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Why Are Animals So Dumb?

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You're a grazer. You're standing 1m away from nice tall tasty grass. You don't try to pick the nubs of grass out of the dirt you're standing on, you move over to the good stuff.

Could we have a little more logic added to these creatures, rather than eat my grass down to packed dirt while the grass it growing tall or wild right next to it?

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They are animals... No one said they were smart lol.

I would agree though

Edited by Radni

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My dogs are even worse, they rather starve than walk over to the next pile of meat. I need to drop it between their feet instead.

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The more intelligent you make animals, the harsher they become on the server. The harsher on the server, the fewer animals it can handle. I prefer dumber but more animals than very few superintelligent creatures.

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The more intelligent you make animals, the harsher they become on the server. The harsher on the server, the fewer animals it can handle. I prefer dumber but more animals than very few superintelligent creatures.

Very true

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IMHO, the code for checking if there's a better food supply one tile away would be trivial. It could also eliminate some of the pathing code that currently exists, where animals migrate to the better food supply within a tile or two unless there's another animal within X range from that tile. A natural migration pattern for hurding animals would then be a very small X. For more solitary animals, the range check would just require a larger X.

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I have proposed the grass is greener over there algorithm before, doing just one over might be simpler and lead to less packing than heading for the best food in the pen.

It is actually a very simple stupid algorithm that gives the illusion of intelligent AI, basically turning them into mobile lawn mowers. Look at the game of LIFE, where extremely simple neighbor rules give the illusion of cellular life.

Make a food priority list then just simply check before getting an eating tick, is this the best tile in my nine tiles square that is not blocked from getting there by a fence or already occupied? If not, move over, if so stay put. If no food at all, expand search to two tiles over (or even simpler pick a random one and look again on next food tick). If equal choices on that priority list which has been there longer?

This is actually the same algorithm as flora expansion, grass looks for nearby dirt, trees and flowers look for nearby grass when an expansion tech happens, and the illusion works because Wurm flora looks alive. The very same changing flora will make the fauna seem alive, when all the fauna are really doing is stupidly chasing the flora algorithm.

Edited by yarnevk
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IMHO, the code for checking if there's a better food supply one tile away would be trivial. It could also eliminate some of the pathing code that currently exists, where animals migrate to the better food supply within a tile or two unless there's another animal within X range from that tile. A natural migration pattern for hurding animals would then be a very small X. For more solitary animals, the range check would just require a larger X.

That code already exists. Try putting some dogs in a pen and drop a meat pile outside and look where they all bunch up.

Point in case;
/>http://www.wlhost.net/images/privateimages/656e0.png

There's meat pile inside the fence.

Note how all the animals bunched up outside are meat eaters; and no, they're not chasing me agro becuase that picture is taking from a fo priest. The same works for grazers. I am not sure if the code recognizes regular grass as a food source but I know for sure it works for enchanted grass, seed piles, and farms.

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The more intelligent you make animals, the harsher they become on the server. The harsher on the server, the fewer animals it can handle. I prefer dumber but more animals than very few superintelligent creatures.

We need a balance. If Rolf was able to double the animal caps, then he can certainly pick a number in the middle and make them marginally smarter.

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I propose a new trait for tamed and non-agro animals which are penned/on deed.

Available only if bred in captivity; "Trained". They will eat grass before crops and/or will move to tiles which contain meat or piles of seed/veg.

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That code already exists. Try putting some dogs in a pen and drop a meat pile outside and look where they all bunch up.

Point in case;

http://www.wlhost.ne...mages/656e0.png

There's meat pile inside the fence.

Note how all the animals bunched up outside are meat eaters; and no, they're not chasing me agro becuase that picture is taking from a fo priest. The same works for grazers. I am not sure if the code recognizes regular grass as a food source but I know for sure it works for enchanted grass, seed piles, and farms.

Grazers are what is broken, carnivores do search for food (whenever patches do not break it, at one point dropped food they would starve rather than path and they needed hand fed) , which is an indication the server can indeed afford to do this because they are already programmed to do it. It makes very effective spider traps, though I have not tested it now that guard aggro scares them off to see if they then ignore the guard.

I have never had my dogs nor pigs pack a pen from pathing, even though dogs love to circle the pen, the dirt is from grazers standing in place eating down to dirt then packing it. Grazers do not eat seed/grain bags but only path to them and then eat the grass/crops down to dirt underneath the seed/grain bag, so by then the seed/grain bag is spoiled. They most certainly do not path to the grass is greener over there which would result in consistent grass height and farm harvests, instead of a patch work of wild grass and variable harvests mixed in with packed dirt patches even in pens exceeding 4 tiles per.

The 'grass is greener' means if your grass/crop is shorter move to adjacent taller grass/crop, even if that is because you ate them down. Take a pen full of wild grass put animals per 4 tiles, and take time series snapshots to watch the behavior for proof it is broken. A pen full of wild grass should get mowed and never packed.

It appears that what is implemented in the absence of a dropped or enchanted food source is a random walk algorithm and they eat wherever they happen to be on eat ticks until it is gone and often get stuck from server lag missing them, this is actually more server load than the grass is greener algorithm which would use the flora state to force move the animals, they would not even need to have movement AI of their own to graze

The 'grass is greener' algorithm is in fact more intelligent realistic AI for grazers while being a dumb simple algorithm.

Edited by yarnevk

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I like it, but perhaps just one tile is too short? Because what will they do if they end up somewhere (or spawn there) where the grasstile they are on is surrounded by trees/bushes/pavement whatever other non-grazable tiles? Or perhaps the one-tile as described, and if they dont find a better spot while their spot is dirt allready, then let the current movement-algorithm take over for a few movements?

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I think it is unlikely they could get boxed in by trees/shrubs, that would mean Wurm expands faster than they can eat. More likely they get boxed in by dirt from the other penned grazers, which is why expanding the ring of tiles to search is needed. But only if they get stuck otherwise it cost too many tiles to search it would be better off using existing pathing, but existing pathing will already move bred animals less frequently more likely to get stuck there too, that was the tradeoff for more mobs that nobody is talking about. Wild spawns already need a grass field to spawn into so they have something to eat from the start.

Edited by yarnevk

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This is perhaps bit offtopic. This happened to me yesterday.

I was digging on medium size project. In my local I saw 3-4 huge spiders and 2 diseased brown bears (green skin, not diseased by crowding). I was occupied by work, so my idea was kill them, while they start attack me.

One of that brown (green) bears ran past me only 1 tile away two times without attacking me. It seemed, I'm invisible. At last third run past soon changed to charge me. I finished hopes of that poor blind creature fast to continue my work. But whole that behavior was really strange.

My FS is 73+ atm. Perhaps this can be reason, why I was less attractive to that bear?

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that is just lag, I have had it rubber band me halfway across my deed before. Where the bear thinks you are and where you actually are and where you think you are are three different places.

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This is sandboxxy.

Animals that follow simple rules can show complex behavior on larger scales IF there's some diversity and the numbers are large enough. For a player, the nature algorithms become the sandbox. So instead of mining ore or terraforming land to exploit it, they're exploiting nature algorithms to create something valuable.

What I've always imagined is suddenly being attacked by a crocodile and running and, by luck or my own awareness, the crocodile changes its mind and instead chases a nearby deer. See, if I had anticipated that the crocodile would go after the deer then I could use the deer to get the crocodile off me as an evasive tactic. This would be another way to escape. Right now, the only means to escape is to either kill it or run faster long enough.

The game needs more condition variables to create more complex outcomes. When there's enough things going on then it becomes both unpredictable and exploitable, which I think are good combinations.

But it becomes complex and that's what I'm wanting more of. More diverse interactions.

The reason games usually avoid these sorts of things is because it's hard to control them. A designer has to foresee potential bugs and test each possibility. But in a non-linear design it's very difficult to test every possibility. When you take into consideration bugs then the situation is even more uncontrollable and designers shy away from it. Another reason designers avoid it is because they want to control the player experience so that it avoids pitfalls. For example, when things are complex they inevitably will come together in such a way to DESTROY the player with no possible escape or workaround. This makes for a negative response from the player. Thus, designers handmake most things so players can overcome them and have a chance and not be forced into a no-win scenario.

In wurm we already have example of non-linear things. For example, creatures will randomly wander rather than be given set paths. So there might be cases where you'll stumble on a herd of tough creatures. In most mmorpgs and rpgs this situation won't happen since almost every creature is given a specific location and waypoint list. This allows designers to avoid the possibility of pitfalls occurring and thus it creates more positive responses. Furthermore, games usually seek to reduce uncertainty. So there won't be night-time to make it hard to see and there won't be fall damage from failing to see a steep slope and there won't be lots of aggressive creatures that you failed to spot. There're probably many more example of non-linear things in Wurm, but here I've just listed a few.

The fact that Wurm is a sandbox implies that many things will be unpredictable since players are changing the world. What you knew from yesterday might be different today. Thus, this is another case of something non-linear. Whether players are changing the landscape or building a new house or new village or have killed a nearby troll lair or have trained some creatures nearby and left them lingering or who knows what, it has an impact on you.

MMORPG sandboxes, for this reason, are like a hot potato. Casual sandboxes will have to reduce the impacts players can have on each other by carefully controlling what can happen to players as a result of others. This should result in a game that's sandbox-lite since the very idea of changing the world means impacting others.

Edited by Lightonfoot

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That code already exists. Try putting some dogs in a pen and drop a meat pile outside and look where they all bunch up.

Point in case;

http://www.wlhost.ne...mages/656e0.png

There's meat pile inside the fence.

Note how all the animals bunched up outside are meat eaters; and no, they're not chasing me agro becuase that picture is taking from a fo priest. The same works for grazers. I am not sure if the code recognizes regular grass as a food source but I know for sure it works for enchanted grass, seed piles, and farms.

I had to move my trash meat fillet pile to an open area because besides the 20+ diseased spiders piled up outside I kept having random trolls bash the walls on my deed pen trying to get the fillets.

I used meat piles on epic to lure a pack of hyenas to sit in my token house.

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You're a grazer. You're standing 1m away from nice tall tasty grass. You don't try to pick the nubs of grass out of the dirt you're standing on, you move over to the good stuff.

Could we have a little more logic added to these creatures, rather than eat my grass down to packed dirt while the grass it growing tall or wild right next to it?

This is a wonderfull suggestion, HOWEVER it fails to pass the: "Does it make Wurm more annoying" design paradigm. Therefore I am afraid it will never see the light of day. ;)

However I do feel your pain, my Gardening skill is in the mid 30's right now, on a new character on Release. 98% of that skill comes from cutting and planting steppe grass in my animal pens.

Fortunately, I am less than 3 weeks away from enchanted grass, and even that is no longer "foolproof".

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Moving based on food availability is something that should be implemtented, especially now that the death and disease rate of animals(depending on many things) is higher, and having all youor animals bunching into one corner or something can be very very bad. I like that it's harder to keep animals healthy now, but it's certainly not fair if your whole herd dies because they all decided to stand in the corner on the same tile because their AI is kinda broken.

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Moving based on food availability is something that should be implemtented, especially now that the death and disease rate of animals(depending on many things) is higher, and having all youor animals bunching into one corner or something can be very very bad. I like that it's harder to keep animals healthy now, but it's certainly not fair if your whole herd dies because they all decided to stand in the corner on the same tile because their AI is kinda broken.

You are supposed to be caring for them and keeping track of them if you let them all stand in the same place for days that's your fault.

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So we are supposed to logon every hour to fix broken pathing now?

grazers do not path to available food in the form of greener grass or tasty steppe. They random path when the server feels like they need to move, which in the case of bred animals with recent patch is almost never.

So even if you manually lead them to the best grass in the path today, they will be dirt packing the bottom of your pen tomorrow. They eat where they are even if that is dirt. The will not remove themselves from dirt, despite being surrounded by wild grass on all nine tiles.

Their pathing algorithms are not considering the fact that they are grazers. They are nothing more than random wanderers that get stuck.

Edited by yarnevk

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