suggestion Wolf Pack

[oplli]

What do you think about wolf pack with a alpha wolf stronger than the other wolves. beacause in the long dark the wolves are alone and it would no be realistic. 

[Athoen]

Have you played in stalker ?

If not you should give it a try, there are more wolves in packs of ~4

About your suggestion, I would be ok with it if it is an optionnal difficulty

(for example, see link below)

But I am a player who moderately enjoy playing hide and seek with wolves (I did not enjoy stalker enough because of it, while there are many rules in this mode I would prefer to voyageur ones)

[Fuarian]

There will be a cutscene in Episode 3 of Astrid being confronted by a wolf pack. So maybe this is coming.

[Mroz4k]

Packs are a thing already. And just cause there is an alpha wolf, it doesn't necessarily have to be the stronger. Alphas are simply the leaders, quite often it's more about which animal is more prominent than others.

But the packs don't travel anywhere, the wolves in the game are stationary. What this suggestion should be about are wolves that would periodically move every now and then in between some locations. That would add a lot of difficulty into the game as at the moment, wolves are incredibly predictable - they will spawn in specific parts of the map, and will stay there.

48 minutes ago, Fuarian said:

There will be a cutscene in Episode 3 of Astrid being confronted by a wolf pack. So maybe this is coming.

That does not mean a thing. Also spoilers... something to consider next time.

[Fuarian]

47 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

Packs are a thing already. And just cause there is an alpha wolf, it doesn't necessarily have to be the stronger. Alphas are simply the leaders, quite often it's more about which animal is more prominent than others.

But the packs don't travel anywhere, the wolves in the game are stationary. What this suggestion should be about are wolves that would periodically move every now and then in between some locations. That would add a lot of difficulty into the game as at the moment, wolves are incredibly predictable - they will spawn in specific parts of the map, and will stay there.

That does not mean a thing. Also spoilers... something to consider next time.

I mean sure it could just be a cutscene. But it would be awesome if that cut to gameplay. 

[snakevondoof]

having spent an awful lot of time in the woods in real life, I can assure you that wolves being alone is not a rarity, from what I'm aware of (please correct if I'm wrong) usually one or two wolves will leave the pack to go "scouting" if you will, while the pack stays behind to do regular ol pack stuff, then to find eachother again they use smell and howling to meet back up.

once again, unsure if that's 100% its been awhile since ive done some reading up on wildlife.

 

anyway, point being more often than not I only see a lone wolf, on a few occasions ive only HEARD packs, probably because the one saw me first and lead the pack away.

 

[Mroz4k]

4 hours ago, snakevondoof said:

having spent an awful lot of time in the woods in real life, I can assure you that wolves being alone is not a rarity, from what I'm aware of (please correct if I'm wrong) usually one or two wolves will leave the pack to go "scouting" if you will, while the pack stays behind to do regular ol pack stuff, then to find eachother again they use smell and howling to meet back up.

once again, unsure if that's 100% its been awhile since ive done some reading up on wildlife.

 

anyway, point being more often than not I only see a lone wolf, on a few occasions ive only HEARD packs, probably because the one saw me first and lead the pack away.

 

You are 100% correct. In all of it. Lone wolves (usually the outcasts of the pack, omegas as they are often called) will be often seen alone and can be even several kilometres away from the pack, scouting away, looking for prey or shelter, or dangers. They will use smell and howling, even barking, to communicate at long distances.

I don't have any experience with wolves in real life because they became extinct here in the 18th century, but I have heard then in the woods in Slovakia, and I read a lot about them since I was a kid, and even more since I started to play this game.

EDIT: Completely forgot to mention lone, matured male wolves which leave their pack, and go searching for a different pack to join and challenge the alpha of that other pack for leadership. Because only alpha pair in the pack is allowed to spawn pups, and quite often the members of the pack are all the descendants of the alpha pair, so in order to avoid inbreeding, they join different packs in adulthood.

[oplli]

On 01/10/2017 at 0:46 PM, snakevondoof said:

having spent an awful lot of time in the woods in real life, I can assure you that wolves being alone is not a rarity, from what I'm aware of (please correct if I'm wrong) usually one or two wolves will leave the pack to go "scouting" if you will, while the pack stays behind to do regular ol pack stuff, then to find eachother again they use smell and howling to meet back up.

once again, unsure if that's 100% its been awhile since ive done some reading up on wildlife.

 

anyway, point being more often than not I only see a lone wolf, on a few occasions ive only HEARD packs, probably because the one saw me first and lead the pack away.

 

 

what I propose is not  all the wolves make part of a pack because in this case obviously we should kill all the wolves to have the skins or flesh of a single._{or another option might be to make packs of different sizes like 2-8 or 6-15 in stalker or interlopper for an example}

[Balamute]

On the wolf packs. Generally speaking, the whole wolf business is boring as hell as soon as you understand the mechanics. They are predictable, they are easily distracted by a decoy, killed, shoo'ed off etc. On stalker I've spent several weeks at Old Spence's in FM processing scrap metal from BR. When I first came there, there were 4 wolves, over the weeks after I hunted them or scared them off, the location near Old Spence's was empty, apart from an occasion deer. It turned out they kinda migrated just beyond rail tracks, not far from Poachers Camp and formed something like two packs of 4 and 3 animals respectively. When I cleared out BR and FM, I moved to Camp Office in ML to max out cooking and fishing there. On the way out I wiped out both packs without even bothering to harvest them. At Camp Office I have now something about 25 wolf hides and close to a hundred guts. I wear 2 wolf coats... Problem is that wolves still act alone even if they seemingly are a part of a pack (or rather they hang out in the same place). Wolfs now are easier than rabbits IMO.

Now, what I would suggest for stalker and 'loper is

1) to enrich the fauna ecosystem and introduce several more animals: wolverine (neck scarf?..), fox (fur hat!!!), elk (foot wrappings!) in addition to now existing wolf, deer, rabbit, bear. The spawn location should be randomized so that when previous species vacates the location (animal is killed or wanders away), it can be filled in by any of the species out of 7 available. This will introduce a wildlife 'crop rotation system' and make players move around to actually find the animal they need. I think partially we already seem to have something like this, but not exactly.

2) introduce special pack mechanics for wolves. The 3 main differences are (i) pack of 2-5 wolves moves randomly all over the map (ii) pack may attack other packs, lone wolves and all other wildlife including bears. (iii) when attacking player the pack is not distracted by a decoy, has a lower chance to be scared off and, most importantly, player must take on all animals in the pack one after another with no chance to run/shoot back/heal in between struggles. The pack would be an ultimate scare to watch and avoid or to hunt down with extreme risk to player's life. The pack can be formed initially by any two lone wolves within certain radius from each other and probability like (form a pack)=15% | (ignore)=83% | (fight)=2%. If there is a limit on individual wolves on a map, when pack is formed, over time 'free' respawn locations are filled with other species.

3) in conjunction with (2), the 'normal' lone wolf should be very unlikely to attack a player, provided the player wears wolf-skin coat and is not wounded. The idea is that wolves will likely attack a human as a pack and avoid human at all costs when alone, as a rule that is.

4) wolverine should act approximately like wolves do now and be relatively rare. Why wolverine? Well, the more diverse the ecosystem is, the more interesting it is to play.

5) also I would introduce rabies. A rabid animal, would attack everything on sight no matter what, player, bear, deer, pack of wolves with the sole purpose to kill. Even a wolf pack would try to run away from it. Besides, if a player did not found a special vaccine before the disease is contracted, well... time to start a new game.

6) a spear for wolf/bear fight would be nice also. And... we need some way to show mercy to poor wounded animals bleeding out there in the snow with a finishing coup de grâce. Other than expending a bullet or an arrow.

I hope some of these ideas might be interesting to the developers.

 

 

[Mroz4k]

5 hours ago, Balamute said:

5) also I would introduce rabies. A rabid animal, would attack everything on sight no matter what, player, bear, deer, pack of wolves with the sole purpose to kill. Even a wolf pack would try to run away from it. Besides, if a player did not found a special vaccine before the disease is contracted, well... time to start a new game.

No, because randomized mechanics make the games frustrating. This would make the rabid animals super deadly if you didn't happen upon the medicine beforehand, as the injection period after the attack is very slow, also you would soon enough run out of them in the world. It's as annoying as sprains atm, which is more less really random. Also, doubt you would find that rabies immunoglobulin just like that in a FA cabinet. We can just assume the survivor had a pre-rabies exposure shot, something not so untypical for people who spend a lot of time in the woods. or live close to them.

5 hours ago, Balamute said:

we need some way to show mercy to poor wounded animals bleeding out there in the snow with a finishing coup de grâce. Other than expending a bullet or an arrow.

I like this idea, especially if there was a small chance for a quick-time event as the dying wolf would snap out at you if you approached him from the wrong direction. But I doubt this is going to appear for the Ratings reasons, then again we have rabbit neck swapping animation already so... who knows.

[KinoUnko]

Wounded wolves do turn and attack sometimes, not always. If there's room to escape it will try to, but if you get right on top of it or it's at a dead end in the terrain it may turn and charge you. The struggle is generally much easier and often ends with the wolf dying immediately after the struggle. This isn't just from grazing hits, but proper bleed-out hits with an arrow in the body. 

Gameplay wise I think a lot can be added simply by making the wolves a bit more mobile. Have the pack patrol the entire region, similar to how bears roam over a wide area, then throw in a few lone or wolf pairs that range at variable distance from the pack. As things are now the wolves stick to predictable areas of the region and respawn at a pretty regular rate once you clear the area. More of a nuisance than danger.