Mounts intelligent behavior (AI)

Ideas
#1

Summary
AI means here intelligent behavior not artificial intelligence! By Mounts I literally mean mean Mounts that you can ride.
Since Mounts haven’t been added yet but been discussed by the devs I thought it would be best wise to give now ideas for Mounts. So that they don’t have the rework the whole Mount system later when players voice their opinions. Btw these are just ideas I came up with and I’m open for a discussion. Also the reason why I created a new post was because I’ve got many different ideas and I don’t feel like splitting them up.

Everything mounts

Random ideas for Mounts:

  • Let us attach portable music boxes with music discs onto the ears of mounts and carriages: Can be made louder and more quiet manually.
  • Let us wash our mounts :soap:
    Mounts that can pull: a carriage, caravans, wheeled carts (got this idea from the community)
  • Have official mount races
  • Some mounts could find certain objects easier because of their heightened senses: For example can find a certain material in the forest
    *There could be different specialized mounts
  • Mounts should still feel alive even when the owner isn’t around
  • Can place a saddle on it: Saddle has side pockets for a little bit storage

AI

  • Some mounts could be used for logging
  • A saturated Mount should store food it finds for the player
  • If a Mount sees another Mount they should interact: Maybe wander around together or lay down together and just chill. Important is that it should notice it’s presence
  • Some mount could store water in mouth like elephants
  • Mounts should feel alive and should be able to operate without players.
  • Some mounts can be lead in packs
  • Mounts should be able to carry stuff by attaching a giant basket on its back for when you want travel with a lot
  • Mounts should lay down and go to sleep at night (in game night) as long as you aren’t on them
  • Mounts would lay down after 10* min if you don’t interact with them and just watch you or wander around in a close radius and look for food and water
  • Some Mounts should be able to swim in water
  • Mounts come to your rescue when your life is low
  • If a mount sees food, it should be intelligent enough to go to it and eat it by itself
  • If it sees a predator, the mount won’t go to the food source because its afraid of the predator
  • If an obstacle such as a giant stone blocks a food source, the Mount should push it away to get to the food
  • Mount should attack enemies or predators that are below their attack level and run away from enemies or predators (aggressive) that are stronger than them.
  • Should run to its owner and make noises when its health is dangerously low
  • If it sees a water source such as a lake when it’s dirty, it should go in there to clean itself
  • Mounts should be able to be intrigued by certain objects or creatures: For example it sees a shriggen and just watches it closely
  • Some mounts could notify you of a thread
  • Mounts could pull plough when farming is added

Short:
Don’t make Mounts dumb. Make them real. Give them basic behaviors to interact with their environment. These behaviors heavily lean into immersion.

Noteworthy:
What started this brainstorming was the developers showing interest in Mounts and Edits thread on Standardization of taming and tamable creatures which takes about the taming and development of Mounts

#2

Yeah, there is so much depth that could be added with simple behaviors that make them actually feel alive.

I kind of think most of this (besides riding related stuff) also applies to all pets and such, though I guess that’s obvious since you mentioned my post about “Standardization of taming and tamable creatures”.

Through it would be really interesting, if they used mounts as a starting point for tamed creatures, building on the mechanics with a few mounts that don’t need anything too out there staying to non flying stuff that can only really get to places a horse could. Making base line they can improve on.

Should note that something important with behaviors like this is you can quickly make the animal seem dumb if it also doesn’t take into account previous experiences, such as the animal trying to eat apples from a stall and getting scolded for doing so, because by gosh I will put down a horse if the dumb frick keeps trying to eat apples it shouldn’t be for the hundredth time.

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#3

Yeah, that’s what I also think. Just having many simple behaviors to start off is enough to feel real whilst still allowing for the developers to expand on it for more complex behaviors.

Yeah. So they could reuse many assets and behaviors. Also they’d be more experienced.

Yes, but no. I mean you’re right that any Mounts whatsoever would appear dumb if it doesn’t take past experiences into account but I believe that smaller efforts can make up for that because most likely developing a system for past experiences is a monstrosity.
For your example maybe signs could be added to mark areas as “off limit” or leashes could be used to prevent for the animal to walk off.

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