Wolf attack = certain death

In general I love The Long Dark. Steam says I've played it for 54 hours (which is a lot of game time for me), so I'm no-longer a noob. The harshness of death=restart is good in general, as these days it's usually your fault if you died (not prepared enough or did something too risky).

But every single time I've been attacked by a wolf, I've died. So I've registered on this forum specifically to give my feedback. I hope Hinterland will listen.

Yeah, I'm sure there is some trick to defeating wolves. Maybe it's even "easy" when you know how. But everything else about the game can be work-out by common-sense, some trial & error (and maybe a death or two). EXCEPT for wolf attacks.

When attacked you only have a few seconds to work out what to do, while you health drops like a stone. I've tried tapping my left or right mouse button, and I've tried holding them down. But whatever I do there is no real indication that what I'm doing is having ANY effect, and thus I have no idea what I *should* be doing. So I die, and loose 10s of hours of game progress to some unfathomably unfair game UI.

From my point of view the being-attacked-by-a-wolf UI is broken. It's so beginner-unfriendly that after 50+ hours of game time I still don't know what I'm supposed to be doing (at least not enough to survive).

Ok, I lied a little, because after the wolf UI was revamped, I've survived once. But that was completely by accident (button mashing), and I still have no clue how I survived. So now I have a batch file which backs-up my save game state before starting the game. I don't want to do that, but it's the only way I can work-around the broken wolf UI.

Feel free to give me advice if you wish, or berate me for not reading some obscure wiki page, but you will be missing the point. The wolf attack UI needs a major revamp. I don't know how they can fix it, but somehow they need to provide clear & obvious feedback on what your actions are doing, so that after a death or two you'll have worked out roughly what you're supposed to be doing (like how the rest of the game works).

P.S. Please note that I'm the sort of player with poor "peripheral vision". If there are chat messages appearing in the corner of an MMO, I won't tend to see them, unless I consciously look there. If I'm fighting an enemy then I will be concentrating on that & won't usually notice what else is going on around me. All of which is to say that there may well be SOME indication of what my actions are doing on the wolf-attack UI, but if so then I simply don't see it. It needs to be very big or brightly coloured & preferably in the middle of the screen, or there is a good chance I won't notice it while I'm panicking about my health dropping like a stone (and the big distraction of a loudly barking wolf in my face).

P.P.S. I usually have a knife and/or hatchet on me, but that doesn't seem to make any difference to fighting-off the wolf (even though I think I read it should do). i.e. It may make a difference, but I still don't have any clue what I'm supposed to be doing.

Hey ChrisH,

I too registered here with the intent of giving feedback about the game, specifically the wolves.

But I'll stay on topic. In one wolf encounter, I had a hatchet, and that encounter was brief and I wasn't harmed at all, so its interesting that a knife or hatchet isn't helping your chances at all ChrisH. But without, and I agree that trying to figure out the left-click right-click in-game instructions isn't the easiest thing to do. Perhaps its high difficulty exists to reflect the shock a person would experience in that situation in real life, and the futility of being pinned down by a 90-100 lb predator. But nevertheless, I agree that one's death from blood loss comes too quickly from the attack. Perhaps having the player's swings (if they can coordinate them) weaken with more bites from the wolf as they are eaten alive would give players more time to figure out the defense mechanics, with fewer deaths over less game attempts.

Welcome to the forums both of you!

Hum, I can only tell you what I'm doing when attacked by a wolf (I usually loose about 20-40% health in the process), but it doesn't really sound much different from your description.

First, you need to click the left mouse button a few times, until your attack bar is filled and flashing. (In a way, this is the "indication" you asked for. But you're right that it's not very self-explaining. ).

Then you right-click once (= you stab the wolf). Rinse repeat, after 2-3 times the wolf will run away and bleed to death.

Randomly clicking left and right in panic (as I did when I started playing the game) also worked for me, I just lost much more health then.

Is it possible that the problem might be your clicking speed?^^

You really need to smash your mouse buttons as fast as in any way possible (several times per second).

I hope my advice is somehow helpful for you.

Wolf attacks are very survivable, however not at all non-twitch player friendly. It requires fast mouse clicks.

The devs have stated they are looking for a way to improve the fight mechanic but there hasn't been an update on the direction they are looking.

I can imagine having max 10-20 wolves on the map, and they are not respawn, or on a very low respawn rate like 1-2 wolves per month. (this apply to all wildlife in my point of view to force you to move on)

Also would be an improvement if they would have variable nature, I mean a wolf should be able to take decisions upon different actions, like deciding if he will attack the survivor or flee on sight.

Deers also should have a chance to injure the wolf, or to flee away from a wolf to make it more enjoyable and unpredictable when you drive a deer to a wolf.

Also wolfs should wander alone, and wander in groups of 2-4 wolfs as well, and their decision making of attacking a big moving meat chunk with a lighting tree should depend on their self-confidence, so if you shoot one of them, it is not sure the rest will flee from the sound of your gunshot.

That is all would bring so much to the current game to worth a patch.

EDIT: I do not believe if a wolf or a dog attack supposed to take 5 seconds in real life.

Decreasing the possible danger factor numbers should involve increasing the actual danger factor from one simple encounter, this would mean in my point of view that if you are attacked, that is a real struggle involving the possibility to die in the fight and yes, it would even take 30-60 seconds to fight a wolf, but with multiple choices:

Defending and fleeing, should help you to survive an attack with less damage and without dealing significant damage to the wolf.

Default, would have no effect on the damages.

Offensive, hunting stance should be something what focus the dealt damage and increasing the damage received as well.

And the fight itself should cover how really fearsome is when a 40-50 (often more)kg mass want to take your life with all he have. They focus your neck default so if you are not aware of them they wont bite your arm, instead they go for your neck.

Maybe it would be good idea if the game showed a special screen explaining how to fight a wolf whenever a player dies from a wolf attack.

Currently, you have to press the left and right buttons in rapid succession. From what I understand, pressing the left button charges up your power, and pressing the right button releases the strike. So you can choose whether to strike the wolf many times with weak power (often press rihgt mouse button) or just a few times with a lot of power (charge power bar with multiple left mouse clicks and release when power bar is full with a single right click, repeating that several times). You have to be fast a fast clicker either way, though. It helps if you have better clothing, you survive more atacks from the wolf.

And yes, the game does not give much help here - had to google for some explanations as well.

EDIT: I do not believe if a wolf or a dog attack supposed to take 5 seconds in real life.

Decreasing the possible danger factor numbers should involve increasing the actual danger factor from one simple encounter, this would mean in my point of view that if you are attacked, that is a real struggle involving the possibility to die in the fight and yes, it would even take 30-60 seconds to fight a wolf, but with multiple choices:

Defending and fleeing, should help you to survive an attack with less damage and without dealing significant damage to the wolf.

Default, would have no effect on the damages.

Offensive, hunting stance should be something what focus the dealt damage and increasing the damage received as well.

And the fight itself should cover how really fearsome is when a 40-50 (often more)kg mass want to take your life with all he have. They focus your neck default so if you are not aware of them they wont bite your arm, instead they go for your neck.

The time scale in the game is significantly sped up so that 3 seconds IS much closer to the 30 seconds you are asking for.

The only map where I feel wolves are too numerous is the CH map. And really that's only because they ARE grouped in smaller areas which happen to be right where you want to go. On the other 2 maps they tend to be more spread out and really pretty easy to avoid.

Maybe it would be good idea if the game showed a special screen explaining how to fight a wolf whenever a player dies from a wolf attack.

I agree generally with this and your other points. But, this screen would be annoying to get if you've already successfully fought quite a few wolves... A little patronizing.. so it would be good if it could be kept to new players.

With regards to making the wolf fight interface more intuitive, I wonder if a similar interface could be introduced in another aspect of the game, so that the player is familiar with it when a wolf fight happens. For example, prying open a locker or truck of a car. This could use a similar interface where one mouse button builds power, the other button releases the strike..

It's not exactly realistic (but neither is the current wolf fight), but the real goal is that this would allow the player to learn and understand the mechanic in an environment that is not life or death. There could be other/better situations where this approach could work too... other locked boxes, stuck zipper (lol! jk)

For example, prying open a locker or truck of a car. This could use a similar interface where one mouse button builds power, the other button releases the strike..

It's not exactly realistic (but neither is the current wolf fight), but the real goal is that this would allow the player to learn and understand the mechanic in an environment that is not life or death. There could be other/better situations where this approach could work too... other locked boxes, stuck zipper (lol! jk)

I like it, nice idea, and useful too, not too repetative.

I feel that these wolves should only have a chance to run in packs. Have them be a bit different, tagged somehow as Alpha's and non-Alpha's (calling it a Beta for simplicity purposes). Have the alpha spawns be extremely rare, say 1 out of 50 that spawn become Alpha's. Then when an Alpha paths near a Beta, there is a chance the Beta will join it's pack. Beta's would ignore other Beta's and the like. Or:

Whatever is causing their aggressiveness towards human (aye, I know, it's a game and that's part of it) should also be causing them to be a lot more aggressive to each other. Wolves from different packs will attack each other all the time in the wild. Also, when food becomes scarce a pack of wolves will often thin out their pack, the strongest killing off the weakest. I think it would make a lot of sense for these wolves to be killing each other off if they get too close to one another. Say once a "pack" of wolves has 3 or 4 in it, the wolves in that pack will kill other wolves they come into contact with. And as in the above, Beta's would attack other Beta's, Alpha's would attack other Alpha's, and wolf packs would attack other wolf packs (competition for food and whatnot).

First, you need to click the left mouse button a few times, until your attack bar is filled and flashing. (In a way, this is the "indication" you asked for. But you're right that it's not very self-explaining. ).

Far too non-explanatory for me. I didn't even notice it :-(

From my point of view, the problems with the wolf-attack UI are:

1. There is extremely limited time to look at the UI & understand it.

2. There's far too much information on it for the limited time available to the player. Even experienced airline pilots can make bad decisions in an emergency (leading to a crash) due to having too much information in their face (and so selectively focusing on the wrong information).

3. Even when the player does something right, the indication they are successful is far too subtle to be noticed (or for the player to realise what it means).

Is it possible that the problem might be your clicking speed?^^

You really need to smash your mouse buttons as fast as in any way possible (several times per second).

That may be part of the problem. The game UI does not say "tap button as fast as possible", so how am I supposed to realise that's what I should be doing? (Don't answer that, it was a rhetorical question.) I try tapping left button a few times, but nothing seems to happen, so I try tapping the right button a few times, and nothing seems to happen, so I then try pressing the left & right buttons (together or alternating or holding one down first etc) and still nothing much seems to happen. Then I die & get very angry at the game.

With regards to making the wolf fight interface more intuitive, I wonder if a similar interface could be introduced in another aspect of the game, so that the player is familiar with it when a wolf fight happens. For example, prying open a locker or truck of a car. This could use a similar interface where one mouse button builds power, the other button releases the strike..

It's not exactly realistic (but neither is the current wolf fight), but the real goal is that this would allow the player to learn and understand the mechanic in an environment that is not life or death. There could be other/better situations where this approach could work too... other locked boxes, stuck zipper (lol! jk)

Hey, that sounds like a really good idea!

EDIT: I do not believe if a wolf or a dog attack supposed to take 5 seconds in real life.

...(snip)...

The time scale in the game is significantly sped up so that 3 seconds IS much closer to the 30 seconds you are asking for.

Realism is not the ultimate arbiter for how the game should work. Fun is. Otherwise you'd have wolves roaming in packs & other more realistic wolf behaviour, your in-game walking speed would be far far faster, etc.

TLD certainly aims for realism, but they have to cut that back if it makes the game not fun for too many people.

EDIT: I do not believe if a wolf or a dog attack supposed to take 5 seconds in real life.

The time scale in the game is significantly sped up so that 3 seconds IS much closer to the 30 seconds you are asking for.

Yup you are right, I thought on it after posting, but my focus was on making the wolf mini game to become something really dangerous and fun as well, so a solution where multiple different wolf fights could appear seems to be the best.

I mean, you have 3-5-X different possible wolf fights depending on a random factor or the direction the wolf attacks you.

Clicking

Button challenge

Aiming challenge

I am not familiar with mini games but this should be enough to give you the proper idea about what I mean.

I would suggest not using outdated terminology to refer to wolf pack structure though. Alpha and Beta should be replaced with breeding pair, since wild wolf packs are commonly made up of a breeding pair and their offspring. Alpha and Beta roles are based off of observations of captive pack behaviours. These captive packs are often comprised of unrelated wolves forced into a pack structure because enclosures offer no opportunities for dispersal, and hence limited mate selection.