Too many hostile creatures
Darwin-Evolution
France Join Date: 2015-06-07 Member: 205310Members
France Join Date: 2015-06-07 Member: 205310Members
Don't get me wrong, I really like the hostile creatures in the game. I just think that compared to the number of passive/desensive creatures, there are too many hostile ones. Such an ecosystem would never have survived for long in evolutionary history. I'm not particularly against more hostile creatures coming out, I just want more different SMALL passive creatures to stabalise the biodiversity of the world.
What are your opinions on this?
What are your opinions on this?
Comments
Uhm, have you watched out to the Oceans on Earth? Almost everyone eats someone there. Even the small eats the smaller Creatures and so on. Thats Nature
Yes but an ecosystem where there are more predators than their are things for them to eat? That does not work at all. I mean, yea, sharks eat fish that eat smaller fish that eat plankton. But what we have hear are like a dozen big sharks for every one fish that they eat.
there's a lot of plankton.
The game itself isn't that bad in dioversity if you look at the types. It also has a bit of balance between predators and prey I think. Not so good in biodiversity when it comes to behaviour and attack types, but that could get polished.
My main concern could be described by reporting of watching the sandsharks in the red weeds. I observed them hunting too much focused on traditional attacks and less on a strategy fitting their natural being. They hunted fish for a long time without surprising them from rushing out of the sand. They are even stupid enough to hunt packs of biters and soon getting biter prey themselves. The don't stay still under the sand, allowing everyone to spot them with ease.And they don't jet out of the sand to strike hard and fast, giving up a lost case soon.
There are still some biomes that need a rapid reduction in aggressive fauna. Koosh Zone and Kelp Forests especially. Both of them are interesting biomes, but they're mostly rendered "drive through" because there's just too much going on. The Koosh Zone is the worst, since there's always multiple bone sharks within draw distance, and they're generally overly aggressive. I feel it's just wasted map-space and design. The kelp forests are also not nearly as cool as they could be. I think they've spent a lot of time on them and they have a lot of nooks and crannies; but mostly you're just constantly getting attacked by things. Jellyshroom Caves and the crab snakes are a much better design. You don't know when they're going to pop out, so you have to be careful, but you still don't say "whatever, I'm not even going to waste time getting out of my sub" (though I feel there's other issues with that biome)
I feel if the aggressive fauna count was more in line, there would be (slightly) less call for terminal weapons in the game.
As an aside, it would also be nice to the aggressive fauna would fight. True, the bitters and bleeders kill the heck out of Stalkers (overly so as the game progresses) but otherwise they don't interact much. Epic bone shark-v-shocker or reefback-v-sandshark or really reaper-v-anything else (especially reefback) would be pretty cool. Either that, or having some sort of dolphin-like creature that was smart enough to identify with the player and play with them and/or protect them would also be interesting.
Not that I think this is a big deal but we have seen this happen quite a few times with us pesky humans introducing new species into an ecosystem. If they have no / few predators, or other significant advantages over local competitors, then they can drive other species to extinction or out of an area.
Or for that matter it can happen naturally. Evolution can give a species such a big advantage that they become a plague. Like us.
- The sandshark should never move under sand once he's in place and then only striking for prey from his hiding place. [not implemented]
- The armored (plated) sandshark shouldn't have to fear biters, but rather fear reapers and be hunted by them. [not implemented]
- The main prey of the sandshark should be fish grazing the red weeds or the flora there. [partially true, but he hunts biters that can hurt him]
- The sandshark should rush out of sand fast, strike hard and return under the sand afterwards. [not implemented]
- The sandshark shouldn't follow prey for long - it's not his way of hunting. [not implemented]
- The sandshark shouldn't protect ore. It should lure near valuable resources (who are near the ore) for fish. [not implemented]
So right now we can see a sandshark that is constantly moving and playing games with biters, instead a still but far more dangerous one.As long as you can see this dumb behaviour, you know that the devs need more creature refactoring. It's quite OK for an early state, but I expect the devs to clean up behaviour once most of the basics have been done.
I would say there's a 0'th point to that list which is "predators just keep eating irrespective of any actual hunger or need". Their whole AI consists of "charge next available creature, kill it, repeat"
I forgot to include Underwater Islands in my list of biomes that need a massive reduction in predators. I had forgotten about it because I basically never went there and that whole biome was basically dead to me, but I ended up that way a few nights ago and remembered why I never go there.
I'm just glad that I'm not playing hardcore, but it meant that it took a solid hour of sneaking around and searching to find my first piece of silver. You know, that thing you need for computer chips, which you need for a builder?
Easy silver:
If the devs had tuned the propulsion cannon to be just a propulsion tool that pushes things away at moderate speed and distance, it could be used as a feeding gun and even use gasopod balls or crash to release them on other creatures. But the cannon shot doesn't allow it to work that way.
Nevertheless, the creature behaviour got to a point where you can watch them eating up each other. Just wait from a distance until a deadly creature meets another, and they get occupied with each other: Sandshark vs Biter Swarm, Stalker vs Bleeder, etc.