General Gameplay An Escape Plan. (Concept).

This looks familiar, doesn't it? We already know what's going to happen. The Struthiomimus is about to get eaten and the Tyrannosaurus gets a meal. Nothing new, unless... it fails the hunt.
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Request:
I have a proposition for dinosaurs without combat capabilities. This applies to Ornithomimids, Ornithopods, Pachycephalosaurids (Against medium-large carnivores), and Sauropods. Right now, anytime a carnivore locks on to them, they are instantly dead. They line up for the animation and wait for the carnivore to run up and kill it. In my personal opinion, carnivores should have a chance to fail hunts. I will go down into each group of dinosaurs and give my personal take on what may happen when a large and small carnivore hunts it.

Ornithomimids: This is the group of animals made for running out of all dinosaurs in the game. Their long legs allow them to flee from danger easily. The basic premise is that if a carnivore wants to sneak up on a Gallimimus for example, they may either lunge too early or too late and miss. This makes the hunts more interesting as carnivores need to actually earn their kill. For small carnivores like Velociraptor, they may entirely miss the mark and just flop.

Ornithopods: These guys consist of Dryosaurus (Due to its small size, it should just run like Ornithomimids), Edmontosaurus, Parasaurolophus, ETC. Only Iguanodon is able to defend itself from small to medium carnivores. However, everyone else is prone to dying. While I don't take most of them as excellent combatants, they wouldn't go down that easily. What I imagine could happen is that if carnivore bites into a hadrosaur and tries to lift it, the hadrosaur may break free, and the carnivore loses its grip. Thus, they get to live another day. This is evident with an Edmontosaurus specimen who survived an attack, presumably Tyrannosaurus.
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As for small carnivores, it does seem a tad absurd for a hulking mass of meat to allow such a tiny theropod to bring it down. In this case, the hadrosaur should try to shake off the carnivore and force it off. Say a Velociraptor fails to maintain its balance.

Pachycephalosaurids: They were given a blessing in Update 1.8 by logically allowing them to fight back against small carnivores. However, they are still vulnerable to dying from anything larger. They may not be as large as most Ornithopods, nor as fast as Ornithomimids, but they do have a thick head. Say a carnivore tries to bite it, the Pachycephalosaurid barely dodges, and just for fun, they headbutt the carnivore to make it trip, thus buying time to escape. Homalocephale doesn't have any way to defend itself, perhaps it should just remain fodder.

Sauropods (Nigersaurus and Ankylodocus): Nigersaurus has gotten the short end of the stick of the Herbivore Dinosaur Pack in my opinion. The benefit with all sauropods is that they are nearly untouchable by any carnivore, with the exception of a certain hybrid. Nigersaurus, while immune to small carnivores, should try to defend itself against medium carnivores with its whip-like tail, similar to Iguanodon with its thumb spike. Large carnivores, not so much. In the case Nigersaurus loses, it should transition to the death animation already in place.
In the case of Ankylodocus, this is a hybrid that was made to be very defensive, yet can't. It would only be just for Ankylodocus to fight back against Indominus. It has a clubbed tail of all things too. It should ignore every other carnivore though.

Conclusion: The idea to revamp the way the hunting system works is not impossible. Update 1.8 proved that Frontier is capable of entirely changing how a dinosaur works. The hunting system is boring right now, and I think to spice it up, herbivores should have a chance to escape and live another day. This doesn't mean that every hunt will result in failure, but it shouldn't always be successful either. (Indominus and Indoraptor, I can give a pass because are they genetically made to be perfect killing machines.) I hope some of you like this concept idea. Feel free to comment and to discuss about it.
 
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What do you think the odds should be for escape or kill, Wheat? My opinion is flipping the coin. You keep winning with tails in a row, but when you get heads, you’re dead.
 
What do you think the odds should be for escape or kill, Wheat? My opinion is flipping the coin. You keep winning with tails in a row, but when you get heads, you’re dead.
I was thinking that too. Originally, the title of this request was going to be "Toss of a Coin" but I realized my request would broaden to allowing certain herbivores to have combat capabilities. The carnivores trying to kill herbivores who can 'escape', have a 50/50 chance. You'll never know who would win and therefore, it'll keep a player engaged in watching the full hunt. IMO.
 
That's only if the AI can be updated to have multiple randomizing decisions for certain behaviors, of course, which I believe could happen.
But, from a gameplay balancing perspective, it would be unfair if these script animation sequences happen when you must raise combat infamy, particularly in when you must rise the combat infamy for your three carnivorous hybrids in the last mission in the Research Facility map of the Dr. Wu DLC, if herbivores are your choice of raising their infamy, as that mission can take a long time if you don't want any of your hybrid carnivores to die of potential old age. My advise, if this kind of randomizing sequence feature is to be implemented, it should be automatically disabled for active contract or mission selected dinosaur species and individuals respectively where you must raise their combat infamy. There are certain things for some missions that do activate and deactivate for their respectable dinosaur individuals anyway, so perhaps the general idea could be expanded to what you and I just suggested for both suggestions to work together properly in-game.
 
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That's only if the AI can be updated to have multiple randomizing decisions for certain behaviors, of course, which I believe could happen.
But, from a gameplay balancing perspective, it would be unfair if these script animation sequences happen when you must raise combat infamy, particularly in when you must rise the combat infamy for your three carnivorous hybrids in the last mission in the Research Facility map of the Dr. Wu DLC, if herbivores are your choice of raising their infamy, as that mission can take a long time if you don't want any of your hybrid carnivores to die of potential old age. My advise, if this kind of randomizing sequence feature is to be implemented, it should be automatically disabled for active contract or mission selected dinosaur species and individuals respectively where you must raise their combat infamy. There are certain things for some missions that do activate and deactivate for their respectable dinosaur individuals anyway, so perhaps the general idea could be expanded to what you and I just suggested for both suggestions to work together properly in-game.
I never took missions into consideration, I'm glad you brought that up. I was considering to rule out hybrids from "failed" hunt scenario as in lore, Wu would have genetically modified them to be perfect that their jobs. I think I even stated that. In missions that do require normal genera to actually fight, then my assumption is that they could fight an extremely weak dinosaur. (Huayangosaurus for example). The simplest solution to that would be to turn it off for mission-specific dinosaurs anyway.

Outside of that, I hope it doesn't go against any other form of gameplay.
 
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That's only if the AI can be updated to have multiple randomizing decisions for certain behaviors, of course, which I believe could happen.
But, from a gameplay balancing perspective, it would be unfair if these script animation sequences happen when you must raise combat infamy, particularly in when you must rise the combat infamy for your three carnivorous hybrids in the last mission in the Research Facility map of the Dr. Wu DLC, if herbivores are your choice of raising their infamy, as that mission can take a long time if you don't want any of your hybrid carnivores to die of potential old age. My advise, if this kind of randomizing sequence feature is to be implemented, it should be automatically disabled for active contract or mission selected dinosaur species and individuals respectively where you must raise their combat infamy. There are certain things for some missions that do activate and deactivate for their respectable dinosaur individuals anyway, so perhaps the general idea could be expanded to what you and I just suggested for both suggestions to work together properly in-game.

I disagree. That would be too convenient and unrealistic.

If one wants to make those missions when herbivores, you either provide the carnivore with a full herd for her to hunt from or present her with other carnivores or particularly aggressive herbivores such as iguanodon, stegosaurs or pachys.

Don't really see the need to disable such a good and realistic feature just for completing missions. That would be just like cheating, wouldn't it?

Edit: just to clarify my point, the soft cheating option would still be there (providing carnivores and aggresive herbs for fighting) but at a higher cost expense. It would still be up to the player to chose if it's better to invest on more secure kills to afford time or not.
 
How about we have the small carnivores use a duo or trio attack on the larger ornithopods while a single attack on the ornithomimosaurs and Dryosauruses? I know this is antithetical to your post as this team attack is somewhat a guaranteed kill, but the small carnivores wouldn’t bother attacking the larger ornithopods alone. Iguanodon of course is still ready to go mano a mano. How could the team attack be foiled? In a final note, the only carnivore with guaranteed accuracy should be Troodon because it sneaks in for a poisonous bite and runs away, waiting for its victim to succumb. I hope the same is done for Dilophosaurus with spitting instead of course.
 
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How about we have the small carnivores use a duo or trio attack on the larger ornithopods while a single attack on the ornithomimosaurs and Drypsauruses? I know this is antithetical to your post as this team attack is somewhat a guaranteed kill, but the small carnivores wouldn’t bother attacking the larger ornithopods alone. Iguanodon of course is still ready to go mano a mano. How could the team attack be foiled? In a final note, the only carnivore with guaranteed accuracy should be Troodon because it sneaks in for a poisonous bite and runs away, waiting for its victim to succumb. I hope the same is done for Dilophosaurus with spitting instead of course.
I ruled out pack hunting from the equation because the game is made to do Pokemon 1v1 themed battles that so it seems. It feels like a script where only two dinosaurs can do any form of interaction. So we have to make the best out of it. But if Frontier can rework combat for any dinosaur, I'm confident pack hunting could be involved at some point.
 
This.

The herbi-bois currently are just walking punching bags for any carnivore - time to change that!
Actually, I once already mentioned something similar in an own thread.
 
This.

The herbi-bois currently are just walking punching bags for any carnivore - time to change that!
Actually, I once already mentioned something similar in an own thread.
Oh, that's neat! I checked it out yours just now but I think I went into more detail in mine. Anything you see that you wanna add though?
 
Oh, that's neat! I checked it out yours just now but I think I went into more detail in mine. Anything you see that you wanna add though?
Thanks! Yep, you definitely went more into details and more specific ideas, that's why your post is better than mine lol
I wouldn't add too much, maybe just expand this on goats that could at least try to escape (starting to run off, thus the predator follows them and catches them anyway). You can't tell me a goat wouldn't notice a several tons heavy therapod approaching from behind...
 
Thanks! Yep, you definitely went more into details and more specific ideas, that's why your post is better than mine lol
I wouldn't add too much, maybe just expand this on goats that could at least try to escape (starting to run off, thus the predator follows them and catches them anyway). You can't tell me a goat wouldn't notice a several tons heavy therapod approaching from behind...
What I would want for goats is they could toy around with individual carnivore for feeding. Raptors, for example, chase it for practice before eating it. Dinosaurs with long arms like Baryonyx, Allosaurus, and Spinosaurus, use their hands to swipe. And Tyrannosaurus (large carnivores as a whole) having that classic goat eating animation, where it drops a leg, like in the movie. As a bonus, it would swallow the bit that fell off. I think it's time for Frontier to put personality into the dinosaur animations.
 
What I would want for goats is they could toy around with individual carnivore for feeding. Raptors, for example, chase it for practice before eating it. Dinosaurs with long arms like Baryonyx, Allosaurus, and Spinosaurus, use their hands to swipe. And Tyrannosaurus (large carnivores as a whole) having that classic goat eating animation, where it drops a leg, like in the movie. As a bonus, it would swallow the bit that fell off. I think it's time for Frontier to put personality into the dinosaur animations.
I agree, but I believe that rather hell freezes over before Frontier will add something to this game that could be considered as gory just in the slightest.
 
I agree, but I believe that rather hell freezes over before Frontier will add something to this game that could be considered as gory just in the slightest.
I mean there's blood and all, so I don't see why not. A follow up-suggestion would be to intentionally draw out hunts tbh. Here are a couple examples:

Tyrannosaurus stalks a flock of Struthiomimus, slow approach them by moving through the trees, then rushes once the distance is close enough.

Velociraptors try to take down an Edmontosaurus, one falls off, but another keeps the hunt going by attempting to leap again. (Bonus: It also provides pack hunting!)
 
I mean there's blood and all, so I don't see why not. A follow up-suggestion would be to intentionally draw out hunts tbh. Here are a couple examples:

Tyrannosaurus stalks a flock of Struthiomimus, slow approach them by moving through the trees, then rushes once the distance is close enough.

Velociraptors try to take down an Edmontosaurus, one falls off, but another keeps the hunt going by attempting to leap again. (Bonus: It also provides pack hunting!)
If anything so advanced in regards to animations and behaviors like everything what you said above, they must require script animation sequences based on their surroundings, if the AI can be upgraded to utilize more than two entities as the game currently does and more of the environment like the forest tree radius the Indominus's camo gene uses, in order to work properly. Cinematic looking sequences like these can not work without them, as what many 3D based games of a similar build (old and new) utilize, including the upcoming Planet Zoo.

These are some similar examples I posted in the past:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ed-surface-usage-for-selected-species.521118/
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/pack-hunting-mechanic-and-how-it-could-work.519798/
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-anklydocus-should-fight-with-the-irex.516717/#post-7884858
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/chance-of-missing-prey-via-animation-script-sequence.481557/
 
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If anything so advanced in regards to animations and behaviors like everything what you said above, they must require script animation sequences based on their surroundings, if the AI can be upgraded to utilize more than two entities as the game currently does and more of the environment like the forest tree radius the Indominus's camo gene uses, in order to work properly. Cinematic looking sequences like these can not work without them, as what many 3D based games of a similar build (old and new) utilize, including the upcoming Planet Zoo.

These are some similar examples I posted in the past:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...ed-surface-usage-for-selected-species.521118/
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/pack-hunting-mechanic-and-how-it-could-work.519798/
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/the-anklydocus-should-fight-with-the-irex.516717/#post-7884858
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/chance-of-missing-prey-via-animation-script-sequence.481557/
All of them sound really good. I hope Frontier considers them and such. Half the reason I'm so bored with the game is because of the robotic and generic animations. There's no personality with the dinosaurs much.
 
The game needs a big AI overhaul. It's not just hunting mechanics. If you have a herd of Triceratops and a Rex, only one Trike at a time will fight the Rex. It's painfull to watch. Herd defence and pack hunting are a must. That and more intra and inter-species interactions.
 
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