Hunting and Creature Behavior Suggestions

[Kryos]

This has been mentioned before, but I believe the topic deserves revisiting in a new thread.

1)  Creatures that are not moving stealthfully, especially extremely large creatures, should be visible when moving about or approach without having to 'look' for them or 'watch a direction.'  10 tons of pure anger known as a Mekillot should not be able to ninja-teleport into melee range with a:

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A ruddy brown mekillot arrives from the west.

A ruddy brown mekillot claws your head, inflicting horrendous damage.

Your vision goes black.

>flee

You cannot move while asleep!


I purpose this because having worked on the code of muds before to the point of making one for my job, I believe this is an extremely low cost, high value change.

A practical implementation of this would be a string that is emoted to nearby rooms (radius, 1, 2, 3 based on size) when a creature moves, unless it is moving stealthfully.  Then you have your typical scan vs stealth contest.  This applies to PCs(who are small(1) And mounted PCs (Who are bigger(2))).  This is probably best only for outdoor areas (not the streets of cities).

2)  When a monster is going to spawn, you should get a warning.  While kneeling down and skinning that gurth you worked so hard to kill, you should not suddenly find yourself standing next to a gaj because you happen to be at its spawn location.

This, I believe, is a bit more complex to implement, but warning and a brief stall on the spawn in the room is occupied would be tremendous.

There are other, more in depth suggestions I would make, such as animal behaviors changing to make some sense (other then some being utterly dormant, seemingly brain damaged additions and others being psychotic pcp smoking berserkers killing anything that moves) but while the return is high value, the cost is also high.

[greasygemo]

I've often thought gigantic animals suddenly emerging from an adjacent room was jarring. Like.. Er I'm standing in an open grass plain. I guess I didn't notice that ginormus met walking over though because I didn't stare westward..

Even if the emote was something like, "You hear shuddering footsteps to the north" or "You see a large shape from the corner of your eye to the west". Something that alerted you to look like one might assume a ten ton lumbering animal approaching would weather you were actively looking or not.

Also, listen skill.. Why you no detect approaching figures? I can hear a muffled conversation behind a door but not the rampaging monster barreling towards me?

[Kryos]

Also, listen skill.. Why you no detect approaching figures? I can hear a muffled conversation behind a door but not the rampaging monster barreling towards me?

Agreed, but small, crisp, incremental suggestions one at a time, I think that's the ticket.

[FantasyWriter]

There are currently things that happen in game that echo into ajacent rooms (off the top of my head '>shout', certain magicky things), so it is certainly possible. I too, would like to see large creatures/mounts movements added to the list. Wagons, also.

Edited to add: And combat.

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The clash of battle can be heard coming from the east.

[Maker]

I think the "spawn on top of you" solution wouldn't be so difficult to code if you implemented a spawn area rather than a spawn point.  So, instead of a mob always spawning in the same room, it could spawn randomly in, say, any room within a range of 2 rooms from the center, omitting any room occupied by a PC from the selection.

[FantasyWriter]

Or just not let animals spawn in the same room as PCs.

Or this:
Second   1: Animal spawns <ten second delay before it can do anything>
Second   1: Beast-specific echo: a wild, mangy gortok crawls sleepily out of its den.
Second 11: A wild, mangy gortok claws you in the face.

Mek: A ruddy brown mekillot trundles through the area, oblivious to your presence. (for a little while )
Carru: A something something carru wonders into sight, head down foraging through the grasses.
etc.

[Kryos]

I think the "spawn on top of you" solution wouldn't be so difficult to code if you implemented a spawn area rather than a spawn point.  So, instead of a mob always spawning in the same room, it could spawn randomly in, say, any room within a range of 2 rooms from the center, omitting any room occupied by a PC from the selection.

Could flag the mob as invis when it spawns in a room with a pc, make it inactive, send the emote, wait 5 seconds then uninvis and make it active.  Could send it off in a random direction a few rooms away.  Could simply have it to wait to spawn till the pc leaves, etc.  One of the beauties of coding, at least for me, is finding creative solutions.  But speculation is also moot without having the source or knowing the source (I don't know DIKU well did socketmud and then original work). 

Many options, but we leave that to the talents of Morgenes and Tiernan.

[Maso]

Ohhh, this would be awesome. I like the spawn echos...

And for meks and mets getting close....something as simple as 'the ground shakes around you' would be helpful, especially for those awkward diagonal moments.

[Lizzie]

Some of the frustration, I think, is because Armageddon code doesn't include diagonal directions. So if I'm standing...

here.

And I'm moving south...

I have no way of knowing that there is a mekillot immediately to the west of that southward room I'm about to move. It's only ONE room away from ME...to the southwest. But I can't tell it's there because "southwest" isn't a valid coded directional in the game. There is only a grid of north/south/east/west/up/down.

Since the diagonals aren't, and since trying to add them at this point would probably be a huge mess...

Adding an echo whenever a non-PC mob that is a) visible b) aggro c) within a 2-room radius *on the grid* is present...

would be helpful.

An additional echo when there's combat would be great too, but it's not nearly as common as running into an aggro mob simply because you weren't able to look southwest.

(edited to add yes I know there's also in/out, but in/out aren't part of the grid so I didn't include them)

[Kalai]

Listen echoes terrify me and I am all for more of them.

[Synthesis]

You know, I don't recall anyone ever proposing this particular solution for the problem.  It's always been some variation on diagonal looking.  I like it.

[Maso]

Listen echoes terrify me and I am all for more of them.

Totally!

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You hear the slow crackle of snapping twigs and branches.

> runrunrunrunrun



[Dalmeth]

It seems to me the greater problem lies in the difference between the mob's ability to detect and act on a nearby PC and the PC's ability to do the same.

You could just add a delay between the time between when a mob detects a PC and the moment in moves.

You can say you should be able to see a big, bad monster in an adjacent room, but then it should be able to see you, too.  So you don't really solve much.  This is just part of the game.  However, if a reasonably equipped PC has no time to respond to the entrance of a massive, charging monster, then you just give the player more reaction time.

[Synthesis]

You -do- have some time to react.

A long time ago, mobs didn't have any movement delay at all, and they would attack you within milliseconds of entering the room.  Nowadays, their time-to-attack is determined by their movement speed*, so you -can- outrun them, if you're faster.

Of course, it seems like time-to-react might be too brief, since mobs have instant reaction time, no net lag, and no delay for typing speed.  That can't be more than a few hundred milliseconds in total, though.  My guess is that the vast majority of people getting pwned by mekillots and bahamets these days are getting pwned because their PC is slow on foot or riding a slow mount, or are delayed due to issuing a command like forage or scan.  In my past experience, a mekillot will catch a beetle** (the most common southern mount) within 2 rooms if you don't switch it to running, so you have to be very careful to make 'run' your first command.  If you spam directions before changing speed, you'll get caught.

That being said, I'm still in favor of the idea proposed by the OP.  If we were to fix the problem with reaction time, I'd suggest treating the first aggro-move into the PC's room different than subsequent aggro-moves.  That is, make the first movement delay substantially longer, but leave movement delays during the chase phase the same (pegged purely to movement speed).  There's clearly some sort of "mob memory" flag, since tracking animals remember you, so I imagine a similar code construct would apply, just alter the behavior resulting from the flag.

*However, if an aggro mob is following another mob, the follower does not suffer from movement delay, and can still attack you instantly.  I'm sure many people have bugrepped this, but it remains a substantially annoying bug, especially in the context of certain bugs.

**Movement speed may vary between beetle types...I haven't really quantified it.

[Kryos]

I would hope what I'm proposing is part of what is slowly incremented up in giving a big change to the 'feel' of outdoor life.  Being able to see gigantic killing machines headed your way from a bit of a distance and not getting an ankheg spawned on your head with no warning/emote  is just a 'quality of life' change that I believe will be of benefit to most who spend time outdoors in Arm.  Its frustrating, instead of 'dangerous'.  In the end, I hope outdoor life is a bit more . . . interesting.

I would love it eventually, if different critters had different behavior patterns depending on the time of year (mating season, birthing season, a sluggish season, and so on), how hungry they are (over hunting gurth leads to swarms of pants wielding raptor attacks, news at eleven), if archery was updated to feel more like 'hunting' was just that (shoot it in the neck and sure, it'll run for a while, but then it'll bleed out.  You've probably scared all the other small game away, but . . . oh god was that a tembo I just saw?) and most importantly, if predators and prey behaved a bit more like their intended types (say 'clever girl' really would have a point because a bunch of lumber-axe wielding raptors ARE flanking you as you chase the open one).

I just think it has to be kept to very small, quick implementations.  Suggesting big projects from the player side has an extremely low % of success(based on my observation), and they may be working on cooler business that is high return as well.

You -do- have some time to react.

A long time ago, mobs didn't have any movement delay at all, and they would attack you within milliseconds of entering the room.  Nowadays, their time-to-attack is determined by their movement speed*, so you -can- outrun them, if you're faster.

I think generally, yes.  However, I have lost a PC within the last year due to something extremely large arriving in my room and instantly head shotting me into a bad place.  And I do mean before the time I could pop a flee alias. 

Having things move at different speeds well, that is really something someone should learn about ig.  But animals and people moving at different speeds really does make cat and mouse more interesting . . .

P.S.  Gith ( you know what I mean) are just frustrating too.  Its not 'harsh' when it feels like more of a slap in the face(see ARMrage).

[Dalmeth]

You -do- have some time to react.

I think a large part of the ongoing complaint is that some of the largest, reel-locking creatures are actually quite fast, and many of the common animals are not fast enough to outrun them.  I'm not concerned with sharing that bit of IC info, because it's something that should be plastered somewhere easily accessed and often read : that there are some riding animals that will get you killed.  Couple that with the sometimes serious delay between entering a command and the MUD responding, people do have cause for complaint.

Thing is, making the delay longer between detection and action or adding a special echo for diagonally located nasties essentially increases response time.  Given how spammy the game can already get, I'm less inclined for more lines of text.  It's pretty simple.

[musashi]

Large animals are supposed to run fast. That's why in RL you can't outrun an elephant. Big legs. Covers ground quickly.

Size and movement rate going together makes fine sense to me. What we lack I think is a size modifier to actually hit stuff when you're huge and its small. You can easily outrun a mouse in a straight line race IRL. But for anyone who has ever tried to catch one with their hands ... those little buggers can dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.

But once you get ahold of them one time, they aren't going anywhere. I think mekillots and bahamets function similarly.

[Kismetic]

Musashi has a point, though, the big animals do behave correctly.  However, I'm in total agreement that you'd see that walking house come your way.  Be cool if we could get this code change.

[musashi]

It's kinda the same reason dwarves can't outrun half-giants.

[Maso]

If we're using RL animal behaviours as examples for Arm animal behaviours...then it should also be considered that herbivores (for example carru) or other creatures that would not consider humanoids good eats would not be territorial against humanoids (e.g. not aggressively moving into rooms with PC's) and only become aggressive if someone moves into a room with them, and should be content with scaring someone off not chasing them and killing them.

[Schrodingers Cat]

I've always wondered if riding empty handed increased my riding speed.  I guess I'll have to find out IC.

[Kryos]

Indeed, I'm not advocating changing the fact they are hella dangerous to most people.  Just that you should see your death coming. 

In fact, it would be really cool if a hungry <killing machine> decided that you were lunch, it would chase you as long as it could, in turn, see/sense you, better then the 1 room situation that now exists.  It would make outdoorsmany type hunting skills much more valued, or the ability to run away fast.

[Dalmeth]

Large animals are supposed to run fast. That's why in RL you can't outrun an elephant. Big legs. Covers ground quickly.

Size and movement rate going together makes fine sense to me. What we lack I think is a size modifier to actually hit stuff when you're huge and its small. You can easily outrun a mouse in a straight line race IRL. But for anyone who has ever tried to catch one with their hands ... those little buggers can dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge.

But once you get ahold of them one time, they aren't going anywhere. I think mekillots and bahamets function similarly.

Hmm?  Didn't actually say to slow down the animal, just make it take longer to act after detecting a PC.  That is, after all, why a large animal finds it hard to catch a smaller one : they need to build more momentum.

[musashi]

The post movement delay is the metric by which "speed of travel" is determined IG.

So yeah, that's what you're asking for.

[hyzhenhok]

The post movement delay is the metric by which "speed of travel" is determined IG.

So yeah, that's what you're asking for.

No, the suggestion is to delay the NPC's reaction upon first detecting a PC. Not to delay it every time it moves into a new room during the chase.