Scent hounds and third jobs for dogs

[rugged coral]

I believe more scent hounds should be added ingame, we currently have only the bloodhound and it does by default only one job, which is to track wounded animals and find harvests, while it’s nice to have it, it’s odd we don’t have a dog that can track a specific individual

We have pointers that can track a specific SPECIES with the “on the trail” trait at lvl 30 however this only means they’ll search for the species as a whole, not the specific animal of that group

Introducing something like a coonhound or foxhound which can track the specific individual from an old track could lead to more engaging stalking hunts which can improve variety of hunting styles for players to choose from and lead to longer game longevity/lifespan and investment by the player

for example : if you happen to be walking along and find a disturbed vegetation track and you notice it’s a rare fur you can use your dog to follow that specific animal’s trail to eventually find it instead of just running around and hoping you find the animal since it could potentially have a need zone much further away from you

This is especially useful for newer players who aren’t familiar with the game or people who aren’t familiar with hunting games as a whole and likely haven’t bought all of the equipment DLCs

But to make the hypothetical scent hound more useful, make it so that it can have 3 jobs it can do, a sort of MASTER hunting dog

It would be the best at tracking individual animals but it can do a decent job tracking blood trails and being a pointer, but it wouldn’t be as great as having a bloodhound or pointer for those individual tasks

This could apply to the pointer being able to have 3 tasks such as pointing, tracking trails and retrieving

This master hunting dog ability would hypothetically be reserved for only a handful of breeds and not every single one of them.

Also before people say

I know bloodhounds are scent hounds and are used to track cold scents irl

However they didn’t implement the bloodhound with this ability in mind

It was merely implemented with the ability to track blood trails as its primary purpose before the addition of the expert dog abilities

[fossil turret]

We already have a scent tracking do It's the german short haired pointer, and we also have a retriever type.Dog that retrieves small game

[slender stream]

It won't trail specific animals without spot point (rendering it nearly pointless unless you're bird hunting), nor will it pursue bears.

[slender stream]

Bear/cat/coon/deer/rabbit hounds are a pretty popular request among the dog trainers in the group. Would love to see a DLC featuring several popular hound breeds for that purpose.

[rugged coral]

But yeah the foxhound or coonhound I’m suggesting will track a specific trail you’ve found in the Ingame world

And it will only follow that specific animal’s tracks

Not like the pointer which it’ll search for anything of that species nearby

[fossil turret]

Well, the germans short haired pointer does track specific animals and follows them if they're still moving even without using the spotting mechanic

[rugged coral]

Your not understanding what I’m saying

The pointer will track the species but it won’t track the individual animal itself

So if there’s a herd of deer and you have it track the footprints it will only search for the species as a whole

Not the individual animal that made that footprint

[fossil turret]

I see what you're talking about there should be better options for that task. Or they can literally just do a rework and improve it.