AI suggestions to increase PVE content

[fiery hamlet]

Let's be honest, this world is dead. Eerily dead. It's a great foundation but it needs more. I have a detailed list of suggested AI to help.

Hook Clawed Eagles: The eagles would be large predatory bird like creatures that ambush from the Redwood trees to capture prey. They prefer hunting hatchies swooping in and grabbing them to be carried back to their nests to feed on. This would allow more use of the hatchlings' struggle mechanic and make life as a hatchling more immersive. The eagles would be large and slow with little armor, easy to take down if you're an adult or juvi. If no prey were present in the redwoods for a while these eagles would venture out into the grasslands to find other sources of food, sometimes even eating the carcasses of dead creatures.

Spiked Pronghorns: Weak but fast, pronghorns would stay in large groups and constantly travel across land in fear of the apex predators they are surrounded by. Their males would be more armored and covered in thick bone that pierces through their skin, so biting such creatures would inflict damage upon attacker as well. Their running speed would match that of an adult shadowscale's flight. They would rather run than fight, but if a male is isolated from it's herd, it would fight till it's last breath.
They would be grazers like the IronHide, but would avoid being near them.

Crystal Bears: These crystalline bears live in caves and only come out at night to bask in the moon's glow. Their strong claws dig through the rocky ground of the caves to find small mineral deposits to munch on. They get their energy from the crystals that decorate large caves and are very territorial. They would have heavy armor and would hit hard, but are very heavy and slow. A few good full charge SS shots could shatter their armor and kill them. They sleep in positions that camouflage their appearance to look like another glowing crystal cluster so dragons would do well to be on high alert when venturing these caves.

My suggestion is make use of the space you have. We as dragons have no threat to the skies, the grasslands, or the redwoods. Life isn't easy, make every area we have as players feel dangerous. Make hatchlings fear going into places they shouldn't be. Make hunting a challenge, a thing we have to work for. Make exploration rewarding but risky. Think about what it is to be a dragon. Only the strongest survive. The ones that fought from the day they hatched and clawed their way to adulthood. Threaten their lives with something they share the skies with. Threaten their homes and power with territorial beings. Threaten their survival with creatures that punish the sloppy and uncareful. Make each biome fleshed out with such challenges and this game will be amazing.

[fiery hamlet]

To add, please stop making excuses for the devs with these "well there's planned AI coming." Yes, but it's a disgustingly small list. 1 medium and 1 large AI is not enough for a fleshed out map with mythical creatures. In fact, I feel its disrespectful to disregard such an important aspect to the animal survival game genre. AI brings gameplay, immersion, strategy and critical decision making and challenge. All things this game is painfully lacking. It would do you, the devs, good to take a step back from future dragons and work on a more fleshed out ecosystem and food chain. We have enough dragons right now. It would not hurt you at all to slow down and work on filling the Forgotten Forests with AI, ones similar to the ones I listed or even better. We want this game to be great, but it would be irresponsible of us to blindly clap our hands and encourage poor game development. You need to think about all aspects of this game. Not just PVP.

[lapis fossil]

Honestly the AI should be almost as big of a focus as the dragons, i don't think it's good for the game to have the very best food-source being other dragons completely uncontested. (Perhaps a growth system that requires you to feed your hatchlings specific requested creatures to speed up growth, to add somewhat of a gameplay loop?)

[fiery hamlet]

Dietary requirements and preferences between dragon species would help the gameplay loop as well. Having certain dragons require certain AI within their diet to shorten growth times or give temporary buffs would also be helpful in both PVP and PVE especially since the mushroom buff idea seems a little silly and cartoonish to me.

[lapis fossil]

My knowledge of the game is somewhat limited and outdated, but from my perspective the mushrooms are a placeholder location until we get the dragons’ natural habitats to live in. Or maybe not

[fiery hamlet]

The mushrooms are buff items. If you eat one you get a certain buff for a limited time. They made them that way so they don't waste them but I mean, they're mushrooms. What dragon eats mushrooms unless they're dumb or trying to get high. Making a mushroom takes less than a few hours from model to in game. I'd rather eat the energy of other animals to gain those buffs, it makes more sense anyway.

[fiery hamlet]

AI suggestions to increase PVE content

[lapis fossil]

Honestly, if they added like 3 more types of prey, even with no AI and little animation, i would be fine with it, because it gives us other options and as long as they "fix" them later. We really should have more options by now, we have the specialised food like the flowers, and the low-yield food, but where is our medium and high-tier food? Flying is fun, and dangerous, let us have fun in danger by flying to pick up good quality food!