Fishing versus Snaring rabbits (post TWM Update)

[Scyzara]

Does anybody else have the strong feeling that the caloric efficiency of fishing versus snaring rabbits got tweaked a bit during the latest update?

Snaring rabbits and catching fish are extremely luck-dependent activities and I might thus only be seeing things ofc, but unless fortune played a whole lot of tricks on me since the Update, snaring rabbits was toned down and fishing got buffed a bit.

My snares seem to remain empty way more often now whereas the caloric value of lake whitefish & rainbow trouts seems to have increased. I'm usually catching an average of about 500-600kcal per hour now while fishing which is pretty much compared to previous versions. It's definitely enough to rely on fishing as your main source of calories without problems now if you choose so.

I really like these two changes. It's great that a completely passive way to acquire calories (snaring rabbits) finally became less efficient than an active means to get your calories like fishing.

Hope I'm not just seeing things. :lol:

PS: Thanks for the lovely new fishing hut doors! It's great fun to slam these doors in some wolf's face. Just as an immersive explanation why they can't get inside the hut.^^

[druffzilla]

Would be great if you're right, I had a similar feeling with the rabbit snares but did not go fishing since the update. Unfortunately I never counted the calories of the fish per kg, I just now the bass was the best and trout the worst.

[sarudak]

Fishing is a decent way to get calories. I haven't compared it to snaring but snaring has major advantages over it: it's a largely passive activity, you can get more out of it by more (non-time) investment, and it provides pelts (probably more than you need) and gut (always useful). So snaring is a net gain on resources because the guts from rabbits is more than you lose to broken snares while fishing is a net loss since you need gut for line and non-renewable (although plentiful) metal for hooks. The biggest problem here is that hunting give sooo much more reward that it overshadows both activities to the point where I basically never fish and I only bother snaring to get the furs for my mittens. I would say make wolves more difficult (ala my thread on stopping wolf abuse) and suddenly hunting is a lot more challenging and dangerous and snaring and fishing become dramatically more attractive.

[KD7BCH]

Fishing is a decent way to get calories. I haven't compared it to snaring but snaring has major advantages over it: it's a largely passive activity, you can get more out of it by more (non-time) investment, and it provides pelts (probably more than you need) and gut (always useful). So snaring is a net gain on resources because the guts from rabbits is more than you lose to broken snares while fishing is a net loss since you need gut for line and non-renewable (although plentiful) metal for hooks. The biggest problem here is that hunting give sooo much more reward that it overshadows both activities to the point where I basically never fish and I only bother snaring to get the furs for my mittens. I would say make wolves more difficult (ala my thread on stopping wolf abuse) and suddenly hunting is a lot more challenging and dangerous and snaring and fishing become dramatically more attractive.

The problem with the balance that exist is that there are too many instances of animals. Rabbits should be less plentiful but found in many more places in the game. Wolves should be about 1/5 as populous, and deer about 1/4 as populous. Bear are the only animal that you see in numbers where they make sense. Though I've seen two on Coastal Highway together never seen three and that is how it should be. Meanwhile you can see 20 wolves in a day, and 6-8 deer. A dozen rabbits. Just too much food running around out there. Since you won't starve for almost a week, calories should be much harder to get and fewer in between.

[sarudak]

The problem with the balance that exist is that there are too many instances of animals.

I agree that that is a problem with the hunting system but not that it is the problem. In addition to being too plentiful hunting is too easy with the wolf trick. It completely obviates the need to actually learn how to use the bow and the interesting mechanic of tracking a wounded animal by the blood spatter until they collapse.

[Scyzara]

This thread was meant to be about the efficiency balancing between fishing and snaring prior to the TWM Update in comparison to this very balancing post-Update.

To cut a long story short:

Me and some friends I talked to about this issue have the impression that prior to the TWM Update snaring was superior to fishing in ever aspect (no time investment and high calorie gain from snares), whereas now it's more like snaring somehow equals fishing (because snaring as a passive activity takes no time, but also gives you way less calories than before because you catch significantly fewer rabbits nowadays).

Try placing 3 snares for 10 days, compare your results to the numbers of rabbits you would have caught that way prior to the TWM Update (about 20-25 rabbits) and you get what I mean. Same thing about fishing: Prior to TWM you would usually have to fish about 6-8h per day (on average) to get 2000kcal, nowadays it's only about 4-5 hours (on average).

And my feedback about this (presumable) change is that I like it and hope that the wish wasn't father to the thought.

It's out of question that hunting bears (or stealing meat from wolves with a torch if one doesn't want to invest any ammunition) is the most efficient way to get your daily calories, but that's not the point of this thread.

Don't get me wrong, I've been criticising the exploitability of wolf and bear AI myself for months now. I also dislike the overabundant amount of hunting prey ingame. And I totally agree that hunting being more difficult would make fishing and snaring more attractive (which would be a great change as well)! But all of that is not what this thread is supposed to be about.^^

Well, it's probably too complicated a topic because fishing and snaring are very luck-dependent activities and people would thus have to do a larger amount of tests to comment on this.

@Bethany: Please tell the Devs that I like this balancing tweak. And in case you changed nothing (and I'm just seeing things)... well, then you guys at least have something to laugh about! And the fishing hut doors are lovely anyway. :lol:

[Xantar]

One word: Broken

I haven't notice when they add door to fishing hut, but a few huts now have door. Whether the door blocks the wind or stop heat from escape or not, I haven't notice (cbf really), but fishing is really broken at the moment in my humble opinion. I can fish an entire night (in the dark with a blizzard outside), and become unable to move due to carrying over 70kg of fish .

Doing stuff in the dark need to be fixed. Temperature differences indoor and outdoor needed to be fix.

Fishes used less fuel (in game time) to cook as well. Scraps metal basically is used mostly for hooks ever since the v301 updates, so unless you're planning on 10,000 days marathon (you need a life), you will never run out of hooks or lines for that matter. If you planned from day one with the amount of loots on the map, you basically can survives until hinterland eventually disbands.

Snaring is even more broken than fishing. I just dump 12 snares outside. Being so cheap to make, and with rabbits breeding so fast that they are everywhere, you can bet your ass that at least 6 snares will catch a rabbit EVEN IF THEY PLACED ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.

Hunting is also broken - too much game running around for what suppose to be deadly winter. Deers are stupid. Wolves is even more stupid. Bears are fun to play with, but 30-40kg tended to go to waste more often than not.

P.S. did I mention bears are also stupid? It only takes me 2 days in game top to turn any predators into an easy prey. 10 min in game if I spawn somewhere with a gun. With matches in my pocket, sticks outsides, wolves will learn to fear me hahahahhahaha

Seriously, surviving in the Long Dark is more and more effortless with each new update. If it was real life, I would probably do myself in due to lack of companionship.

[akodo1]

Fishing is a decent way to get calories. I haven't compared it to snaring but snaring has major advantages over it: it's a largely passive activity, you can get more out of it by more (non-time) investment, and it provides pelts (probably more than you need) and gut (always useful). So snaring is a net gain on resources because the guts from rabbits is more than you lose to broken snares while fishing is a net loss since you need gut for line and non-renewable (although plentiful) metal for hooks. The biggest problem here is that hunting give sooo much more reward that it overshadows both activities to the point where I basically never fish and I only bother snaring to get the furs for my mittens. I would say make wolves more difficult (ala my thread on stopping wolf abuse) and suddenly hunting is a lot more challenging and dangerous and snaring and fishing become dramatically more attractive.

The problem with the balance that exist is that there are too many instances of animals. Rabbits should be less plentiful but found in many more places in the game. Wolves should be about 1/5 as populous, and deer about 1/4 as populous. Bear are the only animal that you see in numbers where they make sense. Though I've seen two on Coastal Highway together never seen three and that is how it should be. Meanwhile you can see 20 wolves in a day, and 6-8 deer. A dozen rabbits. Just too much food running around out there. Since you won't starve for almost a week, calories should be much harder to get and fewer in between.

I think possibly part of the issue is balance as your player progresses. It takes a fair amount of survival time before you can craft a bow and hunt. Once you have a bow, there s a lot of food running around, but before you have a bow, when all you have is a snare and you are waiting on your guts to dry so you can have 2 snares, then the population of rabbits seems pretty bleak.

A way to address this could be that wildlife population percentages shift at certain time hall-marks. At the time when hinterlands thinks the average player has succeeded in fashioning a bow, start having the number of deer and rabbits decrease and the number of wolves increase. (wolves move in from other areas and eat up the plentiful game, or you just see more wolves around because as game is now more scarce they have to spend more time being out looking for food)

[Hotzn]

Didn't crunch any numbers and only did some snaring in TWM, but there was definitely less than usual. Thought it might be limited to TWM. Did you test in other levels?