The spook radius and general stealth mechanics need rework.

[Fast]

It is truly the most boring ass system ever.

I get it "wow so hard they run away by hearing you 150-200m away crouch walking stop start mode" SO HARD SO DIFFICULT. This is ultra boring anti-fun mechanics.

They dont even respect terrain or anything. You can be behind a tree 140 meters away on the other side of a hill, but alas you have moved for more than 5 seconds without stopping YOUR METER IS FULL OH NOES ANIMALS RUN 500M away.

This is just garbage. I played on both ranger and hunter mode only since launch, but this game is not fun, not in the least regarding animals spooking. Its not difficulty it is frustrating enducing mechanics designed to waste people times arbitrarily and extend the length of the hunt.

I went hunting a while back when i was in the US with my family and we were able to essentially walk up within 40 meters of a deer without it giving a single F. But nope in this game 150M crouch or lose. Such good mechanic.

How is this system not reworked.

[dbond1]

About time someone brought this up....

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by dbond1:

About time someone brought this up....

Cannot be said enough and OP is spot on.
Of all the hunting games I remember, this one has the most obvious and most BS system of all, when it should have the best.

Also, the devs continuing to pretend they do not read these complaints don't exactly help with these sort of posts popping up. If they'd finally acknowledge the system is so terrible that it can safely be considered broken, it would be a different story.

Instead, they reply only to people defending this nonsense with silly workarounds instead.

Again... it cannot be said enough.

[Professor Goat]

i will never understand these complaints..its literally harder to not spook animals in cotw than in this game.

you are running around. lol cmon. you can crouch walk 50m to a moose staring at you, 150m to an elk staring at you.. youre either running or youre not paying attention to the wind..

and if youre able to walk up to a deer within 40 meters, in the states, that deer has had numerous interactions with humans, bubba.

[Fast]

Originally posted by Professor Goat:

i will never understand these complaints..its literally harder to not spook animals in cotw than in this game.

you are running around. lol cmon. you can crouch walk 50m to a moose staring at you, 150m to an elk staring at you.. youre either running or youre not paying attention to the wind..

game has less than 350 players on it right now... maybe that helps/

344 player as a percentage of the overall peak of 9880 players is 3.48% retention rate.

That is unbelievably low. And then you think its smart to question legitimate complaints about a system that is objectively bad.

For perspective right now COTW being a 6 year old game has an 18% retention rate at this very moment. this game is less than a year old. Tells you all you need to know.

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by Professor Goat:

i will never understand these complaints..

Hardly surprising considering you're clearly not reading them.
Your dumb assumptions about how other people play don't exactly help either.

You thinking that wind/smell actually matters in this game, also shows that you are in no position to make any claims here, because it doesn't. Animals here are basically smell blind, but don't let that stop you...

There have been SO many posts by now that point out how animals hear you SNEAKING at 150m and more, yet here you are "hurr durr ye guys runneng!"

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Hell.

[Kak2R🍸🧀]

Have you tried playing a lower difficulty?

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by KingGhidorah:

Have you tried playing a lower difficulty?

Have you tried understanding the issue people are raising?

[The Tear Collector]

Originally posted by Sunshine:

Originally posted by KingGhidorah:

Have you tried playing a lower difficulty?

Have you tried understanding the issue people are raising?

Isn't a lower difficulty supposed to lower animal senses, so they don't get so easily spooked? I don't get it. Isn't that your complaint? What's your complaint again?

OP said he only played on ranger and hunter difficulty. Lowering it might be a viable solution.

Unless the scaling of animal senses to difficulty is bugged... is that your complaint?

[Sunshine]

Originally posted by The Penitent Man:

Originally posted by Sunshine:

Have you tried understanding the issue people are raising?

Isn't a lower difficulty supposed to lower animal senses, so they don't get so easily spooked? I don't get it. Isn't that your complaint? What's your complaint again?

OP said he only played on ranger and hunter difficulty. Lowering it might be a viable solution.

Unless the scaling of animal senses to difficulty is bugged... is that your complaint?

The issue is that no matter the difficulty settings, animals should not spook from hearing you sneak at 100m+ at all. It's completely absurd and makes no sense whatsoever.
That is the core of the complaint. It's not that people cannot find ways around this, it's that they shouldn't have to because it's bananas to begin with.

Lowering the difficulty also comes with nasty side effects people who prefer a more realistic experience are not interested in.
Animal senses are terrible in every aspect, smell and vision are comically bad, while hearing is overpowered, so playing on even lower difficulties would not help in any way since animals would be even less authentic - aside from all the hunter sense garbage and so on.

It's like having to pick between AIDS or cancer.
It both ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ sucks and is therefore no valid answer or "fix".
The only fix is for the devs to wake up and realize they need to work on the animal AI/senses so everybody, regardless of difficulty settings, will have a more enjoyable experience.

[Kak2R🍸🧀]

I think you should drop your ego and just lower the difficulty. You can turn off the parts of hunter sense you don't want in the HS options, and you can still play without HUD.

If playing explorer/adventurer gives you a more enjoyable experience, which sounds likely, it's worth it. Give it a go!

[Pete Gaimari]

I agree the spook range is off a bit. However, if you walked up on a deer to 40 yds and it didn't move. It was either a young buck or a doe.

[DC2Dixon]

Originally posted by KingGhidorah:

I think you should drop your ego and just lower the difficulty. You can turn off the parts of hunter sense you don't want in the HS options, and you can still play without HUD.

If playing explorer/adventurer gives you a more enjoyable experience, which sounds likely, it's worth it. Give it a go!

Its what I eventually did a few weeks after release. I played ranger for a while but didn't like playing a guessing game with animals (no sense for spotting animals) Played hunter for a while but was sick of animals spooking at over 200M when crouch walking. Eventually settled for adventurer, still wasn't perfect but at least I could get within 150M of some animals crouching.

Since Alaska came out I have gone back up to hunter. Haven't played the base maps since but I like how it is on Alaska on hunter currently. I am at least able to walk around and not spook everything at over 250M. Currently for me walking spooks animals around 150-200M which seems better. We should not have to crouch everywhere to not spook everything in a 250M radius. Its not fun or realistic, no human is crouch walking for hours when they hunt. Your legs and body simply wouldn't last a hour yet alone all day crouching everywhere. Not only that but when you are crouching and animals are spooking at over 200M something is seriously wrong with the game mechanics (base maps)

Its one of the biggest complaints about the game, animals spooking far to easy. For people saying your doing it wrong, its a weird response. No one is saying there trying to play like COTW and running everywhere. When your simply not able to walk anywhere something is off with the animals hearing. Dropping the difficulty isn't ideal when the game is clearly off for many people. Its not about ego, its about the animals acting somewhat how you would expect in the real world.

Like others have said, animals don't see you in this game. They don't really smell you but can hear you walking at over 250M away even if its a thunderstorm in game. If animals seriously spooked from someone crouch walking at over 200M no one would be able to hunt IRL. Animals senses are much higher than a human but they do not spook from some noise 250M away.

[Big Poppa Shmee]

I agree its a big shame. And I love the game besides this. I want to see more guns, ammunition, hunting gear, etc etc. I don't want to play another hunting game, I just want this one with its issues ironed out. Love it, but yeah I wish they could communicate a little bit and say, yeah, we're working on it.

[Bumblewoot]

The OP is not wrong. The spooking mechanics are questionable. Mostly the sound which carries further than one would think, and it carries through terrain, and there is no indicator of any sort to assist the player in understanding how loud they are being.

I play on all difficulties just to mix things up, and depending on what I'm currently looking to get out of the game, I'll change the difficulty. Explorer difficulty is actually still challenging and does help with the spooking mechanics. Sound and everything seems to travel just as far, however, the 'spook meter' of the animals seems to fill half as fast. Allowing the player to sneak in at normal crouch speed and not the slow one.

This creates more opportunities during a session as you can simply now sneak in faster.

[DC2Dixon]

Originally posted by Bumblewoot:

The OP is not wrong. The spooking mechanics are questionable. Mostly the sound which carries further than one would think, and it carries through terrain, and there is no indicator of any sort to assist the player in understanding how loud they are being.

I play on all difficulties just to mix things up, and depending on what I'm currently looking to get out of the game, I'll change the difficulty. Explorer difficulty is actually still challenging and does help with the spooking mechanics. Sound and everything seems to travel just as far, however, the 'spook meter' of the animals seems to fill half as fast. Allowing the player to sneak in at normal crouch speed and not the slow one.

This creates more opportunities during a session as you can simply now sneak in faster.

I didn't notice a huge difference in how far away the animals would hear me TBH. I would say there is a little difference, 20M roughly but its not much "easier". I think you might be onto something with the rate they get alert or how quickly the meter depletes. On adventure I would still have elk, wolves etc hear me at 220 odd meters crouching. On the base maps its impossible to walk anywhere, you have to crouch if you want any hope of hearing or seeing animals.

I honestly don't know if my difficulty is bugged or whether Alaska has different senses. I can walk up until 200M to bison and wolves, crouch to around 160 and I managed to get to 50M stop go slow crouch on wolves a few times. I can walk to 150M on moose, caribou and sitka, and crouch to around 100M. To me it seems a better balance, them not having sight and smell is making it easier than it should be though.

As much as I enjoy the game I don't think I could go back to base maps currently if there still the same. Having to crouch everywhere and still having animals become alert at over 200M isn't that fun. I don't have a problem with a game being hard but when it happens and there behind a mountain etc its just frustrating.

If the devs wanted to I'm sure they could tweak the hearing on animals but can they make them see us is the question. They do smell us but it isn't really affecting them to much currently. I haven't seen them respond to one of these posts saying there willing to look at it though. You get a select few that say its fine but the majority I have seen all say the same thing. Animals spook far to easy in this game.