As a person who plays an animal character (in particular, a unicorn), the current races and classes don’t really cover the needs of animals.
While it makes sense that most sapient beings can use tools, it becomes a little odd to make use of such tools as an animal, which could become a bit of a challenge in regard to keeping one’s hunger and thirst stats at a sensible level, as if one roleplays sensibly in-character, one can’t cook food and gain access to food or drinks that provide higher levels of sustenance. Similarly, using campfires doesn’t make sense for animals either, as they realistically shouldn’t be able to make one.
My proposal is a new race for animals which provides a boost specifically to using raw, unprocessed, foods for animals. I am unsure for game balance reasons at what point this number should be set, and will leave that to the devs to decide.
What would also be helpful is for animals to perhaps be able to rest by sitting on the ground, or something similar, rather than using a campfire.
I also think perhaps the STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS, and CHR stats might need adjustment for creating an animal race. Mental stats, for example, might be lower, while physical stats might be higher.
Thank you for your thoughtful and detailed proposal regarding the inclusion of a new animal race, specifically for characters like unicorns. We appreciate your insight into the unique challenges faced by animal characters in our game, particularly concerning tool use and sustenance.
Your idea of creating a new animal race with specific stat adjustments and abilities is intriguing and aligns well with our aim to enhance the roleplaying experience for all players. Here’s a summary of your proposal and our current thoughts on it:
Special Abilities:
Instinctual Forager: Consuming raw ingredients with a sickness level below 10 does not incur sickness.
Tool Misuse: Tools suffer double durability damage when used.
Balancing Considerations
We agree that the physical and mental stat adjustments reflect the characteristics of an animal well. To ensure game balance, we are considering minor adjustments to allow some flexibility during character creation. We are also thinking of adding unique skills or traits specific to different animal types, enhancing the roleplaying aspect further.
Raw Ingredients and Sustenance
One point we wanted to address specifically is the impact of raw ingredients on animals. While animals might consume raw ingredients more naturally, the nutritional value and health benefits should be consistent with those experienced by human characters. For example, a horse eating a carrot would receive the same health benefit as a human eating a carrot, albeit the horse would need to consume more due to its size and dietary needs.
Furniture
We are going to be adding a Craftable Invisible Prim that can be used to turn anything into a piece of SLC furniture for sitting or sleeping. I believe this could be used to make a Animal Bed and that should help with that as well. At the Moment you can use Ground Sit to recover faster than just standing
I love the ideas suggested here for adding animal races, like unicorns, to SL Colonies! This addition could significantly enhance the diversity and immersion of our gameplay.
Expanded Features:
Compass System Bonuses:
Animal races could become expert seekers or treasure hunters, gaining a bonus when using the compass. This bonus could increase the quantity of ingredients found, making them valuable explorers in the game.
Invisible Furniture:
As Drakkhis mentioned, we will introduce a craftable invisible box acting as a chair, couch, or bed to target energy and fatigue. This item can be wrapped around existing furniture to make them compatible with SL Colonies, ensuring comfort for animal characters.
Combat Enhancements:
While we already have a ‘punching’ attachment, adding biting and clawing attachments could further enhance combat for animal races. These attachments could inflict bleeding damage or other effects based on the animal type, making them formidable in battles.
Tool Usage:
I agree that tool usage for animal races should be limited. In fact, we could increase tool usage penalties, possibly more than double. Since RPing animals wouldn’t use tools naturally, this change aligns with realistic animations and gameplay.
These additions would make animal races not only unique but also highly functional within the SL Colonies world. Looking forward to more feedback and ideas!
I think all of these suggestions make a lot of sense, after taking a bit of time to think over the ramifications of such decisions.
The attributes suggested look really good to me as a baseline for animals - any further adjustment could easily be done using systems already in place for such.
I do agree, making it so that food doesn’t give you more benefit than it would for others makes sense, it’s calories in, no matter the species. Allowing the consumption of raw ingredients up to a certain poison level/sickness level makes sense to me too, there are many foods animals can eat raw that humans and human-like creatures couldn’t.
Regarding furniture, that makes perfect sense - I’m also happy to make a visible mesh for others to use if they’d like that could represent more typical animal bedding.
Combat enhancements sound like a brilliant idea, since animals otherwise wouldn’t use ‘conventional’ weapons.
Tool usage penalties being increased is extremely sensible - having seen orangutans and chimps attempt to use hammers and saws, some of our closest ancestors can’t seem to muster the control to use them well, and are more likely to damage them while using them.
Sorry I’ve taken so long to reply to this, I wanted time to really consider the impact of those proposals.
Good News, The Animal Race is now Live, you can switch to the Race at the Leveling Station, but to get the full benefit you will also need the Newest Updated HUD and Meter
Fantastic, as soon as I have enough CXP to change race, I’ll make sure to check it out. I do have one additional suggestion, though I’m unsure how hard it would be to implement - the searching animations do some very funky things to quadrupeds - is it possible to make this turn off according to race, or otherwise togglable?
That sounds awesome. I can say so far, the Animal race seems to work well, though I haven’t tested out using tools yet. I’ll make sure to give that a try today, and compare it to my other non-animal character.
I’d also like to see the compass updated for animals, to make them the official Scavenger race. By giving them, perhaps, a x2 multiplier when finding resources using the compass HUD.
I like that idea a lot - it definitely ties in well with animals using their often superior skills in sense of smell (example, vultures detecting food from great distances by smell), and their excellent ability to remember the locations and seasonality of resources (example, elephants remembering a watering hole that persists even during droughts, or orangutans remembering a particular fruit’s ripening season).
This addition could significantly enhance the diversity and immersion of our gameplay.