Seasonal Grazing and Hunting Grounds

[Perdido Street]

Recently, there was a suggestion about implementing bear dens (debating the benefits of having understandable spawning areas vs the risk of mob farming) and it got me thinking about real world ecology; animals have territory, social bonds, they migrate, and they adapt their behaviors to their environment. Game wardens, who manage these populations, are a vital part of any forestry service, and it might be the right call for us to create a similar dynamic in-game.

To iterate on this "Den" suggestion, my idea is a system of Herds and Packs. A number of each would spawn seasonally with a random chunk on the map as its den or bedding, and exerting an effect on the surrounding region. Within the grazing lands of a Herd, animals of the herd type would always be found in large groups, and the spawn rates and growth of plants would dramatically decrease. Within the hunting grounds of a Pack, animals of the pack type will always be found in groups of two or more and the spawn rates of other animals would dramatically decrease, but they will ignore the player unless attacked or the player enters their den chunk (IRL animals tend to attack people more out of desperation than preference).

In either case, Herds and Packs have a limited territory, and are dispersed by destroying their bedding/den or at the season's end. Outside of grazing and hunting grounds, animals and spawns would behave normally.

 

Intervening or not represents a cost vs benefit question (whether abundant prey is worth losing valuable plants, or if no longer being jumped by random wolves or bears is worth letting them take all the meat sources), and these generally do represent the reasons that humans have historically displaced animals. Not to mention, this would add a lot of depth to where and when you plan a hunting trip. 

Most of the frustration that comes from suddenly being killed by a bear or wolf in VS, I think, is the lack of agency players feel when being struck down by rng. The proposition above would at least put more agency in the players corner to say, "Yeah that thing came out of nowhere, but that was the risk I took in displacing them."

Edited May 11 by Perdido Street
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[Calo-Mari]

I like this. It adds more depth between the interactions of the player and the ecosystem they live in, and I feel as it could lead to many interesting situations that makes the player have to strategize based on their current needs.

[Bruno Willis]

I like the idea of simulating the movement of large groups of animals like this:

19 hours ago, Perdido Street said:

To iterate on this "Den" suggestion, my idea is a system of Herds and Packs. A number of each would spawn seasonally with a random chunk on the map as its den or bedding, and exerting an effect on the surrounding region. Within the grazing lands of a Herd, animals of the herd type would always be found in large groups, and the spawn rates and growth of plants would dramatically decrease. Within the hunting grounds of a Pack, animals of the pack type will always be found in groups of two or more and the spawn rates of other animals would dramatically decrease, but they will ignore the player unless attacked or the player enters their den chunk (IRL animals tend to attack people more out of desperation than preference).

I think, unlike predator animals, you don't want prey animals to have the ability to keep spawning (I don't think you were suggesting they could, I'm just extrapolating from the dens discussion). Having a big group move into an area at the start of each spring seems like a really interesting way to encourage hunting in set areas, getting to know the tricks of the location etc.

If animals are not re-spawning until the next spring, the player might choose to hold off on hunting until the summer or autumn when the animals get a bit of weight on them, in which case you'd be more incentivized to wipe out the bears and wolves before they whittle down the prey animal population. You'd feel more like you were competing for protein with the other predators, and for a wee while you'd feel pretty outmatched by the bears. 

[Tabbot95]

having some kind of abstraction that allows for animals to migrate while avoiding traditional pathfinding demands might make a difference,

 

would depend (as I've said a lot) on worldgen being reoriented towards an at least semi "all-at-once" generation scheme.