itsLydt

Just to confirm, is everything from this update going to be applied to existing saves? Sounds like the cougar will be at least?

3 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

While HL is considering your request, does it help to just look away from the screen while the animation is playing?  

Yeah, currently I close my eyes during it. But I'm not great at the timing yet and it also feels like it takes so long for the animation to finish when you're sitting there with your eyes closed. I hope they resolve it somehow so I can just play the game normally lol

On 12/7/2023 at 6:24 AM, UpUpAway95 said:

I still don't think they were thinking about "all" when suggesting that - something like scurvy (which was intentionally left out by the devs on older saves) should have had an "opt in" option for older saves - not that I would have selected it.  I don't think an option to opt in or out of the harvesting animations is feasible, short of playing the older version (which is not an option available on console, AFAIK).  Scurvy is also not active in all difficulty settings, which means a toggle could easily have been added to custom to turn it on or off (as they've done with other afflictions).  That wouldn't have solved anything for older saves, since custom options can only be set at the start of a new save.  Although I've requested an option to change "difficulty" related settings mid-game (mostly to allow for increasing difficulty after the player is somewhat established and to help alleviate late game boredom), HL has never even remotely entertained that idea.

I don't see why opting out of the harvesting animations wouldn't be feasible. They could simply show the loading wheel like they were doing before. 

I wish we could disable the animations 🙃 I just made a post about it but as much as I thought they would be a good addition, the camera lurching around is very motion sickness inducing. I have to look away or close my eyes every time I harvest now or stop playing the game because the camera shaking around makes me sick. I hope they rework the animations or allow us to disable them before thinking of adding more 

4 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I find elements of them chunky and jarring, as you say; and of course, the down side of animating things in games is that the animations can become repetitive.  Rather than an overall toggle, maybe a "skip harvesting animation" option or, even better, a "skip all future harvesting animations" button.  That way, the command could be given while within an existing run (since we can't change custom toggles after we've started a run).

I'm still hoping that the actual animations they've done can be made smoother and more immersive as they tweak them.  This is something new they just figured out how to do, so I'm willing to give them some time to work on it more.

I think it should be an accessibility option! Or if they rework them to make them smoother that's probably fine too 

On 12/7/2023 at 4:06 AM, mfuegemann said:

Also not a bug in itself, but the POV moving so rapidly in the harvesting animations is annoying me very much.
Even the "dampen camera motion" in the accessability options is not helping with that.
The animations could have some variations, too.

Yes I came here to post this complaint as well. The lurching of the camera during the harvesting animations is very motion sickness inducing. And you have to sit through it so many times just to process one animal. @Admin can we get an accessibility setting to turn these animations off? I really like the concept but they make me so nauseous 

I really wanted to like them. I still think the concept is interesting and a good idea to make the game more engaging. However, they move the camera a lot and are very jerky - the camera bounces up and down with the sawing motion of the tool, etc. I am very susceptible to motion sickness in games so this makes me nauseous. 

Even if the animations didn't cause this problem I don't want to watch it so many times per animal. Imagine harvesting a moose in 1 kg chunks you'll have to see the animation about 35 times. 

On 8/20/2023 at 12:52 PM, conanjaguar said:

 

This is a great tip for nice weather, but what about the rest (majority) of the game? I encounter wolves way too often to rely on flares (at least in this challenge). I guess in many locations you can get behind some rock for shelter though.

10 hours ago, MartianInvader said:

I've never seen dropping a decoy do anything if the wolf is already stalking you.

It really helps to understand how wolves interact with fire and with being threatened. Let's go over the basics:

When a wolf is stalking you, it may occasionally run to keep up with you, but these aren't actual charges. A wolf only charges you if it gets very close, OR if you point a weapon at it. This can be any weapon, including just aiming a rock - if the wolf is growling and you aim a rock at it for even a fraction of a second, it will charge even if it's very far away, and won't stop running until it's close enough to initiate a struggle.

A few things can stop a wolf charge - hitting it with a damaging weapon (bullet/arrow/flare shell) will almost always cause it to turn and flee if not kill it outright - the only exception is if it's so close it's already beginning to initiate the struggle. Hitting it in the head with a rock will sometimes, but not always, cause it to flee. But the most reliable way to stop it is with fire.

A wolf either stalking you or charging you will stop once it's a certain distance from a campfire, held torch, or torch on the ground. It won't flee though, it will stand there growling at you. If you don't do anything for about 5 seconds, it will then overcome its fear and charge. However, if you point a weapon (or aim a rock) at it before 5 seconds pass, then it will flee. Also note that a wolf won't cross that distance to a fire, but if you bring the fire to it - say you throw the torch at its feet, or walk close to it while carrying the torch (this is common if you encounter it coming over a hill or around a corner), then it can charge you as it's already inside the fire's "safe radius".

So how do you safely get rid of wolves? If you have a torch, drop it (or throw it to the ground) while the wolf is stalking you and aim something (rock, gun, bow, whatever) at it. It will charge you, but stop when it gets close to the fire. Aim at it again at this point and it will whine and run away. Note that the wolf won't run forever, and if you have a lot of scent it may turn around and start stalking you again after a bit - but you can use the same technique to scare it away over and over.

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the detailed explanation!

As for the decoy scenario, I am confident it was not stalking me when I dropped it, it was doing its "interesting smell" type of trot towards me but I immediately dropped the decoy and ducked before it saw me. It didn't bark and attack me until it had walked past my decoy, but unfortunately due to the terrain it was basically on top of me when it saw me so it was basically an instant charge. I wonder if you are "smelly" enough they will ignore decoys?

Does dropping a torch in front of you work if there are multiple wolves? It's also rarely nice enough weather to have a torch to begin with, so there's that issue as well

On 8/20/2023 at 6:15 PM, bysinda said:

@itsLydt

I hear ya, buddy. I took me a long time to, first of all , stop jumping out my seat every time I hear a howl and to learn how to minimize the face-eating 

Torch is a great protection but you can't just stand too long with it in your hand. You either have to move away from wolves until you reach a house or just throw the Torch at the wolf and it will run away! But it only works only if there is one wolf. Because you will be throwing away your protection and until you pick it up another wolf can attack you. And most of the time,  Torch has to actually hit the wolf. But it works great, that's my every day solution 

If you have a scent, torches and bonfires won't help. Wolves will attack sooner or later. The smell taunts them. Every time I transport meat or guts I run like hell. Even the smallest piece of meat in your inventory that has 50 calories still will attract them and make them more aggressive. 

I used to walk around with a Torch and every time I heard them bark at me I would quickly drop all meat,  make a bonfire and get any weapon ready (stones and torches included), aim at them or throw a torch and they would run away. 

Decoys work only of you drop all your meat and run xD I think,  I never use them 

I forget,  are there weapons on whiteout challenge? Can't you just kill the wolves? 

Yeah, maybe if you smell enough they will not be dissuaded by holding a torch like I assumed they would be. I usually don't have this much issue, but it was extra frustrating in this instance because there are *always* 2-3 wolves right outside the garage where you need to store the food, and seemingly no (peaceful) way to get past them with it. Unless you complete the entire food stock with the canned food, but I was using fish because I was harvesting lamp oil anyway. And there are weapons but you also need the weapons for the stockpile, so can't use them too much. I guess it is supposed to be a challenge after all and I did end up completing it so can't complain too much.

I have put about 100 hours in the game, interested in attempting interloper but it feels futile due to my incompetence in dealing with the gosh darn wolves. You'd think I would be getting better, but in my current game I have had more wolf struggles than in my other games combined. 

My current game is the challenge where you have to store a bunch of supplies in the garage in coastal highway. There is an abundance of wolves in this area it seems, and I can't for the live of me evade them. 

First complaint/issue: decoys seem useless or I have no idea how to utilize them properly. I was carrying some meat and guts etc, and see a wolf start trotting over from the ice. No big deal I think, I will simply drop a decoy and keep moving. So I drop a piece of fish using the hotkey, climb over a snow bank to stay out of sight, and keep on towards my destination. My thinking was that the wolf will stop to eat the meat and the placement of the decoy will prevent the wolf from seeing me, so I will be safe at least temporarily. No dice; the wolf trots over the snow bank right past my decoy and attempts to eat my face. Awesome. I fight off the wolf and retrieve my fish. 

I had many, many wolf fights since then, but this is the next relevant one: fire/torches even failed me. I thought that so long as you had a torch, you were safe from wolves! Apparently not. I was returning from a fishing spot near the garage, and had a torch with plenty of life left. There happened to be three wolves near enough to smell me, so they started stalking me while I tried to cross the street. I wasn't worried because of my torch! But then I noticed one of the wolves was getting closer than I expected...and charged me. Face eaten.

Luckily the other two wolves were right there still so I wasn't safe. I picked up my torch and limped over to the garage. I wanted to cook the fish I had caught, and was under the impression that starting a campfire would hold off wolves, so I put my back against the door and tried to make one. Cue my second wolf struggles in 2 minutes. At this point I was close to death and mad, so I went inside to evade the 3rd wolf.... temporarily.

I fixed myself up and slept off my wolf bites, and once I had restored most of my condition I attempted to cook my fish again. I made a campfire against the wall of the garage, and set my fish up. Finally. But I needed a couple sticks, so I walked a couple feet away from the fire and immediately heard the bark of the last wolf. No big deal, I'll just return back to the fire for a second. So I went back to my campfire and watched the 3rd wolf trot around the corner of the building, see me again, and do something I thought impossible. It jumped over my cooking fish and attempted to, you guessed it, eat my face. 

What. The. Heck. At this point I am spitting mad. Have the wolf mechanics changed? I took a break after part one of tales, and just started playing again to try out the frontier comforts update. Am I super unlucky? Or am I just terrible at the game? 😆 Suggestions/advice welcome! Thanks for reading.

Is anyone else simultaneously really happy with the first dlc drop but also super impatient for the next one? I am just really intrigued by the overhauls to cooking, fishing, base customization, etc. Kudos to the devs for making such an addictive game I suppose. 

On 12/16/2022 at 11:46 AM, MrWolf said:

Pretty much, yes.  That behavior has been a "feature" of this game for a long time.  Upon leaving a house or cabin, nearby animals tend to only render in when they're out of your view.  I've seen it numerous times.  I've gotten into the habit of turning 360 every time I leave a cabin just to make sure I'm not walking near an invisible bear or wolf that will suddenly appear when I walk past it.

Interesting...not sure how I never noticed. Looking back it might explain some surprise wolf encounters I had chalked up to being unobservant/unfamiliar! 

I'm not as experienced as many of the players in this forum, but I've spent a decent amount of time in the game. When the expansion launched, I started a new stalker run and ended up in Mystery Lake. Been having weird loading issues with the wolves on and around the lake that I don't remember having before.

Basically, the wolves don't seem to load in correctly. I walked around the lake to the cabins and there were 4-5 wolves. 3-4 on the lake pretty close to the shore where the middle group of cabins is, and one wolf prowling the area between the cabins. There was also a bear on the far side of the lake, across from the farthest cabin.

Was really cold so I went inside and looted the cabin and took a short nap to warm up. Went back outside and there were no wolves visible on the lake, but the bear was still wandering around almost out of sight. I was like cool, they must have moved back towards the camp office while I was sleeping. I wanted to visit the fishing hut close to the cabins, so I start walking into the lake. I happen to look away and then back at the hut, and almost crap myself. All wolves from earlier had suddenly popped in and are about a stones throw right in front of my face. There's no way I could have avoided seeing them. 

I fled and went back into the cabin. Came back out and they were gone again, but I was suspicious this time. Staring at the lake, no wolves. I look away, then back. Bam, whole pack of wolves. 

Anyone else having this happen? Do I just need to do a 360° every time I leave a building? 😆

13 hours ago, Sherri said:

I also was confused because it says 'in the broken window room' but literally every window in that building is broken. LOL.

Thanks! I was definitely focusing on the wrong broken window. I thought it meant the turbine room 🤦‍♀️ appreciate the help!

6 hours ago, Sherri said:

Days 11-12

Jumped back over to the Dam and discovered that I hadn't entered the lower dam in my first time here. Found an extra knife, a bow, some broken arrows (including one embedded in the door leading between the upper and lower dam), some food and a Memento cache full of food! Lovely! While there I crafted the improvised crampons! Feeling quite nicely outfitted.

Later headed from the dam to another hunter's blind and Alan's cave. Found rifle bullets. From there tried to find the tools prepper cache and no luck. The crampons paid off and I had no sprains (yay!) but I've checked every prepper cache location and found nothing.

Continued back down the river and home to the camp office. Thinking it might be time to hunker down, kill deer, then read through my stack of skill books before I move on from Mystery Lake.

Hey could you tell me where the cache inside the dam was? I have the note and key and I looked through the whole dam twice without finding it 🙄 can't tell if it's bugged/invisible or if I'm just blind 😆