Animals

[sanchez]

...or altering their aggressiveness rather than their numbers?

[SekoETC]

:shock:

So it wasn't my imagination.

No, it still is, and it's my imagination too. Animal attacks are random, even though they don't seem that way. I have the code right in front of me

Yes, the memory feature was added but it doesn't affect anything yet. Even if it started affecting, it shouldn't just suddenly be switched on but more intelligent animals would slowly get more likely to attack the person who last hurt them, or the one who dealt most damage.

[Doug R.]

Sorry, K-islanders, your buffalo have to go. Here is the breakdown of animals currently in locations on K-isle:

Horse - 46
Cow - 21
Deer- 32
Sheep - 4
Buffalo - 1965

There are only two locations on K-isle that are not in a state of "overcrowding." This means that the lifespan of each animal in these locations is essentially halved. It's only a matter of time before there are only Buffalo on K-isle if something is not done very soon.

Already, the sheep, turkeys and rabbits are gone...

[Black Canyon]

Not the buffaloooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Frits]

Yes i love the exciting dangers of Burgeo too but as i'm often the only person around they have no problem seeking out the one who last attacked them.
And Seko, when an animal attacks the damage is randomized, the highs and lows i've seen lately differ 6 odd points. Character attacks are different, they're affected by damagepoints suffered and tiredness, also physical strength and weapon of course.
K-island will not mourn the loss of buffalo i suspect. I think there should be a cap on the number of each animal a given location can support. As in a hilly location can have no more than 123 rabbits, 43 bears and 79 elephants, than a forest can have no more than 94 rabbits, 97 bears and 15 elephants. And so on for each animal for each locationtype, really it's not that much work as it might seem. When the capnumber is hit the animals are to be removed, no migration. I was avoiding using round numbers on purpose, otherwise i think people would latch on to this.

[15454]

Bob can only kill one buffalo at a time Let alone 2000..

Yet he has cut his towns buffalo down accouple Good for Karnon Seaside.

[Solfius]

perhaps each species should have a maximum each location can support, so that too many of one type of animal won't crowd out others

[formerly known as hf]

perhaps each species should have a maximum each location can support, so that too many of one type of animal won't crowd out others

That was suggested ages ago...

Elephants were the bone of contention then, having poopulations of 100+ in some locations.

I may be wrong, but I think that's what pushed the implementation of the 'overcorwding' mechanic?

Unfortuantely, any animals which aren't easily killed just get to take-over, as there is virtually no other limit on animal populations in Cantr than hunting...

[Doug R.]

Breakdown by species would be a better way to handle things, but it would open the door to having 500 gorillas, 500 tigers, 350 bears, etc in a single location instead of just 500 scarabs and nothing else.

As I mentioned earlier (somewhere), the requirements to balance animals in remote locations are different than the requirements to balance animals in high character density areas, but I'm limited in that any change I make affects both populations. The only possible solution is to actually split the animals into two sub-species, those that live in wild areas and those that have "adapted" to the characters. The downside of that (besides the work) is that it's artificial and would require constant maintainence. Since animals are individualized already, maybe they should adapt on their own? (That, of course, would mean it would be impossible for the RD to tweak animal values anymore, if they all had unique values, which could lead to even more interesting and problematic issues.)

Anything else depends on the players themselves to protect their herds, which Cantrians only half do, since every weak animal is going to be killed the second it leaves town and heads out on a road. I've seeded 10 rabbits onto K-isle. I'm interested to see how long they last.

Another problem not mentioned yet is that Cantrians are secularly religious, in that they immediately look to the departments to fix their problems (I'm not saying that they shouldn't be, but hear me out.) If in the real world, all the animals started disappearing, people would protect them. This has been done in-game in the towns, but there is no protection of animals on roads. The only "ranger" organization in the game had nothing to do with protecting animals and everything to do with keeping the peace in the K-D-S region. However, if a small place like K-isle recruited 5 rangers and sent them out on bikes, and universally came together to make trading in fur and feathers illegal, then traveling animals could have been protected, at least from everyone but suicidal newspawns.

Cantrian's as a species seem disinclined to think about the world they live in or the bigger picture, leaving everything up to their secular gods.

I am not placing any blame at the feet of the players; things are out of balance and bugs affected the populations. What I'm suggesting is that the players can and should have larger positive impacts on their environments than they currently do. Complain to the departments and take in-game steps to address the issue yourselves*. Don't just stand around waiting for it to be fixed from on high. There is nothing preventing "rangers" in-game from doing essentially what I'm doing outside the game. Granted, such control requires more effort in that players can't create animals and I can, but the natural changes to animal populatins over time are small, and the characters have local knowledge of their animals while I see thousands of locations on a spreadsheet. Herds of 500 scarabs didn't start that big, they started as a herd much, much lower in size. I heard a rumor of a "great Buffalo hunt" on K-isle. Kudos. Someone had a great idea, and we should encourage more of that kind of activity. You can still have your hunt, as I didn't take all your buffalo.

This really only applies to player-dense regions; I understand that 5 people with primitive bows and wooden shields aren't gonna do anything to keep the gorilla population under control, but fifteen characters with crossbows could easily cull a buffalo herd in a week. Because of the unpredictability of player hunting, and the spread of single species across both uninhabited and settled land, it will be nearly impossible for me to achieve a real balance between birth and death. What will happen is that animal pops will creep slowly upwards or downwards. Downwards is bad, so they have to creep up. This means that eventually, you'll have buffalo herds in the hundreds again and I'll have to come in and fix it if your characters neglect to take charge of population control. Characters are predators, with the ability to hunt in packs. Utilize it.

* = Yes, I know the Polish were screwed by a bug, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

[Arlequin]

We should be able to feed the animals...

[formerly known as hf]

but fifteen characters with crossbows could easily cull a buffalo herd in a week.

15 Characters, awake at least daily, armed with crossbows could not only cull buffalos, they could take control of the whole of K-Isle by force...

In response, Doug, I understand where you come from, but, quite frankly it is hard enough keeping the momentum of the inter-character things going, without having to worry about things which should just work.

It's hard enough playing the game as it's meant to work, but it's a worthwhile challenge at least.

The reason that no-one has taken it upon themsleves to create 'rangers' who police animal populations and hunting is because it's counter-intuitive.

1300+ Buffalos and a handful of others? That's not right, it doesn't make sense that K-Isle could support those numbers. It doesn't make sense that Buffalo could procreate to those numbers, and that would threaten other animals. Because of this counter-intuition, poeple haven't noticed it, and/or don;t feel like they should be doing anything about it - it should just work...

Trying to fix broken bits of the game from within the game itself - that's just plain annoying...

[Frits]

Now i'm not too happy about this today. Why doesn't my suggestion get seconded but copied? Doug did you skip reading my last post or else if you have questions ask them.
And then i'm trying to play today since 2 PM GMT, i wasted about 30 minutes trying to login and hardly have been able to play let alone do something like hunting to keep numbers down, in fact i'm hunting right now but the page does not get generated but after many minutes of waiting.

[The Sociologist]

Perhaps each species should have a maximum each location can support, so that too many of one type of animal won't crowd out others

Listen, people. Did you hear that? Those words spoken just a brief moment ago? Hearken well, for it is a lone voice of sanity crying out in the wilderness.

[Piscator]

Breakdown by species would be a better way to handle things, but it would open the door to having 500 gorillas, 500 tigers, 350 bears, etc in a single location instead of just 500 scarabs and nothing else.

Why? You just have to set the cap to a lower value. Or am I missing a point?

[Solfius]

Now i'm not too happy about this today. Why doesn't my suggestion get seconded but copied? Doug did you skip reading my last post or else if you have questions ask them.
And then i'm trying to play today since 2 PM GMT, i wasted about 30 minutes trying to login and hardly have been able to play let alone do something like hunting to keep numbers down, in fact i'm hunting right now but the page does not get generated but after many minutes of waiting.

you suggested a maximum number of animals a location could support, that would still lead to certain species crowding out other species, whilst a species specific cap, whereby each species has a maximum population in any given place would mean different types of animal could coexist, but we still have the control on maximum population.

Whilst your suggestion opens the door to varying animal populations by location type (e.g. plains have more animals than mountains) my suggestion comes from the other direction and allows the max population to be altered by animal type (e.g. 1 lion max per location, a max herd of 50 buffalo per location)

I didn't just repeat what you said or steal your idea, it was different to what you said, although I didn't expand on it to make the difference clear.

Credit to you for the idea of capping in the first place, and yes, the lag was terrible yesterday; I didn't bother playing, although I tried, it just wasn't possible.

Piscator, you're right, you just set the cap lower