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[Urist Mchateselves]

I’m sorry if I sound like I’m nitpicking or asking for too much in this thread. I mean the procedural generation is quite impressive from a technical point of view and I’m sure it took a lot of work to design it and put it into practice. I understand people may be a little mad at me for this, and that nothing is perfect, that procedurally generated stuff will always be inferior to the carefully crafted designs and concepts that a human can make, but I still wanted to get this off my chest. That said, I don’t really like the procedural creature generation in this game (You read the title, duh). No matter what kind of creature it is, they really all feel so… generic. It feels like each and every one of them is the same, no matter what variations are in place. Their ability pools are quite narrow and are often either ridiculously broken, or completely useless. Maybe I’m just unlucky, but they always feel like they lack any sort of proper theming or coherence. What I’m trying to say is that the procedural generation kind of fails at what it was aimed to do, which was to make every world have its own memorable and unique threats, and they instead just feel completely forgettable and boring. Again, I know that changes and updates to this are probably planned for the Myth and Magic update, but I still wanted to point it out. I’d suggest not relying entirely on procedural generation and adding some pre-made content along with it.

[mikekchar]

I disagree with you, but that doesn't really matter :-)  Everybody has they own preference.  However, I'm interested to know what you would replace them with. Would removing them improve the game in your eyes?  That would mean removing something you think seems generic, but getting nothing in return, which doesn't seem like an upgrade to me.  Would you replace them with static creatures, so now there would be exactly 5 different forgotten beasts, for example: deadly breath, deadly spittle, deadly dust, webs, fire?  You can just make a mod that adds the creatures you want now, so that's not something you need to wait for.  I'm struggling to imagine what would be better than what we have.  Possibly you actually *want* procedurally generated creatures, but you want them to be "better"?  What would make it better?

In the spirit of the "suggestion" section, what's your suggestion for improving the situation?  It's relatively easy to say, "That sucks!", but the interesting part is when you say, "Do this instead".

[DPh Kraken]

I think it's not so much the sameyness of the mechanics of random bosses, since they have almost every ability available to pre-defined creatures and do a good job at being the nastiest test of your defenses. I think the issue at hand isn't in shape or powerset (though a bigger spell list would be appreciated), it's moreso in behavioral diversity.

I'm going to talk about FBs in the context of fort mode, as they're the most ready foe. Right now they just wander around and attack people and doors, which is simple enough to give you a challenge. FBs could drag out fights over a series of multiple ambushes, letting their unique attributes be explored more. They already have themes going with the spheres, so darkness/trickery FBs could hide in plain sight while misery ones could have a taunting routine. They could build a nest and haul corpses to there, preventing you from giving your dwarves a proper burial. Fire-based FBs could torch mushroom forests for fun - but that is when their guard is down, they won't flee from your archers. Different ones might react to "bait" (lone hunters) in separate ways, some remaining in the shadows while others are lured into a fight. Sometimes a FB's nest could be placed far away, or right by your access tunnels.
Those are ways that the procedural can inspire unique, handcrafted behaviors, and then could be hooked into other random values to keep it unpredictable.

A greater plot relevance to megabeasts in general would be nice. Right now they're basically Sailor Moon villains that show up each episode, act all weird and scary, and then are promptly forgotten about if they're a beast of that inclination. Even just a listing couple animalistic motivations in-game for the beasts to show up would make them more memorable - perhaps their slumber was disturbed, they are following their prey or a rival, cave creatures have formed an uneasy alliance with it, minions of a dark god wish to summon a monstrosity, they crave wealth that they cannot create, the wrath of the savage wilds has been awoken, or it's running from something worse. Lots of those ideas have tons of narrative hooks, be they simple resolutions or layered villainous plots.
There probably wouldn't be much mechanical difference between a dragon's hoard or a FB's hoard, but being able to slay it in fort mode and hunt down its lair on an adventure would be a whole story arc from a one-off creature.

[Urist Mchateselves]

I disagree with you, but that doesn't really matter :-)  Everybody has they own preference.  However, I'm interested to know what you would replace them with. Would removing them improve the game in your eyes?  That would mean removing something you think seems generic, but getting nothing in return, which doesn't seem like an upgrade to me.  Would you replace them with static creatures, so now there would be exactly 5 different forgotten beasts, for example: deadly breath, deadly spittle, deadly dust, webs, fire?  You can just make a mod that adds the creatures you want now, so that's not something you need to wait for.  I'm struggling to imagine what would be better than what we have.  Possibly you actually *want* procedurally generated creatures, but you want them to be "better"?  What would make it better?

In the spirit of the "suggestion" section, what's your suggestion for improving the situation?  It's relatively easy to say, "That sucks!", but the interesting part is when you say, "Do this instead".

I think you misunderstood what I said (or maybe I just didn’t formulate it well enough). I’m not saying that all procedural generation is bad, but that the current procedural generation system is flawed, and you start seeing the recurring patterns in it pretty fast and it also lacks any sort of consistent theming, which often makes creatures out of place (or maybe I’m just really unlucky). I suggest adding more variety in the way creatures are generated, and also make the general attributes and structure of the creatures depend on the spheres that they are based on. For example, associations with fire or volcanos would give certain creatures the bodies of salamanders (they were often associated with fire in folklore), and give them fire or magma spewing powers. The sphere of death would give them the bodies of animals commonly associated with death, such as crows or buzzards, or even make them skeletal in nature. The sphere of deformity would give them extra features, or even make them hybrids of two different bodies. Being associated with metals would give them a metallic skin around an otherwise organic body, or make them out of metal entirely. You could also expand the pool of forms which they can take, like making a creature look like a serpent, rather than a specific type of snake, or adding more familiar creatures (including sapient one) to the mix. You could add more types of material emissions, like the ability to change to weather, etc. Right now it feels like most procedurally generated creatures are either random organic creatures with either 1 or 3 eyes, external ribs, a shell, wings and a couple of other random things stitched together, or a blob made on an inorganic material. Just something to avoid this pattern.

[thefinn]

I think the most important part of your post there is where you mention "they lack any sort of proper theming or coherence"

I'm not sure what thematic generation would look like though.

After all a theme isn't a theme until you perceive it as one.

[Salmeuk]

i would agree with many of your points. it proves interesting until you memorize the various attributes, of which only a handful are truly meaningful: material, size, ability (is it a webshooter? RUN). and in the end, most creatures just w+m1 their way towards anything living, which is boring

the larger issue is that modern games are so intricate and complex, particularly roguelikes, that DF kind of pales in comparison to the humongous number of attributes present in other titles. so i kinda think younger players might look at what DF brings to the table and go, "really? that's it?"

there is a philosophy in some games, where aesthetics meet function in a very "designer" kind of way. every attribute must have a function. every aspect of a thing must, in some way, affect gameplay. appearances always lead to information about the character or environment. DF goes against this because so much of the generation is explicitly non-functional. like, out of all the specific details present for any given dwarf, how many genuinely matter when playing fortress mode? very few.

so my counter suggestion is that you should slow down and imagine each creature in full detail as you see it. try to see the way it would move or slither, how it might appear only at the edge of torchlight, what kind of sounds it would make as it attacked. this is the proper way to enjoy DF, as a tool for your own stories.

hopefully the system is given another pass during myth and magic, which may in fact be the intention.

remember, DF is not exactly producing cutting edge aesthetic fantasy... there are a LOT of creative people making really interesting generative content but that is often exclusively the focus or gimmick of the project. where DF is attempting to have that content generated within the larger context of a fantasy world made material. when you abandon the fantasy narrative, you lose a lot of the pull of this game, because you are essentially judging this creature or beast on how it relates to your expectations of game design, when in fact the creature is just this weird beast thrown up by the gods and would eat you alive if it ever got the chance.

Those are ways that the procedural can inspire unique, handcrafted behaviors, and then could be hooked into other random values to keep it unpredictable.

i like the idea of these creatures having more agency to inhabit these worlds in curious ways, as you describe.

[Pillbo]

I like the forgotten beasts and demons, but I think the future plans to procgen everything might not really add much fun content. For example instruments do nothing for me, they just add a lot of confusing words to menus when I'd rather just have 'lute' or 'drum' instead of meaningless stuff like 'itol'.  The animals on the other hand are a lot easier because I know what a kangaroo or crab is, at least well enough to get the point.  You could imagine toady replacing wildlife with procgen animals and I think it would do less to make the world unique than make the game confusing to understand.

The ambitious version of myth & magic's sliders to maximize randomness/fantasy/whatever seems to be to procgen everything. No elves, dwarves etc, but procgen creatures and civs totally unique to the world. I think it's a cool idea, but I also think it's really impractical, it will be a time suck and I think very few people will actually play those worlds.  I mean, just imagine if you had no knowledge of how the civs work in DF and you couldn't use the wiki to learn anything about them.

So personally I like it for things like monsters but I'd also like more raw-based monsters and civs were added to the game instead of new just procgen stuff in the future.

.... I do really like the idea of the dragon generator though and that sounds like a cool way to play with raw-based stuff to make it more unique. I'd be ok with random variations applied to the wildlife or instruments I already know, wolves that have fur made of fire, or elves with 4 arms, would be cool and I could still understand the game without a lot of extra reading.

[Enemjay]

Good point about procedural instruments not offering much. A better approach would involve primarily featuring recognizable instruments (like lutes and harpsichords), supplemented by procedural ones to expand the options. This concept should also apply to animals and civilizations with procedural generation. However, if players prefer entirely strange and alien settings, they could adjust the 'procedural slider' to maximum.

[voliol]

Agreed the current generation for FBs etc is not that exciting. It should be fun when/if Toady bring the generators out in the raws, that way modders can add more variety/thematics rather than us being limited by whatever he has time to hardcode/what ideas strike him and Tarn.