The Crows/Ravens Need Work!

[Cosmoline]

I'm loving so much about this game, I thought I should mention one part that is still pretty weak tea at the moment. The flocks of bird like objects that flitter around dead things and periodically emerge from the snow banks glitch-like need quite a bit of work. I like the idea of using them to mark carrion, but at this point they tend to stay fixed over long gone corpses even months after you looted them. And they don't add a whole lot to the environment.

My advice? Make them RAVENS. And make them realistic. So instead of flippy kind of shadows that go on pre-programmed routes, have them be animals like the deer and wolves. And give them the raven language. If you've spent time around real ravens, you know they gibber, grunt, honk, hoot, bark, bloop and gobble as well as caw. When I first came up to the north decades ago I was amazed by this, since it's virtually never shown in film or TV, where they always seem to make a simple cawing sound. I've even seen ravens bark at dogs to troll them. Making them animated animals with variable calls could really help add to the atmosphere as well as giving the players many "WTF" moments in the woods. Very, very clever animals. The smartest birds I've ever seen, for sure. They can manipulate wolves and even humans into doing work for them. Here are some examples of their noises. But there are many more--it's a language not mere bird song.

[coyote86]

The Idea of intelligent crows is actually quite amusing.

Knowing my luck, I can already imagine me cussing those damn birds as they lure a damn pack of wolves towards me...

Devs are sure to look this up and think it over (They may already have made some code changes, who knows)

Also a shout-out to the owls. Damn things scared the bajesus out of me one night while i was exploring...

+1 For idea

[Myshaak]

While I like your post (and ravens) I don't really think complex behaviour of birds would add much to the game. Especially when birds' only purpose is being eye candy at the moment.

[Bill Tarling]

Especially when birds' only purpose is being eye candy at the moment.

They do actually serve another purpose beyond just eye candy

But I do agree, putting priority time into making the raven activity more complex behaviour of birds rather than just for their current main function likely wouldn't probably wouldn't add immediate gameplay value to coincide with the story mode at this point. Perhaps as a tweak if there's time after the main game stuff is completed though, or if it turns out they're needed for more functions.

[Cosmoline]

It's not so much for gameplay value, but to give an otherworldly and realistic addition to the northern atmosphere of the game. As it stands now the birds are just art objects, and really do fly out of snow banks in certain areas. They're black shadows. But ravens aren't shadows. There's a reason they feature so prominently in the legends, from Tlingit to Norse. They are the harbingers of the ice. When a big flake storm comes in, they will often swoop down low and make strange blooping noises at the road monkeys below. And it would be great to have the game include some to hop around on the branches and scare the bejesus out of you with weird noises. Of course you could shoot one, but they have no meat to speak of. How hard could it be to program?

Realistic ravens, along with a properly depicted aurora, would go a long way toward keeping the game interesting esp. in longer plays and in the campaign mode.

[Myshaak]

Especially when birds' only purpose is being eye candy at the moment.

They do actually serve another purpose beyond just eye candy

I know they are there to show the location of corpses, but that's their only purpose. You cannot interact with them, you cannot hunt them (who would want that with the rifle accuracy anyway ), there's probably nothing you could do with their bodies if you could hunt them. That's what I meant.

I am all for expanding on their behavior a little (like circling around carcasses or around you when you are on really low condition, pecking on carcasses and "stealing the meat" bit by bit), but not going as far as giving them an AI overhaul with expensive stuff like pathfinding and collision detection.

[FluffyGotKilled]

With bears, it would be the most appealing animal to add!

[Cosmoline]

Maybe a happy medium would be to improve the animation and give them more realistic raven calls.