Bringing Back the Thrill of the Hunt - a somewhat long rant

[SacreDoom]

Wall of text warning

First of all, I apologise if this falls under the "no cluster of ideas in a single thread" rule, and if this is unreadable or simply not well thought out at all

I don't claim to be an expert on game design or mechanics, especially when it comes to the many intricacies of Haven, so let me first say that this is perhaps meant as a primer for further discussion as well as just providing some of my personal takes and views on this, admittedly, essential component of the game.

Right now hunting mechanics are pretty broken and boring, and as Jorb has expressed desire to make animals more deadly, whilst also implying wanting to nerf the utility of melee combat when hunting, I feel like an entirely new perspective on hunting should be considered. The current system is, I feel, largely unsatisfying. There is very little similarity between hunting, and warring/"PvP" combat in real life, and as such I don't think there has to be close ties between the two aspects of the game, necessarily.

Let me first say, though, that I like the feeling that animals impose on you in the early game. They feel genuinely unnerving and frightening, as I think they should; your Hearthling has only just entered the world, and as such can't expect to immediately tame this unbridled, alien world around them. What's so great about this is the fickle nature of animals. rushing close past a boar in a narrow pass, sprinting towards a cave with a badger in hot pursuit, I feel creates a genuine feeling that you're at the mercy of the Hearthlands' whims, and you can never feel entirely safe.

However, as you grow tired of wringing the necks of rabbits and squirrels, at some point you may feel, donning your trusty leather armor and perhaps a sword or a sling, that you're fit to try to challenge these beasts. This is where, I feel, that the game mechanics begin working against you and your intuition as a player.

Don't get me wrong, it shouldn't be expected that the game isn't allowed to fool or the cocksure player, and getting your ass kicked the first time you try to fight something may, of course, be a consequence of then realising you're unprepared, or simply need to git-gut at the combat system. However, I also feel that it seems completely irrational that you're expected to take the step from being terrified of animals to suddenly going head-to-head with them in close combat, it feels counter-intuitive, and yet the game seems to force you into this method. Why?

Several reasons, but I feel largely because animals run away like they've got a rocket up their asses when they take enough damage. Both realistically and in terms of game design, I feel like this is awful. First of all, it immediately disqualifies ranged combat,even though with the currently available mechanics, this seems like the most reasonable route to go for a newbie still somewhat uneased by these animals and their aforementioned ass-kicking capabilities, wishing to put some safe distance between themselves and their furry adversary. However, you quickly realise that unless you're capable of producing a high enough damage output to brush entirely past the "flee the fuck away" HP window and kill them in a single shot, ammo and time is simply wasted on an animal that just runs away never to be seen again, faster than you could ever hope to be.

The bleeding mechanic is a step in the right direction of fixing this. It makes sense for a wounded animal to lose blood and eventually succumb to the wounds you've inflicted on it. However, and this has been discussed extensively before, the bleed damage ultimately amounts to close to or nothing, and in the very rare case that the animal does die, it may indeed have fled so far that you're unable to find the corpse anyway. Increasing bleed damage according to the amount of damage taken and scaling max movement speed with damage taken would make sense and avoid countless future fits of frustration over obnoxious game mechanics circumventable only through abusing mechanics.

Now, I'm not mad about the fact that you cannot expect a hunt to turn out successful 100% of the time, that would be equally obnoxious, and indeed I actually don't think doing the above will fix what is ultimately an inherently badly designed system. What irks me is that the transition between being able to predict losing your prey every time and conversely being 100% sure of profit with every hunt is very sudden. Hunting using a sling or a bow sucks pretty much entirely, and for close combat you suddenly, when you've gained enough stats, realise that you can pretty much expect to carry home a nice carcass every time you set out to. The predictability of the outcome is what bores me, because whether you're sure of losing or catching the prey, this initial respect and dread of animals is entirely replaced with either extreme frustration or complete apathy - the mystique and uncertainty is entirely dead. This aforementioned, initial "dread" is still in part represented, even when your stats are way better than the animal's, currently by the fact that you can pretty much expect to leave every fight, even the ones you win, with at least a few bruises and scrapes. This is fine, I suppose, as a way to remind the budding huntsman to be humbled and not to take on more than they can handle, lest they taste the destructive force of more powerful animals. However, this eventually also becomes routine.

Now with the last few updates it seems like the devs are taking steps to discourage the community's tendency to rabidly min-max every aspect of the game (and if I'm wrong here please do correct me, I just feel like that's what's happening). I like this development in concept, personally, as it makes the game feel more like an unpredictable adventure and less like you're just going through the motions; hardships will hit you and you'll have to cope as best as you can. However, I feel like the predictable nature of the current way hunting works completely works against this development.

I feel like this should be addressed by changing the way hunting works entirely. Essential to this rework, I think, should be keeping this sense of respect and dread of animals and their capabilities alive way further into player progression, especially for the tougher animals like boars and bears.

Now I am not sure what I'll be suggesting from here on out will be entirely devoid of tedium or straight up stupid mechanics, but as I pointed out earlier, I first and foremost hope to spark more focused debate on this topic.

The foolhardy, head-on charge into animals' faces needs to, I think, be reserved for players who are unquestionably, ridiculously strong and capable, with this again going double for larger, tougher animals. What should replace this idiocy is a system that promotes and cements the vigilance one exerts at the beginning of the game for much longer.

Part of this is initially buffing animals way up. They need to be tougher over-all stat-wise, and their combat routines should probably involve more dynamic movement and actions like stunning the player and charging at them (in the case of boars and moose, for example). This would make combat feel less like you're mashing your faces together and more like you're reading the animal's moves, allowing you to plan your counteractions accordingly.

This should, I feel, be coupled with making animal spawns much less frequent, but also less random. I was initially excited to see the introduction of burrows with this world because I thought they would serve as temporary hubs for some animals, allowing me to use that as an example of more dynamic behaviour, but alas this is not the case (yet).

Instead of the odd, stray boar wandering around, it would be nice to see a sow ferociously protecting her piglets, or a herd of aurochsen (like in legacy), with calves hiding amongst their mothers. Generally just making animals appear less often, but for a lot of animals in larger numbers. Animal aggression could depend on a variety of factors, such as whether they have young, how many people are in the area, etc. Some animals could also have semi-permanent "homes", where they rest at night, giving you the sneak-up on them.

All in all it would be nice to see factors introduced that allow players to catch animals off-guard, in a weak position, and use this to their advantage. Introducing baby animals who are much weaker than their adult counterparts (and of course hold less meat, etc.) could allow newer players to pluck off a deer fawn, rather than its mother, who instead sprints away as her child falls to the ground. Presenting the players with semi-permanent animal residences could allow them to plan accordingly before trying to take down the residing animals, making the whole act of "setting up the kill" feel more like a sensible action.

While on this topic it must be pointed out that the current methods that give players an advantage (such as setting up a line of stones or getting an animal stuck at a cliff) could also be defined as simply "setting up the kill". This is probably inevitable regardless of how the hunting system works, so I say why not try to expand upon it, giving players more ways to feel like they've earned situational upper hand when dealing with an animal in other ways than simply having better stats? It would be nice if it actually felt like an intended game mechanic when you leave an animal helpless to fend for itself.

I propose one way of doing this being traps. One could try to scare an animal into a trap, or it may simply unluckily wander into it (I dunno how this would work with rendering animals despite there being no players in the area, maybe just have a tiny chance of an animal "spawning" in the trap). Obviously there would be different types of traps, suited for different types of animals. a deadfall trap could be an early example of a trap used to catch critters like rabbits, while a snare may be more suited for foxes and the like, and pitfall traps being able to catch some of the larger animals, but requiring significant amounts of effort to make them, and perhaps a few expensive skills costing a hefty amount of LP.

Obviously if one decided to try to hunt animals using a bow, provided you're sufficiently prepared, you'd probably be more likely to actually take down the animal if you find one, but in order to even out traps there should probably be a few considerations put in place to make the two methods equal.

A lot of types of traps should probably incur some penalty on the amount of meat/skin/whatever gained from the animal. A deer falling to a single, well-placed arrow should be more intact than one that gets spiked to death in a pit trap. For other trap types that do less direct damage to the animal, the penalty could occur as a result of other animals killing and partially devouring the trapped animal. Furthermore there'd be the chance of traps breaking and continual resetting and upkeep. Placing a lot of traps in close proximity of each other should probably also lower the over-all chance of catching something in each individual trap, and this chance could be further lowered if a lot of people are settled in the area, along with the over-all chance for animals to spawn, forcing larger factions to depend either on routine hunting trips or smaller settlements/hermits for fur and meat.

Mechanics like these would encourage players to use the environment and their tools to their advantage. I feel like this would make the feeling of "respect for the wild" last much longer, since the raw power of animals themselves would encourage applying cunning and strategy to take them down, instead of pure brawn and strength. It could also cement hunting as a profession to a much larger degree than it is currently, where it's more of a side-job that everyone does.

To go with a reduction in the frequency of animals it could also be sensible to increase the amount of materials each animal provides. Making the time between encounters with some of the larger animals much longer makes each experience stand out more, and making each animal provide a substantial amount of food further encourages this. Changing the system from the current, black-and-white mechanics to a system where animals are more inherently dangerous, rare and erratic and as such must be treated with care, I feel, is a sensible enough justification for increasing the material output. Part of this would also mean improving the animal curios, which would likely also lead to more limited goods like boar tusks or deer antlers being coveted and traded to a much larger extent.

Of course I've probably missed 10000 things that can be abused and/or are simply boring or lame in this proposed "rework", and I don't feel like I know the balance between ranged and melee combat well enough to propose reworking ranged hunting (though I definitely think it should be), hence why I haven't really gone into detail about it here, but I feel like it's time to start considering a completely new alternative to the way things currently work, because I honestly think hunting is one of the weaker aspects of the game right now.

TL;DR: Hunting sucks, we need a new system.

[xTrainx]

Now I am not sure what I'll be suggesting from here on out will be entirely devoid of tedium or straight up stupid mechanics.

whenever you think this in your head, always remember, it cant be worse than making characters suicide on their own

[ninja_yodeler]

+1 Agree

Edit: Something should also be done about the fact that it's more dangerous and more of decision in terms of "is it worth it" to raid an ants nest than it is to go toe to toe with boars, or badgers and the like.

[MrPunchers]

+1 Great read
Also knockback attacks on animals that stun you if you hit a wall, since if you fight in a barrow it'd be pretty dumb if they could knock you back and not stun you, while on the surface it'd be dumb if a bear could just scratch you and you get stunned.

[SacreDoom]

Something should also be done about the fact that it's more dangerous and more of decision in terms of "is it worth it" to raid an ants nest than it is to go toe to toe with boars, or badgers and the like.

Very good point. Especially as I would argue it to be fair for a new player to assume that ants are some sort of "warm-up" - a figurative wooden sword - to help them understand the combat system. Then having their asses handed to them because ants not only barrel through armour but also impose stat penalties that lessen your combat prowess seems counter-intuitive.

Jumping dick-first into an anthill may be a bad idea, yes, but compared to a boar that one would assume would be able to gore you and chomp on your bloodied corpse, one could probably circumvent a lot of ant-related combat issues by simply using a stick and sufficiently thick and concealing clothing. It's silly.

[sMartins]

My vote is always in taking inspiration from "Persistence Hunting" of URW.
In short we need to remove exploit first in one way or another, not being able to hunt from a boat, etc...
Then non aggressive animals always flee, give them stamina, rework ranged weapon to deal way more damage while hunting, track the prey scents, stealth approach or smell system where you approach them against the wind, shoot your arrow, they will bleed and lose stamina quicker, chase the prey and finish it, they will fight back only when out of stamina or unable to run anymore. If you don't manage to wound your prey first the only way to catch up with her is trying to fatigue the prey, not giving her time to rest or drink from rivers to restore her stamina...of course best way and reasonable way is to hit her with ranged weapon first.
Aggressive animals could be buffed a bit, but without exploits they are fine. Btw if you aggro them, they should't follow you ...they will start to chase you only when you hit them first, and they can flee like non aggresive animals also of course.
Could be nice also a system where you can choose where to aim your attacks with different effects: neck/body/legs/etc...

[jorb]

I enjoyed the read, and I agree that it is retarded how animals go from "always miss" to "easily pluckable meatbags", and whatnot. Not sure, however, if OP has any great fixes for that dynamic, other than "change/improve their combat behavior", which is easier said than done. Some of the smaller ideas are good, like herds and such.

[Spudre]

This is how hunting should be like for the Noob phase https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=826HMLoiE_o