New update – wolf struggle and a special wish

[myfirstme]

Briefly played with the new update yesterday, .163. Overall seems to work fine, haven’t gotten to the advanced parts. Overall, great game in the making here!

Wolves: Did 4 playthroughs, was killed by wolves the first three times before I could find shelter. I don’t see how the new mechanic is different to the old – you still have to hit the LMB as fast as you can until it is full, then RMB, correct? I am still not a huge fan of that button spamming mechanic, but maybe I don’t understand how it is supposed to work?

Another thing that makes wolves much harder now is that they don’t really leave the area after being fought off. I was trying to reach the camp office after starting when a wolf surprise attacks. I manage to fight him off, with 14% health left. Was freezing before, no wood, no way that I reach another shelter than the camp office. But the defeated wolf runs directly towards it, reverts to patrol mode, still blocks the way. I die.

I do understand that killing wolves was too easy before (hell, even I could do it! ), but right now the whole wolf thing seems to be OP. If wolves are to stay as strong as they are right now, maybe lower their number, at least in the beginning? If they are meant to be something of a special challenge, then you shouldn’t trip over them every few steps.

Special wish: I would like to be able to bury corpses, especially the one in the camp office. In RL that would be one of the first things I would do when possible. Combination of simple human decency and getting your house in order. The graphics without corpse exist already, all you would have to add is the graphics change mid-game, and the option for a burial (It would cost time, energy and maybe wood. Having tools would speed things up). Adding a wooden cross behind the camp office afterwards would be a nice extra.

[Traxad]

+1 on that one. Having a corpse around when I am bugging in is kind of freaky.

[elloco999]

Weird as it may be, before the update there just wasn't enough storage space in the CO so I used that corpse for that purpose. I'm assuming the containers in the CO have also been updated so there should be more space now.

Getting rid of the corpse might be the logical thing to do, but it wouldn't be all that easy. Moving a frozen corpse by yourself can't be easy to do and considering the weather I doubt burying is even possible (except for maybe under a pile of snow). But it would be nice to be able to move it outside, as you're right that's what most people would do.

[Dragon]

One basic cornerstone to survival is: Improvise, adapt, overcome.

The new wolf system requires you to do the above. In the absence of the rifle or flare, avoidance is the word of the day, as a priority.

As to the corpses, when you find the one in the top bunk in one of the trailers, sleep in the same bunk with him. Not the lower bunk, the same bunk. He won't mind.

:lol:

[Raphael van Lierop]

Working on the wolf thing. Not to make it easier, but to give you more options in how to handle them.

Love the idea of burying a body! We'll have to think about that one some more from an implementation standpoint. But I think it's a pretty cool idea.

[myfirstme]

Great to hear, thanks! Looking forward to it!

More options to fight wolves are always welcome. But I gotta say, I still would prefer the button spamming to go away. Maybe replace it with holding LMB to build strength, then RMB to hit?

And / or add fighting skill as another modifier (like e.g. the fire starting skill), this time modifying speed, not strength (like the weapons do). The higher skilled you are, the faster the bar fills and thus the faster you can kill a wolf. If starting skill is set at 0, 100 could double killing speed. For each kill your skill would increase by 1, for each fighting off but not killing by 0.5 (so you’d have to kill 100 wolves to get to double killing speed).

More weapons would be good, too. Clubs, sticks (could double as walking sticks, reducing energy cost when walking), spears, bow / arrows. Craft on work bench (with skill, luck and the kind of wood in stock determining the quality). Clubs would be easiest to craft, bows hardest (and would need a string as well). Clubs and sticks would be weaker versions of the pry bar, so easy to implement in the struggle system. Bow / arrows would be weaker version of guns, so easy to implement, too, even though balance might be affected, depending on how difficult and energy intensive crafting them would be. Spears are a bit more difficult to implement, since you could throw them or use them as melee weapon (but I believe not all spears can be usefully thrown, so you could exclude that possibility). When used as melee weapon, you’d be able to keep wolves at a distance, thus reducing incoming damage as well as dealing potentially more damage than with a knife.

Last, more visual feedback would be nice, too. I am doing any damage? Is anything happening apart from me dying?

[Dark]

And / or add fighting skill as another modifier (like e.g. the fire starting skill)

+1 to this, because i have also suggested something similar in a other thread.

Wolf / Dog (K9) defence /fighting techniques emphasize a certain behavior, based on sacrifice of your left (off) arm as a biting target. Better an arm then the head or throat. Normally also knife fighting and defence fighting technics supports this idea, by polstering the off-arm with cloth and etc. A K-9 attack the legs or the throat of a pray, this is due the fighting technics of a pack or a lone wolf. I myself have been bitten by a dog in the leg, in my youth. Luckily this was not a throat / neck biter dog. Wolves attack the head or neck / throat of humans.

A defence or protection could be to make some arm sleeves from leather, for protection (taking less damage) against wolves.

[AndreasBusk]

The wolf of version 1.64 is in my mind too overpowered or maybe I just suck at the game. I have yet to kill one in the newest version even though I have met them with full health and both hatchets and knives.

Wish/a suggestion for a way to handle to wolves: Allow the player to climb trees and try out the wolves patience..

It'll catch the player in a choice between freezing to death in a tree, getting down again to fight or to bore the wolf to other hunting grounds.

[elloco999]

I don't like the idea of a fighting skill. Like all other skills, this would have to go up when using the skill. This will lead to people getting into fights (with wolves) just to increase the skill.

I do like the idea of climbing a tree, but if I have time to climb a tree before the wolf gets me, I have plenty of time to just run away.

[Dark]

I don't like the idea of a fighting skill. Like all other skills, this would have to go up when using the skill. This will lead to people getting into fights (with wolves) just to increase the skill.

With very strong wolves, the risk to raise this skill are to high. Currently i have only once attached a wolf with hands, and that was only after i shot him. And i have also once defended myself against a wolf, but this brought me down to 30% from 100%, and if not my shelter would be near me, this would be crucial between life and death.

It is a matter of balance, if this skill would be raised by people, only because the sake of this skill. Or do you make a fire, just to be better in making fire? Or do you repair things just to have a higher repair skill?

[ultron2099]

Bury Corpses. Great idea .... where do we bury them though? Everything is either iced or snowed over. We would need to shovel through snow and then frozen ground a couple feet to bury them. Not doing that with a hands, hatchet, or hunting knife. Can opener is a humorous idea, but again bust. We would need a proper shovel.

I too am also besides myself on how to deal with wolves. Other then avoiding them and running away, fighting back seems insane. LMB to build strength, of which I couldn't build any. RMB to hit, which had no seeming effect. I swear I'm randomizing button holds and pushes hoping something works and I barely survive the attack.

However I think after you smashed the wolf across the face and it yelps away that it either shouldn't return or does so with a partner and a gleam of revenge in its eye.

[myfirstme]

Burying wouldn't be easy, no. A shovel would really help, but a pry bar to loosen snow / half frozen earth and one of those bowls you see on the shelves should work as well. I feel the game really needs more options to change the environment and this would be one option I'd love to have. Same with skills, they are a great way to build something up and options for building, creating, changing something in the world are getting more, but they are still limited.

I like the struggle mechanism less and less. It's ok now as long as I can avoid wolves, but once I am ambushed, as happened in my last play through at the derailment, I am pretty much dead. Even with the knife the first attack got me below 20%, the wolf then fled, but I applied first aid instead of leaving the area, so the wolf attacked a second time. I simply can't click fast enough and I am getting annoyed.

I am now through a few play throughs, with .163, .164 and .166, never living more than a few days, if that long. It's getting repetitive and instead of me being motivated to try harder and get better I feel less and less engaged with the world. Oh, another wolf, another death, oh well, whatever. Maybe I try one more time, but then I do think I need a break from this game.

[furq]

Burying Corpses, sounds like a noble idea, but in situations like the one were dropped into, social niceties are one of the first things to go, I wouldn't bury them, I would use them to trap game, dig pits around them cover it and wait for the bigger game to fall in.

[ultron2099]

Burying Corpses, sounds like a noble idea, but in situations like the one were dropped into, social niceties are one of the first things to go, I wouldn't bury them, I would use them to trap game, dig pits around them cover it and wait for the bigger game to fall in.

:shock:

o ... k .... so, you're not on my top ten to go camping with. or be trapped on an island with. or be alone with ...

[furq]

But I am on the list, just further down ?.

[Aqua77]

I always read that people fight against wolves with knifes. How does that work? I can´t take the knife in my hand or am i wrong? Or does the knife just have an influence while it is in my inventory? Always thought its crazy that i have a hunting knife but i just use it to open cans and for the wolve fights i use my bare hands.

On topic: I would bury corpses when there is time and some reason. Or at least to bring them outside to lure some wolves away from the house for a while.

[Bill Tarling]

I always read that people fight against wolves with knifes. How does that work? I can´t take the knife in my hand or am i wrong? Or does the knife just have an influence while it is in my inventory? Always thought its crazy that i have a hunting knife but i just use it to open cans and for the wolve fights i use my bare hands.

If you have a pry bar, knife, or hatchet in your inventory then the strongest weapon will automatically be used when fighting wolves.

[Shaesi]

I always read that people fight against wolves with knifes. How does that work? I can´t take the knife in my hand or am i wrong? Or does the knife just have an influence while it is in my inventory? Always thought its crazy that i have a hunting knife but i just use it to open cans and for the wolve fights i use my bare hands.

On topic: I would bury corpses when there is time and some reason. Or at least to bring them outside to lure some wolves away from the house for a while.

You can't equip the knife, but when a wolf attacks you the game will automatically select the best weapon you have (-in order- knife, hatchet, prybar or bare hands if you don't have any). This will make it easier to fight the wolf off since you will do more damage depending on the weapon.

With the new update v.170, you can see the weapon you have in the right top corner of the screen:

[EternityTide]

maybe instead of burying them, you could create a cairn of stones. This would show up on your map as a navigational point and landmark. the option to search corpses should yield ids to give them a name (the id should be harvestable as tinder as well), would allow you to name the cairn (like at Max's last stand, you would create Max's cairn). Cairns can also act as caches for equipment, but they can only be built on the site of a corpse.

[pulkmees]

WTF, how would adding burying bodies be a good idea ? The game has other more important issues and yet you go with a completely new idea that doesn´t add anything new to gameplay and just creates more work.

Obviously bitching here, but come on.

IF they do include that, at least make it connected to gameplay somehow, maybe they start rotting and have a chance of infecting you, otherwise nobody would give a **** if it stood there for a decade.No gamer is that noble to just start burying a body for no reason other than....decency, especially when in sandbox you need to survive for as long as possible using as few resources as possible.

[EternityTide]

I think the game is more along the lines of how a person would react in a real situation like that, not how a gamer would react. It's meant to be a thoughtful game, not another commando based FPS. Plus I'm certain that the devs would create it so that the player would getan added bonus for burying the dead.

You are also forgetting that most people playing this game are playing it for the narrative experience, not just another survival simulator.

[FoneBoneJay]

One basic cornerstone to survival is: Improvise, adapt, overcome.

The new wolf system requires you to do the above. In the absence of the rifle or flare, avoidance is the word of the day, as a priority.

[glow=red]As to the corpses, when you find the one in the top bunk in one of the trailers, sleep in the same bunk with him. Not the lower bunk, the same bunk. He won't mind.[/glow]

:lol:

Thats pretty sick man... and I'm a phone sex operator.

[FoneBoneJay]

WTF, how would adding burying bodies be a good idea ? The game has other more important issues and yet you go with a completely new idea that doesn´t add anything new to gameplay and just creates more work.

Obviously bitching here, but come on.

IF they do include that, at least make it connected to gameplay somehow, maybe they start rotting and have a chance of infecting you, otherwise nobody would give a **** if it stood there for a decade.No gamer is that noble to just start burying a body for no reason other than....decency, especially when in sandbox you need to survive for as long as possible using as few resources as possible.

Nobody could go 100 days into winter and having a corpse in their basecamp without wanting to drag it out and bury it. Realism man realism.

[EternityTide]

The psychological impact of a corpse in the smae room as you would be enough to drive most people insane over a prolonged period of time. Besides, even when frozen, corpses degrade, and the smell would eventually become intolerable, especially indoors.

[elloco999]

Honestly, if I were in a real survival scenario and I found a place where I wanted to stay for some time and there was a corpse in there, I'd get rig of it sooner rather than later. Don't think I would go through the trouble of actually burying it, especially in sub-zero conditions, but I wouldn't want it in my shelter.

If TLD would allow me to drag the corpse out, I would.