UnReal World > Suggestions

Regarding Villagers/Village AI

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Bakkat:
Hi, there.

The character were going to pay a visit to my closest fellows' village.
It was the break of dawn and I approached by the sheep's side.

Long story short, a Lynx was in.

It seemed the rams and sheeps fought back really nicely, because the lynx was seriously wounded.
One of them was dead, the other one unconciouss. The rest could still walk, and they were in "scaping mode", frightened.

The lynx got unconcious by the character. And then the first dog came near by, barking.

People were still sleeping. So, so far, nice mechanism and coding. As soon as the lynx saw the character, it tried to flee, managing to dodge the fence as well. And checking the dead sheep, it was partially eaten.

(I feel pitty at first. Wondering first, how bad something like this represent for a village, winter coming.
And then, bad, about not beeing able to help that mess)

The suggestion comes this way:

People were "welcoming me" in a happy mood, as they kinda know the character.
And nobody would come near the fences, near the animals there with their diverse affections and wounds.
Dogs were around, but just that.
And people acted as if there was nothing going on there, like plain normal.

The character left the village by noon, and now it is down south.
He will come back again. And I don't really know what the character will found in the return, after a week or so.

There's a little picture of the pen. (PIC nº1)

EDIT:
After around a week the character went back.
This is what he's found: (PIC nº2)

That same day, around midnight, when the character was resting inside the biulding next to the animals, "a bleet of pain" and "running away" sounds rang the bell-alert.
Wolves attacked the same pen. Only one sheep left now.
I could see, in the very moment, how the villagers acted, as well as the dogs.
It was pretty dark, but it was really interesting how the AI worked then.

Furthermore, the character wielded a bow with a single arrow, going outside with caution. Saw one crippled in the spot, almost took it down, while trying to protect the southern side. The wolf receive it over the shoulder, and managed to disappear in the shadows. Hand Axe then, and could along with a dog, get near the pen. Again there was a mess of blood there. Finally, some of the villagers and the character could clean some terrain, and backed up to the biuldings. Now we all are in the main biulding sleeping, outside began to rain.

Was interesting to get the oportunity to see what I was calling the "AI".
I guess even players could run their own test, modifying and so on. And I kinda know devs could run tons even in a day...
But I just get into the game and play, roleplay and that stuff. Haven't made experiments out-side the playing scenarios.

Was nice to see be able to watch how those villagers moved and acted.
And the last "suggestion" was already working in-game.

Well, it is getting long.
I'll add that last night image...(PIC nº3) those last images would be better... (PIC nº4 I have woken everyone up by screenshooting lol, I'll save that sleeping image for myself instead <3)

ineedcords:

--- Quote from: Bakkat on April 23, 2022, 03:55:21 AM ---<snip>
The suggestion comes this way:

People were "welcoming me" in a happy mood, as they kinda know the character.
And nobody would come near the fences, near the animals there with their diverse affections and wounds.
Dogs were around, but just that.
And people acted as if there was nothing going on there, like plain normal.

The character left the village by noon, and now it is down south.
He will come back again. And I don't really know what the character will found in the return, after a week or so.

There's a little picture of the pen.

--- End quote ---
Thanks this was nice to read.

Let me tell you about a similar experience I had: upon entering a village after a wild animal (wolf) attack, I observed a similar situation. A lone wolf was running away and villagers as well as other in-pen-village-animals appeared clueless about the whole thing. As much as I can remember it was in a northern village, I cannot remember free-roaming dogs in the scene. At the time, I have had the exact feeling "wow what a mess!" and "wow these guys must all be blind!".
I was shocked!
It must have been that state of mind (shock, sadness, anger against the animal and the gods that allowed all this) that shook me to the core and made me things I should not have done.
I watched myself doing things like: enter the pen and butcher that downed animal(reindeer), go sell it to the very same village, and still under the influence of continued shock, come back, butcher the second downed animal, sell it also. Once all downed animals were all shall we say "cleaned", shock wore off.  Of course then I did come back to the battle ground to pay my respects - that's the right thing to do.
At the time I thought for a more believable game world, perhaps villagers should have acted better.

Circling back to your post, after saying "the suggestion comes this way", you do not explicitly suggest anything but continue to describe your observations of the village in the aftermath of the battle. Correct me if I am wrong but I am guessing what you are overtly suggesting is "let's not have this AI - let's have it better (i.e.: a more appropriate response to a wild animal attack)"? If so, I agree completely!

I thought about this scene at the time but as far as I can remember I did not post a suggestion - I am listing below a few of my thoughts on the matter.
I know AI programming is very hard with all sorts of unintended outcomes with every change and hard to test in general.
Plus all this below is lengthy to say the least but perhaps we can at least discuss and hear what @Sami & @Erkka think on this...

I think if current AI code allows such changes:

a) There could be an village-under-wildanimal-attack state. When it is activated, the village entities, meaning all in shouting-distance villagers/village dogs/any other in-pen animals that can get aggressive, should all counter-attack the village-attacking-wild-animal(s) to defend their lives & village property. Since not all humans/dogs/other animals are uniformly Terminator T-1000s, perhaps it could be added as a small chance to run away from the village (or hide in a nearby doored village building, until the battle is over). I think this would replicate the real world a tiny bit better.

b) There could be a village-post-wildanimal-attack state in which:

b1) One villager or more villagers (if 2 or more animals/humans were harmed during the attack) find themselves tasked with first-aid duty to try and stop bleeding of their fellow villagers & village animals. To do this efficiently, they could go fetch bandages from the nearby centrally located village-common-bandage-store (village first aid kit, the wise elders put together in advance).

b2) In this village-post-wildanimal-attack state there could be a high priority harvest the dead-animals duty (village property animals or wild animals). Villager or villagers (for parallel processing if multiple animals are downed) should start skinning/butchering the animals.

b3) In this village-post-wildanimal-attack state there could be a high priority guard harvest duty for the already dead-animals (village property animals or wild animals) that are being harvested by villagers. For any non-villager (even if friendly, such as a nice PC) approaching downed-animals villagers should first warn them to not touch/take the dead animals, just like they inform people who take their village property items & then warn potential-thieves when they walk away with village goods. If the warnings are not heeded (perhaps, after some extra warnings) villagers should eventually start attacking as a last resort, as an anti-thief behaviour, just to protect the village property (dead-animal).

b4) In this village-post-wildanimal-attack state there could be a high priority offer gratitude action which triggers only if during the recent battle PC assisted the village in their defense/counter-attack. Perhaps it could operate simply by counting successful strikes on village-invading-wild-animal(s) by the PC both with thrown objects & melee items.
In the post-battle-state villagers initiate a dialog and offer PC something as a gesture of thanks. Perhaps a pre-existing item from the village common store such as a few arrows, something balanced against the number of successful hits/strikes made by the PC on the wild-animal. Pre-existing so that this function is not tied to waiting for the (slow) processing of the dead-animal skin & meat (if any). And if no village-invading-wild-animal(s) are killed during the battle, village might still want to offer appreciation for PC's heroic action of risking their life to defend the village.

Bakkat:
Yes, I haven't made any suggestion, you're right. And thanks for the reply.

I know "AI always can get better"... And It isn't a easy task to recreate certain things in-game.

I guess my suggestion goes simple:

Villagers taking care of the loss... As you point out: meat, fur, bones, etc.

The rest I guess have different levels of complexity. Like messages from NPC, or other actions as well.

So, summarizing , Villagers cleaning up the pen.

(Maybe it is already how it is now in-game, haven't check the village again)

Well, that's it. Good-bye¡

Bakkat:
edditted

JP_Finn:
To same villager improvement, having them 1) avoid waterhole, even if frozen 2) if anyone happens to die within village, immediate vicinity: have the villagers process the remains.

I started new character and was cleaning and tanning a bear hide, one villager was hovering over and around the character. He stepped on to the thin ice (since tanning bear hide takes hours) fell through and just stood there until drowning. No one batted an eyelid for the death nor did anyone pickup any of his belongings nor the corpse.

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