Bear too "op"?

[Ewil]

Since the introduction of the new AI and bears, we have been having problems on the server. 

Me and my friend have been having sheep, pigs and hens. 

Months of playing to get them to high levels. 

And now bears can jump over double fences, and even 'target" animals outside the fence. 

Bears kill fast, and we had no chance to save a few high level animals. 

Is this a bug, and have anyone else been experiencing the same thing? 

[Perlinfall]

I have not been experiencing this, but I was not aware they jump double fences! You just potentially saved me a lot of grief, will be setting up triple fences now. For me personally though, I don't think bears are too op. They are extremely strong don't get me wrong, but I like that. Wolves can be dealt with fairly easily with a few spear throws, so it's nice to have a new threat in the wilderness that's a lot more dangerous.

[AngryRob]

These are bears. Bears are dangerous. This is yet another harsh challenge in a harsh world. 

 

Bears are also leather, bone, and game meat. They do not factor into my plans or offer any incentive to keep around, so i remove the nits before they become lice. 

[Perlinfall]

2 hours ago, Ewil said:

And now bears can jump over double fences, and even 'target" animals outside the fence. 

I just did some experimenting in creative and I was unable to ever get them to jump a double fence. They couldn't even jump 1 block high fences, though they could hit animals that way.

[Ewil]

Don't get me wrong. I love more dangerous animals, and I live all the bears addition. 

But we had to build tripple high fences, and even double thick fence. 

We found dead pigs outside the fence, believing that a bear could "target" a animal from outside, and "drag" the poor thing through the walls. 

It said "killed by Predator" "partially eaten" or something like that. 

I will have a close eye on next time, a bear comes. 

We just hate the fact that we spend so much time to get our animals to high level. 

[Ewil]

My friend just said he encountered a bear north of our "base", and the bear were in a small pit. My friend quickly put soil around, so the bear was trapped in a pit 2 blocks deep. 

And the "blackbear", actually jumped out to attack him. He managed to run around the pit, getting the bear to fall inside again, and put up so it was 3 blocks high, and now the bear was trapped. 

You who wrote you cold not replicate this in creative mode. I was thinking that maybe "our" bears was starving, and you spawned a "fat" bear? 

[Perlinfall]

5 hours ago, Ewil said:

You who wrote you cold not replicate this in creative mode. I was thinking that maybe "our" bears was starving, and you spawned a "fat" bear? 

After playing awhile in survival, I did have a bear jump three blocks high while trying to kill me. So yes, maybe your theory could be correct. Sadly only the developers really know for sure. Bears have not be documented much on the wiki. Bears appear to be a lot more complex then I originally thought. The wiki page on them should seriously get updated.

Edit: Watch out for the bear in your trap. If it is only three blocks tall, it can potentially leap out.

 

 

Edited October 12, 2022 by KobaltKookie

[AngryRob]

It's not the bears that scare me, it's the bells. They are pretty OP. Now, if we can't kill them, i would argue that we should be allowed to pick them up and take them somewhere else. Now that would be a crazy event: being chased by monsters that you are attracting because you are carrying an angry bell that is sounding the alarm... 

[Ewil]

On 10/13/2022 at 12:23 AM, KobaltKookie said:

After playing awhile in survival, I did have a bear jump three blocks high while trying to kill me. So yes, maybe your theory could be correct. Sadly only the developers really know for sure. Bears have not be documented much on the wiki. Bears appear to be a lot more complex then I originally thought. The wiki page on them should seriously get updated.

Edit: Watch out for the bear in your trap. If it is only three blocks tall, it can potentially leap out.

I am glad that you picked up on this. I don't mind the bears being more agressive or dangerous. It is really cool if they behave diffrent when they are hungry or well fed. I guess that is a "mirror" from the wild how it works. But if someone have spending liturally MONTHS breeding sheep or whatever, and bears can "jump" and kill, it is a little sad. My friend had a bear inside his pig-farm. The bear managed to kill all the pigs, except 2 sows. Luckly they are pregnant, and might give birth to both sows and boars. They are high level.
Still, me and my friends are HUGE fans of this fantastic game! 

[Perlinfall]

9 hours ago, Ewil said:

But if someone have spending liturally MONTHS breeding sheep or whatever, and bears can "jump" and kill, it is a little sad.

Yeah I can understand your frustration there, that's rough. My advice in the future would to just be digging a pit around your animals. If you dig it wide enough the bears won't be able to get to them without getting stuck.

Edited October 16, 2022 by KobaltKookie

[Rhyagelle]

It sucks to uglify your farm/base to deal with animals, though. Bears being able to jump over blocks over 2 is insane, and if they can drag animals through fences, that's even worse. I think a good solution to that would be to make fences at least--at the very least--unable to "attack" through for animals. It will still be able to jumper over if the fences are only 1 block high, but that can be solved with 2-3 block high fences (even if it looks absolutely ugly. 

[AngryRob]

So the options are either bear pit, or bear wall... 

 

That's rough. In nature we can see signs of bears or wolves: scat, claw marks, tracks. If we had those, we could hunt them down before they attack our animals. As it stands all we have are sounds to work with. I am not sure of the respawn mechanic as well, as i have killed all wildlife in a radius around my industrial tower so i am not sure if they would respawn again to cause me trouble / provide me with leather and fat. 

Maybe the solution here is with the domesticated AI? I always build a barn for my animals, because that is how i think it should be. Maybe they should congregate inside buildings at night? Maybe have an option to build an animal resting spot out of hay and a special fence block that has to be in doors? call it a stall? Add a barn door too. Sure this would add chores for us at night, but it would also add both realism and a solution to predation. 

[Perlinfall]

16 hours ago, Rhyagelle said:

Bears being able to jump over blocks over 2 is insane

I once had a bear jump up three blocks to get to me. Their behavior and abilities seem very inconsistent. Hopefully some more information about bears can be put on the wiki.

[Rhyagelle]

14 hours ago, AngryRob said:

So the options are either bear pit, or bear wall... 

 

That's rough. In nature we can see signs of bears or wolves: scat, claw marks, tracks. If we had those, we could hunt them down before they attack our animals. As it stands all we have are sounds to work with. I am not sure of the respawn mechanic as well, as i have killed all wildlife in a radius around my industrial tower so i am not sure if they would respawn again to cause me trouble / provide me with leather and fat. 

Maybe the solution here is with the domesticated AI? I always build a barn for my animals, because that is how i think it should be. Maybe they should congregate inside buildings at night? Maybe have an option to build an animal resting spot out of hay and a special fence block that has to be in doors? call it a stall? Add a barn door too. Sure this would add chores for us at night, but it would also add both realism and a solution to predation. 

 

Domesticated animals sleeping inside would be a really good option, especially if you could build doors/hatches that only they can get into. Like with chickens and pigs. Or, if that's too complicated, like you said. A place with doors you can build a spot for. Then maybe you just stand guard and make sure they all get in before closing the doors.

1 hour ago, KobaltKookie said:

I once had a bear jump up three blocks to get to me. Their behavior and abilities seem very inconsistent. Hopefully some more information about bears can be put on the wiki.

It took one bear flying up and attacking me in the trees for me to say "nope" and move on. I'm not living anywhere near bears as they are now. lmao

[Maelstrom]

Upgraded to 1.17.7 about a week ago and bummed that I was assaulted by a bear running between buildings.  About 1 game month later a second bear showed up that climbed on my pumpkins and jumped to the roof of my kitchen building which was 3 blocks higher than the pumpkins.  I think that same black bear slaughtered my pigs inside a fenced in area.  

[Rhyagelle]

We should at least get a way to scare bears away for a while. Maybe hang up pots and pans that bang and scare them away? Air horn traps? Something like that to keep them away. 

[Ewil]

So now after some experiments I can confirm 2 things. The wild bear we caught in a pit, have now a friend. 2 bears in the pit. 

We have done some testing. Bears can jump 1,2 and 3 blocks. But only blocks. Like a dirt-wall. But not 4. And when it comes fo fences, they did not jump over a 1-high-fence. But the bear is smart, if they find something to climb next to a fence, the could use that to jump over.

So they are tricky. AND they can "target", hit and kill something, if it is only 1 fence thick. 

I almost got killed by just standing there, and watching the bear. 

I hope some of this information could be helpful for any farmers out there.... 

 

[Maelstrom]

7 hours ago, Ewil said:

So they are tricky. AND they can "target", hit and kill something, if it is only 1 fence thick.

I can confirm this.  I had a pig pen fenced off with internal space of 6 blocks and subdivided into smaller pens of 3 block depth.  Had a bear slaughter my three pregnant sows through/over a one fence height.  Seems like two tall fencing for animals pens are a thing again, as a second bear has not killed my pigs once I build up the fence to a height of 2 fences.

Has bear spawning conditions been reported anywhere?  Asking since my homestead built in 1.15 seems to be bear central (have killed 4 in less than a month game time).

Edited October 18, 2022 by Maelstrom

[Ruyeex]

You can try to build a structure to deal with bears.

They barely can fit 1 block gap

Or just cheese the bears with pitfalls.

(Build it with full blocks)

Edited October 18, 2022 by Ruyeex

[Thorfinn]

12 hours ago, Ewil said:

So now after some experiments I can confirm 2 things. The wild bear we caught in a pit, have now a friend. 2 bears in the pit. 

We have done some testing. Bears can jump 1,2 and 3 blocks. But only blocks. Like a dirt-wall. But not 4. And when it comes fo fences, they did not jump over a 1-high-fence. But the bear is smart, if they find something to climb next to a fence, the could use that to jump over.

So they are tricky. AND they can "target", hit and kill something, if it is only 1 fence thick. 

I almost got killed by just standing there, and watching the bear. 

I hope some of this information could be helpful for any farmers out there.... 

 

I noticed much the same. Initially, I thought they were climbing trees/logs, which would make sense, but it doesn't seem to make any difference what the blocks are made of. So jumping is probably right.

And pathfinding seems to be much better. Which, I think, can probably be put to good use to cage bears. If they reproduce in captivity (have not determined yet) it would be fairly easy to construct a set of corrals that you could use to raise them safely.

I have not yet decided if I'm seeing a lower spawn rate of other critters when I have a bear active. It might just seem that way. 

[BigBadBeef]

Bears aren't OP. Toss a couple of black bronze spears into his skull and he will run like his butt were on fire!

Also, many players choose to build actual buildings to house their animals. A predator can be on the roof for what one cares and the animals will be completely safe.

 

Speaking of which, the winter on my playthrough is almost over and I'm overdue for a lupine killing spree. The wolves shall squeal as they flee in terror, BUAHAHAHAAAAAA!!!

[Maelstrom]

Until bears started spawning fences were sufficient protection from predators.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

Just build a proper wall with an overhang?  Seemed to work in my testing in creative...  Something with a cross-section like a chess Knight's move works.

EDIT:  Fun fact: IRL, bears can climb fences and even sheer rock faces.

Edited November 1, 2022 by PhotriusPyrelus