Loonsloon

In case you missed it the series kicked off:

So, there is the Animal Behavior mod that allows you to tweak some settings. I used it in my Mod Soup run. The basic thing I was hoping for was a probabilistic flee when confronted with a torch/fire. The stock wolves are too predictable and need some noise added to their ‘decision making’. I’m not sure that this mod really accomplished it but it succeeded in eroding my confidence in ‘guaranteed’ wolf defence and made the run more fun.

Interesting that runs counter to everything I know about wolves and bears - when you approach a wolf close enough with a torch it charged you I think. In my don’t throw rocks at bears video, I’m pretty sure the reason he charged was that I staggered into that critical charge radius. But I wasn’t holding a torch. One could do a science episode on this. But having done some of these, I’m now of the mind that I want to know less about what’s ‘behind the curtain’ of TLD, to preserve some of that uncertainty that I have about it. Like when I realized that you could reliably bypass wolves with a torch - they always flee - it broke the game for me and I had to start looking into mods to try to regain immersion. Hinterland would do well to make it such that no technique works 100%.

So my understanding is that bears treat fires sort of like wolves do: if they approach a fire in normal walk they will stop at a certain radius. But like wolves, this depends upon them being able to see the fire when they are at that radius. If they get close enough to you to enter charge without seeing the fire they will charge you and disregard the fire. In this case the bear charged before it saw the fire. Here’s the first time I saw a bear stop at a fire: https://youtube.com/shorts/BC77R1RxwJA?feature=share

more now:

I did a livestream series on YT through 2021 called "Mod Soup" where I explored all the TLD mods that interested me and derived a final 'ModLoper' mod configuration that I view as the ultimate enhancement of Interloper - making it as hard as I feel it should be. In the first 10 episodes we tested various mods and by episode 11 ("Consumption") I had a static mod config that I was happy with. We then 'consumed' the Mod Soup in a full Modloper run over the next 30 or so episodes. Through the series we had visits in chat from major mod authors and discussed their mods while playing them (!), and I learned a lot about what makes TLD challenging, compelling, and fun. I hope it is appropriate to post this here; moderators can advise. Thanks and enjoy!

A couple more:

If you want to catch up on the series here's the playlist:

A couple more:

Yea the icon said ‘scare’ but it definitely left a mark

Here's a few short highlights of runs gone by:

Oh ok I’m confused because there was no fire in that encounter. Are you thinking of Tag Team right after? In that case I wanted to avoid going inside because the moose can despawn. More generally I do fires outside to take advantage of the “outdoor burn bonus”