Combat vs animals needs to not revolve around cheesing them.

[Nocturnal-Rainbows]

Oh, you better believe it's that time again. I had an epiphany whilst drinking my morning coffee.
I was watching some noobs video on Haven & Hearth (It was a sort of review released recently) and it was filled with the usual. Very little progress even after 2 weeks of playing, constantly getting knocked out and killed, very little efficiency and basically no clue on what he was doing.
A lot of his issues were basically just a skill issue or lack of knowledge but I wanna focus on the one thing I did actually agree with him on.

He said that there's no early game creatures that you can learn combat with by fighting. I thought to myself "Well that's just not true, I can kill half the creatures in the world on day 1". And then it hit me like a ton of bricks. Something that I and I bet all of you have been blind to because we've just come to accept that that's how the game is played.
Combat revolves around cheesing things. Cave hopping, cliff jumping, Pali safespaces, boat kiting. All cheesing methods.
How many things can you kill early on? Lots right? How many of those same things can you kill head on without jumping in and out of a cave?

Lads, listen, I'm sorry but upon reflection, this is fucking retarded. It really is and although we don't think much of it anymore because we're all just used to that being how the game works it's a terrible look. Imagine someone asking how to fight a fucking bat or a fox and you have to tell them that they basically can't fight anything head on without cheesing by diving in and out of caves for weeks until they get bronze swords AT WHICH POINT YOU JUST USE YOUR RANGED ADVANTAGE AND CONTINUE CHEESING ANYWAY.

The only times you start killing animals without cheese is when they're trivial because you're so strong and your equipment is so good that it's basically free.

We need to move away from this shit. We needed to move away from this years ago to be fair. You shouldn't need to resort to cheese, especially not on early game animals.
This is like the third video I've seen of some new guy attacking a swan expecting it to be easy and then getting shit on and while you can make the argument that such a mistake is just part of the learning process, one thing you can't argue for is that there's no early game animals that combat can be practiced on without cheesing. It's fucking lame, I've never liked cave hopping, I just sort of accepted it and forgot about how retarded it is that that's the prevalent way to hunt for a long ass time.

The only way this can be fixed is by sitting the fuck down and having an idea in mind as to what stats/combat skills/equipment you should have to be able to fight certain animals at without cheesing. Also, you have to keep in mind wounds, if you're able to kill a badger head on but then you're riddled with wounds that take days to heal after just one fucking fight then that's obviously not good enough. Getting some light scuffle wounds is fine though.

After this has been done and combat has been fixed (lol) then focus on removing the cheesing methods one by one because if you don't remove them then people will still use the cheese methods even if they can fight animals head on because it'll stop them from getting any wounds period.

You could make new early game animals to fight and ease people into combat or just use existing ones. I don't know if any of you have seen a fox but a fox isn't beating an adult man, neither is a bat, neither is a swan, nor an otter, not a beaver, nor an ant, nor a sheep. Loling tbh, I'm just now realizing how many weak as fuck animals we have in this game that are supposedly able to go toe to toe vs man, particularly man armed with weapons. The fuck...


Oh yeah, obligatory TL;DR-
Fix combat so that cheesing isn't almost mandatory to get into killing animals.
Make some new (or use existing) animals that eases people into combat.

And to the people who thinks this is dumming down the game or making it less skillful, behave. There's nothing safer than cheesing animals, that's literally why they're the go-to method for hunting.
Most of our players are shit at the game because they don't know a damn thing about combat even when they're at the point of killing the more endgame creatures because everything revolves around cheesing. They haven't learned anything except how to cheese things lmao.
Actually fix the combat and force people to learn how the combat system works and make it enjoyable to fight.
Current way of hunting is boring and gay, I'm sorry but it's true and it's been like that for... well, since the games inception.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

How many things can you kill early on? Lots right? How many of those same things can you kill head on without jumping in and out of a cave?

I can kill anything boar and below with no cheese day 1, solo.

[noindyfikator]

How many things can you kill early on? Lots right? How many of those same things can you kill head on without jumping in and out of a cave?

I can kill anything boar and below with no cheese day 1, solo.

sos op

[Robben_DuMarsch]

How many things can you kill early on? Lots right? How many of those same things can you kill head on without jumping in and out of a cave?

I can kill anything boar and below with no cheese day 1, solo.

sos op

[Audiosmurf]

No cheese combat is easy, it's just a little tedious. You can kill basically any minor animal early (like day 1,) on any speed 4 terrain as soon as you have a bucket.

[Robben_DuMarsch]

No cheese combat is easy, it's just a little tedious. You can kill basically any minor animal early (like day 1,) on any speed 4 terrain as soon as you have a bucket.

What he said. Kiting animals is stronk.
That said, combat is indeed unintuitive but fun once you start to figure it out.

I'd suggest integrated tutorial rather than rework. I don't doubt there could be a better combat system. But I'm not sure that's a wise investment of limited developer resources.

[Nocturnal-Rainbows]

I can kill anything boar and below with no cheese day 1, solo.

I don't know if I can believe that.
I just made a test character, threw 15 points into UA, made a quick UA gilded newbie set bringing that up to 21 and got rekt by a fox.

If you're kiting heavily or especially if you're using a clovered horse to gain distance to remove openings then that is still cheesing the fight, just to a lesser degree than the other stuff. I can kill anything with kiting too. Easily at that.

[Halbertz]

On combat start, teleport both player and fox to the arena (4x4 tiles). 30 seconds for preparations each round. Best of three.
Update: greater minds already suggested this viewtopic.php?f=48&t=76417

[Audiosmurf]

I can kill anything boar and below with no cheese day 1, solo.

I don't know if I can believe that.
I just made a test character, threw 15 points into UA, made a quick UA gilded newbie set bringing that up to 21 and got rekt by a fox.

If you're kiting heavily or especially if you're using a clovered horse to gain distance to remove openings then that is still cheesing the fight, just to a lesser degree than the other stuff. I can kill anything with kiting too. Easily at that.

Running around is just a part of combat, it's not a stand there and get your ass kicked system, by design. Think you might be drawing the cheese line in an arbitrary place.

[Nocturnal-Rainbows]

Think you might be drawing the cheese line in an arbitrary place.

Am I?
>Find animal near a cave entrance
>Fight it there
>Hop in, safely remove openings
>Hop out, hit it
>Rinse repeat

>Find animal near sprint 4 terrain
>Fight it there
>Sprint away, safely remove openings
>Go back and keep hitting it
>Rinse repeat

Literally the same premise just ever so slightly more involved in the second example because of the managing your stamina bar aspect.
I hate the running away and healing off openings part of the game, yet it permeates every aspect of it.