Modifies the aggression of several types of wildlife, and edits their descriptions for grammar and consistency

[Xhuis]

SUMMARY: Balance "Many animals such as coyotes and dogs are now less aggressive across the board."

Purpose of change

The aggression of many types of wildlife in-game are currently not consistent with their aggression in real life. Coyotes will attack you for so much as straying near them, when in real life they're timid and likely to flee if you shout at them. Moose will mess you up even while you're shouting at them. Domestic dogs, which retain their trust of humans for a long time, will also attack if they're in a bad mood.

Because these behaviors are inconsistent with real life, I decided to change them by adjust fear, placate, and aggression triggers for coyotes, moose, and dogs. Moose will stop faster if you call their bluff, coyotes will flee from loud noises, and dogs are less likely to attack you, and more likely to flee if you fight back.

Research sources:

• Feral dogs retaining human trust - 1, 2
• Coyote timidness - 1, 2
• Moose bluff charges - 1, 2
• My girlfriend, who has camped the Midwest throughout her life and has extensive experience dealing with coyotes

Describe the solution

• Removed PLAYER_CLOSE from coyote anger triggers (both types), and added a SOUND fear trigger, meaning they will flee from loud noises.
• Lowered aggression values for most dog breeds.
  • Chihuahuas retain their aggression because chihuahuas are bastards are naturally very aggressive even towards their owners and delight in the suffering of innocents.
  • Rottweilers retain their aggression because they're territorial and vicious.
  • German shepherds retain most aggression because they're stalwart, brave, and intelligent, and won't back down easily when threatened.
• Changed the descriptions of most dog breeds for fluff and grammar.
• Added HURT to fear triggers for smaller dog breeds such as daschunds and more docile ones such as the boxer mastiff.
• Removed PLAYER_CLOSE from moose anger triggers, but increased their default aggression, removed their placate triggers, and added HURT to anger triggers.
• Added the MATING_SEASON anger trigger and added it to the moose.
  • Moose now have baby_flags equal to AUTUMN to support this.
• Added the PLAYER_NEAR_BABY anger trigger and added it to the black bear.
• Renamed "bear" to "black bear", and removed PLAYER_CLOSE from its anger triggers.

Describe alternatives you've considered

An argument could be made for increasing difficulty by having wildlife be constantly aggressive, but I feel that niche is filled already by many animals such as giant insects, bears, and cougars (which avoid humans in reality, but is less likely to respond to intimidation like coyotes.)

Additionally, it seems that realism is generally valued over difficulty from what I've observed in this code base, and coyotes suddenly losing all fear of humans makes little sense realistically - especially because now they don't feel pain, and are liable to get back up after they die.

[DracoGriffin]

Bit of a small complaint but not sure how I feel identifying the coyote breeds with eastern/northeastern as that is generally quite difficult to do and also somewhat incentivizes the player to examine the creature for more information. I realize this is somewhat contradictory to naming dog breeds, but those are generally readily identifiable to a degree (people may not recognize every breed, but they are generally very dissimilar other than fur/teeth/quadriped/dog-like).

More technically, the Northeastern coyote (Canis latrans thamnos) is an offshoot of the Eastern coyote (Canis latrans) and most survivors wouldn't be able to clearly differentiate without some type of genetic testing (coyotes are already notorious for hybridization between wolves/dogs, so they can easily "look" like one breed but be entirely something else --- incidentally learning this from a presenter in the last two weeks). If needed, I can see about reaching out to the presenter and showcasing some of that data; albeit it's not terribly useful in this degree but it would show just how prevalent cross-breeding is in the wild (not a lot, but statistically significant).

Lastly, keep in mind habituation with changes to wild animals.

[Marrim]

Huh. I've always been taught that feral dogs are more dangerous than wolves because they know humans and don't fear them. They may not attack you easily, but if they do attack, you can't scare them away by bluff.

[Xhuis]

I think there's a difference between feral dogs and domestic dogs who are suddenly forced out into the wild due to outside circumstance. A pet suddenly left ownerless seems like it'd logically be eager to interact with other humans that aren't trying to kill it, and animals seem to instinctually know about the blob, given how they attack zombies.

[Mecares]

Maybe you could have a look at far too frightful animals as well, especially birds seem to flee as soon as i come into vision range, which makes it combined with their high speed almost impossible to hunt them.

[MT-Arnoldussen]

I like these changes for the most part.

I agree that distinguishing between coyote breeds seems farfetched.

Also, will this mean Moose are never a threat as long as you shout at them?

(and a better question: should they never be? afaik moose are scary terror machines, but maybe that's just if you don't shout at them...)

[Xhuis]

Moose are territorial and ill-tempered, but their charges are usually bluffs. According to the National Park Service, they probably won't chase you far if you run away from them, but standing your ground and making yourself appear threatening will halt them.

They're fast, strong, and will seriously mess you up if you provoke them or don't know how to deal with them, but if you do, they're not liable to pick a fight for the sake of it.

[Xhuis]

Coyote name changes reverted, awoo.

[kevingranade]

My only real concern with lowering overall aggression and increasing fear (but I'm mostly thinking of the moose here) is that I don't think we have a way to model, "full of bluff unless provoked", because we have no way of separating a fear trigger like shouting from an anger trigger like taking damage. In other words, if you hurt a moose, no amount of shouting should do a thing to stop it, but nothing about the current system prevents shouting from stopping an attacker in their tracks, even repeatedly. That having been said, your description says you adjusted moose behavior, but I'm not seeing any changes.

[Xhuis]

I might look into some C++ to add a new flag called BLUFFS that makes them stop attacking if they become hostile from being near you and you shout, but that doesn't affect it if you've already fought back. That said, I'm not sure how to check for player damage specifically. Maybe an effect that's applied when the player hits it, and it only stops if that isn't there?

[MT-Arnoldussen]

Might just check for HP. A moose that got into a fight with wolves might not be too friendly with the player afterward.

[kevingranade]

Alternately, I'd prefer a system where Moose are docile unless provoked, and attack relentlessly once angered, which we can do by simply giving them no fear triggers, removing a lot of the default aggression, and giving them "HURT" as an anger trigger.

Basically, if we have to lose either the bluffing or the aggression once provoked, it's the bluffing that should go away.

[DracoGriffin]

Since we're brainstorming, it'd also be great if there was a "BABY_NEARBY" flag, to represent overprotective animals --- moose and bears are great examples of this.

Bear Behavior

A black bear’s first line of defence is retreat, but grizzlies, especially sows with cubs, can be very aggressive towards other bears and people they perceive as threats.

Staying Safe Around Bears

Be especially cautious if you see a female with cubs; never place yourself between a mother and her cub, and never attempt to approach them. The chances of an attack escalate greatly if she perceives you as a danger to her cubs.

Aggressive Moose

Moose are not normally aggressive; however, they can be very aggressive, especially in winter when they are hungry and tired of walking in deep snow; or when they are harassed by people, dogs, and traffic.

During the fall mating season in late September and October, termed the rut, bull moose may be aggressive toward humans. In late spring and summer, cow moose with young calves are very protective and will attack humans who come too close. If you see a calf and not a cow, be very careful, because you may have walked between them which is a very dangerous place to be.

[cosmiccoincidence]

A black bear’s first line of defence is retreat, but grizzlies, especially sows with cubs, can be very aggressive towards other bears and people they perceive as threats.

The only bear that would be in new england would be a black bear, so maybe that should be specified in game? And although black bears are less aggressive than grizzlies, they can charge you, bluff charge you, out run you, climb at tree to get to you, will be extra defensive with cubs, will be attracted to food both on a person or kept in a semi open area (dumpsters, etc), and I believe you can possibly avoid a fatal mauling by not having any smelly food on you and playing dead...

[Xhuis]

A few things.

• Moose now have aggression 5 (which makes them angrier more easily) but won't attack unless hit first, When hit, they won't flee or give up their attack. They are also aggressive to proximity in autumn, their mating season.
• Bears have been renamed to black bears, and aren't aggressive to player proximity. However, if the player approaches a cub, they will relentlessly attack.

To do this, I added two new monster triggers - MATING_SEASON and PLAYER_NEAR_BABY. MATING_SEASON increases aggression if the player is nearby and they're in their mating season, as defined by baby_flags (which is now declared even if there is no reproductive data.)

PLAYER_NEAR_BABY massively increases aggression if a player passes within 3 tiles of a baby monster of that type.

[Treah]

I very much agree with the changes here to coyotes. I live in Arizona which is infested with them and I have never NEVER feared them whatsoever. I have even been near a pack of them as they were walking though the city. So even human adapted ones flee from humans.