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Vivian

Taming and breeding system

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I am creating this topic for developers about the taming and breeding system of animals, I feel that this part of the game is being left out and is one of the factors that makes me want to play Atlas, so as a first suggestion I think the time of the ballerina should increase from 1:30 to at least 2 minutes, the hitbox of the trapped animals should also be adjusted, because the elephants and giraffes end up hitting even when we are behind them, since the breeding system the time for gestation is very far, and may take up to 4 hours, I think this time could be reduced to 1 hour only and the time to procreate again should be reduced to 24 hours, there are other suggestions that I also find relevant to mention, for example, the composer, for me it doesn't make much sense make fertilizer in your own inventory, if there was a compost it would be possible to create fertilizers inside it with feces and straw. Another relevant point is the lack of at least one marine animal and a flying bird to be tamed, it would also be interesting to add fish traps.

Something that also bothers a lot is the issue of animal transport, there is a mod that allows the transport of animals through a mystical bottle, asism as in Ark where we use cryopods, there should be some way we can transport large animals in a more organized way, but still influencing the ship's crew and weight.


That's it, I hope that everything is taken into account and something is at least relevant, because for me these changes would be necessary.

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Totally agree that taming and breeding system need a rework.

First i want to point out that the taming system itself is a bit stupid. First u beat the animal half dead, then u bola and feed it. Several times. I can hear Steve Irwin laughing.

Too be fair, Arks taming system isn´t smart either but much more convenient^^

 

Last weekend i tried to tame a giraffe but it won´t accept ANY of the berries or veggies growing in it´s habitat. I wonder what they eat, haven´t seen a KFC or McDonalds around.

Luckily some local guy gave me wheat.

 

Giraffes and elephants range is pretty large, still doable BUT these animals keep moving in the taming cage. So u found the perfect feeding spot, animal turns around without any reason in the meaning of changing position, u get hit and probably die... Or u can´t feed the animal despite you are standing right in front of it. There is usually a magic spot for every animal were u can feed it without getting hit.

 

This in combination with the good old never fixed bugging under the map bug is pretty annoying. Always keep a pickaxe in a crate or mount close to your taming cage so u can harvest your invisible body and the inventory bag will pop out of nowhere...Or your body is in the taming cage and u can´t get your taming stuff...lovely.

 

Oh i forgot the perma aggro issue when bolaed animals won´t stop attacking and ofc the local predators killing your 99% tame progress bolaed and helpless animal.

 

No one wants it to be too easy but this is a menace for solo players.

 

Breeding...oh lord.

No clue how they came up with the standard settings. I can only speak for bear breeding: 4h gestation...ok, another 3-4h til the baby will eat from the feeding trough.

So far so good.

(Have i mentioned that i needed 10-16 campfires to keep the babies warm in tundra region?) Burned like 10k wood just to keep em warm til the magic 10%.

Wrong region some might say but why are there bears everywhere? Haven´t seen bears spamming campfires to keep their breed warm and alive.

Another logical plothole which spoils the game experience for me. If an animal is living in that biome it should be resisting the regular temperatures!

And accept the local food for taming.

 

That´s 8h of caretaking. Usually that´s the time span when normal human beings needs a break, there are things like sleep, work and social life.

But now it takes another 90% til the baby is full grown and safe.

 

My first attempt ended with 2 starved baby bears next morning despite i´ve filled up their inventories AND 2 full feeding troughs with berries...

Maybe the babies ate too much or the berries rottet away. I tried garlic, wild turnips, beans, grilled meat and wild potatoes but it seems my animals won´t eat it.

 

Btw homegrown potatoes and cellery work fine. But i have to get cellery from pretty far away.

 

And bears are one of the easiest animals to breed. I can´t imagine what a nightmare elephants and giraffes will be...

 

All in all it´s possible but not very nice to do. Especially for solo players or small companies.

I know that the company got something different in mind and PVE and solo is not top priority but that´s the way i and a lot of other players play the game.


So please change the standard settings for breeding!

 

Edited by MesCaLiN
typos

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I don't personally think 4hours of pregnancy helps people how plays just 3 our 4 hours the game. But yeah,, a lot of things need to be change.

Edited by Vivian

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I personally wish they make things the way that there is actually alternative to tames in terms of resources gathering and fighting. If that's will ever happen, I'll gladly tame just a single horse to carry lots of stuff fast and forget about all those bears, elephants tigers etc, for ever!! 😆

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If its to hard, maybe learn how its done, or skip that content. People will gladly sell you tames.

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This is my opinion, and it was not made for you but for the developers, clearly you did not read what I wrote, much less understood what I meant, if you are not here to have a healthy discussion on the subject I ask you to lose your time with something else, I do not stop doing something because it is difficult, but the game need a lot of adjustment and new features, it is very easy to come on topic and tell me to put something aside and buy animals domesticated by other players, but proposing viable solutions is for people who think of something better for a community, show me counter-proposals, not lack of education.

Edited by Vivian

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You want to roll your face on the keyboard and make the only two tames that are somewhat challenging easier? 

The breeding system isn't bad. If I did anything I would make the imprinting process more complex with a shorter time span. Lowering the gestation period would be a terrible idea. In 24 hours with a one hour time frame I could spam an island to death with tames.

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They simply migrate breeding system from ark which I believe to be the sole reason why breeding system in a game that supposed to be private theme.  Player should be treasure hunting, going on adventures or enjoying ship battles but not a full time baby sitter.

The dev could introduce some consumables that obtained with coins or from boss which reduces the time consumed to breed. That encourage player to reach out while making breeding less boring. Simply make breeding  more accessible may break the game balance as they are significantly stronger.

However if you are into taming and breeding you should probably be playing ark where tames are core of the game. 

Edited by minipan9
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This game is really bad about using excessive time sinks to lock content. And not fun time sinks, just long counters. Breeding is kind of a mess, but shortening timers would make it less grindy. As to excessive tames, that is yet another problem of the game- it allows spamming without any meaningful way to mitigate that (the cryopods is a nice example). I like the Taming Overhaul Mod by H20-Melons (https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2279458702). It also makes the creatures a bit more reasonably sized.

MINIPAN9- that is a really good suggestion. Having trinkets that can reduce breeding time, up maturation speed, etc. adds more things to seek out for tamers. It would also be nice to have items that you can recolor pets with, redistribute points, etc.

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Taming is the best part of Atlas and I don’t want it to fall by the wayside in exchange for “pirate role play.” (Aka PvP)
 

Plenty of games already do that.

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@Vivian & devs

     First of all just an fyi the devs have stated that they have someone looking into modifying the breeding system, dont remember if taming was mentioned. So Im sure they would appreciate constructive comments.

     Some things that make breeding a tricky mechanic in this game vs Ark is that this a pirate/ adventure game whereas Ark places animal taming and breeding as a central mechanic. The scale of this game makes breeding a possible game breaking mechanic, especially in PvE, I'll elaborate.

     Theres breeders who place literally 8+ story buildings filled with shelves of bears and breed en mass by taking a stud up and down elevators. 50-100 cubs dropping in a rotation. It quickly becomes a problem of exponential growth within weeks of a fresh server wipe. Giant buildings filled with ridiculous quantities of animals quickly begin lagging out areas then whole grids...

     PvP balances this mechanic more with warfare. For a great example watch the Youtube video Atlas Meat Run 😂.

Unfortunately when they make it easier for a casual gamer they also make it easier for mass breeding. Simple company cap reductions may help somewhat, but then determined players simply resort to alternate characters.

 

Heres a rough draft of some possible solutions..

Studs - lets be honest, after 4 breeds they should shooting blanks and after 8 they should be asleep on the floor with zero stamina for several days..

Females - Stop using wandering to enable breeding. Instead use an "in heat" mechanic thats maybe rng based? Have them even reject studs, furthermore a certain percentage should become hostile attacking the stud.

Characters age in this game, why not animals? Make animals infertile after a certain age, or just randomly.

Rng based miscarriages?

 

After some mechanics of these types are implemented THEN the breeding cycle could be shortened...

 

Feedback?

Edited by Ranger1k

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Is the problem the speed of breeding or the scale? Hundreds of tames is a problem in multiple ways. Caps fix that. If they use alts, just ban 'em. The problem is there is no enforcement.

I agree, a cooldown on breeding would be a solid idea. The females already have a cooldown- implementing it in males should be trivial. 

Aging would be an interesting mechanic as to mating. Perhaps have aging be relatively slow, but mating speeds it up, reflecting the wear on the animal. So excessive breeding would burn through your tame lifespan/stats. This would have the side effect of new stock being important  for breeding animals. 

Likewise, their should be more problems with not diversifying breed lines. Right now, there is no real reason to seek out new animals if you tame ones with good stats. Breeding lines that are too closely related should risk degradation in the line, making it important to bring in new blood.

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Speaking from personal experience, I really like the breeding system and I’ve grown to like the taming system on atlas. Elephants do need to be adjusted as do giraffes. They either don’t eat, hit you at every angle or cause you to glitch into the ground and lose all of your items.

 

Breeding is very easy if done in an intelligent way. Find a good climate and build a small shack that you can easily keep them in content in. Why try to raise a razor tooth in the snow? It doesn’t make sense.

 

best advice I could give to anyone starting out as a fresh breeder is expect things to die. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of planning for that first 2-8 hours until 10% but that’s literally the only part of it that is hard! After the first 10% it’s easy.

I hatched 6 razor teeth all at once on my first try. Fully expected to lose 5/6 and managed to get them all full raised! But that first 10 hours was a stress test for sure.

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@jmurph

6 hours ago, jmurph said:

Is the problem the speed of breeding or the scale? Hundreds of tames is a problem in multiple ways. Caps fix that. If they use alts, just ban 'em. The problem is there is no enforcement.

I agree, a cooldown on breeding would be a solid idea. The females already have a cooldown- implementing it in males should be trivial. 

Aging would be an interesting mechanic as to mating. Perhaps have aging be relatively slow, but mating speeds it up, reflecting the wear on the animal. So excessive breeding would burn through your tame lifespan/stats. This would have the side effect of new stock being important  for breeding animals. 

Likewise, their should be more problems with not diversifying breed lines. Right now, there is no real reason to seek out new animals if you tame ones with good stats. Breeding lines that are too closely related should risk degradation in the line, making it important to bring in new blood.

     First of all thanks for the feedback..

My 2 cents..

1. You can't ban alts. It's both impossible and unrealistic. I own 2 xboxs, one for me,  one for my kids. I purchased 2 copies of the game. Launching an investigation into whether I'm using the 2nd account, or my son, is impractical at the scale this game is supposed to be designed for.

2. Caps per ANIMAL TYPE is a possible solution, and i dont mean dropping it from 300 to 150. I mean more like 6 per type, maybe less.

3. Increased food consumption per animal needs to be implemented. Bears living permanently on like 5 berries a day is ridiculous. My lions get by on a couple of steaks a day, IRL these animals require ridiculous quantities of food to live.

4. Unfortunately i don't believe a cooldown will stop breed factories. It needs to be both random and the more tames of the same type in the area the less chance of a female going into heat. That would offer a better incentive to players with limited playing time.

5. When this game goes live aging needs to be slowed significantly. Now its 80 years a month? More like 80 years every 3-6+ months is appropriate if the wipes stop. If age were applied to animals then it should be based on average real life animal life span.

6. Regarding inbreeding it should simply increase the miscarriage chance generation by generation. Also, take mutations out of the game. Its Atlas, not Ark. The stats per animal could be standardized or at least have tighter FIXED ranges.

     These changes would encourage players to stop spending all their game time watching animals bang and get them out on the oceans, exploring with a trusty sidekick and a small farm at their base.

     I say again its Atlas, not Ark. If you want to primarily breed then playes should be directed towards Ark & Ark 2

 

The devs have stated in Q & A the game needs more cohesion. Implementing some or all of these proposals would be a step towards that end.

Feedback?

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6 hours ago, Ranger1k said:

These changes would encourage players to stop spending all their game time watching animals bang and get them out on the oceans, exploring with a trusty sidekick and a small farm at their base.

Some people like how it is, they play for the taming / breeding part. So you might just straigth lose them with your proposed changes.

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@Kummba

58 minutes ago, Kummba said:

Some people like how it is, they play for the taming / breeding part. So you might just straigth lose them with your proposed changes.

Duly noted and thanks for the feedback.

Also some people dislike the current system. Read the Q & A, devs have stated that someone on staff is looking into overhauling it. Ever had a base next to a breedery? The lag gets ridiculous, also the base foot print is generally obnoxious.

     If we want casual gamers to be able to participate in breeding, by shortening the time investment required, then the exponential growth problem needs to be addressed. Did you have an alternative solution?

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If you took the current breeding and just modified the way it works a bit it would be very easy to balance and shorten the time required while making it more interesting. Its not hard to balance as long as there are Pro's and Cons to breeding. With the Cons being more than just time invested.

If the actual taking care of the baby was more automated say there's a nursery building that requires food and fuel  to keep the baby alive while also providing mini-games to reduce the overall timer.

 This would increase the chances of a baby surviving. so a Pro.

The cons of the new system to deter mass breeding using the same tames.

have the offspring "consume" stats that are inherited from the parents.  Making the First child have better base stats than the next and so on. (while this is less realistic it is more of a balancing mechanic)

This would also encourage breeding lower tames for practice, increasing the value of first born from perfect tames, removes a good portion of RNG  that just sucks. Survival should reflect effort put in to an act. Not an RNG temp swing that kills the kid.

 

On that Note  Taming does need some work.

The current taming is just boring. arrow arrow arrow bola, feed repeat. With that in mind how can you change a boring process to make it more interesting and not overly time consuming.

I think there should be different ways to tame different animals.

for example. Horses you have to continue riding them for a given time without being thrown off. (breaking a horse)

more aggressive tames like lions and tigers and such should be sedated  then fed or  would have to be bred and the cub would then have to be imprinted on. (some animals cant just be forcibly tamed but take a more lengthy process)

Transporting tames should be more "behind the scenes"

you have to build cages similar to cargo racks and a tame when selecing "move to 'ship name' " it stores them in the Cage. simple

this got pretty lengthy sorry. haha just some ideas ive been brewing for awhile that make it more interesting and give some depth to the current systems and provide a reasonable way to balance

 

Edit: changed some wording

Edited by kiritodw
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@kiritodw

Great ideas..

What rates are you proposing for generational stat "consumption"? How about 10%, 25%, 50%?  After that infertility maybe?

Also how do you feel about the fact that we age but our tames do not?..  Aging in the animals would also keep populations down, although it would probably be more difficult to implement.

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