A little feedback on the recent update

[Tbone555]

I've finally gotten around to playing the most recent update. I tried it a little when it first came out but didn't give it enough play time for a full post about it. It is rather phenomenal. I love the timber wolf behaviour and my first experience with this update was starting a fresh game on the new map at dusk on stalker. I found the new cannery location and it was a massive breath of fresh air until I noticed I was being surrounded by Timber wolves. And not only that, but the lights began flickering to life. An Aurora on my very first night in this brand new map in a new location. I was freezing, tired and hungry. But ecstatic. It was an amazing experience. The wolves chased me into the buildings and I tried sneaking from building to building going between the storage containers and debris until they sniffed me out. At this point I found a naval flare and it did stop them from charging me, then in the spur of the moment I saw the climbing rope going to the top level and you bet I scurried up that thing as fast as possible. Walking along the planks, finding the notes and exploring with the wolf pack snarling up at me was a truly terrifying experience. Shimmying along the narrow wooden beams knowing if I slip there's no coming back. And then finding what I assume was husband and wife clutching to each other frozen in the corner of one of the buildings. Brand new character models aswell. It felt so surreal and told such a tragic story that I even refused to loot the corpses. It sickened me to think of robbing these bodies, which is something I've never had a real issue with before. These two just seemed more... real to me. Anyway. It was an incredible experience. Almost like a horror game. It's a new experience that I've never had with this game before and it breathed fresh life into it for me. Honestly, well done Hinterland. I love it.

I do have some issues with it though. Entirely constructive criticism. I already reported this and hinterland replied they're doing their utmost to fix the problem, but on xbox one the autosave locks the game up for a good 10 - 15 seconds. This wouldn't be a problem anywhere else, but during timber wolf encounters the game saves when you get bitten. It really pulls you out of the whole timber wolf experience when fending off the pack and your game freezes every time one takes a nibble. Not a big issue, just a little immersion breaking and again hinterland has told me they're working on the problem. Hope to see that ironed out soon

I love the ammunition crafting. it's so handy but there is one little problem... I got to almost level 5 in the skill, in one in game night. The progression is way too fast. I only made about 50 revolver rounds and was an instant expert. Only about 10 of those rounds are poor quality aswell. I think the progression should be a little slowed to up the challenge but that is just my opinion.

finally, the flares man. They just don't work. In my experience they stop the wolves from charging as long as they're held. If I throw it the wolf stands right on top of the flare and doesn't scare off so I lose the flare in an attempt to scare off the wolves. This makes actually fighting off the timber wolf pack absolutely impossible without the revolver since that's the only other thing you can use to scare them. If you have timber wolves on you, and no revolver with no shelter to duck into, you're pretty much completely screwed. The flares have not scared off wolves for me in a very very long time. Ever since they were changed from flailed to thrown. They're pretty much absolutely useless to me and I always pass them up when I see them. They also have the same effect on the normal wolves. I throw the flare and the wolf either just stands on top of it or walks right over it and charges me anyway. Very annoying, that is.

also regarding the timber wolves I absolutely love that you gave me the option to turn off the pack morale meter. I thought that was really stupid. It's a lot more immersive and tense to not know if you're actually doing anything to them. I imagine it's a nice tool for new or casual players, but again, I just really respect that you give me the option not to use it

and that wraps up my little review. I hope it's helpful and doesn't come off as overly critical. Just my own views and experiences. Cheers, hinterland, and thank you for another absolutely amazing update and the brand new experience. Y'all are absolutely awesome! 

[hozz1235]

My eyes!!! 

Just messin' with ya

Edited April 1, 2020 by hozz1235

[ToAsT]

On 2/23/2020 at 9:19 PM, Tbone555 said:

I've finally gotten around to playing the most recent update. I tried it a little when it first came out but didn't give it enough play time for a full post about it. It is rather phenomenal. I love the timber wolf behaviour and my first experience with this update was starting a fresh game on the new map at dusk on stalker. I found the new cannery location and it was a massive breath of fresh air until I noticed I was being surrounded by Timber wolves. And not only that, but the lights began flickering to life. An Aurora on my very first night in this brand new map in a new location. I was freezing, tired and hungry. But ecstatic. It was an amazing experience. The wolves chased me into the buildings and I tried sneaking from building to building going between the storage containers and debris until they sniffed me out. At this point I found a naval flare and it did stop them from charging me, then in the spur of the moment I saw the climbing rope going to the top level and you bet I scurried up that thing as fast as possible. Walking along the planks, finding the notes and exploring with the wolf pack snarling up at me was a truly terrifying experience. Shimmying along the narrow wooden beams knowing if I slip there's no coming back. And then finding what I assume was husband and wife clutching to each other frozen in the corner of one of the buildings. Brand new character models aswell. It felt so surreal and told such a tragic story that I even refused to loot the corpses. It sickened me to think of robbing these bodies, which is something I've never had a real issue with before. These two just seemed more... real to me. Anyway. It was an incredible experience. Almost like a horror game. It's a new experience that I've never had with this game before and it breathed fresh life into it for me. Honestly, well done Hinterland. I love it.

I do have some issues with it though. Entirely constructive criticism. I already reported this and hinterland replied they're doing their utmost to fix the problem, but on xbox one the autosave locks the game up for a good 10 - 15 seconds. This wouldn't be a problem anywhere else, but during timber wolf encounters the game saves when you get bitten. It really pulls you out of the whole timber wolf experience when fending off the pack and your game freezes every time one takes a nibble. Not a big issue, just a little immersion breaking and again hinterland has told me they're working on the problem. Hope to see that ironed out soon

I love the ammunition crafting. it's so handy but there is one little problem... I got to almost level 5 in the skill, in one in game night. The progression is way too fast. I only made about 50 revolver rounds and was an instant expert. Only about 10 of those rounds are poor quality aswell. I think the progression should be a little slowed to up the challenge but that is just my opinion.

finally, the flares man. They just don't work. In my experience they stop the wolves from charging as long as they're held. If I throw it the wolf stands right on top of the flare and doesn't scare off so I lose the flare in an attempt to scare off the wolves. This makes actually fighting off the timber wolf pack absolutely impossible without the revolver since that's the only other thing you can use to scare them. If you have timber wolves on you, and no revolver with no shelter to duck into, you're pretty much completely screwed. The flares have not scared off wolves for me in a very very long time. Ever since they were changed from flailed to thrown. They're pretty much absolutely useless to me and I always pass them up when I see them. They also have the same effect on the normal wolves. I throw the flare and the wolf either just stands on top of it or walks right over it and charges me anyway. Very annoying, that is.

also regarding the timber wolves I absolutely love that you gave me the option to turn off the pack morale meter. I thought that was really stupid. It's a lot more immersive and tense to not know if you're actually doing anything to them. I imagine it's a nice tool for new or casual players, but again, I just really respect that you give me the option not to use it

and that wraps up my little review. I hope it's helpful and doesn't come off as overly critical. Just my own views and experiences. Cheers, hinterland, and thank you for another absolutely amazing update and the brand new experience. Y'all are absolutely awesome! 

Agreed on pretty much everything. The ammo crafting books aren't really worth it unless you have very little supplies when you eventually get into the cannery, since like you said it's pretty easy to craft them. I suspect in the future they'll allow you to craft an improvised weapon from the milling machine, so that might take care of the no revolver issue. I also think that there should be a rope climb point from the ice near the cannery so that we don't have to do the platform puzzle every single time we want to go out there.

IMO they really ruined the value of the flares when they essentially made throwing them instantly aggro the wolves nearby.

[Vhalkyrie]

Good summary!

I'm a EA player that just reloaded the game to see what's changed, different and new.  I have to say that the flare changes on the wolves is the most problematic.  They lowered the chance for torches to scare wolves way back in the day, and flares were really the only reliable way to scare them off.  Maybe bad rng, but I've only had the flare scare one wolf out of many in my newest game.  It ran off, but the fear effect wore off pretty quickly and I had to fight it anyway.  This is just the standard black wolf and regular flare btw, not the timberwolf.

I have only experienced timberwolves in Ep 3.  They were pretty terrifying at first, but the marine flares and the revolver to the face work pretty well.  The problem is it seems like the normal wolves are fearless now.  I'd rather scare them off in my survival games because otherwise I end up with hundreds of dead wolves, and I don't need any more pelts.

I would rather play a custom game where I could tweak this behavior, but they removed ability to earn Feats in Custom.

Edited May 20, 2020 by Vhalkyrie