Hunting bear at miner's folly


melcantspell

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I've finally taken my 230 d Stalker survivor to Ash Canyon. I was so looking foward to finally feeling like the first time I played TLD. No spoilers, no idea what I was going to get myself into .. just exploring a completely unknown map. 

It's been great fun so far. Then I got steamrolled by 3 blizzards in 2 days and had to shelter in place in the mountains, eating up all the food that I had brought and found on my way. Looking in the distance, I spot a deer carcass and head over there. Pretty disappointing: the deer was quite obviously eaten by a hungry bear, and the leftovers are pretty sparse. That's it, I am going to shoot the bear with my rifle, I think I saw him just behind that corner. And the next moment he is mauling my face (I must have overlooked the path he took, I had not seen him coming at all.) There goes my rabbit hat, my mittens, my deer boots ... I survive, but my clothes are trash. Oh and he wrecked the rifle. 

So now I had no food, shabby clothes, no rifle, snow was falling and wind was blowing. I bandaged my wounds and waited until the blizzard past. Or should I say blizzards, because there were 2 in days. 

I am now still at Miner's Folly, and I am starving. I know where the bear is, but I have not found a good spot to take him out. I am pretty sure I would not survive another mauling. I have shot the bear twice after the initial attempt (once with the revolver and once with the bow ... both were counted as hits in the journal ... but the bear did not bleed out. Probably because I hid inside the house which might have caused the bear to reset?), with no luck. 

Any tips are very welcome. I really do not want to starve to death right next to 30kg of bear meat, if it can be avoided ;)

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I love Miner's folly as a setup, mostly because of the bear and warm outside workbench. I took him out with the bow from distance, I feel like this is honestly the best way to hunt the bear, you just need to make sure you're out of it's detection zone and crucially that it didn't detect you, it should flee immediately as it is hit. If it charges just run back to the cabin and wait 15 minutes.

If you have archery level 5 then it's a breeze. I'd recommend you use the bow over the rifle given the bleedout timer is smaller with bow hits, and I'd recommend against going inside to wait for it to bleed, just confirm the blood trail and it should be dead in no time. Go under the hayloft on the destroyed barn, it's like a warm cave under there and wait for the 2 hours so it bleeds. 

Also, if you want to rambo him and go full mano-a-mano, I'd recommend having the flare pistol on the ready so you can quick switch and blast the bear to avoid mauling, perhaps even get a lucky shot and drop him dead there. 

Good luck!

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I actually had Astrid in Miner's Folly today. One shot a deer the first morning after noticing the bear wanders in between the buildings. It's on Passive wildlife so no big. It ran off when it saw me leave the cabin. The next morning, I crouched with rifle in hand and stepped out of the house. I didn't move away from the door, but the bear was wandering in. I let it get a little closer and shot it. Not enough for a one-shot instakill, but it took off running away from me. I had like 5 bullets, so I wasn't going to waste it. It eventually ran behind the cabin in the area where the deer are. I cooked up my deer meat and then checked the journal, the bear was dead and wasn't very far. Maybe the same method could work with the bow?  There was no blood I saw, but it bled out from the neck wound.

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Best way for me was lure him all the way to the outdoor shed that has the work bench, and get inside the warmer part. The bear will literally stop at the entrance for you to get an easy headshot. If it doesn't die in one hit then simply pass some time on the same spot right after your shot. It should drop pretty near the shed and you'll have an easier time tracking/ harvesting him.

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20201221222131_1.thumb.jpg.38b8526db50bc3c30e32744f8e8079b3.jpg

I am right here on what looked like a perfectly bear-safe edge (behind me on the right is the bear den, and in front of me a little to the left, Miner's Folly). Only it seems it isn't so bear-safe? I don't dare to really wait what happens, but once I shoot the bear he runs straight at me, always, so he might have a path up there? (I would really like to know, only I am pretty sure I would not survive the mauling). Has anybody tested this before, can the bear come up here? 

I have tried to shoot him many times now in hope of a rare, lucky one-shot kill, which of course won't happen. 

Thanks for the tip with the outdoor shed. Which difficulty do you play on? It's hard for me to believe the bear will not run straight into the shed if he runs straight to me while I stand on that cliff (although it is of course not unreasonable to expect that a bear could get up there in real life). Right now, I don't really know how to get there (bear will attack me on sight if I just wait on the cliff until it gets to its den, so I can't just wait and try to make it to the shed). 

On the other hand, it's nice to see how quickly I got myself in a very intense situation on that new map. I just don't want to lose my character after having landed 2 pretty good shots into him already (I am sure that going indoors reset the bear).

Edited by melcantspell
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6 minutes ago, melcantspell said:

Thanks for the tip with the outdoor shed. Which difficulty do you play on? It's hard for me to believe the bear will not run straight into the shed if he runs straight to me while I stand on that cliff (although it is of course not unreasonable to expect that a bear could get up there in real life). Right now, I don't really know how to get there (bear will attack me on sight if I just wait on the cliff until it gets to its den, so I can't just wait and try to make it to the shed).

It was on Interloper. What I did was get the bear to stalk me all the way back to the shed, and just when it's about to reach the shed, I ran up to it to trigger the charge and then quickly ran back to the shed and crouched into the safe zone. The rest is as shown in my screenshot.

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@gotmilkanot That is SO cool and helpful! Thank you. This might save many virtual lives ;)

BTW just after writing my last post, I got one lucky shot in - the bear did not charge right away, but ran away instead. I carefully crawled to the shed once the distance was reasonable.

Now I shot the bear for the third time and there are no blood stains on the ground, but I did see the arrow in his shoulder - will it bleed out anyway?

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1 minute ago, melcantspell said:

@gotmilkanot That is SO cool and helpful! Thank you. This might save many virtual lives ;)

BTW just after writing my last post, I got one lucky shot in - the bear did not charge right away, but ran away instead. I carefully crawled to the shed once the distance was reasonable.

Now I shot the bear for the third time and there are no blood stains on the ground, but I did see the arrow in his shoulder - will it bleed out anyway?

It might, just don't go indoors before it's dead (you can check the bear kill count in your journal to verify). If you can stay warm, try to use the Pass Time function and pass an hour or so while you're OUTSIDE.

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Yes, that's what I did - made a fire in the shed and cooked some water to pass time quicker without actually saving the game (yes, this IS cheating. I only did it this time because the game cheated on me as well with resetting the bear when I had gone inside ... so I guess I considered this a fair exception).

AND after 2 hours the journal told me that the bear had died. I am happy that my game will not end here (I haven't seen much of Ash Canyon yet ;)), but I am also happy that this has been so intense. That's exactly what I like about TLD.

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8 hours ago, melcantspell said:

Yes, that's what I did - made a fire in the shed and cooked some water to pass time quicker without actually saving the game (yes, this IS cheating. I only did it this time because the game cheated on me as well with resetting the bear when I had gone inside ... so I guess I considered this a fair exception).

AND after 2 hours the journal told me that the bear had died. I am happy that my game will not end here (I haven't seen much of Ash Canyon yet ;)), but I am also happy that this has been so intense. That's exactly what I like about TLD.

Nah, it's not cheating - I consider it as letting the suffering end quicker :) It's sad to see animals running around aimlessly when they're bleeding out so passing time helps to end it quick. Also helps you too since you'll have an easier time tracking/retrieving arrows/harvesting.

Anyway, congrats on the bear hunt! I'm sure you'll discover things that are even more intense during your stay in AC :)

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