Currently, wildlife is more of an annoyance than an companion.
Here are currently some major issues with wildlife:
- Tamed AND untamed wildlife can fall trough the floor and clip walls (bug)
- Untamed and tamed AI is OK at best (needs to be revised and improved in some way)
- Are useless in higher end missions and only serve as a distraction (needs to be revised and improved in some way)
- Can mess with the AI of husks (intended?, but annoying to some extent)
And here is my opinion on them:
- Knockback from boars, wolfs, and maybe raptors should be removed. Doesn't matter if you use a gun or melee weapon, the more you get hit the more it gets annoying. They basically took the ability that the Riot husky has and threw it on them to make them more "aggressive", but it's more of an annoyance like the husk.
- Frogs and Crows (the ones that don't drop loot) are literally useless. In the end, they just serve as an entity that makes the servers (that aren't even that good) hitch because of the absurd amount of them. Yes, it's kind of nice to see them around, but how often do you do anything with them other than accidently killing some with your Hover turrets.
- Taming should be somewhat easier. It took me about 5 missions last season to complete that one boar mission because taming them is not easy.
- Only one hero that can currently buff wildlife makes a build surrounding them useless. And Gia isn't available anymore, so if you don't have a recruitment voucher, you are out of luck. And let's be honest, there are WAY better options than a wildlife build. Heck, I'd rather have a Lynx on my team than Gia.
- There are WAY too many animals in each match. They might as well make a mission where the main goal is to kill as many as possible.
Here are possibly some ways to fix them and make them feel more "natural":
- Make each animal biome specific
- Frogs – Remove all together or make them spawn in Lakeside and Tropical Biomes (you know, where water exists)
- Crows – Keep them in all biomes but reduce the amount that spawn
- Chickens – Spawn in all biomes except desert related biomes and tropical
- Boars – Spawn in all biomes except tropical
- Wolves – Spawn in all biomes except tropical
- Raptors – Only spawn in non urban/suburban biomes
- Fix the clipping issues
- Scale health and damage better for later zones. Stonewood and Plankerton are fine, but starting at Canny Valley is where they start to become more of a distraction for the husks than a helper.
- Remove knockback effect from boars, wolves, and raptors
- Overall faster attacks/better AI
- Give wolves and raptors affliction damage (unless they already do)
- If you are holding meat, your tamed animal will come towards you like a lure
- Meat should heal them way more than what it currently does. Maybe 25% per meat.
Wildlife was practically ripped from BR and there was little to no balance for them against a PvE environment. The old terrain around them is a death sentence, and hurt us more than the husks.
Honestly this sounds like a lot, but could make a difference towards gameplay.