Hunting

Hunting Basics

Hunting Basics

Hunting is one of the best ways to collect food for your pack, other than through trading or exploring. Hunting is unlocked after completing the associated tutorial quest, "Time to Hunt". After this, it is accessible through the Hunting token on the Crossroads.

To get started, you must first select the biome which you would like to hunt in. You have the ability to hunt in any biome which you have fully scouted (meaning that you are able to explore in it with your lead wolf).

Hunts take longer in biomes that are further away from your home territory. Each border of land that your hunting party must cross in order to get to the biome they are hunting in adds +15 minutes to the total hunt time. For example, if you are located in the Grasslands and sending a hunt to the Prairie, the hunt will take 45 minutes rather than the usual 30 minutes.

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The amount of hunting parties that you are able to have out at one time is dependent on your territory size. The more adult wolf slots you have, the more parties you can send out at a time, with a maximum of four. Note that this is dependent only on territory size, and not how many adult wolves you actually have at the time.

The hunting party limit increases every 25 territory slots:

1-24 slots: 1 hunting party
25-49 slots: 2 hunting parties
50-74 slots: 3 hunting parties
75+ slots: 4 hunting parties

A single wolf has the ability to participate in ten hunts a day. You can view how many hunts a wolf has left by visiting the Hunting Parties tab of the Hunting page.

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Before starting a hunt, you must assign your hunters into five different positions. The positions/roles in a hunting party are detailed later in this guide.

Every hunt, your wolves will find one to four scent trails. You must pick one of the scent trails for them to follow. The size of the scent trail directly affects how difficult the hunt will be and what prey your hunting could bring back. The biome that you hunt in will also determine which prey your wolves will bring back.

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Each size of hunting trail comes in a few different shapes, but the shape does not affect what your hunters can catch, it is purely cosmetic.

Critter hunting trails are green, and they will contain prey items with 4 uses or less.

Small hunting trails are blue, and they will contain prey items with between 8 and 10 uses.

Medium hunting trails are purple, and they will contain prey items with between 10 and 16 uses.

Large hunting trails are pink, and they will contain prey items with between 16 and 30 uses.

Before selecting a hunting trail, you can view the percent chance that your hunting party has to succeed if you were to choose this trail. This percent chance is based on the stats of your hunting party in relation to biome and trail difficulty, as well as their synergy and proficiencies, and the current season.

File:HuntingChance.png

The result of any given hunt could be either successful or unsuccessful. If the hunt is successful, your hunters will bring back a prey item and will gain EXP.

If the hunt is unsuccessful, your hunters will not bring back a prey item, but they will still earn EXP. However, the EXP earned from a failed hunt is less than from a successful hunt. In the case of a failed hunt, your hunting party also has a 33% chance of bringing back a critter carcass as a consolation prize, no matter what size of trail they originally were hunting!

Hunters also have a small chance of contracting an illness after a hunt, whether successful or unsuccessful. There is a higher chance that your wolves will get an Open Wound if they are hunting a large trail, and there are other illnesses or ailments that your wolves could get, as well. More details about illnesses can be found in [this guide].

Hunting Party Components

Hunting Party Components

Hunting Roles & Stats

Hunting Roles & Stats

There are five different positions that must be filled in a hunting party -- 1 Stalker, 3 Chasers, and 1 Finisher. Luckily, you don't need five wolves to fill all five party positions. One wolf can fill multiple positions in a party, which can be helpful for new players who may not have five wolves yet. However, each position that a wolf fills up will take 20% of their energy, for a maximum expenditure of 100% of their energy if they take on all five positions. Additionally, they will only earn proficiency for the first position that they fill. For example, if a wolf acts as both a Chaser and a Finisher, they will only earn proficiency for the Chaser position.

Wolves with the hunter role will have three different proficiency bars which fill up based on which position in the team they take on. You can view a wolf's proficiency on the Hunting Parties tab of the Hunting page or on the Wolf Role tab of an individual wolf's page.

Each position in a hunting party uses a certain stat, and a wolf with a high amount of this stat will do better in that role than a wolf with a lower amount of that stat. When considering which wolf to assign to each position, you should look at which of their stats are the highest.

Stalkers require high Smarts and Wisdom.
Chasers require high Agility and Speed.
Finishers require high Strength.

The hunting page will automatically sort your wolves into each of these positions, but it might not sort them as accurately as you could by hand, as it may look at proficiency more than stats. We recommend sorting your wolves manually into the positions you would like them to be in until the hunting page begins to sort them this way as well.

Proficiency

Proficiency

The more a wolf hunts, the more proficient they will become that the position in the hunting party they've been placed in. A wolf can be proficient in more than one hunting party position, but will only actively gain proficiency for the first position they've been assigned to.

For every hunt, each wolf will gain one proficiency point, unless they're at 100 proficiency.

Synergy

Synergy

Hunting party synergy, which also contributes largely to the success of the party, increases the more a specific party hunts together. It also decreases a small margin every day.

Party synergy is not affected by wolf personalities despite common conception. It is only based on how much a certain party hunts together, and personality plays no effect in how much synergy a party can gain.

Synergy is gained on an individual wolf level, not a whole-party level. The synergy of the party is completely dependent on the individual synergies of the wolves. When you send a wolf hunting, as long as they're in a party with two or more wolves, they will gain synergy points. From there, the synergy of the party is calculated in the following manner, where 'WS' equals Wolf Synergy. With each hunt, the wolves in a hunting party of two or more wolves will gain 2-5 synergy points.

(WS + WS + WS + WS + WS) / 5 = Party Synergy

The amount of the wolves in the hunting party can fluctuate, but the total synergy of the party will remain the average of the synergies of the wolves within it.

If a single wolf with 0% synergy were to join a party of two wolves, each with 50% synergy, the total party synergy would be calculated as follows: 50 + 50 + 0 / 3 = approx. 33%.

Due to the nature of this formula, if you consistently leave a wolf out of hunting in a five-wolf hunting party, you will only ever be able to get up to about 80% synergy, because the left-out wolf will have a much lower synergy than the rest (100 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 0 / 5 = 80).

When a wolf is taken out of a hunting party, its individual synergy is reset back to 0%. It's a common thought that removing a wolf from a hunting party will lower the party's synergy. However, this is mostly only true for parties which have been hunting together for a while. There is also a possibility that your party could actually gain a bit of synergy when a wolf is taken out of it. For example, a party of 5 wolves, each with the synergies of 100, 100, 75, 20, and 35, could increase in synergy if you take the last two wolves out of it, because their low synergies will no longer be dragging the average down.

The formula above can provide a good estimate, however the synergy amounts themselves fluctuate a bit when wolves join and leave a hunting party, so their actual synergy may end up being a few percentage points off of what the formula would give you.

Personalities

Personalities

You should also take note of the personalities of the wolves in a hunting party, as clashing dispositions may cause arguments mid-hunt, which can result in a loss of prey and an injury for one or more of your wolves. At the moment, Friendly wolves will fight with Aggressive wolves and Romantic wolves will fight with Stoic wolves. Friendly and Romantic wolves get along, while Aggressive and Stoic wolves get along, as well as any other combination of personalities which don't fall into the above clashing groups.

For more specific information about personalities, check out [this guide]!

Hunting Successfully

Hunting Successfully

Early on in the game, you'll notice that your hunting party will have a very hard time bringing prey back for your pack. If anything, they'll only be able to catch critters. Hunting is indeed very difficult if your hunting party is not experienced.

As early on in the game as you can, try to get your hunting party as you'd like it to be for a while. That is, put the wolves in the party that you'd like to keep in that party, and try not to move them in and out of the party too much. Keeping the hunting party consistent will allow the party's synergy to grow steadily and not drop.

As your wolves complete more hunts and gain more proficiency and synergy, they will grow more successful.

However, proficiency and synergy will only get you so far. Eventually, if you'd like guaranteed chances for catching prey, or the ability to catch prey in more difficult biomes, your wolves will need higher stats. The amount of stats that they need in order to scent and catch prey in more difficult biomes increases with the difficulty of the biome. In order to find larger prey in more difficult biomes, it is your Stalker that needs higher stats. Specifically, your Stalker needs higher Smarts and Wisdom in order to sniff out large trail sizes. Then, the rest of your party must have similarly high stats in order to have a decent chance at catching the prey.

Specific stat caps for trail sizes in every biome are currently unknown, however we plan to collect data about this in the future.

Seasons also affect hunting. Hunting in the Summer and Autumn is the base hunting chance and the normal hunting rates of your hunting party. In the Winter, this base rate is decreased by 15% in easier biomes, and a little less than 15% in challenging biomes. In the Spring, this base rate is increased by 10% (or a 25% increase from the Winter rates). Additionally, hunting success is capped at 90% during Summer and Autumn, 75% during Winter, and 100% during Spring. Overall, hunting is much easier in the Spring!

	Spring: +10% hunting rates, 100% cap
	Summer: Base hunting rates, 90% cap
	Autumn: Base hunting rates, 90% cap
	Winter: -15% hunting rates, 75% cap (this debuff is lessened in challenging biomes)

Prey Items

Prey Items

Below is a list of every prey item available in game. The Trail Size column lists which size of trail is required to hunt in order to get this prey item. The Biomes column lists all of the biomes which you must hunt in to give you the chance of obtaining the item.

Biome Key

DF: Deciduous Forest	Gr: Grasslands	M: Mountains
CF: Coniferous Forest	P: Prairie	RW: Riparian Woodland
De: Desert	Ta: Taiga	S: Swamp
Tu: Tundra	Gl: Glacier	Ra: Rainforest

	Item & Uses	Trail Size	Biomes
	Bat 1 use	Critter	Gr Ta
	Ground Squirrel 1 use	Critter	Tu Gl
	Lemming 1 use	Critter	Gl
	Woodpecker 1 use	Critter	M
	Jacana 2 uses	Critter	Sw
	Merlin 2 uses	Critter	CF
	Milksnake 2 uses	Critter	P
File:Mink.png	Mink 2 uses	Critter	Ta Tu Gl
	Woodcock 2 uses	Critter	DF
	Jackrabbit 3 uses	Critter	De
	Raccoon 3 uses	Critter	RW
	Stoat 3 uses	Critter	Tu Gl
	Agouti 4 uses	Critter	Ra
	Grouse 4 uses	Critter	DF M
	Gull 4 uses	Critter	Tu Gl
	Hare 4 uses	Critter	DF M P De Tu
	Muskrat 4 uses	Critter	DF
	Opossum 4 uses	Critter	S Ra
	Pheasant Rooster 4 uses	Critter	DF P
	Pheasant Hen 4 uses	Critter	DF P
	Quail 4 uses	Critter	M De
	Rabbit 4 uses	Critter	P S Ra
	Silky Anteater 4 uses	Critter	Ra
	Porcupine 8 uses	Small	DF P De Ta Tu Ra
	Beaver 8 uses	Small	DF Gr M Ta S
	Boar 8 uses	Small	DF S
	Muskox Calf 8 uses	Small	Tu Gl
	Peccary 8 uses	Small	De Ra
	Turkey Tom 8 uses	Small	DF P S
	Turkey Hen 8 uses	Small	DF Gr S
	Small Doe 8 uses	Small	DF M P De S Ra
	Swine 9 uses	Small	Gr De S Ra
	Seal Pup 9 uses	Small	Tu Gl
	Pronghorn Buck 10 uses	Medium	Gr P De
	Pronghorn Doe 10 uses	Medium	Gr P De
	Whitetail 10 uses	Medium	DF Gr M P De Ta S
	Bighorn Sheep Ewe 12 uses	Medium	M De Ta
	Bighorn Sheep Ram 12 uses	Medium	M De Ta
	Blacktail 12 uses	Medium	DF Gr
	Doe 12 uses	Medium	DF Gr M P De S
	Mule Deer 12 uses	Medium	M De Ta
	Caribou Calf 12 uses	Medium	Tu
	Seal 15 uses	Medium	Tu
	Donkey 16 uses	Medium	De
	Mountain Goat 16 uses	Medium	M Ta
	Tapir 16 uses	Medium	TBD
	Walrus Pup 16 uses	Unknown	TBD
	Dall Sheep 17 uses	Large	TBD
	Elk Cow 17 uses	Large	DF M P De Ta
	Horse 18 uses	Large	Gr P
	Alligator 20 uses	Large	RW
	Caribou Bull 20 uses	Large	Ta
	Caribou Cow 20 uses	Large	Ta
	Bovine 20 uses	Large	Gr De
	Elk Bull 20 uses	Large	DF M P De Ta
	Crocodile 20 uses	Large	TBD
	Moose Bull 24 uses	Large	Ta
	Moose Cow 24 uses	Large	Ta
	Muskox 24 uses	Large	Tu
	Bison 28 uses	Large	P CF
	Walrus 30 uses	Large	TBD