Bears.

[bugnar]

I only recently got into Vintage Story, and while I'm having a great time, there is one source of trouble that is almost unavoidable and oftentimes invisible.

The bears. The everloving bears.

I'll be trekking through shrubbery, just to have to turn tail and run 300 blocks the other direction because some sleeping ursine was entirely concealed by the bushes, and I had zero way of knowing it was there. I'll be approaching the crest of a hill, not even to reach its apex, when a god forsaken bear comes blitzing from over the opposite side. How did it detect me? I have not the slightest clue. Probably my footsteps, but what am I supposed to do, crawl around 100% of the time? Expect a bear around every tree, every cliff, every bush?

I enjoy the challenge set by wolves. They broadcast frequently so you know they're at least nearby, at least giving me time to prepare for fight-or-flight. Drifters are a nice consistent enemy to have to plan around with undulating light levels and temporal storms; but bears just feel like a consistent nail in my foot. I've taken a look at the survival configuration settings, and it's baffling that my only option is to tone down creature hostility in its entirety. I'm struggling with bears, not with every fight that comes my way. Additionally, the sentiment around nerfing bears on this forum hasn't been optimistic to say the least. Many people repeat the sentiment of meeting the wilderness survival aspects on its terms, or configuring it to be different. I appreciate having the survival and combat configuration options available, but I wish for them to be more expansive. I don't want to play such a softened version of the game, but I also don't want bears breathing down my neck constantly.

I know I'm not the only person who's had this issue, so apologies if it's a worn out subject, but I just don't find the carnivore behavior immersive. Spending my life learning about the creatures inhabiting this earth has made me very subconsciously anti-bloodthirsty-beast. I just find it silly and reductive to the true nature of the animal, in this case being bears, which are intensely powerful kleptoparasites, cursorial hunters, and dietary generalists. All in all, I feel like bears should be defending something when they aggro on you, and not chasing you because they just wanna kill you soooo bad. A very common thing they could defend are partially eaten corpses, be it creatures they've killed on their own or that other entities, including the player, have killed. 

I do enjoy the rampage mechanic, and how its range is increased in winter! Its a fun way to mimic bears chasing down vulnerable prey, like they tend to do in calving seasons. I also enjoy the high health, speed, and strength stats of the bears. It's very reflective of the brute strength they possess in the real world. Overall I am just not the biggest fan of how they behave, and would like to at least be able to toggle the carnivore hostility to neutral while keeping Drifters hostile.

[Blaiyze]

As someone who lives in a country with bears (black, brown, Kodiak, Grizzly and Polar) - I concur. Bears in this game aren't in the slightest bit, realistic. Bears are more likely to get spooked and run away than they are to outright attack. I grew up hiking in the mountains, I'm fully bear educated. It's why we're taught to make noise when we hike, especially if you're hiking alone - make. noise. It alerts bears to your presence long before you ever become aware of them and it drives them off. The only bears you truly have to be on the lookout for, are mama bears. Literally. They're the most dangerous bears in the bush. And autumn is a dangerous season, as they're eating ravenously to prep for winter, but it's not typical for bears to just full send at you unless you've startled them (even then they'll typically run off), they have cubs, or they're legitimately hungry and they see you as a food source and even the last one isn't a common thing, they prefer their regular diet.

If the goal of the game is to keep bears realistic, they've missed that mark. Just speak to anyone that lives where bears are. Bears also aren't quiet, they typically snort and make sounds as they walk along - point is, you should be able to hear them. Bears are a solid, legitimate threat when you decide to engage them in combat, they're fine in that department. It's the silent homing missile angry mach truck mode that can sense you from an obnoxious distance that is a bit much.

[DarkGold]

5 hours ago, Blaiyze said:

If the goal of the game is to keep bears realistic, they've missed that mark.

I think keeping bears realistic is not the goal of the game. The Artisan traders sometimes sell tapestries. One of the tapestries, "Ambush", mentions the behaviour of animals being unusual.

This leads me to believe that the goal of the game is to have bears be a real threat and challenge to players on the surface, while backing that up with lore to hint that the behaviour is intentional.

Agree, we hear many players say they would like bears to be less sneaky or control animal vs monster hostility separately. I personally like the challenge, but know not everyone does.

Something that gets brought up during these discussions, that I will reiterate here for reference, is that VS is supporting more than 1 game mode. In the Homo Sapiens mode, temporal threats are turned off, as is lore. So there, there would be no explanation for the behaviour of bears. At the same time, since monsters aren't spawning, there would be no dangerous creatures to kill you if bears and wolves weren't unusually out to kill you. This would lessen the "unforgiving survival" challenge of the mode. Balancing all these concerns must lead to some compromise on realism vs challenging gameplay.

Edited 20 hours ago by DarkGold
Correcting typos. Added note on Homo Sapiens mode.

[MKMoose]

23 minutes ago, DarkGold said:

One of the tapestries, "Ambush", mentions the behaviour of animals being unusual.

There are multiple problems with this:

• The "Ambush" tapestry is the only place where anything of the sort is mentioned as far as I know, and the chance for the average player to stumble upon it themselves is very minuscule.
• There is no actual, concrete explanation or justification for animal behavior being unusual. The tapestry just states that they are unusually aggressive and mentions that they might be able to sense something that the player can't, but it is extremely vague.
• Even though the most likely explanation for the increased aggression are all the temporal shenanigans and the rust world, the animals are actually completely unaffected by any of the temporal mechanics, not even temporal storms, and don't react to the presence of nearby monsters in any way. You might have heard of the term "ludonarrative dissonance".

 

33 minutes ago, DarkGold said:

In the Homo Sapiens mode, temporal threats are turned off, as is lore. So there, there would be no explanation for the behaviour of bears, but at the same time, since monsters aren't spawning, there would be practically no dangerous creatures to kill you, if bears and wolves weren't unusually out to kill you. This would lessen the "unforgiving survival" challenge of the mode.

Sure, it would probably make Homo Sapiens a bit easier. But is that a problem? As long as the bears remain a potential threat when carelessly or deliberately approached, especially when they're protecting cubs (which are still unimplemented, by the way), after hibernation (also not implemented in any way) and perhaps in some other situations, then I see no current reason why making their behavior less pathologically aggressive should be seen as undesirable.

 

What I personally kind of hate about the bears is that black and hot-climate bears aren't actually dangerous if you know what you're doing, and they're a very reliable source of leather, bushmeat and fat.

Everything depends on their speed and black bears are actually slower than a running player, which means that as long as you have some space to run around, the bear will become practically a free kill. If you have a speed boost (clockmaker's or hunter's +10%), then even brown bears can be killed somewhat reliably at low risk as well. And that's the "dangerous creature" for you - farmed for resources because it just insists upon itself.

Within the first two standard months of my 1.22 survival world I killed ~40 wolves, 3 black bears, ~5 pigs, and ~5 mouflons (they are actually arguably more dangerous than wolves and black bears, because they're faster than a running player). But trying to kill non-aggressive prey animals like goats or deer? Waste of time, in most cases.

What I would like is not to have bears be passive or scared of the player - it's to have them feel like fair threats. Threatening, but not immediately aggressive. Will absolutely maul you in seconds, but only if you're sufficiently careless or don't respect their space in spite of clearly audible noises, warnings and perhaps a bluff charge. They could even be significantly faster than they are now, as long as their seeking behavior gets any sort of brakes instead of being allowed to chase a player for potentially upwards of a minute as long as they remain within range.

[DarkGold]

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

the animals are actually completely unaffected by any of the temporal mechanics, not even temporal storms, and don't react to the presence of nearby monsters in any way. You might have heard of the term "ludonarrative dissonance".

Agree, it's odd that there is no interaction between monsters and animals. I heard someone mention in another thread it could be because of the consequence of corpses being left lying around if they were regularly killing each other. I think it would be more compelling if they did interact, but even seeing "monsters and animals ignore each other" is interesting in some ways. Because the player is not a human, maybe the animals just hate seraphs for some reason? Maybe seraphs have incredibly bad vibes?

The lack of an answer doesn't really bother me, because I don't assume the world should be simulating reality. I see the world not obeying the same laws as reality in various ways as reasons that all sorts of things we take for granted in reality should not be taken for granted in this world. My thought process is more like "huh, things are different here. I wonder why? What an interesting mystery. I wonder if the game will ever explain that?" rather than "this is not like real life, the devs have done a poor job representing real life." Because the world is clearly operating under different rules, I experience little ludonarrative dissonance.

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

What I would like is not to have bears be passive or scared of the player - it's to have them feel like fair threats. Threatening, but not immediately aggressive. Will absolutely maul you in seconds, but only if you're sufficiently careless or don't respect their space in spite of clearly audible noises, warnings and perhaps a bluff charge. They could even be significantly faster than they are now, as long as their seeking behavior gets any sort of brakes instead of being allowed to chase a player for potentially upwards of a minute as long as they remain within range.

I agree; I think telegraphing the location of bears better, so players have a better chance of avoiding them could be helpful, but I think it would be odd if bears made a lot of noise while sleeping, and they spend a lot of time sleeping. Ultimately, I think the speed players want to move through the world vs a bear emitting sounds at a reasonable frequency will still lead to players stumbling into bears (though the odds could be reduced).

I find bears relatively fair at the moment because you can outrun them. When you say they could be significantly faster than they are now if they just gave up the chase sooner, I think that would force combat, because if they were faster they would catch fleeing players? They can do so much damage if they hit you, that as a new player, running is really your best choice until you are better equipped and more experienced with combat? Do you suppose they should be faster in a straight line, so players must zigzag as a strategy? If so, I think that would still allow skilled players to succeed in combat, while not really changing the current strategy of avoiding bears (run away). Could you explain a little more how player behaviour changes based on the new bear behaviour you suggest?

Edited 14 hours ago by DarkGold
Correcting typos

[CastIronFabric]

Long time ago (sorry I will not be able to find it) I watched or read an article (I do not recall which) talking about RNG in video games. Here is what it argued 

There is RNG that makes you adjust your decision trees once presented with the RNG and then there is RNG that just basically kills you or ends your game and has literally nothing to do with your decision tree. 

It made the argument that the latter is actually not compelling game play. Sure, in life you can be just walking a sidewalk minding your own business in a safe neighborhood and for reasons that have nothing to do with your choice you get killed in some random mass shooting. So the argument was, sure random events completely beyond your control do exist in reality but its not compelling game play becasue the entire point of a challenge is to engage yourself in a solution, if no solution exists its not a compelling mechanic. If for example there is some game in which you could instantly die and there is literally nothing you can do about it, that just adds stress to your game play but does not compel any player agency in the matter.

Bears in this game  get dang close to that.

 

 

[Ravensblade]

I agree. After hundreds in game i can deal with bears and know how to avoid/run away from them. Bears being powerful is not a problem. I like the parts when i notice a bear in distance, and instead of simply going for kill, i just track around it when traveling.

What i hate is ninja bears. Ones that appear from nowhere in total silence and jump at your back. And you are dead. Without mods the forests are dense and you can't even run away as you will get stuck on branches. And unless you increased your speed you can't run away either way as bear is faster and will kill you in 1-2 hits. Even if player enters their range they should at least growl first, and give up when player leaves immediately. 

It's not challenging as there is no actual challenge, you just randomly die, and you can't do anything about it. Outside of gamey solution like 3 deep 1x1 holes. So even if you know how to deal with them it's still not fun.

It's similar how temporal storms are not fun if you don't rush to iron immediately and want to spend time on copper or bronze age. 

 

[marmarmar34]

I no longer have as much of a problem dealing with bears anymore, but I definitely recognize their shortcomings. 

The biggest issue is that they're extremely silent, only ever making a noise a few seconds after they begin their chase. If I can hear a fricking raccoon a zipcode away, I should be able to hear a quarter ton bundle of flesh barreling through the thicket! 

As for their behavior, I've only been able to scare them away with my presence maybe 2 times in my hundreds of hours of playtime. Their hyper aggressive demeanor make them landmines whenever anyone dares to wander into any sort of obscured thicket.

I've elected to play malefactor for the majority of my playthroughs. Not just because the resource bonus is just amazing, but because basic exploration has just been such a pain. I used to see bears on the horizon wondering what poor forest creature they were preying on this time, only to realize they were jankily pathing to my location. They are just so exhausting to deal with.

[HalfAxd]

Once you've had more time in the game you find bears and wolves are not a huge issue.

My rules are:

1. stay out of forests or just on the edges until your armed and armored (see 3 below)

2. clear lines of sight by burning the land in areas you can't see

3. dig pits/trenches 4 blocks deep for trapping animals (put these on the edge of forests as needed)

4. don't use the carry-on mod to put a chest on your back (slows you down I hear)

5. set animals to 100% swim speed

6. use the Zoom view mod.  It really helps (high ground is your friend)

7. play as if the world is a dangerous place

Enjoy

[Ravensblade]

21 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

Once you've had more time in the game you find bears and wolves are not a huge issue.

My rules are:

1. stay out of forests or just on the edges until your armed and armored (see 3 below)

2. clear lines of sight by burning the land in areas you can't see

3. dig pits/trenches 4 blocks deep for trapping animals (put these on the edge of forests as needed)

4. don't use the carry-on mod to put a chest on your back (slows you down I hear)

5. set animals to 100% swim speed

6. use the Zoom view mod.  It really helps (high ground is your friend)

7. play as if the world is a dangerous place

Enjoy

1. Which make any travel impossible if you didn't lowered forest & shrubs spawn significantly at world creation as you can't travel by either.

2. I consider it both gamey and unfun. Make whole area around you ugly flat land so you can deal with bears. And is not viable in early game or when traveling. 

3. Another unfun gamey mechanic that make area ugly just so you can deal with unfun bears. You could added to leave bear alive there so it won't respawn. I don't mind digging some pit where it make actual sense, as actual hunting pit. But randomply ploping holes is lame. And it's not digging pits is not that easy if you play with blocks instability.

5. Another unfun gamey mechanic of jumping around water so you actually can kite bear. 100% swim makes it even more stupid. You can as well increase run speed so much, that you can run backwards faster then them and just attack with spear.

In general as you see all the methods you describe is just emplying some unrealistic gamey mechanic just to disable another unfun mechanic - bears. Neither digging 4 deep holes nor making them slow in water is challenging. It's just disable them as danger. And that's why bears implementation is wrong. They aren't fun or realistic. The require gamey mechanics that disable them to deal with them. 

I also started playing as Melefactor just for that detection range, i also got the mod that lowers forest density. Bears are dangerous if you are careless, but they avoidable. Looking for bears and just avoiding them is much more fun interaction for me, then digging another 4x4 pit everywhere or jumping around pond every time i want to travel anywhere. 

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, marmarmar34 said:

I no longer have as much of a problem dealing with bears anymore, but I definitely recognize their shortcomings. 

The biggest issue is that they're extremely silent, only ever making a noise a few seconds after they begin their chase. If I can hear a fricking raccoon a zipcode away, I should be able to hear a quarter ton bundle of flesh barreling through the thicket! 

As for their behavior, I've only been able to scare them away with my presence maybe 2 times in my hundreds of hours of playtime. Their hyper aggressive demeanor make them landmines whenever anyone dares to wander into any sort of obscured thicket.

I've elected to play malefactor for the majority of my playthroughs. Not just because the resource bonus is just amazing, but because basic exploration has just been such a pain. I used to see bears on the horizon wondering what poor forest creature they were preying on this time, only to realize they were jankily pathing to my location. They are just so exhausting to deal with.

Here is where I think the overall game balance is off and to be fair I really do not have a solid suggestion on how to improve it but it feels off none the less.

The map is 1 million by 1 million blocks. It can often take up to 10,000 blocks to even get a different surface rock type. Running 10,000 block is not at all uncommon to just get to leather making. This distance is greatly magnified by wolves, bears, drifters and lack of changing spawn in the early game. I understand the desire to make things risky, I get that however, when we are talking about 10,000 blocks there is something that feels like it could perhaps balance better.

Sure, if you want to go 10,000 blocks to fine limestone I suppose you could pick a direction and start going and create a minibase every 5,000 blocks or so and if you die at 7,000 blocks too bad start over and on some level I see how that can be engaging however I think the 'travel required' vs 'how challenging it is to go anywhere' is a bit off in my opinion, at least with standard settings.

Speaking personally, I am not going to try and get to 20,000 block and have all my progress instantly rebooted at 15,000 blocks because a bear caught me off guard. Nope, not having any of that.

 

  

Edited 12 hours ago by CastIronFabric

[CastIronFabric]

7 minutes ago, Ravensblade said:

1. Which make any travel impossible if you didn't lowered forest & shrubs spawn significantly at world creation as you can't travel by either.

2. I consider it both gamey and unfun. Make whole area around you ugly flat land so you can deal with bears. And is not viable in early game or when traveling. 

3. Another unfun gamey mechanic that make area ugly just so you can deal with unfun bears. You could added to leave bear alive there so it won't respawn. I don't mind digging some pit where it make actual sense, as actual hunting pit. But randomply ploping holes is lame. And it's not digging pits is not that easy if you play with blocks instability.

5. Another unfun gamey mechanic of jumping around water so you actually can kite bear. 100% swim makes it even more stupid. You can as well increase run speed so much, that you can run backwards faster then them and just attack with spear.

In general as you see all the methods you describe is just emplying some unrealistic gamey mechanic just to disable another unfun mechanic - bears. Neither digging 4 deep holes nor making them slow in water is challenging. It's just disable them as danger. And that's why bears implementation is wrong. They aren't fun or realistic. The require gamey mechanics that disable them to deal with them. 

I also started playing as Melefactor just for that detection range, i also got the mod that lowers forest density. Bears are dangerous if you are careless, but they avoidable. Looking for bears and just avoiding them is much more fun interaction for me, then digging another 4x4 pit everywhere or jumping around pond every time i want to travel anywhere. 

I would like to add that for a person to realistically get to more time into the game in this context they are likely going to need limestone. Its not uncommon for limestone to be easily 20,000 block exploration. Maybe not all in one direction but overall pretty much 20,000 blocks travel time in multiple directions just to find it.

[DarkGold]

54 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

Running 10,000 block is not at all uncommon to just get to leather making.

I think this is a very fair point to raise. The primary way I deal with bears in my game is by wearing leather armor, so when I am caught by surprise by them, I am not killed before I can run away. I have only played 1 world so far (but spent a lot of time in that world), and in that world I found chalk maybe 2,000 blocks away from spawn. So I can't speak from experience of multiple worlds on this, but the scenario you mention seems likely to me based on RNG. Not having leather armor (which is my counter to sneaking bears) would make bears much more of a threat.

2 hours ago, marmarmar34 said:

The biggest issue is that they're extremely silent, only ever making a noise a few seconds after they begin their chase.

3 hours ago, Ravensblade said:

What i hate is ninja bears. Ones that appear from nowhere in total silence and jump at your back. And you are dead. Without mods the forests are dense and you can't even run away as you will get stuck on branches. And unless you increased your speed you can't run away either way as bear is faster and will kill you in 1-2 hits. Even if player enters their range they should at least growl first, and give up when player leaves immediately. 

What @marmarmar34 and @Ravensblade say is true, this is the way I most come into conflict with bears; being got from behind because they have snuck up on me. With leather armor, this doesn't bother me. Without leather armor, this is pretty lethal. I do think an audible warning when a bear targets you, but before it starts chasing, could possibly solve this problem.

I would also suggest the shears as a solution to the "I am in dense undergrowth, ah, I can't get away from the bear" problem. Obviously not an option before copper, which does make the early game far riskier, but some strategy available to the player not too late into the game that doesn't involve avoiding forests or completely clearing the landscape/using a mod.

I don't personally use that strategy (I tend to retrace my steps instead if I am in dense underbrush, or always have an exit route planned, and the leather armor creates a lot of room for error), but I heard someone mention this is how they navigate forests on elk the other day and filed it away in my mental drawer of good ideas. Credit to KyoShinda, I think.

Edited 11 hours ago by DarkGold
Correcting typos

[HalfAxd]

1 hour ago, Ravensblade said:

In general as you see all the methods you describe is just emplying some unrealistic gamey mechanic just to disable another unfun mechanic - bears. Neither digging 4 deep holes nor making them slow in water is challenging. It's just disable them as danger. And that's why bears implementation is wrong. They aren't fun or realistic. The require gamey mechanics that disable them to deal with them. 

I don't see it the same way.

If a forest is dangerous in real life, why would you go into it?  If you knew grisly bears were living in the forests of Alaska, would you go there?  The park rangers tell you not to for a reason.

 I reduce swim speed to 100% because I'm at 100%...  I've never seen a rabbit, fox, racoon that could out swim me.

Animal pits are a real solution used by primitive man...

My play style is exploration...  I travel more in the game than sit and build.  For some crazy reason I build a King's Highway to the first story location (nutty I know)... I'm very cautious around forests and locations where I don't have clear lines of sight.  I stick to the high ground, only travel by day (usually).

I like that the game has these dangers.  Again I'll say that as you get past the initial frustration (which I had for this and cave dives) things will even out.  Yes, that requires some behavioral changes, but hey at least that part is realistic.

Either way, I hope you get to a point where you can enjoy the game more. 

[Blaiyze]

Whenever these conversations come up, inevitably someone snarkily says "jUsT pLaY hOmO sApIeNs" - dude. Many of us WANT the lore content + the cottagecore vibes - stop telling us to turn off aspects of the game we haven't complained about when we're discussing a different aspect of the game that gives some annoyance. That completely shuts down the conversation and adds to the purist mentality bs that isn't conducive to constructive feedback. 
 

Bears being unrealistically aggressive would be manageable if, y'know, we were given some tutorial or basic explanation like literally every other game does. I understand it's sandbox mostly atm because, y'know, active development and all that. But bear in mind (pun intended) that there's plenty of people that may haven't interacted with much of the actual lore content, because when you play this game just out-of-the box, it's slow af to progress to the actual story, which is the developers intent. And if there's only one tapestry that you're not likely to come across within your first couple days in-game that gives a vague-ish explanation - then yeah, you missed the mark. The bears sure don't though XD lol

My only gripe with bears is that they're too quiet. As mentioned elsewhere, I can hear prey animals from a good distance, wolves announce themselves too, given my personal real life experience with bears - they should be making some noise as well instead of making noise *after* they choose to engage you.

I'm really tired of the attitude around here of "game hard on purpose, get gud har har har" because someone made the mistake of opening a discussion/feedback on a public forum... where we're supposed to give feedback.

[CastIronFabric]

4 hours ago, DarkGold said:

I think this is a very fair point to raise. The primary way I deal with bears in my game is by wearing leather armor, so when I am caught by surprise by them, I am not killed before I can run away. I have only played 1 world so far (but spent a lot of time in that world), and in that world I found chalk maybe 2,000 blocks away from spawn. So I can't speak from experience of multiple worlds on this, but the scenario you mention seems likely to me based on RNG. Not having leather armor (which is my counter to sneaking bears) would make bears much more of a threat.

What @marmarmar34 and @Ravensblade say is true, this is the way I most come into conflict with bears; being got from behind because they have snuck up on me. With leather armor, this doesn't bother me. Without leather armor, this is pretty lethal. I do think an audible warning when a bear targets you, but before it starts chasing, could possibly solve this problem.

I would also suggest the shears as a solution to the "I am in dense undergrowth, ah, I can't get away from the bear" problem. Obviously not an option before copper, which does make the early game far riskier, but some strategy available to the player not too late into the game that doesn't involve avoiding forests or completely clearing the landscape/using a mod.

I don't personally use that strategy (I tend to retrace my steps instead if I am in dense underbrush, or always have an exit route planned, and the leather armor creates a lot of room for error), but I heard someone mention this is how they navigate forests on elk the other day and filed it away in my mental drawer of good ideas. Credit to KyoShinda, I think.

chalk/limestone can be close or far its totally random. However to be fair using my current world as an example, although I continued to search for it south because of a road system south I was planning on building anyway, I found it 10,000 blocks south but then by accident found it about 2000 block west of my main base.

Anyway, plenty of people have been playing this game for a long time with the default setting as they are and they enjoy it so I do not want to give the impression that on this specific subject I am being fanatic about it, its just that for me it seems out of balance given the travel requirements and for me I do not play with standard settings.

Now other subjects I am absolutely fanatic about, but not this one

 

Edited 7 hours ago by CastIronFabric

[Ravensblade]

4 hours ago, HalfAxd said:

I don't see it the same way.

If a forest is dangerous in real life, why would you go into it?  If you knew grisly bears were living in the forests of Alaska, would you go there?  The park rangers tell you not to for a reason.

Because they aren't? Every forest and shrub is not dangerous in real life. Don't go with realism argument, because if we go that way the bears make even less sense. Most bears are omnivores and most of their diet is actually plants. They don't hunt for most of the time. I wouldn't mind if it was just bears in winter, but they overaggressive year around.

My point is not about me being not able to deal with bears. By the time i reached 100 hours I learned how to play them with random pond and double jump.  The point is - it's not engaging or fun. It's not hard or challenging. It's just chore you need to do every so often. Yes you can also dig big holes in ground every so often if there is no pond nearby just in case. Bears are bad when you are new player and are bad when you are experienced player. Yes, experienced players find ways to disable annoying mechanics. But that don't solve it.

For the whole thread you didn't say a single time that you enjoyed dealing with ninja bears the way they are. Just that you can deal with them. So you claim "bears - dangerous, challenge" then use gamey mechanic like making them super slow in water to skip any challenge and make it trival. What's the point?

Wolves are engaging. You hear them, you need to see where they are, and path around them. Similar a visible bear. You see it. You need to look around, see where it goes and track it movement, and check how to go around. Mark it in memory or map. Bears should be powerful, strong and fast. You shouldn't be able to just easily outrun them or outswim them. Hunting one should be a challenge. If they attack you - it's because you either made a mistake, was not careful enough or you purposefully engaged them. That's fun and engaging for me.

Getting surprised by ninja bear randomly is not. You as a player can't do anything to avoid it, you can be careful as much as you want, and ninja bear will still get you. It's just forced encounter that happens every X blocks, and you are forced to do jump around pond etc for minute or two. Similar digging a hole and/or using 1 block wide trench to poke bear with spear until it's dead while it can't do anything is also not fun. It's just simple mindless mob grinder at this point. 

4 hours ago, HalfAxd said:

I reduce swim speed to 100% because I'm at 100%...  I've never seen a rabbit, fox, racoon that could out swim me.

Ask maybe these park rangers about your idea of trying to run from bears by swimming or running away in water. Or just check swimming speed of bears on internet. And that's even assuming your swimming speed in swimsuit, and not with travel clothes, armor and backpack. 

Edited 5 hours ago by Ravensblade
because

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, Ravensblade said:

Because they aren't? Every forest and shrub is not dangerous in real life. Don't go with realism argument, because if we go that way the bears make even less sense. Most bears are omnivores and most of their diet is actually plants. They don't hunt for most of the time. I wouldn't mind if it was just bears in winter, but they overaggressive year around.

My point is not about me being not able to deal with bears. By the time i reached 100 hours I learned how to play them with random pond and double jump.  The point is - it's not engaging or fun. It's not hard or challenging. It's just chore you need to do every so often. Yes you can also dig big holes in ground every so often if there is no pond nearby just in case. Bears are bad when you are new player and are bad when you are experienced player. Yes, experienced players find ways to disable annoying mechanics. But that don't solve it.

For the whole thread you didn't say a single time that you enjoyed dealing with ninja bears the way they are. Just that you can deal with them. So you claim "bears - dangerous, challenge" then use gamey mechanic like making them super slow in water to skip any challenge and make it trival. What's the point?

Wolves are engaging. You hear them, you need to see where they are, and path around them. Similar a visible bear. You see it. You need to look around, see where it goes and track it movement, and check how to go around. Mark it in memory or map. Bears should be powerful, strong and fast. You shouldn't be able to just easily outrun them or outswim them. Hunting one should be a challenge. If they attack you - it's because you either made a mistake, was not careful enough or you purposefully engaged them. That's fun and engaging for me.

Getting surprised by ninja bear randomly is not. You as a player can't do anything to avoid it, you can be careful as much as you want, and ninja bear will still get you. It's just forced encounter that happens every X blocks, and you are forced to do jump around pond etc for minute or two. Similar digging a hole and/or using 1 block wide trench to poke bear with spear until it's dead while it can't do anything is also not fun. It's just simple mindless mob grinder at this point. 

Ask maybe these park rangers about your idea of trying to run from bears by swimming or running away in water. Or just check swimming speed of bears on internet. And that's even assuming your swimming speed in swimsuit, and not with travel clothes, armor and backpack. 

My take is this, if I want to build a base at any point in the game in a awesome forest location or a waterfall next to what otherwise would be unstable, I am going to do it and I will cheat if I have to, I am have none of that 'look that this awesome place that you can not stay in for anymore than a few mins'

Edited 4 hours ago by CastIronFabric