On the Subject of Scent

[Willy Pete]

I personally think that the scent system in TLD is rather lacking. If you're bleeding or carrying meat you gain scent bars that attract predators, only...predators are far from the only animals that rely on scent. That said, I think that the scent system could use an upgrade.

When I first thought about this idea, I was trying to work out an over-complicated system that worked like a series of bar graphs and overall sounded too far fetched to warrant use. Instead, there's a simpler way to do things that still relies on the one to three scent marks.

First and foremost, a scent system overhaul would require being given a bottle of [animal] scent whenever harvesting an animal. Either when you harvest the pelt, the guts, or upon a complete harvesting. Each animal will either give its own bottle of scent or just give varying amounts of predator and prey scents (a different word might be needed as the Moose isn't a predator, but would give a predator-themed scent for the purposes of this idea).

In addition to this, there would be a third scent that would remain largely unchanged: scent created by carrying meat, guts, and bleeding.

Each of these scents would be represented by a different color in the scent level marker: white (prey), black (predator), red (blood/meat).

~White scents would be had from rabbits and deer. These would decrease the range at which deer and rabbits detect you, but attract wolves and bears.

~Black scents would be had from wolves, bears, and moose. These would decrease the range at which wolves and bears detect you, but repel deer and rabbits, making them flee at greater distances.

~Red scents would be the same as they are now: bleeding, guts, meat, and would attract predators (and maybe repel prey animals).

The way these would work is simple: you apply the scent you want by selecting it in the inventory like any other consumable, and it applies to your overall scent marker. One application of white scent gives one white scent tick mark. Applying two more gives you two more scent marks. However, should you need to rid yourself of the prey scent, you would then apply predator scent. The first instance of this would reduce your white scent tick marks from three to two. Two more applications and you no longer smell like prey but have a neutral scent. Three more applications of predator scent and you'll have three black scent tick marks (at which point you would also have an increased chance to scare off wolves). Additionally, a piece of cloth and some water could also be used to reduce either scent to zero without wasting scent, but would take a longer amount of time.

Red scents you can only control by using bandages and dropping smelly gear. Red tick marks would override white and black ones immediately, jumping to one tick mark for bleeding and up to three for carrying harvested goods.

I don't entirely know how this would effect crafted clothing. Either it would have no effect and things would remain the same, wearing predator garments would increase your predator scent marks (two ticks for bearskin coat, one for wolfskin coat and bearskin sleeping bag), or all worn gear would have an effect (rabbitskin and deerskin clothes would give one prey tick mark each as well) in which case it might be a good idea to have all the main clothing slots have their own predator/prey options.

Anywho, that's my take. What do you folks think? You might be able to get rid of the red scent marks (instead wrapping it into prey scents) but I feel like having the "bad" scent that negatively effects you no matter what is a good detractor option.

[BosseJr]

That is a really good idea, but the coats and clothes wouldent give anny scent because it's cured.

[Willy Pete]

7 hours ago, BosseJr said:

the coats and clothes wouldent give anny scent because it's cured.

As the game currently stands, wearing a wolfskin/bearskin coat or having the bearskin bedroll already has a "black scent" effect that gives a chance to scare off wolves. Whether or not it'd stay that way with a scent overhaul is anyone's guess.