The scent indicator doesn't always work

[goblin]

Just a heads up.

You can't rely on the scent indicator. If you're carrying any meat, cooked or raw, wolves will pick up on you scent and start stalking you even though the scent indicator does not show. This can make travel problematic on interloper or stalker.

[Vrayna]

Wolves can smell or see you even if you're not carrying anything, you always have to be careful. The indicator shows that you're more lileky to get sniffed out from further and will have a very hard time shaking off those wolves once they've picked up your trail.
I've never managed to escape a wolf by any other mean than getting inside a building if I had the scent all the way up to 3 stinkies. Wolves following you when you're not smelly can lose interest if you break line of sight for a while while getting away.

[Dread Arkive]

One trick is that when they start tracking your scent, they only seem to head to the spot at which they first noticed you. So if you see them heading your way from far enough away before they actually see you, you can just keep moving away and they will continue to that one spot before resetting their AI.

[goblin]

Originally posted by Vrayna:

Wolves can smell or see you even if you're not carrying anything, you always have to be careful.

When talking about scent, this is simply not true.
As soon as you drop the last piece of meat, they will stop their scent stalking. I've tested this several times.

[r4nd0m]

What button do you all push on the computer to bring up your quick (HUD) stats? On XBone it's the Start button and it displays the scent indicator along with your temp/food/water/etc stats. I wonder if they set the scent to auto-hide like the rest of them so it wouldn't be in the screen continuously.

[TooTall1]

Originally posted by r4nd0m:

What button do you all push on the computer to bring up your quick (HUD) stats? On XBone it's the Start button and it displays the scent indicator along with your temp/food/water/etc stats. I wonder if they set the scent to auto-hide like the rest of them so it wouldn't be in the screen continuously.

Tab

It also shows ammo if a weapon is equipped.

[jswilliams]

Hey y'all I have some anecdotal info on Interloper Scent, but not nothing to support whether an invisible "half-bar" of Scent draws attention. I agree with goblin that it probably does.

So scenario one. I was harvesting a rabbit in my snow shelter a very little way down Lake Trail. Like out the back door and a three second run. One scent bar whenb I finished harvesting because of the 1 gut and 1k meat. The wolf tethered to the rail line by Camp Office SMELLED that ♥♥♥♥ and was barking when I exited the shelter. Likely if I had harvested two I would have been....interrupted.

One.

Rabbit.

He smelled me OVER that hill that separtes Lake Trail and the rail line, so don't count on any realistic portrayal of wind behavior to shield you. That scent must have been carried up and over from a wind blowing from lake to rail line, or upwind/downwind doesn't matter with Scent, just radius.

Scenario 2

Harvesting/cooking 2 rabbits and deer carcass in "barn" by Trapper's. Y'know, just a hop skip jump away from that blessed DOOR which no evil can pass thru. 3 Scent bars. Red fatigue. Start walking to Trapper's. A wolf comes from OVER the hill basically between Trapper's and the general direction of Unnamed Pond. Starts walking down into the bowl with that swift tracking trot that is, ah, faster than I could lol walk. Now I know that wolf's leash is a little ways over that hill but dang. Three Scent bars IS a dinner bell.

(You're the dinner)

[goblin]

Originally posted by Gecko-GER:

@goblin: Take a look in our survival guide section Wolves. Maybe then your question is answered. If not: If you drop the last scent spamming item your scent radius is decreasing. If the wolf is then outside this radius he will go to his normal work.

I appreciate that you're trying to help me here but i think i need to clarify what i've discovered during testing.

You can sneak within metres of a wolf if you're crouched and have no meat or guts or similar. From the front is a bit harder but you can get fairly close there as well. Same as it used to be.

However, when talking about carrying small amounts of meat or guts, the wolves get attracted from relatively far away, even though there is NO SCENT INDICATION. This is a big deal.
During my tests, i found that wolves would start stalking me about 50-100 metres away when i was crouched with one meat in my inventory and i kept dropping and picking it up to see their behaviour.
They came fairly close, and i would drop the meat and they would turn away, as long as i was crouched.

[iheartmyocd]

Okay, straight up - it takes less meat (cooked or otherwise) to attract a wolf than it does to register what amounts to 1/3 of "blood-drenched" in terms of smell. But then on the other side, it should not be surprising that carrying any amount of meat when walking by wolves attracts them way more than if you aren't. It's the entire mechanic behind baiting them.

There's basically two strategies in play early game - carry extra, so you can drop a bit and distract them, or carry none so they don't notice you. Seriously, that's about it. It may be a fault in the indicator that lures you into a false sense of confidence about how smelly you are to carnivores, but in the end they need meat and you have some.

3 out of 4 difficulties (voyageur, pilgrim, stalker), that mechanic is absolutely essential for long-term play. Wether killing them for food, territory, or peace of mind, you need to carry that bit of essential bait to get them onto you on your terms so you can pick the killing ground, adjust tacticts to take out a whole pack in one go, and what have you. On loper it's a key element in adjusting strategy for early game AND late game. In the end, the whole stink-o-meter is moot anyways - If you have ANYTHING stinky on you you have to play one way, and if you don't you have to play the other way. There isn't a lot of middle ground, either you stink or you don't and if you aren't sure wether you do or don't at any given time you are prolly already dead and just don't know it yet.

[goblin]

This is more about the "stinkometer" giving you a false sense of security than anything else.
I want to warn other players that don't know this so they don't get nasty surprises around the corner.

Stay on topic please.

[iheartmyocd]

Originally posted by iheartmyocd:

Okay, straight up - it takes less meat (cooked or otherwise) to attract a wolf than it does to register what amounts to 1/3 of "blood-drenched" in terms of smell. But then on the other side, it should not be surprising that carrying any amount of meat when walking by wolves attracts them way more than if you aren't. It's the entire mechanic behind baiting them.

There's basically two strategies in play early game - carry extra, so you can drop a bit and distract them, or carry none so they don't notice you. Seriously, that's about it. It may be a fault in the indicator that lures you into a false sense of confidence about how smelly you are to carnivores, but in the end they need meat and you have some.

In the end, the whole stink-o-meter is moot anyways - If you have ANYTHING stinky on you you have to play one way, and if you don't you have to play the other way. There isn't a lot of middle ground, either you stink or you don't and if you aren't sure wether you do or don't at any given time you are prolly already dead and just don't know it yet.

Define "on topic?" Your original complaint was that the stink-o-meter "doesn't always work," and my post was that it doesn't actually work at all and is massively pointless, followed with some common-sensical, practical advice to ignore it completey, assume that if you have meat you stink and then adjust your gameplay accordingly?