WallofText: Uncle Boom vs Wolves

[Uncle Boom]

I'm no authority on TLD or Wolf behavior but I have heard Hinterland giving the impression that they will be reworking the wolves' stats, spawn, and behavior - well on into the future of development... I have heard rumors that next week the "fighting"/"struggling" mechanic is getting a sizable overhaul... but I am moved to post here after becoming excited to play TLD again and having some pretty lame experiences with wolves.

I have always defended the wolves in TLD, yet again - I have to side with the weezy whiner team for the moment - and this is upsetting to my principles as a player. :cry:

I don't believe Lowly casual Players like myself should be kept out of the Carter Dam, or difficulties other than "Pilgrim" in order to Play past a few days in TLD... I also believe that I shouldn't be expected to become Pocketsllp, Kraelman, or Chillplayer - just to have a decent time playing the game, to reach my achievements with a measure of control instead of leaving it to chance, to explore ANY locations I can find On my Own once learning to be a player of decent ability, or even to experience 100+ days of survival on my own without help from the internet. I play games for enjoyment, and I'm not a dumbass or a whiner, but I DO think the challenge needs to be crafted a bit more with regard to wolves.

Hinterland has been buffing Wolf speed (I'm almost positive I read that somewhere) and health (from my own experiences in game).. and now the balance overall is not optimal in my opinion.

The wolves are also Very, Very Numerous. Very Numerous. Too Numerous imo, considering their abilities atm....

It seems that as it is now, wolves will often switch direction (that's cool on the surface), a player is much more likely to encounter another wolf after surviving an attack (possibly due to the erratic paths of the wolves), direct gunshots don't kill wolves outright even in close range and aiming for critical locations, wolves survive every fight - with enough health to finish you off if you re-engage (i.e. Fluffy), wolves move faster, and the difference between struggling barehanded or with a knife, hatchet, or prybar in a fight is superficial if not completely negligible.

These observations coupled with the superfluous numbers of wolves EVERYWHERE in the game - shelves The Long Dark for me. It feels like an Awesome, Interesting, Rewarding Pinball Machine that is Tilted in a very punishing and brutal direction. I enjoy watching Pockets and Kraelman, but I enjoy watching them MUCH less when I feel like they exist in a Universe apart from my own - where they can survive to explore and experience so much more of The Long Dark than I can on my own, doing my Adult Best, after putting 34 Hours of my Life into it. I have even seen places I didn't get the chance to explore myself while watching their streams, and the fair chance to Explore and Earn my way to those places is WHY I BOUGHT THE GAME.... With the way things are, I don't feel it's fair.

- Suggestions:

--- Normalize wolf stats across difficulties. Same enemy, same rate of survival.

--- Another difficulty mode allowing for less wolves (3-4max on the Lake, 3max near Trappers, 100 less wolves on Coastal Highway...) and more variety in their behavior (possible for wolves to run away or cautiously stalk a player, keeping distance....)without sacrificing the punishing and very rewarding environmental/Random Loot dynamics.

--- A New Active, Ranged "strike & run" Fighting mechanic to be added before the struggle, with the possibility of a player Actively killing the wolf or scaring it away without being taken down to the "Struggle" mode at all...

anyway. I'm Pissed, dying every 2-3days in game due to chance wolf appearances and freak/glitch mishaps, I wont play again til the next update.

I can't wait for a new way to fight the demon horde of alt wolves with a New mechanic... If they have their health lowered to better match my own flimsy frail pitiful stats in the game - I will be even more excited to return to TLD.

Kind Regards One and All,

Uncle Boom

[Hotzn]

I do not quite understand what it is exactly that you want.

Do you experience the difficulties you describe in Pilgrim mode? Then what you want is Pilgrim mode becoming even easier, or that a new difficulty should be created below Pilgrim. I would understand that. However, it seems that you want the higher difficulty levels to be debuffed to make it possible for you to play them successfully, and this I would not understand. Because high difficulty levels are meant to be, er... difficult as per definition.

Naturally, there are players who prefer a lower and players who prefer a high difficulty, and the game should cater to most of them to a certain degree (which it already does). Myself, I crave for difficulty in games. I wouldn't mind Stalker mode becoming even more difficult, and I guess I am not the only one thinking so. Debuffing Stalker mode now would kill the sandbox part for me.

It has been suggested on these forums to introduce a "custom" difficulty mode with sliders to adjust wolf density, amount of loot etc. individually. If that would solve your problem, you should maybe vote for it.

[Ryan CM]

Hello! The way wolves follow and stalk players has changed for the next update. What experience level are you playing on where you are having the wolves be a major problem for you?

[tredmill]

You can't be playing Pilgrim, It's almost impossible to die unless by your own miscalculations. Wolves run away from you. It's the perfect level to allow total exploration, as long as you prepare for the elements properly.

[TLDFAN]

I'm no authority on TLD or Wolf behavior but I have heard Hinterland giving the impression that they will be reworking the wolves' stats, spawn, and behavior - well on into the future of development... I have heard rumors that next week the "fighting"/"struggling" mechanic is getting a sizable overhaul... but I am moved to post here after becoming excited to play TLD again and having some pretty lame experiences with wolves.

I have always defended the wolves in TLD, yet again - I have to side with the weezy whiner team for the moment - and this is upsetting to my principles as a player. :cry:

I don't believe Lowly casual Players like myself should be kept out of the Carter Dam, or difficulties other than "Pilgrim" in order to Play past a few days in TLD... I also believe that I shouldn't be expected to become Pocketsllp, Kraelman, or Chillplayer - just to have a decent time playing the game, to reach my achievements with a measure of control instead of leaving it to chance, to explore ANY locations I can find On my Own once learning to be a player of decent ability, or even to experience 100+ days of survival on my own without help from the internet. I play games for enjoyment, and I'm not a dumbass or a whiner, but I DO think the challenge needs to be crafted a bit more with regard to wolves.

Hinterland has been buffing Wolf speed (I'm almost positive I read that somewhere) and health (from my own experiences in game).. and now the balance overall is not optimal in my opinion.

The wolves are also Very, Very Numerous. Very Numerous. Too Numerous imo, considering their abilities atm....

It seems that as it is now, wolves will often switch direction (that's cool on the surface), a player is much more likely to encounter another wolf after surviving an attack (possibly due to the erratic paths of the wolves), direct gunshots don't kill wolves outright even in close range and aiming for critical locations, wolves survive every fight - with enough health to finish you off if you re-engage (i.e. Fluffy), wolves move faster, and the difference between struggling barehanded or with a knife, hatchet, or prybar in a fight is superficial if not completely negligible.

These observations coupled with the superfluous numbers of wolves EVERYWHERE in the game - shelves The Long Dark for me. It feels like an Awesome, Interesting, Rewarding Pinball Machine that is Tilted in a very punishing and brutal direction. I enjoy watching Pockets and Kraelman, but I enjoy watching them MUCH less when I feel like they exist in a Universe apart from my own - where they can survive to explore and experience so much more of The Long Dark than I can on my own, doing my Adult Best, after putting 34 Hours of my Life into it. I have even seen places I didn't get the chance to explore myself while watching their streams, and the fair chance to Explore and Earn my way to those places is WHY I BOUGHT THE GAME.... With the way things are, I don't feel it's fair.

- Suggestions:

--- Normalize wolf stats across difficulties. Same enemy, same rate of survival.

--- Another difficulty mode allowing for less wolves (3-4max on the Lake, 3max near Trappers, 100 less wolves on Coastal Highway...) and more variety in their behavior (possible for wolves to run away or cautiously stalk a player, keeping distance....)without sacrificing the punishing and very rewarding environmental/Random Loot dynamics.

--- A New Active, Ranged "strike & run" Fighting mechanic to be added before the struggle, with the possibility of a player Actively killing the wolf or scaring it away without being taken down to the "Struggle" mode at all...

anyway. I'm Pissed, dying every 2-3days in game due to chance wolf appearances and freak/glitch mishaps, I wont play again til the next update.

I can't wait for a new way to fight the demon horde of alt wolves with a New mechanic... If they have their health lowered to better match my own flimsy frail pitiful stats in the game - I will be even more excited to return to TLD.

Kind Regards One and All,

Uncle Boom

Well said bro. I'm right there with you. Playing Supreme Command Forged Alliance instead. A challenge worth dumping an hour into and dying. It is very clear Coastal Highway wolf concentration is bordering on insanity. I sincerely hope they give the wolf enough intelligence to actually act like a Wolf rather than the implementation.

You are absolutely right. You should not have to be Chill player or Daniel Rambo Fucking Boone in order to play on Stalker or even Voyager without having to settle for the resource excess of Pilgrim. Hey the devs implemented 3 stages of difficulty, without making it selectable, now they have to manage those difficulties. Id favor even more challenging wolves if they were less common but as it is wolves are to planes as to Coastal Highway is like O'Hare international.airport.

[The_Hawk35]

I primarily play on Voyager and my general take on wolves is they are fine everywhere EXCEPT CH where there are WAY too many wolves.

I find that once I'm past the 1 week survival point and have a base set up, wolf deaths are almost always a case of my taking a risk and running into a wolf when under duress (exhausted, starving, etc).

Really some of the best things they have implemented with wolves:

- Sensitivity if you are carrying animal flesh they will key on you.

- Wind direction, very good and realistic, it's easy to see which way the wind is blowing, pay attention to it and stay down wind.

- A larger attack radius if they are on a kill. They now protect their kill more.

If you don't want to deal with wolves, play on pilgrim.

[toebar]

Hello! The way wolves follow and stalk players has changed for the next update.

Excited and curious to hear this Any more tidbits you can divulge?

[coryduran]

In my own experience the wolves still aren't a game ender as long as you can get past your first few days (get a knife and some first aid supplies). Yeah running into wolves day 2 without any weapons is usually gonna get your face eaten off in a lot of situations, or at the least make your start to the game much harder.

What I will agree with is that the CH wolf density is kind of insane. Particularly on the road from the ravine down towards the logging camp, but really over a lot of it. I also haven't spent too much time in CH since the change to wolf respawn though so I can't talk about how much that has changed the situation over there.

Wolves could definitely use some reworking, but I don't think that voyager and stalker keep casual players out of carter dam or things like that, I think even casual players can handle the lone wolf in carter dam once they get a knife and some supplies, a rifle makes it easy.

I'm also totally on board with the idea of finding a more pro active way to deal with the wolves rather than just shooting them or having to have the fight for your life ground struggle.

[The_Hawk35]

Fluffy is really easy. Go in with a flare, Throw it towards the stairs. Then make some noise until you hear fluffy. He will stay in the doorway growling, take your time and aim. Bang dead fluffy.