Feedback regarding the wolves

[saltedfish]

I see a lot of thoughts about the wolves, and wanted to add my two cents. I'm pretty dismayed at how dangerous they are, especially when their role in game play is considered. I understand that they are intended to be a dangerous component to game play, to give the player pause when exploring and to add a general element of danger to the game. However, I feel the environment provides plenty of challenge without the added complexity of having to worry about being attacked by wolves.

I feel the risk they pose to the player is unnecessarily overdone. I won't dwell on the fact that humans really shouldn't even be bothered by wolves in the first place (a fact that, oddly enough, the game makes a point of telling us about). Being attacked and surviving depends on multiple levels of good luck: first, you have to win at the minigame quickly enough to kill the wolf (easily failable if you are weakened, as a new player or experienced one struggling after a bout of bad luck). Second, you have to have the requisite items (antiseptic and bandages) to keep yourself from dying. Thirdly you have to eat, drink and rest to recover your strength - which require escape to a safe location. That's a lot of levels of cost to the player for something that, realistically, shouldn't even be there, they cannot easily defend against or predict.

The frustration from dying is compounded by the fact that often the player has a hatchet, knife, or crowbar, any of which could be used to defend one's self. Because let's not forget, unless you find a rifle, you cannot kill a wolf at range. Your only choice, should you be followed, is duck inside and wait (a frankly unacceptable solution for someone who wants to play the game), or fight it while accepting the above risks.

So the summation is thus: a game play feature that is exaggerated to the point of ridiculousness, and as a result the interaction with this game play feature costs a colossal amount (in terms of resources) to the player, further made more annoying by the fact that the player could defend themselves against it with items from their inventory, but can't because those features haven't been implemented yet. Or perhaps never will be.

I feel the wolves should be tuned way back to the point where they will only attack when extremely hungry or cornered, and more focus put on survival in the environment. I see a distant parallel between this game and DayZ. I say this not to render Long Dark to a zombie survival, nor do I think for a minute Long Dark would benefit from having zombies added to it. I say it to but caution against the direction DayZ went: the focus, I feel, went more and more on killing zombies and other players to the detriment of the original goal of the game - survival. The wolves, like the zombies, should still be there. Dangerous, of course, but the core game play should revolve around finding food, staying warm and exploring. Not scrambling to arm yourself to defend against the one thing that could swiftly and randomly undo all your work and enjoyment.

PS: It'd also be nice to be able to condense kerosene into one container, instead of having multiple cans, like you do with water.

[Trandor]

Hey saltedfish, welcome to the forum.

What version of the game are you referring to? To me it sounds like you were playing v.152, where the wolves had taken over the world. In v.155 the wolf population has been toned down to levels of previous patches.

I agree, the risk the wolves pose is exaggerated right now, but you have to see: If it weren't for the wolves, there would be no immediate danger to you that could cause death. So you would be in a simulation where there is nothing for you to fight against, except for the weather and the cold. That would be pretty dull imo. So the wolves are a necessary evil, a t least in the current alpha version. How populations should be adjusted in the finished game will be a point of further discussion, but we cannot know that yet, since we can hardly fathom what the devs have planned next.

To defend yourself you can use prybars, hatchets and hunting knifes in the latest patch, so I consider this one done. And while you still cannot use them "actively", they give you modifiers when fighting wolves.

Additionally: I never had any problem with wolf fights, they can be easily avoided. Since wolves have quite a narrow range where they discover you and start stalking you. If they do, simply start running to get out of their range for "stalking behavior", so it turns back around and moves along. If however you simply keep on walking and enter a building, of course the wolf will still be nearby when you exit.

Fighting the wolves comes at a cost, but you don't necessarily need bandages and antiseptics, you can get bandages from cloth and you can simply wait till you get infected and pop antibiotics. And while I agree, wolves can end decent rounds fairly quickly and can cripple you on your tracks, they hardly ever pose a lethal threat to an experienced player.

And on an ending note: If you are playing purely for your own enjoyment, you can always backup your safegames, so you can load back from a certain point if things go awry. These savegames will not be elligible for leaderboards, but it's about enjoying the game, not a high-score, right?

THe path to the savegame is: C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Hinterland\The Long Dark\alpha_slot0002

[Burning Bridges]

I would like to add some thoughts of my own, before I adress what you say.

Currently, when you get within a certain radius, wolves charge at you. This is imo completely unnatural behavior for wolfes, and should be replaced with a more adaptive "wolf AI". Wild bulls or hogs may charge at you and only stop if it killed you. But wolfes can not afford to go into many fights that they don't win.

One may also say the wolf is playing poker. Without a solid stategy, and if they were to constantly go into fights against stronger animals wolfes would have become extinct.

So before deciding the right time to attack, the wolf goes through these stages:

a) what are my chances to win?

and

b) what are the consequences if I retreat? (i.e. do I win/lose anything)

c) do I have any alternative (i.e. waiting or attacking something else)

d) do I have a plan b (retreat?)

It sounds complicated but a) basically happens when player.condition

and c) when wolf.hunger>x

Without making this too compilcated, here are more thoughts what constitues a wolf AI:

"You can go into as many fights as you want, as long as you are certain to win."

That means wolfs will never attack a stronger human (100% condition) unless he has no other choice. A weakened human is a completely different thing. The less resistance a human can put up, the higher the chance that a wolf will notice it and starts preying him. And once a wolf is preying you, he will not go away easily. But until that you are not interesting as prey, only as a potential threat. This would also mean that IF a wolf attacks you, he will most likely win.

There are "last ditch efforts" that override every consideration. But it's only for those situations where there is absolutely no alternative. That means a wolf dying from hunger could attack a human even if there are still deer and rabbits around, simply because he cannot catch them any longer.

"defend their prey" makes the wolf much more aggressive. If you try to take carcass from a wolf, there will be much more incentive to fight, because the consequence is losing a hard earned carcass.

[Burning Bridges]

Re: Yes it is exaggerated. I do think however that the current wolf behavior is much more fitting to bears (grizzly. polar bear). And once they are in the game, they will take over the role of wolves. This will be much more realistic, because a bear certainly has very little reservations to attack any animal he sees, including humans, provided he needs to eat. The further advantage is that bears are slower and will not follow you for very long, and you can get rid of them as long as you are quick on your legs.

[dssm99]

Latest version = 1.56

Should the game look more like an ego shooter? Than the gun should be easy and quick to find (and a lot of ammo too). Players run (not walk) around with the gun in hand and the finger on the trigger. Maybe a .45 pistol would help; three or four quick shots can easily kill a wolf (wolf is not the perfect word, as this kind of animal is more a mid size dog).

Or should this be more like a survival simulator? Then there are toooo many wolfs. And the wrong type of wolf too! A wolf should have some 50 to 60kg. When harvesting a wolf, you should get some 20 - 25kg of flesh/organs (not 6 to 7kg – sounds more like a poodle). Each KG of meat should have some 2000+ Kcal. When shooting a .303 you have a good chance of killing the wolf, but not immediately!

The only chance of survival, without a gun, is to climb up a tree – everything else is not realistic. Only the weight and speed of a wolf is enough to bring a human down and break some bones.

[madrepityu]

I'm pretty like the new update. I barely saw any wolves before my previous lifes. I also liked the v1.53 even it has a bit too much of wolves.

I want to feel unsafe/tension outdoors, and not just because of the weather. And I don't mind that IRL a wolf would not act that way. There was a geomagnetic storm. For me it's enought explanation.

[jason_myles]

While I certainly didn't care for the dam wolf when they added it, I don't mind wolf behaviour in general. They're really not that dangerous, and first aid gear is plentiful.

However, I've never been attacked by a real wolf, so I don't know how the game compares to real life.

To be completely honest, I find the wolves spread just a tad too thinly at the moment. (In Mystery Lake, anyway.)

[dwoolfy]

I noticed the complaints about wolves being to tough and dangerous. I agree that if you are unarmed then they really are too dangerous at least at trying to hunt someone down and forgetting all about their kills. In the current iteration, the wolves are way to easy to use as weapons to just take down the deer. It is then easy to either on shot them with your hunting rifle or if you have the time it is better to just pull them off of the deer right after the wolf kills the deer and then have it chase you around some large formation where you will loose it. You can then go back to the deer and collect 9+kilos of deer meat which makes this a very cheep method to get calories. 3 days of calories for 2% of your hunting knife. If you found the magnifying glass then it makes the situation a very slow deterioration where you can sustain yourself easily for 400+ days if you found enough in the way of metal resources. For me my main problem now is likely going to be clothing which is not really going to pose all that much of a problem at least when you consider how much I can easily find in the new area.

My one complaint about wolves being overpowered is that if a wolf gets within melee range you automatically go into knife fighting mode and automatically get a bleeding wound that has a chance of infection. If they made it so there was a chance of throwing off the wolf without getting the bleeder or if it was a timing issue.

My other complaints really have to do with the rifle. A rifle having an effective range of 20 ft or so is just not realistic at all. It is also not realistic at all that ammunition would be so rare. Currently the rifle is basically useless at taking down a deer, but does a great job at one shotting a wolf, basically because a deer runs away making it so you cannot get within effective range and the wolf just charges you meaning it is easy to get a head shot from up close.

Resources are either too scarce in general. 80% of the containers that I come across are empty and the rest are giving me one item usually.

I like everyone else am looking forward to many of the expanded features. I would like to see some of the items found in the coast to be found in the lake area.

[Vlad]

My one complaint about wolves being overpowered is that if a wolf gets within melee range you automatically go into knife fighting mode and automatically get a bleeding wound that has a chance of infection. If they made it so there was a chance of throwing off the wolf without getting the bleeder or if it was a timing issue.

I like the timing idea, maybe a chance of slight time slow-down if you are facing the wolf and in good condition when it pounces and a timing aspect to throwing the wolf to the side (and maybe another to attack it with knife/hatchet/prybar while it is disoriented).

The behaviors may still need some tweaking over time, but in my current game i have been pretty successful with flares. Most wolves have been hesitating when i have a lit flare and a few have run away when i threw it at them. Sometimes, when i've thrown a lit flare at them, they stay put, but i've been able to pick the flare back up and throw it closer and that has scared them.

[dwoolfy]

My one complaint about wolves being overpowered is that if a wolf gets within melee range you automatically go into knife fighting mode and automatically get a bleeding wound that has a chance of infection. If they made it so there was a chance of throwing off the wolf without getting the bleeder or if it was a timing issue.

I like the timing idea, maybe a chance of slight time slow-down if you are facing the wolf and in good condition when it pounces and a timing aspect to throwing the wolf to the side (and maybe another to attack it with knife/hatchet/prybar while it is disoriented).

The behaviors may still need some tweaking over time, but in my current game i have been pretty successful with flares. Most wolves have been hesitating when i have a lit flare and a few have run away when i threw it at them. Sometimes, when i've thrown a lit flare at them, they stay put, but i've been able to pick the flare back up and throw it closer and that has scared them.

As I said before, I have not used a single flare, used two bullets killed 8 deer and 3 wolves. Fluffy from knifing him twice then tending to my wounds and then two wolves head shots. Every deer that I have killed has been a wolf kill. I got one each when I killed the two wolves but I found out after testing that if I just get close enough to stop the wolf from feeding right after he kills the deer he will follow me. I then make a large circle and loose him around some big obstacle like the railroad bridge, and then i just harvest 9+ kilos of deer without using anything except my knife. It is certainly possible to do the same trick without a tool but it takes 4+ hours to harvest the deer. I actually am no longer bothering with rabbits as they do not provide enough of a benefit to make them worth while.

A great change to make to rabbits would be to either make it so you can pick them up and bring them to your base where it will thaw out so you do not need to use tools or just to make it significantly faster to harvest as they are much smaller animals then the other two. Why does 1K of rabbit provide 500 cal, 1 K of deer 900 cal and 1 K of wolf 800 cal (raw)? That would be another good change, make the portions smaller for the rabbit and make them more comparable to the deer or wolf per weight.

[John Dow]

Too much wolves ?

I like the idea of wolf packs

[CeeBod]

There have been times when it felt a little too much like a zombie game with the wolves in the role of zombies to me! The current amount of wolves isn't the issue to me but the AI of them is - a wolf ignorning nearby prey animals and making a beeline for me when I have a rifle in my hands seems frankly bizarre.

To me they should be more of an ever-present but distant threat - howling in the distance, seeing wolf paw prints in the snow around your house when you leave in the morning, the odd glimpse of a wolf that seems to be following you at a safe distance, rather than just having default monster patrol/aggro range behaviour. That kind of a low menace as a default - with wolf attacks being a little more telegraphed and coming only when there's a cause, would make it feel more real. You sprain your ankle and start to limp, and suddenly the wolf that's been tracking you starts to move in closer. It's still hanging back but it's now obviously looking for an opportunity to attack. Even worse, you see 2 more wolves in the distance, the one moving closer is obviously just the bravest from the pack. You're a long way from the nearest shelter, what are you going to do now? THAT would make the wolves feel scary without having them attack you every 5 minutes!

[Incariuz]

Honestly, I find wolves provide real little threat, I'd rather say they're my best friends. When I see them take down deer, I scare them off with flares, it's too easy really. Right now I can go outside in game with one flare, and chase a wolf clear across the map scaring it over and over, so I never feel like I'm in danger from them. For me, the only way they would be a threat is if they started traveling in packs.

[Vlad]

Each playthrough, i am learning ways to avoid them and deal with them. Distance is a big deal, and they always seem to hesitate within a certain radius. If they start to trot after me, i can usually run away or go around an obstacle to remove line of sight and they seem to give up. Right after Coastal highway was released they were a problem, but now as long as i'm careful around corners and keep my head on a swivel, i haven't been attacked. I still always keep a flare at the ready, though, as i like the idea of that being a strong deterrent.

[saltedfish]

I'm surprised - I was expecting an outpouring of "l2play nub" from everyone. Instead I get reasoned, rational responses. Keep up the disappointment

I will say that now that I've calculated the calories/kilogram of all the foods, and know which to keep and which to ditch, I'm confident I can persist in the wild for a long time now and keep myself healthy. I've found that as long as you're healthy (above 80% condition) you're pretty much guaranteed to kill the wolf in two strikes or less.

I'm saddened to hear the rifle is useless at range, that puts a damper on my enthusiasm to find one. I do like the idea of a pistol, something with short range and low power to defend against wolves. Maybe even a shotgun, to round it all out. I still seriously think that unless you can physically equip and pull out your knife/prybar and swing it at the wolf, there really needs to be an alternative to (a) you shoot the wolf or (b) you punch it in the face and hope it doesn't rip your ears off.

[Burning Bridges]

I would say tone down the aggressivity somewhat and the respawn rates considerably.

Respawn is crazy. I killed a wolf and cooked it, by the time another one had already spawned and attacked me.

[ughughugh]

I downright hate the way the wolves spawn. I leave one of the buildings along the coast of the Coastal Highway and I get instantly and I do mean instantly attacked by a wolf. Are you kidding me? How am I supposed to deal with that? There is no warning, just the fight. A different kind of utterly retarded spawn is a wolf spawning on the other side of the building I just left and he is within range for attack mode to trigger and then comes for me. And then there is the post on the steam forum from one the devs to "clarify" how wolves are intended to work. Oh the irony. Clarification my ass!

If I am in the mood for random chances I throw some dice.

I hope Hinterland really cares about gameplay and makes sure those spawns get fixed. This game is so popular it keeps selling well and it better does for the right reasons.

[John Dow]

As there is much loot in the houses, the wolves like to troll around there...

[Burning Bridges]

Am I the only one who has problems getting a wolf to kill deer now? I have seen them pass by a wolf less than 2m but nothing happening. But the same wolf would follow ME around the whole map if necessary ..

[elloco999]

I've noticed to that it's harder. But I've found that wolves often ignore the deer when they pass behind them but not if they pass in front of them. When I manage to steer a deer in front of a wolf, it always attacks it.

[Burning Bridges]

Just managed to lure one into a deer. It's difficult but I am getting better. It makes the game easy. You can either shoot the wolf or attack him with your knife.