Hunting improvement and animal behaivior tweaks

[Terry the goblin]

i like the way animals react to the player but the way behave when they are being hit feels off. i hunt deer and small game irl and have hunted wild boars as well. so i know how animals react to humans and to when they are being stalked currently if feels too easy to get close. and its waaay to hard to take them down a simple bleeding mechanic that does damage over time and leaves a blood trail would be perfect. making all sharp weapons do a certain amount of bleed damage as baseline and adding some simple hit boxes that do critical damage would do wonders. some more realistic stalking would also add some challenge to hunting as you can get so close to some animals that you can punch them. animals feel too aggressive irl trying to kill you is a last resort and they would much rather run away instead.
making them attack only if they are trapped or cant get away would make them feel a lot more fun to hunt. instead of them just turning around and trying to gore you for breathing wrong. i watch a youtuber called huntprimitive he does a spot and stalk hunting method that is the way aboriginal peoples hunted. i think watching some of his hunting videos would be good source material for how to make hunting feel more engaging. tracking a wounded animal is half the fun of hunting sometimes the did i get it? did i not? makes it a real thrill when you finally find the animal. as a part of that tracking making blood trails different depending on hit box that was hit would be nice. like a gut shot would have blood and greenish stomach bile and contents mixed in whereas a heart/artery shot would produce a deep red and easy to follow trail.
overall it would only add 4 extra hitboxes for each animal at most stomach,heart/aorta,brain/spine and lungs that do a different amount of initial damage and higher or lower bleed damage. as for the blood trails appearance lung shots make a thin and pinkish trail, heart deep red and constant, gut infrequent splatter with green spots, brain/spine instant kill no blood trail. adding different blood trails makes it so the player if they know what to look for can tell how far the animal may have went if they should chase or not and if they might need a second shot to kill it. projectile weapons (bows,slings,spears) need a buff as they feel really weak against enemies to keep them balenced making cutting weapons do more bleed damage but a lower chance to crit would be great touch.
all of these suggestions would make the hunting and early game play more engaging and less of something to speed run through but a integral part of learning the game and learning the combat. due to how the way the hit boxes, bleeding and weapon buffs work it would carry over into PVP excellently. making it less about slapping the other player until they die and more about targeting weak points and trying to avoid bleeding while making your opponent bleed more. it would also give plate armor a proper use as it could make you almost immune to bleeding but slow your attacks and limit your weapon choice by adding a accuracy debuff with projectile weapons. due to the armor update coming in 1.23 a combat overhaul style arsenal of weapons (maces,clubs,new swords,spears,polearms) would be the perfect touch to cap off a amazing update.

here are some links to hunt primitive and his videos that i feel are relevant
spot and stalk guide and lots of tips to help understand it
small game hunting references for rabbits raccoons ect

[Terry the goblin]

i forgot to mention it but the atlatl would be a amazing early game alternative to the bow. if you cant get the flax to make one it would do a lot of damage at the cost of worse accuracy and range. keeping the bow as the better option for ease of use but the atlatl as a effective option as it was used interchangeably with the bow and even on the same hunt historically. its better for large game but riskier as you have to get quite close and risk being attacked.