Mule Deer Bucks not answering calls

[Treach]

This is a fairly rare event that happens to me perhaps about 1-in-30 times on average, but enough for me to take notice of. That is: A mule deer buck will grunt, I will answer with the deer call, and the buck will ignore the call and continue on his way. This is NOT from them being spooked. As an example, I'll detail what just happened to me 5 minutes ago:

I was tracking a buck when I heard him grunt way ahead of me (approximately 1/4 of an inch from the edge of the Huntermate screen, whatever that is... 200-300 yards?). I responded with the doe bleat call and waited for him to start coming toward me and grunt again, but he never answered. I always mark the spot on the map where I heard the grunt come from with the red waypoint, so I walked over there and noticed that his tracks at the point where he grunted and I responded didn't even turn toward me. I continued to track him when within about 1 minute he grunted again, now about 200-250 yards north of me. I went prone and used the deer call again. And again no response from the buck. Waited an appropriate amount of time and continued tracking, again I could see from the place where he made the grunt that he ignored my call and continued walking in a northerly direction. A short while later I tracked him down and shot him as he was roaming. At no time during the tracking process did I ever find "fleeing" tracks, only "roaming".

As I said, this has happened to me before. I'll hear a grunt, reply with the deer call, and never get an answering call or have the buck come toward me at all. According to the dev's notes in a thread here, once all the conditions are met and the buck grunts, this puts him in the "travel toward the player's call/lure" mode. Clearly this is not working 100% of the time.

[Orion]

Never have I seen anything about callers being 100% effective in luring them in, also they never answer back with a call of their own.

Which thread are you referring to?

[MAINEiac]

Yeah, I've had that happen numerous times. I just assumed they weren't interested. I either continue to track them or move on to some other signs.

[mud074]

I have never had this happen to me. Maybe it was out of distance?

[Treach]

I don't recall the thread itself, but one of the devs said something to the effect:

If an animal is not on its way to bed down
If an animal is not following a leader
If an animal is not nervous
(may have been another condition also)
If all of those criteria are met, and it passes all checks, the animal will emit a verbal call and will be drawn to the player's active call/lure.

From reading this, it sounded as though the programming does not allow for a verbal call then ignoring the player's call. It just happened again to me about 15 minutes ago. Heard a buck grunt (mule deer) from a couple hundred yards away, but still well within the edges of the Huntermate map (ie: not close enough to the edge of the map to accidentally wander out of range). There was a huge hill between us, so I wasn't visible. I immediately used the deer call, and he never answered or approached. When I went to investigate, I found that he had not even attempted to get closer to my position.

In this particular case, however, there may be a valid explanation. Shortly after going to his former location, I heard a different buck grunt. When I called him in, the deer mentioned above was following him. So in this case, for whatever reason, the buck passed all condition checks, made the grunt, then went into "follow the leader" mode, which prevented him from responding (I'm guessing). In the original case mentioned in my first post, the deer was alone, so I don't know what's up with that. Perhaps the programming allows them to be interrupted by the desire to find a bed, even though they just grunted.

Not a big deal if this is by design. Just reporting it in case it's not meant to happen.

[Orion]

http://forum.thehunter.com/viewtopic.ph ... ng#p186898

This is perhaps the thread?

[bromstarzan]

Actually, the game would be quite boring if they did stroll towards you 100% of the time (when all conditions are met), wouldn't it?
If it's a bug, well, then it's a bug I like .

[MonacoSteve]

Actually, the game would be quite boring if they did stroll towards you 100% of the time (when all conditions are met), wouldn't it?
If it's a bug, well, then it's a bug I like .

+1