I feel that wolf battles are a bit unbalanced.

[chicoarraes]

Hi,
first let me say that I love this game. I´ve been playing for a long time and I´m closing in on 900 hours of gameplay. I´ve always had a bitter sweet feeling towards the permadeath deal. On one hand I love it and I know it´s what keeps me playing. But on the other hand I usually restart the game as soon as I hear/see a dangerous animal charging and sometimes I even press Alt+F4 during an attack to restart from last save. I know it´s breaking the game, but I also know that mostly every attack is lethal (even for an experienced player) and I don´t want to loose ALL my progress.

I´m trying to avoid pressing Alt+F4 lately and died recently in a wolf attack that left me a little puzzled. I was very well covered with all or most layers of clothes and I fought with a heavy hammer but I died immediately. I was probably starving, but all my other stats were ok and previously wolves had fled easily when faced with the hammer. Also, if I start a fresh game and I fight a wolf (almost naked and barehanded) I may not even suffer blood loss sometimes.

The only thing I can think of that could have given me a disadvantage was taking a fraction of a second more to choose the hammer before the attack. If that is a factor, it shouldn´t be. Either let us choose a preferred weapon as a default or let us choose without hindering the battle. It´s bad enough to have a button smashing mechanic for the battle itself. It was great when weapons were implemented and the heavy ones started to be effective in repelling wolves without killing them. I just wish that was a reliable thing.

[IvantheFormidable]

Mind if I ask what difficulty level you're playing at? Given the amount of hours, and the "mostly every attack is lethal", I have to assume you're on Interloper. I know that fatigue plays a large role in how difficult it is to beat back a wolf, but as far as I'm away, the amount of time selecting the weapon doesn't play any role. I'd suspect there is some other factor in the background that perhaps more experienced players than I can point to as the culprit.

[Lenny Rat]

I am not one to progress rumors; however, I have read somewhere that not all wolves are created equal. Meaning that some may have higher stats, both damage and defense, than others.

As I said, I have no substantiation of this, but others may have and could chime in if they know. For me, that would make sense; IRL the Alpha of a given pack is pretty much a badass.

[mf187doubleg]

I died mostly fighting with hammer when I was carrying above 50kg. I thingk weight matters. And Hatchet is much better!

[Pestilence]

Originally posted by mf187doubleg:

I died mostly fighting with hammer when I was carrying above 50kg. I thingk weight matters. And Hatchet is much better!

The hatchet is marginally better than the hammer, but the improvised hatchet is definitely not bettter, if that's what you mean.

[{O|G} Erik the Red]

Originally posted by Lenny Rat:

I am not one to progress rumors; however, I have read somewhere that not all wolves are created equal. Meaning that some may have higher stats, both damage and defense, than others.

As I said, I have no substantiation of this, but others may have and could chime in if they know. For me, that would make sense; IRL the Alpha of a given pack is pretty much a badass.

Well certainly not equal when then die. Gotta wonder if the raggy, 3 kilos of meat ones are starving... Dunno if there's a correlation between that and how healthy they are in fighting back, or perhaps the little ones are more aggressive due to hunger?

Or perhaps more likely all those values are just random when they occur.

[mf187doubleg]

Originally posted by Pestilence:

Originally posted by mf187doubleg:

I died mostly fighting with hammer when I was carrying above 50kg. I thingk weight matters. And Hatchet is much better!

The hatchet is marginally better than the hammer, but the improvised hatchet is definitely not bettter, if that's what you mean.

yes improvised hatchet is imo better - always managed to get rid of the wolf and with hammer a lot of situations where I died ....

[Pestilence]

Originally posted by mf187doubleg:

Originally posted by Pestilence:

The hatchet is marginally better than the hammer, but the improvised hatchet is definitely not bettter, if that's what you mean.

yes improvised hatchet is imo better - always managed to get rid of the wolf and with hammer a lot of situations where I died ....

Your opinion may be that it's better, but the fact is, it's not. This test clearly shows the hatchet is better, but the improvised hatchet is worse than the hammer and not nearly as good as the regular hatchet, if surviving the struggle is your goal.

http://www.hinterlandforums.com/forums/topic/15701-426-wolf-struggle-tests/?page=2&tab=comments#comment-107776

The biggest factors by far in surviving a wolf struggle are weapon choice and how protective your clothing is. The hammer is the best weapon in interloper, the regular hatchet is the best weapon in the other modes, and the improvised knife is the worst by far in any mode. You're better off with a prybar. In fact, you're marginally better off with a prybar than an improvised hatchet.

[mf187doubleg]

Originally posted by micah6vs8:

That test was done over a year ago. I wonder if Hinterlands has tweaked anything during that time?

My experience is that the hatchet, then for Loper the improvised hatchet are the best. I've been killed nearly every time I've used the hammer - unless I had full stamina and was very awake.

Me the same - I always carry a lot of things with me and I think the weight matters with hammer - I will always use my hatchet on loper - with full gear I will lose like 40% maybe of health - with Hammer I died many times. Prybar is crap - it will take 90% of my health so no, thank you :) I will stay with my habbits.

[Pestilence]

Okey dokey. Have fun with that. I'm gonna stick with facts as well as my own observations, in which most of the time I get in a wolf struggle with a hammer, I don't even bleed. Literally the only thing the improvised hatchet is good for is clearing brush in HRV.


Fast forward to 53:30. This forum hoses YouTube links.

https://youtu.be/z9cQrhYG43c?t=53m30s

If I had to guess at the source for your confirmation bias, I'd guess it's because you've never actually had a wolf stuggle with both the hammer and good protective clothing. You obviously don't like the hammer because it's heavy, so you probably leave it at the forge. Of course any time you're attacked before you reach the forge, you won't have a crafted coat because you don't have a knife yet, so you're going to probably die in that stuggle regardless of what you choose to fight with. It would be pretty silly to think the hammer sucks just because you haven't actually had a hammer in a fight you could expect to win in the first place.

[Pestilence]

Originally posted by micah6vs8:

Confirmation bias works both ways.

To me it speaks to how good this game is. Very experienced, good players can have fundamental disagreements over strategy- and both can be right. That type of nuance is rare and remarkable.

Except that very in depth testing shows the correct choice for interloper is the hammer. The only argument for the improvised hatchet is anecdotes from people who only have a hammer when they can't expect to win a struggle in the first place.

[Pestilence]

I assume you just now decided the hatchet was best, and not a year ago or earlier then...

[jswilliams]

Hmmm never considered the Imp Hatchet was that much worse than the regular.

I hate Interloper.

Possibly the Hammer from the data has such wide swing because its use is more heavily affected by...whatever. Encumberance. Sttarving.

Looks like the Hammer weighs in at 35% avg (hate to use that word talking statistics) and the HH at 48% avg condition loss.

Becomes more of a weight management question. Is the 2kg HH "worth it" considered we have what is basically a layered defense as far as countering wolves.

But then, death from a wolf struggle...

[iheartmyocd]

Just weighing in - I prefer the hatchet on every skill level, and feel it to be the superior defensive weapon out of the big 3 (hatchet♥♥♥♥♥♥♥hammer) based on a lot of experience and one key fact. (And this is with a couple of years playing).

My experience has been that the knife is useless - lots of bleeding damage but not much physical damage, to a point where even after disengaging the wolf comes off better than I do (he has no bandages, and if I didn't as well, I would bleed out before he did). The hammer and the hatchet (even the crude one) share the trait of being a lot slower, but dealing much more damage per blow and therefor ending a struggle more quickly which is always fantastic. Now for damage alone, and ending the fight quicker, the hammer wins hands down. Hell, sometimes it only takes a single swing.

BUT... (and this is the one key fact)... the hatchet, while dealing less damage, also draws blood every time which the hammer does not do ever. A wolf hit with the hammer is a wolf that is now running spastically around the map dither and yon, and will soon return to his path not much the worse for wear. A wolf hit with the hatchet is also a wolf now running spastically around the map, but also one that is a dead dog walking.

Dead wolf is harvesting points, cooking points, crafting materials, a cleared path, and even calories, who won't respawn for days. Live wolf is a time bomb that could potentially go off again in a few minutes. Hammer is a better weapon in the short term, but overall the long term benefits of the hatchet more than outweigh the negatives. Hammer saves you a degree of condition loss in the moment, but that's it. Hatchet gives you sooooooooooo much more, even if you have to take a slightly bigger hit to get it.

Sometimes the hammer is better, sometimes the hatchet is better. It's been my experiece though that looking at a wolf encounter as a single link in a chain of events (which is the whole game in a nutshell) rather than a single event, the hatchet pays out more often than the hammer and it has been beneficial to me to gamble on it rather than the hammer. The risks are nearly equal, but the the rewards of the hatchet are so much more.

My 0.02. Carry on.

[Pestilence]

Originally posted by jswilliams:

Becomes more of a weight management question. Is the 2kg HH "worth it" considered we have what is basically a layered defense as far as countering wolves.

But then, death from a wolf struggle...

The heavy hammer and the hacksaw weigh 1.25kg more than the improvised hatchet.

However:

• Both can be repaired infinitely
• Neither consume whetstones
• In interloper, both are the best possible tool for an important job. The hammer is the best struggle weapon and the saw is the best meat harvester (on frozen carcasses)
• I have no interest in harvesting recliners or five piece limbs, which are the only world wide unique jobs nothing else can do
• For anything but wood harvesting, the improvised hatchet is objectively a bad choice of tool for the job

I used to not even make a hatchet and needed less metal for more arrowheads. Now I make one specifically to take into hushed river for the brush that requires it. That's the only map I don't carry a hammer and hacksaw 100% of the time in.

[Pestilence]

Originally posted by iheartmyocd:

A wolf hit with the hammer is a wolf that is now running spastically around the map dither and yon, and will soon return to his path not much the worse for wear.

In my experience, a wolf hit with a hammer is usually a sad, limping, compliant, easy bow skill point. They do get away sometimes, but not often. I'm definitely a live to fight another day guy, as well as a huge hacksaw fan, so I don't have any use for a hatchet other than brush in HRV.