Rebalancing of Animal Clothing

[Glacia]

With the DLC Update, the bearskin coat became easier to craft (One hide versus two).
We don't know exactly the reasons behind this change, but it's likely making the things easier for new players. Several changes have been made to make things easier for the new players, like the mementos, which is good on their own of course.

The problem lies about the game balance and resource management, historically the bear coat was difficult and slow to create! , hunt four bears for the double coat always was something hard, slow and risky (But incredible rewarding).

Because it was so hard to craft, wolfskin coats were a popular 'mid-game' item, easier and faster to craft. Earlier or later, at least on interloper or custom settings, you replace the wolf coats for the bear ones, but there was a big time window in your run were the wolf coats kept viable and reasonable to craft.

The same applies for the moose hide coat, being a decent 'Niche' item if you want to craft it before the bear coat.

Wolf and Moose coats have becomed largely useless, now you can always target first the bear coat, craft a wolf coat is no longer even reasonable on early-mid game. Maybe if you have nothing else and just one bear coat you can craft a wolf one, but this is far from being a justification of the current status of these items in the game.

 

My suggestion is rebalancing the animal clothing a bit, and let the survivors choose wisely what animal clothing piece suits better his game style and strategy.

Exactly:

- Wolf Skin coat:

Weight:  3 Kg > 2 Kg

Mobility penalty:  15% > 5%

The wolf skin coat isn't exactly useless, it's just completely outclassed by the bear skin coat. The bear skin coat however is very heavy and have a massive movement penalty, and the wolf coat is a little lighter. Improving even more the weight and movement penalty, the wolf coat can become an incredible item for players looking for a balanced and light-weight build, Saving 6 Kg and 30% movement penalty.

- Moose Hide coat:

Warmth Bonus:  3.5*C > 5*C

Windproof Bonus: 4*C > 5*C

Protection: 20% > 25%

Unlike the wolf coat, the moose coat have been always a niche item. Very few survivors like this clothing piece, not only because the moose hide satchel it's a mandatory item and you are not gonna spend the hide on this item,  but also because the bear coat again completely outclasses this item on every aspect.

The Moose hide coat it's supposed to be a kind of protection piece, and it just have a 5% extra bonus than the bear coat. The 10% less movement penalty may sound interesting, but isn't enough considering all the other stats are incredible bad. Even the wolf coat can be better than this!

With the better suggested stats, the moose coat can be a good choice for players actually looking for the protection of the item, but still balanced stats overall. If the survivor is not using a light build, chosing between two bear coats and one bear coat/ one moose on outer torso it's now reasonable.

 

 

(I also attach an image with the current stats of the items)

 

 

[mfuegemann]

I totally agree. For me, reducing the needed bear hides to craft a coat, was quite an error. Although I am using my wolf coats very often, just because they are lighter and have a lower mobility penalty.

I do think the change was not necessary to help newer players. On lower difficulties there are plenty of good manufactured clothes around. But it has the described impact on interloper play. Maybe it is just a temporary change to make exploring the airfield easier with the new runs.

[Glflegolas]

I'd argue that there is a slight advantage to the wolfskin coat over the bearskin coat, even in Interloper: you don't need a bow to get it. There are a handful of dead wolves around Great Bear Island, namely in the Hushed River Valley. There's also a dead wolf in Mountain Town, Bleak Inlet and Ash Canyon. You can also kill a wolf in a struggle (despite the risk), which can't be done with a bear.

[CrazyLazyCat]

Overall I think animal clothing is too heavy, on my current gameplay on Voyager I completely gave up bearskin coat for double wolfskin and didn't notice any diference on temperature drop, and saved 2kg of carried weight. I also never crafted Deerskin Pants due to beign twice as heavy as a snow pants and barely an upgrade.

Maybe the world will get colder and force me to rethink, IDK, i'm close to day 300 and feels like temperature is not a problem at all

[Leeanda]

25 minutes ago, CrazyLazyCat said:

Overall I think animal clothing is too heavy, on my current gameplay on Voyager I completely gave up bearskin coat for double wolfskin and didn't notice any diference on temperature drop, and saved 2kg of carried weight. I also never crafted Deerskin Pants due to beign twice as heavy as a snow pants and barely an upgrade.

Maybe the world will get colder and force me to rethink, IDK, i'm close to day 300 and feels like temperature is not a problem at all

When I tried stalker I thought I'd need the deerskin pants too but at 100 days I was perfectly fine with combat and snow pants. I've never used deerskin ones at all.. I only use the bear for the bedroll and the moose for the satchel ,they're just too heavy for coats .a wolf coat and expo work just fine.

[Glacia]

Also i forgot to mention the manufactured clothing avaliable on lower difficulties, which makes animal clothing pieces even worse or meaningless.  Unless you like the fashion of the item, there is little to no reason to use it because you are not gonna feel a change.

On my old 450 days stalker run i have never used a single piece of animal clothing at all, using the best manufactured clothing i can even stay inside a fishing cabin during a night blizzard and fish all the night! 

While this post is more about torso pieces, every animal clothing have their own balance problems on most game difficulties, im gonna expand a bit the idea later 😅

[Glacia]

2 hours ago, CrazyLazyCat said:

Overall I think animal clothing is too heavy, on my current gameplay on Voyager I completely gave up bearskin coat for double wolfskin and didn't notice any diference on temperature drop, and saved 2kg of carried weight. I also never crafted Deerskin Pants due to beign twice as heavy as a snow pants and barely an upgrade.

Maybe the world will get colder and force me to rethink, IDK, i'm close to day 300 and feels like temperature is not a problem at all

If i can remember well, Voyager does not feature a world temperature decay at all, or it's just a very small amount that you can't notice. 

For a example, Interloper features a 0.5 C drop every day for 50 days, up to a maximum of 25 C decay at day 50 (cap).

[Dan_]

I always felt that the wolfskin coat it's pretty much never worth the hassle in Interloper. It decays faster, it's not warm enough and the mobility penalty is crazy high for something that looks very tidy and well crafted, compared to the raw look of the bearskin coat. If you're gonna waste 30+ hours of crafting, which requires a sizeable food supply to keep well fed, damages your knife and accrues cabin fever risk, it might as well do that for the vastly superior coat in the bearskin.

Availability of pelts is the only thing the wolfskin jacket has on the bearskin coat, but a quick weeklong trip to PV and you have your four bearskins. I suspect the wolf jacket is this bad exactly because of this, it's so easy to accumulate wolf pelts through carcasses and the eventual struggle that the challenge involved in getting a wolf jacket is actually forging so you can craft it.

I'm still holding out hope for this:

 

[Glacia]

3 hours ago, Dan_ said:

Availability of pelts is the only thing the wolfskin jacket has on the bearskin coat, but a quick weeklong trip to PV and you have your four bearskins

Now you just need a single bear skin to craft the coat, so wolf skin coats are even worse 

[Leeanda]

I find more bears than wolves on my runs and that's with wolves on max and bears on low.    The wolf hood or a scarf would be good though. Especially if it was twolf .

[FlamingFuball]

On 2/8/2023 at 6:17 AM, CrazyLazyCat said:

Overall I think animal clothing is too heavy, on my current gameplay on Voyager I completely gave up bearskin coat for double wolfskin and didn't notice any diference on temperature drop, and saved 2kg of carried weight. I also never crafted Deerskin Pants due to beign twice as heavy as a snow pants and barely an upgrade.

Animal clothing is really only worthwhile on Interloper difficulty, where good manufactured clothing doesn't spawn and every degree of warmth counts. It would be nice if there were balancing changes to make animal clothes worthwhile on non-interloper games, but on interloper they're fine weight-wise as there's really no alternative.

[Leeanda]

6 minutes ago, FlamingFuball said:

Animal clothing is really only worthwhile on Interloper difficulty, where good manufactured clothing doesn't spawn and every degree of warmth counts. It would be nice if there were balancing changes to make animal clothes worthwhile on non-interloper games, but on interloper they're fine weight-wise as there's really no alternative.

I went to transfer pass in top notch regular gear plus a wolfcoat ,bunny gloves and hat and I still had to get warm on several occasions. This was pilgrim. 

Since the update the temps seem to have dropped several degrees ,at least that's what I've noticed anyway.

[Stranzua]

Someone suggested a sewing machine and maybe animal skin clothing can be improved by using it. If we can make it lighter and warmer while increasing mobility, maybe with some work they can at least be top tier gear. Right now, they are good but not great. 

[Enigmaecho]

The problem I see with animal clothing is while it provides significant protection bonuses and damage resistance for wear and tear there are so many way more viable alternatives with normal clothes with equal or better warmth/water/weight ratio, the majority of mid tier man made stuff is equal to animal and the top tier like expo parka blow them out of the water. I’m curious if the down coming will be for new clothing or to accent existing natural clothing to buff the warmth 🤔

[Leeanda]

6 hours ago, James Hickok said:

THIS ^

Actually this is correct. The only reason to craft and wear animal clothing on Pilgrim,Voyager, Stalker is for cosmetic reasons - the world is just not as cold as in interloper and above. You can even play naked on Pilgrim and voyager no problem. 

 

I agree that reducing the amount of pelts needed to craft a bear coat from 2 to 1 was a mistake. On my first run after the console update dlc i didnt notice i need only one pelt to craft - had 4 of them in trappers , 2 already cured and when i started crafting and finish i was amazed i had one in inventory left. 

I never ever use wolf pelts. By the time temps drop (day 50 interloper) i always had 4 bear pelts and the clothing i found on the way like long jacket or mackinaw always worked well. This makes wolf and moose pelt usless in my opinion and maybe it should be even harder to craft the bear coats so that you would be forced to use wols skin ones. 

That beeing said it would be nice to see some kind of clothing overhaul in the future and maybe add some new like the timber wolf pelt / cougar pelt

Have you tried playing a naked run.on any LOWER level?    No clothes at all. Except backpacks,boots and crampons allowed. 

[Stranzua]

I thought that animal skin clothing was super necessary on Voyager, at least from the early to mid game. Bleak Inlet was extremely COLD!

[ManicManiac]

Mind you these are all just subjective opinions... and I understand where they are coming from.
However, I don't think I can agree. 

Frankly I think the balance that Hinterland has achieved works just fine.  I don't think animal pelt clothing items were meant to be "top tier" otherwise they would be.  I also think that crafted clothing is there as an alternative when we can't find something better (either due to bad luck or by virtue of the difficultly we're playing our run at).

I don't see a need for a rebalance.

[side note]
I don't understand the need some folks to feel to seem so judgmental and condescending of the Pilgrim and Voyager modes (either implied or outright stated).

While I'm on a tangent...
I also do think it's a bit funny that some of the folks with a "looper-leet" kind of attitude will sometimes fuss about wanting the world to be colder/more extreme... then tend to turn around and use the Cold Fussion feat for the additional warmth bonus.    ...or want to rebalance crafted clothing to be "more effective." 
It just feels like that's kind of "working across purposes."

[Leeanda]

17 minutes ago, Stranzua said:

I thought that animal skin clothing was super necessary on Voyager, at least from the early to mid game. Bleak Inlet was extremely COLD!

You're right to think that... Those clothes are there for a reason.  If they were only meant for lopers then it'd be in the settings.   And the temps are getting colder I think .

[Leeanda]

12 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

Mind you these are all just subjective opinions... and I understand where they are coming from.
However, I don't think I can agree. 

Frankly I think the balance that Hinterland has achieved works just fine.  I don't think animal pelt clothing items were meant to be "top tier" otherwise they would be.  I also think that crafted clothing is there as an alternative when we can't find something better (either due to bad luck or by virtue of the difficultly we're playing our run at).

I don't see a need for a rebalance.

[side note]
I don't understand the need some folks to feel to seem so judgmental and condescending of the Pilgrim and Voyager modes (either implied or outright stated).

While I'm on a tangent...
I also do think it's a bit funny that some of the folks with a "looper-leet" kind of attitude will sometimes fuss about wanting the world to be colder/more extreme... then tend to turn around and use the Cold Fussion feat for the additional warmth bonus.    ...or want to rebalance crafted clothing to be "more effective." 
It just feels like that's kind of "working across purposes."

Well said.    We all play our own way, there's no right or wrong way .

[FlamingFuball]

10 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

The problem I see with animal clothing is while it provides significant protection bonuses and damage resistance for wear and tear there are so many way more viable alternatives with normal clothes with equal or better warmth/water/weight ratio, the majority of mid tier man made stuff is equal to animal and the top tier like expo parka blow them out of the water. I’m curious if the down coming will be for new clothing or to accent existing natural clothing to buff the warmth 🤔

This is pretty much my perspective. I think the perfect world for me would be to make all clothing spawn on all difficulties, but scale the properties of the items to be appropriate for the difficulty. It would allow crafted clothing to be balanced with manufactured clothing on all difficulties, and it would also make looting on interloper more fun because you could find more variety of clothing instead of the same items all the time. 

[Leeanda]

1 hour ago, James Hickok said:

Ive played Voyager only once on survival till day 340ish when i started TLD to learn the maps. I remember that it was so warm i didnt need to make any fire what so ever and could just traverse the whole world whitout getting cold using only the clothing i found. 

On pilgrim however there is no problem running naked - every fire you make even with one stick warms you up no  matter the temp outside. 

I did manage a naked run on interloper tho. Was a bit annoying making fires all the time very similar like nogoa. 

Maybe i said it wrong - i dont mean that you shouldnt or cant use the craftables its just not necessary. On loper it is. 

Im not trying to diss pilgrim/voyager/stalker players. I feel maybe you are a bit touchy on this subject. 

 

Pilgrim and voyager I believe have the same weather settings..  while they are for the most part reasonably ok temps it can still throw some serious drops , especially in places like bleak,BlackRock and the far territories...   As I said before ,since the update I've noticed a drop overall everywhere..

I had serious problems keeping warm in transfer pass ,keepers pass north and BlackRock...even in pv once or twice..    

And I mean no offence but sometimes some comments ,not just yours,  do sounds condescending of the lower levels..  

 

Edited June 15, 2023 by Leeanda

[Leeanda]

9 minutes ago, James Hickok said:

Hmm i didnt try the lower difficulty levels after the update , maybe its a thing. From my own experience i have noticed that the loper difficulty got easier but not weather wise (more loot, overpowered beachcombing, easier bow and cooking skill progression, easier crafting).

Everybody plays this game how ever he wants - that is the cool aspect of the game. I have never thought that ppl playing lower levels are worse or loper players beeing superior. Not everyone enjoys playing "on the edge" - i personally do love this feeling, one two mistakes and your gone but not everyone does and i RESPECT that. 

I would be gratefull if we would leave this subject. My posts are not intended to bully anyone. Im just sharing my opinion on the subject and its just my opinion - i can be wrong.  Its just that Pilgrim/voyager and even stalker are diffrent playstyles and what seems hard or even not possible in your view /playstyle  is easy in my eyes bcoz i have learned to play this game in diffrent matter than you. It doesnt mean im better or your better. Just diffrent point of view. 

Fair enough.... I'm not trying to start arguments either.   

I have actually just started a loper run.just to see what it's like .... I'm on day 9 which is a huge surprise to me..I expected to get eaten on day one or two😁.      It's not really my thing but I can see why you like it.😊

[ManicManiac]

4 hours ago, James Hickok said:

Im not trying to diss pilgrim/voyager/stalker players. I feel maybe you are a bit touchy on this subject.

No.  Wasn't referring to anyone in particular... it was just one of the tangent thoughts that had occurred to me at the time.

Edited June 15, 2023 by ManicManiac