do non harvested creatures despawn?

[DingDongDanger]

So, I downed a red deer, forgot to gather him... Will the corpse despawn at least? I don't want a non harvested dead body just chilling on my map since my ocd will make me go find him :P

[Striker]

Yes. Dead but unharvested bodies will vanish in time. Sometimes all you have to do is leave the region and they will def disappear when you leave the game. Unharvested dead animals on your map will be replaced with another of the same species and gender (the level of the animal is randomized so don't expect that replacement to be another diamond spawning to replace the one one you couldn't find after muffing the shot).

[AfterCrow]

It takes a long time for them to despawn and I've found animals i forgot about from earlier sessions.
I don't think the respawn system has been fully understood by the public (at least not the current version of it). There is a lot of speculation about what happens to unharvested versus harvested animals.
In my experience the only downsides of leaving it is the damage to your consecutive bonus and the fact that the animal won't respawn until it either dissappeared or harvested.

[Soltyk]

Originally posted by AfterCrow:

It takes a long time for them to despawn and I've found animals i forgot about from earlier sessions.

I'm quite sure, you only imagined that.

Originally posted by AfterCrow:

In my experience the only downsides of leaving it is the damage to your consecutive bonus and the fact that the animal won't respawn until it either dissappeared or harvested.

This is also not true. Re-spawn is triggered as soon as it dies.

[AfterCrow]

Originally posted by Soltyk:

This is also not true. Re-spawn is triggered as soon as it dies.

If this is true then I retract my statement.
It just appears to me that EW have been very clandestine about how the respawn system works to prevent abuse.
You probably know more than me on the matter. If you have some documentation on this then please let me in on that. Thanks.

Originally posted by Soltyk:

I'm quite sure, you only imagined that.

Let's be civil about this and I'll explain. Long story short, I had a level 5 Fallow that I marked on the map to get up my consecutive. I opted not to go back to harvest it because I knew I had ruined the quick kill anyway (had to track it about 200m).
I swear to god, several real life days later I had to pick up the Fallow buck because the hunting pressure on the need zone didn't disappear. And it was right where I had marked it.

Now, I should probably add that I'm playing on xbox, and there might be a problem with the game refreshing itself and deleting unnecessary data over time. Perhaps it works slightly differently on PC? I don't know but this is my experience.

[Soltyk]

With the tool-that-shall-not-be-named it is possible to monitor how re-spawns occur. And what you described literally cannot happen. That is, on the PC.

But since you play on XBox: It is possible that things are implemented very differently there. Maybe there are no real sessions, but the game just saves its entire state on HD.
De-spawning of dead animals will likely still occur, but it could actually take a lot longer.

Unfortunately, I cannot provide any links for you as most of the discussions have been removed by the powers that be before they even started.

[AfterCrow]

Originally posted by Soltyk:

But since you play on XBox: It is possible that things are implemented very differently there. Maybe there are no real sessions, but the game just saves its entire state on HD.
De-spawning of dead animals will likely still occur, but it could actually take a lot longer.

Yeah the problem is that the Xbox never really shuts down unless you pull the power cord. Furthermore, when you don't play another game, even the game doesn't restart.
Even if you intentionally restart the game there are some lingering issues that cause bugs and framerate drops. I'm trying to get the devs to realize it doesn't work like on the PC.

Originally posted by Soltyk:

Unfortunately, I cannot provide any links for you as most of the discussions have been removed by the powers that be before they even started.

I understand.

[DingDongDanger]

Ah okay awesome. I was really disappointed since a potential diamond red deer was spooked next to the one I had killed and I booked it after him which is why I didn't harvest him. Since I had slept in game as well it deleted his tracks/bloodtrail. Also that diamond just walked off the map, I followed it to t he edge and it force respawned me since I left the reserve xD

[lagosuchus]

Wow, interesting info. I thought that animals didn't count as dead if you didn't harvest them. I thought that because I killed an elk once but I had to leave the game before harvesting it and when I opened the game again the hunting pressure of killing him had gone.

[wubbelflup]

Dead Animals despawn after you exit the game. They're not meant to despawn after you leave a region. But there are some spawning bugs.

They often also despawn if you change the time. I assume this is a bug too.

You won't find animals you killed in a earlier session. Unless you kept the game running.

[Aussie Lazer 420]

I am stuck at night and i cant rest cos i have 28 dollars cos i spent it all on .308 for my zarza

[Geronimo]

Cotw tries to maintain your immersion. So any animal that does in that gaming session will remain until harvested.

Traveling to various locations does nothing to end your immersion on that day, just as in real life, that corpse, will still be there.

What does change this is time travel or restarting the session, which always begins a completely new global spawn where any previously unharvested animals are harvested by the AI.

And as Woody noted, the respawning, being random, may not replace your lost opportunity, IF it actually died. Some players will do a restart if they mess up a shot at a trophy so it doesn't get harvested by the AI, or lead them on a wild goose chase.

However, what most don't realize is that the AI does NOT recognize/remember specific individual animals. It only considers the level, species and gender. So, even though a restart might respawn an animal with similar characteristics, it will not be that same exact individual.

This has been confirmed upon restarts where a wounded animal will respawn completely undamaged.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Aussie Lazer 420:

I am stuck at night and i cant rest cos i have 28 dollars cos i spent it all on .308 for my zarza

Cost of time travel does decrease over time. But you can easily acquire 28 dollars without any effort even in the dark.

Adjust your brightness settings if necessary.

Aamof, night hunting often affords some of the best trophies.

[ILIKELINGPRO]

My friend found an albino mule deer but his game chrashed when we were playing together (multiplayer) did the mule deer by chance despawn???

[Carstein83]

Originally posted by ILIKELINGPRO:

My friend found an albino mule deer but his game chrashed when we were playing together (multiplayer) did the mule deer by chance despawn???

If he shot the animal and it died, before the session crashed, it is gone.