Foxes - way to strong

[greg]

Yes bottleneck is in the 6th-7th ring.

Yes, we rely on archery to kill foxes, however listen to this

Name: Ox

Equipment:
Leather Armour
Leather leggings
Militia Sword
Wooden shield

Alright, he has 30 melee and he can't kill a fox, infact they rape him. It takes awhile to hit 30 melee. Why are they so strong? Should he even be able to kill it at 30 melee? What's going on? Some dev input here would be nice.

[Peter]

I gotta agree here.

Now, I understand that calling them "foxes" and having them be red is only a placeholder. That I know, I admire, have no problem with.

However, no matter what you call them, there are far too many predators and they are far too powerful. Either make them less common or weak enough to fight without a gang of allies and a wall of fortifications.

I say this because as it is, these animals are criplingly difficult. We've all played dwarf fortress, and I know as well as anyone that "loosing is fun". But arbitrary and immediate loosing is never fun.

And don't think I'd prefer not having any enemies or only weak, or even just "realistic" levels of enemies. All I want is to be able to flee from enemies I can't fight and know where I can find ones that I can.

As it is, there is nowhere that you can settle without 1: bumping into someone else; or 2: getting eaten by "arbitrary predatory animal x".

Please, please, please reconsider the difficulty level of your game.

[greg]

Someone with 30 melee should easily be able to kill a fucking fox for gods sake, no matter what ring.

[sami1337]

You're wrong. Archery is going to get nerfed and noone will be able to solo a fox in that ring.

[Dwarfu]

he has 30 melee and he can't kill a fox

I believe a dev posted elsewhere that foxes have an unarmed skill of 50 out there...

[greg]

We know archery is going to get nerfed, no one is putting that on trial, simply the amazingly high strength of these foxes. It's stupid.

[kimya]

i think its cool. 30 isnt very much though, considering living at the end of the world. its mordor!

isnt it really interesting to live somwhere where others cant go? if it was so easy to travel far away, it wouldnt be a challenge.

[loftar]

Adam- PM:ed me asking what it took to kill the foxes at Bottleneck. Let me quote my reply to him:

You guys seem to be living at what would currently spawn foxes at level 8.5. That means that they have they following attributes:
Strength: 35
Agility: 87.5
Intelligence: 35
Constitution: 52.5
Hit points: 140
Unarmed combat skill: 42

To fight them evenly, then, you should have around 40 in melee combat skill, and even then, combat moves may be very hard to perform, seeing the agility the fox has. On the other hand, the fox only deals ⌊35/3⌋=11 points of damage, which is almost even defensible against with leather armor (a full leather suit will soak 8 points, if I recall correctly), and it isn't smart enough to fight wisely. Combine it with a little bloodlusting, and you should be able to take them out without too much effort, I think. Of course, there are a few of them, though. :)

On the other hand, it is likely that I will fix the census system before I fix pathfinding anyway, and then Bottleneck will probably be considered rather civilized, so the foxes should become less lethal anyway.

I should also add the fact that I (and Jorb) still think that the foxes in Mordor should be insanely strong. The argument that could rather be made, is that Mordor should be moved further away, and that is something which is likely to happen when we add the long-awaited census system.

[WorkerDrone]

The only thing we ask Loftar, is that when pathfinding comes out we are able to fight foxes there in Bottleneck and we are NOT forced to move out.

That or allow the relatively easy building of a palisade and gate to keep out predators.

And people we don't want snooping around without being let in for that matter.