Survival and trapping

[LazyColzy]

With such vast areas of play, the game would be great to include an element of survival with the potential of setting traps, not just for large animals, but to catch things like rabbits and include an open fire to allow you to cook your small game when you set-up your tent. It could include a variety of trapping techniques.

[McSqurl Nugget]

i'd hate to see this in the game. want survival? go play Ark or Stranded Deep.

Trapping is a whole different sport with different rules. I'd guess it'd be along the lines of fishing and not a road the dev's want to take.

[PicSoul]

It's been suggested once or a thousand times.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/518790/discussions/search/?q=survival&gidforum=152390648081895305&include_deleted=1

[Throttle Kitty]

As an option you could turn on or off, it'd be really interesting. Or really half developed and broken.. *shrug* if it was non optional, it'd be pretty annoying, I admit. Survival is super tricky to balance. Ever played a survival mod for Skyrim? You either never want for anything because there's 80 lbs of food around every corner... or freeze to death walking across town.

To do it well in this game, it would have to be less "survival" and more "upkeep". Like Outward. If they did a "hunter needs" mode, they should base it on Outward. You need to eat, sleep, drink, stay warm, but mostly just to avoid debuffs. It rarely poses a real threat, unless you charge stark naked into the frozen wilderness and totally ignore the long line of "YOU ARE FREEZING TO DEATH" messages.

I really, really enjoy the feeling of keeping my character well fed and preparing for a journey, without the real serious threat of "whoops you are in a big empty spot in the map and got slightly chilly, guess you're dead now :("

Ark is not a survival game. I know it has "Survival" in the name, but it's formula is much closer to battle royal or an MMO. Even the survival elements are more just like... set dressing. It's like saying Call of Duty is an RPG. I mean.. it uses the mechanics of one, but it doesn't feel like one, if that's what you are wanting to play. Putting a word like survival in the title is to play up survival elements, to draw people in who like that, it's marketing basically. (because that was all relevant, sorry, big survival game fan)

Stranded Deep is a good survival game, but it is more Castaway than Alone. Subnautica is another really good one in the "ocean survival" vein.

The most comparable game to this one, that is survival, is The Long Dark. However, that game has an art style that is really rough on the eyes. (if charming)

[LazyColzy]

The upkeep approach is more of what I was thinking. There are so many full on survival games around, but some sort of option to be able to trap small game and then enjoy it over a campfire was more of what I was thinking. Like you say, there is a real balance in survival games,but an option to capture small game like rabbits.using a trap build from branches laying around would give a new dimension, was all I was thinking..

[LazyColzy]

I have a couple of survival games, and wasn't thinking of turning this in to an all out survival game, but i love the engine they use and the maps do lend to something like this. As for a full on survival game, I think The Forest is possibly the best out there at the moment.

[Tekamthi]

rather than 'survival', it would be nice to have a food hunting element that affected your hunting abilities.. too hungry and you cant run as fast or hold rifle still etc. In this sense, would be nice to have the option to field dress for extra points or something (or send to butcher or taxi if you don't wanna), and thus have your bad shots to stomach or good meat areas of the animal not worth as much.. might even be room for another skill branch for this

similary, having weather affect hunting abilities if you got too wet/cold would add to the outdoors experience of hunting, and maybe open up more clothing options in-game, and purposes for the blinds

trapping would be cool if they had more small animals.

[*.*]

Hmmm....no. Just look at that fiasco of a gameplay in Red Dead Online after yesterday's update and the Naturalist role.

Dumbed down animal AI, animals running everywhere, and requiring head shots to insta-kill.

Granted that hunting is not the game's main focus, and their devs are constantly under pressure to 'add more animals spawns cuz' I can't find any", it's a shame for those beautiful animal models and interactions to go to waste by making them dumb and running around all over the place.

As soon as a game starts heading in several directions of gameplay at once (fishing, survival,etc) , the immersion suffers and the main focus of the game is lost.

I too was starting to get bored with COTW's current gameplay style, until I turned every visual/audio aid off.
No HUD, no outline spotting, no tracks or animal highlight. No cover scent either and let the floating particles in the air tell you the direction of the wind.

No more was I running around shooting at everything, in any area of the body (because hey- no more tracks or direction cones to follow ,if the animal was only slightly injured and managed to disappear in the brush. Good luck finding it then)

I found myself spending more time towards getting the best of whatever animal I encountered, playing the game at a slower pace, and more focused. Maneuvering around to get the best shot placement possible, from as close as possible.
Memorizing the animal's position and location before taking the shot, as to have a place to start if it didn't drop on the spot.

Now I could never go back to playing with all those shiny glowing thingys all over the place. And trophies aren't important anymore, no more grinding for diamonds etc. I just don't care anymore - they are just numbers in the end.

The satisfaction of harvesting even a lousy rabbit or a doe,which I managed to locate through the brush. just by listening or scoping without other extra help, is much greater. Headphones are a must though.

[Humpenstilzchen]

Setting up traps is the most cruel and unethical way to kill animals and should not be added to this game in my opinion.

[*.*]

Originally posted by Humpenstilzchen:

Setting up traps is the most cruel and unethical way to kill animals and should not be added to this game in my opinion.

Exactly. It's linked to survival more than anything. If I need to get a meal in order to stay alive, I d resort to any means possible.
But when you can afford to pay 48 thousand credits for a shotgun in the game, I don't see the purpose.
People will ask for anything that is a gameplay changer because they feel bored and having done everything possible in the game,- so they end up ignoring its main purpose - hunting. Nothing more, nothing less.
The most awkward suggestion I've read was someone asking for PvP on the maps, hunters shooting at each other.
I am thankful that these devs keep their head on their shoulders and don't give in to such ideas.

[McSqurl Nugget]

Originally posted by Kahuamp:

As soon as a game starts heading in several directions of gameplay at once (fishing, survival,etc) , the immersion suffers and the main focus of the game is lost.

Nailed it right there. Dev's said this about fishing in a Q&A thread, survival and trapping probably the same response. I think they're wording was something like "we want to focus on hunting for this hunting game"

[Tekamthi]

Originally posted by McSqurl Nugget:

"we want to focus on hunting for this hunting game"

so far they only have trophy hunting represented, whereas much "hunting" activity irl is for food, and hunting generally requires that something be done with the animal rather than just disappear. Would be one thing to have scores that recognized this aspect, next step would be some kind of food benefit to the player from the animal itself.. when out on an extended hunting trip, you start to count calorie intake/expenditure -- this is a valid component of the "hunting" experience. Doing the whole campfire bbq thing as alluded to in this thread would add some immersion maybe, though i dont want to starve to death or be forced into any tedious resource farming.. any food requirement should have the option to just pay currency for in-game, to make it optional

imo this could be a little surreal/hollywood, like a temp night vision bonus if you eat a nocturnal animal etc, w/ strength of effect depending on if its gold/diamond etc. could be subtle to suit the game's semi-realism.

Originally posted by Kahuamp:

No HUD, no outline spotting, no tracks or animal highlight. No cover scent either and let the floating particles in the air tell you the direction of the wind.

No more was I running around shooting at everything, in any area of the body (because hey- no more tracks or direction cones to follow ,if the animal was only slightly injured and managed to disappear in the brush. Good luck finding it then)

i'd be into this if there was an increased reward for playing this way.. maybe even just steam achievements or something.. otherwise part of the fun in cotw is getting money and buying more hunting toys.. turning off the assists limits these too much for my tastes

[Epx.]

Open Country Release

A few years ago I answered the game's feedback survey and among my suggestions was the development of a DLC with outdoors, survival, trade and several other mechanics to increase the immersion of the game even more, because in my opinion it would be even more amazing and with immense replayability as an outdoors man - And no, I'm not talking about turning TH into any of these jump party PVP, before anyone thinks I'm suggesting playing battle royale among the bears. I suggested it as a separate DLC because obviously not all players would be interested in it, so the DLC would only be for anyone who wants to buy it. I even cited Meat Eater TV Series as inspiration for my suggestion and now another developer studio released the mechanics that I had suggested, a proposal with great potential but unfortunately they did a very bad implementation. My daydream: theHunter would have everything to do it right and bring something really amazing to this niche.

[RsultsMayVary]

Great suggestion. I would purchase an entirely new game, on this game engine and mechanics, if they were to implement an idea like this. Guessing it would take a great deal of work, considering the problems they've had with adding the Bloodhound DLC. Starting from scratch with the same engine would probably be necessary, or simpler to a degree.