Animals arriving late and getting stuck at old zones for extended periods of time.

[shrewd panther]

This game used to be so fun years ago when I could load up a game run through the map find zones. Then figure out what time they’re at that feed zone or drink zone then change the time or wait till that time and go looking for them in the zone. Now the game is totally broken and has been broken for several years now and none of the developers acknowledge this issue. If it’s intended it’s implemented extremely poorly. I’ll use Javan Rusa deer just as an example because I tested it extensively but this happens will all animals in the game. They drink at 20:00-00:00 I’ve found every zone on the map for them 54 zones total. If I set the time for 20:00 sambar and red fox are still drinking there and there’s no rusa deer in sight. So I bumped the time ahead 5 in game mins at a time. Red fox didn’t leave the drink zone till 20:10 and sambar didn’t leave till 20:20-20:30. The first rusa deer didn’t show up till 20:30 and the last ones didn’t show up till 20:50. So my question is why do the need zones say 20:00-00:00 for rusa deer when it’s a lie? If you want travel time then you should list a specific travel period between zones. Because right now sometimes animals get stuck and never show up to their zones and it ruins the immersion and fun of the game. The way the game should work for example is lets say animal X feeds from 5:00-10:00 and drinks from 10:00-1:00 right now but never shows up to drink till 11:00 then why not add a listed travel time? So animal X feeds from 5:00-9:00 travels from 9:00-10:00 and drinks from 10:00-1:00? This way the casual player still gets the immersion of animals travelling between zones and the people who want to go out and find their zones and save them for later can go back and hunt the zones at the specified time and the animals will always be there for that specified time. Idk why this hasn’t been implemented years ago it’s infuriating and a big reason why every time I come back to this game I quickly get frustrated and stop playing it.

[compact terrace]

I Like the way it is .... IRL Animals don't wear watches and don't care about being on time .... Thats why it's called hunter COTW and not killer COTW ... ... But with that said grinders do pretty well in this game ....

[dapper whale]

PC grinders do well in this game. As a console player it’s very frustrating to grind when you fast travel to a lake and have to sit there for 10 irl mins and wait for the animals to spawn into the area and come into their zones. And not just after you change the time, it’s like this at all times. Doesn’t matter how long into their drink zone you are either. Could be 10 mins left in drink time and they still won’t be there. ‘Activating’ their zones by travelling there and then going somewhere else and coming back doesn’t work either. Spending 4-6k per zone for the fast forward 1 min also isn’t reasonable, and lots of times doesn’t work regardless of how many times you try it. They made changes quite a while ago and fixed some of it but now it’s back to the way it was when everyone complained about it. Mind boggling that they don’t catch these issues with consoles and fix them as needed. Good to know pc works well though….. 🙄

[compact terrace]

PC and Consoles use the same animal AI

[dapper whale]

I watch lots of pc streams and I play the game on console. What I see from streams and what I experience playing are two very different things. They may use the same AI but the way the game loads assets on different hardware completely changes how the game works between pc and consoles

[dapper plover]

I have the game on both PC and PlayStation. I have put over 1000 hours on PlayStation and maybe 50-100 hours on PC, and I can tell you I have no issues with animals coming to or being in their zone on either platform.

[shrewd panther]

It’s a video game it’s meant to be fun. Real life hunting isn’t always fun sometimes it can really suck. I don’t play games to not enjoy myself. If I don’t enjoy the game I stop playing. If the game tells you an animal should be at a zone from time X to time X it should be there. You know why no one hunts feed zones in this game? Because there’s so many of them and on top of that when you do find one the animals aren’t there at the specified times 80% of the time.

[turbid fjord]

If you come across an animal or herd that comes into a drink zone 3 hours late then it is on a set repeated pattern. Best thing to do is wipe them all out to remove the zone marker from the map. They'll very likely respawn earlier (and nearby).
Although, there are times when 'late' arrival zones can be an advantage. i.e. reindeer.

[strong rose]

I play on Xbox no issues with animals showing up. Most of the streamers even say to set the time to 20-40 mins into the need zone time. Which usually puts all animals in that zone. They also zone hop to give animals time to show up.

[narrow umbra]

I think you are misunderstanding how the schedules work, they do not indicate "what time the animals will be there", when a schedule starts the animals begin to move from the zore where they were to the new zone, they does not teleport to a new area, he moves by jogging and walking towards it...

I think you are referring to the previous system where the Spawn Points of the animals were apparently in their drink zones, that has changed with the introduction of the Habitat system where each species has its distribution on the map, its spawn point is in an area different from their need zones (apparently), the zones are also separated into 2 rest zones, 2 feed zones and 1 drinking zone (throughout 24 hours a day), distributed in a wider range than before, so the animals take time to get from one area to another, if there is a predator along the way that they find scare then they will run away and take even longer to get there, the same goes for high ground where animals cannot climb and must go around it, It may even happen that you find an area of ​​need and no one uses it because the animal has not even appeared on the map..

All this is solved in a simple way, Completely Revealing the map, without leaving dark areas, activating all the watchtowers, all the outposts, traveling through each part of the map so that our Render Range (750m) touches each point on the map and "activate" all the spawn points and the animals to appear and if possible assembling the permanent structures of the map, This is done only once and is permanent so it is worth taking the time to do it the first time you enter a new reserve...
(Using the Keen Eye skill also helps mark all the zones of the map around the watchtowers, If possible use it 4 or 5 times in each tower)

I don't know which animals actually appear in the drinking areas when you change the time and re-enter the game. I think they are those whose need zones they use before the drinking area has already been discovered or their spawn point has been mapped. I have not experimented enough to be able to confirm its exact function

[compact terrace]

Of course this game is not RL and we are constantly reminded of that but it does try to be a casual hunting SIM. What you are calling for is for HTCOW to be even less of a sim than it already is ... I dont think I would like that game very much .... would get boring very quickly ....

[shrewd panther]

No you’re misunderstanding. All I want is for them to label the times properly. Cause right now it doesn’t happen with all species some are way worse than others. Animals won’t be in their zones till the last 1 hr to 30 mins of their zone time when the zone time is 3 hr long. Makes no sense. In real life I’ve tracked a white tail herd near me before and at dusk between 7pm and dark they are in the same field pretty much every night at a certain time of year. Animals do follow patterns and this game is buggy and makes it not feel like a pattern but instead like you’re just sitting there wondering if they’re stuck on a rock 300m from the lake which I’ve seen happen many times. Just add a listed travel time and a guaranteed zone time to the game and it would be way better.

[compact terrace]

Okay so it may be that you need some kind of sticky note icon that you can attach to the map.... Maybe on a zone itself that you can edit to tell you when the animals arrive .... Also something like this can be useful in letting you know when they are there and when they are not ..... https://discord.com/channels/393040947006406657/1244279229902884895

[stable ice]

So if an animal has, let's say, a feed zone time from 6 to 10, and a rest time from 10 to 14, what do you expect to happen? Should they teleport at 10 o'clock?

They will leave the feed zone at 10, so OF COURSE they will arrive a few minutes "late". They still have to walk or fly from zone to zone.

[narrow umbra]

If it had to show the real time in which it would arrive then the time indicator would be changing in real time every second or every time you enter the game, since at times they walk, at times they jog and sometimes they stop just to look around, and when they come across a obstacle the time will vary again, on my map I must have more than 2000 need zones or more, for all of these to vary in real time would create complete chaos.

[shrewd panther]

Yep pretty much 👍🏻

[shrewd panther]

No the should feed from 6-9 have a listed travel time from 9-10 and then rest from from 10:00-14. No teleportation just tell us what they’re doing at a certain time of day so there is less confusion.

[shrewd panther]

No you don’t need a real time timer. Just make it so if currently an animal feeds from 10-12 and drinks from 12-3 instead add a 4th zone called travelling and then make it so they would feed from 10-12 travel from 12-1 and drink from 1-3. That way people who want to roam the map and hunt will encounter animals that are travelling at those times as well being able to go to zones and hunt. Then people who have more of a grind mindset will be able to setup and go to a zone at the time listed and the animals will always be there because they will be done travelling.

[quiet wharf]

Then apex predators (like grizzlies) would be very unpredictable because they don’t follow trails, which leads us right back to where we started.

[shrewd panther]

No they’d be very predictable. During that 1 hour stated travel time they’d be unpredictable but they should be during that time. Once their drink/feed/rest time comes around tho they will always be in their zone during that time. Nothing unpredictable about that.

[quiet wharf]

That is… a wonderfully awful idea.

[shrewd panther]

Just saying that without any reasoning is weird.

Typical gamer tho just say something is awful without explaining why. At least give reasoning why you don’t like the idea. Personally I see no downside. It would make the casuals happy and the grinders happy.

[quiet wharf]

It makes no sense. That is why, on top of my reasonings stated previously. You play this game too, you are a gamer bud.

[shrewd panther]

I addressed your reasoning. How does it not make sense? Right now the biggest gripe with grinders is that animals aren’t in their zones at the stated times. The casuals hate the fact they can’t find animals mainly because animals don’t travel around once they’re in their zones. By adding a travelling zone. Casuals can run around during that time and see animals moving around and grinders will always have animals in their zones. Seems like a win win to me. Also in real life hunting Information usually determines a successful hunt from a non successful hunt so not knowing when or how long animals are travelling for in game is a big hinderance. If you care to explain what about my idea you don’t like feel free but so far all you’ve said is you don’t like it without any reasoning as to why.

[quiet wharf]

In its most basic form it already exists. 30 minutes till they get there. It’s not hard dude. If you are this upset over drinkzones try feed and rest zone hunting.

[shrewd panther]

It’s not 30 minutes I’ve done extensive testing it can be in excess of 1-1/2 hours for some animals.

[quiet wharf]

Far more rewarding, maybe even easier in some regards.

[shrewd panther]

You don’t know what you’re talking about. lol

[dapper whale]

It doesn’t matter what time I go to a drink zone. The animals aren’t spawned in until I get into the area and it takes them 10+ irl minutes to walk to their zone. Example, for moose. Drink zone is 12-16. I set time to 12:30 and go to the first lake (doesn’t matter which one). They don’t get there until approx 13:30. Then I fast travel to another lake and wait until 14:15 for them to arrive. Next zone 15:00, then 15:45-16:00. So I get to shoot moose out of 4 lakes per drink zone time. That’s 4 herds to shoot at in 1 hour irl time, sometimes 3 herds. 6-8 moose per hour. Never heard of that happening on pc and heard of it a lot on Xbox. They need to figure out why it’s happening and fix it.

[quiet wharf]

I presume you are doing HM??? That just sounds like poor HM.

[earnest mirage]

You want hunting to be more predictable? You may have a loose grasp on the concept of hunting. It's not a finding simulator, it's a hunting simulator. And not a scavenger hunt at that.

[shrewd panther]

This game isn’t a hunting simulator it’s a semi realistic arcade shooter hunting game. So many things are far from realistic it’s def not a sim.

[strong rose]

Never had this issue on Xbox. I've done one G1 grind over 1500 kills and I'm about 1000 into my second grind. My animals are always in their zones. Set time around 20-40 mins into the drink time and they are there every time.