Bear Overhaul Qol

[Robzom11 109]

Bear Overhaul QoL Improvements 

These suggestions are mostly intented to be simple achievable suggestions. The intention of these suggestions into gameplay is to take advantage of the bears potential, and create a much more interesting and daunting creature that reflects reality. I'm also aware there are more important things but some of these fixes/improvements are still worth noting as there's alot of missed potential with the bear that is easy to rectify 

1. Bears should not roar in the distance nearly as much as they do if at all as it removes any potential for a surprise when you do encounter the bear because you heard it long before and had to of seeked it out. The player shouldn't always know if they are walking towards a bear, in real life bears don't even make much noise unless maybe provoked. The thought of walking through the forest and bumping into a bear is alot more interesting & authentic when it happens on accident and that's currently nearly impossible. DayZ is all about unscripted events that keeps you guessing what will happen next. Bear encounters have to be seeked out and forced currently, i think it would be great to have the opportunity to encounter a bear organicly rather than it only being forced. If anything should be changed about the bear it's this.

2. Bears should only charge towards gunshots if they are within a certain radius of a player, say 40m(just for a rough idea). It's really wierd having a bear charge you because you shot, especially when you and the bear never saw eachother and were 100m apart. Everything beyond roughly maybe 40m, should cause the bear to evade.

3. Bear damage is unrealistic. Every headshot towards a bear should have something like a 30% chance of outright killing it (scales by caliber/ammo) and a 90% chance of it causing the bear to die eventually from injuries/blood loss (maybe 30-120 seconds). Obviously i would rather have vital organs but doesn't look like it's coming anytime, this could be a placeholder similiar to the way body armor works (unless I'm mistaken) this would better simulate reality as bears are capable of tanking shots especially when they are fueled by adrenaline, though i don't think that should always be the case like it is now and maybe whether the bear is aware of you or not dictates how resilient and ferocious it becomes. This suggestion is based off the logic that when bears are hurt they are fueled on adrenaline and become extremely ferocious and resilient if they're aware you caused them the harm. Got that from a youtube video of a grizzly bear attack story, the links below if you wanna check it out, good story, pretty informative aswell. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-SK1Aok57w&app=desktop -that's the link if you're interested.

4. Bears/most animals get stuck on fences/objects and/or bounce into the air.

The following suggestions are not entirely necessary but worth including as they are still really interesting. 

5. Running from a bear that is aware of your presence should cause the bear to chase you as it's instinct.

6. Bears should fake charge you various amounts of times from different angles before either evading or committing to an attack. This once again reflects reality, and how fucking terrifying would this be! This and suggestion 1 would be a beautiful nightmare come true.

7. Bears should be able to stalk/follow players. Bears if not disturbed or surprised by a human will sometimes stalk or even just temporarily investigate the human. Bears in DayZ should occasionally take interest in a player and follow them, for upwards of 20 mins even, until the bear decides to attack or evade/leave. Imagine the anxiety. Maybe if the player has raw or cooked food it could influence this mechanic. 

8. Bears should occasionally be attracted to players with raw or cooked food from a long distance, adding more anxiety and fear to the likelihood of a bear encounter. This would require the stalking/following state for the bear for it to be reasonable and authentic. 

9. One time use bear spray to impair/scare bears and survivors. This one obviously isn't really a big deal but would be cool... And useful.

Now just imagine you're walking through the woods at night, as you push your way through heavily bushed area, to your surprise you stumble onto a bear. The bear gets in a defensive stance and you start walking backwards. This time the bear takes interest in you and decides to follow you, you are now walking backwards away from a bear yelling into your mic for it to leave but to no avail, it eventually charges only to stop a meter away from you and retreats back into the darkness, then to reimerge again from another direction, in what seems like a never ending cycle of torment. Until eventually you just can't take it and run, that's short lived and you're not very smart who could blame you though honestly, but regardless the bear this time only wounded you. You now lay on the ground in the middle of a forest at night with a bear circling your body until eventually after waiting what seemed to be all night you get up terrified still unsure if you're safe... and log out, never touching DayZ again.. forever traumatized. 

I think that's everything i could think of, thanks for reading. Honestly i just wanted to make a suggestion post based entirely on the first suggestion, but figured I'd have some fun with it and see what else i could think of. 

Edited May 31, 2020 by Robzom11
Typos

[EzyStriderPS4 191]

Duuuude, solid input.

Your points. My thoughts.

1. Very intelligent assessment.  This can easily be done.

2. Bears can charge from over two hundred yards away if you are in an open field, for example, when they detect you IRL; chances are they have seen you or smelled you first!

3. The skull of a grizzly (brown bear) can be up to four inches thick!  Head-shots are a WASTE on this apex predator.  IRL, you shoot for the heart/lungs or the shoulder to immobilize it.  It is common for lower caliber bullets to get stuck in their layers of fat and actually never hit muscle or organs (I'm looking in the direction of the .22 LR and the 9x19mm camps). However, I particularly like the idea of the animal loosing blood and dying later. That is highly realistic, and should be applied for all game if shooting with high-caliber rounds.

4. That mechanic is brutal to witness, it can dull the immersion. Watching infected sprint back and forth around a door instead of pouring into it is lame.

5. Yess!!!

6. The fake charge is not something that I know to be a bear behavior. I'm just not sure about it/haven't heard much.  However, to intimidate, they will stand on their hind legs making themselves appear larger.  I haven't seen enough bear behavior in game to know if they stand like that or not.

7. as it relates to 8.  Awesome idea.

9. This is an excellent suggestion. Highly realistic.

Incredible, true fact about Brown bears (not Black):  Eye contact is a form of challenge and an extremely aggressive behavior that displays dominance among Grizzly bears.  When the biggest baddest mo-fo shows up, every other bear knows it and they all look away super nonchalant.  This could be an incredible game mechanic based on real life experiences that are documented by professionals. If you see one, you should be able to stop and look away ( but not turn your back or run ) to not challenge it. If it continues to advance,  the player could crouch to make themselves smaller and less threatening. And sometimes (more often than not, IMO) the bear should spare you if you use this strategy.  Otherwise, get that bear spray ready, haha! And yes this really works in real life -- it's one of the ways they communicate with each other in social situations!

[Robzom11 109]

@EzyStriderPS4  Thanks for your thoughts brother. Looking into the fake charging thing abit more seems legit, looks like it's extremely common for black bears but depends on the circumstances. Though usually it's just one "bluff charge" as their called but i did hear a story similar to the one i wrote(think it was grizzly), Im not an expert or anything just know a thing or 2 living in Canada. Heres a link i read from, https://bear.org/how-dangerous-are-bluff-charges/

Not sure if that's just black bears their talking about or not which are surprisingly timid but i guess it's different for all bears and circumstances, generally seems if you suprise them in close proximity that's when they mostly likely attack or/and if you run. The 1st suggestion would be a great start, and also would be interesting to have more depth in hunting all together, sometimes the calls of animals can be annoying even. I appreciate all your responses though, interesting response in point 3 particularly, cheers.

 

 

[EzyStriderPS4 191]

Indeed, the situation, I'm sure, matters.