Uses for wolves and bears?

[Thurman Merman]

Now that parasites are around, I never eat either of these.  So, when I kill them, they very often go to waste (why kill them then, you ask: well, with wolves its personal; and bears are often blocking my exploration/harvest of an area).  

I'd like to be able to craft lamp oil/accelerant or candles (or both) out of bear fat.  And, maybe use bear "parts" (anal sacs, urine, etc.) as a scent marking to keep wolves away from an area temporarily, at the cost of keeping deer and rabbits away as well.  Is that even realistic - might be that bears are equally afraid of wolves?

Not sure what you could use wolf parts for - anyone have any ideas?

I just hate the waste.

[Dirmagnos]

Id prefer that they would just dump those stupid parasites.

[elloco999]

I always eat 1 piece of wolf meat (I've yet to kill a bear since the parasites have been introduced) in the morning and I've never gotten parasites. The risk is just so small if you only eat a little at a time. And this way my other food supplies last longer.

But I would like killing predators and especially bears to be a bit more useful. Using bear fat for something like oil lamps is the first thing that comes to mind. Guess that's why it's been suggested several times already.

[Dirmagnos]

I eat predator meat twice a day, first when 24 hour timer of previous parasites expires, to get calories and restart timer and second, when timer is about to expire, so that i still get calories but have only 1(or none, im not quite sure if it makes a check when it expires) counter for a chance to get parasites(since it checks every hour).

Its extremely lame, but i consider whole parasites system to be one of that lamest things in the game, so its justified to exploit it.

[Wastelander]

4 hours ago, elloco999 said:

But I would like killing predators and especially bears to be a bit more useful. Using bear fat for something like oil lamps is the first thing that comes to mind. Guess that's why it's been suggested several times already.

Or maybe mount a bear's had on a spike to notify all other predators around your lair that you are NOT to be trifled with. Loses condition everyday as carrion birds slowly but surely pick it clean. Yes, I am not fond of bears (well, as a gameplay element they're just fine, giving us an enemy we can't just nudie-knife to death, but they just pick the worst resting spots in my sandboxes ) 

[Hiemalis]

@Thurman Merman, you could always cook the meat (and then dispose of it) in order to increase your cooking skills. At some point you'll be skilled enough to nullify the risk of parasites. Other than that, I'm all for introducing more uses for hunting yields.

[Wastelander]

1 minute ago, Hiemalis said:

@Thurman Merman, you could always cook the meat (and then dispose of it) in order to increase your cooking skills. At some point you'll be skilled enough to nullify the risk of parasites. Other than that, I'm all for introducing more uses for hunting yields.

No offense, but this sounds a bit like cheating. Granted, it's ot really cheating since you worked for the meat, it's more like... immersion breaking, catch my drift? Anyway, I'm not one to judge, everyone should play the game as they like. However, it seems there really is a problem if this seems like a feasible solution to it. 

[Hiemalis]

Just now, Wastelander said:

No offense, but this sounds a bit like cheating. Granted, it's ot really cheating since you worked for the meat, it's more like... immersion breaking, catch my drift? Anyway, I'm not one to judge, everyone should play the game as they like. However, it seems there really is a problem if this seems like a feasible solution to it. 

None taken! It's a bit of a borderline case, I guess. I personally didn't know about the parasites -- and actually still don't know from firsthand experience; a couple of hundred hours of gameplay and still haven't got them! --, and thus I would cook and eat normally (and read those skill books) until I got to zero chance of parasites. I myself never exploited the system.

But in real life, if I knew there's a risk of getting parasites, I'd certainly take the appropriate measures in avoiding it -- something that is represented in-game by our cooking skill level. I really think it's a matter of interpretation of how this particular piece of abstration works. (As a sidenote, I don't like the current skill system. I'm planning on commenting on that in another thread.)

[cekivi]

Some points of clarification for the intestinal parasites:

• You only get them on Stalker. Voyager and Pilgrim players can eat predator meat to their heart's content.
• The likelihood of getting parasites right now is very low. Roughly 1% on your first piece. You can still eat meat and just gamble on that 1% (I've never gotten parasites on my stalker playthrough)
• Parasites are more of an annoyance than something fatal: they won't (directly) kill you and since most players have tons of antibiotics treatment remains fairly easy.

They can definitely be improved though. I'm still hoping for a birch bark anti parasite tea (it's a real thing!) to make it into the game and for the parasites to be tuned to be more of a challenge and less of an annoyance. E.g. cooking level 2 or 3 should be enough to remove parasites from most "fresh" game.

[Dirmagnos]

3 hours ago, cekivi said:

Some points of clarification for the intestinal parasites:

• You only get them on Stalker. Voyager and Pilgrim players can eat predator meat to their heart's content.
• The likelihood of getting parasites right now is very low. Roughly 1% on your first piece. You can still eat meat and just gamble on that 1% (I've never gotten parasites on my stalker playthrough)
• Parasites are more of an annoyance than something fatal: they won't (directly) kill you and since most players have tons of antibiotics treatment remains fairly easy.

They can definitely be improved though. I'm still hoping for a birch bark anti parasite tea (it's a real thing!) to make it into the game and for the parasites to be tuned to be more of a challenge and less of an annoyance. E.g. cooking level 2 or 3 should be enough to remove parasites from most "fresh" game.

Its 1% of first meat piece, but then it increases exponentially(its 4% for second, and already 14% for third, altho im not sure about third, but i did got such jump once). Plus, check for infection seems to be repeated, id say hourly(on several occasions i got parasites hours after nearest meal). And parasites can be fatal as far as i can tell, since they decrease player max condition(altho i dont know if they can take it down all the way to 0%) each day left untreated and require 20 tablets to cure, that is often even more than player can find on single map. While shroom tea is also an alternative, again, it takes 3 shrooms to make 1 cup and often there is not enough schrooms on a single map to go thru whole treatment cycle.

Way how cooking skill treats poisoning and parasites right now is absurd. Its nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, bam, immunity. Instead of gradual increase and having small chance to occur even with maxed skill. Not to mention that cooking in general, without any skill, should decrease infection chance to nonexisting levels. Thats one of the reasons food is being cooked to begin with, to eliminate harmful pathogens thru thermal processing.

[cekivi]

16 minutes ago, Dirmagnos said:

Way how cooking skill treats poisoning and parasites right now is absurd. Its nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, bam, immunity. Instead of gradual increase and having small chance to occur even with maxed skill. Not to mention that cooking in general, without any skill, should decrease infection chance to nonexisting levels. Thats one of the reasons food is being cooked to begin with, to eliminate harmful pathogens thru thermal processing.

Like I said, there's room for improvement

[Hiemalis]

13 hours ago, cekivi said:

• You only get them on Stalker. Voyager and Pilgrim players can eat predator meat to their heart's content.

I didn't know that. I'd like them on Voyager too, at least with reduced requirements for the treatment! I wonder why Hinterland disabled them on Voyager, since it's supposed to be the default experience (i.e., we're meant to try everything the game has to offer, albeit it in a lighter way than on Stalker difficulty).

[Wastelander]

1 minute ago, Hiemalis said:

I didn't know that. I'd like them on Voyager too, at least with reduced requirements for the treatment! I wonder why Hinterland disabled them on Voyager, since it's supposed to be the default experience (i.e., we're meant to try everything the game has to offer, albeit it in a lighter way than on Stalker difficulty).

Because of the one, single mistake Hinterland is doing with parasites: They're trying to please everyone. And that is something they, and in extension no single person on this planet will ever achieve. I applaud the sentiment, I really do, but it's just not realistic. Ironically, they don't do this with other things. I agree that parasites should make their way into Voyageur, by the way.

[elloco999]

14 hours ago, Hiemalis said:

@Thurman Merman, you could always cook the meat (and then dispose of it) in order to increase your cooking skills. At some point you'll be skilled enough to nullify the risk of parasites. Other than that, I'm all for introducing more uses for hunting yields.

I didn't know that the risk of parasites goes down as your cooking skill increases, that's good to know.

13 hours ago, cekivi said:

They can definitely be improved though. I'm still hoping for a birch bark anti parasite tea (it's a real thing!) to make it into the game and for the parasites to be tuned to be more of a challenge and less of an annoyance. E.g. cooking level 2 or 3 should be enough to remove parasites from most "fresh" game.

I didn't know (or rather I forgot) that you can't get parasites on voyageur. Guess that's why I don't get the "you're now at risk of getting parasites" warning in my current game. Never did get parasites in my stalker games though, just keeping the amount of predator meat I eat per day low.

I do wholeheartedly agree that the parasites system can be improved quite a bit. I also agree with @Dirmagnos that the amount of antibiotics needed to cure parasites is way to much. Adding birch bark tea would be an excellent improvement I would say. And to balance the easier cure this provides parasites could indeed become more of a challenge.

As it is now parasites seem designed to make the game more difficult by doing one of two things:

1. Make shy players away from eating predator meat, therefor making it harder to get food (and prevent players from easily getting all the food they need by fighting wolfs naked instead of actually hunting deer)

2. Removing large quantities of antibiotics making other threats that require antibiotics more dangerous.

[cekivi]

8 hours ago, elloco999 said:

1. Make shy players away from eating predator meat, therefor making it harder to get food (and prevent players from easily getting all the food they need by fighting wolfs naked instead of actually hunting deer)

2. Removing large quantities of antibiotics making other threats that require antibiotics more dangerous.

I agree. Both were good goals... but the execution still needs works. With parasites all people do are shoot wolves for hides and leave them or eat one piece at a time to keep the risk low. So, instead of stopping the behaviour it just added a delay timer to it. Also, unless there is a new affliction system planned the only thing antibiotics are needed for are food poisoning and infections. Both are bad but it is again easy to mitigate the risks and still have tons of antibiotics you don't need.

[Dirmagnos]

On 8/16/2016 at 1:54 PM, elloco999 said:

1. Make shy players away from eating predator meat, therefor making it harder to get food (and prevent players from easily getting all the food they need by fighting wolfs naked instead of actually hunting deer)

2. Removing large quantities of antibiotics making other threats that require antibiotics more dangerous.

Problem with predator meat was ease of hunt of wolves, especially when done naked. Something that was fairly easily fixable by boosting wolves, again, something that has been discussed topic for quite a while. And was hunting naked exploit addressed ? No, nobody apparently gives a flying frak about, by now, multiple gamebreaking exploits that exist in the game, even tho they have been there for a long time. Maybe next update...

Was that issue addressed ? Not, not in the slightest. We got same "solution" as with Stalker wolves - they are not harder, there is just like 3 times more of them. Its not difficulty, its annoyance. Bears have similar issue, by dealing percentage of current condition(instead of fixed amount of damage), they were not as deadly as they should have been - eg dealing huge amount, possibly lethal if player is not well prepared, when attacking. Resulting in bears dealing sometimes even less damage that wolves - WTF ?

At the same time, with introduction of parasites it seriously and negatively affected several completely unrelated game features. Antibiotics could have so many uses, instead we got condition that is completely disproportional to rest of the gameplay in general and medical conditions in particular; makes hunting, especially of predators, that much less viable(especially with multiple boosts that fishing and trapping received in recent updates - completely danger free, light on resources and meds - no need for antibiotics nor antiseptics; and fast way to maintain own food supply) option for survival(you need bow or rifle, then you need ammo, all of which are fairly rare and heavy items, while for trapping+fishing combo player just needs metal, reclaimed wood and gut, formers are one of the most abundant resources in the game and latter you get from same rabbits that you catch in snares that usually allows to catch more than one rabbit be4 breaking, allowing to maintain steady supply of guts); and doesnt make sense in general, since simply thoroughly cooking meat(and you dont need any special skill for it) is supposed to be enough to eliminate all but most exotic and resistant of parasites. Thats why various health agencies recommend it, instead of some fancy chemical treatments - its simple, fact and effective.

Prior to parasites i was fairly ok with hunting, since it required more resource and effort than fishing/trapping, but also gave player more food per go, plus hides. My main 2 issues with predators were wolf general weakness and naked fighting exploit. Neither one of those have even been looked upon, instead we got shit like parasites and wolf bites that require rivers of antiseptic(with no alternative treatments, just like parasites; something that fishing/trapping is not affected in any way - you cant get bitten by a rabbit, not you need to worry about parasites from fish), combined with booster fishing it has been gradually, but steadily making hunting predators to be a complete waste of time, instead of viable balanced survival solution. Once player get his wolf coat, there is no point to interact, but to avoid wolves.

[continuity]

On 8/15/2016 at 10:29 PM, cekivi said:

Some points of clarification for the intestinal parasites:

• You only get them on Stalker. Voyager and Pilgrim players can eat predator meat to their heart's content.
• The likelihood of getting parasites right now is very low. Roughly 1% on your first piece. You can still eat meat and just gamble on that 1% (I've never gotten parasites on my stalker playthrough)
• Parasites are more of an annoyance than something fatal: they won't (directly) kill you and since most players have tons of antibiotics treatment remains fairly easy.

They can definitely be improved though. I'm still hoping for a birch bark anti parasite tea (it's a real thing!) to make it into the game and for the parasites to be tuned to be more of a challenge and less of an annoyance. E.g. cooking level 2 or 3 should be enough to remove parasites from most "fresh" game.

Well on my current character I got parasites twice during the first 20 days, and that wiped out all of my antibiotics (including shrooms).  Admitedly i'm staying exclusively in ML as a personal challange so thats restricting my resources.  Given it takes sooo much antibiotics to cure, even a 1% risk of infection is too high to take the chance on unless you're literally dying otherwise.  Having parasites before you're geared up can significantly increase your risk of dying, maybe not directly but indirectly.  I only use woolf meat for decoys now.

However i'm not really concerned about having a use for wolf meat, i'd much rather have more use for rabbit furs, if you try an even partially subsist off rabbits for even a month or two you're going wading through piles of cured rabbit fur before too long.

[Dirmagnos]

19 minutes ago, continuity said:

Well on my current character I got parasites twice during the first 20 days, and that wiped out all of my antibiotics (including shrooms).  Admitedly i'm staying exclusively in ML as a personal challange so thats restricting my resources.  Given it takes sooo much antibiotics to cure, even a 1% risk of infection is too high to take the chance on unless you're literally dying otherwise.  Having parasites before you're geared up can significantly increase your risk of dying, maybe not directly but indirectly.  I only use woolf meat for decoys now.

However i'm not really concerned about having a use for wolf meat, i'd much rather have more use for rabbit furs, if you try an even partially subsist off rabbits for even a month or two you're going wading through piles of cured rabbit fur before too long.

You must been lucky. On my first playthru after parasites were introduced i managed to get them on day 4. After scavenging every location on map i found 14 antibiotic pills in total(ML), so it took me quite some time to find enough shrooms to finish treatment. Eventually i died anyway, since with all that parasites crap i spent 2 much time looking to medicine than doing anything else, resulting in being extremely low on everything when i finally cured condition. Died 3 days later from infection after wolf managed to bite me in 3 different places and not having enough antiseptic and not enough supplies to continue looking for them.

Plus, keep in mind that risk of parasites is exponential, its not 1% per piece. And it makes periodic checks for its 24 hour duration. Maybe not hourly, but something along those lines. Not just when you eat a piece of meat from predator.

Crafting needs a lot more options, like making any piece of clothing from any hide, with different stats for final product.

On a side note, it would be absolutely grand if they would make cured hides having 100% condition. It makes no difference in terms of crafting as far as i can tell, but having a dozen unstackable hides, all simply because they have different conditions, pisses me off greatly.

[continuity]

1 minute ago, Dirmagnos said:

On a side note, it would be absolutely grand if they would make cured hides having 100% condition. It makes no difference in terms of crafting as far as i can tell, but having a dozen unstackable hides, all simply because they have different conditions, pisses me off greatly.

Very true. +1