Nerf the wolves' sense of smell

[Maehlice]

Wolves are why I stopped playing TLD a while back.  They're making me want to stop playing again.  For reference, I play mostly on Stalker, dabble with Interloper, and prefer custom settings combining Voyager wolves with Interloper everything else.

They have an insanely keen sense of smell which seems completely unaffected by wind, moderately by difficulty, and just barely by quantity of scent.

For example:

• If I stand on the doorstep of the Trapper's Cabin and pick up a single piece of raw meat, wolves (if present) will come from behind the hill in my direction.  The instant I drop the meat, they immediately turn away and return to their original path.
• I was walking out of the cave under the broken bridge in DP with a 0.5 kg piece of cooked wolf meat during a severe windstorm.  As I was walking into the wind, I could see a wolf upwind from me bee-lining towards me.  The instant I dropped the meat, the wolf turned away.  (A piece of cooked meat doesn't cause the scent meter to even appear in quick stats.)

I often wonder why the scent meter has varying degrees at all, since even a 100 g piece of cooked meat seems to have the same impact as a pack overflowing with dead rabbits.  The most immersion-breaking aspect of it all is how wolves apparently can only smell something if it's in your inventory.

The biggest negative impact it is has on gameplay is that I have to drop and "throw" meat in the most unrealistic manner to avoid alerting every wolf in the zone.  I'm also essentially forced to never travel with any food other than packaged foods and cattails.

A few suggestions:

• If the quick stats don't show the scent meter, wolves should be completely disinterested in the player's scent.
• A lower level of scent should cause wolves to slowly meander in the general direction of the scent.  Only at max scent should wolves bee-line like they do now.
• Wind direction should affect scent.  (If it does already, that code needs some serious tweaking.)
• At cooking level 5, up to 1 kg of cooked meat should not affect scent; think jerky in a plastic bag.
• Wolves should be able to smell meat even when dropped on the ground.  (This would make things much more difficult on both the player and CPU, but at least it would be more realistic.)

[Doc Feral]

Well, wolves's sense of smell IS immensely keen. The truly unrealistic part is how wolves stop chasing the smell if it doesb't come from you, but this allows to store meat in snow without it being immeately gobbled up and without attracting a howling choir of wolves if you store it in high places. Maybe the effect of wind should be enhanced, yes.

In TLD there's a human with questionable hygiene and no spare clothes walking in a snowy landscape, scent should be an issue even without carrying meat.

Good idea about scent penalty decreasing with more cooking skill.

Decoy dropping may be weight based, so that you'd always drop the smallest piece. But then again randomizing may be right, if you are carrying a pig and drop a frog leg it's likely that a predator will keep following you.

One final consideration from the knife loving naturalist: do you know how godlike is a BEAR's sense of smell? Wolves should be the least of our problems.

[ChillPlayer]

1 hour ago, Doc Feral said:

One final consideration from the knife loving naturalist: do you know how godlike is a BEAR's sense of smell? Wolves should be the least of our problems.

oh yes, the Bear roaming the area near the river below Bear Creek Campground in CH will come all the way to the fishing hut on the foot of Jackrabbits Island when I pack myself full of meat.

And I completely agree with the OP, this mechanic is one of my least favorite and I use it solely to exploit it. Lure the wolves and bears towards you why having close access to a safe spot (like the fishing hut) and once the beasts are near, drop every piece of meat. Step out, shoot, go back inside, rinse & repeat. It makes hunting wolves and bears way too easy. You can also use this "technique" to clear secluded areas from beasts if you are unsure if one is lurking behind the next hill (like Trapper's). Lure them out, killem', safe travels

I suspect the devs intention was to make things harder for the player because we cannot travel with meat around the map safely but the result is the complete opposite, it makes life much easier for us and once an area is cleared we can still travel packed with meat and/or furs.

Having the beasts still track the meat even when dropped to the floor would actually make it even easier, like a hyper decoy I can place and just wait in a safe spot with bow or rifle aimed and ready.

Honestly the only fix I can see to prevent exploitation is to completely remove the mechanic or randomize it thoroughly so that in one area of smell-effect only one or two beasts will be lured towards the players but all other beasts ignore it. This would still result in free meat but at least one couldn't clear a whole area from a safe spot.

[Maehlice]

8 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

And I completely agree with the OP, this mechanic is one of my least favorite and I use it solely to exploit it. Lure the wolves and bears towards you why having close access to a safe spot (like the fishing hut) and once the beasts are near, drop every piece of meat. Step out, shoot, go back inside, rinse & repeat. It makes hunting wolves and bears way too easy. You can also use this "technique" to clear secluded areas from beasts if you are unsure if one is lurking behind the next hill (like Trapper's). Lure them out, killem', safe travels

And how realistic is that, right?  I have to force myself to not exploit the mechanics like that, because it breaks the immersion enough that I sometimes can't even keep playing after doing that.  It's weird, like the "suspension of disbelief" is overpowered, and I become conscious again that I'm just playing a game and not actuall there (weird, I know).

8 hours ago, ChillPlayer said:

Having the beasts still track the meat even when dropped to the floor would actually make it even easier, like a hyper decoy I can place and just wait in a safe spot with bow or rifle aimed and ready.

Honestly the only fix I can see to prevent exploitation is to completely remove the mechanic or randomize it thoroughly so that in one area of smell-effect only one or two beasts will be lured towards the players but all other beasts ignore it. This would still result in free meat but at least one couldn't clear a whole area from a safe spot.

Not being able to stockpile 100 kg of meat outside your front door is what would make it harder, should wolves begin tracking on dropped meat.  You'd come out of your base and immediately get mauled by a pack of wolves ... or wake up to zero meat anymore ... both would be terrible outcomes.

I can see what you mean about the hyper decoy.  There would have to be a limited scent range for dropped meat.  It would also make sense to decrease the scent rating as its "frozen" state increases.  I know wolves have a great sense of smell, but surely a piece of 100% frozen meat buried in the snow shouldn't attract wolves from miles around, right?