Combat system unclear while taming

[Tikitri]

Hello fellow heartlings.

To give some context, this is my first world and I'm currently no-lifing this game. My friends played before and they're a great help, but I think I've reached a point where we're equals in term of game knowledge. I've been studying the wiki a lot and while some things aren't explained anywhere and it's frustrating, I still love the game. Also I'm using Amber if it's any use to help me.

So I'm starting to tame animals. Read all I could find on it. Managed to find the peace button behind the minimap. Fought a sheep that was ready for it, in peace mode, the combat ended without it dying. Great! A horse is ready to fight too, in another enclosure. I go in my house, put on some leather armor, and come back to fight the horse. I engage with arrows to do easy damage at the start (did the same to the sheep and it worked) and at the second I shoot my arrow, my character somehow is targetting the sheep in the combat ui, the sheep starts destroying the fence to come attack me while the horse starts to attack me.

I'd like to understand why was the sheep even involved in this second fight, minutes later, and why I was still targetting it. Just figuring out how to switch target is unintuitive as hell, all I found is use the attack command (hotkey 't') on the horse. In fact the whole combat system is unintuitive and requires lots of reading on the forum to even kill an ant on the first day.

Besides the rant, can someone explain me what happened and how to prevent it?



Another taming related question, why can't I ride a horse again after it has been tethered to a hitching post for a certain time? Let's say I can't tame it yet, but it still has lots of energy. I'd like to tether it to a post, do other stuff, come back and ride it again. Can't ride it, can't give it a clover. Is it a bug?

[Willberfollower]

The process begins by feeding the animal a Clover, leashing them with a rope and then hitching the animal to a Hitching Post
Afterwards a yellow number will appear on the animal. This is the overall taming progress and it increases in increments. Starting at 15 and completed at 100.
After a random period of time (between 12-26 hours, needs testing) the animal will enter into a combat stance. This means it is ready to be progressed
The animal cannot remain in this state for too long 5 hours or it will despawn.
Now you need to attack the animal in a specific way. This can be done at any level, so long as you can easily defeat the animal with punches.
Set a combat deck where your only offensive move is punch. If you need more than punch to be effective, you aren't ready to tame.
Attack the animal and 'immediately' hit peace in the upper right corner.
Beat the ever-living shit out of it. Show no mercy on that slob.
Assuming it was both ready to be tamed AND peaced at the start: The animal will not die at the end and gain progress
It appears to gain 15 each successful tame, but this may vary
Leash and reattach the animal to a free post. It does not need to be the same post as before.
Repeat until the progress reaches 100. A frame-eating purple cloud will show the transformation
This procedure is repeated until the animal is tamed

[Tikitri]

Thanks for copy pasting the wiki page on taming, but that doesn't answer my questions. I've already read that more than once and understand it pretty well.

[Ukhata]

you probably hit the sheep with an arrow.
you cant ride a wild horse that has been hitched. cuz it is now in taming mode. its just how it is.

[Tikitri]

you probably hit the sheep with an arrow.

I am 100% sure I didn't since the two animals aren't in the same enclosure and my arrow hit the horse..

Thanks for aswering my other question. Now it's clear.

[linkfanpc]

Many things about taming are unclear and never explained.

1: If the animal cannot pathfind to you (IE you're smacking it safely from behind a wall or some such.) it will never peace and will always commit suicide.
2: You have to click the peace button before you perform any combat move. If you punch once before peacing, the animal will get mad and will never peace.
3: You have to engage in melee combat. Archery won't work.

Just enter combat when it's in the fighting stance, immediately click the peace button, fight it fair and square 1v1, and spam no attack other than punch. Obviously you can use restorations to reduce your openings fine, but no damage should be dealt to the animal in any method other than Punch.

Oh, and FYI, firing an arrow near animals will make them mad regardless of if they got hit. When you shot at the horse you hit it, and made it mad, and also the sheep didn't like getting fired at, so it attacked too.

[rye130]

You have to engage in melee combat. Archery won't work.

I successfully tamed a few animals with 1 character tanking while a second shot them with a bow. I've had other people tell me this didn't work for them though so take it with a grain of salt.

Just enter combat when it's in the fighting stance, immediately click the peace button, fight it fair and square 1v1, and spam no attack other than punch.

You can gang up on the animals for taming, doesn't have to be a 1v1.

[linkfanpc]

I successfully tamed a few animals with 1 character tanking while a second shot them with a bow. I've had other people tell me this didn't work for them though so take it with a grain of salt.

Huh, interesting.

You can gang up on the animals for taming, doesn't have to be a 1v1.

You can, but me and my buddies have had bad experience with it, sometimes the animal just doesn't peace despite doing everything right. If i had to guess their pathfinding might occasionally glitch due to being attacked by multiple people and for whatever reason think it can't pathfind.

[Tikitri]

Oh, and FYI, firing an arrow near animals will make them mad regardless of if they got hit. When you shot at the horse you hit it, and made it mad, and also the sheep didn't like getting fired at, so it attacked too.

Hmm that might have happened. There was a horse and a stone fence between me and the sheep, but the arrow's path, if unobstructed, would have landed near the sheep. Thanks for helping me think!

Also I think I'll stick with linkfanpc's conservative taming strategy. I tried to take shortcuts with arrows or fighting the animal with my friends (ended up killing it 2 times out of 3 tries tho), but I think 1v1 spamming punch is the safest way to tame without any bad surprises. Just tried it and it's smooth, the only downside is it will require more leather invested in armors!

[linkfanpc]

Oh, and FYI, firing an arrow near animals will make them mad regardless of if they got hit. When you shot at the horse you hit it, and made it mad, and also the sheep didn't like getting fired at, so it attacked too.

Hmm that might have happened. There was a horse and a stone fence between me and the sheep, but the arrow's path, if unobstructed, would have landed near the sheep. Thanks for helping me think!

Also I think I'll stick with linkfanpc's conservative taming strategy. I tried to take shortcuts with arrows or fighting the animal with my friends (ended up killing it 2 times out of 3 tries tho), but I think 1v1 spamming punch is the safest way to tame without any bad surprises. Just tried it and it's smooth, the only downside is it will require more leather invested in armors!

For leather i recommend you start slaughtering your entire local population of foxes and squirrels.