Wolves are Still Too Numerous and Vicious


Pharose

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So I've been playing this game for over 2 years and I remember the early alpha days when wolves were the only thing that players were truly afraid of. They were patched to a more reasonable level of difficulty and all was good, but it seems like they have once again become the number one threat in the game by a large and unfair margin.

I've been playing the game on stalker difficulty and I'm enjoying the challenge of starting on a difficult map such as Forlorn Muskeg. I made 4 attempt at surviving the first few days in Forlorn Muskeg but each attempt ended while I was only 2-4 days into my attempt, but each time I got a bit wiser and I was eager to try again. This is a hallmark of great game design, a game that is punishingly challenging but still leaves the gamer excited to try again. This was not the case after my fifth and sixth attempt and I will tell you why.

I spent the first two days dodging wolves, running around to gathering materials so I could forge some tools. On day three I finally had sufficient materials so I went to the forge and spent the whole day building a fire and forging my tools. This was a big deal because I never obtained a knife in my previous attempts and I usually died as a result of being attacked by a wolf while unarmed. The next day I went out to go exploring but ran into a wolf so I ran the other direction, only to end up running into another wolf. I had nowhere to run so I lit up a flare and brandished it at the nearest wolf, and after a fair bit of intimidation he finally ran away. By this point the first wolf had caught up again and I was still cornered so I kept brandishing my flare while trying to sneak away from the cliffs that were trapping me but this wolf wasn't having it and came in for the kill. A fight ensued that brought my health down from 75% hp to 40% hp, so I quickly bandaged up only to find that the other wolf had returned. My flare was still burning so I picked it up again and brandished it but it was no use, the wolf came in a finished me off.

I was highly discouraged after this attempt and I stopped playing for a few days but once again I started up another game. I did my usual routine of running around the map to gather supplies while spending as much time in the caves to conserve wood/firestarter and I was doing pretty well. I found some decent clothing, scrap metal and hacksaws, but there was no hammer at the Spence farmstead and nowhere else I looked so I was desperate for some tools. Luckily I found a rifle from a dead hunter and I felt a bit safer from the damn wolves. Turns out that was a mistake because I was out gathering firewood one day at 60% hp and a wolf approached me. I tried running but he wouldn't quit so I shot him with my rifle and hit him but he still closed in and took away all my HP! This one was frustrating because I was stuck in a cave and I didn't have quite enough firewood to survive the early-morning cold snap and the wolf would hang around outside the cave. He would chase me into the cave and get spooked by my fire but he would only run about 20 metres and resume guarding the cave exit. It also really sucked because I shot him in the torso but he still put up one hell of a fight.

At this point I'd like to mention that I'm no slouch at clicking buttons, when I was younger I could beat all my friends in the "Mario Party" minigames!

After my frustrating sixth attempt I started another game out of spite, in hopes that I could eventually kill every wolf I saw. I'm doing pretty well this time because I found a hammer and a rifle and I have some homemade tools. I now carry a small piece of meat on me at all times to serve as a decoy as well. I also learned that I should carry two peices because these damn wolves are everywhere and they seem to travel in pairs. There is a dead deer sitting outside of the Spence farmstead that's been nagging me for 6 days or so but everytime I go to harvest it a wolf will scare me away. After 6 days of this I get frustrated so I crouch down and sneak in to the corpse while the wolves are a good distance away. I get the meat and the hide, but just as I am cutting the guts out I hear a snarl and I look up to see two wolves. I panic drop some bait but it's no use and the first wolf is upon me. Thanks to my knife my health only drops from 90% to 60% but the second wolf is still snarling at me. I quickly pull out my rifle and land a shot but only just before I get pounced again and fight my way down to 25% hp. I look to bandage up but I already hear more growling so I sprint back to the Spence shed to lick my wounds. I'm in rough shape but I have enough food, wood and medical supplies to survive the night but I used a lot of my coal supply because the nights are so damn cold in the Spence shed. After recovering I plan to head out to butcher some corpses, hoping that it will be easier with two less wolves in the world now, but as I head over to the place where I fought the wolves I immediately run into TWO more wolves, and as I run back in the other direction I see a THIRD wolf just beyond the Spence shed! Why are there so many F@%!@ng wolves!

I get the impression that Forlorn Muskeg is where deer come to die, which makes it some sort of wolf utopia or something but the sheer number of them is ridiculous. You would never find an environment where predator species are quadruple the size of their prey population, but if they are that numerous they should spend as much time fighting eachother as they do fighting me.

I am playing the game on Stalker difficulty on a very hard map so you might argue that this level of frustration is justified but I recently bought another copy for my friend to play and she's having the exact same problems on Voyageur difficulty in Mystery Lake. She's finding the learning curve to be VERY steep and after several attempts ending in the first 36 hours she decided to try the game on easy mode, but she found that to be boring. So she went back to Voyageur difficulty and managed to gather some good supplies and got a good 20+ day game going. However that came to an end on day 23 when she was attacked by 3 wolves within a one hour time frame, two of which she shot with a bow before being pounced! She was incredibly discouraged and wanted to take some time off before starting another game, but then the new Zelda game came out and...

There's been a lot of tweaking done to the wolves in this game over the years but I think there are still some significant issues:

-Flares and brands do little to discourage wolves and only provide a false sense of security. They delay the wolf from attacking for a little bit of time but it mostly seems inevitable that they will attack. It's also annoying that I can't use them as a weapon because if I were to shove a flare in the face of an attacking wolf I am certain that it would quickly lose its appetite!

-Wolves will "guard" an area and make it impossible to leave your house or your cave. Building a fire will spook them but only for a brief period of time which still leaves me imprisoned. This can easily be a death sentence if I don't have enough firewood/food to survive the "wolf siege".

-Bullets and arrows do nothing to stop wolves from attacking once they are at close range. It barely helps me survive the wolf attack at all. 

-There's too many of them. After the first few days in Forlorn Muskeg I find it impossible to go anywhere without running into multiple wolves and I find myself to be frequently stuck and unable to gather the supplies I need. I've gathered many saplings to prepare for my bow-and-arrow revenge but I can't get them because there's about 4 wolves between the Spence farmstead and the cave I left them in.

-Not enough things to make with wolf skins. I can make 2 items with deer skin and 2 items with bear skins but wolves outnumber them by a large margin and I can only make 1 item with their pelts. Maybe you should let us make a wolfskin headpiece so I can dress like a Roman Centurion, because the wolfskin coat isn't doing much to discourage the constant attacks.

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It seems to me that wolves pack are by design a prominent element of difficulty in Stalker. You can find so many weapons that in order to reduce them even a little bit you should first reduce by half all the tools.

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3 hours ago, Pharose said:

-Not enough things to make with wolf skins. I can make 2 items with deer skin and 2 items with bear skins but wolves outnumber them by a large margin and I can only make 1 item with their pelts. Maybe you should let us make a wolfskin headpiece so I can dress like a Roman Centurion, because the wolfskin coat isn't doing much to discourage the constant attacks.

With this one I particularly agree 100%

Stalker is a wolf fest. Way too many for my taste, the game turns into a constant violent struggle with them. I find reasonably easy to avoid confrontation when careful, but it is indeed frustrating to change directions constantly, sometimes even walking in circles, crouching for several minutes... an additional move would be to never completely harvest them, so their respawn time is increased. 

The wolf numbers in Voyager though don't feel so out of control to me. Mistery lake can get dangerous in a few areas on those days where the wolf population is at their peak, but there are several paths that can be taken to avoid these packs. 

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GODDAMIT it happened again! I went out to go retrieve my cured saplings from the cave up the hill but there were two wolves guarding the way. I tried sneaking past them but once of them came in my direction and saw me so I tried running but he was too close. I was attacked and fought him off to 50% hp but then his buddy was growling at me so I lit up a flare and ran as fast as I could. I managed to get away and I was closing in on the Pence shed, where the furnace was still burning, but there were TWO wolves guarding my "home" one on each side so I couldn't make a run for the entrance. I ran away towards the cabins but one followed me and wasn't even deterred by me brandishing the flare. He pounced and then I was DEAD!!!

I HATE YOU HINTERLAND! I HATE YOU LIKE A BAD GIRLFRIEND THAT I KEEP CRAWLING BACK TO! Why the hell have I started another game already?

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The thing is, to have a balanced map, areas with plentiful resources must be offset somehow by additional challenges. Otherwise players will just camp out in an area and the game won't be challenging. Same deal with the village in Coastal Highway; you can run into 4 wolves there, plus a bear if you're unlucky.

The entire Forlorn Muskeg map is a bit of a nerf because it gives you forge access immediately adjacent to Mystery Lake, which is generally the easiest map in the game. So they have to make Muskeg, and the Spence Homestead in particular, more challenging. At least you don't have to make the pilgrimage all the way to Desolation Point.

 

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9 hours ago, mattyboi said:

you can run into 4 wolves there, plus a bear if you're unlucky.

I am very unlucky damm@#..

9 hours ago, mattyboi said:

At least you don't have to make the pilgrimage all the way to Desolation Point.

Real truth, but it is more difficult to get coal...

 

@Pharose try using a lure, One small is enough  ;)

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On ‎3‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 1:50 PM, Pharose said:

I now carry a small piece of meat on me at all times to serve as a decoy as well.

This is probably your problem. Is the meat raw? Raw meat actually attracts wolves from far away, even when you're crouching. Try carrying 1-2 uncured guts on you at all times. Don't worry if it gets ruined, they still work. Guts don't seem to attract wolves from a distance, but they can be used as bait. Do what you can (especially before you have tools) to avoid wolves. Crouch, crouch and more crouch while traversing known wolf territory. If a wolf does see you and starts to approach, face him - do not turn your back or run. Once he is locked on and can see you, back away at a steady pace, then drop the decoy. Then go into a crouch and keep backing away. Arm a flare just in case. 95% of the time he will take the lure and turn around and walk off. You have a few seconds to run out of his field of view and resume sneaking. Or you can shoot him in the ass.

But I do agree that wolves on stalker are a little much. I did a few FM-only Stalker runs and it got pretty ridiculous pretty quickly - that map is brutal. But like you, I'm a sucker for punishment and Hinterland knows how to keep us coming back to try one more time...

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4 hours ago, mic said:

Real truth, but it is more difficult to get coal...

Agree. But again, no pilgrimage. That's bypassing two maps plus two transition zones (that require torches or flares).

Where as, you can get from Trappers Cabin or Camp Office to Spence Homestead in less than a day, using no consumables, and be forging arrow heads/knives. They have to put some kind of challenge/limitation on that or the game becomes much simpler.

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11 hours ago, mic said:

 

@Pharose try using a lure, One small is enough  ;)

What do you mean by lure? Are you talking about decoys (meat and guts)?

 

10 hours ago, GorillaDust said:

 If a wolf does see you and starts to approach, face him - do not turn your back or run. Once he is locked on and can see you, back away at a steady pace, then drop the decoy. Then go into a crouch and keep backing away. 

Does it really make big difference whether or not you're facing them? I know this is definitely true when encountering bears and wolves in real life but I haven't noticed it in-game. I usually have the best luck with wolves when I have a full stamina bar and I can sprint away for as long as possible. 

 

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6 hours ago, Pharose said:

What do you mean by lure? Are you talking about decoys (meat and guts)?

Yes, I always have some, when they take it I use my arch to hunting, other thing that works for me is shoot him an arrow, usually they run away..

Sorry about "lure" I don't know all words in english so for some I use google...

 

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10 hours ago, Pharose said:

Does it really make big difference whether or not you're facing them? I know this is definitely true when encountering bears and wolves in real life but I haven't noticed it in-game. I usually have the best luck with wolves when I have a full stamina bar and I can sprint away for as long as possible. 

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If you're only trying to get away from them, and you're in a location with rocks and hills and buildings to hide behind, then yes running may be best. But if you're trying to get past them, as you usually are in the fairly one-directional Forlorn Muskeg, then dropping a decoy could work best. Turning and running in a wide open location will rarely work as you'll run out of stamina before you break the sight line.

And I really can't emphasize enough based on what you said you're experiencing: if you're running around with raw meat on you to use as a decoy, then all wolves and bears within a certain radius will literally lock on to you, regardless of sight lines. FM is not wide open enough to get around wolves with raw meat on your person.

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So my seventh attempt ended when I got greedy trying to collect a maple sapling before sun down and didn't make it. I was walking at night and I ran into a wolf in area I've never seen wolves before, I lit a flare and brandished it but it literally had no effect on him. I had 75%hp but no weapon and he fought particularly hard. It's strange because I had pretty tough clothing and I can usually survive a wolf attack while unarmed and only lose 50-60% of my hp, but my clicking frenzy felt futile. 

I'm on attempt 8, and I'm doing pretty OK so far on day 7, but the only reason I'm doing better is because I've been using all my ammo to kill all the damn wolves. I killed one by the Spence shed because he was blocking me from gathering wood, and the next morning I awoke to 3 more right outside the shed. One was walking right by my doorstep so I shot him at point-blank range and the rest scattered. I went towards the hills to gather some wood but I saw a wolf up the hill so I turned left along the cliff but I immediately ran into TWO more wolves, so I started sprinting back to the shed but there were TWO MORE, standing near my shed!! I managed to circle around them and just barely made it inside, but I'm just flabbergasted! There were five wolves hanging out right outside my shed IN ADDITION to the one I just shot dead and another one or two of them down by the lake!

The wolf population in this game BADLY needs to be culled and I will do this with my own hand until Hinterlands fixes it themselves!

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On 3/20/2017 at 4:50 AM, Pharose said:

At this point I'd like to mention that I'm no slouch at clicking buttons, when I was younger I could beat all my friends in the "Mario Party" minigames!

If you've reached that point in the wolf fight, I personally feel we have zeroed in on your problem.
The wolf 'fight' is about the evasion, not physically fighting them off. If they're on top of you, you have lost the fight.

You usually have a lot of lee-way when a wolf spots you. Not facing it and pacing away steadily will less likely invoke it to charge at you. I've led wolves from Carter Dam all the way to Camp Office and they haven't ran after me.

I would also recommend using sprinting only to evade wolves. This means to not use sprint at all for anything else, to guarantee you have a burst available for evasion when you do encounter a pack.

Last resorts are decoys and waving flares.

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Yes, I think so too. Forlorn Muskeg should give you plenty of opportunity to observe the wolves from a distance. Then you must utilize your stealth and cunning to evade the wolves on your way to your destination. You need to stay down-wind of the wolves. I think latter enhancements have made the wolves more adept at following scents so consequently the detection ranges have changed a lot. Strategy must adapt also. Didn't they mention changes to predator behaviours especially smell and bait? I notice some players making good use of baits now so much that it integrates into their overall wolf strategy. Wolves seem to act more in groups now and once wolf-pack behaviour becomes a thing, stalker will get much harder. Don't expect a given strategy to keep working as this game evolves; I've been burned with that too! (literally stepped in my campfires too)

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  • 2 weeks later...

generally speaking if you think wolves are too much it is likely you need to think a bit differently or plan better. As @SteveP says FM offers a great many places to sit and observe the wolf behavior. The hut porch in TWM, several porches in CH, Fishing Huts in ML, are among other places that offer same. Once you understand their behavior you adapt your tactics to them, they become little, if any, threat. Master the bow....you would be amazed how easy they are to kill with a bow and the right tactics. All in all, don't give up, you CAN get better, and you WILL get better with the right attitude and desire. Just be happy its a game and not real for some people this is a lot closer to reality....

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1 hour ago, AZHockeyNut said:

generally speaking if you think wolves are too much it is likely you need to think a bit differently or plan better.....Once you understand their behavior you adapt your tactics to them, they become little, if any, threat.

I couldn't agree more.  I still would love to see their numbers increased, have them show up in random places from time to time, and generally have their behavior less predictable.  As it is now, they offer me no challenge what-so-ever.

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Well I've been through a lot since my last post. Attempt 8 ended was ended by another series of wolf attacks but attempt 9 was my lucky number... Kind of.

I managed to find my groove by always carrying decoy meat and spending more time crouching. I managed to get better with the bow but I still have trouble aiming it, but my missed arrows will often scare them away anyways. I made it to day 32 of a stalker FM only run, and after getting some good clothing and some decent tools the wolves became a lot easier. I also avoid going out when my energy levels are low since that is usually perilous. However one of the main reasons I did so much better on attempt 9 was because I found a hatchet at the Spence shed and that made my game 10x easier and almost felt like I was cheating! 

But after 32 days I was running low on cloth, matches and scrap metal so I decided I would rather leave FM than die so I left for Mystery Lake. Mystery Lake was a cakewalk compared to FM but it proved to be my downfall due to a game erasing glitch! I posted about it in the forum for PC bugs, but my game was lost! Fortunately I had an older save game where I was in a similar situation (Stalker, ML, 60 days) so I went back to that game instead. 

I've packed up my bags so I could go back to FM for some more wolf-killing revenge, but it seems that these wolves have one last trick up their sleeve and are they are as committed as ISIS when it comes to thwarting me! The must know that I have a shortage of arrow heads because when I shoot them with my arrows now they will run like crazy into the great beyond, never to be found again! It happened twice before I left ML where two wolves attacked me consecutively and I landed non-fatal hits on both of them. I watched them run around leaving a trail of blood for a VERY long time but they wouldn't die, so I got impatient a shot one of them a second time (apparently this is a mistake because it resets the bleed-out timer). He started running like crazy again and I continued following him but he ran towards another pair of wolves, and since it was getting dark and I was out of arrows I decided to head to my shelter. The next morning I continued my search and I searched FAR and wide but I never found the wolves again! I spent two days looking for them and eventually I found one of my arrows sitting on top of a remote hill about a kilometre away from where I shot them, but absolutely no sign of the two wolves or my other two arrows! I had another two arrows in storage so I grabbed those before going to FM but this problem becomes even more severe out there because the wolves know that they can screw me over by dying in the middle of the frozen lake where the ice is too weak to walk on! In a few days I've gone from having 5 arrows heads down to one arrow head, and there's no hammer to be found at the Spence shed so once again I'm in a bit of pickle...

In retrospect I think the difficulty on wolves is OK on stalker, even if they make FM a ridiculous challenge. The reason they are such a ridiculous challenge is because you need to gather a lot of firewood to survive the first few weeks in FM and that's usually when they killed me. I think they might be a little too challenging on voyageur since the game is especially challenging for newcomers (based upon my friend's feedback) and most people find that the easiest difficulty is too boring. 

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4 hours ago, Pharose said:

I watched them run around leaving a trail of blood for a VERY long time but they wouldn't die, so I got impatient a shot one of them a second time (apparently this is a mistake because it resets the bleed-out timer).

Hm, I don't believe shooting wildlife subsequent times should "reset" anything. Bleeding animals don't regain condition.

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6 hours ago, Pharose said:

the wolves know that they can screw me over by dying in the middle of the frozen lake where the ice is too weak to walk on!

I have to say I laughed a lot at this comment!

I'd like to add a few general points about wolves in Stalker, and your posts. Firstly, I must stress how much I disagree with the original premise of this thread - that there are too many wolves in Stalker. It just isn't true. Without them, this difficulty mode would be far too easy once you've got used to their behaviour and to the effective tactics for avoiding them. The method I use is so reliable that I almost regard it as an exploit: once you're familiar with it, the presence of wolves really does change into more of nuisance factor rather than a mortal threat, unless you're really, really careless. I've spoilered it in case you don't want to dilute the threat wolves pose you in your games (the threat of wolves is the main challenge in Stalker, after all).

 

You just light a campfire. Seriously, that's it - in ALL circumstances, unless it's too windy.

You only need to start the process of igniting the fire, not even actually get the fire lit. It's 100% reliable and they always run away. It's very quick (you just press '4', then left click on the ground to place the fire, then left-click again to start igniting - I can do it in about 1 second after a lot of practice) so even if the wolf is almost on top of you, you can still scare it off. It's very resource cheap - you just need to be carrying some tinder and a couple of sticks (I sometimes carry 3 sticks if I'm being extra cautious, but 2 is enough), plus matches or striker. If you have a mag lens, you don't even need to spend matches or striker-condition on sunny days. Because you can scare the wolf off before the fire is fully lit, you can do this deliberately, and cancel the fire as soon as the wolf flees - that way you don't even need to use up any fuel. I've never found that match scarcity is a problem for me in Stalker.

If it's too windy, then you need to run to a sheltered spot to start your fire, so I do carry flares for those emergencies. But I very rarely use them, and I only do use them if I need to buy myself time to get starting a fire. I never stand my ground with a flare against a wolf, because I don't find it to be very reliable. I never use torches for this, either. I never use decoys.

It's no problem to light a series of fires if you want to just walk straight through a pack of wolves, as long as you have enough tinder and matches on you. You can even carry a brand from one fire to the next in order to save on matches.

Like I said, it feels like an exploit, and I'd prefer it if fires had no effect at all unless you'd actually finished the ignition process, really - then that way it would give far more importance to accellerant, as well as feeling more believable and less gamey.

So there it is. Carry plenty of fire material when you go out, keep your eyes peeled, don't get too cocky, and you won't really need to worry (very much) about wolves any more, ever. (Except for the one they call Fluffy, of course.) [/spoiler]

 

I agree that they could perhaps respawn a little less quickly after you kill them, but I wouldn't want to see their overall numbers reduced.

Secondly, I really like some of your suggestions in the original post. For example, fighting an injured wolf really ought to be a lot easier than fighting one that hasn't got an arrow or bullet-wound in it. And anecdotally, it doesn't seem to be if you shot it while it was charging. Also, using the flare or a torch in the actual fight would be a really good addition as well in my opinion. Wolves fighting each other might be interesting, too!

Thirdly, and I know you've changed your mind somewhat over the course of this thread's discussion (and it's been highly entertaining reading your stories, by the way), I don't think you can legitimately complain about an aspect of the difficulty such as this, when you are in fact imposing artificial extra difficulty upon yourself by trying to stay on the Forlorn Muskeg map only. The game isn't balanced for that. If there are too many wolves for your liking on FM, you can migrate elsewhere, as you know. I don't it's valid to criticise the game's balance just because it doesn't satisfy your own personal mini-challenges.

Finally, and this is not aimed at you particularly, but I think generally people need to treat the wolves with a bit more respect! They're very, very dangerous animals, and you are in their domain. The game should reflect that. If there are wolves where you want to be, then tough luck! They win! Don't go there if there's wolves. Change your plans, go somewhere else that day. Wait til they've moved on and return later. If you don't like fighting wolves, don't go anywhere near them! Don't go anywhere that they might be able to surprise you close up.There are very, very few occasions in the game when you absolutely need to get to a place that has wolves 'guarding' it. Usually, you get tangled up with them (I do, at least) because I get impatient or greedy. Just keep away. Number One priority. They are in charge here.

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4 hours ago, Mel Guille said:

Hm, I don't believe shooting wildlife subsequent times should "reset" anything. Bleeding animals don't regain condition.

I haven't verified this myself but I read about it in another thread where somebody shot a bear multiple times in the face and it still took a REALLY long time for the bear to die. Somebody made the bleed-out timer reset comment and it seems plausible to me because I watched that wolf bleed for a long time and it was like he came back to life when I shot him with my second arrow... And it still took a really long time for him to die. 

 

2 hours ago, Pillock said:

I've never found that match scarcity is a problem for me in Stalker.

I also never had this problem until I tried playing on FM. There aren't that many matches in FM and you pretty much need a fire every single night, unless you take shelter in the large cave behind the radio tower, or unless you have top-tier clothing. Neither of these options are that viable when you're a newbie who's desperately searching for gear. 

I suppose I am creating an unbalanced game for myself by limiting myself to one region but these seem to be the games that I enjoy the most. I think the survival aspect of this games feels the most authentic when I start in a remote location like Forlorn Muskeg or Timerwolf Mountain and I don't have the option of wandering back to town to stock up on supplies. When Timberwolf Mountain was released I started playing there on Voyageur but I found it harder than starting on any other map on Stalker but even more satisfying. It was certainly frustrating though and I died many times before I finally survived my first week!

But yeah, it's been a learning experience for sure, and I concede that wolves aren't as unbalanced as I initially thought they were. I'm glad somebody finds my frustration entertaining!

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On 3/20/2017 at 4:50 AM, Pharose said:

but there was no hammer at the Spence farmstead and nowhere else I looked

On 4/9/2017 at 2:55 AM, Pharose said:

and there's no hammer to be found at the Spence shed so once again I'm in a bit of pickle...

 

This has happened to me as well, and where I eventually found the hammer was underneath a nearby pile of pallets that I broke down. (And I do mean "underneath".. it wasn't visible at all while the pallets were there.) Had I not needed the wood, I doubt I'd ever have found it.. so just because you can't easily find it, doesn't mean the hammer isn't there.

 

On 4/9/2017 at 11:43 AM, Pharose said:
On 4/9/2017 at 7:14 AM, Mel Guille said:

Hm, I don't believe shooting wildlife subsequent times should "reset" anything. Bleeding animals don't regain condition.

I haven't verified this myself but I read about it in another thread where somebody shot a bear multiple times in the face and it still took a REALLY long time for the bear to die. Somebody made the bleed-out timer reset comment and it seems plausible to me because I watched that wolf bleed for a long time and it was like he came back to life when I shot him with my second arrow... And it still took a really long time for him to die.

 

You may have seen it in the "Is TLD a hunting game?" thread.. it turns out the comment about the bleed-out timer resetting was incorrect. See this post for a better explanation of what's going on.

See also the recently updated wiki page on hunting.

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On 09/04/2017 at 10:42 PM, JAFO said:

This has happened to me as well, and where I eventually found the hammer was underneath a nearby pile of pallets that I broke down. (And I do mean "underneath".. it wasn't visible at all while the pallets were there.) Had I not needed the wood, I doubt I'd ever have found it.. so just because you can't easily find it, doesn't mean the hammer isn't there.

I'm pretty sure I did break down all the pallets so that I could find the accelerant an the dog food... I actually ended up going all the way back to the dam to retrieve my crowbar to open the locker because I figured I would find the hammer there but all I found was some high quality clothing items. In the end I ended up travelling all the way to desolation point and back! If there is a hammer somewhere in FM I simply haven't found it in this playthrough.

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@Pharose Interesting thread here, as I have recently spent a lot of time in FM and can relate to a lot of this. A few points I would make:

1. IMHO, this is probably the toughest map to start in, or certainly top two, so kudos for trying.

2. I run into varying animal spawns at Spence Homestead. Sometimes deer, sometimes wolves. I think at higher difficulties it's only wolves? But, I have run into 3 wolves in Voyager mode here, so don't feel too bad that you've had this in Stalker. Personally, I don't try to get to the homestead if I can't get there with a weapon and full condition, plus some bandages with lichen or meds. Which means, I have to put together some good clothes first, find and harvest lichen, bring plenty of water and food, make sure I have plenty of rest, etc. So the whole expedition isn't as simple as "go to the forge and make stuff"; it takes a lot more preparation. Even more so if you're in interloper and don't have any weapons made yet. On the flip side, it's less preparation than trying to make the pilgrimage all the way to Desolation Point.

3. If you're looking at the merits of FM on an isolated basis, I think a lot of your arguments make sense. But in the context of the entire game, I think the difficulties of this map are warranted. You get a huge amount of harvestables, plus a forge, in a map immediately adjacent to Mystery Lake, which is generally agreed upon to be the easiest map in the game. Plus there is no transition zone in between the two maps. Plus you don't need a light source to navigate around the forge. So if FM in general, and particularly access to the Spence homestead, were any easier, it would be far too easy for players to camp out between ML and FM and survive almost indefinitely. Due to the nature of the map, there must be added challenges to offset these huge benefits. In a similar vein, I think the presence of wolves in the Coastal Highway village is similarly warranted.

4. The hammer in FM is a very finicky thing and can be located in a variety of locations in the map (not all of which are in/around the Spence Homestead). Again; this related to the point I'm making above.

5. The prevalence of wolves on this map and others is a touchy topic for me as well. If you're prepared and actively hunting, sometimes FM almost seems too easy to get wolf hides and meat, because there are so many of them. Other times it seems ridiculous how often you get chased/attacked. So it's hard for me to pinpoint what I'd really like, other than to say that more consistency would make the game feel more palatable IMHO.

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On 3/19/2017 at 11:50 AM, Pharose said:

Maybe you should let us make a wolfskin headpiece so I can dress like a Roman Centurion, because the wolfskin coat isn't doing much to discourage the constant attacks.

Also, to be very nitpicky, it was Roman velites wore the wolfskin headdress; Centurions wore helmets with transversal crests to distinguish themselves from other infantry.

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