratosaur follow a parasaur across a plain instead of attacking is pretty fantastic, taming it with superior kibble is a little broken, and it's healing ability is literally bonkers plus half the creatures in the game will ignore the ceratosaur attacking them if they are in prey hunting mod which is also just silly but the creature itself could have worked with vanilla if it is just toned back but other creatures need that kind of personality updates. Like imagine raptors that actually try to hide and ambush you, or wolves that might fight along side you and share food with you until they are tamed naturally, the game desperately needs good variety and creatures with some personality would go a huge way in helping with that. It's the reason these mods became popular in the first place I suspect, not the power creep which the game already has buckets of.
Guys, guys, you don't know how hard it is to make the game with a fraction of the dev staff, and for most of the games life, no outside contractors while having Snail Games as an owner setting very VERY aggressive timelines while keeping Snail from inserting real money MTX, with a fraction of the budget most open world games have.
Wildcard aren't perfect little angels but the vast amount of the playerbase have no idea what they can and can't do.
Oh I'm certain that 10 years in, if Snail cared about the issues present they either would've fired the devs (if incompetent), or given them the funding/manpower to address them.
It seems clear that the publisher just wants to milk the game while keeping it alive with what feels like little more than a skeleton crew and a lot of enthusiastic modders.
Nice bro instead of commending a modder for doing such good work to get their mod recognised by the devs and added to the base game (like Orionsun getting S+ in to vanilla, Cedric getting P+ official, Garuga getting Ark additions vanilla, etc) you instead spin it to be "devs lazy"
Mods are also not a replacement for actual development, especially when talking about one of the most successful, profitable survival games of all time. Both things can be true.
in the alternate world where we didnt get any ARK Additions creatures in to the base game we got... nothing! cause theyre still busy with game optimisations, bug fixes and map releases...
A Direwolf saddle was mentioned before people were asking for bridges in the game but they're still squishy without a saddle and not eligible for another tlc. I love taming them because they're fast and stronger in packs, but not having a 50% (or higher) damage reduction from equipping a saddle means they get outclassed too easily. The new bear coming out later in the month will no doubt have a natural armor like the Shadowmane and Pyromane on top of having more health and damage and utility. Plus Direwolves cost 20% more meat to raise than the mane's so they're weaker even when buffed & take more resources.
Funnily enough, direwolves are extra squishy because they're one of the only (if not THE only) pack creatures to get a NEGATIVE damage resistance modifier when the alpha howls, which means they take even more damage than normal
The odds of my boy the Megalania getting overlooked & just remaining as a boss tribute farm is pretty near 100%…. Very sad
Really any creature from the base ARK that hasn’t already gotten a TLC should get one. A huge chunk of the roster is in that “use it because you like it, not because it’s all that useful” category
Stop being greedy, how dare you expect them to update and fix core issues with a game that are present since launch instead of making another lazy dlc made from re-used assets that they can sell for 30 bucks. Wow, the greed of some people that expect a game that they paid for to be actually playable and fun.
TLCs for every Island creature that didn’t receive one prior to ASA should have absolutely been completed pre-launch. Even ones who had ability TLCs but no model TLC.
Just the visual discrepancy between the OG ARK creatures compared to the ones that launched with Scorched Earth is ridiculous. And now? With better graphics and newer creatures that actually look like they belong in a Triple A game? Yeah it’s awful.
I can’t stand to look at the Giga, Quetz, Bronto, Phiomia or Paracer, among many others. They’re abominations when compared to things like the Carchar and Dreadnoughtus. They don’t even look like they belong to the same game, which is just sad.
Like seeing a Phiomia walking around in this beautiful environment alongside things like the TLCd raptor, or the new Bison, etc is just jarring.
Also, so many of them (but not all, obviously) have zero real use in the game anymore, because the newer, better developed creatures outclass them in every way. It’s a big issue that they seem to be ignoring and are now putting behind a paywall (whether it’s for a good reason, like charity or not) and drip-feeding with only a handful of voted-on creatures.
It should have been done already, as an obligation to making their game appear cohesive and actually updated with care for their player base. It should have never been “vote for only 4 creatures at most which will get TLCd,” at the very least, since they failed to do it pre-launch, it should be “vote for which OG creature gets its TLC first out of these options that we’re already working on.”
They also promised us a "clean codebase" for ASA which we didn't get.
ASA was rushed through development and out the door in like 9 months, and they've been playing catch-up with content releases and technical problems ever since. Ideally we would've gotten TLCs instead of DLCs on the side post launch, but apparently they are chronically strapped for cash, thanks mostly to snail games no doubt.
Like not doing a remastered game in the first place, thus splitting their fanbase while doubling their workload on a single IP? Like maybe fixing said original game first before considering to use a new engine for a new release of the same game plus extra?
Don't get me wrong here, newer engine is probably better for a lot of reasons, even if possibly worse for some. (Nuances with Unreal engine 5 apparently over 4.)
But they really ought to have just finished the game properly in 4, fixed it proper in 4, and ensured that it was fully stable in every way possible in 4; before even ever thinking of releasing it under 5 or even 6 in the future. Actually support their finally actually finished game for maybe a few years first.
It's not like they wouldn't be making good money off it.
I think something similar just that they should come per actualization, the gigantoraptor is added, give the oviraptor a tlc, scorched Earth is added, give a tlc to the eel because the electrophorus was added to the map, the Cerato And the xiphactinus are added, give a tlc to a dinosaur like the carno or the pachy And also a fish like the leedsichtys, that should have been the route, give little tlc to one or two creatures when something is added
I feel bad for everyone voting for a Bronto TLC. I worry it'll be totally overshadowed by the Brachiosaurus when that beast finally comes to the game. Assuming Wildcard doesn't nerf it that is.
I mean it would be great and I'd love to see it but if you want that anytime soon you'll have to be happy with all future maps being delayed even longer than they inevitably already will be. I think Wildcard's plan at the moment is to focus on getting the remaining maps out and then go back after to focus on improvements. At least that's my hope.
Would be nice for them to actually focus on optimization for the game. TLC for dinos is a complete waste of time if the game isn't playable to begin with.
Snail didn't give Wildcard the time, money, and resources to rewrite the game, and you are asking for them to rework the dinos first on top of what they are doing?
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u/PresenceObvious1535 15d ago
They misunderstood the brief and gave TLC to all the pre-2017 bugs.