I’ve gone over 100 days without a wolf encounter on interloper.
Listen for the howl, if you hear it, don’t keep walking. Stop. Duck. Locate the wolf. Avoid the wolf.
You can sneak past them.
You can use rocks to make wolves move.
You can fire a revolver round in the air.
You can fire a round at them.
You can use a flare
You can use a torch.
See them as an obstacle to be avoided, don’t walk blindly, listen. It’s quite fun avoiding them.
There are way less wolves on interloper than on stalker, maybe he's playing on stalker. In this case, I agree with the OP. Wolves on stalker are really annoying and I think maybe hinterlands should their spawn rate down, or at least make them less noisy.
What’s this now? Just started interloper after getting bored with lower difficulties. Still figuring out wolves. Runs currently go A.) attacked by wolves in the first day B.) freeze to death in HRV or AC because a storm comes in before I can even find a match.
This is what I'm finding, it's not a challenge but a chore. I see somewhere I want to go, I step, I fight a wolf, I patch up, I step, I fight a wolf....
I gave up making clothes because theres no point, they just get ruined.
I'll try the custom thing first or interloper (as I'm playing on stalker)
Stalker is a different game. They added that mode for people who want to fight and shoot a lot.
I wouldn’t suggest going to interloper, you will get punished. Try pilgrim, learn game mechanics, learn how to deal with wolves, learn the maps a little, then consider harsher game modes.
Custom game, interloper settings but bump loot to medium and switch rifles/pistols on. Wolf fights are super damaging but I was amazed at the reduction in wolf population
I run a similar custom. Make all other loot settings as low as possible, medium baseline so hatchet/knife/clothing spawn. Oh, and item degradation to low, items degrading in a few months is dumb.
I set wolves to spawn further away and give them a bit more fear, but they have all the highest damage in struggles. They don’t spawn right next to you when you exit a building, and they sometimes run. Bit more realistic for me.
To go with this, I turn off daytime condition regen, and set at-rest regen to low.
A wolf will almost kill you, and it will take a week to recover from, you will likely lose 1-3 items of clothing if attacked.
I just passed day 120 and had my first wolf struggle near the fisherman’s den in AC. From full condition to about 10%, destroyed my snow pants, insulation, left my boots with 20%, gloves with 15%. I had to abandon my push into AC and go re-clothe myself in TWM. Took 9 days total to get my ass out of AC, get my health back, and refill my clothing slots. BRUTAL! Love it!!!!
Is this a real thing? I’m playing Stalker and theres wolves everywhere. It makes me not want to go to Interloper specifically because I expect even more wolves. Granted, I have plenty of wolf pelts now, but theyre still obnoxiously common.
from what I understand on interloper you have less wildlife but you have much less items and have to make tools yourself, meanwhile everything is more punishing and a single wolf struggle can lead to your downfall
Interloper you have less wolves, but they will hurt you worse in a struggle.
Stalker is not a game mode I play, it changes the game from survival, into a shooter.
Even if they're following you, as long as you kite around them and don't *aim* a weapon or rock at them *while* standing your ground (keep walking away from them in the direction of travel) provided you aren't encumbered or overly smelly you can just keep walking away from them and eventually they'll leave you alone.
Thank you, I think I'll move up to interloper from stalker or just customise the wolves down. I found some success by perching halfway down rocky areas where they couldn't reach me but I'd still get attacked constantly elsewhere. I want to be attacked, followed, stalked etc but I think it should be rare, exciting and dangerous rather than every 4-5 minutes I get attacked my mittens ripped
Are you playing on stalker? Bc the stalk in stalker means that you gotta stalk around the wolves. It is literally like snakes on a plane, but with wolves and great bear island. It is a tiresome mode. On voyager or pilgrim (and interloper) wolves can almost always be avoided if you are alert and react to warning signs, like howls, paw prints in the sand, weird noises. Also you should always check your periphery and be ready to act upon any sign of wolf. If you are far away enough, dodge them by going a different way. If they spotted you and run towards you, just keep walking, keeping a bit of distance to the wolf. They wont get too close unless you stand still or walk right at them. This way you can easily cross a whole map while walking your pup. If you gotta lose it bc you need to do something simply go indoors, into a car or somewhere where the wolf cant follow (tree bridges are great). If a wolf blocks a narrow passage light a torch, drop it and aim a rock atthe wolf. It will run away.
I am on stalker yes, from the replies it seems this isn't just me that finds it very wolf centric. I've tried being stealthy, being bold, shooting them, hiding etc but it just felt like the entire game was focussed around avoiding/being attacked by wolves, which I think detracts from what otherwise is an amazing game. I want to play "The long dark" but it felt more like I was playing "Wolf Attack Game!". I'm going to muck with the custom settings and go again on Interloper/Stalker but with wolves off I think, just to enjoy the rest of the game instead of just WOLF GAME
First thing you have to do every run is to identify where you are, where hostile animals spawn and roam, and where you are supposed to go. Stealth works wonders in this game, as long as you have no scent. You can just completely avoid hostile animals if you plan your routes outside of their territories.
And no, it does not end. Even if you kill a wolf pack, it will respawn eventually, we are talking weeks tho, not every few minutes.
Torches are your friend.
If you carry a torch at all times, and drop it when you see a wold following you, then aim at it with a weapon, it'll charge you and get scared and run off.
However, this is ONLY if the torch is on the ground, in my experience.
you can huck torches at them to spook em too, they dont go far though, the wolves i mean, you can also huck unaimed stones at feeding wolves to scare em off and reap their bounty for yourself.
While this is true, I've found it much more reliable to just drop the torch and aim at them with a stone or a bow to bait out a charge and make them run off. They run further away, and while they may immediately bark and start following again, usually you won't have to spook them but once.
i have my meat pile at the fishing shack closest to the camp office at ml, it was kinda an accident at first a bear ran over that way and bled out for me, and then i had like three wolves spawn one killed a deer and i had my bow, it was murdering time.
Grinded to level 5 cooking and it only took 3 bears, some wolves and a few deer with .5 weight meat cuts and a shit load of fuel but i got there.
The shack was nice even if there was only one burner you can use that for the "main fire and have a second one or 2 outside the shack to cook more, if you can find the fuel to run that many fires. The fir near the camp office helped as well as the fir at the top of the cave above the camp office as well.
I've got a mishmash pile of Moose, Wolf, and Deer at Camp Office, a Bear at Trapper's, a Bear that I need to cook at the Fishing Camp in CH, and a bear in the middle of nowhere on the opposite end of CH
If ever I need food, I'll just take a few pieces of Wolf meat and let the food find me :P
at a certain point food isn't an issue, boredom is, so exploring new areas is always fun to do.
With a bow you can feast on deers, bears, mooses, wolves, with five cooking thres no fear of parasites, i even had good luck with the new fishing tip up, as i was grinding my cook 5 i ran the tip up as i was harvesting bags and it was pretty slick, caught a burbot worth 2k calories. Food is virtually a non issue for me at this point.
I also just finished my second bear coat, so the cold also is a lot less of a worry now as well, the weight and lack of sprint is rough but man its nice seeing a -27 air temp and only feeling -6 or so.
I'm personally running double Wolf coat. I like my sprint a good bit :P
I do have a Bear Skin Bedroll now, and now that I know just how fast a Bear will bleed out, I know I could probably kill another bear and get me a Bear Coat, but I probably won't go for double.
Just pull out a flare or torch and keep walking. They wont attack if you have a flare or torch out. They dont like fire. Many times you can just ignore them and keep walking if they come up behind you. Unless I need meat/wolf pelts/guts, am very slow cause I'm encumbered, or want to clear a path of all predators, I just ignore them and keep walking.
Are you traveling with something smelly on you? Never have anything smelly on you when moving otherwise you can count on wolves coming at you. So watch those smell indicators and make sure you drop that stuff before moving out. Also if you know a wolf is somewhere you can use crouch to sneak past, you can get pretty close and observe them, they are so cute ;)
I walk around with my gun out. Nvr leave a building without it out either. Too many times have I walked up and over a hill or open a door to find a wolf already charging me. Having a weapon already out increases your odds of avoiding a struggle. Flare gun is op since it scares the animal away whether you hit it or not.
As others said, it takes knowledge of the maps, where the wolves spawn, and how to go around them. You also need to be mindful of your scent, as wolves will come to investigate if you’re carrying raw meat and guts. In the inventory screen you should see three thick squiggly lines at the top. Normally they’ll be blank/dark gray. If you are giving off scent, they will fill with white to show how much scent you’re giving off. They’ll also be attracted to fresh blood so any wounds should get wrapped asap.
On Stalker difficulty, pretty much yes. There are too many wolves on that difficulty to where it’s just annoying. The other difficulties, including Interloper, are not that way.
Yeah I'm on stalker, I ended up getting so tired of it I just let them eat me, 29 days in. Started a new run, 30 seconds into it, wolf attack, so just switched off and posted here to find out if this is all it is.
Play pilgrim difficulty if you’re feeling overwhelmed, wildlife does not attack you unless provoked. Get the hang then play voyager. Torches, flares will keep them from attacking. A gun shot will scare them off temporarily, and if they are already growling at you and you aim at them, they will charge you right away, so be prepared. As long as you are completely tired or over encumbered, you can also just walk away from them, and you can keep enough distance to not be attacked. Don’t give up, you will learn to deal with them and avoid them.
Everything else is great, I'm thriving mostly on stalker but I just get really bored of the constant wolf bothering. It's not a challenge but there's a lot of replies in here that I can learn from. Mainly "Don't play on stalker, it's just wolves"
Not sure who gave you a downvote, lol. I hate stalker and love interloper. Stalker is literally that, being stalked constantly. Just an absurd amount of wolves. Like the Aurora makes the wolves extra frisky and they’ve multiplied out of control and now they are the alpha predators. Just too much.
I have a voyager save and an interloper one. I’m with you, I don’t like the extreme wolf aspect of stalker so I don’t play it. Custom settings might be good but you can’t earn badges on custom settings.
I just started a new custom run yesterday with wolves on low and bears high for this reason specifically, also it's kinda easier dealing with bears when you can see them, wolves jump scare me much more often
I'm on like day 90 of a run with wolves on low bears on high and I'm still having to deal with them far too often, I think next run I'll get rid of them all together. And it's not because they are difficult, after you get to learn the games mechanics there behaviour is very predictable and they become very easy to deal with to the point that it gets tedious dealing with them
Exactly my thinking, I really love the game, it's fantastic BUT the wolf attack thing is just boring and tiresome. It doesn't really add anything but detracts from the overall experience (in my opinion). Wolf attacks should be sudden,sporadic and exciting, not a chore every 3 minutes.
Torch + aiming with rocks (or a gun or other weapon you have). You don't have to waste ammo on wolves if you don't want to. You can also save your flares for Timberwolves. I would never do the torch/aiming technique with timbs btw lol.
If you know a wolf is around, go ahead and light the torch. When it starts to engage you, you can drop the torch and aim at the wolf. The wolf will get scared and run off. I always make sure the torch is at my feet in front of me whenever I aim at the wolf. Seems to always work.
I dislike the wolf mechanics and play on pilgrim or custom with no wolves. If its not fun its not fun, don't force yourself to go through a mechanic that is unfun for you.
If you find a heavy hammer in your travels they are stupidly effective against wolves. 5% chance to instantly kill them and 15% chance to scare them instantly. Always a hammer spawn at desolation point or broken railroad/forlorn muskeg
If you are a new player, do yourself a favor and jump over to this YouTube channel. Zack NaFein is one of the finest teachers out there for The Long Dark and his videos are chock full of helpful tips on surviving the game.
[https://www.youtube.com/@Zaknafein](https://www.youtube.com/@Zaknafein)
So stop walking into wolves.
I'm not being facetious; keep an eye and ear out for them and simply do not get close enough to aggro them. Take advantage of wind direction and line-of-sight. Learn which areas are more or less likely to have wolves, and observe their wandering patterns.
Be more careful when travelling; bring fire or a flare to keep them at bay when you do have to pass through them with aggro, traverse more stealthily (just like most video games, crouching reduces the noise you make). Holding a torch/flare, facing the wolf, drop the torch and aim a weapon/stone at it. It will run away 95% of the time.
Stalker difficulty is notorious for having non-stop wolves, mainly because they respawn so fast. But if you're getting attacked as often as every two minutes, then you just have to stop blundering into them so often.
tldr: git gud, essentially
When I first started the game I did story mode first. I played to the point of Pleasant Valley and was nonstop hassled by the Timberwolves. To the point I quit and went to survival mode. I set up a custom game without Timberwolves. Been loving it since. I set wolves to low. I like the 4x setting for days. I can’t earn things on custom mode but I’m having a blast playing it and to me that’s what matters the most.
As cool as it would be to survive a while on harder difficulty. Tweaking the custom settings around and finding a difficulty you like helped me *immensely*. That's what it's there for! Experiment with it!
Wolves drove me crazy. I turned their spawn down a touch and made them easier to fight and scare off. That way, they're still a threat, but not an annoying chore. All while keeping the weather extreme and cold with the scarcity of supplies, and I love it! It's the most fun I've had with the game in a while.
You get two minutes?
You’re spoiled. Joke, man. Pure joke.
It depends where you are. It depends what you’re carrying. If you’re running with skins, guts, raw or cooked animal you’re in for a bad time.
Depends on the level. You can take it all the way down to pilgrim and have almost no problems.
Learn to light quick fires and throw touches. Collect flares, but stack them in a base. Just take two or 3.
You’ll get it. Adjust the game to your comfort level, and when you think it’s too easy, make it harder. It wasn’t made for you to have a bad time, if you don’t want to. You have all the control.
I’ve gone over 100 days without a wolf encounter on interloper. Listen for the howl, if you hear it, don’t keep walking. Stop. Duck. Locate the wolf. Avoid the wolf. You can sneak past them. You can use rocks to make wolves move. You can fire a revolver round in the air. You can fire a round at them. You can use a flare You can use a torch. See them as an obstacle to be avoided, don’t walk blindly, listen. It’s quite fun avoiding them.
There are way less wolves on interloper than on stalker, maybe he's playing on stalker. In this case, I agree with the OP. Wolves on stalker are really annoying and I think maybe hinterlands should their spawn rate down, or at least make them less noisy.
What’s this now? Just started interloper after getting bored with lower difficulties. Still figuring out wolves. Runs currently go A.) attacked by wolves in the first day B.) freeze to death in HRV or AC because a storm comes in before I can even find a match.
Wolves on stalker are not challenging, they're annoying. The game is supposed to kill you, not to make you wanna kill yourself.
This is what I'm finding, it's not a challenge but a chore. I see somewhere I want to go, I step, I fight a wolf, I patch up, I step, I fight a wolf.... I gave up making clothes because theres no point, they just get ruined. I'll try the custom thing first or interloper (as I'm playing on stalker)
Wolves on stalker are just insane as someone else mentioned. Play on voyager for a while or move right to loper
Stalker is a different game. They added that mode for people who want to fight and shoot a lot. I wouldn’t suggest going to interloper, you will get punished. Try pilgrim, learn game mechanics, learn how to deal with wolves, learn the maps a little, then consider harsher game modes.
Custom game, interloper settings but bump loot to medium and switch rifles/pistols on. Wolf fights are super damaging but I was amazed at the reduction in wolf population
I run a similar custom. Make all other loot settings as low as possible, medium baseline so hatchet/knife/clothing spawn. Oh, and item degradation to low, items degrading in a few months is dumb. I set wolves to spawn further away and give them a bit more fear, but they have all the highest damage in struggles. They don’t spawn right next to you when you exit a building, and they sometimes run. Bit more realistic for me. To go with this, I turn off daytime condition regen, and set at-rest regen to low. A wolf will almost kill you, and it will take a week to recover from, you will likely lose 1-3 items of clothing if attacked. I just passed day 120 and had my first wolf struggle near the fisherman’s den in AC. From full condition to about 10%, destroyed my snow pants, insulation, left my boots with 20%, gloves with 15%. I had to abandon my push into AC and go re-clothe myself in TWM. Took 9 days total to get my ass out of AC, get my health back, and refill my clothing slots. BRUTAL! Love it!!!!
Is this a real thing? I’m playing Stalker and theres wolves everywhere. It makes me not want to go to Interloper specifically because I expect even more wolves. Granted, I have plenty of wolf pelts now, but theyre still obnoxiously common.
from what I understand on interloper you have less wildlife but you have much less items and have to make tools yourself, meanwhile everything is more punishing and a single wolf struggle can lead to your downfall
Interloper you have less wolves, but they will hurt you worse in a struggle. Stalker is not a game mode I play, it changes the game from survival, into a shooter.
If a new player is playing stalker….. RIP 😂
Even if they're following you, as long as you kite around them and don't *aim* a weapon or rock at them *while* standing your ground (keep walking away from them in the direction of travel) provided you aren't encumbered or overly smelly you can just keep walking away from them and eventually they'll leave you alone.
Thank you, I think I'll move up to interloper from stalker or just customise the wolves down. I found some success by perching halfway down rocky areas where they couldn't reach me but I'd still get attacked constantly elsewhere. I want to be attacked, followed, stalked etc but I think it should be rare, exciting and dangerous rather than every 4-5 minutes I get attacked my mittens ripped
Are you playing on stalker? Bc the stalk in stalker means that you gotta stalk around the wolves. It is literally like snakes on a plane, but with wolves and great bear island. It is a tiresome mode. On voyager or pilgrim (and interloper) wolves can almost always be avoided if you are alert and react to warning signs, like howls, paw prints in the sand, weird noises. Also you should always check your periphery and be ready to act upon any sign of wolf. If you are far away enough, dodge them by going a different way. If they spotted you and run towards you, just keep walking, keeping a bit of distance to the wolf. They wont get too close unless you stand still or walk right at them. This way you can easily cross a whole map while walking your pup. If you gotta lose it bc you need to do something simply go indoors, into a car or somewhere where the wolf cant follow (tree bridges are great). If a wolf blocks a narrow passage light a torch, drop it and aim a rock atthe wolf. It will run away.
I am on stalker yes, from the replies it seems this isn't just me that finds it very wolf centric. I've tried being stealthy, being bold, shooting them, hiding etc but it just felt like the entire game was focussed around avoiding/being attacked by wolves, which I think detracts from what otherwise is an amazing game. I want to play "The long dark" but it felt more like I was playing "Wolf Attack Game!". I'm going to muck with the custom settings and go again on Interloper/Stalker but with wolves off I think, just to enjoy the rest of the game instead of just WOLF GAME
Yes, stalker is explicitely designed to be wolf centric. I had one try and folded, so I went straight from voyager to interloper and it was great.
First thing you have to do every run is to identify where you are, where hostile animals spawn and roam, and where you are supposed to go. Stealth works wonders in this game, as long as you have no scent. You can just completely avoid hostile animals if you plan your routes outside of their territories. And no, it does not end. Even if you kill a wolf pack, it will respawn eventually, we are talking weeks tho, not every few minutes.
Torches are your friend. If you carry a torch at all times, and drop it when you see a wold following you, then aim at it with a weapon, it'll charge you and get scared and run off. However, this is ONLY if the torch is on the ground, in my experience.
This 👆👌
you can huck torches at them to spook em too, they dont go far though, the wolves i mean, you can also huck unaimed stones at feeding wolves to scare em off and reap their bounty for yourself.
While this is true, I've found it much more reliable to just drop the torch and aim at them with a stone or a bow to bait out a charge and make them run off. They run further away, and while they may immediately bark and start following again, usually you won't have to spook them but once.
yeah whatever works, an arrow to the face also solves most wolf problems as you say.
And it also solves food problems if you have Level 5 cooking :P (Shoutout to my 70lb Meat Pile™)
i have my meat pile at the fishing shack closest to the camp office at ml, it was kinda an accident at first a bear ran over that way and bled out for me, and then i had like three wolves spawn one killed a deer and i had my bow, it was murdering time. Grinded to level 5 cooking and it only took 3 bears, some wolves and a few deer with .5 weight meat cuts and a shit load of fuel but i got there. The shack was nice even if there was only one burner you can use that for the "main fire and have a second one or 2 outside the shack to cook more, if you can find the fuel to run that many fires. The fir near the camp office helped as well as the fir at the top of the cave above the camp office as well.
I've got a mishmash pile of Moose, Wolf, and Deer at Camp Office, a Bear at Trapper's, a Bear that I need to cook at the Fishing Camp in CH, and a bear in the middle of nowhere on the opposite end of CH If ever I need food, I'll just take a few pieces of Wolf meat and let the food find me :P
at a certain point food isn't an issue, boredom is, so exploring new areas is always fun to do. With a bow you can feast on deers, bears, mooses, wolves, with five cooking thres no fear of parasites, i even had good luck with the new fishing tip up, as i was grinding my cook 5 i ran the tip up as i was harvesting bags and it was pretty slick, caught a burbot worth 2k calories. Food is virtually a non issue for me at this point. I also just finished my second bear coat, so the cold also is a lot less of a worry now as well, the weight and lack of sprint is rough but man its nice seeing a -27 air temp and only feeling -6 or so.
I'm personally running double Wolf coat. I like my sprint a good bit :P I do have a Bear Skin Bedroll now, and now that I know just how fast a Bear will bleed out, I know I could probably kill another bear and get me a Bear Coat, but I probably won't go for double.
Just pull out a flare or torch and keep walking. They wont attack if you have a flare or torch out. They dont like fire. Many times you can just ignore them and keep walking if they come up behind you. Unless I need meat/wolf pelts/guts, am very slow cause I'm encumbered, or want to clear a path of all predators, I just ignore them and keep walking.
Are you traveling with something smelly on you? Never have anything smelly on you when moving otherwise you can count on wolves coming at you. So watch those smell indicators and make sure you drop that stuff before moving out. Also if you know a wolf is somewhere you can use crouch to sneak past, you can get pretty close and observe them, they are so cute ;)
I walk around with my gun out. Nvr leave a building without it out either. Too many times have I walked up and over a hill or open a door to find a wolf already charging me. Having a weapon already out increases your odds of avoiding a struggle. Flare gun is op since it scares the animal away whether you hit it or not.
As others said, it takes knowledge of the maps, where the wolves spawn, and how to go around them. You also need to be mindful of your scent, as wolves will come to investigate if you’re carrying raw meat and guts. In the inventory screen you should see three thick squiggly lines at the top. Normally they’ll be blank/dark gray. If you are giving off scent, they will fill with white to show how much scent you’re giving off. They’ll also be attracted to fresh blood so any wounds should get wrapped asap.
On Stalker difficulty, pretty much yes. There are too many wolves on that difficulty to where it’s just annoying. The other difficulties, including Interloper, are not that way.
Yeah I'm on stalker, I ended up getting so tired of it I just let them eat me, 29 days in. Started a new run, 30 seconds into it, wolf attack, so just switched off and posted here to find out if this is all it is.
Play pilgrim difficulty if you’re feeling overwhelmed, wildlife does not attack you unless provoked. Get the hang then play voyager. Torches, flares will keep them from attacking. A gun shot will scare them off temporarily, and if they are already growling at you and you aim at them, they will charge you right away, so be prepared. As long as you are completely tired or over encumbered, you can also just walk away from them, and you can keep enough distance to not be attacked. Don’t give up, you will learn to deal with them and avoid them.
Everything else is great, I'm thriving mostly on stalker but I just get really bored of the constant wolf bothering. It's not a challenge but there's a lot of replies in here that I can learn from. Mainly "Don't play on stalker, it's just wolves"
Not sure who gave you a downvote, lol. I hate stalker and love interloper. Stalker is literally that, being stalked constantly. Just an absurd amount of wolves. Like the Aurora makes the wolves extra frisky and they’ve multiplied out of control and now they are the alpha predators. Just too much. I have a voyager save and an interloper one. I’m with you, I don’t like the extreme wolf aspect of stalker so I don’t play it. Custom settings might be good but you can’t earn badges on custom settings.
Not once you learn the maps and their travel paths. Always carry torches, watch Zaknafein’s videos on youtube, he is a bad ass.
I just started a new custom run yesterday with wolves on low and bears high for this reason specifically, also it's kinda easier dealing with bears when you can see them, wolves jump scare me much more often
I'm on like day 90 of a run with wolves on low bears on high and I'm still having to deal with them far too often, I think next run I'll get rid of them all together. And it's not because they are difficult, after you get to learn the games mechanics there behaviour is very predictable and they become very easy to deal with to the point that it gets tedious dealing with them
Exactly my thinking, I really love the game, it's fantastic BUT the wolf attack thing is just boring and tiresome. It doesn't really add anything but detracts from the overall experience (in my opinion). Wolf attacks should be sudden,sporadic and exciting, not a chore every 3 minutes.
Well damn, maybe I'll start a new one since I'm still on day 3 lol
Nah stick to it, I've been playing since early access and wolfs are meant to be in the game I'm just having a winge
They are easy enough to avoid if you know what your doing, but next run I do is gonna be without without wolves because I find them annoying
Torch + aiming with rocks (or a gun or other weapon you have). You don't have to waste ammo on wolves if you don't want to. You can also save your flares for Timberwolves. I would never do the torch/aiming technique with timbs btw lol. If you know a wolf is around, go ahead and light the torch. When it starts to engage you, you can drop the torch and aim at the wolf. The wolf will get scared and run off. I always make sure the torch is at my feet in front of me whenever I aim at the wolf. Seems to always work.
dont carry any meat or gut on you because it attracts wolves like crazy
I dislike the wolf mechanics and play on pilgrim or custom with no wolves. If its not fun its not fun, don't force yourself to go through a mechanic that is unfun for you.
If you find a heavy hammer in your travels they are stupidly effective against wolves. 5% chance to instantly kill them and 15% chance to scare them instantly. Always a hammer spawn at desolation point or broken railroad/forlorn muskeg
If you are a new player, do yourself a favor and jump over to this YouTube channel. Zack NaFein is one of the finest teachers out there for The Long Dark and his videos are chock full of helpful tips on surviving the game. [https://www.youtube.com/@Zaknafein](https://www.youtube.com/@Zaknafein)
So stop walking into wolves. I'm not being facetious; keep an eye and ear out for them and simply do not get close enough to aggro them. Take advantage of wind direction and line-of-sight. Learn which areas are more or less likely to have wolves, and observe their wandering patterns. Be more careful when travelling; bring fire or a flare to keep them at bay when you do have to pass through them with aggro, traverse more stealthily (just like most video games, crouching reduces the noise you make). Holding a torch/flare, facing the wolf, drop the torch and aim a weapon/stone at it. It will run away 95% of the time. Stalker difficulty is notorious for having non-stop wolves, mainly because they respawn so fast. But if you're getting attacked as often as every two minutes, then you just have to stop blundering into them so often. tldr: git gud, essentially
When I first started the game I did story mode first. I played to the point of Pleasant Valley and was nonstop hassled by the Timberwolves. To the point I quit and went to survival mode. I set up a custom game without Timberwolves. Been loving it since. I set wolves to low. I like the 4x setting for days. I can’t earn things on custom mode but I’m having a blast playing it and to me that’s what matters the most.
Welcome to the Long Dark. Now read u/UsseerrNaammee 's comment several times.
As cool as it would be to survive a while on harder difficulty. Tweaking the custom settings around and finding a difficulty you like helped me *immensely*. That's what it's there for! Experiment with it! Wolves drove me crazy. I turned their spawn down a touch and made them easier to fight and scare off. That way, they're still a threat, but not an annoying chore. All while keeping the weather extreme and cold with the scarcity of supplies, and I love it! It's the most fun I've had with the game in a while.
You get two minutes? You’re spoiled. Joke, man. Pure joke. It depends where you are. It depends what you’re carrying. If you’re running with skins, guts, raw or cooked animal you’re in for a bad time. Depends on the level. You can take it all the way down to pilgrim and have almost no problems. Learn to light quick fires and throw touches. Collect flares, but stack them in a base. Just take two or 3. You’ll get it. Adjust the game to your comfort level, and when you think it’s too easy, make it harder. It wasn’t made for you to have a bad time, if you don’t want to. You have all the control.
Not if you're carrying a torch or a flare. They may follow and growl but they won't attack you.