Dinos don't feel alive?

[[:TMSA:] The Xenoborg]

While of course this is a video game and the dinos aren't really alive, I still feel in the context of Jurassic World and Jurassic Park, the dinos feel...synthetic and robotic.

One of the major things giving me this feeling is the lack of a sleep/energy system for them. I feel the sleep/energy system is in the DNA of the game, except it was either incomplete or disabled for the time being.

Another thing that makes them feel inauthentic is that most dino categories are interchangable. You could replace a big carnivore for example, with another big carnivore and it wouldn't make a difference. The litle details that made a T-Rex a T-Rex, or an Allosaurus and Allosaurus seem to be missing. Maybe I'm stretching it too far, but there's nothing making the dinos unique from each other, no unique behaviour or anything.

There's so much more, and I'm sure people can point out more of such things in the game that make it a less authentic/passionate experience than Operation Genesis.

[Jaded]

You had my interest... Until the very end.
Discarded as another "why is this not JPOG 2018"

[Sean]

It's weird that JPOG somehow has better dinosaur AI than this game. I mean, it wasn't perfect by any stretch but at least it had herding/pack mechanics.

[E c h o]

they should add sleeping dinos in night mode because they are not nocturnul

[Dominian]

Creating an ecological balance, herd movement, predators that only hunt when hungry and herbivores that only panic when actually hunted would be a start.

Personally I would have hoped for a scenario where the dinosaurs could actually change sex and couple, but the way the game is, you breed an animal for longjevity which looks the same for the 200 days of its life.

I'm not unreasonable. I get why they don't want to make a baby dinosaur, plus interactions with the baby and breakout baby dino AI and mother/father AI etc. , but it does feel kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when your dino lives that long and doesn't even grow. They just all live in that tiny little concrete jungle where the indominus rex was brought into the world as a loner/sociopath dino WITH THE URGE TO KILL FOR FUN!!! *dun dun dun*

So yeah, actually having a habitat designated to the funtion of growing up babies would be nice and of course the herd movement with differently sized dinos would be even cooler.

I could go on and on about how this game lacks depth in every aspect, but I'm still not sure which specific improvent would actually turn this into an interesting game after having done all the missions...

more missions, I guess and more islands. Just having better Dino AI won't cut it and also you need them to be predictable to the player. It's bad enough with the Velociraptors being so aggressive.

[[:TMSA:] The Xenoborg]

Originally posted by Dominian:

Creating an ecological balance, herd movement, predators that only hunt when hungry and herbivores that only panic when actually hunted would be a start.

Personally I would have hoped for a scenario where the dinosaurs could actually change sex and couple, but the way the game is, you breed an animal for longjevity which looks the same for the 200 days of its life.

I'm not unreasonable. I get why they don't want to make a baby dinosaur, plus interactions with the baby and breakout baby dino AI and mother/father AI etc. , but it does feel kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when your dino lives that long and doesn't even grow. They just all live in that tiny little concrete jungle where the indominus rex was brought into the world as a loner/sociopath dino WITH THE URGE TO KILL FOR FUN!!! *dun dun dun*

So yeah, actually having a habitat designated to the funtion of growing up babies would be nice and of course the herd movement with differently sized dinos would be even cooler.

I could go on and on about how this game lacks depth in every aspect, but I'm still not sure which specific improvent would actually turn this into an interesting game after having done all the missions...

more missions, I guess and more islands. Just having better Dino AI won't cut it and also you need them to be predictable to the player. It's bad enough with the Velociraptors being so aggressive.

Yes, dinos killing each other for the heck of it, no instinct for survival, no herds, no packs, not grazing from the environmental trees/grass when there's no food dispenser, lack of playful behaviour in social herbivores, even the goats seem chill next to predators, dinos having no collision with each other and so many other weird game design choices make the game seem more and more...fake.

[! Murciee ♥]

Originally posted by Dominian:

Creating an ecological balance, herd movement, predators that only hunt when hungry and herbivores that only panic when actually hunted would be a start.

Personally I would have hoped for a scenario where the dinosaurs could actually change sex and couple, but the way the game is, you breed an animal for longjevity which looks the same for the 200 days of its life.

I'm not unreasonable. I get why they don't want to make a baby dinosaur, plus interactions with the baby and breakout baby dino AI and mother/father AI etc. , but it does feel kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when your dino lives that long and doesn't even grow. They just all live in that tiny little concrete jungle where the indominus rex was brought into the world as a loner/sociopath dino WITH THE URGE TO KILL FOR FUN!!! *dun dun dun*

So yeah, actually having a habitat designated to the funtion of growing up babies would be nice and of course the herd movement with differently sized dinos would be even cooler.

I could go on and on about how this game lacks depth in every aspect, but I'm still not sure which specific improvent would actually turn this into an interesting game after having done all the missions...

more missions, I guess and more islands. Just having better Dino AI won't cut it and also you need them to be predictable to the player. It's bad enough with the Velociraptors being so aggressive.

I knew this wasn't a sim, but I really wanted this out of the game. Isn't this also part of what the movies are about? I definately agree with you... that would make the game so good.

[Dominian]

*quotes two above*

When I think Jurrassic Park, I actually think about the T-Rex hunting the herds of Gallimimus in their encloruse after breaking out. And then he eats it and chills out for a bit and doesn't run after every other Gallimimus like a rabid autist on a feeding frenzy.

They did a very clean and perfect balance for casual players on PS4 and Xbox. It's not easy to make a sim cross-plattform like that, but I'm sure it's good on those consoles. That also means a console player has to be able to predict the AI and must be able to run it on his limited CPU.

The problem with AI is that complexities usually increase the need for CPU power facultatively or squarely (not a native speaker, I don't know math-words). But I'm sure the herd thing could be done quite easily with a herd event coming up per chance after time X under the condition of having Y animals in the enclosure of the same herd group. That would make them follow a single moving herd spot for a while and then end. This plus a collision check can't be so hard to encode. I don't know why they weren't bothered by that themselves.

[! Murciee ♥]

Originally posted by Dominian:

Creating an ecological balance, herd movement, predators that only hunt when hungry and herbivores that only panic when actually hunted would be a start.

Personally I would have hoped for a scenario where the dinosaurs could actually change sex and couple, but the way the game is, you breed an animal for longjevity which looks the same for the 200 days of its life.

I'm not unreasonable. I get why they don't want to make a baby dinosaur, plus interactions with the baby and breakout baby dino AI and mother/father AI etc. , but it does feel kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥ when your dino lives that long and doesn't even grow. They just all live in that tiny little concrete jungle where the indominus rex was brought into the world as a loner/sociopath dino WITH THE URGE TO KILL FOR FUN!!! *dun dun dun*

So yeah, actually having a habitat designated to the funtion of growing up babies would be nice and of course the herd movement with differently sized dinos would be even cooler.

I could go on and on about how this game lacks depth in every aspect, but I'm still not sure which specific improvent would actually turn this into an interesting game after having done all the missions...

more missions, I guess and more islands. Just having better Dino AI won't cut it and also you need them to be predictable to the player. It's bad enough with the Velociraptors being so aggressive.

Maybe they could make a seperate ecosystem mode, something like that... that would be cool... or a setting to make them reproduce or not.