PSA: Bears can now kill you from 100% condition

[Scyzara]

Butchering and eating rabies infected animals isn't really the smartest thing to do

I was assuming that our character is vaccinated against rabies ofc.

As Boston123 has pointed out, rabies is mainly transmitted through bites and with the current amount of wolf attacks our character would be totally screwed without vaccination anyway. ^^

Rabies is actually one of the most deadly viruses (way more deadly than ebola & Co) IF untreated.

Fortunately, you can both vaccinate a person in advance and during a short time window (afaik a few days) post-exposure. If our character got a vaccination against rabies some years ago, he/she would be fine regardless how many wolves bite him/her or how much raw meat he/she eats. Ever wondered why you're the sole survivor? Maybe all those poor frozen bodies weren't vaccinated! ;p

Side note: Should any of you guys ever consider to visit a remote region in India or other Asian countries, getting a rabies vaccination in advance is really a good idea. (Stray dogs still transmit it there occasionally and you can't be 100% sure to reach a hospital fast enough for the post-exposure vaccination after getting bitten.^^)

[Shrike Arghast]

You should NEVER, EVER be able to walk away from a bear mauling. Realistically speaking, you're done.

Please don't start another "Wolves don't behave that way in real live" with "wolves" substituted with "bears". TLD is a game, not real life. It also gives a reason for why the animals behave differently from what you would expect in real life: the geo-magnetic dissaster. It's even in the disclaimer.

Doesn't mean I cannot dislike the whole "animal hostility" mechanic in general, or explain why I do not like it.

I believe it is an issue with the "modern gamers" mindset, if you will: needing an enemy to fight and kill. I've read on this forum that there were originally more "realistic" day-lengths (read: 6-8 hours of daylight), but they were changed to the current 15-or-so hours when testers complained about things being "too hard". Meanwhile, Stalker mode is characterized by an entirely-unreasonable number of hyper-aggressive wolves.

The main danger in this game is the wolves (and, to a lesser extent, the bears). Of all my deaths, only one has been due to actual environmental danger: I died of hypothermia when sleeping in a cave (which, in and of itself was annoying. More on that in another thread). ALL of the rest were due to wolf attacks. To me, this sucks all of the verisimilitude out of the game. No "Man vs nature" themes, no "difficult choices" ("do I try to reach the next shelter, even though night might fall before I get there?", "do I shelter-in-place for a few days, or do I press onwards with this sprained ankle, because there is no food here?" etc)

Instead, we have animals where their sole purpose (aside from aimlessly wandering (AKA not a purpose) and killing deer for the player to scavenge from) is to antagonize the player They don't have a life of their own, they don't interact with each other, or with the environment (none of the animals do, AFAIK, they just constantly wander, even in a blizzard). No sheltering from the weather, no banding together to take down other animals, just sheer, mindless antagonism.

All because the environment isn't a good enough threat. Instead of blizzards that last for a week or more, temperatures in the -60s, 6 hours of daylight, realistic and in-depth temperature mechanics (AKA sweating) actual difficult choices to make, you know, actual survival, with immersion and charisma, instead, we get a never- abating, respawning, constantly patrolling (with routes that can be memorized!), mindless stream of needlessly-antagonistic animals that exist solely to kill and be killed by the player.

Disappointing, in my opinion. This doesn't mean I don't like TLD, or don't think it is one of the best survival games that have played. I just do not like, agree with, or understand the need for this level of mindless antagonism from the animals in-game.

Again, in my opinion, the game would be much more improved if it was more realistic, in almost every way. Lower temperatures, threatening weather, no senseless item-degradation mechanic (why items degrade after you touch them, I will never understand), and realistically-behaving animals (wolf packs, sheltering from the weather, shadowing players in their territory, only attacking if the player in injured or close to the den, etc)

I actually created an account here just so I could voice my total agreement with this post (also, random props for the name -- I'm a New Englander myself).

As I have stated myself on the Steam forums: what is the primary threat facing an individual in a fresh survival situation? It's the environment itself -- specifically, lack of shelter.

Starvation or dehydration aren't what racks up the majority of casualties in real-world survival situations -- IT'S EXPOSURE. This is why shelter is the first priority of all those participants on silly discovery channel shows (even when they're almost inevitably dumped into the desert, or onto a tropical beach) -- because getting out of the wind; getting some place where the bitter, unrelenting fist of the cold won't annihilate you, needs to come first. And what comes second? Fire. Only after these two essential needs are met can you address hunger and thirst. But you will die of the cold faster than you will perish from any other factor.

The primary, broad-spectrum problem with TLD is that it takes both of these massive, INCALCULABLY DIFFICULT hurdles and just scooches right on by without thinking twice. Shelter? It's everywhere. Fire? There's a veritable endless supply of matches to take care of you.

And the result is, in order to ramp up the difficulty level, we get berserker wolves; we get ludicrous calorie demands; we get horrendous item wear. All of these factors are present in the game to cover up the most glaring flaw: that the primary tools of survival are practically dumped, almost nonchalantly, into the waiting hands of our characters. We want not for neither fire nor a roof over our heads.

I love TLD, but the more I play it, the more I feel like it is as deeply flawed as it is excellent -- that this enormous, glaring problem can never, ever go away. And it's because Hinterland got the environment wrong. We should be facing 6 or 8 hour days (it's called The LONG Dark for cripe's sake); we shouldn't just be able to stroll into an endless string of cozy cottages (a lot of the game's preview art made it seem like we would be living out of open semi-trailers and overturned boxcars... or even just tents). But because we can, other threats must be manufactured.

And they aren't even believable threats... they're (literally) lone wolves strolling around aimlessly to gobble us up. It's almost as demeaning as it is baffling... and doubly so since the rest of the game is such a magnificent achievement.

[Loboloco]

...this is from a T-shirt... :lol:

[Shanti]

The average adult human weighs as much, if not more, than the average adult wolf. That, in and of itself, is a strong blessing in combat. Add to that our flexibility and our ability to use weapons at multiple ranges, and I am fully confident in the abilities of an average human being to be able to fight off the average wolf in combat. Would it be easy? No. Would you get away without injuries? Possibly. The wolf only has 1 weapon: teeth, while you have 2: your hands and your brain. So long as you use the second to supplement the first, you can effectively neutralize the wolf sole method of attack.

Wolves should only really be dangerous in groups, or singly to injured individuals

I also dislike how the character falls over as soon as the wolf attacks, eliminating ALL the advantages of bipedal stance and movement, as well as exposing all the vital intestines to the wolf. We can move pretty easily through the snow, so I see no real reason why we can't juke to the side (eliminating most of the force out of the charge), or even move into the charge, to force the wolf back.

While it may be true that we weigh more than a wolf, that does not give us as much advantage as you might hope. Our center of gravity is much higher, and we only get two, clumsy, boot-covered feet, rather than the wolf's weaponized four. Medium and large sized dogs are very dangerous, and counter to what we see in modern video games (like Modern Warfare), they are not easy to defend against with just a knife. Especially when there is snow or ice on the ground. For any reasonable chance of survival, most people will need the extra reach from a spear to keep a wolf at bay.

As I have stated myself on the Steam forums: what is the primary threat facing an individual in a fresh survival situation? It's the environment itself -- specifically, lack of shelter.

Starvation or dehydration aren't what racks up the majority of casualties in real-world survival situations -- IT'S EXPOSURE. This is why shelter is the first priority of all those participants on silly discovery channel shows (even when they're almost inevitably dumped into the desert, or onto a tropical beach) -- because getting out of the wind; getting some place where the bitter, unrelenting fist of the cold won't annihilate you, needs to come first. And what comes second? Fire. Only after these two essential needs are met can you address hunger and thirst. But you will die of the cold faster than you will perish from any other factor.

The primary, broad-spectrum problem with TLD is that it takes both of these massive, INCALCULABLY DIFFICULT hurdles and just scooches right on by without thinking twice. Shelter? It's everywhere. Fire? There's a veritable endless supply of matches to take care of you.

This! OMG, this! Why do we stop getting colder when we get our perceived temperature up to 32 degrees F? Does anyone know that "hypothermia weather" is actually 50 degrees F and raining? Once you get wet, there is no way to dry out, and at 50 degrees, it's enough of a temperature gradient to make you hypothermic pretty much as soon as you stop moving. Not 32, not -20, 50!!! At 32 degrees, hypothermia should set in after just a few hours if you are exercising hard, and at a perceived -20, minutes!

Maybe the dev's are afraid this would make for a boring game. For myself, I would much prefer to struggle more against the environment, and less against the wildlife. I want to have realistic, rare, meaningful and dangerous encounters with the wildlife, and I want to have enough choices to actually be able to say "this is how far I will go to survive."

Going back to the original post, I like the idea that bear attacks leave you at 10%. At that point, survival odds are very low. Not impossible, but low. It sounds to me like OP got double-attacked by the bear, which had it's path finding messed up by the bridge.

[EatenByWolves]

I just wanted to figure out why I instantly died... but these posts are good too.

A. I am pretty sure the Devs are addressing the points brought up in this thread in the soon to come end of July /early August update

B. Since we have never encountered a geomagnetic disaster, we can't assume we would know the outcome of the effects on wildlife, even with animals being dependent/non-dependent on the polarity. Diamagnetic levitation can make non-polarized objects float with enough force. ie flying frog experiment (

)

C. I feel like this game tries to take an equal approach to threats. Resource management is pretty easy though, and I do agree that on stalker mode, the brutality of the cold and exposure is understated. Over all their idea is sound, but I feel like over-tuning the most difficult game mode will give players a better respect for what surviving something like this would require.

D. I dislike how the game allows for scaling advantages. If anything resources should only become more scarce. I shouldn't find MORE food and MORE clothes in houses I've waited longer to loot, or even worse houses I have ALREADY LOOTED. I am getting enough sustenance through hunting and gathering. I don't need the game to give me a freebee 1000-1200 calories and hydration on top of the 5-10k calories and 10-25kg of water I've accumulated just because I've reached a higher day count than the last day. It makes no sense.

[vimrich]

I just wanted to figure out why I instantly died...

I saw in another forum post that getting attacked by a Bear while sleeping is pretty much insta-death, whether 100% or not. It happened to someone else sleeping outside when a bear attacked - also just a 1 or maybe 2 hour nap.

When you wake up, you've already been being attacked for a while without any resistance, so instead of having some % health left, you die.