#AI and hunting mechanings to make pve interesting and fun

38 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

magic spoke
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right now the game looks visually great, but is severely lacking when it comes to content, I think the next most important step in this game before that add ANYTHING ELSE AT ALL, is to add big ai that we as dragons actually have to TRY somewhat to hunt.

if you added packs of deer in woods that would run away after seeing us, and we actually had to chase and kill something like the apex predator we are and maybe possibly even have to put some effort into it, it would make PvE DRASTICLY more interesting, and actually give us a goal to achieve instead of just one shotting some crabs that don't run away.

now if I want to get real specific, I think a sneaking/ stalking approach to catching our food would be amazing, having to crouch down near trees and move slowly so we can get close enough to kill the deer or animals without them getting spooked. I also think that we should make it not too easy to catch otherwise it would become boring, like if they get away once we would have to follow their trail through scenting, which would make it drasticly more important.

anyways im just spitballing yall can make changes to this or suggest whatever you want, what do you guys think?

hoary vault
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considering the stalk is a barely used mechanic id love to see some prey you have to stalk up to or it would run. maybe an AI that is mostly blind but has good hearing.

the deer in jrakhon are nearly blind but have exceptional hearing and speed. They will run at the sound of wing beats or footsteps if you rush. sneaking is the only way to get close enough for a bite.

magic spoke
crude dagger
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This is technically already coming, cause of the big rhino things (forgot the names), but i agree, some simple things like deer and such would be cool, especially since the other things are kinda far off

magic spoke
glacial mauve
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Please do not bump feedback or suggestion posts!
#1216491835866742976 message

knotty seal
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I honestly feel PVE is ignored. We are getting zero content while PVP is getting everything. It feels as though Jao added the PVE servers just to add them so people don't uninstall after seeing it as another PVP game. The forest needs birds, bears, deer, cattle etc. Not bugs, a gator, and a rhino. Those don't fit at all. It wouldn't even be that difficult to add because their modeler already has made some deer-like creatures that would fit perfectly with this world. It's a waste of potential honestly

solar stone
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I wouldn't even bring the PvP/PvE dichotomy into this specifically.
I think most PvPers would very much also love getting more stuff to hunt.
Not sure what "everything" PvP is getting though, going by your statements? The servers there are largely just as empty, all the difference there is is that we get to bash each other over nothing.

On topic, something Deery in small herds would be absolutely amazing, as would getting some minor stuff, though I disagree on the rhino not being any good.

crude dagger
knotty seal
crude dagger
verbal depot
# crude dagger yeah, thats why were getting more biomes

The original point was “before adding anything else, we need more ai” due to the fact they are adding rhinos in a forest biome. Reading comprehension goes a long way.

We already have a forest, why add more biomes to make a rhino fit in when you could do some kind of deer animal, some kind of bird, idk something that fits what we have. I think that was the point trying to be pushed. Not make more biomes to fit a rhino not in game yet

knotty seal
solar stone
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Man, sometimes I think people forget that big animals can also live in Forests.
We have Moose(Meese?) in Scandinavia that are around the size of those Rhino kind of animals. We have Jungle Elephants if you wanna get there, with earlier in the past having Wooly Versions of both Rhinos and Mammoths living in the Northern Hemisphere, which are very big animals that I dare presume also frequented forests where they had them.

On top of that, this is an alien planet in a setting evidently very different from earthlike conditions if stuff like dragons can fly to begin with and have trees chonky enough to hold their weight as we do right now, as well as giant glowing crystals.
If you are unable to suspend your disbelief that a completely different biosphere might have different types of animal than what you personall think they should have in a specific biome, then I dunno what to tell you.

And lastly, to reiterate, just before people think I'm just being uppity. We get the Rhino, we get the Swamp Snapper thing (that makes sense in the biome even if we go for Earthlike conditions in oversized) and I -still- agree we should get some kind of grazing animal that -runs- instead of fighting back, entirely so we can have actual hunting happen over pitched fights. I just think the way you are arguing for it is kind of narrow in what it is based on.

bold oyster
knotty seal
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Why are we ignoring the fact that the forest biome, despite the 2 AI we are getting for it, IS STILL EMPTY AND LIFELESS. Can we stop trying to justify what to a lot of people is seen as laziness and "mix-matching" to fit an aesthetic that is already built on the foundation of more successful franchises? I don't care that a rhino can live in a forest, I care that the rhino planned in one of TWO official non-oneshot creatures for the forest biome. We don't have birds, deer, bears or anything else that would make it feel more lively. I have seen so many people complaining about how eerily dead the map is and thats because the AI is a short list. A VERY short list. I don't give a rat's nipple about "suspending my disbelief" I wanna play a game I can feel immersed in. Not a game that feels like a tech demo on flight mechanics. P E R I O D

verbal depot
solar stone
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Given this entire threads' idea was that we want more things to hunt, which everyone so far roundabout agreed on, I am not sure what your constructive input in this is.

You want more AI? Sure. So do we.
You want smaller things to hunt that aren't one-shot and actually make things alive? Same.
Does "I don't like the AI we are getting" make that come any faster? I doubt it.
The idea you seem to purport is that it is -either- what we get -or- what you want, right now. When it is at the moment either what we get or -nothing- for the time being.
If the reaction to the AI coming in is a net positive, big shock, maybe, just maybe, the developers take note and focus more on adding more AI in the upcoming patches once the minimum effort of mechanics to make the game have content at all is done?

Also, just to reiterate, I have at no point given "excuses". You are making points that make no sense and I am refuting those while still agreeing with the general tone of the thread, which is "We want more PvE stuff".
I want flying things to hunt, whether it's birds or I-dunno-what-kind-of-not-quite-dragon.
I want Deer or Kirin or whathaveyou that are herding and run away when attacked.

I just recognize that being demanding and hostile won't really make that come any faster, no matter how much I complain and Caps at people, particularly already-jaded-and-frustrated developers if they even read these. It's pretty enlightening.

knotty seal
# solar stone Given this entire threads' idea was that we want more things to hunt, which ever...

When was our point being demanding or hostile? We're calling out the fact that what is being planned isn't enough for the world Jao wants us to experience. Your points were excuses for Jao's decisions to have a gator and a rhino in a forest and dodged our initial complaints by giving IRL comparisons to a fictional ecosystem and told us to "suspend our disbelief" which to me read as "just shut up and take what we're getting." I'm not rushing anything. I'm calling attention to that what we are getting is the bare BARE minimum and we should be vocal about that. Not "Well, rhinos can live in forests so we should just be fine with that." No. if Jao cared so much about this game, he'd stop worrying about adding dragons and PVP elements and focus on the attention to details this game is lacking. It's so lacking that people feel uncomfortable playing it because there's nothing in it. I don't care about the 30 dragons he promised us for years ago. I dont care that rhinos can live in forest areas. I don't care about any of that. It's pointless if when that all comes out, there's barely a lot to kill with it. He is relying TOO much on PVP when not everyone, especially proven on the average number of players on MM and Sanctuary, don't like PVP. It's not the early 2000s anymore where PVP hardcore was at it's peak. If Jao could see that, this game would have had more AI in place right now. but no. We're waiting for a gator, a rhino, and 1 type of fish by the start of next year If you want me to spell out my constructive input for you: I want more attention to detail in this empty game, which includes the dev team to calm down with dragons and elementals, and focus more on the ecosystem so we have something to play with while we wait for the dragons. You're welcome.

reef moss
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Reminder to keep it respectful in here, please

solar stone
# knotty seal When was our point being demanding or hostile? We're calling out the fact that w...

From my point of view, actually thank you for concisely putting together exactly what you mean! 🙂 I sometimes do legitimately drop the ball on phrasing and catching underlying meaning. So sorry if I sounded hostile earlier, as well.

Cause on the points you now mentioned, I fully agree. I would say the Nesting/Skin System is definitely still high priority to drop as well, so PvE has at least -anything- to do right now for the players currently active, and the Nurse Dragon for it's kind-of-necessity for said system, but that should follow a focus on getting the AI up and running (literally in some cases) over throwing more playables into an empty bucket to make it "fun".
Prior to your elaboration there, your and ColdSmokeZs point(s) in the smaller posts came across - to me at least - only as "these aren't the exact creatures I want and they aren't right now", which didn't seem reasonable to go at in the same breath as saying you want more AI in general.
And don't take me for an apologist either, I dearly want Jao to do the same as you. Just also aware that the man has been getting hostile, threatening and/or demanding messages literally every second he showed his face here, and following the experience that positive reinforcement tends to work better.
Which is not to say he is flawless, or that I think his current direction of going with development is right. Just that if we actually say "Yes to the AI, More please basically instantly" that is more likely to reach him and make him adjust crap.

Though of course, as long as the end goal of "Actually huntable things and stuff to kill/eat" ends up being reached, I'll be happy. The sooner the better.

knotty seal
# solar stone From my point of view, actually thank you for concisely putting together exactly...

My issue, and excuse my passive aggressiveness earlier I was running on 2 hours of sleep which made me irritatable, is that Jao's priorities are all over the place. It's dragon after dragon after dragon on that trello. The skin crafting update I can't even count as PVE content because it's only purpose is more advanced customization with nesting. PVE players are already doing that with limited skin options, more limited than legacy. Cool, I can make my dragon look like a 2007 emo kid. How does that effect the environment? It's just insulting as a PVE player that all we get is skin making and 1 AI an update.

magic spoke
manic berry
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what I would like more of as far as AI goes, is more of the creatures to hunt and eat in some of the most beautiful spots in the game. Great look out areas, historic amphitheaters, look out points, all devoid of food, and therefore dragons because who wants to nest where no food is?!

knotty seal
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Jao keeps hyping us with things we already have a surplus of. Dragons. We have 21 planned dragons already, 5 are on game and a 6th one is coming out very soon. We have 1 tiny AI and 1 medium AI coming soon. Really? Roblox games have more AI. That's sad. I don't want it to be. But it's sad. It wouldn't hurt the schedule at all if he stopped making dragons and put some more AI in the game. Won't even hurt him to use an already fleshed out AI program for the creatures so it doesn't take up too much time. I know he's a first time dev and everything but Jao, my dude, you have to prioritize. You have to think about what the game DOESN'T have instead of focusing on what it does. We have dragons already. We don't have things to hunt. We don't have things to do or quest. We're in a glorified chat room with a tech demo attached. Maybe stop trying to make it a more diverse tech demo, and make it a survival game like it's supposed to be. What he's essentially doing is making his step one: "make dragons" a longer list. Step 2 and 3 are barely touched. I would rather have more AI than dragons, cuz every hunt on different AI would be a learning experience. Which do you fight alone, which do you need a group for? Which do you need a clan for? There's literally only 1 AI you need a ton of people for and its been sitting completed for a while.

restive flax
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Yes, more variety of AI please. Much like other survival games, have AI actually run away, make noise, and be challenging. Bugs and mushrooms are a start but my brain dislikes monotony.

open notch
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I fully agree with what everyone is saying and it’s not just a PVE issue, PvP servers like Burning Sands also want more PvE aspects because we actually focus more on the PvE side of the game (PvP seems to come secondary, to be honest the only reason it happens in the first place is cause we’re starved on interesting things to hunt). But everyone? These threads are for ways to ELABORATE on and IMPROVE upon the original point? I get everyone agrees and they want to get the agreement written down because the emotes feel ignorable but I don’t want these threads closed due to lack of built upon content. Please keep your comments as ideas on how to implement AI, or ideas for new AI, because I want this thread to stay open.

torn walrus
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The game needs more big creatures planned. Dragons are large creatures and should be able to feed on much more like deer, bison, elephants and large birds are examples of prey animals that could be added. The game could also make use of hostile AI such as wolf pcks or bears

solar stone
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There does seem to be at least some plan of making AI dragons a thing to some level down the line, but I can only imagine how long that will take until there's an AI that can do a reasonable air dogfight...
Some packs of a subspecies of ASD minus the acid would be kinda interesting once we have slightly more to work with though.

knotty seal
open notch
# knotty seal He doesn't need ideas on how to implement AI or ideas for new AI because we've r...

You’re missing the point of these threads and the point of what I said. So many good threads have been closed because it just becomes an echo chamber of previous comments that have already been made. That’s not feedback, and if that’s all you’re adding to the conversation that’s literally the point of the emotes on the thread. I don’t want this thread to be closed and by “repeating it countless times already” is exactly what gets threads closed. No new ideas are coming.

I personally have built worlds before (I’m a writer in my spare time). It is a lot of work to come up with unique and interesting creatures and functional ecosystems. The devs have made it clear they want the creatures of this world rooted in fantasy rather than real life creatures (hence our current food source is alien bugs). Coming up with unique creatures so as to not rip off other games and be accused of plagiarism is hard, really, really hard. It’s not about hand holding, it’s about giving inspiration to both the dev team and each other (for people who want ideas for their own projects) and also try to get these threads to stay open.

As for an ecosystem thing: maybe try and create an integrated wind based scent mechanic if hunting on land? Prey animals can scent you if you approach from upwind and startle far sooner whereas the opposite happens from downwind. I’m sorry most of my ideas have root in WolfQuest but it has great hunting mechanics and that seems to be what people are complaining about the most. Wind direction could be tricky to implement semi-realistically cause things like valleys and weather would affect the wind of different regions so there’s that to think of. I don’t know anything about coding but I know it’s been done before. Most dev teams are happy to share tips from what I’ve heard so there’s always asking for ‘How did you do X?’

I’m trying to add at least something to the original point my ideas are running dry

knotty seal
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It's not hard. Countless games do it and have done it. The only reason this game is getting hate is because half the roster of dragons are rip offs of HTTYD. I'm a character designer, there's a big spanking difference between inspiration and referencing. You cannot deny most of the dragons are references from Avatar, HTTYD, and other more successful franchises.

This thread has already gone off track with what you're talking about, we've already suggested more AI types, more behavioral creatures, etc. I'm already working on a thread that further goes into depth on what I can suggest him to do to improve this dead game. (Dead as in no AI, don't take what I said the wrong way. People like to do that like its twitter) Making things and being original isn't hard, so don't give me that excuse. I want this game to be awesome, but how the development of this game is running isn't the way to go and to not call out why it isn't the way would be irresponsible of us, the players, to do. So, as you've spouted, let's get back on topic please and leave whatever this is to somewhere else.

narrow beacon
# knotty seal Jao keeps hyping us with things we already have a surplus of. Dragons. We have 2...

Part of the reason for Solo being so bad, and clans dominating is that the only real combat is between players, and because the best food supply is from killing other players, so pvp is meta for both the fighting, and the survival aspects of the game.

I believe this to be the root of the issues of this game, sure balance could be better, sure the game is quite rough. But it would be way better if the optimal way to play wasn't based around purely messing with other players, the only reason to leave a hatchling alone is that it will grow and become a better foodsource later.

magic spoke
# knotty seal Jao keeps hyping us with things we already have a surplus of. Dragons. We have 2...

I feel like someone needs to bring this up with them. no matter how many suggestions we make unless someone verbally tells them this they wont realise that just adding another dragon will magicly make the playerbase go up. they need activites and things to do, adding more life to their world through ai will not only make it feel more alive, but create new sources of entertainment in the game besides pvp and one shotting crabs, it makes us feel like actually dragons.

fleet apex
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tbf, everyone’s major complaint is that there isn’t enough playables - along with barely enough ai to sustain an average server of 100 players

What would really bring the playerbase back is if Jao’s interactions with his players wasn’t so outwardly hostile..and also timely updates that don’t end in disappointment

knotty seal
# magic spoke I feel like someone needs to bring this up with them. no matter how many suggest...

I doubt they'll listen, that's my issue. Unless the suggestions are small (water droplets on the screen yadda yadda) they're not gonna listen to the game improvement suggestions. They want to make "their" game. It's why PVE is ignored. A lot. And the reason why it continues to be ignored is because they only listen to the PVP players as if only their opinion matters. We're talking into a void. Sooner or later the more that happens, all those players chilling in sanctuary are gonna leave for other games that value them more. They threw in the swamp snapper to "keep us at bay" for a little while while they continue working on more unnecessary dragons for the clans that are bloodthirsty for more fights. The biggest AI update won't come out in another 2-3 years and you know how I know? The blitz striker still isn't out right now. This thread has been out a while and even on patreon, not a new AI concept in sight. Why? Cuz they don't care about PVE. Then they have the nerve to lock threads that give feedback on how much they don't care about PVE. They locked a thread for comparing this game to Wolf Quest for crying out loud. It wasn't to throw shade, it was to highlight what they could do for this game, more AI, more attention to detail etc. Truth is, no matter how many dragons they add to this game will still be a tech demo. And they're not realizing that.

open notch
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Can we make a new thread for this specific topic (the lack of care to the PvE community)? I play on a PvP server that’s mostly just PvE (hence why it’s dead rn) and I too, really want to see more actual content in the game m, not dragons, but for the sake of keeping this thread unlocked maybe we make another thread? Or if there is an Open thread talking this exact topic could it get linked? I have a few things I’d like to say but not enough to warrant its own thread.

As a side note: we as the player base trying to voice our concerns with the game should not be scared of having our voices silenced. The closing of the threads has historically done nothing but cause more unrest (see: Deadlines and Dissapointments and how closing it only spawned 4 more threads and more unrest) and I should not be feeling nervous about people talking about their legitimate concerns out of fear of the thread being locked so others can’t contribute. Closing the threads hasn’t done anything but harm public opinion. Deadlines and Dissapointments was actually fairly tame and chill. The four threads afterwards + general chat however, was not quite that. Please stop closing the threads, it’s done nothing but harm to both fans and the DoD team.

knotty seal
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PVE and AI are synonymous. So complaining about lack of PVE content is within topic