Age of Beasts idea

The devs have previously hinted at making additional mounts and I think they could theme an upcoming age around mounts & animals:

Features:

  • More realistic animal behaviour and animations: animals should have more herding and group hunting behaviours to make the world feel more alive.
    • I.e. wolves should stalk prey and move around more.
    • Better default animations when they are not actively following you.
  • Bison herder and hunter human NPCs with temporary camps.
  • Mounts should not respond to player Attack commands but should be able to defend themselves or at least run away better. I’ve had the game crash and had my high-level mounts killed by low-level enemies.
  • Adult wild Horses.
    • Foals (and other baby animals) should show their adult colour. Possibly add black & white variants to nature and just offer all the colour change recipes to the Riders of Hyboria DLC.
  • Saddle dyeing.
  • Baby animals should be visible in pens while growing up. Little animations would be cute too.
  • New Animal Tamer thralls. Could speed up training, provide new saddle recipes at Saddler’s Worktable and offer food advise for greater pet chances. It’s unintuitive how many game features rely on third-party wikis.
    • Could also train/level up adult animals in another way.
  • Revamp the pet recipe system, possibly allow/require recipes/fodders to be made in Animal Pen or remove recipes/fodders altogether and make it a simple choice in the Pen.
    • At least declutter UI by including all variants in single recipes. I.e. there shouldn’t be 4 separate icons for a White Horse, it is assumed all horses can be White.
  • Storage saddles.
    • Alter the Caravan Elephants and Rhinos to just be removeable saddles/equipment that improve storage. Add storage saddles for camels, Siptah rhinos and Antediluvian elephants.
  • More mounts/pets/wild animals:
    • Camels
    • Elk Kings
    • Greater Boars
    • Elephants
      • These could include mount spots for multiple players and/or thralls, who could use ranged weapons. Would be great to be able to pick up a friend if his or her mount died, for instance.
    • Possibly wolves and big cats. This would require different movement and combat animations and mechanics. Could also look silly, so maybe not.
    • Hippos!
  • Animal breeding with heritable genetic traits and ability to trade with other players/clans.
    • Could breed a supply of meat with rabbits, chickens, pigs, etc.

Story (Events/Encounters):

  • Hunting & herding/domesticating themed events.
  • Trophy hunting.
  • Escort/herd some animals from point A to B.

Bug/QOL fixes:

  • Fix collision, especially with Rhinos in the Exiled Lands getting stuck on every rock or tree limb and blocking doorways.
  • Fix mounts getting stuck in other ways, sometimes stuck in a mounting loop or have to take my hands off the keyboard first to start moving.
  • Fix healing bug where you can’t use or assign healing items to shortcut bar after mounting or dismounting.
  • Remove Knowledge point cost of special saddles & include them with other unlocks. They just clutter the respec experience and are they not the same spec-wise?
    • I think the Knowledge system could use a general simplification. Respec shouldn’t be so tedious. I.e. could combine building pieces (foundations, stairs, etc.) into one unlock per tier.
  • Allow Abyssal Hounds to be made on Isle of Siptah by expanding the recipe to include Aardwolf Cubs, Feral Dog Pups and/or Wolf Cubs. If applicable for other pets, broaden the eligible combinations.

Battle Pass and Bazaar items:

  • Animal-themed.
  • Hunter-themed.
  • Herder-themed.
  • More saddles.
  • More pet and mount variants.
3 Likes

This would be very welcome. It feels weird that a sabretooth or a wolf ignores the deers grazing right next to them, but always attacks a human on sight. On the other hand, a moose attacks players and sabretooths alike. (Admittedly, moose can be very aggressive animals, especially during mating seasons.)

Maybe something simple like adding dogs to Exiled Lands. Though not necessarily as feral dog spawns (as that should be a Isle of Siptah specific thing), rather, as something to buy for coins from certain merchants like at Sepermeru/The Den/Bucaneer’s Bay.

Maybe give some wildlife (i.e not pets) the ability to SWIM (like crocodiles), and perhaps the crocodile surfacing attack animation could actually be a real crocodile attack that does damage instead of just a jump scare for new players. Adding a death roll option while swimming could be a scary encounter of its own, and perhaps giving pouncer/biter animals the animation where they latch on and do damage over time from thrashing/pulling (though I guess that’s why Cripple exists).

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