Comfort and Health
Comfort is a very important game mechanic, that affects how fast you grow, how fast your stamina and ability power recharge, and how well you heal. It is a indicator of how comfortable your animal is, taking in all accounts such as nearby allies, nearby enemies, the weather, and if you’ve eaten good or bad food.
One of the biggest ways you will find that you lose or gain comfort is through enemies and allies. A nearby friend is going to boost your comfort higher, while a nearby enemy is going to lower it. Eating specific plants will increase your comfort ‘bias’, which is the cap your comfort will sit at. This bias will decay over time. There are also talents that will increase your base comfort level, and that is permanent to your dinosaur.
Size does play a role here, a Velociraptor is going to be extremely stressed by a nearby Apatosaurus, while the Apatosaurus will barely notice the Velociraptor’s presence on its comfort. Equal sized animals will affect each other similarly and be a more equal encounter.
Taking the talent ‘Intimidation’ will increase how much comfort loss or gain you influence on others. There is also a talent that reduces how much stress you take from nearby enemies.
On the character screen, the color background of the player’s name is their comfort level. (See Talents section for a picture of this)
Comfort changes color at these levels:
Blue > 75 – 100
Green > 50 – 75
Yellow > 40 – 50
Orange > 30 – 40
Red > 0 – 30
You begin losing health at Orange levels, and the effect increases the lower your Comfort drops. This means it can be very damaging to stay near enemies, or to try and stay out of shelter during severe weather.
Ability Power and Stamina
Ability Power is what enables you to Attack, Scent or use any special abilities your creature has. This is a neat mechanic the game employs to make battles more strategic. If you spam bite and miss attacks, you will find yourself unable to attack again, rendering you needing to run until your ability power recharges, giving encouragement to land attacks properly.
Most creatures have 100 Ability Power, with a few exceptions having more base amount, and there is a Talent that increases the amount of Ability Power you have that is available for everyone to take. There are also talents that make your attacks use less Ability Power, and these two Talents can be used together to prolong your Ability Power.
Stamina is the same as in many other games, where Sprinting and Jumping depletes it and it recharges slowly, recharging faster if you Sit, and recharging fastest if you Sleep. There are several Talents affecting Stamina, from how much you have to how much it depletes as you run. There is also a Talent Carnivores can take that depletes Stamina of their prey upon biting.