My suggestions for the game

[Burning Bridges]

This is my experience from playing for ca 1.5 months and ca 100 days in the game.

Common sense says that this is not supposed to be a hunting simulator. But I believe that what this game really needs for maintaining a long term challenge is more realistic hunting. Not that hunting in the game isn't fun or not hard enough for a new player. The problem is once you get experienced you come to a point where you can live quite comfortably from wolves, either by killing them or let them do the hunting for you. There is not enough ammo on the map, but provided the wolves don't get stronger in the next update, you can kill them either with the rifle or with the knife.

• Add difficulty option for hunting. Normal is what it is now. Experienced is a lot harder, and I will explain in the following how I would do it.
  
• Make stealing carcasses from wolves much harder, by wolves operating in packs, and individual wolves stronger
  
• Wolves should have a win/loss based AI, that makes them much more likely to stay and fight if there is food (carcass) and wether they are hungry or not.
  
• Make wolves much less agressive (counterintuitive) but their aggressiveness based on hunger. That means they will not attack you as long as they find game, but when their hunger grows they become desperate, and so much that they even stay around you for much longer than now.
  
• That would mean, provided the wolf starts to hunt you, you can either flee, use decoys, fight them or feed them by leaving meat behind. But it should be harder than it is now.
  
• Make wolves also stronger so that hunting wolves for food becomes next to impossible. I think when a strong man fights a wolf, the odds should be 1:1 or less (realistically an average guy, women or a child would have hardly a chance at all). right now they are almost 100% for the player as long as he is healthy and does not get attacked by other wolves.
  
• Provided there is hunger, make wolf strenght based on hunger. It would be so much more realistic if a starving wolf becomes weaker with time.
  
• Make animals in general much rarer. And with that I mean super-rare, meaning you must look for a single deer, and cannot afford to let it pass. Ideally there would be tracks leading through the snow.
  
• I could also think of feeding mechanics. Let's say if you have corn / nuts whatever deer eat, you could position feeders for them that might attract them.
  
• Meat/guts could act as wolf attractors, provided you want to kill a wolf. But beware, there might be a pack.
  
• Add simple simulation of shot placement. I don't think you need to go overboard. Just two hit zones: the lungs/heart zone (usually just a small part around the front chest), and the body.
  Lung heart shots lead to instant (or almost intant) death (dropping on the spot). Body shots lead to an animal fleeing over large distances and dying much later (or not dying at all), leaving hoof trail and a small track of blood.
  
• The increased need to explore them map could be made more interesting by random items occassional spawing on the map. Like carcasses and rucksacks under the snow that get uncovered by wind and animals. A simple randomization, no complex simulation required, and it should be very rare.

TLDR. Hunting should be difficult and rewarding. This is the most important suggestion I have to make, as the rest of the game is interesting and challenging for a long time, but getting food is perhaps too easy.

Ok, I might add to that list later, but I think these points would make the game super exciting when for experienced players. I dont think any of them is overly complex or hard to implement.

Comments?

[Burning Bridges]

Some more suggestions about more rpg like progression. I assume something like this probably planned already, and I think this would make the game more interesting.

• Much slower progression of skills
  The progression of skills which is now linear, means that players quickly reach the maximum (100)
  It would be better if the skill grows slower the higher it gets (exponential)
  
• Varying base skills
  I think it would make sense if there are lower base skill, and ideally this would vary between characters
  
• Skills in game
  firemaking
  repair
  crafting
  
• Skills extended
  Just a few ideas
  cooking
  aiming
  foraging
  
• Character stats
  There could of course be more stats. It sounds complex but right now they are all in the game, just hardcoded. Just a few examples:
  condition
  strength (carry capacity)
  endurance
  speed / agility
  cold resistance
  disease resistance
  metabolism

[koderr]

Make wolves much less agressive (counterintuitive) but their aggressiveness based on hunger. That means they will not attack you as long as they find game, but when their hunger grows they become desperate, and so much that they even stay around you for much longer than now.

I'd like to comment on this one specifically.

At the moment in-game wolves are natural killing machines. They kill everything in sight, I've seen a wolf kill two deer in sequence.

I've read a little about wolves behavior and this is what I've found:

Adult wolves eat 5 to 14 pounds of meat per day on average, but sometimes 12 days or more may pass between feedings. Because hunts are successful only 3-14% of the time, wolves survive on a ‘feast or famine’ diet. After a successful kill, wolves devour the carcass, sometimes eating as much as 20 pounds, and then may remain relatively inactive for one or more days, digesting their meal.

[Burning Bridges]

The way the wolves move and act reminds me of the cowboy in Westworld. They are like robots that attack every human in sight in a well defined certain radius, but outside of that they are totally stupid,