Are we seriously supposed to let the bear maul us 6 times?


Larkid

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Without wanting to spoil too much - the behavior we're told to expect from shooting the bear doesn't happen.   Short of exploiting flaws in the game's pathing system to avoid the bear charging us, is there a way to actually scare him off as Jeremiah describes?   If I shoot him at a distance he charges and mauls me.  If I let him charge me and shoot him in the face at the last moment ("with my heart"), he mauls me.

Is this portion of the game really intended to be an exercise in practicing repairing clothing and bandaging wounds?

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You have to shoot him when he's quite far away and he will often turn around and run. He got me once on my run and the 2nd time I could safe my sorry behind by jumping down a cliff. But other than in the Challenge this quest is based on, apparently he will always try to charge you so you need to shoot him everytime early. In the Challenge he runs away from you at 2-3 points when he sees you which he didn't do once in Story.

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21 minutes ago, ChillPlayer said:

You have to shoot him when he's quite far away and he will often turn around and run. He got me once on my run and the 2nd time I could safe my sorry behind by jumping down a cliff. But other than in the Challenge this quest is based on, apparently he will always try to charge you so you need to shoot him everytime early. In the Challenge he runs away from you at 2-3 points when he sees you which he didn't do once in Story.

I was quite surprised by the range of the rifle during this quest.  It felt much longer than in the sandbox.  2x? 3x?  Really long...

I also brought a distress pistol with me and tried fearing him first with a flare round, then shooting with the rifle as he ran past.  While this worked for me once, it wasn't great since ML has so many trees and rocks for the bear to run behind.  I think because the rifle range is so long, it may be possible to take a max range rifle shot, then swap to the distress pistol to fear him.

My best luck was to drop onto a shelf he couldn't climb to.  Often he was really far away so I led him into range by tossing rocks.  Toss rock, he comes to investigate.

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It is kind of weird though how if you take jeremiah's advice on how to kill the bear, (he describes waiting till the last moment to shoot), you just get mauled 6 times though till one of you die first.

So yes, you can avoid getting mauled, but the game itself doesnt seem to want you to do that.

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1 hour ago, Ruruwawa said:

My best luck was to drop onto a shelf he couldn't climb to.  Often he was really far away so I led him into range by tossing rocks.  Toss rock, he comes to investigate.

Yes, this is the exploit I was referring to where it's possible to find places in the terrain which the AI can't calculate a path to (ledges you need to drop onto, or walking up onto fallen logs).   I was hoping there was a way to do this quest "correctly" that didn't involve metagaming the engine.

I will give the distress pistol a try.

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23 minutes ago, Larkid said:

Yes, this is the exploit I was referring to where it's possible to find places in the terrain which the AI can't calculate a path to (ledges you need to drop onto, or walking up onto fallen logs).   I was hoping there was a way to do this quest "correctly" that didn't involve metagaming the engine.

Interesting perspective.  If I were in this situation in real life I would absolutely try to find a spot where I could shoot the bear but he could not reach me.   It honestly never occurred to me that the game didn't intend for us to climb down rocks or shoot from unreachable spots.  In fact, spots like hunter's blinds and the porch of the PV farmhouse seem specifically designed to allow this.

I do agree that the bear in this particular quest seems over the top.  The agro range was incredible.  Even so it was hard to get a shot off when he charges for such long distances.  I think it would benefit from being toned down to The Hunted levels.

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1 minute ago, Ruruwawa said:

Interesting perspective.  If I were in this situation in real life I would absolutely try to find a spot where I could shoot the bear but he could not reach me.   It honestly never occurred to me that the game didn't intend for us to climb down rocks or shoot from unreachable spots.  In fact, spots like hunter's blinds and the porch of the PV farmhouse seem specifically designed to allow this.

No, these are spots which are arbitrarily marked as "off limits" to the wildlife AI due to pathing problems (ie, a deer wanders onto the porch and then can't figure out how to wander back off).   In real life bears, even grizzlies, are good climbers and won't necessarily be deterred by having to climb to reach you.   In the game you can just hop down to a little piece of rock that you can't walk to and the game isn't able to draw a line from the bear to you, and therefore activates "flee mode" instead.

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42 minutes ago, Larkid said:

No, these are spots which are arbitrarily marked as "off limits" to the wildlife AI due to pathing problems (ie, a deer wanders onto the porch and then can't figure out how to wander back off).   In real life bears, even grizzlies, are good climbers and won't necessarily be deterred by having to climb to reach you.   In the game you can just hop down to a little piece of rock that you can't walk to and the game isn't able to draw a line from the bear to you, and therefore activates "flee mode" instead.

I guess we differ on the "rules" about whether shooting from such a spot is legit in Hinterland's book.   Maybe @Patrick Carlson will weigh in.  For example, I've seen dozens of videos and screenshots over the years of folks shooting a bear through a broken window on the farmhouse porch and I'm sure Hinterland has too.   Personally I think it's "by-design", else they could have plugged the hole cheaply by just adding an invisible wall.  Sure doesn't seem arbitrary!

During the story the bear didn't "activate flee mode" because it couldn't reach my ledge,  It continued to try to reach me.  I had to fear it away using the distress pistol before I could progress the story.  I had a similar experience recently with a wolf in my Interloper sandbox... it treed me and wouldn't give up.  I invite you to test it yourself, the AI seems smarter than in the past.

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6 hours ago, Ruruwawa said:

During the story the bear didn't "activate flee mode" because it couldn't reach my ledge,  It continued to try to reach me.  I had to fear it away using the distress pistol before I could progress the story.  I had a similar experience recently with a wolf in my Interloper sandbox... it treed me and wouldn't give up.  I invite you to test it yourself, the AI seems smarter than in the past.

I just tested it.  A wolf was stalking me, growing and whuffling and getting closer to charge. I walked up onto a rock and dropped onto one of those ledges.

The wolf started whining and whimpering and ran away.   Flee mode.

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10 hours ago, Mixxut said:

I let him maul me, then I healed, fixed my clothes, slept and shot him again next day. Easy every time

Yep, I'm doing the same thing. After shot three I ran back to Trapper's to warm up, rest up and check clothes. I called it there for tonight. Just not feeling running all over ML tonight. I'll get him tomorrow.

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If you wait till the very very last second to shoot the bear (with the rifle) he'll veer off. If he mauls you, you fired before he was close enough, even if you hit him. Once I figured this out I got the last three shots without getting mauled.

Like Jeremiah says, you gotta wait till you can see the whites of his eyes! (figuratively speaking)

Sam

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20 minutes ago, SnowWalker said:

Someone had said 'flare gun' earlier in here and I just want to say that I don't think you can progress by shooting old bear with the flare gun. You have to shoot him with the rifle.

I progressed just fine through the first 5 shots with only rounds from the flare gun.  Ended it with one bullet.  Not because I thought a rifle was needed to kill him; just because flare shells are hard to replace.

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9 minutes ago, selfless said:

I progressed just fine through the first 5 shots with only rounds from the flare gun

When I shot him the second time with the flare gun, he took off and I started heading to Unnamed Pond to get him over there next, but on the way up the last hill before the pond I saw him over to the left of me going back to the place where I just shot him and then he stayed over there again at the shot-two spot as though I hadn't shot him at all over there with the flare gun already. I never did check in the journal if it had been marked or not but i just ran over there and shot him with the rifle again and took my mauling. Maybe I missed him, I didn't notice where the flare went or if I got him with it or not. I was pretty close to him when I fired it though.

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25 minutes ago, Rusty_Old_F250 said:

If you wait till the very very last second to shoot the bear (with the rifle) he'll veer off. If he mauls you, you fired before he was close enough, even if you hit him. Once I figured this out I got the last three shots without getting mauled.

Like Jeremiah says, you gotta wait till you can see the whites of his eyes! (figuratively speaking)

Sam

I'm going to try it for shot four and see how it works. I shot him with the rifle at the back of the pond on the creek when he charged me, but I shot him and got him, when he was about 15' away. I guess, still too far away, lol. I gots ta swallow my fear and wait :D

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12 hours ago, Larkid said:

I just tested it.  A wolf was stalking me, growing and whuffling and getting closer to charge. I walked up onto a rock and dropped onto one of those ledges.

The wolf started whining and whimpering and ran away.   Flee mode.

EDIT: more detail, since my original response was late at night and sort of terse.  Sorry about that.

I think there are a lot of factors that influence whether a predator attacks or flees.   You show a simple case with just one factor in play: visual proximity.  Good test, actually, but it doesn't prove that wolves always flee.  Other factors seem to include:

  • Whether you've engaged the animal by shooting it  
  • Pointing a rifle or bow at the animal
  • Whether you are an attractive target: low condition, injured, exhausted, overburdened
  • Whether you are more attractive due to smell -- bleeding or carrying meat
  • Whether the animal animal has already engaged you (charge!)
  • Which game mode (Pilgrim, Voyageur, etc).  This seems to influence the presence and intensity of the AI behaviors listed above
  • Special story scripting, as for the Old Bear in the story.  This seems to override the AI behaviors we see in the sandbox

In the case of the sandbox wolf who treed me, several of the above factors were in play.  It was interloper, I had 3 smelly bars of meat on me, I was low condition, had a sprained wrist and, as usual with interloper, headed for hypothermia.   I honestly don't know which factors influenced that particular wolf not to flee, but he didn't.   I don't know which factors caused the story bear to relentless try to reach me on the shelf after I'd shot him, but he didn't flee.  But I'm seeing more here than can be explained by where an animal can path.

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54 minutes ago, Rusty_Old_F250 said:

If you wait till the very very last second to shoot the bear (with the rifle) he'll veer off. If he mauls you, you fired before he was close enough, even if you hit him. Once I figured this out I got the last three shots without getting mauled.

Like Jeremiah says, you gotta wait till you can see the whites of his eyes! (figuratively speaking)

Sam

THIS seems likely to be what the quest was designed to have you do.  Great tip!

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8 hours ago, SnowWalker said:

When I shot him the second time with the flare gun, he took off and I started heading to Unnamed Pond to get him over there next, but on the way up the last hill before the pond I saw him over to the left of me going back to the place where I just shot him and then he stayed over there again at the shot-two spot as though I hadn't shot him at all over there with the flare gun already. I never did check in the journal if it had been marked or not but i just ran over there and shot him with the rifle again and took my mauling. Maybe I missed him, I didn't notice where the flare went or if I got him with it or not. I was pretty close to him when I fired it though.

You gotta stick your shot.  If it bounces off you will have to track him down and hit him again.

Even then, The bear did fail to go to the next spot more than once, getting caught in a rock then running in infinite circles.  So maybe it's not ideal.  Or intended.  But this was remedied by visiting any cabin door.  In.  Out.  He's back on track.  

In the end he's just as dead. And your never at risk since he flees even if you miss.

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10 hours ago, Rusty_Old_F250 said:

If you wait till the very very last second to shoot the bear (with the rifle) he'll veer off. If he mauls you, you fired before he was close enough, even if you hit him. Once I figured this out I got the last three shots without getting mauled.

Like Jeremiah says, you gotta wait till you can see the whites of his eyes! (figuratively speaking)

This doesn't really work.

Since the incident with the ear bug, I made a backup before the hunt on my second story mode run. This meant that I could experiment a little.

From what I've learned, the only reliable way to make sure that old bear doesn't maul you is to shoot him from an unreachable spot. Shooting him from a reachable spot can make him flee but the chances of him fleeing from a shot are low whatever the case. Whether he's one meter*, two meters, three meters away from you doesn't matter. Neither does it make a difference whether or not he's spotted you or is already chasing you, the chances are the same.

If you want to do it the, quote unquote, "legit" way without getting mauled, my suggestion is to make sure that you shoot him from as far away as possible. This way you can shoot him as many times as possible, improving the chances of him fleeing before he gets to you.

*One meter is the closest you can shoot the bear when he's charging you. Any closer than one meter and the mauling animation will have already begun.

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50 minutes ago, SnowWalker said:

I mean, does it ever stop snowing during the bear quest? O.o And I'm stumped, he's not near the logging camp, or clear cut or down by Camp Office.

I went through 3 days of fog before the last shot because the weather for that mission seems to be scripted but I didnt know that. 

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