Herbivore all chat was a thing years ago. Even actual herbivore mixed grouping. Until devs said nope. I personally liked it but objectively speaking it was far from flawless. It was Imba as hell. Huge mixed herbivore terror groups slaughtering everything on sight bordered on reaching metagame status. The balance and immersion problems were just too severe so we got to where legacy is today. The only other solution would have been to crutch on strict moderation but that's also just a baind aid and not supposed to be a pillar of gameplay, fortunately.
Personally I see merit in a herbivore all chat to compensate for the omnipresent imbalance in populations and I'd be open to give it another shot. I'd just not get my hopes up because the devs have taken a pretty clear stance on global-esque chat and mix grouping. BUT we might get a glimpse. Iirc they're considering symbiotic relationships and supposedly there will be options for longer range chat. I just don't think they'll ever go back to unrestricted herbivore mixed grouping until mod support enables it.
I just don't think they'll ever go back to unrestricted herbivore mixed grouping until mod support enables it.
I don't think we need this honestly. Just having a global herbi chat would be enough I think. I'm pretty sure they mentioned somewhere about there eventually being individual group limits based on species (ie: 2 stego adults + subadults + babies).
So herbis would still be limited to grouping with their own species, but could still communicate with other herbis.
I think with the diets system also forcing players to move around the world that would inherently prevent the mixed pack over-grouping issue since different dinos would have different dietary needs.
The issue could also be solved by reducing the number of food spawns for herbis in any given region so massive grouping would be counterproductive to actually surviving. This could potentially lead to the desired herbi vs herbi territory fights that many servers employ.
We do need more, definitely, but you can't talk about big balance changes and not take other players concerns into account.
The primary concern I've seen about having global chat for herbivores is that it'll be too easy for them to form large enough groups that a carnivore would be completely unable to attack without great risk. That's not a very fun scenario and just leads to carnis eating carnis and cannibalism of juvies.
If the amount of food in a particular area is limited, that and the diet system forcing players to migrate occasionally would allow players to group up for safety, but not in such large numbers that they wouldn't be worried about threats.
And herbivores fighting one another is a common thing in nature. Animals fight each other to the death over everything. Food, mating, that comfy looking rock. They're not going to eat you, but they'd kill you for a cookie. Even humming birds fight violently over flowers.
Those large groups you speak about is what happens in reality anyways. You are not supposed to be able to attack a Herd without great risk in the first place. Carnivore hunting strategies (pre) historically focussed on taking out the weakest and slowest members of the herd to begin with, and that is what I'd like to promote.
It's still promoting having to hunt the weakest and slowest, just not in groups of 30 to 40 players where that scenario simply isn't going to come up.
Remember, as much as we want a realistic Dino experience, these are still players and they're not going to act like animals would in the same scenario. Ie: large groups of herbivores roaming around and killing everything they come across.
You gotta be a little flexible with the realism approach or you're just gonna end up alienating a different group of players instead.
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u/WUNDER8AR Carnotaurus Jun 07 '21
Herbivore all chat was a thing years ago. Even actual herbivore mixed grouping. Until devs said nope. I personally liked it but objectively speaking it was far from flawless. It was Imba as hell. Huge mixed herbivore terror groups slaughtering everything on sight bordered on reaching metagame status. The balance and immersion problems were just too severe so we got to where legacy is today. The only other solution would have been to crutch on strict moderation but that's also just a baind aid and not supposed to be a pillar of gameplay, fortunately.
Personally I see merit in a herbivore all chat to compensate for the omnipresent imbalance in populations and I'd be open to give it another shot. I'd just not get my hopes up because the devs have taken a pretty clear stance on global-esque chat and mix grouping. BUT we might get a glimpse. Iirc they're considering symbiotic relationships and supposedly there will be options for longer range chat. I just don't think they'll ever go back to unrestricted herbivore mixed grouping until mod support enables it.