Hunting/Survival Ideas

I would like to see a craft able item such as a throwing stick. This could be crafted from branches and a hunting knife. This would allow the player to hunt rabbits early in the game. This would allow the player to harvest needed meat as well as gut, which would in turn make the players food source more sustainable by crafting fishing line and allowing traps earlier. Rabbits in my opinion useless once you get a rifle, your wasting a bullet on small game when you harvest ~10kg meat from deer, or fending off a wolf. Perhaps I am not utilizing traps as much as I should. Though active hunting is a very enjoyable aspect of the game for me.

The newer updates I feel the game is really overpopulated. I don't find myself having to search for long at all to find a deer. I would suggest that the deer population are scaled back, give the players some form of hunting item such as a throwing stick, to stun the rabbit allowing the player time to rush to the rabbit to finish it off with a knife,hatchet, etc. So once your find the rifle/or craft a bow going and finding a deer that will allow the calories for several days would be more of an achievement than merely walking outside of your shelter.

I really enjoy the game, it is a wonderful experience and I have enjoyed most changes made thus far. I would like to see some sort of movable shelter such as primitive like a lean to/ A frame, etc. Or even a modern tent. This would give a little more variation on where the player chooses to set up camp. Rather than always at the trappers cabin,dam,farmhouse etc. Also i know the mechanics would probably be cumbersome, but i would like to see game that you kill in an area become scarce so you are forced to move around, not just when the bullets run out. A spear could be used for utilitarian uses such as being able to use it as a walking stick letting the player ascend higher degree hills, and also a defense for wolves.

I see other complaints about the lack of firearms.I find them unfounded. I enjoy firearms, but i think that at the core this game needs to stay about survival instead of perverting it into a first person shooter with a survival theme.

I enjoy firearms, but i think that at the core this game needs to stay about survival instead of perverting it into a first person shooter with a survival theme.

Well, throwing a stick is no different than shooting a rifle or a bow from a first person shooter perspective. It's another mechanic where you point and shoot, but throwing a stick instead of shooting a bullet form a rifle or an arrow from a bow. But it's still a mechanic of the first person shooter genre, just a survival-themed re-skin.

It' a survival option with a craftable item you can acquire much earlier in the game (without waiting for wood to cure, or taking a day to make the weapons). I'd be happy to see rocks introduced to the game as throwable items that simply kill the wabbit (and scare off wolves?)

Well, throwing a stick is no different than shooting a rifle or a bow from a first person shooter perspective. It's another mechanic where you point and shoot, but throwing a stick instead of shooting a bullet form a rifle or an arrow from a bow. But it's still a mechanic of the first person shooter genre, just a survival-themed re-skin.

I see your point. I just would hate to see the game turn into a run and gun.

They could make the action more complicated than just a simple point and shoot though. A charging and have the reticle move in horizontal, and vertical movement so the stick, or rock, or whatever you can throw will take more skill to hit your target. Firing a gun a rifle is easier than the bow, bow should be easier than the stick.

Your right though that it is indeed a similar mechanic. I guess i had two trains of thought while writing the post last night.

Primitive cultures all around the world used sticks over rocks ( unless the rock was propelled), to hunt small game. The stick if throw horizontal rather than overhand has a better likely hood than a rock to hit your target. There is even evidence against larger game, but i don't see this as something our survivor could learn in a matter of days.

Is firing a bow easier than throwing a rock or a stick?

For game play, I would make throwing easier than using the bow, but limit its effectiveness. Throwing things should only kill rabbits and scare wolves, it should not injure wolves or deer at all. Thrown items that don't require crafting should be fairly rare, and/or only found in certain locations (rocks only found near cliffs, or along railroad tracks). And thrown items that land in snow might simply disappear.

Also for game play, I would include an item we can find that is ready to throw (like a rock) and an item we can easily craft for throwing (like the stick, craftable at a bench with a knife or an axe or a toolkit). Rocks will be a limited resource (and probably heavier), while sticks would be unlimited but require crafting.

But how do they animate throwing without showing the character's arm?

I guess it may be because i grew up hunting. I think a bow would be much easier a stick, but i may be biased based on how i grew up. The animation could be similar to the torch but a straight stick. While charging the stick could rotate away from the body a little and then when released the same up and down motion they use while sprinting could be used to show a throw. Its pretty rudimentary but it is...just a stick. lol. The stone would be harder to show without a hand, but it could just float like the rifle or bow so that wouldn't be bad either. I do agree it shouldn't be able to stun/injure deer/wolves. It would be to overpowered and to easily crafted.

I see your point. I just would hate to see the game turn into a run and gun.

Even if it may have introduced some game world timing issues, which are still there if you look for them, I would have liked a semi-auto SG 550 instead of the rifle, whatever it is. Gun owners in Canada just recently had some minor turmoil about that. So it would have been a nice thing to have.

With mechanics like Receiver, so you would manually load cartridges into the magazine, that sort of stuff. Every aspect of the weapon you could, and would have to, control. And have massive amounts of ammo for it, like in the bunker, boxes of it. You know, boxes of boxes of ammo. It could even have had a scope.

But, you'd be lucky to see a deer once a month, or a bear, or a wolf, or a rabbit. And they would be extremely hard to hunt. And even when you did manage to hunt, you'd still just be more or less starving your butt on a mountain of firepower. And be always on the move for food, always.

So you would have tons of ammo to practice with, because the mechanics of the gun and ballistics would be such that you would have to, but noting really to shoot at for dinner. It would be poignant apropos video games, and tense when you would see a deer once in a blue moon.

So it would not matter you have a very good gun and a thousand rounds for it. No run and gun. There would simply be nothing to gun.

But, alas, that's not the case. There are literally hundreds of kilograms of meat available at any time. Rifle, bow, sticks, rocks, it really doesn't matter at this point.

I see your point. I just would hate to see the game turn into a run and gun.

Even if it may have introduced some game world timing issues, which are still there if you look for them, I would have liked a semi-auto SG 550 instead of the rifle, whatever it is. Gun owners in Canada just recently had some minor turmoil about that. So it would have been a nice thing to have.

With mechanics like Receiver, so you would manually load cartridges into the magazine, that sort of stuff. Every aspect of the weapon you could, and would have to, control. And have massive amounts of ammo for it, like in the bunker, boxes of it. You know, boxes of boxes of ammo. It could even have had a scope.

But, you'd be lucky to see a deer once a month, or a bear, or a wolf, or a rabbit. And they would be extremely hard to hunt. And even when you did manage to hunt, you'd still just be more or less starving your butt on a mountain of firepower. And be always on the move for food, always.

So you would have tons of ammo to practice with, because the mechanics of the gun and ballistics would be such that you would have to, but noting really to shoot at for dinner. It would be poignant apropos video games, and tense when you would see a deer once in a blue moon.

So it would not matter you have a very good gun and a thousand rounds for it. No run and gun. There would simply be nothing to gun.

But, alas, that's not the case. There are literally hundreds of kilograms of meat available at any time. Rifle, bow, sticks, rocks, it really doesn't matter at this point.

100% on point. The devs need to scale back the amount of game and increase its calorie reward. Right now, finding game is far to easy. Walk outside and up to the lake, food. Walk from the farmstead out toward the barns, more food. Walk from CH out onto the ice, again lots of food.

The answer is not retooling the mechanic in hunting prey. The bow (which is OP IMHO) and the rifle do the job. They just need to retool the prey.

I see your point. I just would hate to see the game turn into a run and gun.

Even if it may have introduced some game world timing issues, which are still there if you look for them, I would have liked a semi-auto SG 550 instead of the rifle, whatever it is. Gun owners in Canada just recently had some minor turmoil about that. So it would have been a nice thing to have.

With mechanics like Receiver, so you would manually load cartridges into the magazine, that sort of stuff. Every aspect of the weapon you could, and would have to, control. And have massive amounts of ammo for it, like in the bunker, boxes of it. You know, boxes of boxes of ammo. It could even have had a scope.

But, you'd be lucky to see a deer once a month, or a bear, or a wolf, or a rabbit. And they would be extremely hard to hunt. And even when you did manage to hunt, you'd still just be more or less starving your butt on a mountain of firepower. And be always on the move for food, always.

So you would have tons of ammo to practice with, because the mechanics of the gun and ballistics would be such that you would have to, but noting really to shoot at for dinner. It would be poignant apropos video games, and tense when you would see a deer once in a blue moon.

So it would not matter you have a very good gun and a thousand rounds for it. No run and gun. There would simply be nothing to gun.

But, alas, that's not the case. There are literally hundreds of kilograms of meat available at any time. Rifle, bow, sticks, rocks, it really doesn't matter at this point.

100% on point. The devs need to scale back the amount of game and increase its calorie reward. Right now, finding game is far to easy. Walk outside and up to the lake, food. Walk from the farmstead out toward the barns, more food. Walk from CH out onto the ice, again lots of food.

The answer is not retooling the mechanic in hunting prey. The bow (which is OP IMHO) and the rifle do the job. They just need to retool the prey.

I agree with every single word. Prey abundance really kills the fun in hunting (for me). I don't need the introduction of any fancy new tools or mechanics to be happy, just drastically less prey and/or much longer respawn timers.

I agree with every single word. Prey abundance really kills the fun in hunting (for me). I don't need the introduction of any fancy new tools or mechanics to be happy, just drastically less prey and/or much longer respawn timers.

+1 to this. As a test, I decided to play a game on Stalker with the following restrictions which simulate long respawn times. It was a VERY fun run, it felt like the "right" amount of animals, and made me go to everywhere, even the corners of the map to hunt. Here are the "rules", and where I say "respawn" I of course mean a simulated respawn, so if you see an animal that hasn't "respawned" according to the rules you cannot harvest it:

• No meat from wolves. Ever.
  
• Divide the map into some small number of "zones", I was on pleasant valley and I choose 8, roughly the same size.
  
• Each zone has a 40 day respawn timer on deer, and on a pair of rabbits. This means if you kill a deer in zone 4 on day 13, and a rabbit on day 16 and day 17, then you cannot hunt another deer in that zone until day 53, and a rabbit on day 56 and another on 57, or later.
  
• You could only fish (from the pond) for one day every 20 days.
  
• No scaring animals from one zone to another, only to kill it and have it count over there. Each animal has a "natural habitat".
  
• Bears never respawn, or respawn after some ridiculous amount of time, like 200 days.

Here the number 40 is 5 days times the number of zones. Like I said, it felt like the right amount of meat, not really building a stockpile if I only was counting deer, rabbit, and fish. If I did want a stockpile, that's when I'd go hunt down a bear. It's just barely enough meat without counting bears, or counting the meat from wolves. I survived into the 250+ day period, and it felt good all the way through. I highly recommend people try it out and offer comments!

For what I personally would want, that sounds like a bit too far in the opposite direction Aduron... but I do agree that the amount of game needs to be dropped down by quite a bit -- ideally both fewer spawns and longer respawn times.

Aguron, I find your suggestion very good for Stalker mode. I could even go so far to think with way less game the amount on rifle/bullets and arrows could increase.

In he current settings it is as you say literally hundreds of kilo of food just walking by in the vicinity.

[*] Bears never respawn, or respawn after some ridiculous amount of time, like 200 days.

not sure about that? I been on PL after 100th day, have already shot 2 bears near my home. day 127. so 2 bears in 27 days. Need a bedroll btw. So I do like bears lol!

wolves seem harder to find, then I found they are out in the hills more!

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[*] Bears never respawn, or respawn after some ridiculous amount of time, like 200 days.

not sure about that? I been on PL after 100th day, have already shot 2 bears near my home. day 127. so 2 bears in 27 days. Need a bedroll btw. So I do like bears lol!

wolves seem harder to find, then I found they are out in the hills more!

There are 4 bears in PV, and I think 1 in CH and ML. That's enough for 3 bedrolls, if you want to use them, so 200 days is plenty. I agree with you that perhaps never respawning is a little rough, but they are a fantastic resource full of goodness (and even more if they add fat harvesting!), and other very good resources are finite.

Hmmm...

As I said in other Post(s) before:

Why not let the Player decide by himselfe?

Just put a Menu into the Game where the Player can choose how often the animals will (re)spawn.

That would put all the disussions about 'we are getting too much Food' right to an end :lol:

There are 4 bears in PV, and I think 1 in CH and ML. That's enough for 3 bedrolls, if you want to use them, so 200 days is plenty. I agree with you that perhaps never respawning is a little rough, but they are a fantastic resource full of goodness (and even more if they add fat harvesting!), and other very good resources are finite.

Unfortunately, there are actually even more bears than that in V.258.

[spoil]At least 2 in Mystery lake (lake/unnamed pond), 3 in Coastal Highway (bear creek campground/misanthrope Island/north of the coastal townsite) and god knows how many in Pleasant valley. Apart from the four "old" V.200 PV bear locations I've found another two (lower falls/skeeter's ridge) during my last game and I didn't even search more than half of the map.[/spoil]

In other words, there are at least 11 bear spawns (and I bet there are more). Even if bears wouldn't respawn at all you could still craft your bedroll and repair it for all eternity if you killed every bear available. *sigh*