Randomly Generated Mobs

Randomly generated mobs are not good enough to be the main form of enemies and probably never will be. I kind of hate to say this. I know shifting away from them would be a very big deal that would mean a lot of new work for the devs, but I can't foresee this system ever yielding satisfying encounters, no matter how much they improve on it.

They look bad. There's a distinct gap in quality between a random-gen monster sprite and something like this. It quickly becomes apparent that they're just a handful of "parts" cobbled together. Some parts, or combinations of parts, are particularly distracting as your brain tries to work out "what is that supposed to look like?" Before long you start to see repeated parts, and it really sinks in how disposable and interchangeable mob appearance is. In the end it's only a marginal improvement over having every "species" of a given creature type look identical. The idea of the awesome diversity of interstellar nature becomes utterly underwhelming.

Their behavior is bad. Granted, this is probably still very much being worked on, but I don't see how it could ever become good enough. Their means of attack are reasonably varied (though you still often see repeats), but their styles of movement are basically 100% determined by whether they are a bird, or not a bird. The real trouble is that adding additional movement types would either highlight how rigid and interchangeable the sprites are. Let's say they make a vertical-dive style of movement for birds. Are they going to perform these dives while keeping their bodies totally upright as they always do (which would look absurd), or are the devs going to create several more images for each bird-part to allow them to tuck their wings and point their heads toward the ground? This, just to add one move movement type for one creature type, and how many more will be necessary?

They're overexposed. Random-gen mobs are everywhere. They're on every planet that supports life, in every biome, at all layers of depth. The player sees "new" mobs constantly- bombarded by "uniqueness" until uniqueness itself becomes banal. This is depressing to say, much less experience.

The goal is impossible. The goal of a random-gen monster system is to have infinite, or near-infinite, uniqueness, but the result is that nearly creature on every planet//star-system/biome/difficulty tier may as well be the same. Attempting to add meaningful uniqueness to this system is an increasingly herculean task. It doesn't make sense to keep developing this system when the effort:results ratio is so poor.

I would recommend that random-gen mobs be used only for mostly non-hostile surface fauna. This would drastically reduce exposure and it would become ok that they are boring to fight. Then new mobs can developed whole-cloth. These new mobs would have sprites specifically designed to suit their unique movements, attacks styles, and the environments they dwell in. Having even a relatively small number of such mobs with re-skins and palette swaps would make for much more memorable and satisfying creatures than the millions of permutations that the random-gen system allows- and best of all, you could always make "one more" with far less effort than attempting to adapt the current system.

tldr- please make mobs more like this:

 

Randomly generated mobs( i'll call RGM) aren't the main form of enemies....just the most common
In the main storyline there is no RGM ( The missions, for now)

the purpose of RGM is to add a unique
environment for every planet in the galaxy, to encourage the exploration

 

Thanks for reading the first sentence of my post. They do not add a unique environment for every planet, nor do they encourage exploration.

 

...unless you are looking for Derrick, of course.

While I don't find the look all that bad, I do agree that after a few planets it does feel like the same old same old. You may not know the exact monster bits or colors they will have, but you do know what you will find.
The mini-dungeons could help out with this when digging, but I don't know whether they will be refined to include critters of their own or left as the empry rooms we find now.

 

I think a wider variety of types may help this. Presently there are how many primary types of monsters?
-small surface quadruped (aggressive/not)
-small surface biped (aggressive/not)
-birds
-big birds
-mini-boss
-big fish
-lil fish

No tall-legged spider critters, no snake locomotion, no crustaceans... it's sounding like just introducing more types of locomotion could create quick diversity.

 

I agree absolutely that the lack of locomotive diversity is the main problem. The trouble is though, if they add more random-gen locomotion-types, they'd have to draw up a whole plethora of new parts for each new type of locomotion, and then they'll quickly become boring same-y mish-mash just like the existing mobs.

I feel like they'd do better to just make a whole creature looks good and is fun to fight, then make some reskins and make use of palette swaps to build up diversity. It'd be a much smaller number than randomly-generated combinations, but the quality would make up for it, imo.

For example no one ever played Metroid and said "ugh these monsters are all the same" despite the fact that everyone who played Metroid recognized that almost every area has some sort of monster that crawls along in one direction until it reaches an edge and then rotates to the next surface and continues. It never bothers you because they all look good, and they're a good fit for their environments and the gameplay mechanics.

As for the problem (although no one's brought it up yet) of it being unrealistic for life forms to be so similar on an interstellar scale, Starbound's lore already seems to be indicating some kind of mysterious super-race that built gates everywhere and possibly had a hand in each intelligent species' development. It's not unreasonable to consider that their influence might have also resulted in pan-galactic similarities in certain creatures. Or it could even just be convergent evolution. No one really knows how inconceivably different- or similar- extraterrestrial life might be.

 

So let's add a pre generated mob to all planets. only with diferent colors, will make alot of sense at all and will not be boring

 

There's an existing theory for life in our own Universe, called Panspermia, which posits that all life is colonized from space and will follow similar paths due to the nature of evolution and RNA. Not like alien manipulation as much as a tendency for organic Carbon molecules to survive and reproduce. We are not in the first generations of stars after all, who knows if we were seeded by an asteroid after the Earth cooled. The alternative to this theory is that organic molecules (proto RNA/proteins) in the ocean somehow became affixed to Calcite crystals and were able to replicate, thus beginning the natural selection spiral.

 

I can imagine that some non-random monster encounters could be made fun through the inclusion of some kind of 'galactic threat'. Tentacle monster could be a good example. While scanning over a system for an interesting planet, you see one highlighted with a red exclamation mark or something, indicating a hostile invasion of some sort. Somewhere on this planet would be a mini-biome or dungeon of sorts with some nice loot and a host of specially made, tough mobs for you to fight; like cute, little tentacle comets.
There could be other kinds like a robotic invasion, or even something like a miniknog illegal mining operation polluting the atmosphere.

It'd be neat to have a threat available on planets that you could actively work towards overthrowing, and if you really wanted to, dismantle them entirely.

 

...Who is this Derrick I keep hearing about?

 

http://community.playstarbound.com/...ick-need-help-finding-certain-creature.64012/

 

This is not what I'm suggesting at all. I feel like you're doing this on purpose.

 

From digging in the files to make parts... We should soon have:
Large and Small Bipeds,
Large and Small Quadrupeds,
Large and Small Birds,
Large and Small Fish,
Crawling monsters (one small-ish size)
And lastly, Giant Monsters (Biped only, currently).

There are only a few files for crawlers and giants right now, but crawlers can climb up backgrounds and look like dedicated spider types.. Whereas the giants might replace mini-bosses, but otherwise, they're as big as trees!

Mini-bosses -quadruped, biped, and large bird, possibly large fish as well, But I haven't seen one- are more of a set of rules and effects applied to a fairly normal monster, they pull their parts from the normal monster part pools.

 

I think some variety to the monster types would help. Spiders and Giants mentioned above, but I would also like to see worm types that dig through the earth, which may have been hinted at with that mole boss. Plant fauna should come to life! Something that seems like an environmental hazard that is actually a moving, living creature would give some surprise to the planets.

In addition to OP's point, some biome/environmental specific creatures that are unique would help in my opinion. Perhaps some rare creatures that live in the core of planets, or occasionally an upper atmosphere dwelling lifeform. They could make them within varying stages of basic technological advancement, perhaps a good bit behind the Agaran menace.

Pick apart my thoughts!

 

Well then
That helps

 

Randomgen tunnel monsters akin to Terrarias worms would be cool.
I'd also want to see small bug critters like the little one-block-sized bug things in every metroid game (so many designs for these, and some could spit stuff!)

If I knew how to add completely new monster types.. I might attempt to do .. something.


Ooooh, immobile plant monsters with range attacks could be very neat. Naturally spawning turret enemies.

 

There's actually a planned plant monster (I think it is, anyway) in the files

 

Found it, it's called "allergen", looks like the mario 3 underwater plants that spit four red flashy bits.

 

Aside from needing more types of creatures, I think it needs to be LESS structured.


I mean, as soon as you land on a planet, while you don't know EXACTLY what's coming up, you know you're
going to encounter this setup every single time:

- A passive small monster
- An aggressive small monster
- An aggressive large monster (probably with a projectile attack)
- A passive bird
- An aggressive bird
- A passive underground small monster
- An aggressive underground small monster
- An aggressive underground large monster (probably with a projectile attack)
- They'll all be the same regardless of time of day and weather.


Instead of this system, there should simply be, let's say, 10 monster slots per planet.

Every one of them could be any size. They could be either passive or aggressive, regardless
of size and number of passive and-or aggressive. The time of day each comes out at could
be randomized. Whether they appear above ground, underground or both could be randomized.

And, of course, more monster varieties.

Aside from the new monster types Oberic stated may be coming up soon, I have some other ideas.

- Bug: Half-flightless, half-flying. They travel on the ground, but randomly take to the skies to attack. Attacks
could include ramming, diving, bite, venomous bite, needle storm, body slam (when grounded)

- Digger: Hides in ground tiles. Aggressive diggers come up to attack when the player approaches; passives
only attack when dug up by the player.

- Serpent: Made up of multiple body segments. Attacks include charging, lunging, venomous or non-venomous
bite, may have armor which leaves the head as the only vulnerable segment.

- Worm: A cross between digger and serpent. Would be slow and bulky and tough, maybe with a possible "blood suck" attack
which both damages the player and heals them. Giant-class worms might leave actual tunnels as they dig.

And more importantly, there should NOT have to be one of each type of monster on every planet.

Imagine landing on a planet that seems peaceful...only to be attack by swarms of aggressive birds at night!
Or setting foot on a barren desert with no life, just to learnt that by some freak chance, the entire underground
is infested with ENORMOUS worms that attack on sight! Or, imagine an actually peaceful world where
nothing wants to kill you!

Every planet would be a surprise; with so many possible variables, you'd never know for sure what's up next.

 

Is it possible to mod this in?? I would freaking love that! .... I think I'm gonna file-dive.