Animals difficulty way overcorrected

[Kassian]

even at 10% damage and 30% health, wolves are still way too powerful, and the fact i cant outrun any animal anymore, even a little, really sucks, wish that the difficulty wasnt tuned so harshly in the update as the settings just arent helping atm.. lol

Edit: its been fixed since the patch yesterday! :D

[Aristos]

wolfes die by two to three stone arrows using the cheapest bow. Bows lie everywhere around. From my perspective they are very easy to handle.
If you are yet a too unexperienced player, you can easily reduce the difficulty at the game options within a few seconds.

[Gab]

It's hard at the start after all we are using stone arrow, stone spear but once you reach level you can attack them using iron arrow or spear , You can hit them one shot or two. If you going hunting using stones arrow or spear don't go for animals that run to fast, like deer. I am hunting wolf if I see them near me, they give a lot of meats but sometimes there are 4 of them near by and that's dangerous..try lure one or two without others being lure to attack you..they die in 2 or 3 hit . If you having problem with wolf or deer then go for rabbit, 4 meat per rabbit and a lot of them in area, you can outrun them, once you are so close that your spear can reach them one hit is good enough. It's not worth chasing deer or fighting aggressive animals for meat at the beginning weapons. Wait for iron weapon and everything will be easy. Oh axe damage them fast also

[The REAL chris]

Wolves / boars: creep up and they turn towards you just before they chase you. You have about 2 seconds. I use a Iron Bow and Iron bolts, that way I can be ready with the shot. Or I get up on a nearby cliff.

I'm solo.. Yes it's harder but not impossible. I also have a horse so I can mount and flee if my shot misses, then come back to it. I also recommend F5 before attack.. OK you have no F9 by you can exit then reload the quick-save. I'm staying clear of the big stuff until I get my skills up.

Don't forget that on Oxbow, new game. You have no hunting skills. On the valley I had all them maxed out.. So it's hard to compare. I would think it's a lot easier on co-op. One can distract while other kill it.

[Morri]

Originally posted by The REAL chris:

So it's hard to compare. I would think it's a lot easier on co-op. One can distract while other kill it.

Yes... and then it turns out your buddy can't aim (or so he claims) and you end up dying to an arrow in your back...

[Lord Sputnik]

Originally posted by Morri:

Originally posted by The REAL chris:

So it's hard to compare. I would think it's a lot easier on co-op. One can distract while other kill it.

Yes... and then it turns out your buddy can't aim (or so he claims) and you end up dying to an arrow in your back...

Sounds like a needing new friends issue.

Personally, I find the predators a lot easier to deal with since they turn slower than you do, especially boars. Literally just side-step, turn around 180 instantly, and throw a spear when they slow turn to charge at you again. Wolves are the same, but you have to be quicker. Bears are still hard, but I found if you chase their back leg as they turn to face you, they will keep trying to turn and you can just smack them with a club or a knife.

[jdsnow10]

THIS! I turned down animal HP and damage to 10% and then got killed by a fox. A single fox. It's frustrating that I can't outrun anything any more, even with unlimited stamina. I guess I will turn on unlimited HP until this is fixed. Bring back my cozy wilderness please! Otherwise love the new update, thanks devs!

[Aristos]

Originally posted by jdsnow10:

THIS! I turned down animal HP and damage to 10% and then got killed by a fox. A single fox.

Were you injured already? They were always a danger if youre unprepared.
1 inital headshot + 2-3x hits with a stone axe and they are (at 100%). They should hit you once normally.
And as they don't attack by nothing, so theyre easy to ignore.

[Maehlice]

Well, as of the new v2.0.0.1a update today, this might as well be marked as resolved. Wolves have a much smaller aggro range and will actually disengage now when outside their "territory". In Solo, the Inventory screen pauses time again, so healing up is NBD again. Two head shots to a wolf from a Wooden Crossbow with Wooden Bolts also solves the problem.

[larrysteele]

I did a head shot on a boar with an iron arrow, which of course didn't kill it. Before I could get the bow drawn for a second shot, three of his friends hit me simultaneously from three directions. Thankfully I take zero HP, so I survived the attack, but learned quickly that it takes too long to draw the bow before one of them hits me from the side and I have to start again. So, I just use an ax and keep swinging until I hit them enough that they pull away for their bleed out. By the time the ax actually swings, they're usually long past me, or haven't quite made it to me, so most of the time it's just air I'm hitting.

Yeah, some of us just flat out suck at the hunting thing. I'm one of those people. I played in The Valley for three years and never got my reflexes/aiming/timing right and it hasn't gotten better moving to The Oxbow.

[Nuaria]

I was used to old difficulty a lot but after a while I understood the new limits.
After all, it's a survival so being outside in the wilderness requires some awareness.
- you walk into new zone, you see 'spot with killer wolves', get vigilant, stop running
- playing with a headset helps a lot, as soon as you're in a aggro zone, the music will change into 'battle mode', there should be plenty of time to adjust your tactic
- wooden spear is only good against small animals and bandits cause their AI is... terrible
- for bigger animals get gear and use terrain or structures to your advantage

I wouldn't say it's too hard... if you spot the wolf in advance and initiate the attack - it's a win. You just need to land three wooden spears in his head which is easy as he is running straight towards you. It gets hard when they attack from the side because as it was mentioned earlier... animations are a bit weird and thus hard to aim. That is frustrating, I agree.

Don't get me wrong. The new map is amazing, A lot of new items and features are awesome. It's ton of fun for a free update. Thank you very much devs. However, I feel like boosting AI of bandits would be nice or improving wolves attack animations and pack behavior (howling, following, circling and scaring the player rather than insta locking and attacking would be great) would add even more thrill.

[larrysteele]

Originally posted by Maehlice:

Well, as of the new v2.0.0.1a update today, this might as well be marked as resolved. Wolves have a much smaller aggro range and will actually disengage now when outside their "territory". In Solo, the Inventory screen pauses time again, so healing up is NBD again. Two head shots to a wolf from a Wooden Crossbow with Wooden Bolts also solves the problem.

Yeah, this helped a lot. It's still a challenge for me, but it's doable. I'll probably build campfires in areas where the aggros are a genuine nuisance. Cheesy? Sure, but it's just a computer game.

[jdsnow10]

Originally posted by Aristos:

Originally posted by jdsnow10:

THIS! I turned down animal HP and damage to 10% and then got killed by a fox. A single fox.

Were you injured already? They were always a danger if youre unprepared.
1 inital headshot + 2-3x hits with a stone axe and they are :beef: (at 100%). They should hit you once normally.
And as they don't attack by nothing, so theyre easy to ignore.

They seem to attack if you get too close, and they kept spinning around me so it was really difficult to catch him with my knife. They were attacking a rabbit at the time one came after me so that could've had something to do with it too. I just don't remember foxes being so aggro pre-update! Also used to be able to run away from boars and wolves relatively easily which was nice because there are so many scattered on the map.

[Claartje]

Funny with the animals. I took the wisents, wolves and bears out of the game for a while. Now I have a peaceful world.

[ColoradoKid]

Originally posted by Claartje:

Funny with the animals. I took the wisents, wolves and bears out of the game for a while. Now I have a peaceful world.

How can you take wolves out of the game? Where do you do that? Is that possible?

[SimuLord]

I had a wolf come out of nowhere on me along the road to Rolnica in the Valley and my big takeaway was "OK, lesson learned, a wolf actually has a wolf's sense of smell now." And my namesake animal the fox seems like it's a lot more aggressive than it used to be (I have an ironclad rule in games never to kill a fox unless it's simply not possible not to do so.)

I also found myself flummoxed by how much more challenging it is to hunt everything before you've got a proper longbow. For my next no-vendor-purchases run I'm going to be doing a lot more trapping to get meat and furs.

I like how the game's gotten harder, but I also have almost 300 hours in it.