Animals?

[Rudder]

I recently came across some 'RagDolls' and Labradors. I would suppose these are going to be some of our trainable pets?:p

I wonder what use there is for a Hamster?:confused:

[Book]

I recently came across some 'RagDolls' and Labradors. I would suppose these are going to be some of our trainable pets?:p

I wonder what use there is for a Hamster?:confused:

Electricity...

All I've seen in a while is bears. Seeing a lab would be cool.

Wonder if there will be any Elk out there.

[GuideDina]

In a pack I am sure hampsters would be a formidable force ;)

[Bizley]

When are animals going to be more realistically scattered? Because I can walk for hours and find none.

[mrwooj]

When are animals going to be more realistically scattered? Because I can walk for hours and find none.

This! I agree fully!

[eric]

In a pack I am sure hampsters would be a formidable force ;)

Is that a promise?
I foresee an event in the near future where packs of hampsters (or should that read 'hampers'?) roam the tribalareas, causing havoc among unsuspecting peaceful crafters!

:)

[VeryWiiTee]

When are animals going to be more realistically scattered? Because I can walk for hours and find none.

Try walking in a forest. You'll be surpirsed for how long you can walk inbetween an animal sighting. This game is just -that- realistic.
Besides, have you ever stopped to consider that there are loads of animals, you just can't spot them :)?

Some good pointers to animals are;
Stay away from very crowded tribe areas.
Mountains provide good cover for animals, with a keen eye you usually spot something grey'ish/brown'ish moving about.

In the end you don't want realistic scattered animals, you want a statistically scattered animals or each zone having a set number of animals. It just doesn't work like that in our World. You can walk for hours. Without seeing anything.

[billpaustin]

Realistic? You mean if this was Monopoly, you'd wait the three months to build a house? A year to build a hotel? Really? I live in the mountains, in a forest, in real life. I see stuff all the time. There are ALWAYS birds singing, even at night sometimes (the rascals). Coyotes howl, I see rabbits, and deer every day. Elk too. I never see a bear, in years.

From my point of view, the animals that exist are placeholders, and cannot be considered as part of any real game. The animals sure don't act realistic. No coyote would ever attack a person, unless it is rabid.

If you want an example of superior animal AI in a sandbox, look at Ryzom. The animals migrate in herds, based on the seasons. Predators stalk and kill prey, and sleep and den when they aren't. Little Yubos will come up to you, sniff, and then pee on your leg! Compared to this, Xsyon animals are dumb plastic cutouts with no brains.

[VeryWiiTee]

Good for you.

Still doesn't mean realistic scatter it means statistical scatter. He dooes not want to walk around for hours and more hours without bumping into an animal. That is statistical scattering of animals. Nothing more. Realistic scattering, you would find what we have now. Sure it can probably be improved, that is besides the fact.
No one said they behave exactly like in reality, but tracking down animals should be pretty much what I stated: Stay away from civilization, it is what the Devs have said countless of times.
Further more trying to spot a black bear in the forest is -not- easy, let alone spotting smaller animals such as Coyote and Raccoons.

In all I gave him info on where you find animals and tells him how the mechanics are supposed to work.

Oh yeah, bears and other aggressive animals kill non-aggressive animals. Non-aggressive animals flee from aggressive animals. Been stated too.
Aggressive animals and non-aggressive animals usually don't live close together. (You won't find Mule Deers in a Black bear territory).
Based on season animals sleep/hide when it isn't their season. (You won't find certain mobs during certain seasons).

Those factors reduce the population itself. So no, some areas might be deserted of animals, that might be because aggressive animals have taken a hold in the area. It can be because someone eradicated the population in the area which means you need to wait for new breeds or it can be because the animal living in the area is in sleep/hide mode.

I've seen a lot of birds in the woods (why you even bother to mention birds, seeing they have no comparable value as Xsyon does not include birds that can fly, I do not know..), I've only seen animals (of the mammal sort) 6-7 times, even though I live right next to the second biggest animal reservation in DK (imo it might be because it is marsh land, still.. there is loads of trees, 0 animals even birds are like.. WHAT THE FUCK. A BIRD..)
Billpaustin.. Get your game facts straight and maybe you are better at spotting real life animals than me.. I bet'ya I'm better at spotting in-game animals :P

[billpaustin]

"This game is just -that- realistic."
"(You won't find Mule Deers in a Black bear territory)"

Let's quickly dispense with this idea that the animals are at all realistic. First, black bears do not eat mule deer, black bears are 85% vegetarian, they live side by side with deer in the forest. Next, if you go walking in the forest, you will never see a black bear, they run from people. You won't see any animals, because they all run from you, except deer, elk, and turkeys. This game's animals aren't placed in any realistic way, and they certainly don't behave at all realistically. The game is not -that- realistic, it is not realistic at all.

Real animals tend to live around resources they need. Put grass and water, and you will get mule deer, even with bears and lions in the same area. Put berry bushes and the bears will hang around. That is what Xsyon should do: place animal-required resources and let the animals spawn to consume them. No animal would live next to the campfire of a Totem, like the coyote did at my place. It would be a much better game with realistic animals. (See Ryzom for an example.)

[Aiden]

Funny...I have no problem finding animals when I want....HOWEVER...I live in a pretty isolated area...in the mountains.

Of course, it could just be that I miss all the wild animals wandering around heavily human-populated areas IRL.

(this is not a "everything's okay because I have animals". It's more of a "there is a system to how they behave" post). If you are surrounded by totems, you're going to see a lot less animals.

[billpaustin]

I think the devs need to clear up what kind of game this is. If they want a reality simulator, with real terrain, and real animals, then nobody would ever fight any animals. In the forest this game is set in, there are no dangerous animals that you would ever fight. If they decided to say that all the original animals came back (ie, grizzlies and wolves), then grizzlies would be invincible and wolves would leave you alone. Only a grizzly would intentionally attack a full grown human, and they would always win.

So do they intend for us to do any real fighting against animals? Then it's a fantasy game. Or perhaps it is just hunting for animals, to get their skins? Then animals being scarce and hard to find makes sense. But the game doesn't play that way; stumble upon a bear and they attack. So it's a fantasy game, and bears are like LoTRO and WOW bears, just mobs to be killed that happen to look like bears.

In the real forest, you would never see a bear or a skunk, they come out at night and scavenge. They would come onto your property at night, but run if they saw a person. Deer and elk, on the other hand, will come right into your camp and browse in front of your face. The Indians in the Appalachians would clear circles in the woods, to make round meadows. That way they could shoot the deer from the edge of the circle. If we were hunting, things like this make sense. Make a place with food for an animal, and you can hunt them there.

So I think we need either realistic animals for hunting only, or we're playing a fantasy game and anything goes. Can't be both.

quick edit: if you come across a coyote and he attacks you, the game is a fantasy game. If the coyote runs away, it is realistic.

[MrDDT]

Funny...I have no problem finding animals when I want....HOWEVER...I live in a pretty isolated area...in the mountains.

Of course, it could just be that I miss all the wild animals wandering around heavily human-populated areas IRL.

(this is not a "everything's okay because I have animals". It's more of a "there is a system to how they behave" post). If you are surrounded by totems, you're going to see a lot less animals.



You would have a point however, its not the case. You might have animals in your area, because no one lives there and you have good spawns. However, its not the case like that other places. There is little reason for how animals are. Breeding isnt working right and they stack up in groups.

Ive seen spawns of animals near active tribes, which kill them everyday and never runs out the spawns.

Ive seen huge open areas with no totems, and 0 animals. Deer I cant find anywhere. Ive found about 20 deer and over 1000 bears. How does that work?

[Book]

Just totally speculating here but... if they said the non-aggressive animals run from and/or get eaten by the aggressive ones, would all the deer be in the mist due to bear over-population?

Definitely saw a shift by my homestead since coming back. Used to be mostly raccoons, then saw a bunch of squirrels (mean little critters), but since coming back it's only bears.

I haven't been hunting them down as I hope they'll grow and put up a better fight, or maybe yield more resources per... But I guess I could test it out. Wipe them out, keep them wiped, and see if anything comes out of the mist.

Of course, that doesn't address things like stacking and so on. That's a different story.

[mrwooj]

In game i live in a very unpopulated area, right in the mountains. The only really populated areas are around the lake, basically. I wander for large amounts of time and i rarely see creatures of any sort and i almost never see players. I have witnessed the fact that they do not reproduce properly, they stack on top of each other and will not separate, no matter how many times you try to entice them off each other. They do not move rationally, and they cannot cross water.

So, basically, i have witnessed that they are broken. YOU may have seen times when there were many in an area - so did I one time out of many times exploring. When i say many, i mean months, not days or weeks. There may be certain areas where they respawn or whatever, but i can tell you that for an area the size of about 5 zones there is very little creature activity.

I dont care about people saying "well, it is realistic that they stay out of sight, etc". Is it realistic that you eat raw fish when there is a campfire next to you? Is it realistic that you cannot swim underwater? Is it realistic that you fish without bait or lure? Is it realistic that you run like you have some physical defect? Is it realistic that you die and teleport back to your home with all your gear?

This is a game people! Realism is not the point. I want to play a game where there are PVE encounters. Tell me somebody who does not? Do you people want this game to succeed? The majority of people who play games and pay money want PVE encounters - and not ones that are many hours apart and far too easy.

For the good of this game, and possibly its long term success, we need animals in much larger numbers that are better distributed, have better AI and are much more of a challenge.

Anyone who defends the current situation is delusional IMHO.

[thurgond]

There are plenty of animal AI problems mentioned here that might take a while to fix, but there are two easy fixes that would help in the short term.

Currently animals are only reset occasionally, mostly on patch days. The long time between patches means that animals are reset only once or twice a month. Animals should be reset every patch day, even if there is no patch.

In the last change of animal AI some critters were set to not wander. If one of these critters is not killed soon after a reset, it will breed until there are too many critters there to kill. Instead of wanderers spawning wanderers and fixed spawning fixed, they should spawn the opposite type--wanderer spawns fixed and fixed spawns wanderer.

Fixing the "every critter isn't agro to every other" AI so we won't end up with nothing but bears after a few days should be a priority, but the above two fixes should be easy to implement quickly.

Ravelli

[mrwooj]

There are plenty of animal AI problems mentioned here that might take a while to fix, but there are two easy fixes that would help in the short term.

Currently animals are only reset occasionally, mostly on patch days. The long time between patches means that animals are reset only once or twice a month. Animals should be reset every patch day, even if there is no patch.

In the last change of animal AI some critters were set to not wander. If one of these critters is not killed soon after a reset, it will breed until there are too many critters there to kill. Instead of wanderers spawning wanderers and fixed spawning fixed, they should spawn the opposite type--wanderer spawns fixed and fixed spawns wanderer.

Fixing the "every critter isn't agro to every other" AI so we won't end up with nothing but bears after a few days should be a priority, but the above two fixes should be easy to implement quickly.

Ravelli

Hooray for Captain Spaulding!

One of my favourite movies, hehe.

Great suggestions.

I think making them able to cross water is essential too.

[jemmus]

Fixing the "every critter isn't agro to every other" AI so we won't end up with nothing but bears after a few days should be a priority, but the above two fixes should be easy to implement quickly.

Ravelli
I'm thinking this is part of the problem. (Bears do kill deer in the game-- got screens of it). The animal vs. animal eco-system is out of balance. The top predators (bears, maybe coyotes too?) are eating/driving off the deer and maybe raccoons and taking over whole zones. But they're still spawning/reproducing. Where in real nature their population would go down due to overpopulation and therefore lack of food. Think the animal vs. animal system needs some tweaking.
On a side note, recently seems like we have more "minor" animals around, such as cats, dogs, martens, squirrels, rats and hamsters. Maybe they're outside the game's food chain, or not integrated into it much.

[VeryWiiTee]

People always have to drive it to the utmost extreme point.

True animals do not like stone surfaces on the live server, them getting caught in-between zones should be fixed. (they do on stone surfaces just fine on the test server with the combat fixes, I saw no problem at all for them to chase me over it).

They are coded to stay away from very populated areas, I suspect this means online activity in an area as they don't mind deserted tribe areas with little to no activity and to chase/flee from other animals.
If you use reverse tactic you should find animals.
That is an alright basic AI concerning realism. Then you can always add that Mule Deers like bark from trees and areas with a water source nearby. That bears prefer to stay near bushes with berries, that raccoons love scrapyards and coyotes like open plains with lots of grass.
Coyotes hunt in flock and Mule Deers stay together in flocks. Bears primarily stay for themselves and only have cubs when they are a 'pack'.
- Problem was that people found animal density too low and the current AI with chasing/killing/fleeing probably works out to favour bears and coyotes.
(No animal can go extinct as they just go into hiding until the population is sustainable again).

They don't spawn unless Devs/Guides spawn them, they breed and move around. As far as I know. Revenants would spawn as they are dead and can't breed (?)

[Book]

and they cannot cross water.

Curious about this... I know for sure that I've seen bears cross water in the past. Had a bear chase me into a river, down the river, and then across the river.

So, is it all animals that cannot cross water or just some? Perhaps this no crossing of water was implemented with the last ai changes?

Been thinking for a while that there should be some way to get away from animals in a game with player-driven resource management. If a base population is needed for animals to breed(or remain out of hiding, same effect), and animals grow in difficulty as they age over time... I wouldn't want to kill every animal I come in contact with or mistakenly aggro.

Other ways to implement that, not really looking to debate if this is the best solution, just bringing it up. Other ideas of how to address that are cool too.

[MrDDT]

Curious about this... I know for sure that I've seen bears cross water in the past. Had a bear chase me into a river, down the river, and then across the river.

So, is it all animals that cannot cross water or just some? Perhaps this no crossing of water was implemented with the last ai changes?

Been thinking for a while that there should be some way to get away from animals in a game with player-driven resource management. If a base population is needed for animals to breed, and animals grow in difficulty as they age over time... I wouldn't want to kill every animal I come in contact with or mistakenly aggro.

Other ways to implement that, not really looking to debate if this is the best solution, just bringing it up. Other ideas of how to address that are cool too.

They can cross water. They cant walk on stone of any type, which is what most water areas has (limestone).

[Book]

They can cross water. They cant walk on stone of any type, which is what most water areas has (limestone).

oooh, okay, so they can cross deep water by swimming across, but if the water is too shallow, they can't walk across, gotcha. Thanks.

That does seem like very silly ai behavior.

[MrDDT]

oooh, okay, so they can cross deep water by swimming across, but if the water is too shallow, they can't walk across, gotcha. Thanks.

That does seem like very silly ai behavior.


Its not about being too shallow or not. Its about rock or not.

[Bizley]

I'm thinking this is part of the problem. (Bears do kill deer in the game-- got screens of it). The animal vs. animal eco-system is out of balance. The top predators (bears, maybe coyotes too?) are eating/driving off the deer and maybe raccoons and taking over whole zones. But they're still spawning/reproducing. Where in real nature their population would go down due to overpopulation and therefore lack of food. Think the animal vs. animal system needs some tweaking.

I completely forgot about this thread... I've played the game a bit more now and seen bears a bit more often, but hardly anything else. It's nothing to do with the amount of totems because I've visited areas saturated with totems and areas barren of them. If that's because the bears are eating everything else, we need a drastic change in the game mechanics. Do the bears have some kind of limit on their appetite? Given that a bear will chase me without fail, it certainly doesn't seem so. Quite aside from how realistically aggressive these animals would be, surely the predator would know that the prey needs to be sustained rather than slaughtered wholesale.