impossible missions. wolves and bears in nez valley

[Suaroyov]

Hi all. Where can i find black bears and wolves with 3,4,or 5 stars in nez valley?. I have missions to do but i never see high value animals. I only have seen a 5 stars moose in hours and hours. its the same situation for badgers

[VictoriaHuntress]

You can use the Way of the Hunter Toolkit (here: https://codeaid.github.io/woth-toolbox/nez-perce-valley ) to locate the need zone regions for the animal groups.
Finding the actual need zone hotspots (those locations where you can 'analyze' and discover the zones) on your maps is another thing, as they are randomly placed. No two players will have identical distributions of those zone hot-spots. For eating and rest zones, you might have to search an area of up to 10,000 m^2 Drink zones are, naturally, easier to find as they are always concentrated around water - lake shorelines, river and stream banks.

Next, I can tell you where my high-fitness groups are, but that won't be very useful to you, as animal population demographics are also randomly generated for each player when the game is started for the first time. It also depends on how you hunt and manage your animal groups, and the fact that respawns are also subject to a certain amount of randomness.

Now the good news.
1. Higher fitness animals are most likely to be found in their primary habitat regions. The Encyclopedia will tell you what those habitats are for each species. Now the map also tells you that habitat type for each named region - pay attention to the fine print when you zoom out and the region labels are displayed.

2. You have to spend a lot of time simply observing animal groups and keeping track of the individuals: age, sex and trophy star ratings (the toolkit also helps you to do that). You watch them as they age over time ( 3 in-game days = 1 year in-game ). The Encyclopedia has the life-cycle information for each species.

You should also spend time following animal tracks as they travel between their need zones. Start with drink zones, as they are the easiest to find. Find animal tracks leading to and from the zone and follow a track - you will eventually find their other need zones, if you have the patience for this.

You can also find zones by simply getting up high where you have a good view of the landscape and spot animals in the distance. Put down tracking markers to pinpoint the location(s) of the animals you've spotted. Later, you can travel over to those locations and discover what the animals were doing - you may find a need zone hotspot nearby, or tracks to follow.

3. You have to selectively age your animal groups, by removing the 1* matures over time. to improve the average fitness level of the group. The higher the group fitness, the higher the probability that respawns will return with a higher fitness level and age into higher star-rating matures.
Young males almost always start out as 1-star, as they age you will see 1-star, 2-star and 3-star (maybe, but not likely, 4-star) adults, and then 1-star to 5-star matures.

If you see a group with several 3-star and 4-star males, you can start taking out the 2-star mature males, as they will probably be at the low end of the group's fitness curve, thus raising the average fitness even more.

4. If you have all of the calling perks, you can use callers to help distinguish between low fitness ( < 50%) and high fitness (>= 50%) males, at least for the species that have designated callers.
NOTE: there is some debate within the community about the effectiveness of this - there is some apparent randomness with the callers. Nevertheless, it's worth trying out. It may take some trial and error testing to see how it works for you.

5. Be prepared to work hard for those 5-star matures. For an animal that has a lifespan of 20 in-game years (say), it may take you 20 in-game years to see a 1-star young grow into a 5-star mature - that is 60 in-game days of hunting. How long that takes in real-world days depends on how you play each session. You can force an in-game year to elapse by hunting for at least 15 minutes in real world time (1 hour in-game time ) and then sleeping to roll the clock over to the next day - do this 3 times in the session to advance the calendar to the next year. I'm not certain if you can do that more than once in a session, as there is also a dependence on the number of elapsed real-world days.

This turns seemingly impossible missions into ones that can be completed, if you have the patience and perseverance to hunt this way.

[Suaroyov]

thank u so much for info. I usually shoot al 0 stars young animals but I never see those 4/5 stars. Ill try those steps let go 1 or 2 stars but i think it will be difficult because I never see them.

Originally posted by VictoriaHuntress:

You can use the Way of the Hunter Toolkit (here: https://codeaid.github.io/woth-toolbox/nez-perce-valley ) to locate the need zone regions for the animal groups.
Finding the actual need zone hotspots (those locations where you can 'analyze' and discover the zones) on your maps is another thing, as they are randomly placed. No two players will have identical distributions of those zone hot-spots. For eating and rest zones, you might have to search an area of up to 10,000 m^2 Drink zones are, naturally, easier to find as they are always concentrated around water - lake shorelines, river and stream banks.

Next, I can tell you where my high-fitness groups are, but that won't be very useful to you, as animal population demographics are also randomly generated for each player when the game is started for the first time. It also depends on how you hunt and manage your animal groups, and the fact that respawns are also subject to a certain amount of randomness.

Now the good news.
1. Higher fitness animals are most likely to be found in their primary habitat regions. The Encyclopedia will tell you what those habitats are for each species. Now the map also tells you that habitat type for each named region - pay attention to the fine print when you zoom out and the region labels are displayed.

2. You have to spend a lot of time simply observing animal groups and keeping track of the individuals: age, sex and trophy star ratings (the toolkit also helps you to do that). You watch them as they age over time ( 3 in-game days = 1 year in-game ). The Encyclopedia has the life-cycle information for each species.

You should also spend time following animal tracks as they travel between their need zones. Start with drink zones, as they are the easiest to find. Find animal tracks leading to and from the zone and follow a track - you will eventually find their other need zones, if you have the patience for this.

You can also find zones by simply getting up high where you have a good view of the landscape and spot animals in the distance. Put down tracking markers to pinpoint the location(s) of the animals you've spotted. Later, you can travel over to those locations and discover what the animals were doing - you may find a need zone hotspot nearby, or tracks to follow.

3. You have to selectively age your animal groups, by removing the 1* matures over time. to improve the average fitness level of the group. The higher the group fitness, the higher the probability that respawns will return with a higher fitness level and age into higher star-rating matures.
Young males almost always start out as 1-star, as they age you will see 1-star, 2-star and 3-star (maybe, but not likely, 4-star) adults, and then 1-star to 5-star matures.

If you see a group with several 3-star and 4-star males, you can start taking out the 2-star mature males, as they will probably be at the low end of the group's fitness curve, thus raising the average fitness even more.

4. If you have all of the calling perks, you can use callers to help distinguish between low fitness ( < 50%) and high fitness (>= 50%) males, at least for the species that have designated callers.
NOTE: there is some debate within the community about the effectiveness of this - there is some apparent randomness with the callers. Nevertheless, it's worth trying out. It may take some trial and error testing to see how it works for you.

5. Be prepared to work hard for those 5-star matures. For an animal that has a lifespan of 20 in-game years (say), it may take you 20 in-game years to see a 1-star young grow into a 5-star mature - that is 60 in-game days of hunting. How long that takes in real-world days depends on how you play each session. You can force an in-game year to elapse by hunting for at least 15 minutes (IIRC) and then sleeping to roll the clock over to the next day - do this 3 times in the session to advance the calendar to the next year. I'm not certain if you can do that more than once in a session, as there is also a dependence on the number of elapsed real-world days.

This turns seemingly impossible missions into ones that can be completed, if you have the patience and perseverance to hunt this way.

[VictoriaHuntress]

Originally posted by Suaroyov:

thank u so much for info. I usually shoot al 0 stars young animals but I never see those 4/5 stars. Ill try those steps let go 1 or 2 stars but i think it will be difficult because I never see them.

Oh, 0 stars are all Females. Generally you don't want to shoot all of them, as you want to keep the male/female ratio roughly constant. Shooting these also does nothing for the group fitness level, as females have 0% fitness.

Shoot and harvest the 1-star male matures first. Then, as you observe more and more 2-4 star males, you can start harvesting the 2-star mature males.

[Lanani]

To add to what VictoriaHuntress said:

- All females are 0% fitness.
- Males ALL start out as 1 star youngs. If you see a 2 star young, it's a bug.
- Adults can be 1-3 stars, depending on their age and fitness. 2 star and 3 star adults are the ones you want to keep an eye on. You can right click herd icons in the tool Victoria linked to add information on which animals are in the herd and color code your herds. For 1 star adults, use a caller to figure out if they are low or high fit. (Ki Yi Predator caller, to be precise).
- Matures can be 1-5 stars, depending on their exact age and fitness. 1 star matures are usually save to shoot. 2 star matures can be young ones that might still make 5 stars late in maturity. Again, you can use a caller to weed out 2 star matures that don't have much potential.

My advice? Check all herds within the primary habitat for that species using the tool Victoria linked, mark any herd that has a 2 star adult or 3 star mature in a nice color so you can find them again fast, then check on them regularly. If you encounter an animal when they are already mature, check them every year (every 3 in-game days). If you find them as an adult, check them every year until they become mature. Then you can calculate their last year based on the age information in the encyclopedia E.g. in my current playthrough, I watched a 2 star adult wolf until he became a 2 star mature, so I know he's in his first year of his maturity now. Wolves are mature for 5 years, so I know I only have to check him again 4 years (12 days) from now, when he'll be fully grown. Since he was a 2 star adult, he'll almost certainly make it to 4 stars, if not even 5.