Stalker difficulty & Wildlife Spawns

[melcantspell]

So, after having played voyager for 500+ days (it got a little boring, but I wanted to make it to 500 ;)), I started a stalker game. 

I expected lots of wolf action, and a lot more fighting than in voyager. In my first run, I died from the cold, having spawned in Forlorn Muskeg and fallen through thin ice. OK on to the next run. That run is now 40+ days, so still kinda new and maybe I'm jumping too quickly on conclusions here. 

But the weird thing is - this run feels a lot easier than my previous Voyager run. I see about the same amount of wolves (the only difference is that they tend to spawn in packs, but this makes it even easier to spot and avoid them. Also, wolves help with deer hunting ). There are more bears, which makes it easier to harvest bear skins in the early game. Haven't seen a difference in deer population (kinda rare, but it has always felt like that for me). 

So far, the only things that up the difficulty a little for me, are not being able to eat wolf/bear meat without risking parasites and lower loot spawn rates.

Am I experiencing an odd RNG situation here, or is this normal? How frequent are wolves in your stalker game? Maybe it depends heavily on location? (I spawned in Hushed River Valley this time, and made it to Milton on day 3 or 4; so far I spent most of the time in Milton or Mystery Lake, maybe that's why?)

[NardoLoopa]

Well, I don't know about your particular situation, but this let me give tell you the tale of what just happened to me in Broken Railroad.

I'd taken out the FOUR wolves guarding the Maintenance Shed.  And the TWO wolves behind the shed.  The next day, I went to the lodge and took out the TWO on the pond near the lodge, and then had an Aurora wolf woof at me, but I peed my pants and fled into the lodge.  After a night of rest, I went down to the Hunter's Blind, and took out the TWO wolves I saw guarding it the other day.  Went to the cave behind it to survey.  Came back and decided to carve up one of the puppers to take some meat back to the Shed for a feast, since the pond and area were now clear. (ha ha ha)  After I was done with surgery, I heard a WOOF and turned to see this:

There are actually FOUR there -- one is in the background chasing someone or fleeing my bear-suit.

I walk back to the shed with these guys in pursuit.  There I meet a strangely docile wolf walking out of the Shed fenced area, doesn't even notice me even though I'm 3xSmelly.  After a pause, I think "uh, okay, I'll just slip in behind him."  That works well, until I get just inside the fence and ANOTHER wolf ambushes me.

I'm on day 115, with 253 close encounters and 33 struggles, 115 wolves killed.

[U47]

Yeah get that cooking to 5 and you will never have a food issue.

Advanced areas will have more wolves then intermediate and beginner areas.

To give an example of my FM incursion from ML.

This was the welcoming committee a the farm.  21 wolves killed in three days so no worries about food when I forge more arrow heads.

[Doc Feral]

I agree, on stalker you'll have so many wolves it's worth the trouble of picking up some fights early on. Without resorting to tge evil "click & cancel" trick to have tiny bits of meat, but just selecting all meat and then subtracting, I usually rack up cooking 5 in the first 15 days or less, usually before having bow and arrows. Kinda obsessive, I am. Now you know why we (stalkerists) all complain about having wolf pelts all over the place and being only able to use them  for a coat or two.

[melcantspell]

OK that means I have to trek on as soon as possible! Love your stories and pictures!  THAT sounds like a nice challenge!

(For now, I have had 4 wolf struggles, and killed 7)

[melcantspell]

NOW I know what you're talking about - Coastal Highway is a wolf-party on Stalker, at least on the ice

[Czhilli]

On 25/01/2019 at 1:33 PM, NardoLoopa said:

I'm on day 115, with 253 close encounters and 33 struggles, 115 wolves killed.

We must have very different play styles.

I’m on day 247 of my current Stalker survival run. I have 343 close encounters with wolves, with 29 wolf struggles and 44 wolves killed. I’m reluctant to kill wildlife unless I feel I have to and rely on avoidance, stealth and throwing stones as distractions to keep safe from predators. On Voyager I relied on carrying decoys to deal with wolves but I abandoned this strategy on Stalker, because it attracts to much attention, and I carry smellies only when absolutely necessary.

There are more wolves on Stalker compared to Voyager - at least 50% more in some areas. Detection range, agression and damage from struggles all seem to be higher. What has made things easier is the change to wolf howling behaviour that came in with the Redux update. Wolves howl much more frequently now and this makes it much easier to know where they are and avoid them.

I seem to see bears more often on Stalker too. I’ve only had one bear attack but it did hit pretty hard.

I’ve not really noticed any difference in the appearance rates of other animals. I don’t find much difficulty in finding stuff to hunt. The only major difference is that the increased number of wolves means I see them hunting dear and rabbits far more often and this can reduce the number of prey animals for my survivor to hunt. If wolves follow me over to a rabbit grove they can easily kill all the bunnies in the area and it can take a while before it repopulates.

I’ve only found the moose in two locations, but once I found it’s markings it reappeared there fairly frequently. I killed one to make the satchel and left the other one well alone. Interestingly, the moose and the bear seem to tolerate each others company as you can see in the following picture. They did a good job of keeping the wolves away while I snuck in to loot the cargo containers.