Hi, I'm quite new to the game.

[Suchand]

Hi, I'm quite new to the game.

What determines quality of animals? Specially squirrles? I want some high quality hide, but it seems that the squirrles I catch are only quality 10? I caught a hen that is quality 20, so is it area specific? If I move, do I find other quality squirrles?

[TheServant]

yeah its node based u can walk the world and u will find different qualities, but small animals dont get decent quality in the wild, u need to raise them yourself... its hardcapped by ur survival, check wiki: https://ringofbrodgar.com

[vatas]

Wild animals have base/minimum quality, can go over it several times.

And yes, they get hardcapped by survival when you pick them up (small critters) or defeat them in close combat (bat, fox, so on.)

Interestingly, killing critters like ducks with a sling seems to not cap them - but the process of pluck/gut/butcher applies survival softcap, and sharp tool applies a hardcap.

[Robertzon]

Hi, I'm quite new to the game.

What determines quality of animals? Specially squirrles? I want some high quality hide, but it seems that the squirrles I catch are only quality 10? I caught a hen that is quality 20, so is it area specific? If I move, do I find other quality squirrles?

Currently quality nodes of animals are at a specific location in the world, that does not mean however there is going to be only one q50 squirrel node on the entire world map.
Usually you want to map out your findings, let's say you kill a fox and it turns out it's quality 50. Now what you want to do is map out which direction the quality node increases, you try to hunt another fox eastwards, northwards, southwards and westwards.
Moving a minimap width northwards the quality might increase by 20 so fox quality is now at 70, moving north again the quality might fall off to 10 randomly.
This works on all wildlife that are huntable/catchable, such as Emerald Dragonflies in Swamps, they might be q30 in the middle of the swamp but quality 10 down south of the swamp.
You can create flag markers on your map to write down your findings, helps a lot!