Reaction to Soviet Womble's Isle Video essay?

[Scarecrow.exe]

https://youtu.be/cj7JzmEf-_c

This make the isle look awesome.
But looking into it it looks like the big innovation was "accidental" after all. With ai inhabitants being added?
I haven't played yet but what's the take away? Are the ai good or are they ruining this supposed innovation to the formula?

[rustyOkin]

An interesting video and I agree with almost everything he says. The only thing I disagree with is that Twist B lives off of role-play rules. Most players would prefer The Isle to follow BoP's formula in that sense that the game itself provides incentives and mechanics to play the game "properly". Intsead of relying someone to follow a rule and then being able to just chill right next to feasting carnivores once someone died. That's just bananas.

The real interesting part is that this is nothing new!
Many players who play The Isle for years now, myself included, already know that this player driven ecosystem is what makes this game so unique - even among dozens of other survival games. This goes all the way back to the -Progression times- where the game, maybe as mentioned in the video by accident, created such an ecosystem. However this topic has gained a lot of relevance recently. Just look through the forum and check how many people cry for more AI (which in some way I can at least understand) and complain about cannibalism (which in my opinion is absolutely laughable)

The game faces 2 fundamental challenges to provide and sustain an intersting ecosystems:

1) Herbivores
They are somewhat needed to make this game feel alive and provide a much needed balance to the ecosystem. Playing a herbivore doesn't mean you just are the prey and the one who gets chased all the time. I play carnivore 99% of the time, but not because I always want to be the hunter. In fact you will be hunted as a carnivore just as much and whenever I play a carnivore I mostly hunt other carnivores, simply becasue there are so few herbivores around.
The real problem lies within how boring basic herbivore gameplay is. You just walk around and pick up whatever you can eat. Which ironically is exactly what people are asking for when crying for more AI... but more about that later.
The devs need to focus on making herbivore gameplay more intersting, more challenging and add a bunch of entertaining mechanics and gimmics to them! Every herbi needs something special and fun goinig for it. That being said I'm pretty sure the upcoming features like the diet-system, nesting and perks will greatly improve how especially herbis play out. Diets will obvioulsy force them to move around the map while perks might encourage and reward group-/herd-play where herbivores can truly shine.

2) AI
This is where the community is somewhat split. There a bunch of players demanding more AI so their precious carnivore doesn't need to starve, completely ignoring that this feeling of urgency is exactly what makes carnis so interesting and herbis so boring. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any AI especially on low populated servers but I'd rather see my carnivore struggle to find food and maybe starve to death than walk from one spawned carcass to another. (similar to what we saw in the BoP-clip in the video) Same goes for fish or any other AI food source of course...
This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of abundance of food even happend in the legacy version of The Isle which makes it even more puzzling to me why some people still cry for more AI and easier watered-down gameplay. AI-snacks were more or less thrown at you, spawning right next to you while basically screaming "EAT ME"
Finding the right balance of a healthy AI spawn rate that just "supports" the carnivore population while still forcing them to hunt other players is probably the most important callenge for the devs. Too few or no AI and surviving as carnivore becomes almost impossible - too many AI and it becomes a boring buffet.

by the way:
The amount of AI is also the best and easiest way to regulate the amout of apex-predators on a server. Many people have thought of ways to prevent apex megapacks by limiting numbers etc. The reason why there were so many Giga and Rex players in legacy was because growing and sustaining these dinos was still relatively easy. If the server simply doesn't provide enough food for X amout of large carnivores then they end up starving or killing/eating each other.

[luZk]

I kinda have a problem with mixed packs, it looks so arcady and silly.

They could fix this with a safety-meter, beeing close to other species og dino's stresses your dino out making food and water drop somehing like 10-20% faster.

Beeing in a group of your own species could even offer your food and water to drop 10-20% slower. This one should imo only apply to herbivores. Give people a reason to play the herbivores more.

Also carnivores should be able to be stressed by other species of carnivores.

[Martial Melody]

I just bought the game because of his essay!

[Pablo Croft]

Game mechanics are key, not human admins. Human admins are key when the game's the game's mechanics aren't there, or are lacking in some way. <---The later is what we have in both versions of the game, currently. But, we don't have those human admins on official servers, so that in of itself is a problem, and why I don't play yet.

[Khanivore]

Originally posted by Rusty:

An interesting video and I agree with almost everything he says. The only thing I disagree with is that Twist B lives off of role-play rules. Most players would prefer The Isle to follow BoP's formula in that sense that the game itself provides incentives and mechanics to play the game "properly". Intsead of relying someone to follow a rule and then being able to just chill right next to feasting carnivores once someone died. That's just bananas.

The real interesting part is that this is nothing new!
Many players who play The Isle for years now, myself included, already know that this player driven ecosystem is what makes this game so unique - even among dozens of other survival games. This goes all the way back to the -Progression times- where the game, maybe as mentioned in the video by accident, created such an ecosystem. However this topic has gained a lot of relevance recently. Just look through the forum and check how many people cry for more AI (which in some way I can at least understand) and complain about cannibalism (which in my opinion is absolutely laughable)

The game faces 2 fundamental challenges to provide and sustain an intersting ecosystems:

1) Herbivores
They are somewhat needed to make this game feel alive and provide a much needed balance to the ecosystem. Playing a herbivore doesn't mean you just are the prey and the one who gets chased all the time. I play carnivore 99% of the time, but not because I always want to be the hunter. In fact you will be hunted as a carnivore just as much and whenever I play a carnivore I mostly hunt other carnivores, simply becasue there are so few herbivores around.
The real problem lies within how boring basic herbivore gameplay is. You just walk around and pick up whatever you can eat. Which ironically is exactly what people are asking for when crying for more AI... but more about that later.
The devs need to focus on making herbivore gameplay more intersting, more challenging and add a bunch of entertaining mechanics and gimmics to them! Every herbi needs something special and fun goinig for it. That being said I'm pretty sure the upcoming features like the diet-system, nesting and perks will greatly improve how especially herbis play out. Diets will obvioulsy force them to move around the map while perks might encourage and reward group-/herd-play where herbivores can truly shine.

2) AI
This is where the community is somewhat split. There a bunch of players demanding more AI so their precious carnivore doesn't need to starve, completely ignoring that this feeling of urgency is exactly what makes carnis so interesting and herbis so boring. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any AI especially on low populated servers but I'd rather see my carnivore struggle to find food and maybe starve to death than walk from one spawned carcass to another. (similar to what we saw in the BoP-clip in the video) Same goes for fish or any other AI food source of course...
This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of abundance of food even happend in the legacy version of The Isle which makes it even more puzzling to me why some people still cry for more AI and easier watered-down gameplay. AI-snacks were more or less thrown at you, spawning right next to you while basically screaming "EAT ME"
Finding the right balance of a healthy AI spawn rate that just "supports" the carnivore population while still forcing them to hunt other players is probably the most important callenge for the devs. Too few or no AI and surviving as carnivore becomes almost impossible - too many AI and it becomes a boring buffet.

by the way:
The amount of AI is also the best and easiest way to regulate the amout of apex-predators on a server. Many people have thought of ways to prevent apex megapacks by limiting numbers etc. The reason why there were so many Giga and Rex players in legacy was because growing and sustaining these dinos was still relatively easy. If the server simply doesn't provide enough food for X amout of large carnivores then they end up starving or killing/eating each other.

+1

People that really want a lot of AI should play Herbs as this is addressed with this group, if you play a Pred then expect to kill other players or starve, this does make for an intense player driven ecosystem, updates on the diets system to spread the population out will be welcome, The Isle does feel unique in this way having what is a near complete player driven ecosystem in a survival game, hopefully it will only get better

[bigmoe808]

Best part is 16:53 and 16:57

[Khanivore]

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

Best part is 16:53 and 16:57

Lol yeah.. straight after it also gets really good at explaining why The Isle just work's, is unique and is so addictive being a high stakes game of hide and seek :)

[TrueAvarus]

Originally posted by A Ninja:

I just bought the game because of his essay!

Wellcome to the big boys

[TrueAvarus]

I love the video, it might bring many new players to the game like he did with Arma3. Now lets put some pressure to developer to work more on evrima.

[Madkou]

They could easily

Originally posted by Khanivore:

Originally posted by Rusty:

An interesting video and I agree with almost everything he says. The only thing I disagree with is that Twist B lives off of role-play rules. Most players would prefer The Isle to follow BoP's formula in that sense that the game itself provides incentives and mechanics to play the game "properly". Intsead of relying someone to follow a rule and then being able to just chill right next to feasting carnivores once someone died. That's just bananas.

The real interesting part is that this is nothing new!
Many players who play The Isle for years now, myself included, already know that this player driven ecosystem is what makes this game so unique - even among dozens of other survival games. This goes all the way back to the -Progression times- where the game, maybe as mentioned in the video by accident, created such an ecosystem. However this topic has gained a lot of relevance recently. Just look through the forum and check how many people cry for more AI (which in some way I can at least understand) and complain about cannibalism (which in my opinion is absolutely laughable)

The game faces 2 fundamental challenges to provide and sustain an intersting ecosystems:

1) Herbivores
They are somewhat needed to make this game feel alive and provide a much needed balance to the ecosystem. Playing a herbivore doesn't mean you just are the prey and the one who gets chased all the time. I play carnivore 99% of the time, but not because I always want to be the hunter. In fact you will be hunted as a carnivore just as much and whenever I play a carnivore I mostly hunt other carnivores, simply becasue there are so few herbivores around.
The real problem lies within how boring basic herbivore gameplay is. You just walk around and pick up whatever you can eat. Which ironically is exactly what people are asking for when crying for more AI... but more about that later.
The devs need to focus on making herbivore gameplay more intersting, more challenging and add a bunch of entertaining mechanics and gimmics to them! Every herbi needs something special and fun goinig for it. That being said I'm pretty sure the upcoming features like the diet-system, nesting and perks will greatly improve how especially herbis play out. Diets will obvioulsy force them to move around the map while perks might encourage and reward group-/herd-play where herbivores can truly shine.

2) AI
This is where the community is somewhat split. There a bunch of players demanding more AI so their precious carnivore doesn't need to starve, completely ignoring that this feeling of urgency is exactly what makes carnis so interesting and herbis so boring. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying there shouldn't be any AI especially on low populated servers but I'd rather see my carnivore struggle to find food and maybe starve to death than walk from one spawned carcass to another. (similar to what we saw in the BoP-clip in the video) Same goes for fish or any other AI food source of course...
This ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of abundance of food even happend in the legacy version of The Isle which makes it even more puzzling to me why some people still cry for more AI and easier watered-down gameplay. AI-snacks were more or less thrown at you, spawning right next to you while basically screaming "EAT ME"
Finding the right balance of a healthy AI spawn rate that just "supports" the carnivore population while still forcing them to hunt other players is probably the most important callenge for the devs. Too few or no AI and surviving as carnivore becomes almost impossible - too many AI and it becomes a boring buffet.

by the way:
The amount of AI is also the best and easiest way to regulate the amout of apex-predators on a server. Many people have thought of ways to prevent apex megapacks by limiting numbers etc. The reason why there were so many Giga and Rex players in legacy was because growing and sustaining these dinos was still relatively easy. If the server simply doesn't provide enough food for X amout of large carnivores then they end up starving or killing/eating each other.

+1

People that really want a lot of AI should play Herbs as this is addressed with this group, if you play a Pred then expect to kill other players or starve, this does make for an intense player driven ecosystem, updates on the diets system to spread the population out will be welcome, The Isle does feel unique in this way having what is a near complete player driven ecosystem in a survival game, hopefully it will only get better

They could easily just make this a carnie game, and turn all the herbs into prey AI prey items. Some fight back, and some don't. This of course won't happen, but, they do need to make herbie game play more compelling this go around. Not just another carnie 2.0 neither.

[Bunzmaster]

I admit I picked up The isle because of his video Essay. I heard his warning that suggested maybe not to buy The isle, but a survival game with Dinosaurs was too hard to pass up.

I only have 23 hours played so far. I've played a few Carni's and a few Herbi's and I don't see too much of this Admin enforced player behavior that he mentioned. My chat window is always up and I constantly see people messaging about Body down, complaining about other players, and many requests for people to read and follow the rules of the server (Join the discord etc etc) but it seems like a free for all most of the time.

Herbi's viciously protecting the dead bodies of fallen comrades. Carni's attacking fresh spawned enemies on the beach, Hebi's attacking Carni's out of revenge for killing/attacking a herd member etc etc

You spend hours growing your Dino and a pack of *insert name here* chase and try and kill you even though there's a giant carcass nearby and you already signaled your intentions to get the hell out of the area.
To quote Soviet in his video "getting killed just for the lul's". It still happens in The Isle. Just not as much as in other games.

He definitely made the game seem better than it is. However, so far, I'm still enjoying it.

[bigmoe808]

Originally posted by Bunzmaster:

I admit I picked up The isle because of his video Essay. I heard his warning that suggested maybe not to buy The isle, but a survival game with Dinosaurs was too hard to pass up.

I only have 23 hours played so far. I've played a few Carni's and a few Herbi's and I don't see too much of this Admin enforced player behavior that he mentioned. My chat window is always up and I constantly see people messaging about Body down, complaining about other players, and many requests for people to read and follow the rules of the server (Join the discord etc etc) but it seems like a free for all most of the time.

Herbi's viciously protecting the dead bodies of fallen comrades. Carni's attacking fresh spawned enemies on the beach, Hebi's attacking Carni's out of revenge for killing/attacking a herd member etc etc

You spend hours growing your Dino and a pack of *insert name here* chase and try and kill you even though there's a giant carcass nearby and you already signaled your intentions to get the hell out of the area.
To quote Soviet in his video "getting killed just for the lul's". It still happens in The Isle. Just not as much as in other games.

He definitely made the game seem better than it is. However, so far, I'm still enjoying it.

Are you playing official or unofficial?

Official Servers don't uphold or enforce any rules. It is as natural as it can get and survival is left to your own skill and luck.

Unofficial/Private Servers are the ones that do via their shared discord.

[Bunzmaster]

I have only played unofficial. I have read here the official ones are quite laggy and they are usually far down on the list with high ping (for me)

[bigmoe808]

Originally posted by Bunzmaster:

I have only played unofficial. I have read here the official ones are quite laggy and they are usually far down on the list with high ping (for me)

Ahkay. Well, to let you know, unofficial servers settle things on their discord. Typically with recordings. That aside, it really just depends on the server as not all admins are the same.

[Bunzmaster]

Originally posted by bigmoe808:

Originally posted by Bunzmaster:

I have only played unofficial. I have read here the official ones are quite laggy and they are usually far down on the list with high ping (for me)

Ahkay. Well, to let you know, unofficial servers settle things on their discord. Typically with recordings. That aside, it really just depends on the server as not all admins are the same.

Ah! I see. Thanks for explaining that. I'll try other servers and see how it goes.