Combat being the only meaningful activity also explains hyperagressive herbivores as its the most engaging part so they are inclined to seek it out, regardless of not needing to for survival.

I truly belive more Dino survival games should try and flesh out the single player experience

This is actually a very good discussion and point being made, if the environment can be fleshed out with its own AI ecosystem no matter what even in a multiplayer the experience will be richer if done well, I do know The Isle is actively working on AI Dinos to add to the game with some sophisticated behavior's if the recent Devs demo video's are anything to go by, so it may be happening anyway... also out of all the Dino games The Isle is definitely the most 'Rouge Like Survival Game'

Growing a carno is actually a good experience right now. You’re fast enough that you don’t need to bush camp. You can actually spend time interacting with other players, and hunting other babies. Baby carnos are legit viable and fun small tiers. It made me realize that if you give babies a reliable way to avoid adults, they become fun to play as.

Dinosaur survival games should be more like Wolfquest 3. It's a very realistic (primarily) single player wolf simulator in which you find a mate, raise pups with them, and defend your territory. This is what Saurian was going for (all of the PvE aspects), but it's so underdeveloped that the most interesting thing is combat right now.

Basically - ALL of these games lack a well-rounded combination of the following: -Worthwhile endgame rewards that encourage different styles of play or challenge the player in a multitude of different ways. -Interactive environmental assets & set pieces, as well as dynamic weather or world events (maybe even seasons) which can leave massive, game-changing impacts on a server's ecosystem. -And by far, the biggest problem which NONE of these games have tackled and ALL of them suffer from - a near-complete lack of intelligent, dynamic, interactive AI creatures. IMO - the only dino sim that came close to properly and effectively tackling some of these issues is Beasts of Bermuda. BoB offers an actual unique end-game tied to its leaderboards, world & seasonal events, a talent system tied to growth, and life cycle various challenges. However, some of the rewards are kind of lame (a silly emote or achievement badge) and can lead to game-breaking issues if they aren't implemented correctly (like infinite growth and talent inherets cultivating a toxic playerbase from which the game never fully recovered from.) BoB also has dynamic weather events, but they're more of a mixed bag. Events like storms/hurricanes and extinction floods are very effective at fulfilling what they're meant to do and change up species interactions in a massive way, while others like wild fires and tornadoes are duds due to a combination of terrible optimization issues and the fact that they're too slow and isolated to be a major threat for most playables. But at the end of the day - ALL of these games lack good AI. THAT is the greatest underlying issue that's facing all of them right now. And no - aggressive AI that's willing to hunt down or defend itself against the player isn't enough - we need AI with behavior that changes to reflect the actions of the player as well the surrounding AI animals or environmental hazards within an ecosystem. They could also benefit immensely from companion-based AI systems, in which AI dinosaurs of the same species can be recruited as packmates/herdmates who can betray you if you don't fulfill the necessary leader or mate requirements, or even companion AI that can be raised and customized (to an extent) as offspring. And before anyone says this is impossible for these indie developer teams to do - I'll use indie games like Rain World, The Forest or Wolf Quest as fine (and achievable) examples from which these dino sim developers should replicate or turn to for inspiration.

I do think crafting is practical. You modify your home area, build a nest etc. Instead of crafting in a menu or having an inventory you bring bundles of resources back and have to place them to build "structures"

Funnily enough I think Saurian has this idea at heart. A believable survival experience with a singleplayer aspect that they've alluded could be multiplayer some time in the next century when the game is completed. While I like Saurian but doubt it'll ever be finished, aspects of how it operates could be useful for games with stronger standing power. Making juveniles and prey animals more interesting to play also- something that Saurian is trying to do as well.

I have been saying this exact thing, even on MyUniversalBox’s video. The game feels empty because the game uses other players to make content. This doesn’t exactly gel well with a survival game because if there’s no people, there’s no threat, and more importantly, nothing to do. I would argue that a game like this needs a singleplayer mode first, before multiplayer so the mechanics can be fleshed out.

You have these dinosaur survival games making all of these breathtaking, open worlds all for them to go to waste once the server count drops to below 50 because there's nothing to populate them. AI is a necessity for these games. Saurian figured that out but unfortunately we all know what happened with that game.

I think another problem is how bad juveniles are. Unless you’re playing something like ptera, you can’t avoid dangers and the only viable way to survive, without adults that is, is to sit in a bush hoping something won’t find you. It makes growth super boring and your only activity is to sneakily get out of your hiding spot to drink and feed.

No joke, I was almost word for word making the exact same points taking about this with my friend like a day before this. I'm glad I'm not the only psycho that thinks the game should be fully functional in single player. My solution was to make a game like this focused on most of the animals being AI. That lets the developer have a better control over the in game ecosystem. Not to mention, the game should be oriented around life goals to try and accomplish before you die, instead of the current weird half survival game/half pvp game mechanics that constantly interfere with each other (in other words, the game should be a roguelike- sort of).

Let’s brainstorm here for a minute, to maybe give the devs a few ideas as solutions to fix this difficult issue. Some form of quests? Quests that make you explore POI’s of the map, or find and kill certain dangerous AI for juveniles. With reward a bit more growth? Certain events happening in the game? Maybe an event where a dangerous AI creature is near you and you have to get out of the area for it to despawn else it’ll get you? Incentivizes staying in the game. Or wildfires, earthquakes hail or lightning storms with lightning that can kill you so you gotta find refuge somewhere. Maybe even adopt Ark’s idea of multiplayer? If you log out your character stays ingame so you better have found a really good hiding place. Just some idea’s i was able to cook up, no idea if there good or not so what do you think?

While others can make an experience more fun, it always good to be able to make your own fun. Throwing in your variety, such as muking around or some features in the world like in the games you mentioned are a good point. I heard at some point they were talking about some of these points in some of the games in the dinosaur survival genre. Also congrats on 10k man

The question is: *What does population independent content look like inside a dinosaur survival game?* I feel like "more AI" is just another way to PvP. That as you said, being the only thing to do, is the problem. BLUF: People's ideas are just to create more PvP.

I think having activities to do in the world would make it overall fun, hell, maybe even something as simple as a small type of mini-game of say, hunting bugs or hunting fish would be fun, or some kind of social interactions being more involved. AI would be nice and would expand gameplay too, but we should think of these aspects without using AI as a crutch.

Combat being the only thing to do also creates the symptom of apexes being pretty much the only thing youll see. Why play another dino besides one that can fight whatever it wants? People will always gravitate towards things that are the best and the most fun. So when both are in the same thing that being apexes of course the player base is going to be inflated with apexes. Without anything else to do everyones just gonna sit on a trex and run at each other.

There 100% needs to be more things to do other than seek out other players either for grouping or to kill and i do think a broad AI ecosytem would help out alot but i also think having something like an AI borne nesting system where succesfully hatching and defending AI hatchlings to juvi's would allow for maybe some type of buffing system that would give people a reason to nest.

As a sidenote, the concept of a rogue-like mentioned is actually that of a rogue-lite. A true rogue-like has no continuity between runs afaik

Something interesting could be adding "critters" allowing hunting of small non dinosaurs, making it more a traditional hunt rather than straight pvp combat Maybe having different critters have special mechanics making hunting different from PvP Mainly targeted towards small carnivores that usually just get stomped in PvP

I wonder if Herbivore gameplay could be assisted by having Diet plants and Food plants as separate. From Diet plants they gain their dietary needs, they fill Diet slots faster and give little food. Food plants, as name implies would give no Diets but fill your stomach. *Lets put new idea for Diets:* -Diet value you store would be consumed faster by younger creatures to provide their growth speed buff. -When creature reaches adult stage(80-85%?), Diet consumption would decrease so players can focus more on adult gameplays: Nesting, exploration and/or fighting. -There are flowers around Island that causes your creature to vomit, resetting all your Diets. Salt Deposits that are in game already would help to remove 'Sick' Status you get when your creature vomits. -AI Critters, or perhaps any AI creatures Diet reward from corpse would decrease faster than one you get from Players corpse. You need rewards for going after players or stealing from another players kill, giving Risk and Reward feeling. However Diet gains from AI need to be good enough to keep healthy feeling on gameplay if you don't run into other players. *Back to Carnivore at moment:* The Isle could had finished AI critters for the Carnivores in game, as now they make little noise, hard to spot and are extremely hard to catch as you are juvie, time when your most important food source is corpses and AI, on paper. Of AI creatures, even something like Frogs can escape you easily unless you can find spot to get them stuck on something. Playing Carnivore in The Isle is difficult, but same time they are one "faction" that feels more enjoyable to play thanks to more focused on PVP aspect. Having hard time at critical growth stage, fresh juvie, is not going to help keeping player numbers.

Growth I find is only fun if there’s other little dudes to hunt or to be hunted and try to hide and escape.

Throwback to when both of us were standing for 8 hours to become fully grown in a lighthouse in the isle hidden in a bush, great video bro

Honestly it's a tough thing to crack open. games that focus on (semi)realistic playthrough of an actual animal that's not sapient just don't bring much to the table. All creatures just try to survive by hunting, sleeping, moving around and breeding to avoid extinction. There's very little things you can do if you wanna keep it grounded. The Genre is faulty at it's core AND also a niche genre in general. IT doesn't make it bad or anything, but we just have to accept it. Look at Farming Sim for example, which also has a simillar niche that there's not much you can do there, other then you know.... farm. You can farm more things, have animals, but it all boils down to the farming. Same with Dino survivals boiling down to surviving. Sure, you can make nesting more fun by literally building it from skratch, maintaing temperature, but at the end of the day, if this isn't fun (and let's be honest, you can't do many shenaningans with nesting so it's a better fun/thrill then pvp) or doesn't benefit players in any way, they won't do it. That leaves us with walking sim and PVP as only other activies and that's just a dead end. Another issue with this genre that it's mostly known in younger audience, with kids being...... well, kids. Toxic, annoying, ruining fun for others, getting thrill of a thought about ruining someone else time. That's why battle royals or shooters are so popular lately. Single player route also doen't really cut it, unless you do something like ancestors, with starting at let's say, Triassic era and progressing through millions of years, but that would require a very streamlined(?) roster for it to go smoothly so you just don't switch from Celophysis to Allo to Rex.

Yoo congrats on 10k subs Good video as always, of course, love the soundtrack as well (i think its from DS3?)

Give a player a little icon medal on the menu for every dinosaur they get to 100% growth (or elder) and give the game some achievements like: "get 4 kills as troodon in 1 life" Stuff like that

I feel a problem in these games is hunger. Hunting and foraging needs to fleshed out way more, not just a simple find food, then AFK, if you’re a carnivore, a hunt should take more time, be hard, but rewarding and if you’re an herbivore, foraging should differ depending on species, but in general should be more about finding, then doing some activity to get said food, like digging, or climbing. Hunger time should be reduced for all creatures just to make it so you actually need to play the game while growing. But that’s just my opinion.

I think they need more survival genre gameplay. More resources more goals in the world to draw you to visit some form of thematic crafting etc.

The problem with these games is that 1. None of them are even 20% finished. They’re all just EA. So most of the basic content is missing. And 2. There’s far too many children infesting them. Children are… well, Stupid people who suck at games and make it an unenjoyable experience of mixpacking, revenge killing, whining, complaining, ragequitting etc… The supermajority of complaints you see from the fanbase is nonsensical drivel. Children get mad that X animal isn’t easy-mode and they died so it needs to be removed or they get killed by X dinosaur so now that dinosaur is “OP!” And needs to be nerfed. Just go to the dream discussion page and look at all the threads of kids titled “F*** this stupid F****** game! I want a refund!”, and it’s just sone kid whining that he died to a deino or something. 😂 that’s 50% of the player base. They’re playing a diurnal animal that has poor night vision, so now the game sucks and nighttime should be removed etc… it never ends and there’s zero hope for a difficult harsh survival game to survive with that fanbase. When atleast 50%-60% of the player base are functionally retarded. The games tend to suck. So I agree with your conclusion, ironically. I think the only dinosaur survival games that have any hope of truly surviving and thriving, are going to be single-player ones or ones where you can play solo and fully experience the game. Games where the world is living and flushed out, where you do not require other players to be not-retarded in order to have it function and be enjoyable. Dinosaurs attract a lot of kids. And kids today especially have way too much unfettered access to online games, even R rated ones. Thus anything dinosaur related will be swamped by tarded children. So building your Dinosaur game to entirely rely on the player base to create the content and make it viable, is doomed to fail.

To be honest this just seems like a fundamental flaw in the nature of a dinosaur survival game. This issue can't be fixed because once you add stuff like bosses, crafting, and other fun non-pvp related things, it's no longer a dinosaur survival game. The only reasonable way to mitigate this issue, not solve because as I just explained, it can't be solved, is to make juvenile gameplay more interesting. Maybe you grow faster as a juvenile and slower as a subadult? Or juveniles and subadults have exclusive abilities that adults don't? That way growth is more fun. Smaller animals should also have more unique and fun playstyles than bigger ones so that people are encouraged to play them more often for balancing. Stuff like: Young theri's and megalanias being able to climb Young deinocheirus and sucho being able to dive Most Young dinos being able to jump Some young dinos should be faster than their adult counterparts

If there was a kaiju survival game you would star off the size of a human to a building sized behemoths.

conragtunations to 10k subs!! been here since 2000 and i’m glad you grew

I wish there was a way to make ART in The Isle. Like, some dinos could build things using natural resources, while humans could draw on the dirt, etc i know this is kinda random but i still think it would be cool

Saurian, released in 2017, tried to fix this gap, but the game's development was slow (for example, they re-modeled the T.rex three times to keep it scientifically accurate and it is still not playable in the roster) and this eventually stopped after one of the game's ex-developers stole the studio's money and almost caused bankruptcy. Nowadays, Saurian's raw Early Access stage is kept alive by volunteers and Saurian's devblog has ended, but unfortunately many mechanisms promised on Kickstarter such as multiplayer were never released.

These games will never be good if the devs can't figure out how to get more than 100-125 players on a server. The more dinos they add to the game, the worse the more server player cap becomes. You will never see a pack of 20 longnecks roaming the map because that's 25% of the server population right there. These servers really need to be able to hold a thousand players for the size of the maps they are making.

There's one reason I don't play The Isle or Beasts of Bermuda that doesn't get much attention: the growth times are too long. 2 hours, 4 hours, 6 hours - I just don't have that kind of time.

Being developed by functioning adults?

they keep forgetting that survival is more indepth than just eating and drinking

i totally agree with your point but what is there that can be added outside of combat?

I totally agree with this, but I also hate the idea of the whole map being filled with AI dinos. I don't want to see that sort of "Solution". Saurian is single player filled with AI dinos and that's why it's not that fun.

dinosaur survival games is NOT a big genre, and it's definitely not popular nor requested. it's just that there way too few dinosaur survival games. IT'S NOT A POPULAR GENRE 0:28 again, it is NOT popular and the domand is NOT high. It's somwhat of a domand because some people like dinosaurs, and it's one of the few genres of games that lets you play as a dinosaur,

maybe we just have to accept living the life of an animal is boring as fuck

We need perks, skills, skins and all kinds of other stuff to unlock through gameplay. We need ai dinos that hunt players. Give players an actual reason to nest and raise babies. Give us rare skins that we have to earn by doing missions like hunting other players, surviving for a certain length of time, growing a specific dino to full adult X number of times.... give us special dino calls that we can earn in the game. Could even give us alternate dino models that we could earn.

Even better than a simple rogue like : You should join a team on a server, that represent 1 species, and on the span on a limited time, being able to grow many individuals to adulthood would increase your points. Your goal would be to make your species thrive in the environment, and not just 1 individual that you play. As if you were a representant of that species evolution. So the "upgrade" part (as in a rogue like) would be about increasing the number of individuals of your species who reached adulthood on this particular server.

People get bored too easily. A new dino drops, everyone tries it for a week, then steeply drops off, and nobody PLAYS like an animal, they're just player controlled monsters. That's all I'll say.

The missing piece is the boring slog to get to an adult Dino, the lack of clear rules or gameplay directions, and most of all the way some games such as the Isle destroys even “better” PCs.

Tokyo Jungle fixed this problem ages ago lol.

The missing piece is the game itself

The missing piece of these games...is games. They're not games yet. They're sandboxes

basically the games foundation is still incomplete , and just like in legacy the devs just decided to add more stuff to a incomplete foundation instead of focusing on the very core of the game , im not a dev but even i know thats gaming 101 , you need to get the core concept to work and be fun before you start expanding on it

Honestly an issue often overlook is the map for me, all of the dino survivak game maps have their flaws, for example the three big ones, Titania from BoB is nice but it feels too big, it ususally takes a bit to find people, overall a mid map and maybe the best out of the three, PoTs Gondwa and Panjura, oh boy, they both suck ass, Pan is literally the same everywhere, someone once told me that there were multiple biomes and so wasnt bad in that department, but like where? No rlly where, you got forest, white foredt redwoods and """"""swamp"""""" which is literally just a lake and some ponds, Gondwa while a step up, feels a step too high, it has a shit ton of biomes but doesn't know what to do with it, so you get a rainbow colored biome besides a normal grassland, a mountainous region and a burned forest, which kinda breaks immersion and looks goofy, and it stilk has the issue of hit spots, which woukd have been easy to dolve but PoT Devs gonna PoT dev, and for last and the one in the middle is the isle, it doesnt have a lot of biomes, which makes sense, it's an island you got open grass forest/jungles and beaches, but the GOD DAMN CLIFFS WHICH HAPPEN TO BE IN THE MIDDLE OF DENSE JUNGLES ADDED ON TOP OF THOSE JUNGLES BEING HORRIBLE TO TRAVERSE BOTH DAY AND NIGHT AND DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON NIGHT TIME, whew, isla spiro is bad, but has some nice spots and actually makes sense enviroment, 4/10 release Gateway already for fucks sake, btw from what is seen Gate is shaping up to be the best from the three games Damn that is my largest comment so far huh

It would be nice for AI to be like the bots in battlefield 2042 were they fill in for missing players or are added independently

So technically, we need a Dinosaure co-op survival game with AI potential as in Monster Hunter. The isle already fills various marks with quality development and adding mechanics to combat and make it more complex. I think by itself, The isle attract a lot of eyes despite its flaws. Sure growth can be long and boring but compared to Path of titans, its a lot more quicker.

I'll tell you what's boring, getting bleed damage everytime I attack a pig for food and having to sit down for 3 minutes. Running a half mile and having to sit down for 3 minutes. the constant freaking waiting kills the isle. It's just way way way too much sitting.

Ok but.. how? And even the more, how when you started with a highly multiplayer focused game? The first idea that comes to mind would be meaningful npc interaction... but that would require a wayyy better AI wouldn't it? Or a clever design..

A GODAMN GOAL… something to do

I found a game called prior extinction in Roblox that don't have that problem (I know when you hear "Roblox" you think of a bunch of 10 year olds playing parkour but trust me it's very gooooood)

somethings telling me the second deathmatch comes up to POT players would burn out of the combat, the main reason people play the game

amazing video !

Honestly…it just needs realistically behaving AI. Dinosaurs with territories that roam and hunt. The reason growing is boring is because most of the time is spent just sitting around once you’ve eaten. There’s very little hunting happening.

ok i fixed it AFK growth is a thing of the past the mutations i will instead of you having to grow to a age then u just get to pick... i feel there should be a task that has to be done like "eat banana leaves" or "eat the bugs from the bark" so you have somthing to grind weilst still being a choise you know? like when juvi itll say "eat a bunny" for extra bleed. then adolesent willl be "destroy a palm tree" for extra stam regien!. stuff like that i feel that just solves all the problems cuz u can be doin this with YT on the other screen and BOOOOM not boring. i have no ideas for night tho =(

I do agree. But also there are many more survival creatures games out there, specificly roblox of all places. With games like dinosaur world mobile, prior extinction, dinosaur arcade and even games who arent just dinosaur realated like creatures of sonaria. Which at least lets you grow without completing missions, Has many more weather events and many and i mean MANY diffrent playebles. Too many like holly it does not need its soon 200 creatures. Edit: Also it diesnt have a GODAMN CONTINENT TO LIVE IN LIKE CHILL OUT ISLE AND POT. Also bc its a fantasy game too it can also streach its limitations

the isle needs a whole heeth of things, just off the top of my head the isle could add territories with the elder system where each species needs to establish and protect their territory and huge wars would erupt over the most fruitfull ones and another is adding a whole lot more AI into the game, mating should produce AI along with players and we could command a pack of our own AI raptors or if your species is the loner type then you could only drop eggs and would have to move on without creating packs and those births could also birth AI along with other players as well, these are just a few ideas the isle could use but hey im just a guy that love the game and will play whatever they come up with

My biggest issue with the idea of ramping up AI is that nearly everything in the game involves interacting with other players, its also what makes the game appealing for many people. If you make it so the Isle can function perfectly in singleplayer and player interaction is not longer necessary, and for some people something they actively try to avoid, you have a fundamentally different game. Everything may look the same but the actual experience of playing is not even remotely the same as it was before, and in my opinion at least, it would make the game worse overall. Especially since AI tends to be terrible.

Yeah I couldnt think of anything more than combat and nesting making the isle interesting. How would you even implement other activities in the isle

I truly agree with the point that theres no fun activities as a juvie, but it begs the question that is why dont players play sandbox servers?

Not applicable for me, but I know a lot of people (mostly ladies) care a lot about how their dino looks. So how about challenges that allow dino customization? Do certain things or survive long enough to unlock more color pallets, change the size n shape of your spikes and horn, get a fucking nose job idk That might be fun for some people

I love this video

If the current games on the market manage to pull off a good single player experience, then there might actually be hope for the genre, but if not, then that proves that the current games are not the right ones, and are not built to last.

similar issue with ark a few years ago

Perhaps

Yeah basically the problem is that these games just aren't fun lol. No matter how cool the Dinos look and all the fun concepts they include, they just aren't fun to play, and you can't expect a game to be played if it isn't any fun.

In adding to the elder system, I believe that the more you play a specific Dino, the faster your growth progress should be for that Dino. Let’s say it takes 2 hours to grow a Carno to adult, maybe after a full growth cycle your next life’s growth progression is increased by 15%, stacked into the next one, until you reach a total of 60%. I believe it would make people more invested in playing a specific Dino that they enjoy, while feeling like there’s an actual end of progression for the playerbase to achieve over time.

No names for Patrons?

But how can we go about doing so

Maybe with the introduction of AI there's a future for the isle singleplayer.

I really hope they add a tranq mechanic to humans, so you can capture and study Dino’s. It will also give a massive activity for the Dino’s in trying to escape. And the humans will probably find it fun too

as a gamedev wannabe. i aint trying to add that missing piece to a dinosaur survival game (neither making one of my own)

someone please replace dondi with this guy

Im not subbing to smone who does this poor research , spino easily kills rexy

this game has been on early acess for 9 YEARS. they didnt managed to figure a gameplay loop for this whole time, this game is not going nowhere.