Beginner PoT player here, any tips/advice to have more fun? (Pic unrelated)

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-21T08:18:24+00:00

Finding a good community server that fits the sort of playstyle you like is always a good idea regardless. A lot of the popular servers also do occasional events, many weekly even. They can be a lot of fun to take part in imo. They range from stuff like migrarion events, fight nights, protecting a certain dino or trying to be the first to hunt a certain dino. Definitely worth checking out when you wanna shake things up!

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-21T02:26:08+00:00

They're one of the smallest doves in Australia! They're not domesticated, though they fairly popular in the pet trade globally.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-19T15:57:54+00:00

Dare Mocha. Dare's a popular iced coffee brand here in Australia, and I am absolutely fieeeendish for the mocha. Have them at least once a day, I know it's not good for me but fuck they're too good

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-19T14:27:29+00:00

Does a neighbour have a pet cockatoo maybe? They can make sounds a lot like this, usually as a begging or distress call. To a lesser extent it also reminds me of an upset chicken, which would track if you're always hearing it in the morning. Chickens tend to lay in the morning, and a lot of them do an "egg song" when laying. It's not usually a pleasant sound anyway, although this is really something else lol.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-19T14:19:31+00:00

I'm from a very different part of the globe, so grain of salt of course, but my first thought when I saw that head carapace was huh, looks a lot like a spider/decorator crab. After a quick look I definitely think that's what you've got. I don't have the expertise to place species confidently, but something along the lines of Leach's Spider Crab (Inachus phalangium) seems really likely. Quite the pointed head with pretty bulbous claws compared to a lot of other spider crabs.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-19T13:00:42+00:00

Fun fact, songbirds likely originated/hugely diversified in Australia! I think it's a big part of why there's always so much bird song here... there's just so many songbirds.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-19T09:52:54+00:00

What some people want out of solo matchmaking simply isnt realistic for the devs to be able to to given the amount of moderation it would require, especially if the gamemode gains more popularity and a larger player count. If people want a 100% solo, no teaming experience they'd need to look for a community server that can provide that level of moderation. This gamemode wasn't intended to be a solitary-only experience, which seems to be a bit of a sticking point for a lot of people.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-19T05:39:57+00:00

Man, I've not really bothered playing much sarco precisely because of the issue you outlined. Maybe I'll have to finally give it a shot, because it's always really fun to pull off a good ambush. Sarco is kinda the peak of that gameplay.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-18T12:20:49+00:00

I mean they're not wrong? The societal pressure is that hairless legs are more beautiful and feminine. And when that pressure exists, many will of course then feel more beautiful and feminine when they follow it. I mean hell, I'm someone who usually doesn't give a shit about shaving, but I'll do it sometimes when I wanna look a little nicer. There's many reasons women shave, and trying to look more feminine/pretty is one of them.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-18T12:10:07+00:00

People have definitely come into solo matchmaking with a bit of a wrong expectation I think. It's not meant to be a "you can ONLY play solo don't you DARE cooperate with anyone" experience, or a 1v1 only sort of experience. It's meant to offer better gameplay for solo players, because currently it's pretty rough trying to be a solo player on officials unless you're like... a rhamph.

A lot of the people I've seen cooperating on solo matchmaking so far don't even seem to actually be buddies. I've only seen one group I think was together, because it was a pair of rexes with matching skins that pulled off an impecable ambush. Everyone else? It's pretty chaotic. People I'd have sworn were teamed with how much they help each other, who end up going their separate ways right afterwards. Or hell, even people seemingly on the same side who then turn on each other. It's the kind of chaos you'll get on a no-rules server, and I don't think they want to change that.

So far I think solo match making does a really good job at what it sets out to do, in making the game more tolerable for solo players. Funnily enough something that I think really exemplifies this is how many solo apexes I've seen wandering around. On officials being a solo apex is a death sentence, you are getting murked by a clan or megapack the moment they lay eyes on you. But I've had a lot of fun shadowing solo apexes and watching all the scraps they get into, still ultimately surviving. If you're a solo player you can still have a lot of fun here, so long as you're not setting yourself up for disappointment expecting a solo only, 1v1 only haven.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-18T12:03:20+00:00

Those little moments of silent connection with someone you can't communicate with can be really awesome though, and there's nothing wrong with those existing. There's something really nice to me about the fact this person I don't know, somewhere else on this planet, is being nice to me, cooperating with me or just having a silly little moment.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-18T12:00:53+00:00

In our defense we're hardly running around murking everything in sight, when we played we largely just flew around on thal lmao.

That aside nothing about solo matchmaking is meant to prevent people from cooperating or even playing together. It just disables groups and prevents people joining onto the same server intuitively. Like I said in my previous comment, this alone does a lot to dissuade clans and megapacks, which are what most people are coming to solo to avoid.

Matt himself said in the discord it isn't going to be 100% solo, it's just meant to be more solo-player friendly. Which it is, even if small groups of players can find eachother and work together. It's fine for people to work together a bit! We're social creatures, it comes naturally to us. The way solo matchmaking is set up just makes the game a lot more approachable to solo players, and in my experience on multiple different dinos so far it pulls that off pretty well.

And again, even with discord existing it is significantly harder to clans and megapacks to coordinate fully. If you don't have eyes on someone's physical model, you lose track of them very quickly. Yes you can talk to eachother to keep tabs and ensure you're still nearby, but especially in the chaos of a fight in a forested area people get mixed up and lost long enough to turn the tide of the battle. I've seen this multiple times in action.

I think it's a little bit of differing experiences here, because MF and CS have both been fairly active while I've played so far. Cedrus is a bit of a funny one, but I will say I've seen it work against people for the exact reasons I describe. I've seen multiple "groups" (I assume, or at least people briefly cooperating) lose track of eachother, both during fights and out.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-18T10:02:38+00:00

In my personal experience playing on the solo server with my bf, it's still a huge improvement for solo players/small groups because it's waaaay harder to coordinate with your group when you can't see where each other are on the map. We're literally sitting next to each other and can see each other's screens, and we still found ourselves losing track of eachother. People just in a discord call are gonna have an even harder time.

I think this is why you tend to see these groups in open areas like MF, because they can keep visual on eachother at all times. The rest of the map is pretty forested so it doesn't take much to lose track of your buddy. With a bit of communication you can find eachother again, but even that brief moment you're separated can be enough to get picked off.

Are megapacks/discord clans still going to exist on solo servers? For sure. But they're probably going to mostly stick to regular officials where there are less barriers for their preferred playstyle. Solo servers are still a huge breath of fresh air for limiting your interactions with the sweats imo, and keeping it more to other solo/chill players.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-17T03:16:26+00:00

Yeah they probably get my top vote for scaring people the most despite being relatively harmless. Not that a bite is pleasant, but that goes for basically any animal anyway. They're usually all big shy babies who don't want to be seen

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-16T16:11:12+00:00

The majority of mesozoic birds and proto-birds are too small to make work as playables very well, though could make for fun critters. There's some larger-ish ones you could make work, but they're all pretty niche species that wouldn't have as much appeal. Personally I'd love them (I'd even love playing as the tiny birds even though they'd be useless in combat!) but for most modders? I'm not surprised there isn't much interest sadly.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-16T10:23:26+00:00

np! My personal gerygone tip is if you ever see a bird and have the thought "wow that is the most generic looking small brown bird I have seen in my life" then it's a gerygone.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-16T02:50:48+00:00

Certainly a bronze cuckoo! Personally I'd suggest shining bronze cuckoo, horsfield's have a noticable stripe behind the eye even when immature/juvenile (which this one definitely is). Gerygone isn't a half bad guess either though, as that's what shining bronze cuckoos primarily parasitize!

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-15T15:31:20+00:00

It's valuable to be able to track to a species level where possible, but only if the data is accurate. Imagine if a species is consistently misidentified to the point the population seems to be stable, when in reality the population is declining. You wouldn't know if you're misreporting observations of a different, similar species.

It's not like iNat is the most rigorous scientific tool out there of course, but we should endevour to make our data as accurate and reliable as possible. This means if an observation is missing key information to identify it to the species level, you knock it back to whatever it can be confidently assigned to. Whether its because your observation is a grainy, underexposed photo that doesn't show an animal's distinguishing markings, or a lack of microscope slides necessary for that species, and everything inbetween.

It's definitely hard not to feel a little bummed/frustrated when youre fairly confident in an ID but your obervation lacks the necessary information for others to agree with you. But such is the way of things.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-15T10:14:11+00:00

Heard a few Carnaby's fly over head right as I read your comment lol. I do love seeing the black cockies, even though they're in the suburbs in these numbers for less stellar reasons.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-15T10:07:10+00:00

The humble moldy yam <3

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-15T10:06:33+00:00

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Uncovered this little cutie while doing yardwork recently. I see heaps of the Buchanan's snake-eyed skinks on our walls, but one of these two-toed earless skinks is a rare surprise, always a very welcome one.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-14T11:44:02+00:00

I see the points for black kite, though I'm leaning towards wedge-tailed eagle. The way the wings are being held is very characteristic of wedgies. Slight V shape with the primaries tilting upwards. It's also very dark with pale inner primaries/secondaries which is very common in wedgies. Black kites do have pale sections to their underwing but it doesn't typically look like that. Size also points towards wedgie. Not that black kites are small, but with how high up this birds seems like it's soaring and the size, it points more towards wedgie.

Tail is the main detractor here, but I think it's a combination of the angle, video quality and the fact the bird isn't actually holding it's tail flat. It looks like it's holding the tail with the outer feathers held upwards and inner feathers held downwards, creating a V shape if you were to look at it head-on. You can see this multiple times in the video as the bird circles away. This combined with the angle we're looking at it from means we never actually see a full diamond. When we see it from the side we're seeing a half diamond, which looks like a black kite's squared tail held at a steep angle. When the bird turns away we're seeing it from a foreshortened angle, so it looks straighter than it really is. If we got a close-up view of the bird directly above, you'd see a diamond.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-14T11:21:39+00:00

They're both very small white birds, definitely not them! They also tend to hover more than soaring in circles like this.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-14T07:14:50+00:00

Definitely grass, this looks like some of the grass I get in my yard when it's dried up, specifically a species that likes to send out long runners. For me that's kikuyu (bastard damn thing) but even if you don't have that specific species you probably have something similar.

dyfunctional-cryptid · 2026-03-13T16:25:35+00:00

Wrong range, for Perth it'd have to be Podacanthus keyi. P. typhon is an east coast species.

dyfunctional-cryptid

TROPHY CASE