So I decided to turn tracks off.

[MetalMind85]

After 750+ hours in game I thought how the gameplay feels without tracks glowing everywhere around. I'm impressed. The immersion is great. The graphics feels better as I don't see that colorfull tracks everywhere. Yes, I sometimes lose an animal but the gameplay is more realistic now. Now I can't go back to play with tracks on. Cheers for everyone who is playing like that. I really recommend to try it for those who didn't :)

[Hanuman]

This sounds like a really cool idea I haven't even considered. I'm only at 180 hours or so, so I am still learning and not quite ready probably but its a cool idea. I am still at tracking stage where I have torch red blaring tracks to follow.

[Machin Shin]

I would also prefer to play without, but searching a minor woundet Animal must be a pain ?
Do you only make close range Shoots now ?
I guess a Dog would be awesome for this Option.

[Agima]

Originally posted by Aegis:

I would also prefer to play without, but searching a minor woundet Animal must be a pain ?
Do you only make close range Shoots now ?
I guess a Dog would be awesome for this Option.

There are many other tracks settings that you can enable or not to adjust your transition to an all disabled tracking aid.

For instance, you could keep the glowing outlined footsteps but disable the glowing arrows things that hovers over them from the distance.

Also with this, you can set those animal tracks aids to a green color (for maps with vegetation) so it would be harder to spot, but still there to help you.

[SouthernMan1972]

I've been playing this way for a while now, and I highly recommend it as well. I turned all of it off, including the outllnes and hud. It does cause some frustrations, but I think it's worth it for the immersion factor.

It definitely has made me choose my shots better. Tracking a bad shot with small blood spots can take some time. But at the same time, I enjoy the challenge, and the satisfaction of finding it. Many times you can watch for the path they leave in the grass, and the shape of the blood spots also kind of point the way. You could also leave on the downed animal highlight option in the menu to make it a little easier if you wanted.

I wouldn't mind the glowing tracks so much if you couldn't see them from so far away. I think it would be great if they only glowed when you were right next to them, and the glowing was the trigger to click on it instead of the prompt in the middle of the screen. So many times I crawl to a perfect spot in a bush or under a tree only to have "Examine Tracks" in the middle of my shot.

[Machin Shin]

i guess i would like when the DEVs would apply an extra mode for this, Hardcore Mode, where you get extra achievemtns or Trophy Ratings, would be an inducement for me to play like that.

[Fornix]

I play like this occasionaly. It adds a certain difficulty for sure. I do feel though that for this to truly work well the drop rate of blood ought to be changed. Animals don't drop puddles of blood 20 - 40 meters apart IRL. More frequent, but less apparent, blood droplets would be beneficial here.

[N1ck0]

Originally posted by Agima:

Originally posted by Aegis:

I would also prefer to play without, but searching a minor woundet Animal must be a pain ?
Do you only make close range Shoots now ?
I guess a Dog would be awesome for this Option.

There are many other tracks settings that you can enable or not to adjust your transition to an all disabled tracking aid.

For instance, you could keep the glowing outlined footsteps but disable the glowing arrows things that hovers over them from the distance.

Also with this, you can set those animal tracks aids to a green color (for maps with vegetation) so it would be harder to spot, but still there to help you.

That's about what I'm doing also. Turn OFF tracks to grey, and ON tracks to spring green. It's still not completely realistic, but it's a good compromise between immersion and time consumption. The game is already time-consuming enough as it is, it's not really reasonable to turn the glowing off completely, as it would turn a game into almost a full-time job, without pay.

But TC, if you're cool with this, you do you. No doubt it is way more realistic this way. Same with the visual sound cues. But with the Grizzly Calls audio cues currently broken, you can't really turn the visual cues OFF. At least not in Yukon.

[MetalMind85]

Yes guys, playing without tracks can be tought sometimes. But as SouthernMan1972 noticed, that play style makes you choose your shoots better. Not everyone will playing without tracks and that is normal thing. For me, I decided to never turn them back. Kills too much immersion for me. First thing when I did when I installed the game was turning off the outlines. Couldn't stand it. I also don't use flashing on downed animals. Looks terrible when I hit roe deer from 15 meters with bow on heart shoot and it starts to flash before me ;)

What is interesting I usually find the prey I hunt using the proper ammo. Today I was hunting in Savanna and during that time I harvested about 18 animals of different species and loosing only one. So it is not that bad when playing without tracks. I use everything, from rifles to bows. Shoot placement is always crucial, with tracks on or off.

And hunting at night is really impressive now. The tracks was horrible at night shining everywhere around, especially with dense animal areas. Now night hunting is incredibly immersive.

On the other hand it will be difficult to complete new tracking missions when new reserve will be out. But no way, I won't turn the tracks on again :D

[N1ck0]

It's not as much about difficulty, as it is about time consumption. Would make tracking of any sort way too long. Except kills with vital organ shots. I always try to AIM for vitals the best I can anyway, but for simple tracking, before you get to shot the animal, would take way too long.

Would also make it a pain for multiple kills on herds. It's already confusing enough as it is when there's a bunch of tracks intersecting each others, and the colouring system is what helps distinct between each tracks.

Not mentioning the tracks are barely visible without highlights. The texturing would need to be improved. Like some tracks having deeper depth in the soil for example. I take the visual helps as "hunter sense" myself. There's things you can't recreate in a video game, that can be "sensed" in real life that gives you the intuitions and sensations that could help you track an animal better.

Just the sense of smell for example. Blood smells. Also the vegetation noises. You can hear a branch crack from very far in the wood if you're really silent and paying attention, helping it giving away the position of an animal from afar without even needing to constantly check the tracks. Something that isn't recreated in this game.

Pretty hard to recreate realistic audio. As for immersive night hunting, I don't see how you can get immersed by flashing a bright white light at animals without them ever reacting. This kills immersion way more for me than the tracks highlights.

That game needs a red light badly. But I'll probably buy the night vision pack DLC next time it's on sale to make up for the lack of it. I always avoid night hunting, unless it's mission-related, because of this.

I would love to not have to use the tracks highlights realistically without it consuming way more time, but I just find it unreasonable in my opinion. But again, if you're happy that way, all the better.

[MetalMind85]

Well, I meant outlines on animals that already died. Sorry, English is not my native language ;)

[Bowfin]

I have also turned everything off a while ago and could never go back now. The hunt becomes the thing and tracking an animal and finding it with no aids enabled is very rewarding but it's not for everyone.
One of the bouns I found was I spot more animals now cause I'm not looking at the glowing tracks and more attention to what's around me.

[McSqurl Nugget]

i do a variation of this. I have the active tracks bright and shiny to stand out so i can find them again if they get bugged and vanish or have the huge gap between. Inactive tracks i set for a color that blends well with whatever map i'm on so they're not noticeable, like white on Medved.

Compromise until they fix the tracking bugs :)

[JupoCorsair]

Originally posted by SouthernMan1972:

I've been playing this way for a while now, and I highly recommend it as well. I turned all of it off, including the outllnes and hud. It does cause some frustrations, but I think it's worth it for the immersion factor.

It definitely has made me choose my shots better. Tracking a bad shot with small blood spots can take some time. But at the same time, I enjoy the challenge, and the satisfaction of finding it. Many times you can watch for the path they leave in the grass, and the shape of the blood spots also kind of point the way. You could also leave on the downed animal highlight option in the menu to make it a little easier if you wanted.

I wouldn't mind the glowing tracks so much if you couldn't see them from so far away. I think it would be great if they only glowed when you were right next to them, and the glowing was the trigger to click on it instead of the prompt in the middle of the screen. So many times I crawl to a perfect spot in a bush or under a tree only to have "Examine Tracks" in the middle of my shot.

I also use this style of game settings. First thing I was interested in after installing CoTW was to experience the game without all the HUD interface. After trying it, I started loving to play this way. I find this fully highlighted gameplay irritating now. I started calling it disco setting.

Some of the tracking tools, especially spotting outline, are more like a cheat thanks to which players can shoot animals which they shouldn't see to encourage player in getting easy and fast money to be able to buy overpriced things on store.

And that's a pity because I think that this game, with tracking tools turned off, is the most realistic and fun hunting simulator I ever played. I only use basic track effect without glows from time to time when I make a mistake shot and the animal gets too far away, then I turn it back off again.

I'm really glad that there are more players using such settings.

Here are few of my videos from 2 years ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVK79VBgu2E&list=PL_Ks5Vhh5h_UvONbZsIeUnPdMrz8WMI3u&index=18

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHGrqGRbScU&list=PL_Ks5Vhh5h_UvONbZsIeUnPdMrz8WMI3u&index=19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUrumSQTwcw&list=PL_Ks5Vhh5h_UvONbZsIeUnPdMrz8WMI3u&index=20

[N1ck0]

Originally posted by AspectofSouls:

And that's a pity because I think that this game, with tracking tools turned off, is the most realistic and fun hunting simulator I ever played. I only use basic track effect without glows from time to time when I make a mistake shot and the animal gets too far away, then I turn it back off again.

Why is it a pity? Because some people don't think the trade-off with realism and time needed to invest into the game is worth it? No offence, but some people have a life. It's already time consuming enough to track animals, sneak on them, have a good shot at them, you can literally spend your entire day hunting and not see the time fly.

If everyone were FORCED (because that's what you seem to imply here with the cheat and pity thing) to play without any aids, that would be absolutely unreasonable for most of us. I don't want to spend my entire day looking at the ground at barely visible tracks' textures and foliage irregularities to analyse animals' tracks. Like seriously.

If you want to do so yourself, the game let's you do it, so I don't understand where the pity thing comes from. And why not call the skills and perks cheats too? Because it's not realistic and gives an edge on some aspects when used. Right? And you're free to not use them if you don't want to here too.

I mean. Yeah sure, the floating outlines are too much, and there's a way to turn them off. I do. As for the disco thing, I use Medium Spring Green and Grey for the colours to match as much as possible with nature. It's not perfect, but hey, it's far from disco.

As another guy pointed out though, a thing you can't change, and should be able to, and is more akin to cheating is the outlines being visible when behind objects like rocks, tree trunks, or elevated terrains.

Not that big of a deal, but that could use some tweaking. But again, all the options for you to turn off every aid are available, so why is it a pity? Because of multiplayer?

Isn't there an option when creating a server to have aids and HUD off? If not, just try to request it. And I would see where your pity and cheat thing comes from. Because of wanting to be on the same competitive level on a multiplayer session.

Otherwise, you do you, and let others play as they like, k? Thanks.

[Machin Shin]

i woult like a own "hardcore" or "realism" mode slot where everything is turned off and you can not change settings