Regarding superfoxes

[Potjeh]

I understand that you currently don't have enough art resources to implement lots of different animals, so animals scaling in strength are fine for now. But is it planned to remain this way? It's something that really bugs me in games. A fox is a fox, and it makes no sense for them to be vastly stronger further away from civilization. The wilderness should be more dangerous because more dangerous species live away from civilization, not because the same species are more dangerous.

Anyway, I'm guessing this is in the plans for the future because of how bears spawn, but I just want to be sure.

[theTrav]

While you're right that there is typically a limit on how deadly most foxes can get, there is a difference in dangerousness between any two real life creatures even if they are from the same species.

[jorb]

Creatures do, indeed require quite a bit of work on my part. Each creature has to be able to walk in eight different directions, which means, since some of the directions mirror, that I have to draw the creature walking in five. Each direction has eight frames of animation, making for a grand total of 5x8 = 40 frames/creature. In addition to that they need attacks, corpses, loot and whatnot. If the animations seem FUBAR in places, it's because some of them are real hatchet jobs. (My whining aside, implementing a new creature is one of the most rewarding things about developing this game.)

One could argue that it is entirely unrealistic for foxes to pose a danger to anything larger than a bunny rabbit in the first place. IRL, wolves do not attack humans. Does that mean that wolves shouldn't be as lethal as cyanide in Haven? Hell no. My wolves will put cyanide to shame. (And the Moonlit Wolf Cape will be one kick ass piece of gear.) IRL, any human with half a brain could probably kill a bear with equipment picked up at a local hardware store. IRL, humans are the top predators by orders of magnitude. One could argue that games are not intended as strict emulations of reality.

On the other hand, there is a declining return on the fantastical. Hitting a "Ghejejiiwlonk" with your "Umappawoozle" for eightyfifteen points of "Sharmakookel", simply makes no sense. One of the things I hate about fantasy and/or sci-fi literature is when fantastical elements are put in seemingly as ends in themselves. An overly healthy dose of the unrealistic simply makes it impossible to relate to and identify with, in any meaningful way, the story being told. The world cannot be so qualitatively different from our own as to make it impossible to understand.

Would being knocked out by a troll somehow make more sense than being knocked out by a lethal fox? Why? The question: Which is more realistic, a troll or a killer fox? could be answered in more ways than there are wicker baskets by the Ring of Brodgar.

Will foxes level scale? My opinion on level scaling is by no means set in stone. The wilderness is however intended as, and will remain, a challenge for players. I can however say that I would rather see the foxes level scale than implement the blue, green, yellow, purple, slightly tanish, nutmeg brown and pecan green foxes that are prevalent in so many other similar games.

...and that concludes my non-answer.

[shockedfrog]

I'd kinda like to see those coloured creatures, not so much for telling them apart but I want to create dyes and then dye random foxes green. Any chance of this?

[Potjeh]

I agree with you there, we certainly don't need a plethora of outlandish creatures. Heck, I'd prefer it if we never get even the staple fantasy creatures like trolls or orcs.

But I still think that animals of the same species should be of roughly the same strength throughout the world. There's nothing wrong with them getting more aggressive the further you go from civilization, though.

So how could the wilderness be made progressively harder? Well, my idea is that near civilization there'd be only foxes and rabbits. Go a bit further, and you run into lone wolves. A bit further there are lone boars. Then you start running into packs of wolves and herds of boars, and finally into bears. Throw in some more dangerous animals like lynxes and you can get a progressive danger scale. Of course, the low level animals should still be found out in the wilderness.

[theTrav]

No orks and goblins is a good move.

I'd rather see a legion of NPC romans march through once a year and demolish everything in their path (that'd be hilarious) or other far flung races (mongols?) that have come exploring to bring back whatever they can pillage

[Lightning4]

What, no goblin sieges to make the DF players like myself to feel at home?

We could even smelt down their iron goods for iron bars

[kaka]

I would say keep it as it is, with scaling levels and different species at different distances from civilization.
But indeed, a fox can only be *so* dangerous (and there is a limit, although quite high),
so I would propose that the further away from civilization, the more animals are spawned.
So instead of just making the species more dangerous, the real danger should come from numbers, kinda like it is IRL.

[Milaha]

my only complaint about superfox is that they drop normalfox loot. Even if it is just more meat/bones/hide. Something extra would be great. Right now we are living in the middle of nowhere with megafox, simply for the challenge of doing so, some reward for that would be great.

[Laremere]

Will foxes level scale? My opinion on level scaling is by no means set in stone. The wilderness is however intended as, and will remain, a challenge for players. I can however say that I would rather see the foxes level scale than implement the blue, green, yellow, purple, slightly tanish, nutmeg brown and pecan green foxes that are prevalent in so many other similar games.

I'd rather that only a few different, believable colors end up for each different species. When you stop fighting the green foxes, and start with the purple ones, it starts to feel a bit like everything is recycled. I think a good way to handle it would be that they scale, and the farther away, the more aggressive they are. Say with like level 3 foxes, you could get away, and they stop chasing you, but at higher levels, they run faster so you can get away, and have a much longer timeout for stop attacking you, and also will spot you from farther away. This allows for scaling of difficulty, without having animals have an extreme range of difficulty.