wrt animal hunting, it's too easy to just shoot things from a boat. It feels a little absurd just sitting there while the animal watches me take my sweet 15 marksmanship time trying to line up a decent shot over and over until it gets hit. This can't be a remotely realistic simulation of how animals actually behave, can it? I've heard of endurance hunting but I haven't heard of boat hunting like hearthlings have been seen to do.
1. allow all animals to swim, almost all are naturally good at it, right? (Possibly allow them to capsize rowboats?)
2. cliffs and animal ai: if the animal can't reach the target it shouldn't just stand there waiting to be shot at once aggroed. If it can't move or get closer it should start some alternative pathfinding attempt or give up or something. Anything other than just standing there. (maybe initiate the "flee" behavior if it can't reach its target and the pathfinding algorithm doesn't result in its moving at all within some time frame? Especially after the animal takes damage and is still unable to reach its target)
3. Aiming a bow at an animal should be considered a hostile act, for which animals will attack or flee as appropriate. Surely they can figure out they're likely being hunted without having to actually take an arrow. If that's not how the game works (is it only possible to aim at a particular object, only in a particular direction?) maybe aiming anywhere in some proximity of any wild animal triggers some kind of alert. Possibly checked against stealth. (i.e. you can aim from closer without startling your prey with higher stealth)
~
4. related, it would be great if stealth affected animal interactions. I want to be a light-footed forest hunter. I want to lie quietly in wait for my prey to come by. Maybe I even want scent-concealing gildings or single-use buff items (use for soap?). I want to experience the frustration of having my prey flee when it hears or sees me draw my bow, and the satisfaction once I learn to do it stealthily enough. Animals in general should also be harder to encounter; most know to avoid humans and are good at it, especially the strongest and best of their kind (I read a study about this once but a quick search doesn't seem to find it. It was something about how higher social status among coyotes may correlate with less likelihood to interact with or be detected by local humans).
~
I'm not trying to suggest over-complicating things or something, it just feels like it's very easy to "cheat" using archery. I *know* animals run away once they get hurt badly enough, but that first shot counts for a lot and they just... sit there... if you find them along the river and aggro them. It's far too easy, and it doesn't feel satisfying. I'd rather not be able to hunt that way than just choosing not to do so because it feels cheesy. These are my impressions being fairly new to trying to hunt creatures with a bow.