First acouple Balance changes need to be added in to fix issues such as it's cheaper to make 300 pokeballs and just randomly throw them at titans and such til you capture them even if it's only 1% chance.
So The new system comes up with a counter to such things.

1) A Chance modifer that can be configured in the .ini but at it's default value will be 2% harder to catch per 1k max hp,
For things like brontos,trexs ect it will barely give 8-16% extra difficulty while it will make the titan and giga impossible without the masterball.

2) You need to make it so hitting a dino with a pokeball causes 1 damage so the dino acts as if you just attacked it as right now they dont agro and thus 0 risk.

3) and finaly a timed debuff for failing to capture, for 5 seconds after a failed capture you get a 10% smaller chance of capturing the dino, if you throw the another ball
and it fails again during this time the timer is refreshed and the amount & timer is increased by 10% to a max of 60% and 30 seconds.
This + 2 and 1 makes the idea of using alot of normal pokeballs to capture high lvl stuff extreamly undesireable balancing the system out.

As for the new formula it is designed to allow future ball types like insect,flyer, water ect.

PokeBall:1
GreaterBall:2
UltraBall:3
MasterBall:4


"i'm going to be writing this like a function as i cant figure out how else to explain this"

"explanation of what each is"

Debuff_Count "amount of debuff stacks"
Pokeball_Type "The pokeball number aka 4 for masterball"
Knocked_Out "a bool function for if it's awake or asleep
Chance "the current chance"
"The return value is the chance of capture"
"instead of 1 big formula which was ugly i decided to break it into bits"


if(Pokeball_Type > 0 && Pokeball_Type < 4)
{

Chance += (((Missing hp/10 ) + rng 1-5) * ball);

Chance -= (Debuff_Count * 10);

Chance -= (MaxHealth / 1000);

if(Knocked_Out == true)
{
Chance += 30;
}

return Chance;
}

else if(Pokeball_Type == 4)
{
return 100; "so no matter what you got a 100% chance."
}


With this formula lets have a look at 4 dinos to see what your chances are awake and asleep:

Titan
Awake/Asleep
at 10% hp

Pokeball: 0|0
GreaterBall: 0|0
UltraBall: 0|0
MasterBall: 100%|100%

Giga
Awake/Asleep
at 10% hp

Pokeball: 0|0
GreaterBall: 0|0
UltraBall: 0|0
MasterBall: 100%|100%

Trex "lvl 150 rex with 30 points in hp"
Awake/Asleep
at 10% hp

Pokeball: 2%-6%|32%-36%
GreaterBall: 12%-21%|42%-51%
UltraBall: 22%-34%|52%-64%
MasterBall: 100%|100%

Raptor "lvl 150 raptor with 30 points in hp"
Awake/Asleep
at 10% hp

Pokeball: 8%-12%|38%-42%
GreaterBall: 18%-26%|48%-56%
UltraBall: 28%-40%|58%-70%
MasterBall: 100%|100%


As these new statistics show it balances it out so pvp class dinos such as golems, gigas, titans are now impossible to catch with the first 2 pokeball types (titan and giga being impossible with the first 3)
So it balances it out for pvp and pve while the debuff, agro and all add up to make taming just as challenging as now just remove the watching a sleeping dino part.
Also it allows future upgrades for new types of pokeballs :3

Thanks for this. I'm a programmer (for a living as well), so I appreciate the pseudo-code approach. :)

So does it sound possible to implement?

Yes, for the most part. The only thing I'm not 100% sure about is counting how many stacks of a buff are on a target. It might be easier than I think, but if not, then I have to rethink how that should be done. You can definitely stack buffs (as you've seen, albeit unintentional there), but not sure about counting them.

Ok, could always remove the previous stack and just add a stronger version i guess as a cheap method of tackling it and to display the debuffs still active you can use the same effect the carnos get when buffed by a yut just change it's color since that things basicly a timer removing any whiners about knowing how long the effect is applyed.

So all up does it sound balanced enough to be implemented or more just a nice idea to help you find a new system?

I have yet to do tests with the debuff part, but I like the idea and plan on implementing it.

Awesomeness!
If you manage to get it out i'll ensure to test it alot. (he says in a evil voice)

Lol, it's a deal!

reposted due to wrong fourm before
So had time at work and came up with afew usibility and friendliness ideas (god i cant spell)

1) When you have a ball equip in your hands and you aim at a dino it should show the rough catch chance like 15-18%.
As Right now it's more or less guessing if the ball your using can work on the dino in it's current state,

2) To fix the exploit you can implement a feature that adds a new wheel option "return to pokeball",
Which returns them to a pokeball in your inventory,
This allows you to make it so they dont give pokeballs back when releasing but can still return them to your inventory without killing them.

3) An ingame craftable manual that simpley defines how the debuff, negative chance ect work so people can plan ahead (make it cost the same as a note)

"4 is gonna be a pest"
4) For balance i believe there should be 2 or 3 different pokeball storeage types,
I'll explain this before describing it,
Right now you have to craft the super expensive pc station and have a generator with fuel which is mid to late game to store pokeballs,
I believe there should be some less advance versions for earlie new players.

A) unlocked lvl 5, costs same as a small storeage + 6 metal,
Name poke-box,
Description (Stores 6 pokeballs, will grab excess pokeballs from your inventory)
Basicly what this one does is it does the same as a normal pc storeage not require power to run, "i'd say limit it to 1 per tribe/person but i dont think thats possible"

B) unlocked lvl 25, Costs alot of crystal,metal and alittle obsidian,
Name Poke-Storeage,
Description (Stores 30 pokeballs, will grab excess pokeballs from your inventory)
Basicly what this one does is it does the same as a normal pc storeage not require power to run, , "again i'd say limit it to 1 per tribe/person but i dont think thats possible"

C) unlocked lvl 50, current cost + crystal.
The default storeage pc we got atm.

Health Console:
I believe it should not cost energy but instead a health potion (you know from the series)
It can require alot of different berrys + rare flowers to craft these and you put them into the health console "stacked" and it uses them as fuel to heal the pokeballs,
Add in a 5 min cooldown before they can be healed again.
As requiring energy means late game you can endlessly heal up your dinos,
In a pvp sense this means someone can set up a small outpost outside ur base and do a constant onslaught as no cost and no cooldown. "imagine having to kill the same 6 gigas dozens of times in afew mins"

1.) I like this idea. I was actually thinking about this while watching MrMeola and Lachlah's Pokemon Allstars series. Approved.

2.) I really like this idea. I think this is a much better solution than the previous one you had for this. Approved.

3.) Eh, I'm not sure about this one. The information can all be summed up here and interested persons should be looking here for all relevant mod information to begin with. Furthermore, if I got through the trouble of adding that and people are still confused then it just goes to show that they really never looked for the info to begin with.

4.) I don't think this is necessary. I understand your concern, but remember, the PC is just supposed to be a method of convenience for players, not a necessity. I intended the PC to be a mid to late-game item anyways. It also makes no sense. How is this magic technology working on a boxes that with no power, hmmmmm? :P

5.) It was designed to be like the games, to give an authentic Pokemon experience, hence being able to heal whenever you want. ARK PvP doesn't really work with that as you can see, but then the other side can do the same just as easily. The Healing Console is a late-game item as well. As for the timer, I'm not really loving that either. I think most people would find it annoying, myself included.

1) Awesome!
2) Awesome!
3) Understandable (tho remember humans are mostly idiots)
4) Understandable
5) Thats sad as it makes it unrealilistic in pvp to use this mod,
May i ask for atleast a .ini setting like (HealingCooldown = true) sets it to 5 min cooldown.
That way people can enable it for pvp servers balancing it but disable for pve.
Default have it off.

After extensive testing i found it incrediblely annoying to make the greater and ultra ball.
Their price makes them so grindy to make i had 0 temptation to do so compared to the starter ball expect for things where only the higher balls work.

On my server i rewrote their prices to be abit more reasonable,
"remember 1 thing my servers resource settings are designed abit different to others"

Pokeball:
5 hide,
2 flint,
1 metal "raw",
10 nacro berrys. "felt these made more sense then tinto and were more a challenge"

GreaterBall:
25 hides,
10 cementing pastes,
5 metal ingots,
5 narcotics,
2 crystals.
"Remember the greater ball is vastly better then the default ball, also flint is "Insanely!" boring to get in vast numbers"

UltraBall:
50 metal ingots,
25 polymer,
25 electronics,
30 crystal,
10 leech blood. "had to use a narcotic replacement that is viable on all maps including dlc"

"the ultra can catch anything short of the giga and titan so it should be abit hard"

MasterBall:
250 metal ingots,
50 polymer,
50 electronics,
5,000 element shards (aka 50 element),
60 Absorbent Substrate. "only thing late game thats annoying as heck to make"

"whent with the shards as you need a operational tek replicator to make them making the recipe vastly harder then it looks"

All up i believe it to be a very balanced set that removes the annoying grind elements of thousends of flint and berrys but keeps extream challenge.

Is there any way something can be implemented to teleport a pokeball tamed dino to your location?
I ask because if balls are in your inventory and glitches happen that cause your corpse to disappear, the dino pokeballs you had on you are lost, but all the dinos that you had on you technically still exist on the map at the last location you put them in a ball.

Hmm, I see where you're coming from, but if the ball is lost and that had the reference to the dino, how would you (as a player) be expecting to choose which to teleport? Those lost balls will still be in the world, so it would be near impossible to differentiate which were lost in this manner and which are normal. I'll put it on my list and think of solutions in the interim, but I'm not positive anything can be done about this just yet.

Alrighty, and thank you for your response. I know that there are mods that have access to a list of all the dinos in your tribe by name. Whether that's a list they've implemented or if it's accessing an in game list of tribe dinos that ark keeps for your tribe's tame cap I don't know.
Not being very familiar with the implementation of your mod, it seemed like your pokeballs store the dinos data somehow, but perform a teleport of sorts because as you've mentioned the dinos still "remain" in the world even though nothing can access them (regardless of how hard the rexes keep biting the air where they were lol) until they are released when you choose a new location by throwing the specified pokeball. And if you manage to get multiple balls of the same dino by throwing and recapturing a dino while using the "infinitestats" cheat, throwing all the duplicated balls only teleports the original dino to the new throw location
So my thought was if there was some structure that is able to access the list of tribe dinos, you could select the dinos, and it could perform a pseudo pokeball throw in a set location (ex in front of the structure).
The biggest issue I see is that I don't know how crucial the data stored in the balls is with respect the global list of tribe dinos. If the ball data is that important then each capture would need to be added to a new library object which obviously adds overhead to the both the mod size and computation which is no fun.

Regardless of all the above, I have to say that your mod really is exceptional quality and I love playing with it. The new addition where you get missed pokeballs back with an inspirational quote; I was up fairly late/early when I first got on to play my server with that update. When I saw those messages I almost died and I guarantee my neighbor heard me laughing too.
I know this isn't your job and I don't want to come off as saying "Hey, you have to do things!" so I want to say I appreciate all the work you put into this and keep up the amazing work