Elk

Happy Thanksgiving!

What Is This?

This suggestion is aimed to make the process of hunting more of a challenge for the average player. Right now it’s all too easy to just walk up to a deer in the wilderness and bludgeon it with a warhammer. Real deer are actually smart, and stay away (unless you’re in a National Park, but you might get in trouble for bludgeoning deer with a warhammer there). It’s also just plain disappointing after the excitement of spotting your first white stag to kill it and find you get no trophy. I am proposing several changes to hunting to make it more realistic and enjoyable.

This is my second suggestion regarding making the vast wild lands of Middle-Earth more realistic, the first can be found here.

Inspiration

While most of these ideas come from real life and my experience in game, this suggestion is partially inspired by this thread.

The idea for fallen leaves (mentioned below) is inspired by S’moregoth’s comment in this thread.

The rabbit mechanics in this thread by S’moregoth would go nicely with this idea. The addition of rabbits fleeing would make hunting food in the wild much more difficult.

The hunting knife brought up in this thread by CreeperKid354 and further discussed would also make this more interesting.

Fleeing

Game animals throughout Middle-earth will flee from players and NPCs. The most important animals for this change are deer and elk. They will naturally stay away from the player, having a high chance of fleeing every time the player comes within a certain distance. This distance should be really annoyingly far, but close enough that they actually are loaded in the world. If the player sneaks, they will be able to get closer before the animals flee. It They will have a chance of being able to get right up to the animals if they are very careful.

It would be best if the animals only flee when they see the player, in the same way evil NPCs see the player. Or, perhaps the distance that they choose to flee depends on whether the biome (or biome variant) is forested or not.

The distances that they choose to flee from are not set in stone depending on the biome or vision. Rather as players approach within a certain distance (or once they become visible to the quarry) the quarry has a high chance of fleeing, and that chance increases as the player gets closer. If one animal flees animals nearby will panic and flee as well.

Ranger Armour will let players get much closer to their quarry without it seeing them. This makes it a little more useful than it is now. Galadhrim cloaks also have this effect.

It would be good if stepping on fallen leaves would make a loud noise and scare away any quarry within a large radius even if you are sneaking.

If the player has very high Woodland Realm alignment (say 100, which is the amount required to trust you plus the amount required to ride a warg, or maybe 200 if it needs to be difficult), the elk will no longer flee unless they or a nearby elk is attacked. This will still allow for players who want to tame and ride elk.

Offering deer wheat will still lure them, but it will be more difficult. They will most likely scare if the player isn’t sneaking, and if one scares they all will. Once a deer has been fed wheat once, however, it will become ‘tame’. Not tame as in following the player around, but tame as in coming instantly and thoughtlessly accepting any food from the player. Deer bred by players should also be less skittish in this manner.

Since these animals now will be harder to hunt, they should drop more food. I think about double what they normally drop would be good.

When Beornings are added, players with very high Beornings and possibly Woodman of Mirkwood alignment will also be able to approach animals more easily.

Fighting

Game animals that don’t flee will fight back more fiercely. This goes for large animals like bears and aurochs. They will have increased speed, damage, and health making them challenging foes. From now on knockback will be much less effective when fighting these animals. This is so that there are no easy options.

Animal Changes

Deer

The current deer mob in the game is not really up to the mod’s standards as far as mobs go (at least that is my opinion). I suggest a new model for deer that looks more athletic. They would stay about the same size, but they would become slimmer and have thinner legs. I personally like the look of mule deer or whitetail deer, and think this sort of animal would be a good way to go, but to be more lore accurate an old world deer like the fallow deer would probably be better. Deer just need a more graceful model. Fallow deer could make for a good model, though it appears they can still get chubby (see the white deer picture).

It should be noted that fallow deer have a white color variant, so these should be an extremely uncommon variant in the game.

Elk

The elk in the game have a pretty cool model. The problem is that the elk in the game don’t look anything like elk. I recommend remodeling them to have a model based off of elk, or more accurately the Old World Red Deer.

Never fear, red deer also have a white variant in real life so we won’t loose the occasional white stag in Mirkwood.

In addition to this remodel, elk will no longer be present in the Northlands. They can still be found in the Northern Forests, but less common. They will also be added to forested biomes like the Grey and Misty Mountains Foothills, and perhaps the Vales of Anduin and Anduin Hills. Wilderland, Northern Wilderland, Dale, Erebor, Ettenmoors, Coldfells, and the Iron Hills are also good candidates.

But what happens to the elk models already in game?

Reindeer

Caribou, or Reindeer as they are known in the Old World (the same animal), would be a good use for the current elk model. It would need a little retexturing and possibly tweaking, but it already strongly resembles a reindeer. There will be a few different skins, some a little lighter and some a little darker but mostly the same.

Reindeer will be abundant in the Northern Forests and the Northlands. They will also occasionally spawn in Forodwaith. They spawn mostly in large groups.

Interestingly enough, reindeer can also be white! A rare white variant will exist in game for these animals as well.

If we want other game animals

While unnecessary, it might be fun to add the moose as another mob. They would be in northern mountain foothill biomes, Northern Wilderland, and the Northern Forests, but they would only spawn near large bodies of water. They would also spawn in swamps like the Long Marshes and the Gladden Fields. They would not, however, spawn in western biomes like Eriador or Midgewater, or south of the Misty Mountains. They would be fairly rare.

As bizarre as it is, there is actually such a thing as a white moose (complete with white antlers).

I think this is just strange, and don’t think it would really be worth adding a white variant for moose if they were added to the game at all. Keep in mind the whole idea of adding a moose is not pivotal to this suggestion, but just a fun idea.

Trophies

Now that we have established changes to the various animals, I would like to discuss the addition of hunting trophies. Following in the style of warg rugs, I would like to add trophies that drop from animals when hunted. Deer, elk, caribou, and (if added) moose would all drop their heads occasionally when killed. These heads would be an exact copy of the animal model’s head, and would have the same antlers (or lack thereof) and coloration as the animal killed. When placed on a wall, the head would be an entity taking up one block of space. If the antlers are bigger than this size (such as with reindeer) they are visible but ignored by the game, in much the same manner as the Table of Command. The heads should have a small chance of dropping, but much larger than warg rugs. About one in twenty is probably a good chance.

If the hunting knife is added as discussed in the thread linked above, it would increase the chance of getting a trophy to something around 90%. This would still be difficult because the player would have to carefully sneak up close enough to animals.

The purpose of these trophies would be none other than decoration for builds and showing off one’s hunting prowess. Players will not be able to wear them as with other heads.

Bears will drop bear rugs. These will be the same as wargskin rugs, except using the bear model. They could just drop their heads like other animals, but this would be more interesting and realistic as a trophy.

Far Harad animals such as lions, zebras, etc. will also drop their heads as trophies.

Antlers

All of these game animals would have another drop added: the antler. Antlers would be an item only, and unplaceable. The different animals mentioned above would have different antlers on their models (and trophies) but would all drop the same item to keep things simple. They would have a high chance of dropping, unless the animal has no antlers (such as deer without antlers). If the animal drops its head it will drop no antlers, otherwise it will drop 0-2 antlers. Antlers could also be found as items on the forest floor, similar to conkers. Antlers can be crafted into 3 bonemeal, and fed to wolves to tame them. Perhaps they could be used to craft weapons for future factions, but that’s not necessary.

Conclusion

I think this would be a fun feature to add to the game, and would make hunting roleplay more interesting. Factions like Rangers of the North especially would benefit from this feature.

I am open to any comments or constructive criticism. Please let me know what you think!

EDIT: Decreased chance for white animals to drop heads, credit to HorseLordOfRohan.

EDIT: Added antlers as a drop.

EDIT: Added increased stats for aurochs and bears, credit to ElenionoftheFirmament. Also increased animal drops.

EDIT: Changed title “Rewards” to “Trophies”.

EDIT: Same chance for white animals to drop trophies, as suggested by Swordsbane.

EDIT: Woodman and Beornings alignment allows you to approach animals more easily, as suggested by Kickratgames.

EDIT: Bears will drop bearskin rugs, not bear heads.

Sir Lazuli, Guardian of the Roasted Turkey ^{Come feast!}