Hi! First of all, sorry for my bad english. After a few hours of game i noticed that mobs can only be aggressive or not aggressive (maybe i'm wrong?). It would be awesome to learn the behavior of new mobs, on new planets, in a deeper way! Actually the study of a mob's behavior is like "Get close to the mob, is it aggressive? Yes/No". End of behavior study. Try to imagine if not aggressive mob can turn aggressive only in some environmental circumstances. For example: -At night, -If is cold, -If starts rain, -In the underground, -On higher mountains, -Etc... Or (even more interesting, if you ask me) if player do something "wrong" when he's close to particular (normally not aggressive) mob. For example: -Chop a tree (greenpeace mobs, the most dangerous ), -Drop a torch, -Hold a weapon (or specific tool), -Gather iron (or other materials), -Eat meat (or vegetables), -Wear leather clothes (or other clothes), -Sex and/or race of the player, -Carrying a specific object, -Attack other mobs, maybe even if they're of different species (greenpeace mobs strike back), -Jump or run (rapid movement can make some animals upset, you know), -Get too close to the mob, -if mob is with a pack of similars, -And much more! Actually aggressive is a on/off status. Maybe Mobs can progressively become aggressive and let to players the time to understand what's wrong with some tips or clue like increasing growling (think about the witch in L4D). Mind the flee option for mobs instead of "fight to the death" way. Mobs can attack only for intimidating purpose then flee away. Mobs can flee also when heavily injured. Even aggressive (weak) mobs can flee in front of a large group of players (multiplayer or companions). Also you (developers) can add sex, age, breeding and dens for the mobs . This will add much more behavior variables. Preys and predators mobs, real ecosystems, possibility to bring a mob race to extinction or overpopulation (by killing all predators). I hope these tips can tickle your imagination. Please leave feedback and spread the topic. Bye and good exploration! P.S. Again, sorry for my english
I enjoy these ideas. In addition, it would be lovely to have some monsters/creatures, humanoid and beast, that stalks you. Popping his head out of the ground, bushes, hiding in lockers, from behind trees and structures, waiting for the moment to jump you, or waiting for you to have your back to them. And things such as castle statues coming to life, which I expected the first time I entered a castle.
Thank you all guys! The idea of monster stalking it's good! Actually mobs only "roam" randomly. It's a good idea to make more different movement like hiding (as you suggest), digging or something else. Also make different/unique attack patterns like monster do in platform game (old 2D Castlevania style) and not only charge/shoot. I think all best crafting game since minecraft have a (almost) perfect environment exploration (biomes, caves, etc..) but they all lack in mobs "exploration". I mean, it will be cool to be an intergalactic version of Charles Darwin or something, collect and breed species, transport them from planet to another one! This game have the potential to be that (and much more).
I only really enjoyed myself in minecraft with mods installed and it was too common that the game crashed, corrupted your world and you had to start over. So eventually, it kind of got tiresome. Monster cloning machine! Mix your monster DNAs into mutated failures or great successes, maybe you'll do too good and die! ;p Maybe the ability to do something like digging to the planet core and drop a "Peace Essence" in, thereby claiming it for your breeding purposes... Or build a drone that emits a soothing electrical signal that calms all creatures, or machines that do it, thereby forcing you to place multiple ones and thus making it harder. Or nuke the planet, wiping all life so you can start anew. ;p Allowing peaceful roam and tending to your experiments, crops and making sure those NPCs don't walk around getting one shot by mobs that they somehow grew up with. But I guess, guards will be there to help with that, though the town NPC guards surely need to be more beef and less worm. I require to remain on topic, so I chose to silence myself for now
I think they are all pretty good ideas (I had similars about the fight to the death and ecosystem mechanics) but at this point of the development I do wonder how some of these are possible. For example, the stalking mobs would have to be drawn and their behaviour coded in, same thing goes for the various 'triggers' suggested in the first post - great for some xenobiology, studying what triggers and what not the beast, but I'm afraid it'd be a nightmare a) in the coding department (just think about ALL the variables you'd have to code in, new behaviours, new dens, etc etc) and b) used just by a few, considering the huge amount of creatures randomly generated by the engine. The sheer work to classify one specie is amazing (hope to be near a tree, take off the clothes, try the items in your inventory, etc etc) and it's just ONE of the hundreds of species you may come across during your travels, so probably less 'hardcore' roleplayers would just go on and kill everything in sight anyway after a while. Still, I'd like to see these things done.
Thanks for the feedback. I agree with you. Dynamic ecosystem will be a huge coding work. But is different for the "behavior triggers". The "aggressive status" already exist, add a trigger is not so complicated (in my poor coding knowledge). Also, we have to consider that the "early access" version on Steam is a N°1 hit since it was released. A lot of income to invest in development, i hope. GG
I bet that planet nuking is already in the developers minds, very cool idea with lot of consequences (planet destroyed, life forms mutated by radiations exposure, desertification or other critical climatic changes) Ok, we will discuss it in a future topic!
