Overall, I think the subject of how unique a dinosaur is lies at the root of most of players desires since before the first Jurassic World Evolution. We have made some good strides forward with JWE2 over its predecessor; however, I am afraid we are seeing a bit too much homogeny starting to form. While I'll save more individual suggestions for elsewhere, I really want to dive into what I mean and the path forward to make more unique dinosaurs.
One of the first the team over at Frontier are to hear is likely about skins and dinosaur requests. The species the community want included into the game most tend to have some unique attribute that makes them stand apart from other species in the game. Skins just add another layer of making the animal more distinct from others in the game, this is all surface level stuff though. Herding behavior was another that helped separate some herbivore behavior from carnivore with JWE2 taking this up a notch. The territorial system has laid good groundwork for the future, but its really the new social animations and other small tweaks to shared animations that are helping distinguish species more than ever. However, the crowning achievement among all of these are the new behaviors that really sell a species as unique.
The finest example are the Velociraptors which can now climb non-electrified fences and pack hunt. However, it is also with the raptor and these behaviors that should really make it stand apart that we encounter one of the newly introduced homogeny problems. Instead of making the Velociraptor and possibly Deinonychus stand out more the rest, they kind of wind up just lost among a group of small carnivores that have also received these benefits for seemingly little reason.
Fence climbing can be performed by various small carnivores like Dilophosaurus, Proceratosaurus, and Herrerasaurus in addition to the dromaeosaurs. This actually doesn't help those three species much it actually just pulls the dromaeosaurs back down. Similarly, pack hunting also applies to Dilophosaurus and Proceratosaurus, again, creating more homogeny. What I wanted to see was more unique behavior being added a little at a time to groups of animals with a handful for specific species. The fence climbing and pack hunting applying to non-dromaeosaurs with only small variations in their animations is a bit disappointing.
Proceratosaurus, in particular, is the oddest one when I feel it should be more tame like Coelophysis and the current iteration of Troodon in that they are just ordinary small carnivores. Dilophosaurus has the most potential to distinguish itself, it spits blinding venom and there is an opportunity for a unique form of pack hunting without it having to leap and latch onto prey like dromaeosaurs. I mentioned Troodon as well, that is one I felt could have actually benefitted from pack hunting. Troodon is already unique since it has a venomous bite and if it pack hunts it could feasibly bring down a lot larger prey by repeated venomous bites, a much more skittish and nonconfrontational type of hunting. Compsognathus could also stand to be the swarmiest of species making up for its small size with the tremendous numbers and being disease carriers.
Other families such as hadrosaurs and sauropods especially appear to be increasingly the biggest victims of the homogeny. Every member of their family tends to have the same animations and behaviors. While its not feasible for every species to be entirely unique, they could use a few standouts among their ranks. For instance, the Olorotitan would have noticeably higher stats allowing it to better fend off predation while sauropods would be able to use their heavily muscled tails to really fight off predators. Allosaurus could stand out as the only medium carnivore capable of pack hunting and attacking sauropods. These small things help create more unique interactions and behaviors for various species which helps keep things refreshing.
I can't be the only one to make this observation. We are headed in a good direction, but we really need to keep up the momentum, make some changes, and avoid repeating blanket application of these behaviors and animations to too many species.
One of the first the team over at Frontier are to hear is likely about skins and dinosaur requests. The species the community want included into the game most tend to have some unique attribute that makes them stand apart from other species in the game. Skins just add another layer of making the animal more distinct from others in the game, this is all surface level stuff though. Herding behavior was another that helped separate some herbivore behavior from carnivore with JWE2 taking this up a notch. The territorial system has laid good groundwork for the future, but its really the new social animations and other small tweaks to shared animations that are helping distinguish species more than ever. However, the crowning achievement among all of these are the new behaviors that really sell a species as unique.
The finest example are the Velociraptors which can now climb non-electrified fences and pack hunt. However, it is also with the raptor and these behaviors that should really make it stand apart that we encounter one of the newly introduced homogeny problems. Instead of making the Velociraptor and possibly Deinonychus stand out more the rest, they kind of wind up just lost among a group of small carnivores that have also received these benefits for seemingly little reason.
Fence climbing can be performed by various small carnivores like Dilophosaurus, Proceratosaurus, and Herrerasaurus in addition to the dromaeosaurs. This actually doesn't help those three species much it actually just pulls the dromaeosaurs back down. Similarly, pack hunting also applies to Dilophosaurus and Proceratosaurus, again, creating more homogeny. What I wanted to see was more unique behavior being added a little at a time to groups of animals with a handful for specific species. The fence climbing and pack hunting applying to non-dromaeosaurs with only small variations in their animations is a bit disappointing.
Proceratosaurus, in particular, is the oddest one when I feel it should be more tame like Coelophysis and the current iteration of Troodon in that they are just ordinary small carnivores. Dilophosaurus has the most potential to distinguish itself, it spits blinding venom and there is an opportunity for a unique form of pack hunting without it having to leap and latch onto prey like dromaeosaurs. I mentioned Troodon as well, that is one I felt could have actually benefitted from pack hunting. Troodon is already unique since it has a venomous bite and if it pack hunts it could feasibly bring down a lot larger prey by repeated venomous bites, a much more skittish and nonconfrontational type of hunting. Compsognathus could also stand to be the swarmiest of species making up for its small size with the tremendous numbers and being disease carriers.
Other families such as hadrosaurs and sauropods especially appear to be increasingly the biggest victims of the homogeny. Every member of their family tends to have the same animations and behaviors. While its not feasible for every species to be entirely unique, they could use a few standouts among their ranks. For instance, the Olorotitan would have noticeably higher stats allowing it to better fend off predation while sauropods would be able to use their heavily muscled tails to really fight off predators. Allosaurus could stand out as the only medium carnivore capable of pack hunting and attacking sauropods. These small things help create more unique interactions and behaviors for various species which helps keep things refreshing.
I can't be the only one to make this observation. We are headed in a good direction, but we really need to keep up the momentum, make some changes, and avoid repeating blanket application of these behaviors and animations to too many species.