Hello, my name is Jesse. Let me start by saying I absolutely love this game! I’ve been spending a lot of time on it and it's taken up quite a lot of my free time. You guys have really done a great job creating an immersive experience that is very involved and enjoyable. However, because of the exceptional job you have done creating an immersive experience, I have a suggestion for how the game might be improved for a lot of your players.
It seems there are a lot of people who get a bit attached to their creatures, so I’m certain I’m not alone here. In my case, it was the dire wolves that got me. I have always loved wolves and felt a special bond with them, so when this game promised me the chance to tame and run with my own wolf pack, I was crazy with excitement because that’s a dream come true! As soon as I found out they were in the game I left the safety of the compound my friends and I had built(we play on a private PVE server), and headed off into the icy lands to the north. I died countless times and went through an involved, often frustrating, but very enjoyable learning curve until I established an outpost up there. It was very hard at my level but the promise of taming a pack of wolves kept me going, and eventually, after many hours I finally did it. And after a few failures, random T-Rex spawns (oh SHIT!
) and many other setbacks, I finally got my wish: A pack of nine wolves of decent level, and an alpha pair, male and female that were about level 28 when I tamed them (very rare due to our difficulty settings). So after it all I managed to level the pack’s alpha male, Zade, up to about level 60. The whole time we had fun, fought some epic battles against brontos, rex, and we even went fishing a couple times in the pool near our base. Needless to say, I was really attached to this pup. He was like a pet, but also a total badass wolf that I had great adventures with in the game. Then, today, on our way back from a cave run, my friend and I went across a stream that was a bit wide, and were set upon by mega piranhas. They swarmed behind Zade and he couldn’t turn around to hit them, and so despite being able to take down a trike in three bites, he ended up dying. I was totally devastated, and it kinda made me want to just quit the game right there. I was really sad.It was very frustrating that a wolf I had spent 20+ hours on, hunting, taming, leveling up, and bonding with him, can just be completely forever GONE inside of one minute. And for all that time I’m left with NOTHING. That’s just way too harsh for me. And I’m sure others feel the same way. There are many who get attached to their dinos and other creatures. And we don’t want to just leave them sitting safely in our bases, we want to get out and run with them. But the way they can sometimes just die so suddenly, from bad circumstances or simple mistakes, is just too harsh and dire of a consequence. Especially since even if I take the time to go find another rare high level wolf, and even if I name him Zade, he won’t be the same. Different stats, different fur colors, and just different. He won’t be MY Zade.
So, here’s what I propose as a solution:
There needs to be a way to bring your tamed creatures back even if they die. I suggest they could be “genetically reconstructed” at any one of the three towers. Of course, risk of loss is part of what makes Ark great and thrilling, so there should be a cost to doing this. Perhaps they reset to the level and stats they were when you first tamed them. Or perhaps doing so costs a great deal of resources (though this may be unfairly balanced away from being possible for people who just started the game). Or, you could pay the cost with the one resource everyone has: Experience. As an example, bringing a lost pet back from the dead will reduce you by 1 level. So you were level 65? Now you’re level 64. Or more, depending on the level of the creature you’re trying to bring back vs. your level, etc. The point is, it should be a very steep cost, but it should at least be POSSIBLE. Something that takes a few hours of play to make back up, not destroying 20+ hours of hard work, and loosing a pet you love forever, just for crossing the wrong stream or something. The cost should be a setback that would really require players to weigh their level of emotional attachment to a specific creature, rather than just going and getting another one.
Ultimately, Ark is built as a survival game. And I understand why it's built the way it is. Right now the game is built for tamed dinos to be kind of like tools, you use them, sometimes you lose them, you get new ones, move on. But with certain things like naming, and various other chatter I’m picking up from the forums, there’s a LOT of players that are getting attached to their dinos as pets, and are very upset at how easy it is to lose them. Ultimately, I believe making moves in the game mechanic to allow for people to keep the creatures they’re attached to will make the game much more enjoyable for people who are looking for a “raising pets”/roleplay kind of experience, and that’s a very marketable thing. You don’t want people quitting because they’re hurt or sad because their favorite in game pet is just suddenly gone FOREVER. I believe having people attached to your game and emotionally invested in the creatures in it is really good for you, and enriches their experience too. It certainly has mine. But...I really miss my puppy :'(
In summary:
1. Many of us get really attached to our tamed creatures.
2. The fact that they can just suddenly die from a multitude of reasons and be gone FOREVER leaving us with NOTHING just sucks.
3. A way to bring them back from the dead would be GREAT.
4. To maintain the thrill of risk in the game, doing so should be COSTLY, but not IMPOSSIBLE, even for low level players.
5. A mechanic that allows us to keep our pets in the game, even at high cost, would make the game much more ENJOYABLE and MARKETABLE for a great number of players.
Once again, thank you guys so much for all your hard work in making Ark the amazing game that it is. I really hope that this idea will be implemented and that it will enrich the experience of the many players who are loving what you guys have created. And that my pup’s loss won’t be in vain.
<3 R.I.P. Zade <3
-Jesse