rework how bears operate

[exeexe]

After u jump from a cliff they should be able to relearn ur new position. Like
lost location of target
wait 5 seconds
Acquire new position of target
chase

Also it would be cool if they wandered around the whole map, and not stuck around a cave. That way they would be more unpredictable. It could be like this
Roll a dice between 0-360 - it lands on 50
Roll a dice between 200 and 1000 - it lands on 350
Now go 350 meters in the direction of 50 degrees
When new location has been reached roll dices again.

With that in mind that bears got buffed they should also be balanced. Like they should leave bear poop and you get warned if you step into bear territory. And under heavy snow the bear poop can disappear.

I also think they make too much noise. I get that its a game but u can hear them mile away. How about they make a sound hear and there, and not this continuous buzz. Here is how it is in real life

 

[Mroz4k]

I don't really like these changes, here is why:

For starters, by dropping off the cliff, the bear does not lose interest in you - it just tries to find a viable pathway to you - if it cant, then it loses interest. No amount of AI changes is going to change that.

Also, there is a point to "bear dens" - for starters, it indicates the presence of the bear in the area. This is important for plenty of reasons - the players may be actively hunting bears, trying to locate them. Also, the bear dens are almost exclusively placed in strategic locations - to make navigating about more difficult. You will find the bears in plenty of choke points - for example, two of the three viable paths in Pleasant Valley to TWM are potentially guarded by a bear. 

Besides, bears are territorial (especially if awoken in the winter), so are moose. Wolves too, but they are so common in the game it doesn't really feel that way. Wolves roam much more than the bear would.

That said if there should be roaming animals, its wolf packs. 

I am all for changing the animal AI to make them more unpredictable, but this is not the way to go, in my opinion.

1 hour ago, exeexe said:

they should leave bear poop and you get warned if you step into bear territory.

That in itself is not a bad idea. And I wouldn't limit it just to bears. There could be all kinds of droppings around the game. Not "everywhere" but a piece and there - to tell the player that there are animals in the area, close by. 

1 hour ago, exeexe said:

also think they make too much noise. I get that its a game but u can hear them mile away. How about they make a sound hear and there, and not this continuous buzz. Here is how it is in real life

Again, I disagree. Realism is not really a matter here - in reality, despite their weight and size, bears don't thump that much. Of course, in reality, they would probably come in contact with a human but wouldn't attack unless it was a mother with cubs, or it was currently hunting. And they don't have a flock of ravens circling them all the time, either. Those are game alarms, for good reason - bears aren't afraid of fire in the game, they are very, very quick, very curious, and very dangerous - if you are hurt at all, the mauling will likely kill you. You cant scare them away with a rifle - in fact, fire one and they will go straight to you, maybe even straight away charge you. You can't fight back during the struggle, and they cause a lot of damage. And, they destroy items at random, too. 

For those reasons, they are pretty obvious when moving around, so that the players have an easier time avoiding them.

Props on the topic - I think it is worth to discuss some changes to AI and how they could work, not only for the bears, but for other animals as well.

[MarrowStone]

On 11/18/2018 at 2:15 PM, exeexe said:

Also it would be cool if they wandered around the whole map, and not stuck around a cave.

Would be cool if deer and wolves did this, particularly with patterns you can observe. It is not really cool for rare animals like bear and moose. Giving those two animals their own little spots acually helps gamplay more than hurts for reasons stated above me. 

+1 for improved AI and pathfinding. 

[hozz1235]

On 11/18/2018 at 3:10 PM, Mroz4k said:

For starters, by dropping off the cliff, the bear does not lose interest in you - it just tries to find a viable pathway to you - if it cant, then it loses interest. No amount of AI changes is going to change that.

This has not been my observation.  In fact, I use the "exploit" all the time when hunting bear and moose.  When I drop off a ledge, there is definitely a way to get to me, but instead they change to "flee" mode and don't pursue me.

[Mroz4k]

2 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

This has not been my observation.  In fact, I use the "exploit" all the time when hunting bear and moose.  When I drop off a ledge, there is definitely a way to get to me, but instead they change to "flee" mode and don't pursue me.

Hmm. This did not use to be the case in my experience. Perhaps it changed.

I guess it makes some sense - if you are currently "in the air" there is no way to get to you and the animal behavior may register it that way (what I don't understand is how simply leaving the ground for a moment can lead to that when I have just recently seen a bear trying really hard to "reach" me at a place where he could not, until he managed to glitch and run under the cliff, after which it took me to struggle mode after I walked a little bit below - this made me think that as long as the animal can reach you with its hitbox, even being off the ground should not make you "inaccessible" to their effort to reach the player.)

If what you claim is correct, then you are definitely right - this ought to change. The question is how to do that. My guess would be that the animal keeps re-triggering the attempt to find a pathway to the player for 2 seconds till reverting to flee mode. 2 seconds should be more than sufficient to 

[exeexe]

17 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

Would be cool if deer and wolves did this, particularly with patterns you can observe. It is not really cool for rare animals like bear and moose. Giving those two animals their own little spots acually helps gamplay more than hurts for reasons stated above me. 

+1 for improved AI and pathfinding. 

Bears are not rare. I believe u can reach a bear from any position in 24 hours.

[Mroz4k]

12 minutes ago, exeexe said:

Bears are not rare. I believe u can reach a bear from any position in 24 hours.

I believe you can reach bear from any position in 6 hours. Does not mean they are not rare, they are, they are meant to be. Or rather, it depends on the settings - but there is at least 1 bear at any region as far as I know - and usually, there is more, 1-2 on the low settings, 2-3 on the normal settings and more with more.

[Pillock]

I think bear ranges should be expanded more than they are. More randomness is better. I like the idea of the diceroll mechanic suggested in the OP. As long as they return to their lair at night, I don't think it matters where or how far they roam during the day.

I think the bear 'noise' thing is OK as it is, but I do agree it could be scaled back a little. They move so slowly that I don't think we need quite as much advance warning as we currently get.

And exploiting cliff-edges: yeah, I'd like to see that changed. That applies to wolves as well - you jump off a ledge to some inaccessible place and they just run away.

[MarrowStone]

1 hour ago, exeexe said:

Bears are not rare. I believe u can reach a bear from any position in 24 hours.

In almost any region you can find a bear reliably before sundown, this is partly due to them being in set locations such as near their little caves that they hole up in. So I agree in that perspective.

But as I just stated, their set locations make it so. If you had one bear with a range of only 50 percent of Pleasent Valley and be in any location there at any time, you would consider them rare. Not as rare as a moose, but youd have much more trouble locating it. 

Their territories also encourage neat gameplay choices such as either following a path with a bear that guards it, or taking a shorcut through the woods to avoid it.

I guess i couldve used the word "Uncommon" for better effect.

[exeexe]

18 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

In almost any region you can find a bear reliably before sundown, this is partly due to them being in set locations such as near their little caves that they hole up in. So I agree in that perspective.

But as I just stated, their set locations make it so. If you had one bear with a range of only 50 percent of Pleasent Valley and be in any location there at any time, you would consider them rare. Not as rare as a moose, but youd have much more trouble locating it. 

Their territories also encourage neat gameplay choices such as either following a path with a bear that guards it, or taking a shorcut through the woods to avoid it.

I guess i couldve used the word "Uncommon" for better effect.

It seems like people want bears to be gatekeepers, but that's not what bears are for. Bears are there to be a ruthless animal that will punish you hard if you dont watch out. Uncommon is a good thing because then you meet them when you dont expect them.

The game could stop you doing with what you are doing if a bear comes close to you except sleeping. This would also happen in real life

[Guest jeffpeng]

Not a big fan of the idea proposed in the OP.

The fact that you learn and remember a lot of things about the game world is important counterplay to a lot of mechanics in the game. You learn where to seek shelter when weather gets bad, you learn where to search for cattails if you are hungry, you lern how close you can get to a wolf without attracting attention. That you have, at some point, a good understanding where which bear can be on each map play is just the same principle.

Calling for a high level of randomness would eliminate a larg amount of counterplay from the game. When you cannot know which areas to stay clear of, then you are rolling the dice on a nother game play element additional to weather which adds a high amount of variability in both directions. There will be so many times where you just get through previously safe regions uncontested, and then again you get jump by two bears stepping out of the dam because RNG said so.

I also won't let the "but it's unrealistic" argument count here. Realism - which already has a hard stance in TLD - only gets you so far. If reality was so great, we won't be all busy playing The Long Dark. It's supposed to be fun and challenging. Making bears just roam randomly all over the place just makes it random and eventually frustrating. Think of random wrist sprains and how annoying they are. Now think bear instead of wrist sprain and think how funny that would be.

Agreed on the animal AI. Too exploitable at the moment. But I also see why pathfinding down slopes or under rocks is a hard thing to do for the AI and that running away might be the best of a lot of bad choices the developers had. Getting an animal stuck on a ledge is no alternative, as well as just trying to get up/down somewhere it cannot go and be a sitting duck.

[BareSkin]

I like that randomness idea increasing roaming range, but honestly if any developer changes some code on bear code I hope that would be to fix the indoor/outdoor transitions (the bear respawns -at the same point- every time you "exit" a house), or fixing the Pond bugged bear that you can hear but not see, etc... I always prefer fixing what doesn't work before adding on fragile code.

[Guest jeffpeng]

1 minute ago, BareSkin said:

or fixing the Pond bugged bear that you can hear but not see

That one isn't limited to the pond bear. Humphrey, the Deer Clearing Bear, has the same issue at times. What actually happens is that the "entity" moves, but the "model" get's stuck somewhere. So in a sense body and spirit are seperated. Too bad the spirits hits just as hard.

[MarrowStone]

19 minutes ago, BareSkin said:

or fixing the Pond bugged bear that you can hear but not see, etc..

That bear came out of the ground to kill me once! It uses ambush tactics where it clips out of a snow bank and charges. Beware!

[Pillock]

2 hours ago, BareSkin said:

honestly if any developer changes some code on bear code I hope that would be to fix the indoor/outdoor transitions (the bear respawns -at the same point- every time you "exit" a house), or fixing the Pond bugged bear that you can hear but not see, etc.

 

1 hour ago, MarrowStone said:

That bear came out of the ground to kill me once! It uses ambush tactics where it clips out of a snow bank and charges. Beware!

I've never had that happen, but yesterday I did notice some weird behaviour. 

The bear came marching out of the mist from the direction of the hut while I was collecting cattails, so I took refuge in the hunters blind. The bear reared up and charged, but then stopped short of the structure and just stood there looking at me, twitching it's head and feet. As I moved around inside the hunters blind, it's twitching movements seemed to track me, but it didn't walk or run. If I'd had a weapon, I would have had a very easy close range head on shot at a stationary target. Eventually it seemed to break free of its trance, and proceeded to walk casually around the blind in tight circles; then it wandered slowly off in the direction of the little steam that feeds into the pond, before noticing me again and turning round to charge a second time. The same sequence of getting "stuck" in position played out once more, before it finally took fright and ran off into the fog. I did likewise, but in the other direction.

Stranger still, right before the bear showed up, I'd just been in a fight with a wolf. It had walked casually and noiselessly up to me without my noticing until it was very close. When I did see it, I jumped out of skin and ran away a little; it didn't react much, but it did continue to follow me at walking pace. Because it was so close (but seemingly not in charge mode), I lit a flare to try and scare it off, and it was only after I'd launched it at him that he got angry and charged. 

Is there something about Unnamed Pond that makes creatures act up? 

 

[Mroz4k]

2 hours ago, Pillock said:

Is there something about Unnamed Pond that makes creatures act up? 

That area was paranormal long before even Coastal Highway was a region. I remember avoiding it in the past because it somehow was always the spot where I died.

On 21. 11. 2018 at 4:32 PM, exeexe said:

It seems like people want bears to be gatekeepers, but that's not what bears are for. Bears are there to be a ruthless animal that will punish you hard if you dont watch out.

1

Not at all what I wanted to point out, and you are not correct, either. Bears are there to provide a dangerous hunting challenge. It is just the problem of people, using the terrain to make it very easy - try hunting the bear with a bow from the ground - it is exhilarating, but also very dangerous. The fact that their lairs are posed in places to make them somewhat of a bottleneck obstacle is just about their clever placement. But if they roamed, their den positions would be less relevant. Learning the locations of bear dens is something you should do when you play a new game - so you can plan your routes smartly. 

There is no reason for bears to be in the game to punish unaware players. Bears make a LOT of noise, I would argue that wolves are the animal better suited at punishing unawareness.

4 hours ago, BareSkin said:

I like that randomness idea increasing roaming range, but honestly if any developer changes some code on bear code I hope that would be to fix the indoor/outdoor transitions (the bear respawns -at the same point- every time you "exit" a house), or fixing the Pond bugged bear that you can hear but not see, etc... I always prefer fixing what doesn't work before adding on fragile code.

1

I agree it should go without saying that fixing bugs should be first on the agenda.

On 20. 11. 2018 at 9:09 PM, Pillock said:

I think bear ranges should be expanded more than they are. More randomness is better.

It feels like in the previous versions of the game, the bears tend to walk away from their territory much further then nowadays. But I haven't exactly played TLD a lot in the last year and half - only lately, and I do feel like there may have been some change in this behavior. Used to be that up to three bears could wander close to the Pleasant Farmstead. First the bear from the birch forest, then a bear from the cave above the river close to Three strikes, and finally the bear from the rope cave under the Signal Hill. Nowadays it seems as the only bear that wonders there is the Rope one.

[exeexe]

1 hour ago, Mroz4k said:

There is no reason for bears to be in the game to punish unaware players. Bears make a LOT of noise, I would argue that wolves are the animal better suited at punishing unawareness.

Nah wolves are so easy to kill with the way they act when being baited. Also u can be lucky and scare wolf away, but bears they go through your clothes and maybe u have 2 ruined items after a bear attack

[MarrowStone]

6 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

That area was paranormal long before even Coastal Highway was a region. I remember avoiding it in the past because it somehow was always the spot where I died.

I agree, honestly Mystery Lake is probably a cover up for the true mystery... Unnamed Pond... 

Even the name fits.

[Mroz4k]

6 hours ago, exeexe said:

Nah wolves are so easy to kill with the way they act when being baited. Also u can be lucky and scare wolf away, but bears they go through your clothes and maybe u have 2 ruined items after a bear attack

Again, kind of missing the point there. "punish unawareness" means that you get jumped by the wolves before you have a chance to react. Also, baiting indicates that you have a piece of bait in your pants - which kind of makes then auto-target you in the first place. But some don't carry baits around. And finally, baits don't always work anymore... the wolf can choose to ignore it. Not sure if that is just because of some lag after him spotting you but not spotting that you put a decoy down, or if it is intentional to make the wolves less predictable...

I have not been "surprised" by a bear in over 2 years. They make so much noise that avoiding them is kind of easy, even in bad weather (though I did have a close call not that long ago)

1 hour ago, MarrowStone said:

I agree, honestly Mystery Lake is probably a cover up for the true mystery... Unnamed Pond... 

Even the name fits.

Seen some crazy stuff there in the past. Wolves disappear into thin air and re-appear, even saw a wolf fly there once... some 4 years ago, though he barely lifted off the ground and then fell back, I still ran just to be certain, did not want to meet face-to-face with a bugged demon flying wolf...). Seen a serial killer wolf who murdered a rabbit and a deer just for fun, then another deer for a snack... Cattails without stalks, old man beard swinging calmly in the middle of deadly windstorm...  Seen deer act strange, when they would run into the middle of lake, turn around for no reason and run straight at me to meet an arrow into a face...

That place, man... it is a long while since I encountered something paranormal there, but it still gives me creeps from all the crazy stuff I´ve seen there over the years.

[hozz1235]

17 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

It is just the problem of people, using the terrain to make it very easy - try hunting the bear with a bow from the ground - it is exhilarating, but also very dangerous.

If we were to play the game as we would IRL, I certainly would not stand out in the open and hunt bear!  I would use every environmental and tactical advantage I could to minimize risk to myself and maximizing my chances to kill the bear.  Therefore, I don't feel like I'm completely exploiting the game my "ledge dropping".

[exeexe]

14 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

Seen some crazy stuff there in the past. Wolves disappear into thin air and re-appear, even saw a wolf fly there once... some 4 years ago, though he barely lifted off the ground and then fell back, I still ran just to be certain, did not want to meet face-to-face with a bugged demon flying wolf...). Seen a serial killer wolf who murdered a rabbit and a deer just for fun, then another deer for a snack... Cattails without stalks, old man beard swinging calmly in the middle of deadly windstorm...  Seen deer act strange, when they would run into the middle of lake, turn around for no reason and run straight at me to meet an arrow into a face...

That place, man... it is a long while since I encountered something paranormal there, but it still gives me creeps from all the crazy stuff I´ve seen there over the years.

Yeah i agree a lot with you man

[stratvox]

I have a wee video for those who want to have the game be more realistic wrt bears. Bears are significantly better tree climbers than humans are:

I still don't want to have fallen trees not be safe havens, even though in the real world there's no way they would be. I think this falls under the "applying what you learn in the game to the real world can cause you illness, injury, or death" disclaimer.