Campfire useless, getting frustrated

[Christopher Billman]

I LOVE TLD, but recently I returned and I'm having the same thing kill me every time.  I find a downed deer, I build a fire, I walk away, I drop all my scent items away from the fire and off me.  I go back to the deer, pull the meat, set it on the fire to cook. Then I go for the hide, and while removing the hide, a bear or wolf walks right over my campfire, and kills me as I come out of the "pass time" mode.  

It has happened in 4/4 of my last 4 games.  I am actually pretty experienced with TLD, hundreds of hours of play.  I play almost exclusively on interloper.  I've lasted hundreds of days before. And yet, lately, I am getting mauled over and over while sitting by the campfire and it is making building up resources basically impossible.

They set up the game to FORCE us into the cold.  That FORCES us to use fire.  But then the animals ignore the fire and attack anyway.  I thought the campfire was supposed to protect against that.  But it seems they've changed something.

Any suggestions before I, very sadly, delete the game as unplayable?

[ManicManiac]

@Christopher Billman
Possibly a bug in wolf behavior... though bears have (historically) always ignored fire.

On 5/18/2022 at 7:26 AM, ManicManiac said:

I'd recommend submitting a ticket via https://hinterlandgames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us it's probably the best way to ensure Hinterland is aware of issues encountered, and add it to their list of things to investigate & troubleshoot.

 

Edited May 27, 2022 by ManicManiac

[Admin]

2 hours ago, Christopher Billman said:

I LOVE TLD, but recently I returned and I'm having the same thing kill me every time.  I find a downed deer, I build a fire, I walk away, I drop all my scent items away from the fire and off me.  I go back to the deer, pull the meat, set it on the fire to cook. Then I go for the hide, and while removing the hide, a bear or wolf walks right over my campfire, and kills me as I come out of the "pass time" mode.  

It has happened in 4/4 of my last 4 games.  I am actually pretty experienced with TLD, hundreds of hours of play.  I play almost exclusively on interloper.  I've lasted hundreds of days before. And yet, lately, I am getting mauled over and over while sitting by the campfire and it is making building up resources basically impossible.

They set up the game to FORCE us into the cold.  That FORCES us to use fire.  But then the animals ignore the fire and attack anyway.  I thought the campfire was supposed to protect against that.  But it seems they've changed something.

Any suggestions before I, very sadly, delete the game as unplayable?

Thanks for posting. We're sorry to hear you're encountering this issue. 

We would be happy to investigate this for you try and improve your experience. Please file a ticket via our Support Portal: https://hinterlandgames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us 

[Pencil]

I've sat by a fire in the Blackrock Prison yard (where there are 3-4 wolves) and harvested a rabbit or one of the wolves, and none of the other 3 wolves have ever bothered me. It must be a bug for them to attack in your case. 

Try taking a torch from the fire and holding it as your harvesting. It will probably go out by the time your done, but wolves and bears will keep their distance for a few minutes while you're holding a torch. They will also run away if you throw the torch correctly (usually the torch has to actually hit a bear for it to run away). 

[Semple Fi]

5 hours ago, Christopher Billman said:

I LOVE TLD, but recently I returned

 I play almost exclusively on interloper. 

 But it seems they've changed something.

Any suggestions before I, very sadly, delete the game as unplayable?

Returned from where…? 😎

I’ve NEVER had this issue (except bears of course, “they are afraid of nutzing, yah”

 So question: are you playing on a custom game set up, or default interloper? Computer or other platform? All updates complete?

 Since you’ve already purchased the game, Uninstall and reinstalled yet?

[Christopher Billman]

1 hour ago, Semple Fi said:

Returned from where…? 😎

I’ve NEVER had this issue (except bears of course, “they are afraid of nutzing, yah”

 So question: are you playing on a custom game set up, or default interloper? Computer or other platform? All updates complete?

 Since you’ve already purchased the game, Uninstall and reinstalled yet?

Default interloper.  And I have had bears twice, and wolves twice.

I watched once during the "I'm working on the deer" time passage, and I watched the animal walk right up to me, run all over me, back and forth, and then when the job was done, and it returned to real time, INSTANT hit.

[Christopher Billman]

4 hours ago, Admin said:

Thanks for posting. We're sorry to hear you're encountering this issue. 

We would be happy to investigate this for you try and improve your experience. Please file a ticket via our Support Portal: https://hinterlandgames.zendesk.com/hc/en-us 

Do I make it a "bug" report?  I play on X box by the way.

[Semple Fi]

54 minutes ago, Christopher Billman said:

Default interloper.  And I have had bears twice, and wolves twice.

I watched once during the "I'm working on the deer" time passage, and I watched the animal walk right up to me, run all over me, back and forth, and then when the job was done, and it returned to real time, INSTANT hit.

Probably an xbox issue then? I’m on the switch and computer, haven’t encountered this particular problem.  
When you submit the ticket try and include all the surrounding details including time of day, etc.  It’s a duplicating issue for you, so that helps the developers narrow down the bug.  

[Admin]

On 5/27/2022 at 4:11 PM, Christopher Billman said:

Do I make it a "bug" report?  I play on X box by the way.

Yes please. We can investigate either way. Thank you again for your patience! 

[James Hickok]

I play TLD a lot, daily - lowest on Interloper. Never happened to me. Killed and harvested 3 bears y-day and wolf's were about and only after i finished the harvesting "animation" i notice wolfs come my way bcoz of the scent - then i just drop the meat. I usually harvest in 5 kilo parts. Harvest 5 kilo , drop, harvest, drop but sometimes i harvest 10 kilos at once (when there is good weather).

The only concern i had was a week ago in Coastal highway - fishermans homes. Was outside and saw a wolf very close so crouched and used mag lense to start a fire ( i remember in Zak's movies which is my mentor he said: starting a fire is same as having a fire) and while in animation i was attacked by a wolf. Now that i recall that i remember he did stand and growl for a few sec's same as with torch i just couldnt aim at him with stone/bow/flare pistol so he attacked.

Anyway sorry to hear you have this issue. I hope Hinterland will help.

[Demetrious]

On 5/27/2022 at 12:13 PM, Christopher Billman said:

I LOVE TLD, but recently I returned and I'm having the same thing kill me every time.  I find a downed deer, I build a fire, I walk away, I drop all my scent items away from the fire and off me.  I go back to the deer, pull the meat, set it on the fire to cook. Then I go for the hide, and while removing the hide, a bear or wolf walks right over my campfire, and kills me as I come out of the "pass time" mode.  

Yep, this has been a thing for years - when you are in accelerated time while performing an activity, wildlife just follows its usual movement scripts and do not respect the fire. And proc'ing the wolf/bear attack seems to happen when they physically touch the player's hitbox, so if they're too close when you exit the accelerated time, you're SOL. 

You can even hear wolves growling at you as they path past you - but they can't actually attack you in accelerated time. 

It's definitely an oversight in the AI and one that ought to be addressed. 

[ajb1978]

On 6/11/2022 at 2:21 AM, Demetrious said:

Yep, this has been a thing for years - when you are in accelerated time while performing an activity, wildlife just follows its usual movement scripts and do not respect the fire. And proc'ing the wolf/bear attack seems to happen when they physically touch the player's hitbox, so if they're too close when you exit the accelerated time, you're SOL. 

You can even hear wolves growling at you as they path past you - but they can't actually attack you in accelerated time. 

It's definitely an oversight in the AI and one that ought to be addressed. 

There's definitely technical solutions that could be implemented, such as automatically aborting the action if an animal gets too close, or putting up an invisible barrier around the player that prevents animals from approaching unless they were already aware of the player's presence.

Current state though, there are steps you can take to mitigate the risk. Crouching before you perform any time-accelerating activity is a great habit to get into. When time returns to normal, you're crouched, and much harder to detect. If time returns to normal and a bear is right on top of you, well...yeah you came up snake eyes, tough luck. But the odds of a bear being RIGHT on top of you when time returns to normal, well that you can plan around. Bears have predictable paths, so if your quarry drops on one such path you know you have to play it careful. Light a fire if you can, and start harvesting in small increments, and keep your head on a swivel. If you see a bear keep harvesting in little tiny increments and keep an eye on it. If it starts getting too close for comfort, pack up shop and come back for the rest later.

[Guest jeffpeng]

On 6/12/2022 at 7:04 PM, ajb1978 said:

Crouching before you perform any time-accelerating activity is a great habit to get into. When time returns to normal, you're crouched, and much harder to detect. If time returns to normal and a bear is right on top of you, well...yeah you came up snake eyes, tough luck. But the odds of a bear being RIGHT on top of you when time returns to normal, well that you can plan around. Bears have predictable paths, so if your quarry drops on one such path you know you have to play it careful. Light a fire if you can, and start harvesting in small increments, and keep your head on a swivel. If you see a bear keep harvesting in little tiny increments and keep an eye on it. If it starts getting too close for comfort, pack up shop and come back for the rest later.

This. Exactly.

[Stone]

Or kill the bear. But yes, caution!

I had some weird wolf fire behaviour. Three just near ML camp office. Had a fire and used a few torches to send them packing. But on more than one occasion a wolf would approach, stop, growl and then stay that way. I could walk right up to it and around it. Only throwing another torch snapped them out of it. Definitely buggy. Hard to replicate I imagine.

[JMK]

On 6/12/2022 at 7:04 PM, ajb1978 said:

Bears have predictable paths

I wish bear paths were less predictive 😉 

Bears do not care about fire. I never had the problem the OP mentionned with wolves (doesn't mean it can't happen) although one of my early tactic in an interloper game is to get a deer between me and a pursuing wolf and once he kills it, set up a fire nearby then scare the wolf away with a torch then start a new fire near the deer carcass. This is how I eat deer meat before building a bow 😁

[ajb1978]

On 6/17/2022 at 5:21 PM, JMK said:

one of my early tactic in an interloper game is to get a deer between me and a pursuing wolf and once he kills it, set up a fire nearby then scare the wolf away with a torch then start a new fire near the deer carcass. This is how I eat deer meat before building a bow 😁

That is a time honored tradition. I remember back when the game was just three regions, one of my early go-to tactics was to chase a deer into a wolf, then charge the wolf and take it out the hard way. Bandage my wounds, and boom. One deer hide, one wolf hide, four gut, plus enough food to last several days. Of course this is suicide on Interloper, but Interloper didn't exist then

 

[Glflegolas]

I wonder which game mode is most representative of the danger of a lone wolf attack in reality. I mean, most people could probably beat off a wolf successfully if armed with a hatchet or knife... right? A pack of wolves, now that's a whole different game. Even a bear can be killed by a pack, as it can't defend itself from all directions at once.