animal spook range

[KiltedJock]

been a while since i last played, back then animals at 280+ range never used to spook when taking shots on other nearby animals

since i have come back im noticing all animals within that range maybe been 350 seem to be spooking easily with shots.

can anyone clarify if this has been changed?

[CaptainNebulous]

It has been changed but that behavior does still exist when you're close to the edge of render distance. Just not at under 300 meters anymore like it was a long time ago

[Nightwalker]

Until recently on Balmont Lake I could shoot deer, elk, moose, bear or yotes from my stand and deer using a need zone 230 meters away remained undisturbed. Now they are. Animals beyond 250 meters remain undisturbed. Seen the change with my own eyes a number of times over the past week. Don't know when it changed since I rarely hunt LL due to the plethora of problems that reserve has but at most it's only been a month or so and not a long time ago.

[Striker]

I seem to recall it being something about 200 meters from the gunshot but it's more than that. After all, some animals spook at 125-150 meters due to noise generated just by walking.

[McSqurl Nugget]

Originally posted by Nightwalker:

Until recently on Balmont Lake I could shoot deer, elk, moose, bear or yotes from my stand and deer using a need zone 230 meters away remained undisturbed. Now they are. Animals beyond 250 meters remain undisturbed. Seen the change with my own eyes a number of times over the past week. Don't know when it changed since I rarely hunt LL due to the plethora of problems that reserve has but at most it's only been a month or so and not a long time ago.

they don't change things at whim, all changes are posted in the news as a patch or part of a DLC, so if it changed it was with the CC release as that's the last update we've seen so far.

I think the "spook range" should be set at the render distance. if you shoot a gun IRL you'll scare animals for much farther than that. I've seen deer and elk both bolt at a gunshot half a mile away.

[White Prime]

Basically, players with 600+ hours game time keep asking for things to be made harder.

The type of selfish men who care nothing for newer players, or for players who haven't got the time to play 24/7.

EDIT: I mean no offence to anyone, of course. We're all men here. I'm just saying the objective truth.

[PicSoul]

Originally posted by White Prime:

Basically, players with 600+ hours game time keep asking for things to be made harder.

The type of selfish men who care nothing for newer players, or for players who haven't got the time to play 24/7.

EDIT: I mean no offence to anyone, of course. We're all men here. I'm just saying the objective truth.

Just because players ask for something, doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be added or changed.

Which is great because otherwise, we'd have zombies and RPG's by now.

"We're all men here." No, we have a lot of great female players in this community.

[White Prime]

Originally posted by PicSoul:

Originally posted by White Prime:

Basically, players with 600+ hours game time keep asking for things to be made harder.

The type of selfish men who care nothing for newer players, or for players who haven't got the time to play 24/7.

EDIT: I mean no offence to anyone, of course. We're all men here. I'm just saying the objective truth.

Just because players ask for something, doesn't mean it's guaranteed to be added or changed.

Which is great because otherwise, we'd have zombies and RPG's by now.

"We're all men here." No, we have a lot of great female players in this community.

My apologies to the sisters in the community 🙂

And yeah, you're probably right. Well, ish.

[_phantasm_]

Originally posted by White Prime:

Basically, players with 600+ hours game time keep asking for things to be made harder.

Don't back down from your original comment. You are absolutely correct. I played this game like it was a drug when it was released. I just came back about a month ago, and the difficulty has increased to a ridiculous level. My brother and two cousins used to meet up and play for hours. None of them are interested in playing anymore. We refer to the game as "Call of the Wait". This is what happens when you cater to people who don't think about casual/new players. The developers need to put a difficulty slider in the game, and stop fk-n around before they destroy any chance they have of attracting (and keeping) new players. Just my $.02

[El Dandy]

I don't think anything has changed? Animals will not react to the sound of gunfire from 250 meters away or farther. However, they may react to the sound of the bullet hitting the ground close to them. If one animal in a herd is injured, the entire herd will flee.

[Cliffs]

Complaining about a hunting game and the long wait for animals...try hunting in real life. I have hunted for decades and not every season is a good one and we are allowed only ONE deer, bear, etc a year not an hour....LOL

[deadgerbil]

Originally posted by White Prime:

Basically, players with 600+ hours game time keep asking for things to be made harder.

The type of selfish men who care nothing for newer players, or for players who haven't got the time to play 24/7.

I wish this game would have different modes of difficulty. Although I'm gradually accumulating hours myself, I'd love to play a mode where animals, by example, appear on the map within the render distance.

Flinter made a video playing Cabela's Big Game Hunter 2004 Season and, in that game, animals were represented by glowing dots on the screen when they were behind environmental stuff. I'd rejoice if this were implemented and it'd help open the game up to new players too. The tryhards can have their own game mode, as not everyone is interested in crawling around in thickets for hours or following bugged tracks and blood trails.

[_phantasm_]

Originally posted by Cliffs:

Complaining about a hunting game and the long wait for animals...try hunting in real life. I have hunted for decades and not every season is a good one and we are allowed only ONE deer, bear, etc a year not an hour....LOL

I agree with ya man lol! But the point of the game is not to have to spend SO much time and resources. Hunting in real life can be a pain, I've done a lot of it too. And I don't mind the harsh animal controls in cotw, but when I have to grind for nearly a month just to get a moose caller....

[Throttle Kitty]

I like this games current balance of difficulty. You can not balance things for the highest difficulty. You literally can't. Those sorts of players will just break the new difficulty changes no matter how hard it's made. It's like making a cake sweet enough for a child. There is no sweet enough.

Look at games like Project Zomboid or XCOM 2, that managed to over do it listening to the "make it harder" crowd, busting the difficulty of their game up so you either A) Suck all the butts or B) Follow a guide online and insta-win without trying or C) do A long enough to figure B vias smashing your face in a wall

Then look at games like Skyrim that tried so hard to win everyone over by simplifying the game, but resulted in difficulty so muted you can win every single encounter on the game on the highest difficulty setting blindfolded and playing with your feet. That's certainly not better!

I love all three of those games, don't get me wrong. But the balance of something like XCOM Enemy Unknown or Dark Souls is just perfect. Well, Dark Souls was harder, but most people these days expect a lot of it's roughness making it a lot tamer to new players these days.

"Challenging, but not punishing"
"Welcoming, but not a door mat"

--
A nice option (an option, mind you) for really top players would be a special mode you could activate to make need zones shift every single day, and never show to the player. one can put personal limits on themselves to make the game tougher in a lot of ways, but knowing EXACTLY when and where animals show up by memory is something you can't do anything about.

EDIT: I can set up a stand near a lake in Layton Lake, not move from said stand, and get like a dozen kills in one in game day. I suggest starting on that map and just learn patience.

I know "be patient" is about as helpful as "git gud", but all the same it's meant more as encouragement then a put down. It's not broke, you aren't bad, the game just expects something you haven't given it yet.

[Katatonik]

If there is multiplayer mode, there will be only 1 difficulty mode.

It would be weird when people who play in hard difficulty join easy server/map.

[Throttle Kitty]

Originally posted by OddOneOut:

If there is multiplayer mode, there will be only 1 difficulty mode.

It would be weird when people who play in hard difficulty join easy server/map.

Works fine in plenty of games though... ? The multiplayer game is just marked as different. It's not even very tricky if it's something like my suggestion above, exclusive to that players world.

If a player turns on the "random spawns" mode, it would just mention that when you go to pick a multiplayer game! If you like playing with that, just look for games with that indicator. Avoid it if you don't like it.

Games like 7 Days to Die and Minecraft handle this fine even with TONS of options for the difficulty. Though, these are more server based. If it was more limited to just a few, or one option, it could work fine with how this games multiplayer works.