Is duck hunting broken?

[Tistil1]

Hey, i never did any Mallard/Goose hunting before this update. The problem is, that i can't really use my decoys to lure them, and altho i see the ducks and goose occasionaly flying around, i'm never able to get to them.

I tried looking at popular duck hunting spots, but i guess that the last patch messed around with the animal spots.

[Striker]

The last patch reset the animal population and some need zones may have been moved so you may have to search out new ones. Using decoys and the caller still work but ducks now seem to be as sensitive to noise and smell as deer are and even a predator moving along the shore or yowling nearby can spook them.

[McSqurl Nugget]

Originally posted by Tistil1:

Hey, i never did any Mallard/Goose hunting before this update. The problem is, that i can't really use my decoys to lure them, and altho i see the ducks and goose occasionaly flying around, i'm never able to get to them.

I tried looking at popular duck hunting spots, but i guess that the last patch messed around with the animal spots.

Yes it's broken, every time i go to a lake the damn ducks are on the opposite side FIX IT!! [/sarcasm]

[Striker]

Forgot to add that the days of killing 25 in a single day are most likely a thing of the past.

[Zipfelhuber01]

Offtopic:

Originally posted by Autobot:

Forgot to add that the days of killing 25 in a single day are most likely a thing of the past.

1.Find a need zone, place a duck blind, some decoys and a tent next to each other.
2.Do the same thing in 2 or 3 different areas. Afterwards restart the game
3.Go in prone position, and fast travel to one of the tents with decoys
4. If you hear ducks calling when loading is nearly done, get ready to crawl to the
blind and shoot some ducks.
5. Afterwards you can fast travel to the next tent and immediately shoot some ducks again.

I know this is not how duck hunting is meant to work, but it's a workaround to have at least some
fun and not just waiting for hours without something happen.

Back to topic:
On PS4 duck hunting is broken in a total different way. When you kill more than one duck
with a single shot (shotgun), the game tends to crash some time later. But even killing ducks
one by one, leads to crashes (i even had duck harvest screens when i was confirming ohter animal kills).
I do not longer hunt ducks atm, because these extremely frequent crashes also caused several
corrupted save files. The good thing is that the new save system works perfectly on PS4 (no lost
save data).

[Geronimo]

Autobot got the idea...Its is the need zones, same as any other animal,,,without them the animals will be spawning infrequently and not anywhere near where you will be.

Unlock some duck zones and you will increase the populations around that area.

It also doesnt help to crawl to your setups and shoot the ducks on your approach. It has the same effect again as any other animal. If you dont spot them first to unlock them, if they are a flock you havent already spotted before, than you have just lost the opportunity to add to the population around that setup. And if you do spot them, and then kill them, the zone you just unlocked might have also just been deleted by your killing.

as with zones anywhere in CoTW, if you unlock them and let them be for a couple days they will build in population as you play that reserve.

You cant see that time period in all those videos you see, but they dont get those numbers as soon as they plop down a blind anywhere on their maps, UNTIL they have first allowed those unlocked flocks to populate in those areas. Its all about editing.

Having said this, there does seem to be alot of difference regarding the locations where there used to be ducks prior to trupatch, so maybe population and locations were altered.

Regardless, if you want to hunt any specific animal, whatever it is, you wont see alot of them in any specific area unless you open a couple zones nearby.

caution though, dont just run around unlocking every flock, or animal, you come across without considering whether you want them in that particular area you are in at the time, or want more than are already around.

Too many zones, and too many animals in a specific area can cause game engine slowdown.

I think based upon what i have seen on my xbox anyways, that alot of problems came from having way too many zones on my map, coupled with all those bunny zones all over the place from not being careful about what track sign i was clicking on.

I used to say click on every track, but now i realize how much trouble that caused me in a few different ways.

now I say dont get in the habit of clicking on everything without first considering what it is and how it will affect the area and your gameplay.

If you dont want more bunny zones with a hundred rabbits running around in your moose spot, than dont click on those feeding and drinking signs until you have looked at the tracks around it to make sure none are rabbit tracks.

and same goes with any other animals. you decide what you want in a specific area and ensure that you dont ruin that area by a careless click of the mouse or x button.

[CaptainNebulous]

The decoys and duck hunting still works in most spots. There is a few spots however, such as Ronachee Lake, where the ducks tend to disobey the decoys and just land wherever they damn well please. That being said Ronachee has been a gold mine for ducks lately and if you place a tent on the opposite side of the lake from the outpost, you can usually scare them into flying towards the tent, fast travel to the tent, and take out like 10 to 15 at a time. It's cheap but since the ducks aren't landing near my decoys there it works for now.

[Geronimo]

lol nebulous, i would love to watch you hunting here where i live. now that wud be something to get on vid cam...

i also noticed alot of flocks just sitting in open water at calborn canyon and setup there going from blind to blind.

problem is like i said tho, if you kill those ducks without unloking zones first, then they arent going to build up and respawn in those areas. they will just resapwn anywhere on the map everytime you restart a game.


gotta have them attached to zones and then let them build up for a few days before you sart wasting them all. and always try to leave a couple birds from each flock so you dont delete the zone they were connected to.

[Tistil1]

I appreciate all the replies, i'll try a few of the methods posted here, thanks.

[CaptainNebulous]

It should also be noted that on a new game, or right after animal pop reset.... the ducks are often times crammed in just one or two locations and it takes several hours and sessions for them to finally spread around the map. Sometimes you just gotta find them and shoot the hell out of them to get them to migrate. This should only be an issue for the first few hours though, after that they are in as many water sources as you would expect.

[CaptainNebulous]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

lol nebulous, i would love to watch you hunting here where i live. now that wud be something to get on vid cam...

i also noticed alot of flocks just sitting in open water at calborn canyon and setup there going from blind to blind.

problem is like i said tho, if you kill those ducks without unloking zones first, then they arent going to build up and respawn in those areas. they will just resapwn anywhere on the map everytime you restart a game.


gotta have them attached to zones and then let them build up for a few days before you sart wasting them all. and always try to leave a couple birds from each flock so you dont delete the zone they were connected to.

Is tent teleportation a thing where you live? If that's a fact.... then yes I must visit XD

[dogshocker]

Originally posted by Autobot:

Forgot to add that the days of killing 25 in a single day are most likely a thing of the past.

Good

[Vasious]

I am having no luck with ducks
I find the zones for the ducks
Set up decoys and water fowl blinds
Return to zone but ducks never show up

Everywhere I see ducks, if I set up decoys and blinds they never return and the lakes are then empty all different times of day, even when the lake had dozens of ducks before.

This is all after the reset

Prior to reset they would at least arrive by wing and could be called in

Geese work, but ducks I have no luck with

[Geronimo]

[quote=CaptainNebulous;

Is tent teleportation a thing where you live? If that's a fact.... then yes I must visit XD [/quote]

Nooooooooooooooooo, please Neb, stay outa my tent!

[Geronimo]

Other day i heard alot of quacking, ( this time it wasnt the wife), but couldnt see the ducks. I had just recently placed a few decoys in a pond to see if they wud attract anything there. When i came back i cud hear them but not see them. Suddenly i looked waaaaaay up, and there was a flock flyin around in a small circle stuck in the sky directly over the decoys.

Had this happen a couple times before where i saw birds stuck in an animation near a decoy set.

I wonder how often we are not seeing birds because they might be stuck in similar situations but out of sight and sound, waaaaay up there somewhere.

seems like after a game restart birds are okay until you move them on their way and then they disappear from the map. could be a glitch where they are stuck in place somewhere, like maybe right on the border of the map when they fly off into limbo.

once saw a flock of geese right next to my decoy set, where it looked like just one stuck in a flight posture as though it was ready to land, but stuck in the air just above ground, so i shot it to get rid of the glitch and it was like those nesting dolls, where they all sit inside of each other, i shot about eight of them all stuck on top of each other.

Seems to be a combination of glitches and Zone requirement dynamics to me.

[PunkyRoo]

Duck hunting IS broken. It's works nothing like you'd expect in real life. Where you set decoys, sit in a blind, and call them in. This is how geese hunting works in the game, ducks should be similar. Right now ducks ignore calls and function more like deer -- appearing at a need zone and just loafing around that spot. I wouldn't care that much IF THEY ACTUALLY WERE ATTRACTED TO THE CALLS.

I sat around in a blind, with three dozen ducks on the other side of a small pond and despite hours of calling, they never came an inch closer.

Duck hunting needs to be seriously reconfigured in this game.