Game to easy, Stalker needs way less animals

[jumpingbean77]

Hello All,

I have so far survived 200 days on voyager, then I killed my self to continue on stalker mode.

I had at the time good stats and no foreseeable death ( I would guess + 1000 days)

Now I play on stalker, close to 100days. (also with more than enough of everything)

It is so much food (especially wolfs are so easy to kill) Approach a wolf, drop a kg of meat, step back, shoot and kill.

Same goes for rabbits supply, seems to be a endless supply of animals.

Honestly, all animals needs to be much less frequent (and/or have much longer respawn time)

Now I don't play so much just because there is no challenge

I would much more like to actually hunt/track long periods of times for animals. And with each success I would also limit my next hunting possibilities since animal life would take months or even years to multiply.

Just my thoughts.

[whisperwind777]

Cannot agree more. This is the major flaw which ruins this game. Hunger which should be the major concern of a survival game has no place in this game.

[selfless]

Wolves-as-food is the problem I see. Wolf quantity increased to increase threat of wolf attacks, but then has increased availability to hunt wolves.

Wolves-as-food needs to be addressed, since they have no defense other than their offense. I've only ever shot a deer once and that was before I killed my first wolf. Once you know you can kill a wolf, deer become something you heard toward wolves since killing wolves is so much easier. Of course you can live quite well on wolf alone, ignore the deer altogether.

Maybe another solution.

Make wolves leaner (less calories)?

Ruin hides and degrade more meat off wolf kills?

[whisperwind777]

Maybe another solution.

Make wolves leaner (less calories)?

Ruin hides and degrade more meat off wolf kills?

No, that won't do either. As long as the wolves remain the best target in this game, they will always be the main food unless a wolf has fewer calories than a fish or a rabbit. Ruin all the pelts and guts, I don't care since all I want is the flesh.

[Scyzara]

+1 for less animals in Stalker mode (especially bears & deer)

[jumpingbean77]

It is also strange that wolves are much easier to kill than deers. I almost never kill deer my self, i push them to the wolves. If I needed to survive on deers alone, it would be much more like I think hunting in TLD should be.

and whats is it with rabbits and endless supply of them? I was at Rabbit Groove at CH and I got 2 rabbits from 5 snares every! day until I got bored. It cannot be that many rabbits in the same area, it should run out.

[octavian]

Ah yes, wolves.

And nobody mentions the smell mechanic, which I can never tell if it really works or not, but I do use it presuming it does. So not only are wolves everywhere and they follow you ( rubber-banded, because reasons ) but you can also do an even better job at taking advantage of this by carrying raw meat. :?

[jumpingbean77]

I had a experience at the Water from cottages Coastal highway map yesterday. First I killed two wolves, checked around no more animals. I sat my self down to boil some water, during fire startup another wolf came from nowhere and attacked me. Funny about this is I have no chance to run or drop meat since I am in fire starting mode- seems not so natural.

I killed this wolf with my axe, also strange, and dropped down to 30%. cooked some water, went inside ande healed up for 2 days.

(oh by the way am on stalker mode, 70days in)

When I came out, I heard a terrible sound. Dropped 5pcs of food and spinned around trying to figure out where it came from. A bear runs to me and takes me down to 7%. I go inside and the game freezes (bug), i reload and heal my self.

So in the same little spot around 100m2 I had 3 wolves and 1 bear within some really short time. I have now 3 pelts, guts and more food than I can carry.

[Nemesis]

I agree with all the above. The only question is how much reduction should there be, 25%? 40%? One specific reduction should be the bear that comes to the farm from the river cave. He needs to re-spawn at least 50% less often. Yes it's cool to come out of the farm and see a bear in your back yard, but at the rate that 40kg of bear meat shows up at your front porch, you can survive for incredibly long periods without ever leaving your back yard or doing much of anything. I'm currently on a personal best of 138 days and I owe half of it to that never-ending bear meat train.

[Aduron]

I agree with all the above. The only question is how much reduction should there be, 25%? 40%? One specific reduction should be the bear that comes to the farm from the river cave. He needs to re-spawn at least 50% less often. Yes it's cool to come out of the farm and see a bear in your back yard, but at the rate that 40kg of bear meat shows up at your front porch, you can survive for incredibly long periods without ever leaving your back yard or doing much of anything. I'm currently on a personal best of 138 days and I owe half of it to that never-ending bear meat train.

MUCH more than 25% to 40%. I've said in other posts that my favorite challenge to add for myself is to simulate very long respawns. If wolf/deer/rabbit respawns are about 100 days, and bears are more like 200 days, then that is enough to force people to both fish occasionally and journey to the corners of the maps (and travel between them every month or so) to hunt, while still very slowly building a surplus (just in case you get hurt, or get multiple days of blizzards, etc). It also appears to be the right amount of pelts to make all the clothing too, but you really do need to journey to all the corners of the map! This is in Stalker, by the way. It's great, I recommend everyone try it, but it does require careful note taking on what you've already killed.I do this with "zones" that are about the size of mystery lake and surrounding creeks -- I gave PV 8 zones, and ML and CH have 4. Once I kill a deer in zone F, I can't kill any deer in that zone until 100 days later.

[jumpingbean77]

Maybe this has been mentioned somewhere else, but what is the current respawn times?

My guess:(ingame days) -> what I/you would like

Bear 10 days -> +200

Wolf 3-4 days-> +100

Dear ? -> +100 (I rarely hunt dear)

Rabbit 1 days-> +50

Fish 30% per hour? -> can stay the same

Even if the world would be highly populated in the beginning, after a while it would be much more sparse.

Can you share your experience, also maybe add your suggested respawn wish

[whisperwind777]

The best would be: NEVER respawn.

The food currently on all maps are sufficient to feed the player for about 1000 days(stalker mode).

For example, ML has about 30 wolves, 20deers, 20 rabbits, 1bear. That is roughly

30wolves*4kg/wolf + 20deers*7kg/deer +20rabbits*1.25kg/rabbit +1bear *35kg/bear = 320kg meat.

If you only eat 1kg/day like I do, and fish from time to time plus all the cattail plant and canned food, you can survive here for 1 year. And then another year in CH, and last year in PV. I think 3 years is long enough before a normal player not a phychopath to get bored.

Even if you eat 3kg meat per day so that you never have to starve, the food is enough to feed you for 1 year. And 1 year is long enough for 99.9% players.

This way, you NEVER hunt in the previous location, and to do that you have to keep moving so you don't starve to death.

[Foxen]

But all that would only be the case IF you'd find the prey right on time...means, bevore starving...and that's very unlikely.

If you hunt it all in one session, it'll most likely spoil bevore you could survive like 150-200 days

[jumpingbean77]

I think some respawning time is good, I like the idea of coming back to the same are some times.

But noted, endless respawn time is one scenario.

[whisperwind777]

I think some respawning time is good, I like the idea of coming back to the same are some times.

But noted, endless respawn time is one scenario.

Now it's just scrap metal instead of food. You are going to use them up eventually. By then you will have to do everything naked. And one sudden blizzard will be the death sentence. And before that following routine for 10000 days is no fun at all. And every player will be bored long before that.

However endless respawn time forces the player to move every 5-30 days. And this is a time most players are capable of reaching and they will have a chance to appreciate every part of the map instead of being trapped in places like Camp Office or Gas Station.

100 days of wolf respawning and deer respawning is not gonna stop veteran players like me from camping places like camp office or gas station. There are 15 wolves near the camp office which I can reach within 2 hours: 5 on the lake, 1 near allen's cave, 1 infront and 2 back of the office, 2 in deadfall area, 1 near railway end, 3 near derailed train. These alone provide 60kg meat. Plus there are deers, rabbits within 2 hours' walk too. And There's possibly one bear near the lone lake cabin. It makes no much difference to just 3 days of wolf respawning.

For not-so-veteran players, the pattern will be: Camp Office 34 days-> Gas Station 33 days-> Farmstead 33 days, and then all over again. No difference from what we do right now. If you REALLY want to stop players from camping the few desirable places, respawning time should never be lower than 300 days.

[KD7BCH]

Stalker is now too easy, but not for the reason I'd think. Yes Wolves are still dangerous if you are under 50% but they are much more managable and are like gifting themselves by attacking you. Once you make it to day 10, you can make it another 100 days much too easy. Once I get the bow and a half dozen arrows I am 75% accurate hitting a wolf and one shotting him in the face, only to take the pelt, I am now only day 50 have like 30 wolf pelts from mystery lake, and the wolves are still out there. Only made a single trip to coastal where I spent about 5 days getting my first one shot bear kill and figuring out how to setup a little trade route for myself.

Originally went there to get cloth and metal of which I brought back in one trip over 50 cloth and a dozen metal. It was great and now I can come back to Mystery and camp and enjoy life for at least another 100 or 200 days no sweat.

I really do enjoy the using fishing line which is almost renewable and much easier to come by than sewing kits to repair stuff and I feel like after this run I have mastered the mechanics.

I am not calling for the game to get cheap again but there are some really simple things that would make it harder again.

Example...

Frozen Water Mechanics

So you can't drink ice and you can melt it with your mouth but it saps your body heat, and with conditions of meat changing much quicker than condition of canned good, you could give water a condition too with a temperature, once it gets frozen you'd have to melt it in order to drink it. Additionally, you could suck ice, but it would lower your cold meter.

I also think getting wet from sweating should drastically lower your cold meter too. All of these things would make the game difficult again without being cheap. I also favor lowering the number of animals so that you have to make a concerted effort to hunt. It would be great if weather was a bit more favorable in the world and conditions changed at different rates to allow us more outdoor time.

Is it possible for the developers to get wildlife to follow more random movement patterns and less tracked pathing?

[Scyzara]

I've thought about the question which decrease in animal numbers and which respawn timers I'd find reasonable for Stalker for quite some time now. Eventually, I've come to the following conclusions:

Bears:

- no respawns at all

- reduce the overall bear number to 8 animals in all maps alltogether. Make them spawn and patrol in (at least slightly) remote areas of these maps to make hunting them a challenge.

[Explanation]

Deer:

- reduce their number to 1/3 of the current amount

- set their respawn timer to 50 days

Wolves:

- reduce their number to 1/2 of the current amount

- set their respawn timer to 25 days

Rabbits:

- I honestly don't care.

[Explanation]

--------------------------------------------

The purpose of these numbers I suggested is to A) promote an active and mobile playstyle and B) drastically decrease the mid-game length. In other words, I suggest less bears (and also less wolf-deer combos!) to be accessible unless you're willing to hunt in the remotest regions of the maps.

No risk, no reward.

These (or similar) changes would also make sure that a bullet would usually e.g. not equal an average of 15 days of food any more (=1 bear), but only 2-4 days (a wolf or if you're lucky a wolf-deer-combo) instead.

As much as I understand some veterans' desire for no respawns at all (I loved that bug in V.200, too ^^), we should imo keep in mind that the game needs to stay playable and enjoyable by non-vets as well. In other words, people who don't know the maps by heart (yet) and might thus easily overlook some of the potential prey.

I thus think some kind of balance is needed between the current animal abundance and maps emptied of all animals alltogether.

[jumpingbean77]

Scyzara have you never built a trap for rabbits? I agree it would be stupid to waste bullets on them, but why should anyone.

Rabbits:

- I honestly don't care.

[Explanation]

When a trap goes bad you get the scrap wood back, and every rabbit gives a fresh gut. So you have a unlimited supply on traps and rabbits without wasting a single bullet.

So Scyzara, I don't agree with you, Rabbit should definitely have reduced numbers.

[Scyzara]

I'm only building snares to catch rabbits because everything else is total nonsense in my opinion.

But snares work differently. They're not related to the "real" rabbits you see scampering across the fields at all. It's not like a "real" rabbit would walk across the snare and get caught. Instead, they just walk right through the snare model and nothing happens.

The dead, "snared" rabbits that you're talking about spawn spontaneously about 12 (or 18? not sure about that) hours after you place a snare. In other words, if you want to address their number, you need to address the snare trap mechanism and not the amount of "real" rabbits.

(I was referring to the amount of real rabbits in my post.)

I agree that the snaring mechanism could certainly be improved, though. I've once exhausted a rabbit population on purpose (see this thread), but exhausting them requires you to place a ridiculous number of snares. I would actually find it much better if two or three snares were already sufficient to exhaust the populations.

[Majales]

The purpose of these numbers I suggested is to A) promote an active and mobile playstyle and B) drastically decrease the mid-game length. In other words, I suggest less bears (and also less wolf-deer combos!) to be accessible unless you're willing to hunt in the remotest regions of the maps.

No risk, no reward.

...

I thus think some kind of balance is needed between the current animal abundance and maps emptied of all animals alltogether.

I support this.

Especially the bear's AI and path around some buildings makes their killing more like cheating then hunting.

[zwd]

The problem with wolves is that they do not act like wolves. Wolves are social creatures and hunt in packs 2-8. You should have different sized wolves -- adults and juveniles -- and they should be in a pack. Dump food in front of a pack of wolves and maybe 3 or 4 will go for it but the rest will continue to stalk you.

Someone earlier was saying that the wolf is easier to kill than a deer. That is the way it should be. One shot from a rifle will easily kill a wolf -- the problem is hitting it as they are smarter, smaller, and more mobile than a deer. A deer is larger than a wolf and if you don't hit it in the right place will not die and will run off. This is also the reason why wolves run in packs: to take down larger prey like deer/moose/elk.

Bears are a separate topic. Largest being that black/brown bears hibernate and shouldn't even be running around in the dead of winter. Two they have really large ranges of up to 10 square miles. Having a pile of bears in an area is not realistic. If you want bears then add some polar bears (not sure they range in Canada but they do in Alaska) and only put one in the map but make it a monster -- they can easily take multiple shots from a rifle as they are extremely huge.

Rabbits should be all over the place. They have extremely quick breeding cycles.

[signal]

Constantly respawning wolves doesn't make the game hard, it just makes the game TEDIOUS. It is annoying to get barked at every other day going outside the camp office.

Right now, the game is too focused on fighting and not enough on exploration. There's zero incentive to go explore when A) I get harassed by wolves, and B) I can get almost everything I need within 5 minutes of the farm house.

Make the respawn time longer, and make wolf encounters more difficult (packs of wolves). Give us better options for non-violent resolutions (bait, torch). That means in the long run, give a renewable way to light torches on the go, or let us light a new torch with an existing torch.

[ChillPlayer]

Bears:

- no respawns at all

- reduce the overall bear number to 8 animals in all maps alltogether. Make them spawn and patrol in (at least slightly) remote areas of these maps to make hunting them a challenge.

Deer:

- reduce their number to 1/3 of the current amount

- set their respawn timer to 50 days

Wolves:

- reduce their number to 1/2 of the current amount

- set their respawn timer to 25 days

I completely agree, this would pretty much fix everything that's wrong with Stalker right now. Even the ridiculous amount of scrap metal wouldn't be an issue anymore because you can't eat metal can you? The fact that you don't have to work for food anymore - it literally walks by your camp (Farmstead bear) - is what breaks everything imo.

[jumpingbean77]

Reducing the amount of food is the only way to go. Now with all scrap metal also fishing a viable option since the hooks now are plentiful to create.

One catch with that arrow heads now are so scarce its that it will be much harder to hunt until you can go to the forge and mass create new ones. Time after time a arrow runs away from me that I never find again, with so few available... well this update makes it tougher, indeed.

[Dez]

For me the problem is the patrol locations. I don't think wolves would be so visible. Mystery lake is good example. Just looks unnatural. The wolves should be just behind the tree lines. Watching you and waiting for the right time to strike.