How long do need zone prints last?

[canadianx]

Good day all-knowing discussion group members!

I am trying to find night time animal drink zones on a map. When walking around looking for old need zones, how long before the need zone/animal prints disappear? Is it 2hrs, 4 hrs after zone time ends?

For instance. If I want to find the brown bear drink zones (20:00 to 0:00 hrs) around some lakes, what is the latest I can still find the evidence of a bear drink zone?

I am currently hunting Revontuli and there are 3 animals that drink at night. So I want to minimize the walking/searching and maximize the hunting :)

Thanks in advance for your sharing of knowledge!

[Woodyplank]

Good question. Only 2 things can make a need zone move from the location you discover it in. That would be you or the devs. You can do it with hunting pressure and the devs can do it whenever they stick an update into the game.

Tracks can go from "Just Now" to "Old" in about 20 game min. Same with Poo Piles. Tracks disappear long before piles of poo but its seems that tracks vanish within 3-4 hrs. It's highly doubtful you will find a track, left at 11 p.m, still there for you to find during daylight hrs.

All animals (except for Springbok) must drink at least once during every 24 hr game period. I left Springbok out because the devs did away with drink zones for Springbok some time ago. As far as I know they haven't done away with drink zones for other species. I recently started hunting the Rev reserve and, like I have done with all reserves in the past, I stuck a few tents near a few lakes and hopped around during the time frames each species reportedly ate, drank or rested until I actually saw or heard the animals. That's enough to tell me that I've found the stadium and it's time to locate an observation point and/or shooting position to use on another day or night.

Multiple species and (and frequently do) use the same need zone. Need Zones may actually be up to about 200 meters in size. Those glowing weeds or circles full of tracks only identify which species most recently ate, drank or rested in that particular area within the need zone. A weed could read "Moose" and 20 min later read "Brown Bear" or you may even find 2 glowing weeds 5 meters apart and one will read Whitetail and the other will say Moose. They only tell you what species was there most recently. Need zones cannot be "Taken Over" by another species. I've had as many as 4 species using the same drinking zone at the same time. A need zone is exactly that, a zone. The glowing things are just a seat within the zone. Hope this helps

[Geronimo]

One clarification Woody, a disturbed vegetation sign, whether chewed grass, or trampled ground, is actually always associated with only the one particular individual animal that made it, no different than any of the footprints it leaves behind.

Yes, when you find them, they will always be in a Need Zone, and because of that, when you click on them, you will get information displayed telling how many of that particular species has also used that NZ.

However, if you follow that veggy sign after tagging it with a specific tracking color, you will see that it actually leads to the tracks of one individual animal. Likewise, if you're tracking an individual animal, you can follow that colored track to the same colored veggy signs in NZs.

This is one of the reasons I always advise people not to be what I call 'click-happy' when trying to identify a track. I like to open/unlock zones with females, which I don't kill, avoiding the risk of deleting a zone that you unlocked with a male you than kill before that zone is used by any others.

So clicking on tracks to ID them is a bad habit that many players develop early in their leveling. You should learn to ID tracks by visually inspecting them, so it's not necessary to click on them. When you want to ID what animal made a veggy sign, just look for their same-colored footprint somewhere nearby.

There are probably many players that have developed this click-happy habit, clicking on everything they encounter, and have maps with zones that were deleted, because they inadvertently killed the only animal connected to that zone. Another consequence of this bad habit is that you can unlock waaaayy too many rabbit zones, which will bring undesired species into that area.

Initial point being, lol, that these zones are used by multiple species, and can be used by multiple individuals of a certain species, but each track is individually placed by one particular animal, and can be followed and will eventually cross over its older tracks. So that suggests that once you tag the track of an individual it triggers the game engine AI to engage with that individual track in a more timely fashion than it might with other tracks of the same species.

This is why when following a herd, you will see many individuals' tracks, but if you move away from them and time passes, you might return and only find a couple of tracks. But that one that you had been trailing will still be there. As long as you don't time-travel, the animal you were tracking will remain on the map.

Now there is obviously some game mechanics involved in how the AI designates the priority of one animal, but anyone that's done any amount of individual tracking will attest to this.

[Woodyplank]

Very good points Geronimo. Disturbed Vegetation can come in handy so snap it up when it becomes available on the tracking tree. It will also tell U the fur type of the animal that disturbed it. Not how long ago of course. The devs tend to make things less than easy for us in this game. Probably why all the "hot spots" identified by the U Tube Video gurus are only good until the next one or two updates are released. yuk yuk.

[canadianx]

Thank you Geronimo and Woodyplank for your inputs an details!

My main interest here was about finding NEW need zones based on the footprints left behind at need zones. I was able to determine that the tracks at the need zones disappear in about 5-6 hrs. So if you want to find some bear drink zones (20:00 to 0:00) be sure to search UP TO 5 hours after the zone time ends. After that you wont see the footprints anymore.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Woodyplank:

Very good points Geronimo. Disturbed Vegetation can come in handy so snap it up when it becomes available on the tracking tree. It will also tell U the fur type of the animal that disturbed it. Not how long ago of course. The devs tend to make things less than easy for us in this game. Probably why all the "hot spots" identified by the U Tube Video gurus are only good until the next one or two updates are released. yuk yuk.

Lol woody, don't even go there.

I often wondered if the Devs were able to use their God Server Master Maps to actually follow me while I played, causing things to happen just to confuse me haha.

But really, think about it, if you were a Dev that wanted your game to maintain its secrets and challenges, wouldn't you take advantage of being able to make changes that accommodated those goals?

I would!

[Soltyk]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

[...]
I often wondered if the Devs were able to use their God Server Master Maps to actually follow me while I played, causing things to happen just to confuse me haha.

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Soltyk:

Originally posted by Geronimo:

[...]
I often wondered if the Devs were able to use their God Server Master Maps to actually follow me while I played, causing things to happen just to confuse me haha.

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

I know the usual acronym is LOL, but when you see haha, it's the same thing, haha.

Next troll???

[Madwand]

Originally posted by Geronimo:

There are probably many players that have developed this click-happy habit, clicking on everything they encounter, and have maps with zones that were deleted, because they inadvertently killed the only animal connected to that zone. Another consequence of this bad habit is that you can unlock waaaayy too many rabbit zones, which will bring undesired species into that area.

I don't understand this.

[McMurgh]

Originally posted by canadianx:

Thank you Geronimo and Woodyplank for your inputs an details!

My main interest here was about finding NEW need zones based on the footprints left behind at need zones. I was able to determine that the tracks at the need zones disappear in about 5-6 hrs. So if you want to find some bear drink zones (20:00 to 0:00) be sure to search UP TO 5 hours after the zone time ends. After that you wont see the footprints anymore.

There's that, I think you're right about ca. 5 game hours, but a later species drinking in practically the same spot I have a feeling can spoil evidence of a previous drinking zone.

[Hendershot]

Originally posted by Soltyk:

Originally posted by Geronimo:

[...]
I often wondered if the Devs were able to use their God Server Master Maps to actually follow me while I played, causing things to happen just to confuse me haha.

“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”

This is true. Yesterday I missed a shot because a Dev moved the deer one meter to the left :/

[Carstein83]

Originally posted by Madwand:

Originally posted by Geronimo:

There are probably many players that have developed this click-happy habit, clicking on everything they encounter, and have maps with zones that were deleted, because they inadvertently killed the only animal connected to that zone. Another consequence of this bad habit is that you can unlock waaaayy too many rabbit zones, which will bring undesired species into that area.

I don't understand this.

It´s a wrong theory, that´s why.
Animals are where they are. They aren´t brought somewhere, just because you unlock a zone.