Bear and wolf spawn rates must be bugged!

[xXx_Ape_xXx]

Just started a new game on the newly released 1.19-rc4 to have a look at all the new features. Playing vanilla, small changes to the land mass and upheaval values, rest unchanged.

 

I spawned on an island no larger than 90 x 200 blocks and I'm shocked to see what I find on this small island Very sparse vegetation, only 2 adult trees on the entire island, rest is shrubbery and grass. 1 cranberry bush is all that I've found worth of easy food. There are 3-4 small, strange ruins scattered around where the trader is located, 1 of witch had 1 forage vessel with some clay.

 

I spawned with a flock of 4 wolves, with a black bear roaming right behind them to my right, and on my left side I have another black bear. As I always play survival, this got real busy quickly, and I managed to escape with all my hp, somehow..

To make matters worse, as I make my way towards the trader who's also stuck on this small piece of land, I find another flock of 4 wolves, followed by yet another black bear not far from them.

I circle around them to speak to the trader, just to find yet ANOTHER bear, brown this time, resting on top of a small mound not far from the trader carriage.

To accompany us all, we are also blessed with 8-10 rabbits, 1 moose mother and 3 calves, 1 fox and 2 racoons...

 

There's got to be something wrong with the spawnrates of bears and wolves!

[NastyFlytrap]

Yea, there are too many of them. Not sure why. If the devs want the environment to be hostile, then, fine, i guess, but running away from a bear or a wolf to run directly into another bear or a wolf gets old quick.

[Cosmic Hermit]

I'm not sure if this is entirely apple to apples, but going to a southern savanna biome and counting the number of concurrent hyena groups may give and idea of the upper bounds on hostile spawn density.  The densest I saw was 3-7 groups in a 16 chunk area [4x4].  If the same logic applies to wolves in forests... yeah, that'd be a lot.  I generally keep 4 stone spears on me for pest removal, but sometimes death is inevitable.

I kinda like a hostile environment because it gives me something to fight in the early game, but I can certainly see how that might get annoying.

[Andy4Vendetta]

I think the developers should make spawn of aggressive animals like wolves and bears at least more logical and dependent on the time of year. So that bears, for example, did not spawn in winter, and those that have been on the location for a long time, hibernated. Well, and that wolves and bears on the meadows and fields did not appear so often and did not linger on them. But ran away into the forest.

[NastyFlytrap]

14 hours ago, Cosmic Hermit said:

I'm not sure if this is entirely apple to apples, but going to a southern savanna biome and counting the number of concurrent hyena groups may give and idea of the upper bounds on hostile spawn density.  The densest I saw was 3-7 groups in a 16 chunk area [4x4].  If the same logic applies to wolves in forests... yeah, that'd be a lot.  I generally keep 4 stone spears on me for pest removal, but sometimes death is inevitable.

I kinda like a hostile environment because it gives me something to fight in the early game, but I can certainly see how that might get annoying.

I just wish there was more variety in the hostile encounters i was having + make them respawn slower

[Cosmic Hermit]

On 11/6/2023 at 4:05 AM, NastyFlytrap said:

I just wish there was more variety in the hostile encounters i was having + make them respawn slower

I certainly wouldn't object to more varied encounters, hopefully they'll add more in the future. I imagine the moose in next update won't go down without a fight.

[Thorfinn]

What does "variety" mean apart from a different sized hit box, a few differences in attribute parameters, and the model/animation? A reskin, in other words?

I'm still not sure what I think of the Resonance Archive, but whatever one thinks, it was not simply a reskin of an existing game entity.

[NastyFlytrap]

18 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

What does "variety" mean apart from a different sized hit box, a few differences in attribute parameters, and the model/animation? A reskin, in other words?

I'm still not sure what I think of the Resonance Archive, but whatever one thinks, it was not simply a reskin of an existing game entity.

You've just described the creative process of creating a new mob.

If that makes it a reskin to you, i dont know what wouldnt.

[Owktree]

In the abstract it, or any other modification, has to be looked at in that way.

A new crop, making use of the same nutrient and growth rules, is essentially a tweaked variation to be compared the the existing ones.  A different appearance and probably different growth rates, temp ranges, etc.  Probably similar nutritional values.  For a game still doing basic engine development work adding variety that is essentially there just to be variety is simply more code to be maintained and tested each iteration that is not adding anything to the basic gameplay loops.  (Plus one seeking such variations can find mods to provide those or make their own.)

The same can be held to apply to the predators.  Wolves were the base threat for a while.  Bears are arguably a variation / reskin to have another predator.  Though one could also argue their abilities and spawn parameters differ enough from wolves to be considered a new class of predator.  (Especially the enhanced climbing ability since this is pretty unique in the current game creatures.)  I would guess the line between whether something is a reskin or "new" will vary by the beholder.  

And for another new predator to be considered how much different, and what differences, would it have to be from the wolf and bear basic abilities?

[Thorfinn]

That's what I meant. The rules for the Resonance Archive are completely different than the base game. Sure, the rules are enforced by claims, so that's the same, but the gameplay itself becomes something different. It's a little too Adventure-y for my tastes ("put bird in cage", that is, once you know the "trick", it's just going through the motions), and introduces boss battles, which I'm also not convinced is a good direction, but whatever else you might say about it, it is something different than piling voxels upon each other.

The introduction of the pit kiln, for example, was categorically different than a reskin.

[EDIT]

I don't really know what the long-term vision for the game is. As I read the roadmap a few months ago, I did not anticipate a more or less linear, scripted event like the RA as it exists. I was expecting something more like the rest of the game where there are any number of ways of approaching the same problem, and you simply figure out what works best for your playstyle and game skills.

As an example, I was thrilled with the hype back when Bard's Tale II was being developed. Parts of the game that had to be dealt with in real time. Which did not turn out to be as good as I'd hoped, precisely because it was just a scripted event. Learn the pattern and Bob's your uncle. Replayability suffered. Or when Hexen implemented mandatory platformer jumping, and was no longer sufficiently like Heretic (or Doom) to be a LAN party hit.

[/EDIT]

Edited November 9, 2023 by Thorfinn

[Cosmic Hermit]

@Thorfinn@Owktree  I can clarify for my part. This is mostly my fault for not explaining in any real detail, but while skins and attributes are a nice touch I primarily mean behavior. I'd be nice if wolves and hyenas adopted proper pack tactics for instance.  Even within "pack tactics" there's significant room for variation.  Wolves would follow and surround you, when sufficiently encircled they'd attack.  Hyenas would also pursue, but are more inclined to make individual attacks. I'm sputtering a little on these because it's been a long time since I actually looked into the particulars of their hunting styles. Not an excuse, I'm just acknowledging my failure. As a matter of fact that maybe entirely backwards, but the goal was illustrative in nature.

In terms of new animals you can have pursuit hunters, versus ambush predators, group/solitary, territorial/roaming, etc.  The animal kingdom is full of different strategies. Just like enemies in other games, the AI makes the adversary.  I mentioned the moose earlier because it should be tanky, oddly fast, territorial, but not aggressive in a predator sense.  It shouldn't run as easily as boars do and it may have a charging behavior like sheep, but a vicious kick as well [I have not seen what they can do in the pre, I should probably check, but this should read more as a wish list].

So to clarify what I'd like to see is more varied encounters, with more varied approaches.  Not and immediate thing, coding AI can be intensive and a royal pain, but on the long term it'd be nice.  The team seems pretty dedicated to realism, so I imagine they'll notice that all predators charging at you blindly is kinda odd.

[Thorfinn]

OK. Not sure how much realism is the selling point in a game with translocators and drifters and rifts and temporal storms and the like, but whatever. I'm pretty sure expanding the AI is already in the works.

Re: OP, I'm inclined to agree. If you have only 2 trees total, there should not be that many wolf spawn points. I don't think they are supposed to spawn in bush, but maybe that's been changed. Or maybe one of the handful of terrain tweaks you made reduced trees? Does the dirt show as Forest Floor? I was pretty sure that was a requirement for wolf spawn points. Bears, that's pretty normal since 1.18 release. Maybe with all this grassland you can see them more readily, while with the different settings you were used to, you missed them in the ravines and behind trees and hills and such?

[EDIT]

OP, I guess what I'm saying is that maybe the problem is with the mapgen settings. If this can be replicated, maybe send those map settings to the devs? I don't think what you are describing is supposed to be.

[/EDIT]

Edited November 10, 2023 by Thorfinn

[xXx_Ape_xXx]

4 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Re: OP, I'm inclined to agree. If you have only 2 trees total, there should not be that many wolf spawn points. I don't think they are supposed to spawn in bush, but maybe that's been changed. Or maybe one of the handful of terrain tweaks you made reduced trees? Does the dirt show as Forest Floor? I was pretty sure that was a requirement for wolf spawn points. Bears, that's pretty normal since 1.18 release. Maybe with all this grassland you can see them more readily, while with the different settings you were used to, you missed them in the ravines and behind trees and hills and such?

[EDIT]

OP, I guess what I'm saying is that maybe the problem is with the mapgen settings. If this can be replicated, maybe send those map settings to the devs? I don't think what you are describing is supposed to be.

[/EDIT]

Nothing on the island is showing as forest floor, everything is either low or medium fertility soil, some peat and sand. The shrubbery is very scarce as well, and not of the kind that you'd find on a normal grass plain. For the mapgen tweaks, I hardly did any at all. I lowered the land mass and increased upheaval, set world height to 320 and everything else is vanilla.

It seems a bit excessive to spawn on such a small landmass (that's not the problem) and have more aggressive mobs spawn on said land than is usually seen on a much larger area.

[Delerium76]

I'm really getting sick of the bears and wolves in this game tbh.  Finding a bear just sleeping in the middle of the plains is just plain dumb considering they are 1 hit murder machines that can outrun you.  Every game I start, I seem to die within 24 hours from a wolf or bear roaming around areas you would never find a wolf or bear. 

[Bumber]

On 11/19/2023 at 1:34 PM, Delerium76 said:

I'm really getting sick of the bears and wolves in this game tbh.  Finding a bear just sleeping in the middle of the plains is just plain dumb considering they are 1 hit murder machines that can outrun you.  Every game I start, I seem to die within 24 hours from a wolf or bear roaming around areas you would never find a wolf or bear. 

I pretty much have to nerd pillar while using a spear (or arrows) to deal with them. There's an annoying issue where your attacks sometimes fail to hit bears right in your face, which makes direct confrontation inadvisable even with armor since they get free hits on you. (And of course you have to chase them down once they start running away proper.)

Edited November 21, 2023 by Bumber

[Thorfinn]

You need eyes on. Either nerdpole (convert dirt to packed dirt if you use gravity on soil) or better, ladders, or even better yet, a combination -- the ladder starting on the 3rd block up, so bears can't climb up behind you. (Polar bears might be able to, tho.) You can even leave at least the top packed earth and the bottom ladder section intact to have something to climb on top of when in danger.

[Jackal Black]

On 19/11/2023 at 22:34, Delerium76 said:

Mi sto davvero stancando degli orsi e dei lupi in questo gioco, a dire il vero. Trovare un orso che dorme in mezzo alle pianure è semplicemente stupido considerando che sono macchine omicide a 1 colpo che possono superarti. Ad ogni gioco che inizio, mi sembra di morire entro 24 ore a causa di un lupo o di un orso che vaga per aree in cui non troverai mai un lupo o un orso. 

Look, seeing that there are people who play VS on Twitch and use perma-death, with the base game settings, I have to say that you're complaining about nothing, maybe games like Minecraft have accustomed us badly to not having too many dangers while we're shooting for the world. Other survival games like Ark instead teach you that death is around every corner, or worse right at the spawn

I honestly learned to avoid the forests because of the low visibility and the risk of meeting wolves and to keep a close eye on where I'm going to avoid bears. But only at the beginning of a new world.
Because with Gambesone's armor you can easily hold 3 wolves. while bears, at least if they are not the biggest ones, are easy to kill even the small ones.

Then in an advanced stage of the game, I walk around with heavy iron or steel armor and I don't fear anything, it's true that the bears and wolves run away from me, but sooner or later I'll catch them again and since they don't recover their life immediately or quickly, the lethal blow comes later

 

[McOrigin]

Found this thread by google seaching the respawn rates of a bear. I got one, not too far from my base but have been safe the first year. However, bear territory spawns chickens and I need those. I managed to build a big pen and corner a hen. Luckily I fenced her off in a small 2x2 pen with 2 high fences because the bear came after us..

It could not kill my hen over or through the fence and I managed to kill the bear in an intense fight. Man, that felt great to lot that pelt and fat!

Unfortunately the bear respawn less than two minutes later and got me in the back. That was not so much fun. Is this  respawn rate normal? Should I cage the bear instead to avoid a quick respawn?

[NastyFlytrap]

10 hours ago, McOrigin said:

Found this thread by google seaching the respawn rates of a bear. I got one, not too far from my base but have been safe the first year. However, bear territory spawns chickens and I need those. I managed to build a big pen and corner a hen. Luckily I fenced her off in a small 2x2 pen with 2 high fences because the bear came after us..

It could not kill my hen over or through the fence and I managed to kill the bear in an intense fight. Man, that felt great to lot that pelt and fat!

Unfortunately the bear respawn less than two minutes later and got me in the back. That was not so much fun. Is this  respawn rate normal? Should I cage the bear instead to avoid a quick respawn?

It is pretty normal, hence why the post exists

[Thorfinn]

On 12/21/2023 at 3:08 PM, McOrigin said:

Should I cage the bear instead to avoid a quick respawn?

As you have evidently not yet learned how to coexist with bears, yes, though it is not a perfect solution. They will despawn after a time (14 days?) so when you see your cage bearless, take appropriate caution until you cage the respawn.