Enemies non-stop chasing you

[Juwebles (72nd)]

I encountered some grey dwarf in the very early game and they ended up chasing me, across the entire map. I remember in precious updates them only chasing you a certain distance from where they were originally from. Is there a possibility these were special in some way or do enemies not give up the chase after a certain distance anymore.

[Honorable_D]

You need to put enough distance between enemies or they'll never stop. That or break line of sight long enough by hiding/sneaking.

If enemies stopped chasing you after a certain distance you'd never be able to lure a 1 or 2 star boar all the way back to your base.

[Sokaku]

Losing enemies requires stamina, separation, breaking line of sight, and staying out of sight.

The sneak indicator is a good tool to tell if something has spotted you or merely searching for you. When an enemy spots you the indicator is an eye. By this point you should see or at least hear something heading your way. If you're low on stamina your best bet is to circle/dodge the enemy until your stamina recovers rather than trying to flee too early. If you have the Sprint/jump Stamina power this is very useful for breaking contact, but again, wait until you have most of your stamina available.

Next would be to sprint somewhere using terrain to break line of sight with whatever is going to be chasing you. Ideally this is in a direction you have already explored to avoid running into more trouble. If there is a big rock or trees or a dip in the terrain, use these to break sight, ideally look for opportunities to change direction. At some point the enemy will lose sight of you, this can be quickly checked with a quick sneak, if the indicator switches to a squinty eye, enemies are aware/investigating but not actively spotting you. Enemies that are investigating will generally continue to where they last saw/heard you while on the lookout for you. So you don't want to stay still as soon as the indicator goes to squinting, you want to shift directions and head to somewhere else in cover, ideally moving by sneaking and sticking to shaded areas like woods. (indicated by the white bar under the sneak indicator. Hard cover that breaks line of sight with where enemies are is the best if you can get somewhere after breaking line of sight and before they can restore it. This could be literally putting a large rock between you and them watching them from 3rd person. As long as the indicator doesn't go to a full eye, they haven't spotted you again so they will typically stay in the area where they last saw you for a while before returning.

Higher sneak skill will reduce the detection range they can restore spotting you if you are sneaking within their line of sight.

Graydwarves are pretty easy to evade because they don't move all that fast though they do tend to see you some distance off. Trolls can be a bit trickier because they move quite fast, and their height makes breaking line of sight a bit tougher. That said, both can be given the slip with a reasonable stamina cost by using terrain, especially trees, keeping to shaded areas, and developing the sneak skill. They're not going to give up if you just run in a straight line across a field expecting to watch them turn around after a certain distance.

[Jaasrg]

If you have the stamina to engage in that whole run-away-hide-and-seek, you have 10x the stamina to just kill them.

[bzz]

Originally posted by Jaasrg:

If you have the stamina to engage in that whole run-away-hide-and-seek, you have 10x the stamina to just kill them.

That's not the point of the post. If you read the post he was wondering if it's a bug

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by bzz:

Originally posted by Jaasrg:

If you have the stamina to engage in that whole run-away-hide-and-seek, you have 10x the stamina to just kill them.

That's not the point of the post. If you read the post he was wondering if it's a bug

It might not be what he asked for specifically, but it's advice he needed.

[Jaasrg]

Originally posted by bzz:

Originally posted by Jaasrg:

If you have the stamina to engage in that whole run-away-hide-and-seek, you have 10x the stamina to just kill them.

That's not the point of the post. If you read the post he was wondering if it's a bug

Meant that more as a comment to Sokaku.

[Sokaku]

If you don't have stamina regen and in no condition to fight you're pretty much dead. My point is that if you've made the decision to run, spending a few extra seconds circling/evading to build up stamina is generally better than trying to run without enough stamina to break LoS.

Avoiding enemies/hits is fairly easy, even against multiple enemies. Engaging in combat against multiple serious threats is less so. A mistimed attack instead of a block/dodge, or a missed parry if you're relying on a buckler can get you staggered and/or ended quickly. Dodging, circling, moving to avoid strikes is pretty straight forward and provided you're not under serious de-buffs (wet and at night) then getting enough stamina to get away doesn't take very long.