hunting woes

Bangarang · Post by **Bangarang** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:16 pm

I've been spending some time lately hunting and would like to share some experiences and offer suggestions on the different systems that lie within.

using [hunt] to flush out critters is fun and all, but it doesn't really give a player a very good experience in my opinion. Right now it forces you to be an opportunity hunter. I can't go out and hunt for something specifically when I would much rather do so because I am stuck with whatever that skill gives me.

My suggestion would be to make hunting an actual skill. Move fishing under that category and let that be an easy way to improve hunting. The hunting skill would grant two more abilities over fishing, which are flush and track.

I would consider flush to be of a lower-end skill used to acquire small game such as rodents and gamebirds, mostly unthreatening wildlife.

Track would eventually give you much larger game, moose, bear, boar, deer, etc.

On another mud I played, anyone moving through an area could leave tracks that would get more detailed they higher your skill. (for instance you might just see some kind of animal tracks moving from south to east within the past four hours or you could see cloven-hooved blood-stained tracks from south to east within the last hour). Though in their wilderness a room was much small and the wilderness zones generally much much larger, so im not sure how well that could work here.

Having everything combined under hunt and being able to hunt the groups or specifics (hunt smallgame, hunt gamebirds, or hunt deer, hunt bear) maybe with more or less success depending could also work just as well as having a flush/track and probably makes more sense.

So you finally found an animal, Yes!!!!

Not so fast.. i've noticed that flushing an animal isnt nearly as risky to breaking your stealth as moving, but if my mob walks out of the room the instant I flush it, as it often does.. without doubt you are better off just flushing them again. I have a character with close to 50 stealth ranks and I'll successfully sneak up on my target maybe 1 out of 10 times, without Udemi skills to increase my archery/accuracy and the tangle root to hold them in place, I would have even a smaller chance of hitting the creature. The reason this is a problem is because it absolutely wrecks your hunger to do so. Not a big deal, once I kill this thing im gonna cook it and eat it... And i've had to invest in 2 abilities just to get to this point.

Ah ahahahahha I killed you! finally! now to skin and butcher

Okay seriously, am I being punked? How could I possibly fail to the extent of getting no meat and no skin off of this thing? and nearly everything I kill for several hours? The failure rates are so high I cant help but wonder if my arrows are tipped with explosives that just disintegrate the beast into vapor, which would be awesome, by the way. But alas, after two days of focusing several hour sessions I have earned less riln than I get for making a new character.

I haven't even tried cooking the food, or tanning / making clothing out of these things, but I can't help but think they are as unforgiving to a new player as these other skills have been.

In my opinion, hunting is one of the most user-intensive things to do on Clok, with by far the smallest payout. Every other profession can net thousands of riln per hour of work, and most of it is simply repeating the same commands over and over again.

I like the system where you can get varying qualities of meats and pelts/hides but I think at a minimum they should always produce at least 1 of each because of all that it takes just to get to these points.

Overall, a lot of the system feels promising and takes a good bit to make it work, but the payout to me doesn't fit with how easily every other profession can make riln

Acarin · Post by **Acarin** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:48 pm

To address your stealth issue, 50 ranks is barely any. If you're out in an open area it makes things even worse (Even with 1000 ranks as an example you have a pretty good chance of being seen). When you get a couple hundred stealth under your belt you'll have no problem dispatching the game you spawn.

All the professions are hard in the beginning when you have little to no skill. If everything was easy to do with only a few ranks, there would be no point in developing these skills further. Keep at it and it will get easier. You shouldn't expect it to be too profitable in the beginning.

Bangarang · Post by **Bangarang** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:36 pm

I never stated what my expectations were, I only made my observations and compared them to other professions and made some suggestions where improvements could be made.

There are actually several easy professions to get started in- mining, logging, fishing were the 3 others i've personally seen or dealt with that are incredibly easy and profitable for any new character. Little to no risk, little to no investment, and fairly good payouts for a new player.

My point about ranks was being the guild I chose gave me the best possible approach to the character concept, and conveyed my struggle even having the best start. Other professions are not nearly this difficult, and I feel most of my suggestions are reasonable, i've even heard tracking is in the works.

Jaster · Post by **Jaster** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:42 pm

I have to agree with Bangarang in that some of the game is pretty difficult (dare I say impossible?) to kill when you first start out. And for Serafina's sake, why can't I ever butcher those darn pheasants!? Lol.