.426 Wolf Struggle Tests


Timber Wolf

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I don't understand. The devs information says the knife gives you a 40% damage bonus and the hatchet a 20% damage bonus when fighting wolves. So did they code the damage bonus in the game in reverse?

Your tests indicate that this is the case. Is this going to be patched? Is this a bug? I reported it because that is not in line with the description of the weapon damage bonuses listed in game....

Edited by JoE Smash
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On 7/4/2017 at 2:27 PM, norup said:

I think you could benefit from plotting what is known as "standard error of the mean" in stead of the estimate of the standard deviation.

Interesting.  I'll have to check this out.

 

On 7/8/2017 at 9:58 AM, cekivi said:

Still, it's too bad that there is still a "best" weapon for struggles.  The notes for the latest release indicated that there should have been more variation.

I agree.  I would like to see more of a trade-off between the weapons, as the notes describe.

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8 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

I don't understand. The devs information says the knife gives you a 40% damage bonus and the hatchet a 20% damage bonus when fighting wolves. So did they code the damage bonus in the game in reverse?

I did not test for how much damage is inflicted on the wolves - they may well bleed out quicker when the knife is used, which could mean more damage is being done to them.

 

8 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

Your tests indicate that this is the case. Is this going to be patched? Is this a bug? I reported it because that is not in line with the description of the weapon damage bonuses listed in game....

I'm not sure if this is really a bug.  Instead, it seems more like a system in the game that continues to need better balancing.

I have run these tests on several different versions of the game (.393 Tests) and the hatchet has always showed as the weapon that does the best job in limiting condition loss to the character.

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Oh my bad....so the hatchet is the best defensive weapon, that also will inflict bleeding on the wolf.

So you take less damage in the struggle than with the knife, but the wolf still ends up hurt...

Now I just wish I could figure out which button to push on my PS4 controller to switch to hatchet. I tried the triggers and bumpers...nothing seems to be working and I always default to knife....

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24 minutes ago, JoE Smash said:

Now I just wish I could figure out which button to push on my PS4 controller to switch to hatchet. I tried the triggers and bumpers...nothing seems to be working and I always default to knife....

You aren't presented with a choice of all the weapons you are carrying before the struggle begins?  It's been like this since the last update.

5963eda4843e0_tld2017-07-1016-11-18-12.thumb.jpg.4cf5212fd6d1f7a0bae8b576d1dfa551.jpg

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6 minutes ago, Timber Wolf said:

You aren't presented with a choice of all the weapons you are carrying before the struggle begins?  It's been like this since the last update.

5963eda4843e0_tld2017-07-1016-11-18-12.thumb.jpg.4cf5212fd6d1f7a0bae8b576d1dfa551.jpg

I am, it doesn't tell me what button to push to change selection. Or if it does it says RT/LT I think, and they don't do anything. Guess I should keep the mouse handy....

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1 minute ago, JoE Smash said:

I am, it doesn't tell me what button to push to change selection. Or if it does it says RT/LT I think, and they don't do anything. Guess I should keep the mouse handy....

Yes, you have to move the cursor to the weapon you want to use and then push the same button you use for the struggle itself. (LMB equivalent)

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4 minutes ago, Timber Wolf said:

Yes, you have to move the cursor to the weapon you want to use and then push the same button you use for the struggle itself. (LMB equivalent)

I'm playing with a ps4 gamepad controller on my PC via Steam Big Picture mode, that's why I don't normally have my mouse handy. I don't need it for anything else when I play.

The buttons probably don't work due to a bug. Or I have to figure out what to push....

Edited by JoE Smash
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2 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

I am, it doesn't tell me what button to push to change selection. Or if it does it says RT/LT I think, and they don't do anything. Guess I should keep the mouse handy....

Are you not seeing the right controller prompts to let you switch tools when fighting off a wolf? Can you post a screenshot of what you do see, if possible? 

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22 hours ago, JoE Smash said:

The devs information says the knife gives you a 40% damage bonus and the hatchet a 20% damage bonus when fighting wolves.

I decided to look into this further and followed the wolf after every struggle.  When I used the hatchet, it took around 2:30 real time for the wolf to drop dead.  When I used the knife, it would only take about 1:00 real time.  This was very consistent across about 20 trials and the struggle duration didn't seem to make any difference.

So, the knife does seem to do more damage to the wolf than the hatchet does.  But I don't think the cost in your own condition is worth having a quicker bleed out.

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Ok, thanks for the update on bleed times, @Timber Wolf. So the wolves seem to bleed to death faster after a knife struggle, so that is consistent with the knife doing more damage.

The axe is preferred though because in the end the wolves still die, but you take less damage and the struggle ends quicker. So that is great intel, tyvm for all your hard work. It is an invaluable service to this community!

@Patrick Carlson, I will try to do as you ask in my next struggle. I try to avoid them in general obviously, but I am about to go loot the gas station in CH, so the odds of me being jumped are high. Even though my plan is to bait and shoot all the wolves before exploring the costal town. That doesn't mean more won't wander in or respawn while I'm there and surprise me.

I want to say from memory though the screen prompts were RT/LT to switch weapons or right bumper/left bumper and I tried both sets of buttons before I ran out of time. Then I just mashed attack with the knife by default because I didn't want to lose, lol....

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2 hours ago, Timber Wolf said:

How about some tests with the improvised weapons?

So....

If you're not on Interloper, it really, really pays to look after your knife and hatchet for as long as possible. If you're on Interloper, take good care of your hammer.

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23 minutes ago, JAFO said:

So....

If you're not on Interloper, it really, really pays to look after your knife and hatchet for as long as possible. If you're on Interloper, take good care of your hammer.

That does appear to be the case.  More tests might show the improvised hatchet and hammer leveling off.  But one thing seems clear, the improvised knife is not good.  When I was testing with it, the struggles "felt" a lot like struggles with bare hands. 

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6 hours ago, Timber Wolf said:

That does appear to be the case.  More tests might show the improvised hatchet and hammer leveling off.  But one thing seems clear, the improvised knife is not good.  When I was testing with it, the struggles "felt" a lot like struggles with bare hands. 

Behold Astrid Odinson and her faithful warhammer Fluffnir! :D

Thanks a lot for your data once again. I would probably never have tried to use the hammer on Interloper - always used the improvised knife, which appears to be a really poor choice in retrospect.

Something should definitely be done about the ingame weapon descriptions, they're seriously misleading (or at least lacking relevant information). Pretty sure most people are far more interested in damage minimization than in bleed-out times... or one could simply offer both informations at once.

 

Knife: "Stabbing weapon which may inflict deep wounds, causing wildlife to bleed out faster. Doesn't do a good job protectiong yourself in the struggle, though."

Hammer: "A blunt, heavy weapon. May fend off wildlife quickly, but does not cause any bleeding damage."

Hatchet: "Being both sharp and heavy, the hatchet is the best weapon to end wildlife struggles quickly. Also causes minor bleeding damage."

 

Something along these lines...

 

Edited by Scyzara
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15 hours ago, Scyzara said:

Behold Astrid Odinson and her faithful warhammer Fluffnir! :D

This inspired me to do some hammering!  I fought the same wolf with the hammer over and over until it died.  The quickest I could kill it was right at the beginning of the third consecutive fight, which happened 3 of the 10 times I tried it.  The other times it took 4 or 5 fights to kill it.  I never saw it bleed and it would always die during the fight.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is very informative, I alwys use the hatchet because it seems to end the struggles quicker. I am interested in what macro you used as I can't get any to work with the wolf fights.

Edited by dmbjt
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Welcome to the forums @dmbjt! :)

I use a program called Xpadder that allows me to map keys to controller buttons.  It also let's me configure a repeated button press at a particular interval, which I set to 8.3 per second.  So while I run these tests, I remap the button I normally use to bring up the Journal.  When the struggle begins, I just have to hold down that button until the struggle ends.

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@Timber Wolf: Very interesting data again, thanks a lot for sharing!

The hammer and improvised hatchet's numbers somehow look much more similar on Interloper than on Stalker. Given that a hatchet-struggle kills the wolf eventually (while a hammer-struggle doesn't), the improvised hatchet is probably the better choice on Interloper in most situations.  

I assume your characters died during those struggles where they suffered 100% condition loss, correct? In this regard the hatchet also seems to be superior to the hammer, although this might just be a coincidence, of course.

Anyway, the improvised knife is definitely off the table for me. 6 out of 50 lethal struggles is really a poor outcome, seems I was pretty lucky so far. I've only been killed by Interloper wolves a few times so far, but I certainly DO remember that those lethal struggles felt disproportionally more difficult than "average" struggles. At least I had that impression.

Just as a sidenote: I personally find it rather questionable if the current huge variety in struggle outcomes (between <10% to >90% damage taken are possible under equal conditions with a pretty fast clicking speed) benefits the fun while playing, but I've been saying that since two years or so now.

I remember the times when your clicking speed actually had a much higher impact on the damage you would take (and pure randomness had a smaller effect), but that system wasn't perfect either, as it put slow-clicking players at a huge disadvantage. Guess it's very hard to find a perfect balance between both aspects, and currently the emphasis is more on the side of randomness.

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4 hours ago, Scyzara said:

I assume your characters died during those struggles where they suffered 100% condition loss, correct?

That's right.
 

4 hours ago, Scyzara said:

Just as a sidenote: I personally find it rather questionable if the current huge variety in struggle outcomes (between <10% to >90% damage taken are possible under equal conditions with a pretty fast clicking speed) benefits the fun while playing, but I've been saying that since two years or so now.

I remember the times when your clicking speed actually had a much higher impact on the damage you would take (and pure randomness had a smaller effect), but that system wasn't perfect either, as it put slow-clicking players at a huge disadvantage. Guess it's very hard to find a perfect balance between both aspects, and currently the emphasis is more on the side of randomness.

This is a very good point.  It made me curious, so I rattled off 20 more tests with the improvised hatchet in Interloper - except this time I set it to 50 clicks per second.  Let's see how a super-human Astrid does against the wolf.

5974ff45ebd61_426StruggleSpeedResults_xlsx.thumb.jpg.bca5f9cddd1ddf021bb76741bda02fff.jpg


Without a doubt, randomness plays a large role in the outcome of the struggles.


How fast can you click?  Find out here.

Edited by Timber Wolf
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3 hours ago, Timber Wolf said:

Let's see how a super-human Astrid does against the wolf.

The results are much better than for the human Astrid. This could encourage people to use clicking scripts to emulate superhuman powers...

I'm not too happy that the outcome depends on such a dumb factor like clicking speed. But they can't include a full-scale wolf-wrestling simulator in the game, so I'll have to live with it.

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On 7/23/2017 at 6:06 PM, Drifter Man said:

I'm not too happy that the outcome depends on such a dumb factor like clicking speed. But they can't include a full-scale wolf-wrestling simulator in the game, so I'll have to live with it.

Well, the outcome really depends on clicking speed, choice of weapon, clothing protection stats and fatigue - along with an element of randomness.

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