Almost 10 years after its original release, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim still hides many myths and secrets that intrigue players. Today at least one of them has finally been clarified and now we know the truth about foxes and their talent for finding treasure!
Like Eurogamer he specified, there are several videos about it circulating on the internet, and there were also posts in the discussion forums on the subject. At least so far, as Joel Burgess, current developer of Capybara Games and formerly of Bethesda, has decided to put an end to the matter.
on your personal twitter @JoelBurgess, the developer of Skyrim He says the team initially saw reports of players commenting on how the foxes took them to the treasure, which was not an intentional decision on the team’s part, so they began to investigate the matter further.
According to Joel, the AI uses “navmesh” for navigation, which means “there is an invisible 3D curtain of triangle-shaped polygons thrown over the entire world telling the AI exactly which sides to go and which not.”
The fact is that the foxes have been programmed to run away from players and then use navmesh to find safe paths like all other NPCs. In open areas the process is simpler, as fields require fewer triangles to stop progress, while a field or city requires more navmesh, with a huge number of small triangles dictating the paths.
Okay, so inspired by @NPurkeypileyesterday, here’s one of my favorite pieces of Skyrim oral history: the myth of the treasure fox.
I’ve already told this story in talks / etc, but I don’t think I’ve shared it with Twitter. Here it is. pic.twitter.com/7uaUlbpmQ8
– Joel Burgess (@JoelBurgess) August 18, 2021
The closer you get to an AI, the more it demands of your CPU. “A villain attacking you, for example, performs multiple navigation operations per second,” Joel said. On the other hand, NPCs on trade routes use much less processing, updating their route after several minutes and without too much care.
Foxes are somewhere between more complex and simpler characters, as all they want is to be “100 triangles away” from the player. The fact is that fields and ruins are great places to concentrate 100 triangles and usually include treasures.
Thus, the foxes accidentally, in their escape attempt, end up being manipulated to find these places which, by default, have good rewards. What do you think of this explanation? I already knew the myth of the fox in Skyrim? Comment below!