KingOfAshes

I'm going to guess by 'big dinos', you are mostly referring to Giga/Carcha not being usable in Boss fights. As it stands, their usefulness in SP depends alot on the map. For example they were very useful in Extinction/Ragbarock/Fjordur but not so much The Island. Though a good Carcha can be used to clear the way in the Tek cave now you can pack it back in a cryopod before the arena fight. I would guess a lot has to do with the size of the bosses, arenas and Obelisks. Although they could theoretically simply make it so they take up 2 Dino slots each for a fight, I also think you wouldn't be able to fit more than 4-5 or so on the teleporter and I can't imagine it would play well inside the arenas. Too many changes would be required just for the sake of this really. Just a design decision highly unlikely to ever change....unless they changed the creatures themselves instead....

With regards to ASA steam numbers getting lower than ASE, that's to be expected really. At the end of the day ASA's launch content is a rehash of the original Island. Some improvements sure, but at the end the day it is still the same original map, same creatures, same bosses&mechanics, same caves, same everything gameplay wise. Not a lot of (nor genuinely fresh) content there if one has played it before (excluding console users like me who do get MOD content they couldn't access in ASE). It reminds me of other games like the Battlefield series where people move back to the older game soon after release due to lack of content, but in due time as more content becomes available(and some problems are resolved) they eventually move over. If I had to guess, I'd say you'll see a more significant shift of players onto ASA once SE is released and even more so with Aberration later in the year. During this time more of new mods will have appeared and matured in ASA that will also incentivise migration. Not to mention, we still haven't seen the impact(positive or negative) of the 'premium MOD model' & 'Adventure packs' bringing content that has also never been and won't be available to ASE. I also think, to a degree, the success of these things that will generate more revenue will also determine how long it will be before Ark2 sees the light of day and in what shape. It's similarly likely that success or failure of ASA's new content model will influence Ark2's design to incorporate similar elements.

I think the confusion comes a lot more from Youtubers covering news and seeing what appears to be discrepancies between WC and SG release schedule, plus the fact that any schedule is always subject to change. As for Ark 2....who knows. A lot is speculated and floated around without any real inside knowledge. Some point to Ark2 not showing on the roadmap WC posted vs one posted by SG....but then again, why would a separate game's release date be showing on WC ASA's release schedule roadmap even if it is a sequel? It makes sense when it shows SG's game release roadmap where all sorts are mentioned. And why would one be talking about Ark2 when ASA just released with two yrs of upcoming content? It's the focus and any Ark2 talk would take away ASA's spotlight and make some customers think ''might as well wait for the sequel coming in a few months'' On the other hand, comments about ASA being Ark's future and whole Studio working on that makes it unlikely to expect Ark2 to have a release prior to ASA's main DLC content being completed....aka at least 2-3yrs down the line in WC time scales. Overall...who knows? Que Sera, Sera....

As much as I like the ambiance created by the fog/water&cloud effects, WC really need to adjust their opacity. They've gone all out on the looks over the gameplay. Like the low clouds on mountain tops where you can barely see the torch in your hand for what feels like ages. It's one thing having an effect reducing visibility down to say 15-20m and another to bring it down to 1m where all you see is black or white screen like your game crashed. Effects shouldn't cripple gameplay to the point you must disable an effect. That defeats the purpose of graphical UE5 enhancement. I dread to think what the sandstorm/mirage etc effects will look like on Scorched Earth where they're meant to be more intense and frequent if they go down the same path.

The funniest one I got was a cryopoded Hersperornis with 50 points of melee damage! lol

To be honest, in my opinion the event is pretty good. I like all of the ideas they implemented even though some need tweaking. Plus, they fixed the present quality you get from letters in a patch a couple of days ago( though the patch made my Krampus skin, coal and mistletoe disappear). The only one I'd say is a real disappointment is the Abominable Snowman. I love the model, the idea of rare mini bosses dotted around, but the payoff for killing one is bizarrely underwhelming. I would have thought this would be the feature that would give the rare loot matching the challenge, danger and time spent killing one. I would have also liked to see a 'Krampus riding a skeleton dino' being an even rarer mini boss spawning night time only. Or a 'loot goblin style' creature you damage with a holiday crafted skin weapon and it runs off dropping gifts (a better Santa's little helper?)

I think it's fair to say the Cryopod feature has been limited to just being a dino storage for the base. From a PvE perspective, once again it's a feature unnecessarily nerfed to the ground also compounded by the Rhynio transport nerf. It's a shame that we need to keep relying on modders to undo the unpopular changes Wildcard make. I mean surely the popularity of certain mods like that should be a clear indicators of what players want

After weeks of searching for a high level Helicoprion, I was on my way to a water cave for an artifact and came across a lvl120. I turned back and proceeded to tame that instead. I then proceeded to level it up to the max for BP conversion of 87%. I gambled my only Ascendant Megatherium saddle in the game so far to make into a BP. Of course, it broke the saddle instead and got nothing lol. The Ark gods were just not happy with me....

I do love the cross platform Mod highlights in every crunch, keep it going!

I swam down the entire East coast of the map and didn't see a single Basi ( fog effects not disabled) till I reached Herb Island...then I saw my first one...and it's a lvl 150!. There were another 3 around the Herb Island. On the other hand, in the area outside the hard water cave, I found 4 Alpha sharks, hanging out together alongside a Tuso, two Plesios and a Mosa. I also noticed once the Alphas had agro'ed alongside the Plesios...Plesios actually followed me all the way to the top of the water surface before going back down. Tuso, once agro'ed, followed me pretty near the surface and got stuck on a rock unable to go down or move at all. In my SP game, finding REXs is like looking for a needle in a haystack. 90% of the locations that used to be crawling with them never have a single one. Rhynios on the other hand, I've seen up to 5 on screen at the same time and Theris are absolutely everywhere in packs (albeit at very low levels). Point being, I find the spawns of a lot of creatures very inconsistent compared to ASE for sure. Overall, I believe they need to do some work around the creature spawn ratios and locations for sure.

I've only ever come across one in the Red Woods cave...though to be honest Aberration is the only map they get a real spotlight.

Unfortunately, this is just another case in a long line of cases where PvP balance trumps PvE because they're not separate. In this case transport dinos are about to become pointless again with the re-introduction of Cryopods, so the Rhynio transport nerf for PvE will soon be immaterial. I suspect there will be a mod soon (or the current one updated) that reverts the changes just like there was one for the Speed nerf.

There is the Helicoprion that can make BPs in official modded servers. Honestly, I doubt they'll be investing any time re-working basic systems. It's all about the addon packs now

Mothballed project. Given the financial problems, they pivoted back to the tried and tested money cow re-imagined as ASA. Whatever work was done on Ark2 will probably be re-purposed for some sort of ASA expansion now it's running on UE5.

If cross-play is something you're pushing hard, then the essential feature of being able to chat to each other in-game (regardless of platform) needs to be a thing