Issue with the Hunting Rifle's iron sights

[Logo Tho]

Hey there, everyone. Somewhat new, but now reasonably experienced player, here.
(Skip to blue header text below to go straight to the issue)

I finally bought The Long Dark as soon as the Summer Sale began this year, and I'm absolutely in love with the game.
I'm currently on my fourth "attempt", and it's going incredibly well. I'm almost 12 days into this one, and I'm fully kitted out with a nice assortment of warm clothing that I've been maintaining and keeping ship-shape.
A few hours ago, I woke up in the Forestry Lookout tower that I've claimed as my home, and I realized I was getting low on food. I decided my plan for that day was going to be to hunt down a deer to restock on food.
I walk down the mountain, Lee-Enfield in hand, loaded with 4 bullets, and I see a target. I line the front sight up with the buck, and pull the trigger. Bullet completely misses, despite the sights being right on the target. I rack the bolt back and move forward to catch up with the buck who ran away, and I end up with an even better target to hit. Stick the front sight over the target, pull the trigger, yet another miss. Rinse and repeat until I'm completely out of ammo.
I was furious that I'd just wasted my only four remaining bullets. My firearms skill was level 2, AND I regularly cleaned the rifle to keep it in prestine condition. How is it possible that it could have missed?
Well, I didn't want to settle for that. I suspected something wasn't right.
I quit my game and reloaded my save to appear back at the Lookout Tower. I hike right back down the mountain and slowly creep around to get close to a deer. At this point, I'm pretty reasonably close, borderline impossible to miss a shot at this range. I aim my rifle right at the head of the animal and pull the trigger, and somehow, it was yet another miss!
With the next few shots I took, I decided to try to experiment a little. I started putting the front sight slightly higher and lower on the buck than I previously was, to try and see where exactly the bullet lands within the sight picture. After around 15 shots and a few different save reloads, I finally managed to hit the damn deer with my first shot.

So now, we arrive at our "problem"...

I've confirmed that, at least on my rifle, the sights don't perfectly point to where the bullet will travel. (And again, the rifle was in prestine condition).
The rear sight of the rifle is a "ghost ring" style of sight (which I'm not particularly fond of.... At all.), so we've pretty much got a perfect circle around the front sight to use as reference.
The bullets seem to fly in the area that is the center of the circle above the front sight.
To make this a little bit easier to understand, I've created a diagram of sorts:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=958876834

I've always been taught while aiming a rifle to cover the target with the topmost part of the front sight (obviously whilst holding it between the rear sight). It took me a good amount of time (and a lot of missed shots!) to finally figure out that the sights are off on the rifle in-game.
Has anybody else noticed this "issue" with the sight picture? This could be due to the sights being zero'd in at a further range (effectively making the bullet curve up to compensate for bullet drop over long distance, similar to how sniping works in Battlefield), but I don't personally think this would be the case, as, to my knowledge, the rifle isn't a projectile-based weapon in game, I believe it is hitscan.

I apologize if this is formatted in a poor way, or even if it's considered sloppy. I don't typically post to forums, so I just did my best to explain the issue. Also, I placed this post in "Techincal Issues" because I didn't see anywhere else it may have fit better. Sorry if this doesn't belong here!

[placidus33]

Very well done research and very actual!

See this thread that's going on in these days for other considerations about ironsight bug:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/discussions/0/1368380934263293786/

You were extremely meticolous in describing your problem. I never had the will to do such fine research, but I know for sure rifle shots have a big random outcome that is balanced with levelling up the skill (I could think it can be true in real life too, due to the fact that this model of rifle is very old, but I'm no expert in firearms...). In your screenshot the barrel is perfectly aligned with the ironsight and if I understood correctly you did track with precision 3 shots after the several attemps gone bad. Maybe it's possible that, given a bigger number of attempts, you can experience shots going slightly to the right or to the left or to the bottom, provided the ironsight is perfectly aligned? I will try personally to repeat your problem in my test run now that I see clearly the issue, and let you know my consideration.

Anyway, is clear now more than ever that the ironsight animation is bugged in some way. If you have the patience to read the thread I linked above there are considerations about the fact that the swaying is opposite to a logical sway, and adding 1+1 I could say it's all related to some oversight from the devs. The rifle design and animation has been recently changed and maybe with the rush of the imminent release some error has gone unnoticed.

And if you want, when you are sure enough of your statements, you can file a bug report here:

https://hinterlandgames.atlassian.net/projects/TLDP/issues/TLDP-2426?filter=allopenissues

No need to log in or create an account. Just press the big red button "Create" and compile the form. It's the official bug report database for TLD

[Logo Tho]

Originally posted by placidus33:

Very well done research and very actual!

See this thread that's going on in these days for other considerations about ironsight bug:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/discussions/0/1368380934263293786/

You were extremely meticolous in describing your problem. I never had the will to do such fine research, but I know for sure rifle shots have a big random outcome that is balanced with levelling up the skill (I could think it can be true in real life too, due to the fact that this model of rifle is very old, but I'm no expert in firearms...). In your screenshot the barrel is perfectly aligned with the ironsight and if I understood correctly you did track with precision 3 shots after the several attemps gone bad. Maybe it's possible that, given a bigger number of attempts, you can experience shots going slightly to the right or to the left or to the bottom, provided the ironsight is perfectly aligned? I will try personally to repeat your problem in my test run now that I see clearly the issue, and let you know my consideration.

Anyway, is clear now more than ever that the ironsight animation is bugged in some way. If you have the patience to read the thread I linked above there are considerations about the fact that the swaying is opposite to a logical sway, and adding 1+1 I could say it's all related to some oversight from the devs. The rifle design and animation has been recently changed and maybe with the rush of the imminent release some error has gone unnoticed.

And if you want, when you are sure enough of your statements, you can file a bug report here:

https://hinterlandgames.atlassian.net/projects/TLDP/issues/TLDP-2426?filter=allopenissues

No need to log in or create an account. Just press the big red button "Create" and compile the form. It's the official bug report database for TLD

I didn't notice any bullets straying off to the left or right side of the sights, but I know for certain that bullets actually land on one of the three dots shown in the image.
Also, it's good that you mention the swaying of the weapon, I've found that to be extremely annoying, but I thought it was a feature, a mechanic to make it more difficult to aim..
That'd be great to fix xD
I'll check out your links, probably create a ticket for that bug report, too

[placidus33]

Another thing comes to my mind now: are you using 16:9 or 16:10 ratio for your screen? It's hard to see the difference in the screenshot.
I'm asking you because I have 2 monitors at hand. One is 16:9 and the other is 21:9. With the rifle I don't have enough data to be sure and the extremely wrong swaying makes any reasearch even more difficult, but the bow is incredibly steady and in 21:9 ratio I have to keep the point of the arrow slightly down and to the left to where the arrow goes when released. Maybe you are using a 16:10 ratio and that's the reason?
Just a thought...

[Logo Tho]

Oh, I'm using 16:9. 1920x1080