Some Animal AI suggestions

[Richard 2]

I have a few suggestions related to the animals.

 

• Water animals should stay near the water.  I'm finding seals and crocodiles out in the forest with no water around, which is weird. 
• Also, they should be able to "graze" in water tiles.  I don't know how they currently survive in the wild, but people on here told me I have to feed my seals fish or leave sheep in the seal pen for them to eat.  Not sure why seals are eating sheep. 
• I would like to have an animal companion that doesn't need to be led around on a rope and constantly kept tame.  See, the thing is that you can only have one animal tamed at a time, so when you tame some other animal, your pet becomes untamed.  We need a separate slot for a companion so that you can have one animal always "tame" even when you tame another animal.
• At minimum pets need an option to pet them.  Everyone I've talked to has wanted to be able to pet their dog or whatever animal they've tamed. 
• It would be nice if they responded positively to being petted, too, like if the dog wagged his tail or ran around in a circle or something to show he likes it.  
• Also, the game needs domestic cats.  I keep a wildcat in my house.  You could keep a lion, I suppose, which would be a cool companion to have if you didn't have to worry about them becoming untame all of the time. 
• I think it would be nice to have cuter and more interactive pets, like dogs and cats.  As an example of what I mean, the deer are the cutest animals in the game.  They not only look cute, but they have cute mannerisms that endear you to them.  They twitch their little ears and hop when they run.  They're adorable.  How about some equally adorable dogs and cats? 

 

I think you can now keep your tamed animals from helping you in battle when attacked.  If so, that's super, because I'm always afraid I'll accidentally get my tamed animals killed on the way home.  I only say "I think" because I keep forgetting it's there when I need it, but I think I remember seeing it.  It would also be useful for a companion because if a dog or wildcat or lion (or possible future domestic cat) is your companion and you're fighting a troll, your companion will probably die in that battle.  I lost a few animals that way when I first started playing.  

 

 

 

 

 

[Ostentatio 1,970]

Quote

I don't know how they currently survive in the wild

 

The simple answer is: They don't, at least not over a long time period.

 

Carnivores in Wurm get hungry extremely slowly, to the point where I had a wildcat sitting without food for 14+ real months while I wasn't playing, and when I came back, it was starving but still alive.

 

So seals do last quite a while, but eventually, they do starve. I've seen plenty of starving ones, as well as corpses.

 

 

Taming really does need an overhaul. My problems with it are:

1. It's way too binary. Either an animal will fight to the death for you, or it's totally 100% wild and potentially hostile. This also means the animal can switch from deathly-loyal to murdering you in the drop of a hat. Creatures go from you riding them as a mount straight to deciding you're they're next meal, and the lack of warning is a problem.
2. Only one tamed animal per character at a time, making taming essentially useless for hitching creatures.

 

It would be nice if there were varying levels of domestication, with a progression sort of like this, or a simplified version of this:

Potentially hostile (100% wild) -> Non-hostile -> Can be hitched/led with a rope -> Can be mounted -> Can take orders -> Can fight for you (100% tamed)

Along with a creature count limit not of 1, but similar to how the branding or Care For limits work, possibly based on skill.

Edited April 26, 2018 by Ostentatio

[Richard 2]

21 hours ago, Ostentatio said:

Potentially hostile (100% wild) -> Non-hostile -> Can be hitched/led with a rope -> Can be mounted -> Can take orders -> Can fight for you (100% tamed)

 

Really good idea.

 

"Along with a creature count limit not of 1, but similar to how the branding or Care For limits work, possibly based on skill."

 

Yeah, I would definitely prefer that if possible.  The only reason I thought they didn't do that had something to do with PvP, like maybe it would screw up the fighting if a person could take a mob of animals into battle with them.  On the other hand, it would give animal taming a huge boost as a skill to learn if that were true.  Since I don't play PvP, I don't know the pros and cons.  But, yeah, for me being able to tame several animals at once would be much better.  

 

[Attenia 232]

+1 those all sound great! I'd love to see different breeds of cats and dogs! Oh, and I want a pet badger added  

[Ostentatio 1,970]

Just let me breed a herd of domesticated champion cats, gosh darn it

[Richard 2]

There's another one.  I try to think of suggestions that would make the game more enjoyable to play to attract more players, and this one isn't one, so lower priority, but still.  

 

Animals wander into the ocean and drown.  Sometimes on a square right next to the land.  What's that?  When they start to go down in stamina while swimming, they should be able to locate the nearest land tile and swim up to it.  

 

I have a dock on my property.  Cows, horses, sheep, and chickens spawn near it.  They wander off the side of the dock and swim around.  I've found them dead out in the water.  So a few times I've gone out to try to save them.  I can't get most of the animals up onto land with me when this happens, because they won't be led in the water.  I've checked their health at these times, and they're drowning.  Other times they just walk up onto the land from the water by themselves, so I know they can do it.  They simply don't.  

 

It's just a bit disturbing to see them drown for no reason.