How to reset animal population now?

[Vivaliis]

With the new save system, deleting animal_population file doesn't work for me. Making the file blank using notepad crashes the game which seems to make it impossible to reset population anymore?

I had a lot of tries: online, offline, deleting one file, deleting all files, deleting from even backups. Nothing worked, every time I opened the game, files created themselves just like they were before. Pressure was not deleted and animals were just like I've left them before (I had a diamond duck and combination of lvl 8+4 red deer in a specific place on Parque map, after every "reset" they still were there like nothing happened and I doubt randomly generated "new" population would spawn the same animal in the same place several times)

I deleted all of animal_population files (from 0 to 6, I own all DLCs) to check which files affects each map and the results for me were:
0 - Hirschfelden
1 - Layton
2 - Medved
3 - Vurhonga
4 - Parque
5 - ???
6 - Yukon
I have no idea what animal_population_5 stands for though. Opening all maps while having deleted everything did not create population5, however, it appeared randomly after closing the game. Maybe my files are bugged or something...

Resetting animal population was important to me as my internet connection is painful so multiplayer is almost impossible. It scares me a bit as I do not want to be stuck with the same, lacking of interesting animals, map every time I open my game

[Rookie-31st]

5 might be trophy lodge since it is loading as separate reserve

[cbrrrman]

I have never deleted nor reset the population file(s)
and never had a problem finding animals.
But then I realize this is a hunting simulation game and not an arcade game per say.

Sometimes animals are scarce to find in a certain area...
So I will move to another.
Moving around and hitting the zones is the key.

[n1[kn4|\/|3]

I think it worked for me. Not 100% shure though because i did it before they fixed the hunting pressure bug.
Steam cloud off, move the slots and the old save directory somewhere else, backup and delete the population files and the needzone file in both save folders. Start the game and open every map ones. Some maps may have lost all discovered poi but dont worry. Now you should have new population files and new slots directory. Move the old save directory back to where it was, this should give you back all discovered poi.
Lost poi happened only on the maps i had not yet opened after the new save system.
I got 5 when i opened trophy lodge first time after population reset.

[Cody]

It still kills me that instead of patching the bug, they patched the workaround.

[Cody]

Originally posted by cbrrrman:

I have never deleted nor reset the population file(s)
and never had a problem finding animals.
But then I realize this is a hunting simulation game and not an arcade game per say.

Sometimes animals are scarce to find in a certain area...
So I will move to another.
Moving around and hitting the zones is the key.

The bug isn't finding animals, its finding higher ranked animals. Its well documented that maps in their initial states have higher frequencies of golds and diamonds. As you kill off golds and diamonds and animals respawn, they are much more likely to spawn as low levels. So people who have been playing a long time end up with maps populated with nothing but trash.

[Vivaliis]

Originally posted by SuperDeep:

Save ur game file to desktop, delete it, start new game, steal all the animal pop files from the new save and add them to the file on your desktop, delete that new game you made and add your old save file back into the COTW folder.

OH yes, I forgot about that haha
I tried this and it sure worked! Animal population is new on every map and the lodge is the same as before. The only weird thing that happened is that I ended up with 11 population files, but whatever, I can live with that

[LordBamburgh]

Originally posted by SuperDeep:

Originally posted by Hadron:

The bug isn't finding animals, its finding higher ranked animals. Its well documented that maps in their initial states have higher frequencies of golds and diamonds. As you kill off golds and diamonds and animals respawn, they are much more likely to spawn as low levels. So people who have been playing a long time end up with maps populated with nothing but trash.

I've been playing the same save file since april 2017, I used to always replace my animal pop file, I haven't done this for over a year and my maps are booming with high levels and diamonds. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you are running around for 2 hours and you dont spot a thing. But if your running round at a bad in-game time normall early afternoon is quiet for me i would say just change your time and carry on looking.

Yes, deleting the animal pop files is one of the biggest myths of the game...

[Gangrene]

Originally posted by cbrrrman:

I have never deleted nor reset the population file(s)
and never had a problem finding animals.
But then I realize this is a hunting simulation game and not an arcade game per say.

Sometimes animals are scarce to find in a certain area...
So I will move to another.
Moving around and hitting the zones is the key.

Agreed, playing for years here without ever resetting my animal population files.

Originally posted by Vince:

Originally posted by SuperDeep:

I've been playing the same save file since april 2017, I used to always replace my animal pop file, I haven't done this for over a year and my maps are booming with high levels and diamonds. I wouldn't recommend doing this unless you are running around for 2 hours and you dont spot a thing. But if your running round at a bad in-game time normall early afternoon is quiet for me i would say just change your time and carry on looking.

Yes, deleting the animal pop files is one of the biggest myths of the game...

It probably is a myth. Even if it worked and players were doing this to get more diamonds... sounds like an exploitative hack to me. Who wants a ton of diamonds on their maps? I like them being rare so they actually get me excited to find one... If I saw one every other hour that would take something away from the game for me.

[LordBamburgh]

Originally posted by Gangrene:

Originally posted by cbrrrman:

I have never deleted nor reset the population file(s)
and never had a problem finding animals.
But then I realize this is a hunting simulation game and not an arcade game per say.

Sometimes animals are scarce to find in a certain area...
So I will move to another.
Moving around and hitting the zones is the key.

Agreed, playing for years here without ever resetting my animal population files.

Originally posted by Vince:

Yes, deleting the animal pop files is one of the biggest myths of the game...

It probably is a myth. Even if it worked and players were doing this to get more diamonds... sounds like an exploitative hack to me. Who wants a ton of diamonds on their maps? I like them being rare so they actually get me excited to find one... If I saw one every other hour that would take something away from the game for me.

The argument for it is illogical too, that the developers would engineer into the game a method by which the number of high value kills diminishes. More than likely this deletion trick is explained by confirmation bias. People replace the files, log in... see a high rank animal or three and they are convinced. I'm not.

And I agree about diamonds. They are MEANT to be rare....

[Vivaliis]

Originally posted by Gangrene:

Originally posted by cbrrrman:

I have never deleted nor reset the population file(s)
and never had a problem finding animals.
But then I realize this is a hunting simulation game and not an arcade game per say.

Sometimes animals are scarce to find in a certain area...
So I will move to another.
Moving around and hitting the zones is the key.

Agreed, playing for years here without ever resetting my animal population files.

Originally posted by Vince:

Yes, deleting the animal pop files is one of the biggest myths of the game...

It probably is a myth. Even if it worked and players were doing this to get more diamonds... sounds like an exploitative hack to me. Who wants a ton of diamonds on their maps? I like them being rare so they actually get me excited to find one... If I saw one every other hour that would take something away from the game for me.

I understand you all guys, I have put a lot of hours into the game and I get how it is to play the game "following the rules". I did my first population reset when Parque came out, cuz there was a bug that made my map not having any animals and population reset was the only way for me to solve the bug. It helped A LOT. I know that there are different opinions but before my first reset, I had over 200 hours into the game and never ever saw anything valuable on any of my maps. I never got any diamonds, never got any rares. Lvl 4s were extremely rare for me, so I thought that diamonds and rares were something that happens only once in your life but I was wrong. After my first reset, I started to finnaly see rares and even diamonds. I did a little research on the internet and I discovered a lot of people having problems with respawning like me and their solution was multiplayer.

My internet is awful, I cannot play multiplayer without experiencing tons of bugs and fps drops. I tried many times but there always were situations like dissapearing tracks, animals, not being able to harvest etc etc, so I abandoned the idea of multi. However, it is a "normal" way of playing the game. If it wasn't, the game would not have multiplayer option in the first place. Resetting population is very close to jumping throught servers so I do not see the problem myself. I get people may think it is some sort of cheating but it's the only way for me to not have to be stuck with map with low level animals.

Don't get me wrong, I do not use this reset every time I open the game. I usually do this when I grind for a certain species or when I checked every single spot for every species on a certain map. I'd love to play "legit", jumping through servers, experiencing the game like everyone else does but let's be honest, there is no fun in exploring these beautiful worlds knowing there is no chance for you to find anything nice.

[BONITE]

Anyway this discussion is useless, since the last patch the reinitialization of the animal population is no longer possible, you can erase the files you want. the game stays the same.
I did the reinitialization once a few months ago and I did not see any changes in my game.
I play in normal ways, I do not meet rare animals or diamonds every day and it does not torment me.
The last diamond that I had was a female moos of 1000 and I found it abnormal because when I saw it it did not seem very big, I pulled it because I did not see anything else since hours, but I think this female moos diamond was just a bug.
I often change cards without seeing rare animals or diamonds and I do not care.

[Vivaliis]

Originally posted by Opadede:

Anyway this discussion is useless, since the last patch the reinitialization of the animal population is no longer possible, you can erase the files you want. the game stays the same.
I did the reinitialization once a few months ago and I did not see any changes in my game.
I play in normal ways, I do not meet rare animals or diamonds every day and it does not torment me.
The last diamond that I had was a female moos of 1000 and I found it abnormal because when I saw it it did not seem very big, I pulled it because I did not see anything else since hours, but I think this female moos diamond was just a bug.
I often change cards without seeing rare animals or diamonds and I do not care.

It is possible with the tactic that is put as an answer to this discussion. Checked it today, it works without problems, for me at least.

Everyone can play the game the way they want to. The game is all about bringing us entertainment. If you want to stay on your map, that's ok. If you want to go multiplayer, that's also ok. If you want to reset your files, in my opinion it's just like going multi or starting the new game, there is nothing wrong with this too. We should not be harassing people for simply enjoying the game.

[BONITE]

Originally posted by Vivaliis:

Originally posted by Opadede:

Anyway this discussion is useless, since the last patch the reinitialization of the animal population is no longer possible, you can erase the files you want. the game stays the same.
I did the reinitialization once a few months ago and I did not see any changes in my game.
I play in normal ways, I do not meet rare animals or diamonds every day and it does not torment me.
The last diamond that I had was a female moos of 1000 and I found it abnormal because when I saw it it did not seem very big, I pulled it because I did not see anything else since hours, but I think this female moos diamond was just a bug.
I often change cards without seeing rare animals or diamonds and I do not care.

It is possible with the tactic that is put as an answer to this discussion. Checked it today, it works without problems, for me at least.

Everyone can play the game the way they want to. The game is all about bringing us entertainment. If you want to stay on your map, that's ok. If you want to go multiplayer, that's also ok. If you want to reset your files, in my opinion it's just like going multi or starting the new game, there is nothing wrong with this too. We should not be harassing people for simply enjoying the game.

No fear I do not harass anyone, everyone is free to play as he wants.
For me a player who resets his game does not hurt, it's not cheating.
Everyone is free to act as he wants.

[Gangrene]

It's a Diamond* if gotten using population reset. Not a real Diamond.

[Falchion]

Resetting your animal population file is no more of an exploit than server hopping. That said, I do not feel that it is necessary, I have been playing on the same maps since i started (700+ hours) and I still come across legendaries and mythicals all the time.