getting rid of permadeath fear

[NardoLoopa]

A bear will double maul if his pathing is bad.

Also, to mitigate lermadeath fear, hit new zones early.  Less to lose.  Probably die anyway.  But learn a lot.

Then again, where is the fun in not being petrified of dying?

[Mroz4k]

All those three pieces of clothing there are decent weight-to-temp protection pieces of clothing, but I carry them around as spares in case I go out for a trip and end up sleeping in the wilds without the use of campfire, or if I spend a lot of time, walking on ice during heavy snowfall. Those conditions can cause your clothes to become wet and frozen really fast - and wearing frozen clothes increases frostbite risk heavily. To combat this, I have "lightweight" spares in my inventory, in case I need them. Since the lightest boots weight 0.5 kg which is a bit too much, I opted for carrying a set of sport socks, and if my boots ever do get frozen, along with my socks, I take them all off, and walk around in spare socks, no boots. Naturally, I make it my priority to create a campfire as soon as possible to thaw and dry out my main clothes.

Also, happens to work well as an extra clothing in case an animal or fall ruins a piece of clothing in the head or hand area.

Finally, I once got jumped by wolf three times at the derailment, I exhausted all my bandages and had no cloth to use for another bandage, yet I was bleeding - so I dropped almost everything and ran for Camp Office - almost bled out to death when I reached it - the only thing that saved me was the fact that I always keep a stash of medical items right behind the door for that very reason... but Mr. @JAFO then suggested that I could have taken one of clothing items, harvested it and made bandages at spot. This was an idea that never even struck my mind till then... So, now I carry an extra cloth with me, but if it ever came to it, I can easily rip the extra set of socks to use for cloth or bandages, without having to destroy one of the clothing items I am wearing.

1 hour ago, jeffpeng said:

That's actually why I never go there. Never. 

I do. In the middle of the blizzard, when all animals have despawned. Best time to loot the exteriors of the whaling plant, really. Or places like Coastal town on Interloper. I do that a lot - use horrible weather for opportunistic stunts to loot the most inhospitable places.

[Mroz4k]

21 minutes ago, NardoLoopa said:

Then again, where is the fun in not being petrified of dying?

I may be a hardened long-timer yet I am still petrified of dying, you are right, it is half the fun The real trick is not to let it bother you if you die in the late game. You eventually learn to have such a solid safety margin that most of the time you don't ever come close to those seriously dangerous spots. Its a lot about the knowledge of the map, I am sure, but also about the anticipation of what you see - even in the new area I don't yet know, if I see any evidence of a bear den in a potentially narrow space, I back the F away from there... I don't willingly walk into a bottleneck. And Hinterland sure loves stuffing teddy bears into the bottlenecked areas. 

Also, I think that sneaking out slowly from a bear mauling may also be a pretty viable course of action. It is true that bears tend to be pretty oblivious right after the hug. If a wolf enters the scenario, though, I would run for sure. I think the mechanic after the attacks by animals works similar as if the wolf or a bear had a decoy for snack - they grab it and then proceed to "run" away from the player - once they reach certain distance from them, they resume normal behaviour. The bear should not double maul anyone unless that person does something to draw their attention.

The biggest problem here may turn out to be the bleeding, actually, but for a reason one might not consider. Something that is easy to forget about - when bleeding, the player has increased smelliness. This could re-trigger the bear, or the wolf, and prompt them to start stalking the player again. That is why I think running further away ASAP may be a bit better option than sneaking. Either way, it is a bad idea to start handling your medical issues right after the mauling.

[theHellraiser]

well I took your heart warming advice and decided to grow some backbone and attempt to see what TWM had to offer.Results are quite interesting regarding my permadeath fear.

got hit by 2 blizzards,found 2 bears and my ribs are broken from a moose being semi-bugged in a tree and looking like an deer while there are about 2 wolves on my back feeling interested in my flesh. I would give myself a star for the effort and begin to cry horribly for not being able to learn anything other than the fact that the place should be renamed ToomanyBearwolf Mountain

[Guest jeffpeng]

Timberwolf Mountain is pretty punishing both as a starting region and for rather new players. Maybe not the best place to grow a backbone - it's likely to break before finishing. The first time I went to TWM (Stalker) I was relatively well equipped and ended up running circles on the mountain for two ingame months before finding the Summit. And I still eventually died there.

Plus there are four bears on TWM: Harvey, Humpfrey, Henry and Bob. 

[theHellraiser]

strangely enough its working.I was screwed in more than 1 ways but now I am rationing food and collecting wood when there is no blizzard and living in a cave for a week so I can go deeper.Having those bases stocked to the teeth with flares meds food water shelter made me softer than I thought.living in a cave feels quite fun so far but I'm still kinda shaky from moving 20m in any direction since I dont know where the next bear will pop up

[Guest jeffpeng]

3 hours ago, theHellraiser said:

strangely enough its working.I was screwed in more than 1 ways but now I am rationing food and collecting wood when there is no blizzard and living in a cave for a week so I can go deeper.Having those bases stocked to the teeth with flares meds food water shelter made me softer than I thought.living in a cave feels quite fun so far but I'm still kinda shaky from moving 20m in any direction since I dont know where the next bear will pop up

Bears are actually easy to avoid. They are noisy as hell, and they have their own invisible but very audible crow storm. So every time you hear crows but can't see crows.... head's up.

Also I don't know what you policy on carrying around stinkies (meat, guts) is. But bears love stinkies just as much as wolves do. If they smell some they will go investigate. If they find you..... you know the story. Unless you really have to don't carry any meat or guts.

[theHellraiser]

took me good 14 days but I reached the damn summit...I literally circled around the last 2 areas before the summit with 2 or 3 bears on the loose around me,I dont even know how many I did encounter tbh.

sight it definitely worth it,so a sweet picture of sunrise from the tail but good lord how am I supposed to get this loot down with all the bears on the prowl,I will be turtle without a shell if I even manage that

[k0s0ff]

Thank you all so much for the advice. I was interested in reading.

From myself I want to add something. You need to understand in advance where and why to go and what it takes. Need less to know the terrain, escape routes and safe routes. You can't hurry and watch and listen.  It also helped me that I left a minimum of necessary things in key places for myself. 

In my current walkthrough there is one bear that makes me nervous ,but so far I've managed to walk through its territory with impunity. 130 days behind me and never once did a bear attack me. I'm very, very careful. But several times I was on the verge and I was just lucky.

Thank you again, this is a very useful and not a close topic.
 

[Mroz4k]

6 hours ago, k0s0ff said:

It also helped me that I left a minimum of necessary things in key places for myself. 

This is a great advice. I don't really support hoarding, but most people will want to drag the gear to their main base. I recommend to leave around "caches" with necessary stuff like medical stuff around the place, so when you need them but don't have them, there may be a cache close by. I usually leave a raw piece of meat, 1l of water, some firewood and medical items like teas and bandage. Things that don't spoil, basically. (meat does but once you are Cooking 5, you can't get food poisoning so you can cook and eat a lower quality cooked meat without issues) I tend to leave around 3 to 6 caches like that around each region, depending on how big the region is. I also usually have a processing station in each major region, ideally somewhere around the center of the map, where I leave a bigger stash of supplies, even things like tools for repairs, fishing tackles or sewing kits, cloth and hides, etc.

7 hours ago, jeffpeng said:

Bears are actually easy to avoid. They are noisy as hell, and they have their own invisible but very audible crow storm. So every time you hear crows but can't see crows.... head's up

Whenever people say that bears have crows around them, I flinch. They don't. We don't know what sort of animal that is, but based on the sound, I would say raven.

Point here - the sound crows make in the game (when traveling over, or murders of crows around corpses) is VERY different from the sound Bear-birds make. I would suggest to call them ravens, to avoid the confusion with the ingame crows. The creaking sounds completely different.

[theHellraiser]

yeah raven sounds helped me plentifully on TWM.I literally found more bears than wolves on that forsaken place and I was always around only with a bow. going down at least I had that flare gun and a lot more courage on my back but its almost like they knew I was carrying it on my way down I didnt run into a single one of those sneaky things.I am heavily planning my revenge of bearbedroll and bear coat just so I can feel better...

I did notice a sudden change of temperature near the summit and on the summit itself.Is it game design as it would be normal for a summit of a mountain to cold?I did reach the place on day 114 so I would imagine the colder weather option must have kicked in a lot harder

[Mroz4k]

It's strange you seem to be running into bear problems so often. I know there are like 5 different locations on TWM where a bear can be, but never saw more then two actually spawn in the region, maybe three.

1 hour ago, theHellraiser said:

did notice a sudden change of temperature near the summit and on the summit itself.Is it game design as it would be normal for a summit of a mountain to cold?I did reach the place on day 114 so I would imagine the colder weather option must have kicked in a lot harder

Unless you are playing a Custom game, or Interloper, I don't think there are changes in the temperatures with time. But maybe the Stalker has that too, nowadays. Still, the summit does have much lower temperatures, by design. Considering it is high up and exposed to weather.

[theHellraiser]

I avoided carrying meat religiously.I didnt get in any close mauls but there were plentiful of roaming and ducking around them. I am certain I saw at least 4 different and probably one of the 2 times on a different patrol spot.

managed to get all the loot I wanted from my temporary base cave and summit down to the hut on the lake.I actually kinda like it there and I really enjoyed living in a cave even if it was for a week or so,makes me thing HRV might be fun but then again I was told place can be hellish and and I was spoiled regarding a roaming wolf inside a cave which would do wonders on my already fear of death since I assume carrying a lattern to see around wouldnt exactly give me either time or visibility to fight back properly

[Mroz4k]

When TWM was first added, I started at PV, and soon moved over to TWM where I ended up living for 200 days on Voyager. It gets brutal there on the harder difficulties - but on the lower ones, it ain't that bad. It is somewhat streamlined and there are some choke-points with dangerous wildlife for sure, but overall living there with decent gear should not be a huge problem if you avoid entering the risky areas too much. The trip up the mountain can be difficult due to the rope-climbs and exhaustion, but even though there is plenty of predators in there, it should not be that bad.

Best way off the summit is to actually take a route straight down from the plane towards the lake below you - by carefully dropping down small ledges. You can carry more than 30 kg of rope gear at next to no fatigue expense that way. And no "annoying natives" along the way, only maybe a wolf or two, maybe a bear at the bottom by the lake.

[theHellraiser]

I noticed a ledge of sort under the tail from the side and a body with a flashlight and what looking like almost a path going downwards so I took the risk and downed straight into the lake area safely because there was no way in living hell I would leave the loot I got from literally breaking my ribs and spending so many days rationing food until recovery. before doing that do I did tie about 2-3(?) ropes or so around so I hope I did somehow made my way up there easier if I missed something.I still walk around to find any other caches but now I stopped fearing bears that much and now the moose terrifies me more since I doubt an arrow to the face will be enough to even flitch that beast.

[Dan_]

Moose are afraid of the god of fire. They're just bigger deer with a bad attitude in TLD. 

Bears I have the utmost respect for, no bear is worth a perfectly good wool toque. But as many said, the squeaky crows help immensely with bear avoidance. Good luck!

Very interesting thread, great idea goating down the mountain, you can maximize the amount of loot you take this way.

[Morrick]

On 11/29/2018 at 11:36 PM, BareSkin said:

The place is actually a special configuration, the front of the industrial building is a chokepoint to both wolves and bear, and rabbits in front of the bear den make wolves come for meeting him. Wolves fearing the bear run everywhere, but end up near the bear again and again, or come back chasing more rabbits, etc. The place is actually a full dead end on all sides.

In one of my runs I even met a moose there, I kid you not.

[Guest jeffpeng]

On 30.11.2018 at 4:35 PM, Mroz4k said:

Whenever people say that bears have crows around them, I flinch. They don't. We don't know what sort of animal that is, but based on the sound, I would say raven.

Point here - the sound crows make in the game (when traveling over, or murders of crows around corpses) is VERY different from the sound Bear-birds make. I would suggest to call them ravens, to avoid the confusion with the ingame crows. The creaking sounds completely different.

Yeah, you're right the sound is different. But you need to be a bit more experienced to actually notice the difference, I guess. Raven makes sense - but I wouldn't know. I only know bird as a general term for flying animal

On 30.11.2018 at 7:02 PM, Mroz4k said:

Unless you are playing a Custom game, or Interloper, I don't think there are changes in the temperatures with time. But maybe the Stalker has that too, nowadays. Still, the summit does have much lower temperatures, by design. Considering it is high up and exposed to weather.

Even Voyageur has this. However much, much less notable and over a longer time span.

On 30.11.2018 at 8:08 PM, Dan_ said:

Very interesting thread, great idea goating down the mountain, you can maximize the amount of loot you take this way.

Thatcher 1 did that. Almost killed him  Okay it was night and he goated down to the three way cave, which is a bit harder, but it's quite a dangerous goat. Best practice on pilgrim first - but it's definitely doable.

[Sunwolf]

My suggestion to the OP's question is, don't ever lose the fear of permadeath.  Keep foremost in mind that everything you do is a calculated risk.  Decide on a base of operations and then gradually move out from there.  Never extend yourself past the point where you can retreat to safety.  Assuming your difficulty settings allow you to, establish caches of supplies and make a note of where they are and what's there.  Once you feel moderately safe in an area, focus on working your skills up to higher levels.  At some point you'll start to feel cocky and figure you can handle the additional risk and your decision making will subtly change.  Be aware of this, realize you're losing your fear of permadeath and discipline yourself to reign yourself in.

That being said, when I hit this point I start to get bored and make the disciplined decision to accept the increased risk in light of the increased reward of the thrill of succeeding under increasingly adverse conditions.  That's when I usually do something stupid and die.  But it's ok because I keep things in perspective and realize I only died because I lost the fear of dying and got cocky.  If you don't want to die, don't lose the fear of dying.  If you lose the fear of dying and die, just shrug, start a new game, or go get a snack.  Maybe some pork n' beans or some peaches or something.