In Ark NPCs roam the map. You can explore an area and set your base there, then you find a a huge T-Rex spawned nearby and then you got to fight it or leave.
I’m not sure how this is implemented, either by making enemies actually roam the map, or by randomizing spawn in areas … or both things … but I think that would be a GREAT feature in CE.
Let’s face it, CE is ridicously easy. Once you know the map, you can pretty much explore without any danger. You know where enemies spawn and you can avoid them.
But what if they were random ?
You can explore an area once and there’s nothing there. Then you go there again and get ambushed by a pack of Sabretooth … or Norheimer’s … or Cimmerians … or Undead …
You built a base somewhere when there was nothing there, then some nights your castle get attacked by Raiders, or by wild animals …
I think that would be really cool, both for PVP and PVE.
That’s not all negative, though. It rewards learning and gives an advantage to the experienced player. Going around the map is already a chore with the known enemy spawns (some of which can be corrupted), without having to worry about randomly spawning T-Rexes.
Purges are the “wandering monsters” that attack your base, and even they can be anticipated.
They say that “knowing is half the battle”. I prefer my battles with this half on my side.
This is called Purge and 3 times out of 10 it functions like this - NPC are spawned on top of your base and then just stand there with their swords drawn looking at their feet doing nothing, while a guardian thrall one floor below is looking at the ceiling
Next time it can literally spawn inside the cliff side your base is build upon.
Next time it gets stuck in a bunch of rocks 100 meters away from your base.
Then the next Purge is spawned properly and is able to calculate a path to your base seemingly OK.
Only for next Purge to spawn ALL enemies at once (when they are supposed to spawn in waves).
And then the next Purge doesn’t spawn at all - hornes are sounded but noone comes, and after 20 min of frustration you get the message “Purge has been defeated”.
And you have to understand that every one of aforementioned Purges targets the same building (a stationary map object) - no changes were done to building layout between the Purges. We know (although it would be better to say we were told by some guy from FUNCOM) Purges target buildings, so applying the basics of common sense we can expect Purges to either function in similar manner all the time (if stars aligned and our base is built according to some unknown Purge standards) or doesn’t function at all - if player somehow failed to uphold Purge criteria (known only to FUNCOM devs). But somehow this is not the case with Purges
This was made evident when FUNCOM made Sipath surges - a control spawn event in a few set locations, that in theory can be manually tested to ensure everything works. And to avoid dealing with terrain features and path finding FUNCOM literally drops NPC down from the sky. Fun fact - enemies still can sometimes get stuck in a sloped walls of Surge summoning site
They also made Pools of the Grey Ones were player can summon bosses - essentially a huge flat no-build restricted fields without any walls, slopes, roofs, rocks, trees or any object - effectively anything that can mess up the spawn. And in all my experience playing CE those bosses are the only ones that function in a predictable way every time you summon them - 100 boss fights worked the same way every time i pressed the button. But as you might already noticed - in no way this can be categorized as random game-world spawn
Knowing all of the above it is up to you to decide weather you still want FUNCOM implementing " randomizing spawn in areas". Truly “randomized spawns” in a random area of a map will be nothing short of the disaster.
Yeah, lack of variety and randomness… well, those are not the correct words for it.
LIFE! I’ll stick with it. This game lack life, every enemy is static, they just stand in a place, and only a handful of animals wander around in a tiny area.
I suggested a while ago, that most of the animals should have a big, pre-defined path they follow. So if you want to chase that animal down, it will be in different parts of the path, depending on the time you get close to it.
Same with humans. With random encounters. There would be pre-defined paths that human(s! not only one, but min. 1 to let’s say 5) can spawn on randomly.
In Sea dogs 2 for example, if you enter an area outside of towns, there is a chance to get stopped by 4 bandits. They demand money from you, and you can choose to pay, fight or run away. A cool element of a game, similar stuff would fit in this game too.
For ambushes, there is a mod, it spices up the game a bit (especially when there is a battle, and BOOM, you’ve got amush’d!), but it just spawns enemies where you are.
Its feasible that something like this is coming. I have a half hearted attempt at it on my map with fixed ambush points because I haven’t sat down and done it the right way. The new encounter systems can support it in the sense that dynamic levels can load all over the map with various triggers and let a creature/npc spawn and wander from there. They are still “fixed” spawnpoints but can appear random with enough spawn options and timed irregularity. Then there is pve ambush that multigun provides where npcs will spawn near you randomly and attack, so it is definitely doable.
@demonado I play on Official PVE, I can’t set anything
@tin_egg purges work as good as a washing machine filled with bricks.
I have a medium-large size base (20-30 foundations in diameters) which is built on plains and those stupid mobs spawn INSIDE, as if it was built on top of a mountain.
Also purges are predictable and the “base raiding” was just a small part of the proposal. But I see your point: based on the previous experience, you don’t think it would work as intended.
You’re probably right, but as others said, this game lacks of LIFE. I don’t what would be a good solution to that, but leaving it as it is … is not the solution.
Roaming enemies in exile lands would be my dream come true. I played conan since early access and about 3500 hours under my belt, I know every single spawn location and every single npc type there is. Randomness would definatelly spice things up.
Well guys, if you really want this, you should start to ask it more and more, opening tons of threads.
If you leave it here, we’re just chatting and dreaming …
