Infinite meat

While playing on CH, I did the following: Saw a wolf take down a deer on the ice. Approached just outside of aggro range, lit a torch, dropped it. Stepped closer to the wolf and aggroed it away from the carcass, ran back behind the torch to stop it. Then I backed off as far as I needed for the wolf to despawn. Voilà - free deer. Since torches are infinite, this exploit means infinite deer meat.

This could be fixed by making wolves circle around torches/flares/fires. At least if the player backs away from the obstacle, leaving the wolf on the other side. Better yet - make the wolf return to its prey. It is weird that wolves and bears do not eat carcasses lying around.

While playing on CH, I did the following: Saw a wolf take down a deer on the ice. Approached just outside of aggro range, lit a torch, dropped it. Stepped closer to the wolf and aggroed it away from the carcass, ran back behind the torch to stop it. Then I backed off as far as I needed for the wolf to despawn. Voilà - free deer. Since torches are infinite, this exploit means infinite deer meat.

This could be fixed by making wolves circle around torches/flares/fires. At least if the player backs away from the obstacle, leaving the wolf on the other side. Better yet - make the wolf return to its prey. It is weird that wolves and bears do not eat carcasses lying around.

I totally agree (and would like to add that the same "strategy" to acquire meat works with campfires as well). You don't even have to add enough sticks to create a torch, a two-stick-campfire is already enough.

+1 for improved animal pathfinding (move in a semi-circle around a fire) and

+1 for predators returning to (and consuming) carcasses.

It would also be nice if wolves actually ate (=destroyed) decoys. Atm you can retrieve the meat later on which is nothing but odd.

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+1 for improved animal pathfinding (move in a semi-circle around a fire) and

+1 for predators returning to (and consuming) carcasses.

It would also be nice if wolves actually ate (=destroyed) decoys. Atm you can retrieve the meat later on which is nothing but odd.

+1 on your suggestions.

I've tested this just a few days ago, when I drop a decoy the wolf eats it/it disappears.

Better pathfinding wouldn't change much. All you need to do is get close enough to the wolf while holding the torch in your hand, then walk away to the nearest building, spend some time inside and the wolf will be gone.

Or better yet, if you have a bow you can shoot the wolf right between the eyes from point blank and insta-kill it. Now you have 2 carcasses. Arrows may not be infinite but they are nearly so as you can harvest a broken arrow to get the arrowhead back. It takes a long time to run out of arrow shafts if you harvest all saplings in all regions.

I do agree though that wolfs and bears should not just keep standing there behind a fire/ torch/ flare when the player walks away.

Better pathfinding wouldn't change much. All you need to do is get close enough to the wolf while holding the torch in your hand, then walk away to the nearest building, spend some time inside and the wolf will be gone.

That's why it's so important that wolves get the ability to detect and consume carcasses. If I interrupt an eating wolf and then enter a building (or move away from it in general) I would like the wolf to return to the carcass and continue to eat the meat until everything is gone.

I don't believe that such an AI is incredibly hard to program either. Wolves would "only" need to get the ability to detect food (carcasses or meat) in a maybe 100m radius around them and move there. Every other AI aspect and animation (consume carcass over time, eating animation) already exists.

In my opinion the priorities of the wolf AI should always be

1) survival (fight or flight if the player or bears get too close to it)

2) consume carcasses and pieces of meat that are lying around

3) hunt new prey and

4) continue to patrol.

And the order of these priorities should never change. As soon as priority 1 is dealt with, priority two should be put into practice, not priority 4. Priority 3 shouldn't override priority 2 either, at least not if the wolf leaves a whole deer carcass in order to hunt a rabbit.

Maybe torches and fires shouldn't protect you from wolf attacks in very close proximity to carcasses (=if you're standing right next to the carcass and are in range to harvest it) in general.

I for one wouldn't find it particularly odd if stealing a wolf's prey might piss it off so much that it decides to attack you despite it's fear of fire (given that TLD's wolves already behave completely different than RL wolves anyway).

I've tested this just a few days ago, when I drop a decoy the wolf eats it/it disappears.

You're right about that - seems they finally fixed this in V.280. (Last time I tested it was in V.271.^^)

Glad to see it's working now.

I agree with most of what you said but I think wolfs should also have a 'hunger' meter and when it's full they should skip 2 and 3.

Agreed, but something also needs to be done about wolves constantly insta-killing deer right in front of you, which along with providing you infinite meat is also grossly unrealistic. My suggestion is have the wolf catch up to the deer and bite it, not killing it instantly but causing a bleeding wound. It then chases the deer until it bleeds out and drops. Incidentally, they could have any other wolves along the fleeing deer's path join in the chase...think how cool it would be to see a deer running along leaving a blood trail with about 4 wolves after it...not to mention that you now have the 4 wolves to deal with before harvesting your "infinite" meat.