Need info, could be a bug

[dookiejones]

Hinterland or folks that know,

I have been playing interloper, I am enjoying the hell out of dying mostly, but I am noticing a few strange things. I know how this sounds, but, I think interloper is cheating to kill me or there are some bugs that need addressing. Clarification on a couple mechanics that are not exposed or documented, that I could find, would help clear this confusion up. I am just going to list the weirdness and an answer of functioning as intended or not is all that I need, tons of detail may ruin the experience.

• Wild life hunting you down, taken from stalker difficulty setting, I would assume this applies to interloper as well. Should wolves be hunting me, I can watch them follow my tracks, if I have not aggroed them or have smell meter?
• When I have a smell meter I can run into wolves that were not in the area, I made sure to scan around before heading out and saw/heard no wolves.
• Is there a player proximity check on spawning/respawning wolves? I SAW a wolf spawn, just poof it showed up, about 2ft away from my character. I was immediately attacked, no warning or chance to run or do anything, it was on me as soon as it spawned. Middle of the field in PV, flat ground, no way I just didn't see it.
• The falling down mechanic, I actually like it, should it cause condition loss on interloper? Lost ~5% condition to a fall last night and no it was not falling down a hill.

[JAFO]

15 hours ago, dookiejones said:

Wild life hunting you down, taken from stalker difficulty setting, I would assume this applies to interloper as well. Should wolves be hunting me, I can watch them follow my tracks, if I have not aggroed them or have smell meter?

Just because you don't have any scent bars showing, doesn't mean you're not giving off a smell. If you are carrying any meat/fish, raw or cooked, or uncured guts, or uncured hide, you are giving off a scent that can attract predators. The more you are carrying, the further away you can be detected. When you are carrying enough (for example, 6 pieces of cooked meat will do it), the scent bars begin lighting up. Your scent also carries downwind, so you will be detected further away in that direction.

(Incidentally, if you're bleeding after an attack, the smell of your blood will attract predators as well.. -including the one that just attacked you, if it's still alive and no longer scared- so don't waste any time applying a bandage.)

 

15 hours ago, dookiejones said:

When I have a smell meter I can run into wolves that were not in the area, I made sure to scan around before heading out and saw/heard no wolves.

Depending on how many scent bars are lit up, wolves from further and further away will be attracted towards your location. When all 3 are lit up, every wolf for several kilometers around is heading in your direction at a brisk trot. (So don't dawdle.)

 

15 hours ago, dookiejones said:

Is there a player proximity check on spawning/respawning wolves? I SAW a wolf spawn, just poof it showed up, about 2ft away from my character. I was immediately attacked, no warning or chance to run or do anything, it was on me as soon as it spawned. Middle of the field in PV, flat ground, no way I just didn't see it.

This would seem to disprove the recently made claims that "magically spawning wolves" are merely an artifact of the draw-distance settings. Which means it's a bug. Please report it.

 

15 hours ago, dookiejones said:

The falling down mechanic, I actually like it, should it cause condition loss on interloper? Lost ~5% condition to a fall last night and no it was not falling down a hill.

I like that some condition loss occurs when falling down. Can't say if it's interloper only, or that I've noticed it myself. Did you get messages about bruising or torn clothing when it happened?

 

[dookiejones]

7 hours ago, JAFO said:

Just because you don't have any scent bars showing, doesn't mean you're not giving off a smell. If you are carrying any meat/fish, raw or cooked, or uncured guts, or uncured hide, you are giving off a scent that can attract predators. The more you are carrying, the further away you can be detected. When you are carrying enough (for example, 6 pieces of cooked meat will do it), the scent bars begin lighting up. Your scent also carries downwind, so you will be detected further away in that direction.

(Incidentally, if you're bleeding after an attack, the smell of your blood will attract predators as well.. -including the one that just attacked you, if it's still alive and no longer scared- so don't waste any time applying a bandage.)

 

Depending on how many scent bars are lit up, wolves from further and further away will be attracted towards your location. When all 3 are lit up, every wolf for several kilometers around is heading in your direction at a brisk trot. (So don't dawdle.)

 

This would seem to disprove the recently made claims that "magically spawning wolves" are merely an artifact of the draw-distance settings. Which means it's a bug. Please report it.

 

I like that some condition loss occurs when falling down. Can't say if it's interloper only, or that I've noticed it myself. Did you get messages about bruising or torn clothing when it happened?

 

1. For this point I was just trying to confirm that you are hunted with or without scent being given off on interloper. The incident that made me notice and ask, I wasn't carrying anything that would have given off scent. If it is 100% as intended then hinterland did a fantastic job with the mechanic, the wolves will follow your foot prints with nose down, it feels fantastic when you can use that to avoid the wolves.
2. The incident that made me say, "Ok, this is broken." I was in PV headed from the farmhouse to the barn. I crossed the river headed north, stopped at the top of the hill there to scan around and saw no wolves, 2 bunnies and 2 sets of 2 deer only. I made my way on across the field and seemingly out of nowhere a wolf shows up. I did look around long enough that I would have seen a wolf making its way onto the field had it come from a ways out in the direction it was coming from. I had clear line of sight pretty much to the wood line. AI entities should be prevented from spawning inside the minimum view distance allowed. It won't stop 100% of cases of seeing AI spawn, but, it will at least give you a fair chance to react. 
3. If the "magically spawning wolves" are an artifact of draw distance then the maximum draw distance setting is far to low. I do have all the settings cranked up as high as they will go, I turned off the AA injection in the driver I was using just to make sure it wasn't something I did. I have also verified files on steam. Hardware should not be an issue, 6700k + 980, never above 60% GPU usage with a 1080p60 stream encoded by shadowplay, below 55% usage without the stream. CPU usage stays below 40% though I have other programs running all the time.
4. That is the thing, I have never NOTICED condition loss. It may be that it should cause condition loss which is fine, to a point. There should be a check in place to stop condition loss when already below, say, 10% or at least prevent the condition loss from dropping you below 5%. Even though it is a mechanic I like, I cannot help but feel the game cheated to kill me in this case. 

 

That last sentence says it all I think. Even with the death=fun attitude I take to gaming (praise Armok), if it feels like the game cheats then the level of difficulty is no fun.