Wilderness Filler Dire Wolves

[Syphon583]

Look, I'm all about challenge. I've been playing this game a while. I'm generally not against spawning difficult enemies in even low tier POIs. When I go to raid a POI, I should go prepared. However, spawning a dire wolf in a wilderness stamp (lot_rural_filler_01) is a bit much. Players are not going to expect something like that and for someone who plays permadeath exclusively, it was rather heartbreaking as this was early in the run in the Pine Forest. No player would be prepared for that. This feels like a mistake or a cheap "f-you" from whoever decided to spawn a dire wolf there.

 

[Laz Man]

Look, I'm all about challenge. I've been playing this game a while. I'm generally not against spawning difficult enemies in even low tier POIs. When I go to raid a POI, I should go prepared. However, spawning a dire wolf in a wilderness stamp (lot_rural_filler_01) is a bit much. Players are not going to expect something like that and for someone who plays permadeath exclusively, it was rather heartbreaking as this was early in the run in the Pine Forest. No player would be prepared for that. This feels like a mistake or a cheap "f-you" from whoever decided to spawn a dire wolf there.

Hey Syphon583,

Thanks for sharing your experience. Will share it with the level design team in one of our next meetings.

 

[ElCabong]

Finding a direwolf that early on happened to me once 2 years ago. I fully agree with you but it may not be a problem. Be sure to post about it if it happens again.

 

[Vaeliorin]

The first dire wolf I ever saw (I pretty much skipped 1.0) was in a tier 0 POI. It's a field surrounded by a fence, and there's a long shed that spawns a wolf or dire wolf. Usually, it's easy early game meat (even if it was a Dire Wolf back in A21) but I saw the dire wolf this time, and decided to skip it.

I've since fought one in the winter biome, and it wasn't bad other than the fact it instantly broke my leg when it hit me.

 

[warmer]

This has been a debate for a while. I am on the side of removing them from the Forest. I think ot makes NO SENSE to have the most powerful creature in the game in the easiest biome within week one. they have gated our loot stage so anyone who hasn't gone out passed Forest is going to get WRECKED based on the progression design. I dont know what the reasoning would be other than to punish players in an unreasonable manner.

 

[Vaeliorin]

This has been a debate for a while. I am on the side of removing them from the Forest. I think ot makes NO SENSE to have the most powerful creature in the game in the easiest biome within week one. they have gated our loot stage so anyone who hasn't gone out passed Forest is going to get WRECKED based on the progression design. I dont know what the reasoning would be other than to punish players in an unreasonable manner.

I'm at the point where dire wolves aren't a threat to me, and I've done 1 quest in the burnt biome, and 1 in the desert. None in the snow (I have the badge) and none in the wasteland (I have the stuff to make 20 smoothies, I just haven't bothered to get the badge yet.)

Granted, I've crafted all of my gear (melee weapons/tools all T3 Q6 where applicable, which basically means everything other than a q6 iron shovel).

I was going to move to the desert until I actually had to deal with Plague Spitters (they're super annoying) and thought about moving to the snow, but I figured I'd just skip straight to the wasteland. There's pretty much zero need to go into the harder biomes for better loot, though.

That said, I don't think dire wolves should spawn outside of actual questable POIs in the forest. Spawning in those wilderness fillers that you might not even realize is something other than normal forest is not something that I'd expect most players to be able to deal with.

 

[Riamus]

I'm at the point where dire wolves aren't a threat to me, and I've done 1 quest in the burnt biome, and 1 in the desert. None in the snow (I have the badge) and none in the wasteland (I have the stuff to make 20 smoothies, I just haven't bothered to get the badge yet.)

Granted, I've crafted all of my gear (melee weapons/tools all T3 Q6 where applicable, which basically means everything other than a q6 iron shovel).

I was going to move to the desert until I actually had to deal with Plague Spitters (they're super annoying) and thought about moving to the snow, but I figured I'd just skip straight to the wasteland. There's pretty much zero need to go into the harder biomes for better loot, though.

That said, I don't think dire wolves should spawn outside of actual questable POIs in the forest. Spawning in those wilderness fillers that you might not even realize is something other than normal forest is not something that I'd expect most players to be able to deal with.

Yeah, I agree with you on this. They don't bother me and I like having more danger in the forest since I'm there most of the time. But I also understand that it's not going to be easy for new players. The fillers probably aren't the best spot for those to spawn. Of course, I made my own bear den "filler" POI for the forest, so....

 

[warmer]

Granted, I've crafted all of my gear (melee weapons/tools all T3 Q6 where applicable, which basically means everything other than a q6 iron shovel).

Sure, no issue with dire wolves with max tier weapons. lol I was talking week 1 and never leaving the forest. They shouldn't spawn there. That is like the end boss of an RPG spawning outside newb city. It isn't logical and it's poorly executed. They have the highest HP in the entire game. No way someone is taking one out with primitive weapons when they spawn in the forest. They chase you down and you die. lol It's bad design. There is no way to change opinion on that.

 

[Vaeliorin]

Sure, no issue with dire wolves with max tier weapons. lol I was talking week 1 and never leaving the forest. They shouldn't spawn there. That is like the end boss of an RPG spawning outside newb city. It isn't logical and it's poorly executed. They have the highest HP in the entire game. No way someone is taking one out with primitive weapons when they spawn in the forest. They chase you down and you die. lol It's bad design. There is no way to change opinion on that.

Yeah, I get that. Just saying, you don't need to leave the forest to have maxed out gear. Heck, despite having that gear, I'm still not hitting the loot cap in the forest, even doing T5 POIs.

Like I said, I agree that dire wolves shouldn't spawn in the wilderness in the forest. I'm okay with them spawning in higher tier POIs (not tier 0, which is entirely possible.)

 

[warmer]

Yeah, I get that. Just saying, you don't need to leave the forest to have maxed out gear. Heck, despite having that gear, I'm still not hitting the loot cap in the forest, even doing T5 POIs.

Like I said, I agree that dire wolves shouldn't spawn in the wilderness in the forest. I'm okay with them spawning in higher tier POIs (not tier 0, which is entirely possible.)

First let's establish the settings we are using. The way I typically play is EVERYTHING vanilla when it comes to experience a new build.
On Vanilla settings I hit loot cap on day 4 in a tier 5 POI. Why anyone would stay after is silly.

What day were you on when you did?
How did you possibly get that many magazines in a legit vanilla manner?

(For melee weapons/tools all T3 Q6) you would have to loots several hundreds possible magazine drops. You might get the magazine you want MAX 25% of the time and you'd need 75 magazines for your melee weapon and 100 for your tools. (at an incredibly LUCKY 25% that's 700 magazines!) There isn't even CLOSE to that many lootable containers with magazines drops in the entire forest biome. There might be a generous 400 total POIs in the forest max on many cities and 10k map. You'd have to wait for loot to respawn over and over again which next to no one is going to do.

I hate to say it, but I simply don't buy it. This isn't something you are going to be doing on Vanilla settings. If you are going to get T3 Lvl 6 weapons you would have to spend multiple loot respawns in the forest. I am guessing at least till day 21+ in the forest, because you need all that loot to respawn multiple times.

If you turn loot respawn to daily, sure go for it, but otherwise If you want grind for WEEKS in the forest, then ya you can, but no one is going to grind ■■■■ty loot tables when they maxed them out weeks ago in game. Once they have already looted every mailbox/newspaper stand in the forest people move on for the most part. lol There simply aren't enough POI with possible magazine drops in the forest to do it any other way.

Bottom line is most people aren't going to stay in the forest passed week 1. I was out day 4 because I was already maxing out loot stage/tables in high tier POI. To say this is fine because you might do something maybe 5% of players might do is rather silly.

 

[Riamus]

First let's establish the settings we are using. The way I typically play is EVERYTHING vanilla when it comes to experience a new build.
On Vanilla settings I hit loot cap on day 4 in a tier 5 POI. Why anyone would stay after is silly.

What day were you on when you did?
How did you possibly get that many magazines in a legit vanilla manner?

(For melee weapons/tools all T3 Q6) you would have to loots several hundreds possible magazine drops. You might get the magazine you want MAX 25% of the time and you'd need 75 magazines for your melee weapon and 100 for your tools. (at an incredibly LUCKY 25% that's 700 magazines!) There isn't even CLOSE to that many lootable containers with magazines drops in the entire forest biome. There might be a generous 400 total POIs in the forest max on many cities and 10k map. You'd have to wait for loot to respawn over and over again which next to no one is going to do.

I hate to say it, but I simply don't buy it. This isn't something you are going to be doing on Vanilla settings. If you are going to get T3 Lvl 6 weapons you would have to spend multiple loot respawns in the forest. I am guessing at least till day 21+ in the forest, because you need all that loot to respawn multiple times.

If you turn loot respawn to daily, sure go for it, but otherwise If you want grind for WEEKS in the forest, then ya you can, but no one is going to grind ■■■■ty loot tables when they maxed them out weeks ago in game. Once they have already looted every mailbox/newspaper stand in the forest people move on for the most part. lol There simply aren't enough POI with possible magazine drops in the forest to do it any other way.

Bottom line is most people aren't going to stay in the forest passed week 1. I was out day 4 because I was already maxing out loot stage/tables in high tier POI. To say this is fine because you might do something maybe 5% of players might do is rather silly.

Note that there is nerd armor and the new perk that can get you more than one point per magazine read. Also, which magazines you find is also determined by where you look and how your perks are spent, so trying to estimate a percentage of how many magazines will be specific ones is very difficult as many things factor into it. Putting all your perk points in the beginning into your weapon could get you a far higher percentage of that weapon's magazines than 25%, for example. I can see getting enough to reach T3 Q6 in the forest, if there are around 4 forest towns, which isn't unusual to have on an RWG map. As far as how they played (maybe doing a lot of questing that could provide a lot of magazines, especially with a Crack-A-Book), I have no idea, of course. Also, they did mention having been in other biomes, and some magazines likely came from those biomes.

 

[Vaeliorin]

First let's establish the settings we are using. The way I typically play is EVERYTHING vanilla when it comes to experience a new build.
On Vanilla settings I hit loot cap on day 4 in a tier 5 POI. Why anyone would stay after is silly.

What day were you on when you did?
How did you possibly get that many magazines in a legit vanilla manner?

(For melee weapons/tools all T3 Q6) you would have to loots several hundreds possible magazine drops. You might get the magazine you want MAX 25% of the time and you'd need 75 magazines for your melee weapon and 100 for your tools. (at an incredibly LUCKY 25% that's 700 magazines!) There isn't even CLOSE to that many lootable containers with magazines drops in the entire forest biome. There might be a generous 400 total POIs in the forest max on many cities and 10k map. You'd have to wait for loot to respawn over and over again which next to no one is going to do.

I hate to say it, but I simply don't buy it. This isn't something you are going to be doing on Vanilla settings. If you are going to get T3 Lvl 6 weapons you would have to spend multiple loot respawns in the forest. I am guessing at least till day 21+ in the forest, because you need all that loot to respawn multiple times.

If you turn loot respawn to daily, sure go for it, but otherwise If you want grind for WEEKS in the forest, then ya you can, but no one is going to grind ■■■■ty loot tables when they maxed them out weeks ago in game. Once they have already looted every mailbox/newspaper stand in the forest people move on for the most part. lol There simply aren't enough POI with possible magazine drops in the forest to do it any other way.

Bottom line is most people aren't going to stay in the forest passed week 1. I was out day 4 because I was already maxing out loot stage/tables in high tier POI. To say this is fine because you might do something maybe 5% of players might do is rather silly.

Basically vanilla except for 2 hour days, currently on day 18. Like I said, I have the biome badges up to snow, which raises the loot cap in the previous biomes. I was maxing out the loot cap earlier, but now that I've gotten the badges, I'm not.

I did accidentally leave loot respawn on the default, but I've only relooted maybe half a dozen containers (not really on purpose, just happened to walk into a house I'd previously looted and was surprised to find the loot had respawned. I haven't even come close to looting everything in the forest, most of one town, and a couple POIs in another. I do take crafting skill magazines whenever possible from quest rewards, and buy magazines that are useful to me when I see them. I also eventually took the Int perk for more magazines/double progression.

Regardless, I've got up to T5 POIs in the forest, and most of the time I've played there wasn't any loot stage bonus in the other biomes, so why would I bother to spend much time in them? Burnt is ugly, Desert has annoying plague spitters, I was going to move to the snow but decided I'd just wait and move to the Wasteland instead.

Anyway, like I said, I don't think Dire Wolves spawning in the wilderness in the forest is fine. I think they shouldn't. But I don't mind them spawning in higher tier POIs in the forest. Heck, when I did the T5 pictured below, I had 2 infernal (whatever the orange ones are called) Frostclaws spawn, that had as much hp as a Dire Wolf, so I don't see why Dire Wolves shouldn't spawn in such a POI.

Note that there is nerd armor and the new perk that can get you more than one point per magazine read. Also, which magazines you find is also determined by where you look and how your perks are spent, so trying to estimate a percentage of how many magazines will be specific ones is very difficult as many things factor into it. Putting all your perk points in the beginning into your weapon could get you a far higher percentage of that weapon's magazines than 25%, for example. I can see getting enough to reach T3 Q6 in the forest, if there are around 4 forest towns, which isn't unusual to have on an RWG map. As far as how they played (maybe doing a lot of questing that could provide a lot of magazines, especially with a Crack-A-Book), I have no idea, of course. Also, they did mention having been in other biomes, and some magazines likely came from those biomes.

Well, I've gotten to the point of having T5 quests, so yeah, I've done a decent amount of questing. I also loot absolutely everything. Did 1 Crack-A-Book, 1 City Daycare and most of a Mo Power (I ran out of inventory space) in the desert. But that certainly wasn't the bulk of the magazines I've gotten.

Anyway, this is what my crafting skills look like



Here's my loot stage in a T5 POI in the forest. Not capped.

 

[Syphon583]

Hey Syphon583,

Thanks for sharing your experience. Will share it with the level design team in one of our next meetings.

Thanks for the reply. I hope my original post didn't come off as too harsh. I think I was just a little frustrated and it was late at night. I think if it were possible to scale those spawn chances with your difficulty setting, that would be a good balance. I was playing on Warrior and running into that enemy on day 2 was just a shock. I hear there's a slight chance for them to spawn in the wilderness, though I imagine that doesn't happen until higher game stages. I've personally never seen a dire wolf spawn in the forest outside of horde night/POI spawns.

 

[warmer]

Note that there is nerd armor and the new perk that can get you more than one point per magazine read. Also, which magazines you find is also determined by where you look and how your perks are spent, so trying to estimate a percentage of how many magazines will be specific ones is very difficult as many things factor into it. Putting all your perk points in the beginning into your weapon could get you a far higher percentage of that weapon's magazines than 25%, for example. I can see getting enough to reach T3 Q6 in the forest, if there are around 4 forest towns, which isn't unusual to have on an RWG map. As far as how they played (maybe doing a lot of questing that could provide a lot of magazines, especially with a Crack-A-Book), I have no idea, of course. Also, they did mention having been in other biomes, and some magazines likely came from those biomes.

Sure you can't know exact %, but I was being incredibly generous in my % of drops. You never get the magazine you are after more than 25% of the time. At least 25% of the time you loot a magazine type loot box it's paper. That means you'd need a 50% drop on your magazine of choice.

Basically vanilla except for 2 hour days, currently on day 18

Jesus dude that is 1153 magazines. To do that in 36 hours is 32 magazines an hour real life. That is 1 every 2 min. I am not a math wizard, but that just seem next to impossible without bumping up your loot %

 

[Riamus]

You are still forgetting the ways to get extra points from reading magazines. That can cut the number of magazines by about 50%.

The numbers shown don't really look that unusual to me. And I never change loot percentage. Really the only one that surprises me by that point in the game is electrician being completed. I usually am running behind on that one. But the others aren't difficult to get. Especially if you were to grab every mailbox/newspaper stand you come across and hit any Crack-A-Book stores (other than the small ones, those can give you around 30 or so magazines in a very short amount of time. Double up the points you get and you'll complete everything quickly. And that's probably why electrician is complete when I normally don't have it complete because I've never used nerd armor and I haven't yet used the perk to get more points when reading magazines in 2.0.

As far as getting the magazines you want, if you know where to look, most magazines aren't hard to target. Whether that is looting every electric truck or electronics store (electrician/tools/traps), or looting every gas station (vehicles), or looting every construction site and garage (forge ahead), and so on, you can target most non-weapon magazines even before considering what perks might help you get more of a specific magazine.

 

[Old Crow]

Hey Syphon583,

Thanks for sharing your experience. Will share it with the level design team in one of our next meetings.

Share this one too - get rid of the chance of a dire wolf in the Animal Hoarder poi. Having one there in a T2 POI during a quest early game while people are still using pipe weapons and maybe a poop pistol is kind of a dick move.

 

[Riamus]

Share this one too - get rid of the chance of a dire wolf in the Animal Hoarder poi. Having one there in a T2 POI during a quest early game while people are still using pipe weapons and maybe a poop pistol is kind of a **** move.

I prefer keeping that one. It's a low chance and it's not hard to get out of the way if you see it and can't handle it. The POI also very clearly says to beware the dog. If you ignore that, well... you probably won't ignore the second time you see it.

 

[Old Crow]

I prefer keeping that one. It's a low chance and it's not hard to get out of the way if you see it and can't handle it. The POI also very clearly says to beware the dog. If you ignore that, well... you probably won't ignore the second time you see it.

Considering how tight the area is, and how quickly that beast can Kool-Aid Man its way through the door and tear a player to shreds.. no thanks. Get rid of it.

 

[Vaeliorin]

Sure you can't know exact %, but I was being incredibly generous in my % of drops. You never get the magazine you are after more than 25% of the time. At least 25% of the time you loot a magazine type loot box it's paper. That means you'd need a 50% drop on your magazine of choice.

Jesus dude that is 1153 magazines. To do that in 36 hours is 32 magazines an hour real life. That is 1 every 2 min. I am not a math wizard, but that just seem next to impossible without bumping up your loot %

That's also not counting the magazines I've sold/eaten because I was out of inventory space. Ever since magazines were introduced, I've usually had everything I cared about maxed out by Day 14 or so. Took a little longer this time because of the lack of large cities with lots of mailboxes in the forest. Can usually max out everything by Day 28 or so (it gets slower as you complete more series, as you end up with a lot more duplicates, obviously.)

But yes, the Int Mastery perks are absolutely nuts in terms of getting more magazines.

You are still forgetting the ways to get extra points from reading magazines. That can cut the number of magazines by about 50%.

The numbers shown don't really look that unusual to me. And I never change loot percentage. Really the only one that surprises me by that point in the game is electrician being completed. I usually am running behind on that one. But the others aren't difficult to get. Especially if you were to grab every mailbox/newspaper stand you come across and hit any Crack-A-Book stores (other than the small ones, those can give you around 30 or so magazines in a very short amount of time. Double up the points you get and you'll complete everything quickly. And that's probably why electrician is complete when I normally don't have it complete because I've never used nerd armor and I haven't yet used the perk to get more points when reading magazines in 2.0.

As far as getting the magazines you want, if you know where to look, most magazines aren't hard to target. Whether that is looting every electric truck or electronics store (electrician/tools/traps), or looting every gas station (vehicles), or looting every construction site and garage (forge ahead), and so on, you can target most non-weapon magazines even before considering what perks might help you get more of a specific magazine.

I actually don't have any nerd armor other than a level 1 helmet. I guess I could make some, but I haven't really come to grips with the new armor system yet (I skipped 1.0.)

As for the electrical magazines, I dropped points into Advanced Engineering and targeted a Mo Power store because I didn't have any traps for my Day 7 horde (usually can at least buy a handful of fences and a generator by then) which kinda sucked, especially since it turns out some of the zombies can squeeze through scaffold ladders (I normally would have used balustrades, but I wanted to try scaffold ladders since people are always singing their praises.)

Had 26 fences and 4 blade traps for Day 14 though, which made things pretty easy (mostly killed everything with a hunting rifle) even though I forgot electrical parts to repair the fences (it'd been like a year since I played and I was thinking they just took iron to repair.)

 

[Laz Man]

Look, I'm all about challenge. I've been playing this game a while. I'm generally not against spawning difficult enemies in even low tier POIs. When I go to raid a POI, I should go prepared. However, spawning a dire wolf in a wilderness stamp (lot_rural_filler_01) is a bit much. Players are not going to expect something like that and for someone who plays permadeath exclusively, it was rather heartbreaking as this was early in the run in the Pine Forest. No player would be prepared for that. This feels like a mistake or a cheap "f-you" from whoever decided to spawn a dire wolf there.

Are you certain it was that POI? I don't see any wolf spawners in that particular POI. Just a sleeper dog chance.