I really enjoyed Starbound the last couple days but one thing really bugs me, it's the non-hostile and hostile creatures. I explored different planets now and on some planets there some cute little creatures and you actually don't think they are gonna attack you, but suprisingly they will. On the other side you have those huge scary looking creatures and you think "Wow better kill it before it kills me" and right after you killed it, you noticed you killed an innocent creature which only wanted some love. So what I wanted to say is it would (for me) make more sense if those cute little creatures were non-hostile and those scary/huge creatures hostile. Again this of course doesn't occur on every planet only on some of them but still it kinda bugs me. (Sorry if this whole creature thing is intended the simply just delete this ) Here is an example:
Yeah, it's awfully disconcerting to encounter a non-hostile monster that looks like an evil ragdoll that is hiding (poorly) a bloodstained battleaxe behind its back. I killed scores of them before I realized they were "friendly".
I dislike this idea. I like the idea of you going up to that cute little creature, then it jumps up and tries to eat your face off. I also think it is fine to have huge placid creatures. Its much more realistic with the current system, not only that but how would they go about making the game know that a creature is "Cute" it wouldn't. They are all procedurally generated. In real life there are huge animals that are not hostile and cute small creatures that are ridiculously violent. Not only that , but it plays on the sci fi tone, it makes sense that a cute creature on some other planet is completely crazy it is also surprising sometimes. Which adds to the game. See this? Its an Adult Tasmanian devil, it would eat your face off in an instant. (But it doesn't look like it would now does it) This is a tartantula, despite it looking creepy, tarantulas are known to NEVER bite humans. Don't judge a creature by its outer features.
I must say you are kind of right but they should atleast make creatures which are really really scary and huge looking hostile. It also would make sense as these said creatures would be the dominant race on the planet defending their territory and therefore, attack you. Or maybe generate two creature types on every planet the more smaller and perhaps cute looking creature and a really huge/scare looking one and make them have there own territories (which also adds in my opinion immersion if you'd have to hunt a special creature for later items etc. and motsly find these creatures at their territory ). Perhaps make them fight over their territories because it's also odd that the hostile creatures won't attack any other creatures only you.
As I said in my post how could the game say 'Oh this creature is cute' and make it look cute. Due to the fact that they are randomly generated, The game cannot tell a creature is cute just through numbers, they would either need to come up with a ridiculous algorithm to find it or get rid of random generation. Which I am wholly against.Not only that but in real life 'cuteness' has no bearing on how hostile a creature is, so why should the game do that. Th territory Idea is interesting and i do think creatures should interact more with each other and their environments (maybe a simple ecosystem). But I believe the concept of "territory fighting" would put an unneeded load on the games processing power.Maybe some creatures have territory and KEEP that territory no fighting for territory this way.Though they could still fight. A better idea in my opinion is that the game should generate an ecosystem with predators and prey and plant eaters. That would definitely increase immersion. Not only that but they should generate creatures who tunnel and make nests as-well.
Well, yeah I kinda see the difficulty figuring out which creatures looks "cute" and which not. But as you also mentioned I would wish for a more interactive system around their hostility between creatures. Letting creatures build there own "home" seems interesting too although I don't know if this really would work because I don't think that all creatures are saved on every planet (correct me if im wrong).
