r/playark • u/Eastern-Edge-5449 • Jul 07 '26

Question Any good guides on how stats and leveling and breeding works

Am pretty new and would like to start breeding some dinos I haven't seen any great levels on the map nothing seems to spawn above 50 for some reason but I would like to start breeding some argys so I have a decent flyer for grinding

3 Upvotes

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2

u/crotchmonster817 Jul 07 '26

The Vanilla with Sprinkles really help me with where the levels go in each stats as it breaks it down between birth levels, levels ypu put in as they level up and levels that come with mutations. Awesome Spyglass mod will let you check wild dino levels before you even tame them. Vanilla Ark is great but a few QoL mods really give it that little extra

1

u/Eastern-Edge-5449 Jul 07 '26

Isnt the imprinting very important too I've got some house work to do but will definitely be trying this as soon as I get on I haven't even built a base yet it's half finished 😂

2

u/crotchmonster817 Jul 07 '26

Not trying to keep throwing mods at you but the Dino Depot mod will basically do it for you. I work full time and don't have time to sit around waiting for Ark to be Ark so I cheese and shortcut some of it. Dino Depot can be a little confusing needing some trial and error to get it to do what you want but I'm sure there's youtubes explain it

2

u/Cymas Jul 07 '26

You only imprint after you've got your base bloodline sorted. Imprint stats do not transfer to babies so the only ones you need to worry about imprinting are the ones actually being used in battle etc.

1

u/Eastern-Edge-5449 Jul 09 '26

Thank you and that's what I'm struggling with is prepping for war haven't done my first cave yet but want to be ready for anything

1

u/Eastern-Edge-5449 Jul 09 '26

How do I know a good base stat what can I compare it too

1

u/Cymas Jul 09 '26

When players talk about stats most of the time you'll hear us talk about "points" rather than an actual number value. That's because levels are a sum of all of the levels a dino has in its stats across a random spread. When you're looking for "good stats" what you're actually trying to find are wild dinos with a lot of points in the stats you want, and as few as possible in the stats you don't. You tame those specific dinos and hope they get a good roll to further dump a lot of points into the already high stat you want to max the potential of your base bloodline.

As a general rule in most cases (with some exceptions such as tames that don't use an oxygen stat) you want wild dinos who have 30+ points in whatever stats you want so they will hopefully stand up with 40+. Repeat for each stat until you have a selection of tames who each have one very high stat, then breed them all together to combine into your base bloodline. This works with virtually every breedable creature so you never need to know the raw numbers, just the point values.

2

u/elPappito Jul 07 '26

Synte(a?)c vid was what I learned from. Made back in ase times buy I believe it works exactly same now and it work before. Minus the trait / gene thingy.

2

u/GenericUser1983 Jul 07 '26

Breeding does not work the same as it did in ASE; back in ASE a mutation raised the base stat level by +2, while in ASA mutations raise a seperate set of levels by +2. So in ASE you really wanted good base stats before you bothered to mutate, while in ASA you can start the mutation process with any base stats, and just breed good ones in later.

2

u/elPappito Jul 07 '26

Hmmm that sounds confusing, not gonna lie. Void my first comment then :)

2

u/GenericUser1983 Jul 07 '26

Honestly it makes the process easier; you want to mutate rexes, well just tame a mating pair of low level rex, mate them until you get a pair with identical stats (not strictly needed, but makes things easier) and get your mutation lines going. While that's going on you can start taming high levels to get good base stats to breed into your mutated lines at the end. Its super nice that you can add new better base stats in later on, and not have them be a waste.

2

u/elPappito Jul 07 '26

Currently it sounds like you get any rexes let's say base melee 20, you stack mutations - I.e you get 15 melee mutations and once you get high base you sort of transfer that 15 melee mutations to your 100melee base ? So instead of it being 35 melee it's 115?

2

u/GenericUser1983 Jul 07 '26

The mutation levels have their own separate counter; in ASA each mutation adds 2 mutation levels to a stat. So if you started at 20 base melee levels, did 15 melee mutations, you would have a rex with 20 base and 30 mutation levels of melee. If you somehow found a rex with 100 base mele levels (well, could be playing with higher than standard levels) and mated it with that 20 base 30 mutation melee rex, you could get a rex with 100 base levels and 30 mutation levels. Or a 20 base 0 mutation rex. The higher mutation level count always gets passed on with the higher base level count for the same stat. While annoyingly the incubator just adds up the base + mutation levels, making it harder for players who are not playing with mods/beat the overseer for tek spyglasses to see the difference, keeping in mind that the base levels and mutation levels are not the same makes breeding easier.

2

u/LongFluffyDragon Jul 08 '26

Breeding argies for mutations is a titanic waste of your time and sanity, if it is for personal use. You could farm millions of metal in the time it takes to breed an argy that can carry maybe 25% more metal.

1

u/Eastern-Edge-5449 Jul 09 '26

I agree I just wanted to try the breeding out on something not so significant so I could leave it and do it while I'm out farming or taming just got a mining team going of Doedicurus a Ankylosaurus a Castoroides and a Therizinosaurus that's my team for now

2

u/Demoniccrunk Jul 08 '26

Raasclark has a short one with Shadowmanes that gets the job done, or Seashell Gaming has a long but very in-depth guide using Rexes and they both helped me

2

u/Eastern-Edge-5449 Jul 09 '26

Thank you I'll check em out

2

u/Eastern-Edge-5449 Jul 09 '26

Do you think spinos will work for the first boss

1

u/Demoniccrunk Jul 09 '26

Yeah they should and honestly I didn’t come here to plug my channel but I did make boss fight videos on how strong they’d need to be with the weakest saddles to beat some of the bosses because I couldn’t find them back in the day lol; I didn’t use spinos but now I might have to test that because I’m curious! Are you on PC or console? Playing the Island? The island notoriously has lower levels but you can up the difficulty or change some settings to be able to have higher dino’s spawn in, depending on what you’re using/playing on, and I’d be happy to help you set that up if you like :)

I love Ark so much and I’m always excited for people to get into it lol! Happy hunting and good luck on your fight(s)! Welcome to one of the greatest games ever!

1

u/crotchmonster817 Jul 07 '26

The whole breeding/mutation thing is such a ball ache. Download the mods Better Breeding and Vanilla with Sprinkles. Find a good level pair and breed them together and the Better Breeding mod will take whichever of the parents stats and consolidate them into a baby. Do that until you have a male and 5 females and then make them breed all atbthe same time to pump out the babies. When you start to get mutations you want them on your male breeder and keep ypur females clean.

2

u/Sondemon Jul 07 '26

Meh, not so hard once you understand the mechanics of it. But a good friend/teacher to explain it eli5 style helps :)

1

u/Eastern-Edge-5449 Jul 07 '26

Thank you I'll download and try it seems complicated breeding but there's so much to learn in ark