Scent Hounds dog correction of november 28, 2018

[ACSoft]

It is written:
Scent Hounds that have lost their track will be able to track again from their last found clue, even if it’s not a blood clue.

Can please devs (or anybody else who know) elaborate a bit more in which circumstances this new re-track possibility may work or not ?

Is it mandatory to re-track on the clue he last found and stand on it, with a "?" mark ?

When re-tracked, will the dog found the animal ONLY if it died already, or may he found it also, if it is still only injured ?

What happen if no more blood clue marks exist after the re-track ? Will the dog always fail no matter if the animal is dead or alive ?

Thanks in forward to anybody who can enlighten a bit the actual Scent Hounds behaviors !

[XxStrong1xX]

I'm not a dev but god luck getting one of those to reply in the general chat forum.

But basically what they mean i think is that you can now put your dog on the last known track (even if it is not a blood track.) If the animal is dead, he should be able to find it. But if the animal is still alive then the dog will soon lose/give up on the track again. That seems to be how my scent hound works as does my friends.

[ACSoft]

Yes, I remarked that I was able now to re-track the dog on non blood marks. Before, it was simply impossible.

What I am wondering is if it MUST be the last one the dog founded and then, decided to stop with a "?" mark, or if can be any previous marks before.

[VonStratos]

Yes, I remarked that I was able now to re-track the dog on non blood marks. Before, it was simply impossible.

What I am wondering is if it MUST be the last one the dog founded and then, decided to stop with a "?" mark, or if can be any previous marks before.

Its not mandatory resume tracking from the last clue, if you are near to a blood track you can try go back there and re-track from that one, but most likely the dog will "?" in the same track where it lost the animal before. Now the dog will find the animal depending on the dog tracking levels, at low levels(under 25) is possible that the dog fail even if the animal is dead or even if keep bleeding, but with better level it can find animals even with no other blood tracks than the ones where it got shot. However, there is a weird thing with animals, if is a body shot sometimes the animal stop bleeding and doesn't die, and the dog will stop tracking it "?" because the animal kind of got a heal pack, i have seen that happen many times, and that happens with high level dogs(mine is over40).

If you want train the dog aim your shots at intestine, that cause more blood tracks and is always lethal(unless hitboxes bug) and with more blood tracks even if the dog get the "?" it will eventually find the animal after resume the tracking.

[ACSoft]

VonStratos, many thanks for your very good advises !

I was on the way to go experiencing all these Scent Hound behaviors and train the dog in the same time, so your message came right on the perfect time. It will probably safe me a lot a time.

Cheers !

[VonStratos]

You are welcome, if you want focus in training your Scent hound the best way is bowhunting, with arrows even body shot will be always lethal(weird game mechanic) no matter if is a body shot in a leg, and will keep bleeding, so even if the dog loses the tracks a lot "?" you can resume and he will eventually find the dead animal, the other advantage is that make the animal run very far before die, that (cruel as it sound) is what the leveling a Scent hound needs, because the dog get exp for every clue he found, so with long tracking, lots of clues to get exp for the dog.

[ACSoft]

Many thanks again for this further clue. So, this will be the occasion for me to hunt with a bow. Since now, I never tried to use a bow.

The only bow I own, is the one I got with my starter kit, the Compound Bow "Snakebite". Will this bow be ok ? What kind of prey is better to hunt in the meaning of training the dog only ? May I hunt bear ? I ask this, because I have an active bear bait barrel installed. At which max distance should I shoot the arrow ?

By the way, the tests I have made so far really demonstate how VERY BAD is this Scent Hound dog simulation. In fact, it is very simple, in the actual state (level 13), my dog is just 100% USELESS !!! All the search he succeed, the hunter himself can easily found the animal alone. All the search where it would precious the dog REALLY HELP and found almost sometimes, just actually ALWAYS fail and the new possibility to re-track the dog DOES NOT CHANGE NOTHING. If he fail with the "?", you can re-track him 10, 20 times, he will ALWAYS fail again. This is probably because the wounded animal is not going to die. I have followed several wounded bears for hours and several km, but NEVER rejoinded the animal. Very strange when it is known that the animal was wounded with .340 weatherby magnum mun (or 7mm magnum) in the plain middle of the body. Why we never rejoin the wounded animal, still alive and slowly, desesperately, painfully trying to escape ?

A last example on how bad is coded this poor Scent Hound:
In my last test, the bear died 1 second later after he was hit and fall 2,3 meters farther than the initial blood clue. Nevertheless, by curiosity, I decided to send the dog. Guess what ? The dog NEVER founded the bear. He passed over his body, even pushed the poor dead bear body BUT NEVER FOUND IT (never barked). Devs, common, you can do better than that ! It would be also a good idea to always display the dog status (if the dog is or not still searching), because it is easy to miss the "?" behavior.

[VonStratos]

First: Any bow will do, and the Snakebite is the most powerful(but noisiest) of the compounds, will aimed it can instant kill a Moose, and yes bears and other animals you can attract to a feeder work great to bowhunting, other animals good are moose, they are easy to spot and get close for good shots. Distance is relative, the idea if you want to drop the animal in the spot is aim to lungs at no more of 30mts, but if the shot is good you can even do it at 60 or more, but note that Snakebite pin is set to 20meters so you need to practice to make long shots.

Second: Leveling the Scent hound as you discovered is a pia, is a long road with a lot of frustrating moments, if you look at the dog section of the forum you will find that a lot of topics are about how bad or difficult is to level the Scent hound, does it worth the effort? well that is very relative, i use mine as a mule(dog backpack) so even when he didn't track he had a job to do, but at high level(30 or so) it become decent, and can be an asset, after that it will fail sometimes, but mostly when the animal wont die, that may be due the hitboxes bug, that affect the dog tracking indirectly, when that happens you need put a second shot in the animal to drop it or wont die, and yes that happen even with .340 shots.

A last example on how bad is coded this poor Scent Hound:
In my last test, the bear died 1 second later after he was hit and fall 2,3 meters farther than the initial blood clue. Nevertheless, by curiosity, I decided to send the dog. Guess what ? The dog NEVER founded the bear. He passed over his body, even pushed the poor dead bear body BUT NEVER FOUND IT (never barked). Devs, common, you can do better than that ! It would be also a good idea to always display the dog status (if the dog is or not still searching), because it is easy to miss the "?" behavior.

That is an example of why the Scent hound has been considered useless by some users, moments like that are not uncommon, but in the other side of the coin, the scent Hound can get tracks you cant see, like the ones that get invisible due some glitch in terrain, or help to track in WRR where the domes are almost invisible y broad daylight. Again is far the less enjoyable of the 3 dogs, having one Scent hound with a decent level can help you sometimes, but the leveling is harder and more frustrating than the other 2 dogs.

[ACSoft]

VonStratos, I really want to thank you a lot to have given to me such a long and detailed answer. All your informations will be precious for me (and maybe even to some other newbie) to advance and manage properly the "Scent Hound dog case".

Yes I have seen in the dog section of the forum that I am not alone to consider this part of the simulation to be very weak, to no say missed. What I do not understand is why the devs do not react and seem to not really care about this problem ? I mean, this dog has been released since relatively long now ! VonStratos, do-you have an explanation why ? Do-you think I should write about that on to the support (to open a support ticket) ?

[VonStratos]

Honestly, it was designed with this idea: The Scent hound(and others) are considered puppies when purchased at lvl 1, and they level along the owner, something similar to the popular Pokemon games, but this is not a Pokemon game, is about hunting, and a hunter need a competent tracking dog, the idea, nice as my have sound in theory, didn't work like was supposed, as you can see based on the reviews of the dog, now about reasons to not making improvements, well that would be speculative, and there were probably other priorities, the dog has even been bugged for weeks before get fixed, let alone improved.

so, probably the resources are in development of new features, and bug fixing, after all the dog may be a pia to level, but is not bugged at this time, or at least not broke as was just some months ago. I would like a better and more efficient dog, but i think it wont happen, as you said it was released a long time ago, and is still the same.