How to Hunt?

[♥♥♥ Lao Revered Gooner]

What is the expected method to hunt animals that immediately flee such as foxes, deer, and saiga? I'm playing with an archer build for my first time and all my points have been invested into Perception and Ranged Weapons/Survival. With animals that immediately flee it feels they can always see me first and they immediately run. Is this expected at this stage and something like stealth will need to be implemented before hunting these animals is possible? I found an article that says to use "Shout" to attract them, but if I do that they immediately run away. Am I missing something here or is this expected right now? Thank you

[Arduu]

i think u need to hunt in night so when they sleep u can coom closer to them but i am not sure

[Sir Gura]

It's rather difficult to hunt those animals right now because the stealth mechanic isn't implemented yet.
You'll probably have to cheese the AI and have a lot of vision and range.

[Janus]

For Saigas i tend to randomly walk into a map next to a herd of them, but besides dash and throwing nets i wouldnt know any good methods. i just stick to wolves and luring bears into Osbrook.

[brown29knight]

My best tip, is to hunt them on a map tile with a mountain beside it. Chase the animals to the mountain edge, and they will not be able to flee, letting you hunt them with ranged attacks or melee. You can, with practice, get a half-dozen kills this way per tile.

[Lujo]

I've actually managed to hunt fleeing enemies with the bow. My build only took the range penalty decreasing passive from the bows skill, but all 3 hunting skills from Survival, and had a bunch of perception for the other weapon, along with move silently boots and cape (if that last thing even helps).

You need to get a bit lucky landing your hits (enough perception, attribute boosts from gear and such helps), have better vision/range than them, and getting a bleed in helps. Needs to be the bow for the rate of fire, as you kinda only have the opportunuty for a few shots.

I haven't tried picking up the boulder on a hunter, but I think being able to block choke points in the woods would also help.

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Thing is, the game kinda lacks the sort of animal that was bread and butter for trapping / hunting (stuff like Beavers, which was actually quite present in Europe but hunted to extinction, and then hunted like mad in the Americas, or Badgers) or various game hen like Pheasants, Grouse, Turkey and such (you know, the fat chickeny stuff).

Like, if the devs stuck in some sort of furry rodent or marsupial, completely fantastical, it'd quickly become an icon of the game simply for being the baseline thing to hunt. Can be anything, Beaver, Badger, Wombat, Opossum, hell, an anteater or armadillo or, you know, something that has its way to avoid / intimidate other animals, but not humans.

Rabbits *are* in but they're runners like elk and other antilopey things. Game could use something of that size that's not a runner, or several somethings.

[DacianDraco]

I don't bother with the fleeing animals, normally you get 1 maybe 2, and as your Vision increases you will be able to see them before they can flee, but still you need some mobility skills to catch them. I guess you could set a bunch of Claw Traps in one corner and drive them into them from the other corner but i don't think it's worth the time.

Also Noise reduction gear can help with sneaking up on them if you stay out of their Vision, and i don't think it was with Shouting that you read about hunting but what i do remember is that when you have more Vision than them you can throw something in between you and them and hide and they will be attracted to that thing you threw, but they must not have Vision of you to not get scared and then you come out and chase them. Too much trouble imo.

What i do recommend is Boar Trails and Bear Territory POIs, since for the Bear pelts you will get some 850g and for Boar ones some 330g, this one is same as a Fox pelt. Others are less like Dear gets you 280g, Saiga 240g and Wolf also 240g. The Moose are ok giving 575g and 200g for Antlers and Bison too with 675g and 150g for Horns but their hunting grounds at least for me have not been as common or closer to the towns that it's worth making the trip.

[henry455235]

Use dash skill to catch up.

[MagikarpMagi]

I haven't hunted in awhile, but it used to be that if an animal ran from you it wouldn't leave the map tile unless you chased it all the way to the edge.

So after the initial agro, I would go hide behind a tree opposite of the direction they ran and just start shouting. "HEY HEY HEY HEY HEY."

As long as they weren't too far away, the animals would come to investigate the noise. They won't see you until they come around the tree, and they should be plenty close enough to kill then.

[funkmonster7]

How I miss the good ol' days where you shout and a deer will investigate the sound source, allowing you to backstab them in melee.

Absolutely nonsensical of course, real life wildlife don't do this except for certain predators used to human interactions (uhm, preying on humans). But it was humorous. When I learned of this mechanic several years ago (before it was patched out), I was like "Wad Da Fu..."

Jokes aside, hunting deers aren't worth it right now. You can try hunting them when you have 13 range with 20+ Perception and a high-level bow/crossbow, you can probably bleed them to death with just the first shot, or even one-shot with a crit. But by then you'd be rich beyond your wildest dreams so it really doesn't matter in the end. These days I only hunt wolves and other aggressive predators, wolf pelts sell for a real nice chum.

I really hope devs will implement another way to gain rep i.e. by hunting and selling pelts/animal products, probably in the form of contract work for merchants or something. This at least gives more flavor to the game than just "completing dungeons".

[brown29knight]

I walked by one of those mountains I talked about, specifically the one east of Brynn. Brought down 3 saiga walking by with my spear. It is cheese, but likely the best hunting you will get for non-predator pelts.