Critique from a new (PvE) archer: cut the cheese

[Akme]

"I'm scared to take on most wildlife. I get nearly killed when I try." - as i said above, u got some troubles just cause ur stats/skills/equipment not high enough. U should check wiki to learn what is required to take down prey that u wish to attack. U need some understanding of combat mechanics too ofc - but it will be gained after reading wiki and killing some animals in fights (ants is very good prey for this btw). Horse gives character overwhelming mobility aggainst most of prey and must be gained before u start ur hunting (at least tame some wild horse with clover temporarily). In conclusion - ur troubles with hunting animals it's not even early game - it's troubles of starting playing period, when player just have too small amount of game knowledge and experience.
Firstly, before any changes will be done to hunting with bow, archery itself here should be radically changed - like i proposed here for example - viewtopic.php?f=48&t=60496
Second - AI behaviour of animals should be improved - right now they are just mobs which just wandering around aimlessly in most times and pretend to look like wild animals (bug when they just stand on place while being shoot by unreachable target can be cured during this in natual way).
Third - strength of animals of same type should be randomized to add risk element in each hunt and make players depends on range weapons more in PVE (at least to check prey strength before attack in meele or weaken it). For example it can be done with q of prey as i proposed above, or wild animals of same type may have some small differences which may tell to experienced hunter their age and approximated strength.
Only after all this changes any trying to turn wild animals hunt (hunting with bow including) into something complex and difficult will have at least some sense.

[MagicManICT]

Stealth for hunting has been suggested previously. Jorb isn't necessarily against it if I recall, but he hasn't really commented much, either. I think it's mostly about coming up with a fun, reasonable to implement game mechanic.

[✧]

After some reflection and slightly more experience hunting the ferocious, indomitable hearthlands fox:

* Hunting on land, without trying to get something stuck for that first shot, feels satisfying. Stalking the fox until it stands still long enough to get a chance to take aim is fun. It moves around sufficiently for it to be difficult to get a chance to line up that shot, but it does occasionally stand still. A chance for the animal to bleed out is fun. Getting attacked when I miss the shot is ... fun, if not always healthy for my character. Having to chase down the fleeing animal is fun and satisfying.

* I think my main criticism is the chance to line up a first shot on a boat thing, and to a lesser extent doing the same sort of thing along cliffs. It seems like a smaller update to the ai could fix this without requiring a complete new and improved pathing algorithm. Either that or just letting all animals swim would be a big improvement imo.

* I agree wrt #3 that aiming specifically isn't some universally detectable hostile act in a way that other predatory behaviors aren't. So this is probably better considered as part of a general stealth system. It does still feel a little weird that they don't actually react at all until you actually fire the shot, but I guess we're assuming you're being stealthy up until the point of the shot, or something. Wrt to stealth, I still have the impression that the creatures of the hearthlands are all crazy unless hearthlings are all born with legendary stealth.

[jorb]

Animal behavior could certainly be better, but also feels a bit marginal to work on.