Wolves and Bears behaving like Does

The wolf pack leader in South Valeway is running away from me without attacking, all the pack in fact... I only killed 3 of them but they have fear now

 

Actually it is --- Quote from Sarah (Serafina)
"What we did was try to make the animals act a little more realistically. Bears might flee at first, but after you get in a few consistent hits, they should turn around and attack you. Wolves are going to flee more often, but if you pursue them and land enough hits, they'll come after you. This is supposed to mimic nature more closely. Remember: Wild animals are more afraid of you than you're afraid of them!"

Sarah (Serafina)
Quality Assurance and Customer Support

 

It seems counter intuitive to the storyline to me, those specific wolves running away. They are supposed to be "vicious" and attacking the townfolk. To have them act like all the other wolves detracts from the quest, imo.

 

Although I do support this move, I think it was not though out properly.
1: Wolves usually attack in Pack, so if one runs then it should run towards another wolf nearby and come slowly back and others may join if nearby.
2: Obsidian animals are cursed and should attack anything that comes close to it.
3: Wolves near a den should attack as this is normal behavior to defend your house or den where there maybe young ( cubs ) wolves.
4: Bears near a den should attack on the very site of you..
5: Bears near a resource may walk slowly away but circle around you and attack.
6: Hitting a bear once should be enough to invoke a fight. ( especially higher level ones )

The higher the wolf or bear the more percentage of possible attack their should be.

 

It seems like this was poorly planned out. ( unless they have a plan and this was just the introduction to it )
Some of these wolves were guarding resource and now they just run and let you have them..hmmmmmm

Now are they going to go back to each resource that had wolves as a challenge and add another challenging aspect to it as to not to make resource picking too easy? I see that as a bit time consuming and with all that is missing still and the Final Wipe and December Deadline and think adding stuff like this is Over loading the donkey ( sort of speak)

I really hope they thought this through and do have a plan..

 

I'm still in denial.

So, the whole 1-5 skull(s) on a stick thing at the entrances is just for decoration? If it's just as challenging(not at all) to kill a grey wolf or large grizzly bear what's the point? South Ravenswood has orange con Large Grizzly Bears running from me despite taking arrows to their backs. I was killing most animals without taking a point of damage myself. Why even have orange cons? Something has to be amiss.

 

This is the first appearance of the behavior in game. Perhaps they will adjust the scales both ways. That is animals will be more likely to attack you the higher in difficulty they are to you, since you are the opposite to them-- i.e. easy prey. Perhaps with additional factors being considered-- type of animal, nearness of lair, etc.

 

I like the idea of making behavior a bit more natural, unfortunately this was not achieved. A good majority of my battles with wolves now involve me firing on a wolf that is just casually walking back and forth, or that runs to the edge of the map and cannot be attacked until I back off. The speed these animals can move would make a truly fleeing wolf impossible to kill if it didn't get stuck at the edge of the map and a docile and stupid wolf is far from natural. Another issue is that many times the wolf will be cycling in and out of threat/no-threat mode and while in no-threat it is regenerating health quite quickly making the time it takes to kill them a bit frustrating. As it is now I much preferred the old unrealistic and aggressive wolves after all not much in this game is "realistic" and any attempt towards realism would take a major overhaul.
I have yet to experience fleeing bears.

 

ok, I take that back. I just encountered a grizzly that neither ran nor attacked, instead it just slowly lumbered over to a rock and buried its head against it. I killed it while it was trying to casually walk through a wall. The grizzly was so high on mushrooms that it didn't even notice my arrows while entranced in its calm exploration of slow moving matter.

 

It would be interesting if wolves had fairly unique behaviors as individual wolves but became more aggressive and strategic if they were being influenced by pack mentality. Perhaps the wolves could randomly elect a pack leader, or a pack leader could be spawned. If there was a alpha wolf/pack leader and you attacked one of the wolves it would change it's behavior based on conditional modifiers - such as, if you get it to half hit points it might howl for reinforcements or it might run to the pack leader. The pack leader could patrol the area with other wolves. I'd say in the more difficult forests you should expect to see more intelligent monster behaviors. I'd like to see higher grade animal hides too.

 

I hope they will change this. But if they are determined to keep the animals this way ... oh well, such is life. There are ways now to easily kill all the wolves and bears with zero risk, and rack up large xp gains. However, it seems to me that these methods are clearly exploits, and are unbecoming to the spirit of a heroic-fantasy RPG. Just my opinion, for whatever it's worth.

 

These changes were intentional, so we can't really classify this as a bug. However, I'm moving this thread to feedback so it cane be addressed as such.

Thank you all for your comments!

 

I like the idea of wild animals not attacking on sight. However, thats not the same as running away. Maybe wolves should back away, and have a bit to snarl at you to warn you away (snarling emotes for animals would be great!) Only if you stay around them for a while (30-45 seconds) or if they are protecting their lair will they attack. They would also be likely to howl and summon some of their friends from nearby; they are pack animals, after all.

 

I sign this approach.
I like the idea of realist animal behavior.

Major concern from my side: If one wolf decides to attack, all wolves close to him, should also attack. One fleeing and one attacking should not happen.

 

At least this pattern is not permanent for a given AI. I was quite surprised when a large red spider ran away. It eventually attacked, though. The same thing happened with wolves. It seems a check is made at the end/beginning of a behavior cycle/loop, for lack of a better term. These cycles/loops seem to last about 30 seconds, at a guess. I did chase a large red spider around the Mysterious Swamp. I hit it for several hundred HP's of damage, but only about a hundred HP's were counted off. Apparently a lot of damage doesn't count when it is in pure fleeing mode. So. Stand and wait. Go harvest something. Whatever it is will attack eventually.

 

I do not care for the changes, as they take away what I enjoyed, i.e. Hunting. Perhaps I am alone in this feeling but it removes my enjoyment of PvE which I enjoyed until now. I do not care for PvP so I guess my fun is over.

 

Ditto. And you are not alone. Somebody should do a poll on this matter.

 

Definitely puts a bump up on wanting bow levels. If they want to complicate the AI then as others have suggested the way to go would be to add a memory and pack mentality. Store observation of Avatar at location x,y,z. Formed unit of 4 wolves based on close proximity of other wolves. This increases the morale chance of attack due to number of wolves. Proceed to last observed avatar location and look for a meal.

Course that greatly complicates the AI as you have to build in cooperative goals amongst multiple entities. Not a quick task.

 

I'm really not convinced that wolves and bears in wilderness will ever run away from human like rabbits and does. Were what we learned in school and all these videos on Discovery channel about animal attacks lies?

Even encounter with pets such as dogs who feel threaten by human, they do not just run away, they will back down on their hind legs and growls as they are ready to attack if they are being pushed even further.

 

I've rolled with just about every change that has come up in the last 12 months since I pledged, but this may be one of the worst attempts at realism I've ever come across in any game I've ever played. It looks silly and completely UN-natural to see a fierce yellow/orange con creature run from me. Not only that, but the wolf/bear runs to a tree and continues trying to run head first through the tree depicting a completely UN-natural visual that would never happen in nature. It also defies what was earlier reported to be a game mechanic where mobs would guard resource nodes.