Status Update

Hello hunters,

Time for another status update from us. If you missed the game update from yesterday,  alongside some fixes and changes we’ve also added leaderboards and achievements for Polar Bear, following your unambiguous feedback. Hope you’ll enjoy hunting in the northern regions of Whiterime Ridge even more now.

As for the big news I promised you last week, yes,  it IS a new reserve we are working on! We released Whiterime Ridge in autumn last year and it’s time to bring new hunting experiences to your game. What needs to be said here is that our Whiterime Ridge release was very turbulent, it was a harsh lesson for us and will do everything possible not to repeat our mistakes. For now we can only tell you that this one is going to be the biggest reserve in theHunter and our artists have been focusing on creating lots of amazing vista opportunities. If you’ve been with us long enough, you will know that creating a new location is a substantial undertaking with tons of things needing to fall into place before it’s a product ready to be shown. So, from now on we’ll be slowly revealing some bits and pieces of the upcoming location, but let the speculation commence!

And now onto another big piece of news for today, which is…

Introducing the new Recruit a Friend

We’ve always seen theHunter as the ultimate game for creating and nurturing strong bonds between people. Nothing makes us happier than seeing players from different parts of the world becoming friends for life, and real life friends and couples having fun in the EHR together. Because let’s face it, what else could make a friendship stronger than stalking a monster Brown Bear together for half an hour through the chilly hills of Hemmeldal, finally getting that big boy and posing for a memory trophy shot? Not much, in my book.

brownbear_alena&cb

To motivate you to invite your friends to theHunter, we’ve had a Recruit a Friend programme. It has existed for a couple of years and although many of you have taken advantage of it, we felt that the programme has been lacking something.

So, we took a closer look at our Recruit a Friend system and decided to ramp it up a notch. Not only have we added more rewards to recruiters if the invited party buys a membership (including some exclusive items that are not possible to acquire otherwise), but we also put together a nice welcome package to people who joined by invitation, so they can get started hunting right away!

Rewards for Recruiters
SplashScreen_Template_reqruit_a_friend3

Rewards for Recruits:

All friends will sign up for theHunter using your referral link will immediately receive 200 em$, a 5x30mm Rangefinder, a Moose caller, and a large Scent eliminator! Whoop whoop!

Please note:

  • You will only receive rewards if your friend signs up for theHunter using your unique referral link which you can find here.
  • One time rewards will not be added retrospectively to people being invited and registering before August 10, 2016.
  • Retail memberships (DVD) do not count toward referrals.

Happy hunting with your friends!

Discussion

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Introducing Scent Hounds in theHunter

scenthoundOne year ago we released the first dog in theHunter: the jolly and rather unruly Retriever. It was a huge success and not too long after its release, players were taking their dogs with them regardless of whether they were out hunting waterfowl or deer. Soon however, it became evident that the Retriever, despite being fun to bring along on a hunt, was a retrieving specialist and not too much use when stalking deer or other animals. With the Scent Hound, you’ll get a loyal and disciplined hunting partner that you can take with you wherever you go.

Why a Scent Hound?

We saw that there was a need for a hunting dog that could cover aspects of the hunt that the Retriever was never intended to. This new dog needed to be a companion, but also serve a purpose other than simply being a pet that followed the player around. One game aspect that is time exhaustive and frustrating and also goes against hunting ethics, is animals that go unharvested due to the difficulty in finding them when they flee from the hunter after a poorly placed shot. It felt natural therefore to add a dog that would be a loyal friend out on the field, but also an aid to the player in finding those injured animals.

Impact of the dog on the game

Much like the Retriever, the Scent Hound is more of an experience and a convenience, as opposed to a game-changing addition to theHunter. The dog has no real impact on missions or competitions either since the stalking and shooting is still done by you. However, with this dog, the days of not finding animals are over.

How it works

Taking a dog with you on a hunt is simple: Just drag it out from the lodge or tent inventory and place into the dog slot in your own inventory. It will spawn next to you once you close the inventory screen. If this is the first time you bring your dog with you, you will be prompted to give it a name (choose wisely as it’s not possible to rename your dog – at least for now). Once you leave the lodge or tent area you won’t be able to un-equip the dog (try putting a Scent Hound into a backpack and see how that goes). You can access a set of dog commands by pressing the “V” button. While holding “V”, simply select the command you want to give your dog by moving the mouse in the relevant direction and confirming with a left-click. Play around with the different commands and see how your dog behaves. It’s a lot of fun!

Dog_1

To track a wounded animal you’ll need to walk up to a blood track, ID it (left-click on the track with the HunterMate) and then hold “V” and select “Track”. The Scent Hound will move to the selected track to get its scent and then it will start tracking. It can track blood tracks and fleeing tracks of an animal, but not water tracks. When the dog has found the dead animal it will stay by it, baying and barking so you can easily pinpoint the location. When can a Scent Hound fail with tracking? Well, there are basically two scenarios. The first is that the dog simply got distracted during tracking. It may have caught the scent of another animal or the distance between two clues was too far. The second scenario is that the animal being tracked just got brushed by a projectile, bled for a few minutes then the bleeding stopped. In this case the dog cannot continue the tracking.

Experience

When you first purchase a dog, it’s already a capable Scent Hound. It should perform its tasks without any fuzz, most of the time. But if a dog does not understand a command, a small icon with a question mark is shown. If the dog understands the command then an icon with an exclamation mark is shown. If the dog is too far away to be given a command, the icon to the right will be shown.

gui_hunter_out_of_range gui_hunter_command_fail gui_hunter_command_succeed

 

 

 

More experience will make your Scent Hound hone its skills as a tracker, finding clues that are farther apart and finding them faster. Your dog has 50 levels and each new level comes with a skill increase or a small gift. Levelling up is fairly quick in the beginning but will slowly become tougher and tougher. You can see your dog’s experience and level in the right corner of the screen when you bring up the command menu, as well as its stamina state.

Skärmklipp 2016-05-30 14.27.41

Stamina

Each performed command reduces your dog’s stamina. This doesn’t have much impact on how long your dog can work with you, but a lower stamina means it gains less experience, such as a tired dog learns a bit less than a well-rested one. Letting your dog mind its own business will regenerate its stamina.

Skills

On your dog’s profile page you’ll see two sets of icons. One set governs basic dog skills, called Loyalty skills, the other set is specific to Scent Hounds. The number in the upper left corner shows which level your dog is at on that particular skill. Each skill starts out on level  1. All Scent Hound skills have a maximum of 3 levels, but some of the Loyalty skills have more. For information on what each skill does, just hover the mouse over the skill icon.

Skärmklipp 2016-05-30 14.28.30

What about those darn rascally Retrievers?

We have reviewed the Retrievers as well and increased their skill levels across the board. They will be better at understanding commands and be a little bit quicker at finding and retrieving birds than before. They will still be quite rowdy when on the move but they will perform their duties in a much more stable manner.

Special release events

To celebrate the release of our scent hounds we’ve prepared some tasty offers that you’d be barking mad to refuse. If you buy a dog before Tuesday, June 7th 12:00 CEST you’ll get a 20% discount and receive a cherry on top –  free Founder collar!  Please note that the free leather collar offer is only available in the Bundles section in the store. You can however buy dogs separately in the Dogs section.

coonhound_release_2016Also, Daniel has created a special package of dog missions for you to hang out with your new buddy and try to win this gorgeous trophy. These are time-limited missions, and you have until Tuesday, June 7th 12:00 CEST to complete them.

We’ve also released three new winter vests for your dogs in the variety of colours – they will keep both your scent hounds and labs warm and toasty.

Now it’s time to go and make use of that heel command – happy hunting with your scent hounds!

Discussion

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Game Update

Features

  • Polar Bear

2016_03_polarbear_1

Polar Bear – Release notes & Event-based design

Trying to simulate real life conditions for hunting the Polar Bear as much as possible, we created an  event-based game design which will be unique for this species at this point. According to the design, a handful of Polar Bears will spawn in Whiterime Ridge reserve, which you will not be permitted to shoot unless they attack you. Polar Bears killed in self-defense will not yield any score, nor will there be a harvest screen. Our good old Doc will of course send you an educational message on the matter too.

From time to time there will be special events in the EHR during which the Polar Bear population will be huntable due to various natural influences and animal control. During such an event the aforementioned restrictions will be lifted and players will be permitted to hunt Polar Bears like any other animal. Those events will run for long enough for players with not so much time on their hands to take part in and they of course will be announced well in advance. There will be neither achievements nor leaderboards for Polar Bears.

With the release of the Polar Bear we have added a mission pack that explains why the Polar Bear is huntable this time. The population is threatened by a parasite and some culling is needed to prevent the parasite from spreading.

Bug fixes

  • Fix for rare Sitka Deer and Snowshoe Hare showing up as Common in statistics
  • Crash fix when shooting at dead animal antlers
  • Fix for animals not fading out for clients in multiplayer
  • Fixed issue with turkey and pheasant variations
  • Fixed an issue with a specific tree’s LOD not showing foliage.

Changes

  • Non-typical Whitetail missions removed

Discussion

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Game Update

Hello hunters,

Here comes the long awaited game patch with fixes and new content. We’ve managed to find and resolve most of the below mentioned bugs and issues thanks to your excellent efforts and dedication during the open beta, and we are super grateful to all of you who participated, it’s amazing to have you on board! It looks like we’ve also found the problem with stats not being saved for some users (in particular with Vista OS) – we are testing the fix right now and if everything works fine, we’ll release another small patch with it this week.

Otherwise – we hope that with this game update all your hunts will become more stable and enjoyable. Go grab your El Bisonte, shoot yourself some new ducks and share with us your thoughts and feelings, good or bad.

Features

Changes

  • Animals killed by one shot will get a increase in trophy integrity.
  • Dust and snow now use the wind when calculating direction.
  • Tents should now be more correctly aligned with the terrain after having been placed.
  • Shotgun shots now take credit for all organs they hit.
  • Rabbit ears now count as head hits.
  • Added a new value (16011) shown by the launcher for when the game crashes, meaning that the game failed to create a d3d device (we saw multiple crashes caused by that, that the game couldn’t really handle).
  • Host and client versions need to match in order for a client to join a game.

Bug fixes

  • Fixed bug when a player tried to dismantle a tent while reloading, he would get stuck in a T-pose.
  • Fixed the bison spotting score bug.
  • Fixed the issue with ducks jumping around after dying due to low fps.
  • Fixed the issue with animals not running away due to them being aggressive.
  • Fixed the issue with player not being able to respawn after fainting while having the inventory screen open.
  • Fixed the issue with bison spine order.
  • Fix for the issue with missing fox trotting clues.
  • Fix for the issue with hunting sessions – they could fall out of memory during redeploys which could potentially lead to missing statistics.
  • Client and Server reserve borders are now correctly calculated from the same data source.
  • Hits and misses could sometimes collide with old data and crash the game.
  • Shooting guns without bullets could crash the game when talking to the server. (How did you manage this?)
  • Campaigns could crash competitions.
  • Moving items could sometimes crash the game.
  • Fix some rendering stuff while in menus, inventory and map that should fix some of the crashes while in the map.
  • Multiple random crash fixes (while in-game)
  • Fixed goose ragdolls levitating sometimes
  • Fixed the skills for the 9.3×62 Anschuts rifle – they don’t get reset anymore

Release notes – new duck species

2015_11_ducksThe new ducks in Rougarou Bayou are of the same type as the Mallard i.e. dabbling ducks. These guys do not mind the company of each other so there is a chance you’ll find a Gadwall in a Mallard flock or a Northern Pintail cruising together with a bunch of American Black Ducks. Sometimes these species interbreed so it will be possible to find some hybrids of the Mallards and the others flying around the Bayou. How about getting them to land then? Well, Mallard decoys will work at a 50% attraction rate for all new species. But to get full attraction you’ll need to add some species specific decoys. For full attraction using as many Mallard decoys as possible you’ll need 24 Mallard decoys and 12 of another species. You can also use 24 species specific decoys to get the full effect.

As for callers it is a little more complicated. American Black Ducks are the easiest ones though. They react to Mallard callers just like Mallards. Gadwalls have their own short range caller which means they are not as attracted by a Mallard short range caller. The Northern Pintail is the other way around; they have a long range caller so they do not care as much for the Mallard long range caller.

This increase of waterfowl over Rougarou Bayou will cause busy times for your retriever dog. So make sure it is well rested and well equipped for some primo waterfowling!

Discussion

 

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Graphics Update

Complete list of graphics updates and fixes (some of them implemented from Primal):

  • Fix for broken normals on all tree trunks and some rocks
  • Fix for broken shadows/lighting on insects, birds, and falling leaves
  • Fix for incorrect lighting on double-sided materials (foliage, fences, etc.).
  • Fix for incorrect lighting on hair shader
  • Shadows are more stable with less flickering and with better filtering
  • Better quality shadows on grass when using high or very high shadow quality setting
  • Improved lighting model which helps bringing out detail in shadowed areas
  • More accurate and detailed lighting of the terrain which will now pick up small scale changes in the geometry.
  •  Fix for the ground haze/dust particles destroying the sun halo.

Some Before and After comparisons

1. Screenshot comparison of a small hill that previously was lit incorrectly:
terrain_fix
2. This screenshot shows the results of fixed the ground haze/dust particles destroying the sun halo:

comparison5

3. This shot shows the higher accuracy of the terrain lighting (the small hill to the right was previously lit incorrectly) as well as the updated lighting model:

comparison1

4. This shot shows the improved shadowing of the grass for high and very high shadow settings:
comparison3

5. A comparison that shows how the updated lighting model brings out more surface detail in shadowed areas as seen on the tree trunks:

comparison2

6. Another comparison that shows how the updated lighting model makes surfaces easier to read in the shadows and helps adding realism:

comparison4

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Whiterime Ridge Release Notes

Whiterime Ridge

The new reserve is (as you probably already knew) cold. You will need to use the free Arctic clothes (grab your set for free here) or your hunt will be quite short and miserable. Do remember that the clothes you wear will not matter if for any reason you up in the icy waters of Whiterime Ridge. Water will cause your body temperature to drop rapidly and, if you end up in the water, you will need to fast travel to a lodge for some defrosting.

Whiterime_ridge_hunter

As far as your old clothing go, check the item descriptions in the store for info on how good they are against the cold. Some have no protection, others offer some. Bear in mind that very few of the old pieces of clothing will fully protect you from the savage cold of Whiterime Ridge.

Another thing to bear in mind is that this reserve is huge. Exploring Whiterime Ridge is quite an undertaking. It is a good idea to bring a tent to your first expeditions to make the exploration easier and to find your own perfect hunting spots.

26_150Bison

The Bison is huge, powerful and very grumpy. Hunting it is not the greatest of challenges as it is quite fearless. The real challenge is in shot placement. If you mess up you will have a long tracking session ahead of you. The bison is the heaviest animal in the Evergreen Hunting Reserves and it can take a lot of damage. This is also the reason why some weapons, such as the Longbow and the .50 Cap Muzzleloader, are excluded from the list of permitted weapons. They simply lack the penetration to instantly kill a bison. It might have been all well and good in the time before ethical hunting but not in this day and age.

25_150Snowshoe Hare

This is the prey for the expert hunters! They are small, fast and extremely well camouflaged. They behave much like Cottontail Rabbits but prove more of a challenge due to their excellent camouflaged fur.

 

24_150Arctic Fox

Here is another challenge! For much of the same reason as with the Snowshoe Hare, the Arctic Fox boasts excellent camo (plus all the elusiveness you should already know from encountering their red sisters in Hemmeldal). That is, as long as you don’t encounter the blue furred variety.

 

27_150Sitka Deer

The Sitka is much like its close relative, the Blacktail. They have smaller antlers and are a tad more chubby, helping them to cope with the cold weather. Other than that, they go about their business in a similar manner to what you might expect from other deer species in the EHR.

 

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Introducing Tobii Eye Tracking in theHunter

2015_07_toby_large

As we’ve mentioned in one of our status updates, we’ve partnered with the Swedish company Tobii to bring their sophisticated eye tracking system into theHunter and with today’s game update that integration is finally live!

From now on, if you have Tobii’s nifty EyeX gadget, you can control certain aspects of the game by moving just your eyes. The camera will pan to what you are looking at, which will bring a new intuitive experience when scanning the terrain for animals to hunt. It is even possible to raise your weapon with your eyes. Using traditional controls (keyboard and mouse) you navigate the same as always, except now, as you look to the left of the environment so will your character – all without breaking stride. This is called ‘Infinite Screen’ because no longer are you restricted to the size of your monitor to explore the territory freely. As a player, not only do you feel more immersed in your environment, you now have the ability to become more aware of your surroundings as you explore the unknown.

You can customize the EyeX settings in the Options menu in-game to make it behave exactly as you want. Note that these options are only visible if you have the EyeX connected with the relevant drivers installed (for any hardware-related issues please contact Tobii support).

Here’s how one theHunter player who has been helping us to test eye tracking describes it:

“The Eye Tracking software was a great surprise – it was technology that I wasn’t sure about initially, but I ended up really liking it the more I used it. It’s very configurable and aiming by closing one eye is really immersive to the entire hunting experience. Watching the view move as I scanned my peripheral for animals really makes you feel like you’re actually there, and helps keep track of any animals you may have otherwise missed as you walk around. Waterfowl and pheasant hunting is a blast with this technology, and makes leading them a bit easier as well. One of my favorite experiences with it was soon after I first got it up and running, had jumped into Whitehart Island, and was tracking a herd of Roosevelt Elk – sitting motionless both in game and in real life, and having my view change to follow them without touching anything was incredibly immersive and fantastic, and I found myself holding my breath in real life.”

You can purchase your Tobii EyeX here for just $99 (regular price $139) using the code TheHunter. When playing theHunter with Tobii EyeX installed for the first time, you’ll receive a special Tobii Eyemaster membership bundle bundle which includes a 14 day membership, 12 GA Pump Action shotgun, Male Mallard Decoys, Waterfowl Blind and a Sneaky 3D Summer Swamp outfit.
Happy hunting!

Discussion

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Introducing dogs in theHunter

dog

Since the early days of theHunter there has been an important part missing in the hunting experience: Dogs. It has been brought up as a possible feature for the game countless times but circumstances where never quite right. Until now.

With adding dogs to theHunter we have two different roles for them in mind. First, perhaps the most important one, is to add to the immersion of the game. Having a dog with you who reacts to the surroundings and to yourself is something that intensifies the hunting experience. What we want to give you is the experience of the hunter and the dog – a companionship going back in time to as long as some ten thousand years or more. If we could even slightly tap into that ancient human-canine bond the hunting immersion would increase significantly. This is what we’ve tried to achieve here. So not everything about the dog has to do about gameplay: It is more an enhancement of the hunting experience.

Second role that the dog plays is, obviously, an aid to the hunter in the game. In real life it is an arduous task to go fetch a downed mallard through waist deep water. The task may not be as tough in theHunter but the dog will at least let you focus on the shooting.

Why retriever (or a specific dog type at all)?

When we were looking around in the different dog threads over the forums and asked our trusted hunting experts, the first dog type that would come up in almost all cases was a bird retrieving dog. Our decision to make one was solely based on this. Many has also suggested a more “multitalented” dog that could, for instance, track as well as retrieve. Although we considered making dogs that could do multiple tasks, it quickly became obvious that it developing an easy-to-use interaction (GUI) system for a dog that could flush, retrieve, track and partake in driven hunts would be impossible. It was also difficult to find a suitable breed to base such a multitalented dog on. So, we decided to focus on specialized dogs instead.

Impact of the dog on the game

The retriever is much more of an experience and a convenience addition rather than a game changer. You won’t have to zip around fetching a whole bunch of birds; you can let your dog do the work while you keep an eye on the skies. The dog has no real impact on missions or competitions either since the hunting is still done by you.

How it works

Taking a dog with you on a hunt is simple: Just drag it out from the lodge or tent inventory and place into the dog slot in your own inventory. It will spawn next to you once you close the inventory screen. If this is the first time you bring your dog with you, you will be prompted to give it a name (choose wisely, as it is not possible to rename your dog, at least for now!) Once you leave the lodge or tent area you won’t be able to unequip the dog (try putting a labrador into a backpack and see how that goes). You can access a set of dog commands by pressing the V-button. While holding V, simply select the command you want to give your dog with the left mouse button. Play around with different commands and see how your dog behaves – it’s a lot of fun!

command_wheel

Experience

When you first purchase a dog, it is inexperienced and a bit rowdy (same as in real life). It may have some issues obeying and following commands, but the more time it spends out hunting with you, the better it gets at understanding what you want it to do. If the dog does not understand or chooses to ignore a command, a small icon with a question mark in the bottom left corner is shown. If the dog understands the command then an icon with an exclamation mark will be shown. Better experience will also make your dog calmer and more focused – it will make less noise, ignore other dogs more easily and be less prone to bark at animals close by. Yes, your lab will spook other animals but who wants to see a dog walking through a group of Whitetails who leisurely continue with their grazing? Your dog has 50 levels and each new level comes with a skill increase or a small gift. Leveling up is fairly quick in the beginning but will slowly become tougher and tougher. You can see your dog’s experience and level, as well as its stamina state, in the right corner of the screen when you bring up the commands menu.

XP_and_StaminaOnce your dog reach level 50 it will be the perfect hunting companion: Quiet, focused and efficient. It’ll do everything but shoot the birds for you.

Stamina

Each performed command reduces your dog’s stamina a little. This doesn’t have much impact on how long your dog can work with you, but a lower stamina means it can gain less experience, such as a tired dog learns a bit less than a well rested one. Letting your dog mind its own business will regenerate its stamina.

Skills

On your dog’s profile page you’ll see two sets of icons: one set governs basic dog skills called Loyalty skills, the other set is specific for retrieving dogs. The number in the upper left corner shows which level your dog is at on that particular skill. Each skill starts out on level 1. All retriever skills have maximum 3 levels but some of the Loyalty skills have more than that. To get information about what each skill does, just hover the mouse over the skill icon.

dog_profile

Make sure to watch this short tutorial video to see it all in action.

Now go and do it!

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Introducing HunterMate Apps

App Selection

There are now a total of three different apps to run on the HunterMate and to accommodate for this we’ve created a new App Selection Menu.

How to launch an app:

  1. Hold the G-key
  2. Move the mouse in the direction of a desired app
  3. Press the left mouse button to launch

How to close an app:

  • Press the G-key at anytime to close an app

Environment Camo App

2014_10_camo_app

The environment camo app is a new free tool that can be used to learn in which areas your environment based camo such as the Sneaky 3D and Ghillie outfits are active.

Legend:

  • Green – You are wearing an environment based camo item and you are in an area where it provides camo
  • Light Grey – You are wearing an environment based camo item but you are not in an area where it provides camo
  • Dark Grey – You are wearing an item with no environment based camo

Note that species-specific camo such as the B&C Outfit is counted as items with no environment based camo. These are active everywhere, thus there’s no need to include them in the app.

Bust Through

Since we now have a way to select multiple apps again we’ve brought back an old friend that should be familiar to most veterans of the game. The HunterMate mini-game “Bust Through” is now available via the App Selection Menu and free to all players of theHunter. To add a competitive touch we’ve also added an all new leaderboard for this game on the website.

Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail

Introducing Climbing & Falling in theHunter

2014_9_climb_gear

Why climbing?

When we design a new species for the game we strive to add as much unique gameplay around it as possible, preferably inspired by real life characteristics. One of the most distinguishable features of the Alpine Ibex is their ability to scale almost vertical walls and already in the beginning of the research process it became clear that this had to be included in the game to make the species justice.

This, coupled with the fact that Ibex are not known to respond to any lures, puts the hunter at a great disadvantage. Climbing evens the playing field by allowing agile hunters to follow their prey up even the most difficult slopes while adding an all new type of outdoor experience to the world of theHunter.

Do I have to climb?

Climbing is as much a requirement for hunting Ibex as lures are generally for other species. In other words, it makes it easier but it is not required. Most of the reserve, including the high areas where Ibex roam, can be reached by walking and climbing should be viewed more as taking a shortcut than a requirement.

How Is It Done?

Climbing Gear Characteristics:

  • Creates permanent climbing paths
  • Rated for 2 safe falls per climbing season
  • 75% of deployed units are recovered on dismantle

How to deploy:

  1. Add a couple of Climbing Gear to your field inventory
  2. Find a suitable rock wall, look for extruding stones in vertical cliff areas
  3. Equip your Climbing Gear & click the Use Item Button (Left Mouse) to deploy
  4. Note that deployment cost is dependent on wall with taller walls costing more units

How to climb:

  1. Walk up to your deployed climbing path & hold the Use Environment button (E) for options
  2. Select “Enter”
  3. Use the Move Forward & Move Backward buttons (W/S) to move up or down
  4. When you see a balance bar use Move Left & Move Right (A/D) to keep the balance arrow centered
  5. If the arrow go too far to any edge of the bar you will fall, the first couple of falls in each climbing season are recovered by the rope but eventually the rope breaks which lead to a fatal disagreement with gravity. Note that falling and breaking the rope does not affect the wall. Climbing gear can only be lost through dismantle
  6. Once at the other end of the wall press the Use Environment button (E) to exit

How to dismantle:

  1. Walk up to your deployed climbing path & hold the Use Environment button (E) for options
  2. Select “Dismantle”
  3. Note that only 75% of deployed climbing gear are recovered on dismantle due to wear & tear

Is there a reserve limit for deployed climbing paths?

The amount of climbing paths that can be deployed in a reserve is only limited by the amount of available deployment spots which in Val-Des-Bois is about 20.

Fall Damage

In addition to climbing we’ve added another new feature requested by many players for a very long time. Basically it is about addressing the immersion breaking superman ability of the hunter to survive falls from any height without any of the bone breaking consequences one would expect from such an event in real life. While this has worked well in most areas of the old reserves, simply due to the lack of places to fall from, it became more of an issue in a mountainous reserve such as Val-Des-Bois.

Unlike climbing, this will affect gameplay in both the new and old reserves, however, as mentioned above, there are not that many places to fall from in the old reserves except extreme areas such as the hangbridge ravine on Logger’s Point.

Being knocked out from falling follows by the same procedure as similar features such as animal attacks. Once knocked out you can choose to use a First Aid Kit to respawn at the spot or respawn at a Tent or Campsite.

Tips

  • Mastering the balance act of climbing can take a few tries. It’s recommended to bring a couple of medkits or place a tent near your practice wall for quick respawns.
  • Be easy on the keys when balancing, holding too long can tip the scale over to the other side and lead to acceleration towards epic disaster
  • While you need to focus on the balance bar while climbing don’t forget to check for the “exit wall” icon in the right corner of the screen as you approach your destination
Share this
Facebooktwitterredditmail