Technical Question: I notice mobs only 'wake up' when someone gets a short distance from them. (I don't mean aggro)

[Gilgamesh]

As the title says I’ve noticed that mobs only seem to ‘wake up’ when a player gets within a certain distance of them, and I’m not referring to aggro. Let me explain… a greater hyena chased us onto a roof, and we sat around waiting for it to leave. It walked away a certain distance and then stopped there indefinitely. After like 10 minutes I decided I would lead it off so my buddies could escape, but as soon as I approached he started walking away again, and I realized what he was doing… he was trying to get back to his original spawn point, but could only move if I was close enough to him.

So my QUESTION is… is there a way to increase that distance in the server settings so that it’s less immersion breaking?

[Vahlok]

What is your current aggro range set at?

[Gilgamesh]

I uh… don’t know. The default, I would guess. I certainly haven’t changed it.

[botateo]

I’ve noticed similar behavior in animals that have followed me back towards my base but at some point just stopped. I’d go into my base and take care of sorting/smelting/all that stuff and sometimes, if it was getting dark, spend the night, only to come out the next day and see the creature still there, usually just standing. Sometimes I’d go near them and draw aggro again, or they’d start walking away. (Lookin’ at you corrupted rocknose.)

[Gloatingtomb6]

It’s is the distance things are draw and spawn but when the near the distance they stop moving because it’s like an invisible wall sort of but it acts as a area that you can see but when they near it they stop moving cause there is nothing loading past that. However if you get in the distance where the air spawns but only at the edge you can shoot it with out it ever moving A lot of games do this however since the ai is not in combat it auto heals as you shoot it to prevent easy kills but the best I can explain that is it is a wall you can’t see that stops them from moving past it and the only way to change it would be to alter the distance things spawn in but if you go too far you will crash the game and corrupt your files thought I’m not sure what files are in there since I’m on Xbox but I know how it works but it hard for me to fully explain

[Vahlok]

I’m taking a guess that it’s a hard coded setting that sets AI into action once the player is “within range”.
They are idle until the player comes within a specified range and this is more easily seen in open areas such as the grassy plains near the Ruins of Al Muraya.
Everything else that’s not within range of you (such as AI in a different area of the map) goes into an idle state to save on resource use. (An optimization). How this works with the purge mechanic, I don’t know especially when you’re across the map and get the notification your base on the other side of the map is going to be attacked. I get the odd feeling that your base guards will be stuck in idle while the purge sends waves of attackers to wipe them out.

I’ve also noticed I can get them to start moving when I shoot an arrow out towards them. (not targeting them specifically). Oddly, if I shoot at one it’s as though it “knows” what’s coming and begins moving before the arrow can strike them … resulting most times with a miss.