Very different wolf behavior but only in MT

[Meat]

I'm currently on a Stalker playthru that I started perhaps some 6-8 months ago and recently used it to visit the Mountain Town region for my first time ever.

What I'm observing is very different wolf behavior...only in this region. Always, wolves seem to appear out of nowhere, always behind me, and attack without warning. No pre-attack barking as there normally would be. Also strange is that I no longer actually see wolves in this region at all until they engage in struggle with me.

This hasn't always been the case. I managed to explore much of the region over the course of a couple of game days before this issue arose but Mountain Town has become pretty much unplayable now.

I've survived every one of these attacks so far but I'm just wondering if it could be a game glitch or if anyone else has experienced this weird behavior. Again, MT is the only region that I experience this in and it just started in the last week or so.

[EricTheGreat12]

That’s odd, considering that I see wolves often in the Town of Milton and the bridge near the plane crash. 

 

Maybe it’s a bug on your end?

[Meat]

Yeah, that's probably more likely explanation than Hinterland testing some new wolf behavior.

Sad that I'll have to avoid Mountain Town in that 170+ day-long playthrough now. It's my longest one yet by far.

Thanks.

[MarrowStone]

If you startle wolves in close quarters they usually attack without warning. Also, some wolves do seem to act more quiet than others, so stay on your toes.

[TheEldritchGod]

It's the terrain map. It is, for some reason, very easy for wolves to path to you, but they don't get line of sight. They bark when they get line of sight, unless they are so close they are at attack distance.  Now line of "sight" is strange, since they can see through some objects, but not others. Also, he wolves on that map will spawn right on top of you and the map is COVERED in wolf spawns.

Also, the respawn time is borked. You can kill every wolf and get the entire set of wolves the next day. So you can draw down the town wolves, the farm wolves and the Orca wolves all at once, then do it the next day.

I'm surprised Panic4you2 didn't camp out at Orca for his 1,000 wolves in 500 day challenge. He picked CH. Orca would have been the easy way.

How do I know this? I've been trying to reopen the Orca. (I've renamed it the Orca X, because fo the big "X" over the gas prices.) The X stands for EXTREME! Spent about a month there and I've killed about 2 wolves a day on average. And I was under harvesting the wolves so the carcasses didn't despawn as fast. I fear what would have happened if I quartered every wolf.

[cullam]

I think that they can hide behind every nook and cranny of that place is what makes it really tough. It's pretty much impossible to look around, and know if you're safe. 

[MarrowStone]

Don't forget the ones that spawn in the muskeg-like area to the south of the farm! Without exaggerating I was attacked by one I watched spawn right in front of me.

The map with the fairest wolves seems to be either TWM or Pleasent Valley. Sometimes in TWM you'll have wolves start to "puppyguard" your base for multiple days if you let them follow you there though.

[MarrowStone]

Milton also used to also have "invisible" wolves that would be stuck eating a carcass. The sound of them eating would play where the carcass used to be on an endless loop and it actually was quite creepy. They fixed that, thankfully.

[strongpelt]

I dont think I'll make my base in mountain town until the wolves are looked at. My last attempt to stay in that wolf infested town had many bugs.. ones i remember most:

Shot a wolf, it died, suddenly a new wolf spawned onto of it. 

Farm house porch is very glitched, had a wolf phase through the fence and get me.

Farm house porch again, this time the wolf glitched into the farm house, got scared and ran around inside (I assume, I was outside and saw the wolf clipping through the walls) wolf suddenly phased back out right by me and mauled me. 

Invisible wolves. Encountered a few. 

Mountain town is not my favorite. 

[jerry486]

I'll tell you why. Terrain. People were making fun of how dumb and easy to avoid wolves are so HL started putting barriers, unequal terrain so we can't see them. When you move inside the inner circle around the wolf it jumps you without warning. So when you pass a nearby wall of snow and can't see the wolf => insta charge.

[Meat]

Just to reiterate, when I first entered MT a few weeks ago (for the first time ever), wolf behavior appeared normal. When entering from Mystery Lake there had always been a pack of wolves either on the Orca Station grounds or on the road leading from there into town. These wolves seemed to behave normally.

That changed suddenly a couple of weeks ago. No sight or sound of wolves could be found anywhere, ever...until my character got attacked. I could be standing in the middle of a clearing with an excellent 360 degree view of my surroundings and observe neither visual or audible indications of any wolves...until the moment of "insta charge", as you aptly put it.

It seems unlikely that HL placed any barriers and unequal terrain into the game during that time as the game hadn't been updated since April. This is what leads me to believe that my saved playthrough is glitched although I DO find it strange that this behavior is only occurring in the Mountain Town region.

I haven't had the opportunity to try the game again since the latest update or with another game-save. Hopefully soon though.