make sentient simple mobs more identifiable
Posted: Fri Sep 08, 2023 8:25 pm
Easiest way would be to make it an overlay/something similar to a hud icon. An examine message would work too but players would still act like they panicked and attacked before examining to justify a kill.
I only bring this up because often players will pretend that they don't know a sentient mob is sentient even ignoring its irregular movement just so they can get a free kill in. Most simple mobs are not only significantly flimsier, but also harder to revive. (Strange reagent/the miner sentience item isn't that hard to get, but people just blatantly forget about it and a lot of medics don't think to use them) So they often get round removed for no real reason just because a player can play dumb.
Only other alternatives I can think of is instead of making them easier to identify visually is to make the more harmless mobs (think pets, etc) slightly more tankier, faster, or given a really slow passive heal, but that would require more work than just slapping a visual identifer on them.
The only downside of this I think is that a sentient mob wouldn't be able to hide amongst non-sentient ones as easily, but this doesn't really come up enough to where it'd be that big of a game changer vs not being killed on sight for existing.
I only bring this up because often players will pretend that they don't know a sentient mob is sentient even ignoring its irregular movement just so they can get a free kill in. Most simple mobs are not only significantly flimsier, but also harder to revive. (Strange reagent/the miner sentience item isn't that hard to get, but people just blatantly forget about it and a lot of medics don't think to use them) So they often get round removed for no real reason just because a player can play dumb.
Only other alternatives I can think of is instead of making them easier to identify visually is to make the more harmless mobs (think pets, etc) slightly more tankier, faster, or given a really slow passive heal, but that would require more work than just slapping a visual identifer on them.
The only downside of this I think is that a sentient mob wouldn't be able to hide amongst non-sentient ones as easily, but this doesn't really come up enough to where it'd be that big of a game changer vs not being killed on sight for existing.