Creatures : Too Generic now?

Question

Question

New member
Joined
Feb 18, 2005
Messages
23
hmmm i think that the creatures in BnW 2 have long since lost their personalities. In making them easier to train, and giving them size caps and alos limiting the types of creatures you can have i think they have all become basically the same. At one time or another your going  to stop your creature from attacking rocks. You'll probably punish it for eating toys and i dont doubt you'll slap your ape for the occaisonal poo-eating.

They are too much the same, ive played the game with 3 different creatures now and they dont seem so unique from eachother. Personally i think the creatures from BnW 1 had much more personality and developed their own unique traits but now they all seem to follow the same guidlines  :rolleyes
 
I won't dissagree with that. The creature is not the same.

In B&W your creature progressed as you played and although the learning systen was flawed, you did have to train a creature rather than program him.

I think that is what made B&W so unique.
 
It's a shame really and we can't really blame BWS for this either.  We all wanted more transparency in what we taught our creatures, but we just didn't realise it'd come at the cost of seeing the creature as a program and not a character. 

With the benefit or hindsight,  they should probably have given each creature a deeply rooted set of opinions/instincts about things - some based on their creature type, e.g. the Lion wouldn't like water (just like regular cats) and some based on experience.  If the creature gets his ass whooped in battle alot, he won't think so kindly about stepping into the fray again any time soon.  These instincts/opinions could not be untaught as easily as other lessons, but would have to be associated with good things in order to encourage him to like it more.  For example, if you play with your war-weary creature before and after a battle, he'll associate going into battle as more of a good thing and not be so scared of it.  SHould he actually win the battle, this would also be a big boost for him.

Then again, I'm sure some segment of B&W2 fans would think this as a convoluted mess and just want to tell their creature to snap out of it and he should instantly feel that way :rolleyes .
 
yep, the creatures are too much like programs now. Where once we would harshly treat, or generously congratulate them when they did something in order to form their personalities, it seems now all we have to do is click on or off certain aspects of their personality. Not only that but we can change anything about there personality at anytime we want. Your wolf could be watering some trees and you would be able to punish him for eating a villager :/.
 
well not reallythough i think the cow and lion and wolf and tiger because the tiget likes water(i read that somewhere look it up)or atleast should but if u want personality just do some file editing and if u really want to edit the size theres somee tutorial somewhere on gamefaqs
 
Yeah, they seem to be to easy to program. I mean, the very fact that you can train a gigantic predator like a tiger or lion, which is carnivorous by it's very nature, to eat nothing but grain shows that you truly alter your creature. But, just imagine for a moment, what if B&W2 had the same creature training system of B&W1? While your enemy is throwing volcanos and earthquakes your way you would still have to tell the creature whether it's a good idea to eat rocks or not. Though I wish that next time the creature learning is a bit more deep, I still prefer this system better than the last one.
 
The training goes to fast, you just slab him for 5 sec and he never does it again!  It should take longer :rolleyes
 
If there was a skirmish mode then you could take the time to train your creature. However now the best opportunity is after you finish a land. To me all creatures in BW2 seem to have a given set of responses programed in.

One thing I've got to say that's on the plus side for the new system is that the old creature would only perform a set number of actions. While a BW2 creature seems to be able to use all of his learnt (?) knowledge and react appropriately for a given situation.
 
Yep thats true.

I agree that creatures seem to be more able to take care of the situation without our constant influence on them.

But also it seems that you can't actually train your creatures, but in reality when you punish your creaure for doing something it doesnt seem like they are learning that its not something you should do but they seem to think that its something they should do less often and you cant teach them the difference. I think thats the root of the problems you encounter when training them.
 
I agree that the enhanced system produced a more transparent learning system.

I still think the new system was a step in the right direction though. Although it seems more mechanical now, I enjoy being able to know exactly what I'm disciplining the creature for. On top of that, it's nice that you can recall your "ruling" on any action he has done in the past. This can be very useful, since you can fine tune the creature mind. Here's an example:

I noticed the other day that my creature was looking extra wimpy. I checked the lessons learned and found that I have approved of him working out. I watched him for a while and noticed he was obsessed with collecting resources, and doing little else. I further notice that I had rewarded him for gathering resources a little more than for working out. So I quickly reward some for working out and punish a little for gathering the various resources. This should mean that the creature will be more likely to work out than anything else. After building some more I come back to see my creature working out with a villager and having 85% muscle. Obviously I was able to tip the balance a little to tweak the creature as I saw fit.

One of the major downfalls of the old system (besides what I mentioned before about disciplining) was the percentage indicator that showed up when slapping or petting. This gave you no knowledge of what you did previously, and you never saw the overall picture. If I slap to 10% what does that mean? Does it get averaged with every other time I punished or rewarded for this action? I never could tell. Now at least I can look at a scale and see the likelihood of him doing certain things. It's also nice to be able to get him to absolutely avoid certain actions by punishing all the way. I got sick of watching my creature throw up all over the place after eating some interesting things.

Of course the previous paragraph is probably the root of the problem for some, as it exposes exactly what's going on in the background. Some enjoyed watching the creature go about its life, waiting for it to repeat an action you want to reward or punish. Personally, I like the ability to do that whenever I want, with more certainty.
 
I assume we all think that the new training system is quick, informative, and efficient but thats not the issue. The problem is the affect this has on how we see our creatures. We are supposed to be training them correct? Training them doesnt mean going through a check list and marking or X ing something. However we should be able to influence their thoughts to the point of making them think something is wrong or right.

I think they should meet us have way between creatures being their own person and us being able to mold their personalities to our whim. In BnW 1 our creatures seemed to difficult to train but in BnW 2 its become to easy.

Huh...  :rolleyes
 
The "I" in AI doesn't necessarily stand for intelligence. A creature is just a set of programmed responses. And with the new method it's a matter of setting sliders as to what their priorities should be. The old method I believe was accumulative and once you went past a certain point you couldn't go back.

The problem is the affect this has on how we see our creatures. We are supposed to be training them correct?
Click to expand...
I don't know if we can actually train our creatures as before by showing them. This is something I haven't had a chance to explore yet. To see if he will actually mimic my actions  like the old creature did.

Although I did tend to ignore my creature and let him be on the previous lands. I'm on land 7 now and find that I have to rely on him a lot more. As a result of that my feelings towards my creature have changed somewhat. Now I just wish he could whomp that tiger's butt without archer support.

One thing I can't find is a way to bring up his "I'm happy/sad" balloon just to pet him. Whenever I interact with him it's always showing his last action.
 
Kays said:
One thing I can't find is a way to bring up his "I'm happy/sad" balloon just to pet him. Whenever I interact with him it's always showing his last action.
Click to expand...

I haven't found a way either. You have to be real quick - before he thinks of something else.
 
Guys.. what about the fighting.. seemes like there's no way to train your creature to fight better either, it's just muscle, fitness, size and alligment now it seemes. I remember trying to teach my old creature to dodge, it was amazingly fun when he after several attempts started to dodge by himself :)

Though I remember teaching my Leopard how to cast megablast extreme.. it wasn't all that easy, but in the end, very rewarding :)
 
Yeah i agree. One of the only things that the creatures now learn by themselves is fighting. The more they do it the better they are. We no longer influence them in this aspect unless you count telling them whether its good to or not.
 
Yea, the new system is better in some ways but now it seems like they don't have much  of a personality. For instance, in Black and White 1 I would tell my mandrill not to  poo on the temple, but he would do it anyway like he was trying to piss me off, and when I came over and caught him in the act it would say " Your Creature Is Frightend" and he'd run for his life.  :laugh2  But in Black and White 2  if you tell them not to poo on buildings, they DON'T poo on buildings.
 
Hmmm not really. With the new system your not actually punishing your creaures anymore. Your simply changing their settings. For example, it a creature poos on your buildings you can slap his think-o-meter down to "Wont poo on buildings". There are also other settings which is basically the more you slap, then his thoughts will be somewhat like Will poo on buildings, to will poo on buildings sometimes, to will poo on buildings only if i really have to and there is no alternative. But if its all the way at the bottom and you still find them pooing on buildings then what can you do? Slapping them silly wont change their mentality at all.

I personally liked the creatures from BnW 1 where you could punish them multiple times until they figure it out by themselves. Creatures in BnW 2 are more like your puppets than  your pets.
 
Question said:
I personally liked the creatures from BnW 1 where you could punish them multiple times until they figure it out by themselves. Creatures in BnW 2 are more like your puppets than  your pets.
Click to expand...

Well this is the whole issue right here. I'm fairly confident the old system worked just like the new system does - you just couldn't see it.

Those that like seeing the whole system exposed in order to have full control, will like the new system. Others will think that this exposes what the creature really is.

It's a tough debate.
 
[alphaBeta] said:
I'm fairly confident the old system worked just like the new system does - you just couldn't see it.
Click to expand...

I dont really agree with that. With the new system you simply set them to a point on the slider. With the old system,when you punished your creature, it wasn't the same slider as the one you had a second ago when punishing/congratulating them for the same thing.

You really were training them. For example, if they did something you say please dont do that again. And if they did it again you punished them more harshly, basically saying, REALLY dont do that again or you will continue to be punished. THIS is training, not simply setting them to YES or NO. 
 
Well from a programming standpoint - you don't think that's what was actually going on in the background? That the program was keeping track of good/bad status for each action, much like it is now? I don't see how else a program could add up all of the punishments/rewards you've given to the creature, and have it act accordingly. In the end, the creature mind must resort to some kind of yes/no flowchart, with weights given to each yes/no. The difference is the visibility of this good/bad status (or so I think).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top