Way to many wolves in stalker

[dbldrew]

It makes the game way to easy. I have 43lbs of meat in my freezer and 69lbs in my fridge. And there is 7 dead wolves scattered around my area that I haven't even touched.

Needs to be less wolves or way less meat per wolf or both. Wolves are tough in the beginning but once you have a bow and a few arrows they become an endless supply of easy food

 

[hauteecolerider]

I haven't played Stalker yet, but trying out Voyager, I found myself wishing that wolves would respawn less frequently. I just can't seem to clear my path to the rabbit run where I've set my snares without tangling with a wolf. I've killed two or three in the same area one day, come back two days later and they've been replaced! 

I know nature abhors a vacuum but still --!

[starfighter441]

Yep, it seems that every time I leave the Camp Office, one of the beggers comes charging at me with unfriendly intentions...  Think I'm going to have to pull up stakes and move somewhere else.

 

[dbldrew]

just make it so once they are hunted out of an area it makes it so they dont respawn in that area for a very long time maybe. Can even do it with all animals. make around your "homestead" have very little animal presence

[exeexe]

just make arrows inefficient vs wolves

[Ohbal]

2 hours ago, exeexe said:

just make arrows inefficient vs wolves

Lol, this is a bit excessive, isn't it? Arrows effectivity for hunting is out of the question, so if things get to that then I'd rather remove them entirely from the game. What would be the point in having arrows that only work on deers? Its not even realistic, deers have tougher skin and more fat protection than wolves, so arrows should work even worst on them. 

I agree with OP in which something could be done to the wolf respawn mechanics. If you have killed half a dozen wolves in the same area in a couple of days, it would make sense to see less of a population for some time. It would be cool to be able to influence on the animal populated areas, so they migrate if they feel they are in danger. Adding some life into the system would also bring back some exploration goals for the ones that already know all maps... having fixed respawn points for animals doesn't add much to the gameplay imo, just reminds you that you are playing a game  

About the wolfs giving less meat, I'm already seeing this. I've hunted a few that were below 4kg, poor animals, they were so hungry when I took their lifes! I don't think the amount of meat is the problem, but the amount of wolves. Here is the thing with wolves, if you are unprepared, they are to be avoided no matter their numbers. When you are prepared, they are no longer a huge threat. Therefore their high numbers are not making the game necessarily harder, but easier as you never run out of meat. 

[exeexe]

27 minutes ago, Ohbal said:

Lol, this is a bit excessive, isn't it? Arrows effectivity for hunting is out of the question, so if things get to that then I'd rather remove them entirely from the game. What would be the point in having arrows that only work on deers? Its not even realistic, deers have tougher skin and more fat protection than wolves, so arrows should work even worst on them. 

 

The devs have already said that balance > reality
Another thing that can be considered is that an animal hit with an arrow will never die immediately instead it will run away for 3 days until it dies because the wound is so small. In that way it can die anywhere on the map and so it will be much more difficult to go and find it. But it will be there somewhere

[Ohbal]

Just now, exeexe said:

The devs has already said that balance > reality

Not questioning that approach as a whole; but what you are proposing (arrows to not work on wolves) is more a nerf (aka, an easy way out of the problem) than a balancing action. Balancing the game would, ideally, be arround making the elements in the game to work together. In this case, I think it would be more interesting to:

1. Change the wolf AI to make them harder to kill 

2. Influence the animal influence areas with our actions, so even if one manages to be proficient with the bow (quite hard) and wolves are still no problem, exploring to find food sources would be necessary. 

[Vhalkyrie]

I'd like to see a slower wolf respawn rate.  Wolves are more of a pest than a threat at this point, and I don't need any more pelts (I have 18), and I don't need to kill anything else for food.  Wolves are massively overpopulated in my neck of the woods.  

Ironically, wolves are harder to kill on Pilgrim than Voyager.  When a wolf gets spooked, you have to be more stealthy.  When they approach and make a running charge at you, it's pretty easy to put a bullet or arrow in the head/chest.

[exeexe]

And how is nerfing not a balancing thing? lol

 

- Ofcourse its an easy way out. Theres no reason to overcomplicate things
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

[exeexe]

14 minutes ago, Ohbal said:

...

I also mentioned this in an edit but i dont think u saw it:

" Another thing that can be considered is that an animal hit with an arrow will never die immediately instead it will run away for 3 days until it dies because the wound is so small. In that way it can die anywhere on the map and so it will be much more difficult to go and find it. But it will be there somewhere "
What do u think about that?

[Vhalkyrie]

I would not be in favor of that.  I use the bow more than the rifle to conserve bullets.

[Ohbal]

 

18 minutes ago, exeexe said:

And how is nerfing not a balancing thing? lol

 

- Ofcourse its an easy way out. Theres no reason to overcomplicate things
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

Let's agree to dissagree

For me the nerf is crearly an symptom of losing control over the original design. I've seen enough nerfs to know that they usually just unbalance another part of the game. I always preferred to aim at "boosting" rather than "nerfing". In this case I'd rather have the game challenging me to adapt to different situations, than to deny me the use of a survival tool to defend myself. Not saying a nerf is always a bad thing, but should always be the last option to look at. 

7 minutes ago, exeexe said:

I also mentioned this in an edit but i dont think u saw it:

" Another thing that can be considered is that an animal hit with an arrow will never die immediately instead it will run away for 3 days until it dies because the wound is so small. In that way it can die anywhere on the map and so it will be much more difficult to go and find it. But it will be there somewhere "
What do u think about that?

Yeah I missed this

The bleeding times could be extended a bit for some of the hit zones. It doesn't have to be for days, but a bit longer than now if they got hit in a leg for example. I wouldn't want to see a wolf running around with an arrow between the eyes

Anyway, I still think my preferral fix would for this problem be to make the wolfs a threat even if you have the bow. Aiming with the bow is quite challenging, and the only reason for we being so confident now in our wolfs encounters, is that we can make them freeze at will, making the aiming skill somewhat unnecessary. I think if this changes, we'll quickly forget about nerfs and balance. We'll be busy struggling

[exeexe]

12 minutes ago, Ohbal said:

...

Yeah I missed this

The bleeding times could be extended a bit for some of the hit zones. It doesn't have to be for days, but a bit longer than now if they got hit in a leg for example. I wouldn't want to see a wolf running around with an arrow between the eyes

Anyway, I still think my preferral fix would for this problem be to make the wolfs a threat even if you have the bow. Aiming with the bow is quite challenging, and the only reason for we being so confident now in our wolfs encounters, is that we can make them freeze at will,...

It could be changed to this: Wolf charges at you. You freeze it. You hit it with an arrow. Wolf runs away and it survives - 3 days later its health is restored. But if you hit it one more time in less than 3 days it will bleed to death.

So to kill a wolf with an arrow u need 2 hits and with a bullet only 1 hit. Now u may say u dont want to see a wolf running away with an arrow between the eyes. Ok well the arrow can be programmed so that if they hit the head they hit the body instead. (its not hard to make this happen) Arrows are very unpredictable anyway.

[Ohbal]

Again, your approach would deny the player the chance of a lucky/skilled shot... and I'm really not keen to that.

I understand what you are trying to fix, just dissagree on how to fix it

The fix itself is not up to any of us, but the good thing is that we threw our thoughts in here, feedack will always be useful for devs  

[Vhalkyrie]

19 minutes ago, Ohbal said:

Again, your approach would deny the player the chance of a lucky/skilled shot... and I'm really not keen to that.

I understand what you are trying to fix, just dissagree on how to fix it

The fix itself is not up to any of us, but the good thing is that we threw our thoughts in here, feedack will always be useful for devs  

Agreed.  I don't have anything else to add to this topic.  I agree that wolves are too prevalent, which ironically makes them my primary food supply!  I hope the devs will address it soon with a practical and reasonable solution.

[dbldrew]

22 hours ago, exeexe said:

It could be changed to this: Wolf charges at you. You freeze it. You hit it with an arrow. Wolf runs away and it survives - 3 days later its health is restored. But if you hit it one more time in less than 3 days it will bleed to death.

So to kill a wolf with an arrow u need 2 hits and with a bullet only 1 hit. Now u may say u dont want to see a wolf running away with an arrow between the eyes. Ok well the arrow can be programmed so that if they hit the head they hit the body instead. (its not hard to make this happen) Arrows are very unpredictable anyway.

As someone who actually bow hunts in real life I would be completely against this. The arrow is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing.

whats more logical. wolves are arrow proof? Or once you kill a bunch of wolves in an area they move out of the area? 

[exeexe]

1 hour ago, dbldrew said:

As someone who actually bow hunts in real life I would be completely against this. The arrow is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing.

whats more logical. wolves are arrow proof? Or once you kill a bunch of wolves in an area they move out of the area? 

Yeah with professional bows and arrows. We are dealing here with arrows and bows selfcrafted by a pilot not a proffesional hunter

[dbldrew]

5 minutes ago, exeexe said:

Yeah with professional bows and arrows. We are dealing here with arrows and bows selfcrafted by a pilot not a proffesional hunter

so it takes 2 arrows and 3 days to kill a 175lb wolf but 1 arrow for a 160lb deer (or 700lb if its an elk)? again thats not logical. and dont forget that neanderthals killed 6 ton mammoths with stone tools..

 

 

[Camponote]

On 21/3/2016 at 6:57 PM, dbldrew said:

just make it so once they are hunted out of an area it makes it so they dont respawn in that area for a very long time maybe. Can even do it with all animals. make around your "homestead" have very little animal presence

+1

animals hunted on a area should be flee from it

and, if we go further, do you really think they will respawn by magic ? perhaps small population will migrate, that's all..

So we should travel to find wildlife..

and only then, we will think twice before taking our arrow..

[exeexe]

57 minutes ago, dbldrew said:

so it takes 2 arrows and 3 days to kill a 175lb wolf but 1 arrow for a 160lb deer (or 700lb if its an elk)? again thats not logical.

Ofcourse its logical, you are just not thinking. You can chase the deer into a wolf use one arrow on the wolf, the wolf runs away and then u have your deer meat. The cost? One arrow

[dbldrew]

7 minutes ago, exeexe said:

Ofcourse its logical, you are just not thinking. You can chase the deer into a wolf use one arrow on the wolf, the wolf runs away and then u have your deer meat. The cost? One arrow

no its not logical at all to be able to kill a 160lb deer in 1 shot but a 175lb wolf in 2 shots and 3 days. that is not logical at all.

Even when you make a bad shot and gut shot an animal they run off lay down and given a few hours are dead.

shooting a wolf will not take 3 days to kill im sorry but that is just a bad idea considering the same result can be achieved that is logical.. as in over hunted wolves = no more wolves re-spawning

[Hatchet]

I gotta say exeexe, you're pretty good.
Pretty good at making up the worst possible solutions XD No offence but they made me laugh
Hahahahaha, as Simon Cowell would say; Totally and utterly useless (this discussion, not you)

[Ohbal]

Quote

Totally and utterly useless (this discussion, not you)

Well, I think any discussion will always be useful, even if no clear conclusions are obtained. Going back on topic, a repopulation formula could work as well. After having a look at this thread:

Quote

Food

In Voyageur mode I need about 3100 Cal per day, or 3.1 million Cal in a thousand days. If a deer averages 9 kg of meat = 7200 Cal, I’ll have to kill 431 deer! A bow degrades by 2% per use, I’ll need 9 of them. An arrow can be used 6 times until the shaft breaks: That’s 72 shafts, or 24 birch saplings, plus 72 feathers, in 1000 days. Of course, this assumes that I never miss, never use my bow against a wolf etc. Guts and feathers are easy, so I will not count these.

431 deer in 1000 days? That would need an unrealistic repopulation (I'm not an expert though, so I may be totally wrong here). 

The player could get affected by over-killing the fauna in game. This would be an interesting addition imo, as it adds another layer to the planning and resource management. If you empty the zones near to your safe house, you'll have to travel far to get more food. If you only kill one type of anymal, it may dissappear completely for some time. This would encourage variety in hunting. More reasons to get rabbits and bears. Simple and effective.

[Scyzara]

On 22.3.2016 at 5:27 PM, exeexe said:

You can chase the deer into a wolf use one arrow on the wolf, the wolf runs away and then u have your deer meat. The cost? One arrow

Why use an arrow? You can also have the deer killed by a wolf and scare the wolf away with a torch afterwards.

Cost = 4 sticks (+ maybe 1 match if it's not sunny and you can't use the magnifying lens).

 

If you manage to have your deer killed by a wolf in the proximity of a house or fishing hut (which is pretty simple), you can also just approach the wolf to interrupt its eating process, turn tail as soon as the beast starts to follow you and escape into the nearby building. Sleep for one or two hours to make the wolf leave and get your deer meat afterwards. Cost = nothing.

All this calculation about how many arrows or bows one needs to survive long-term is pointless. In the current game, one doesn't need a single arrow to survive for all eternity (as wolves don't return to deer carcasses if you interrupt them).