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[ChickenFetus]

I'm curious what to you makes ai creature interactions more visually interesting to watch, even if you're not actually interacting with it (e.g creature vs creature)? Do you have any examples from particular games that really stand out to you? It doesn't have to even be combat, just interactions in general.

For me personally, I'm not at all fond of creatures in games that run towards the nearest rival and the two then proceed to stand in front of each other, smacking or snapping at each other, until one falls over and dies. I like creatures that have combat methods that are visually interesting, or they even do things besides directly attack each other.

 (To clarify, this question is meant more for games where ai creature interactions are an integral part of the gameplay, such as hunting games or where you play as animals, or games that can involve a lot of watching creatures such as zoo-building or ecosystem-building games. Rather than typical shooter/rpg-hack-and-slash games.)


Here's some examples of things I've seen in games that made creature interactions funner to watch.


Multiple Attacks/ Multiple Attack Animations
In Halflife bullsquids can shoot slime, tailwhip and bite. This for me made them way funner to watch than if they just stood still and snapped at other creatures.

For a mod example, in Garrys Mod I downloaded two mods that used the same raptor model and animations (from 2005 Turok). One only had a single animation for it's attack, the other had several animations for the same attack. I could watch the latter way more often whereas the former became boring very quickly

Grabbing/Resistance
Basically offensive creatures try to restrain, or latch onto prey or defensive opponents, while defensive opponent tries to escape.

In Saurian and Jurassic Park Operation Genesis, raptors pounce onto the backs of dinosaurs and bite them while the prey thrashes about (although Saurian's system is more realistic). The upcoming Wolfquest reboot has a similar system where wolves can bite and hang onto certain body parts of prey, or rival wolves, who thrash or fight back. In Rainworld, certain lizards have long tongues that they can use to grab prey to bring towards their mouths. Certain carnivorous plants and monsters in that game had tentacles that they used in a similar manner.


Something I'd also like to see more of are prey or defensive creatures stun or knock-back enemies so they can make a break for it. So far the only game I can think of that did this was Jurassic Park Operation Genesis (although mods made it better and extended the system to other prey animals)

Skittishness

Now I don't mean passive creatures* but rather creatures that want to fight but are reluctant to do so unless the situation is favorable.
 In one of the wolfquest reboot devlogs, coyote packs would defend kills from a lone wolf. They'd run away if charged at but will also attempt to bite the wolf's rear and then dart off (technically in the devlog, the wolf was a player but I imagine the coyotes respond the same to the games ai wolves the same way). In Rainworld, wolf spiders can often be shy when alone but will still attack from above or behind.

*(Although I do like those too. Not even just animal-like ones either, such as the larval stalkers from the first Silent Hill).

Threat Displays

Now I don't mean just roaring or screaming before attacking, but creatures trying to intimidate each other with the chance one will choose to back down.]

In Rainworld when lizards get annoyed with each other, they'll rear back and hiss at one another till either one backs off or they charge at each other and snap. Jurassic Park Operation Genesis also had a system where large predators would have territorial fights that more often ended with one being scared off than being killed. There were also mods for this game that had Triceratops group together and make lots of noise and displays to intimidate large predators to the point the predators sometimes chose not to attack.

Predator Food Chain.

Basically predators of the same size/power range will fight but if there's a substantial difference in size/power then the weaker one tries to flee instead.

In Saurian dakotaraptors and crocs will attack each other as well as prey upon smaller predators (smaller raptors and palaeosaniwa that won't fight dakotaraptors or crocs). The raptors and crocs however won't try to take on a T-rex that hunts them. In Rainworld lizards hunt squidcadas that eat bats, while the lizards are in turn hunted by vultures. I haven't seen too many games that address numbers though (e.g not fight alone but will in pack). Off the top of my head, the only example I can think of was in a wolfquest devlog it was stated a lone coyote won't bother a lone wolf, but coyote pack will challenge lone wolf over a kill. Also Wolfspiders seem bolder in Rainworld if there's more than one

[diegzumillo]

I guess it depends on the context. I can assume a typical case for sake of discussion now, but keep in mind context changes things.

Say I'm playing as Mac Iron, toughest nut in this desolated post apocalyptic desert. I spot a few dinobears nearby. Dangerous fellas! They attack everything that isn't a dinobear on sight. But I can remain unseen and, better yet, I can lure them to the camp I was about to raid and have them cause some chaos. They might be simple creatures but their behavior is fun to play with.

Or maybe I, Dr. Pluvious, just landed on this mysterious planet. The behavior of the local creatures is unpredictable. They flock sometimes, but then they disperse for no seeming reason. What is the pattern? Is it so complex that it will take me a while here to figure it out? That could be fun. Hopefully the dev wasn't lazy and just put a lot of "rand()" in the code to make it look complex.

I'm just thinking out loud here

A more general approach to this is to forget 'creatures' and just focus on AI. After all, every game with creatures doesn't really distinguish creatures from humans, it's all running on the same code. In Skyrim they had this weird bug where the player would be ratted to the guards but there didn't seem to be any witness around. Turns out the chickens were witnessing and calling the guards.

In general stealth games invest a lot more in interesting AI than other games. I remember many occasions playing Thief where playing and manipulating the AI was the core of the fun.

[ChickenFetus]

I guess it depends on the context. I can assume a typical case for sake of discussion now, but keep in mind context changes things.

Say I'm playing as Mac Iron, toughest nut in this desolated post apocalyptic desert. I spot a few dinobears nearby. Dangerous fellas! They attack everything that isn't a dinobear on sight. But I can remain unseen and, better yet, I can lure them to the camp I was about to raid and have them cause some chaos. They might be simple creatures but their behavior is fun to play with.

Or maybe I, Dr. Pluvious, just landed on this mysterious planet. The behavior of the local creatures is unpredictable. They flock sometimes, but then they disperse for no seeming reason. What is the pattern? Is it so complex that it will take me a while here to figure it out? That could be fun. Hopefully the dev wasn't lazy and just put a lot of "rand()" in the code to make it look complex.

I'm just thinking out loud here

A more general approach to this is to forget 'creatures' and just focus on AI. After all, every game with creatures doesn't really distinguish creatures from humans, it's all running on the same code. In Skyrim they had this weird bug where the player would be ratted to the guards but there didn't seem to be any witness around. Turns out the chickens were witnessing and calling the guards.

In general stealth games invest a lot more in interesting AI than other games. I remember many occasions playing Thief where playing and manipulating the AI was the core of the fun.

To clarify, I mostly meant what do you find engaging when ai creatures interacts with each other, not the player (or at least not just the player).

Although perhaps I should have just said "wildlife" since most of what I was thinking more in sim sense (most of the games I referenced were sims aside from rainworld, but even rainworld contains simulation-like elements for wildlife ai) and "monster" implies a typical shoot/slash everything game where the's ai only goal is to "kill the enemy."

[diegzumillo]

Ah, I see. I did not notice the pattern in your question. You covered most of the interactions I can think of. Besides those I can only think of new levels of interaction with those at the surface. What I mean: territorial wars might be hard to identify on the surface because it consists of separate battles at different times. If the player manages to catch a glimpse of something deeper going on it might be super interesting. I would totally set up camp where I think might be the next battle location. I guess for this to come up either you code these scenarios specifically or you have a very sophisticated AI.

[coughe]

I find the games I play that have these systems... I never even know they are there until I hear about it in a dev interview or something. The player isn't going to notice something unless it happens right in front of their face and to do that you can just script some cool/unique interactions instead of building a dynamic system to support it.

[Josh Bossie]

Unless your game is designed around it (something like Monster Hunter comes to mind) I think you need to keep it as simple as possible. I think players will always prefer a memorable (if simple) trait over something realistic that they either don't see or don't understand. Even something as basic as "these monsters can attack other monsters" is enough

Take Breath of the Wild. It's been years and Twitter is still full of gifs of a Guardian vs. a Talos or a group of moblins fighting a bear. There's very little 'special' about these interactions - it's just their normal attacks with their default behavior - but we love to watch it because it's often something we stumble upon by accident

Rain World goes the complete opposite direction where the majority of the game is figuring out how to read creature interactions with each other and their environment. I don't really dig that game, but what I think makes people attracted to it is that creature interaction becomes something like a puzzle. There's really no 'wasted' interaction (meaning everything they do is relevant to the player) so studying them and experimenting with them is a lot of fun

Then there's No Man's Sky which has just dreadful interaction. Everything feels random and nonsensical. Did that creature run away because he's skittish or was it a random thing or was it a glitch? I don't know, and I don't care, because it's not relevant to me unless I want to scan or take a funny picture.

[ChickenFetus]

I modified my original post to try to make it more clear what it is I'm asking.

----

Ah, I see. I did not notice the pattern in your question. You covered most of the interactions I can think of. Besides those I can only think of new levels of interaction with those at the surface. What I mean: territorial wars might be hard to identify on the surface because it consists of separate battles at different times. If the player manages to catch a glimpse of something deeper going on it might be super interesting. I would totally set up camp where I think might be the next battle location. I guess for this to come up either you code these scenarios specifically or you have a very sophisticated AI.

I think for your example, there could also be ways to make territory locations visually obvious to the player if they can't just force such a conflict themselves(e.g in rainworld you can just lure lizards and watch them fight, while JPOG you can just create dinosaurs next to each other and they'll usually fight immediately).

While I don't know if it's has ai territorial fighting yet, Wolfquest 3 has systems to show players where wolf pack territories are located.

I find the games I play that have these systems... I never even know they are there until I hear about it in a dev interview or something. The player isn't going to notice something unless it happens right in front of their face and to do that you can just script some cool/unique interactions instead of building a dynamic system to support it.

"cool/unique interactions instead of building a dynamic system" feels a bit vague. What do you mean, and why did the examples I give not count?

With perhaps the exception of skittishness, most the examples I mentioned are very visually obvious (such as a wolf grabbing onto an elks leg to keep it from running, a lizard snatching an animals with it's tongue, a rex chasing a raptor that itself moments ago was chasing an even smaller raptor).

 That said I do know what you mean about the value of something being visually obvious or interesting to look at rather than being complicated. One of the points of this thread was to see what people find visually interesting.

Unless your game is designed around it (something like Monster Hunter comes to mind) I think you need to keep it as simple as possible. I think players will always prefer a memorable (if simple) trait over something realistic that they either don't see or don't understand. Even something as basic as "these monsters can attack other monsters" is enough

Take Breath of the Wild. It's been years and Twitter is still full of gifs of a Guardian vs. a Talos or a group of moblins fighting a bear. There's very little 'special' about these interactions - it's just their normal attacks with their default behavior - but we love to watch it because it's often something we stumble upon by accident

Rain World goes the complete opposite direction where the majority of the game is figuring out how to read creature interactions with each other and their environment. I don't really dig that game, but what I think makes people attracted to it is that creature interaction becomes something like a puzzle. There's really no 'wasted' interaction (meaning everything they do is relevant to the player) so studying them and experimenting with them is a lot of fun

Then there's No Man's Sky which has just dreadful interaction. Everything feels random and nonsensical. Did that creature run away because he's skittish or was it a random thing or was it a glitch? I don't know, and I don't care, because it's not relevant to me unless I want to scan or take a funny picture.

I don't really play monster hunter, so could you clarify what you mean? I thought it was just a typical, slash-it-till-it-dies game where ai interactions weren't really all that important to the game?

As for things be relevant to the player, what's relevant to varies between players. For your average gamer, watching creatures do their own thing isn't relevant to them at all and what you've said is totally correct.

But for people who are really into animal stuff, like the sort of people I've seen who play animal-based roleplaying and sim games, or zoo games (e.g WolfQuest, Saurian, Shelter, Tyto, Zoo Tycoon, Jurassic Park Operation Genesis) watching animals live out their lives is relevant to them. For JPOG in particular, all the time I hear people bring up how they prefer just watching the dinosaurs over the actual zoo-building and management aspects.

For Rainworld, while there are probably plenty of people who like interactions only because it's puzzle-like as you said, I know plenty of people just enjoy how lively the creatures feel and enjoy watching them do their thing.

Of course those people are probably more of a niche group that's only worth looking into if you're actually making the sort of game that has them for a target audience.

[Raptor85]

I don't really play monster hunter, so could you clarify what you mean? I thought it was just a typical, slash-it-till-it-dies game where ai interactions weren't really all that important to the game?

Almost the exact opposite actually, monster hunter is far more about observing and learning the different monster behaviors to set traps, exploit weaknesses, the behavior of every single creature in the game is unique, it's actually the main selling point of the game.  Yes you COULD try to just run in swinging but that's pretty much guaranteed death unless you get VERY lucky.  Some are pack animals, some solo hunters, some will avoid you, some will actively search you out, but not just with you, the hunters will actually search out favored prey and attack, say, a herd of smaller animals to kill and eat one and regain health, or smaller creatures will actively avoid areas where hunters are, or form into groups to defend against one. It really makes the world feel "alive" how the monsters interact with each other.   You can use this to your advantage too, you can track a large hunter, find a group of prey nearby, and place a pitfall trap between them, attack the hunter, and when it turns to run away and kill something to eat it falls in the trap.  You can also do things like get the attention of a large monster and lead it into the lair of another one, hide and allow them to fight so you can pick them off easier. (though some aren't always aggressive towards each other and will team up to hunt you, so...know the monster before you try this).  The game also gives you MASSIVE benefit from taking monsters alive using traps then just simply killing them.

[DjangoDurango]

This may not be an interaction per sé, but there's a point in Fallout: New Vegas where you approach a dry lake. On the edge of this lake is a dead radscorpion. A line of giant ants are marching to the dead radscorpion and then back to the center of the dry lake, where the entrance to their colony is. The animation is obviously not detailed enough to indicate this, but the implication is that they are ripping bits of meat off the radscorpion's corpse and taking it back to the anthill.

It's like watching a nature documentary, that little moment.