Pointer behavior

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jttoo
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Pointer behavior

Post by jttoo »

My pointer is up to level 20, and I'm having a good time with him, but I have some questions on his behavior.

Sometime if I tell him to track a rabbit, he understands the command, but then pretty much does nothing. Other times he will run 1000's of meters, looking for the prey. Why the different responses?

When they run off looking, is it just a random direction that they are going to look, as sometimes he heads off in a direction where the prey is not normally found?
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by curlyCoyote »

If your dog stands still and does nothing no matter how far away you go, he is being an idiot, tell him to come to you again, walk like 100 meters away from that location and send him to be useful again.

If he runs thousands of meters, and never once goes into the locating pray line, then there are no rabbits within his detecting range, keep running and he should eventually find some.

When they are in locating the scent mode, meaning they are running alongside you or in circles around you, they have not found a scent yet, so you need to direct him to an area where there are rabbits by going there yourself, and the dog will follow you while still smelling for scent.
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Brutus969
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by Brutus969 »

curlyCoyote wrote:If your dog stands still and does nothing no matter how far away you go, he is being an idiot
This is a bug right? Always thought it was.
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by curlyCoyote »

Brutus969 wrote:
curlyCoyote wrote:If your dog stands still and does nothing no matter how far away you go, he is being an idiot
This is a bug right? Always thought it was.
Probably, but even if the developers say themselves its a bug, nothing will ever stop me from calling all my dogs idiots with tails :mrgreen:
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jttoo
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by jttoo »

curlyCoyote wrote:If your dog stands still and does nothing no matter how far away you go, he is being an idiot, tell him to come to you again, walk like 100 meters away from that location and send him to be useful again.
...
When they are in locating the scent mode, meaning they are running alongside you or in circles around you, they have not found a scent yet, so you need to direct him to an area where there are rabbits by going there yourself, and the dog will follow you while still smelling for scent.
When he does nothing, he is right beside me, understands the command, and then does nothing. So I repeat it and get the same result. Its odd, because most of the time he will go into scent-seeking mode and want to run off.

So, when they are in scent-seeking mode, and want to run off in an undesirable direction, do you run in the direction you want, and then have him follow you? Does the dog catch the idea that this is the direction to check, or do you have to keep leading?
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by curlyCoyote »

jttoo wrote: So, when they are in scent-seeking mode, and want to run off in an undesirable direction, do you run in the direction you want, and then have him follow you? Does the dog catch the idea that this is the direction to check, or do you have to keep leading?
As the dog is running around, it has no idea where there is the scent, you need to lead it everywhere until he starts slowly walking in a very straight line.
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Dubitabilus
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by Dubitabilus »

The dog typically runs into the direction you are facing on a successful use of the command.

When the dog starts running, just turn your body and the dog runs in the direction you are heading.
Sometimes when I'm bored, I just make my pooch run circles around me by spinning slowly in place :lol:
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xOEDragonx
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by xOEDragonx »

My pointers rarely do the aforementioned "bug" but it does occasionally happen. Sometimes you'll tell them to search and they'll give you the "!" as though they understood but they stand around and do nothing or they immediately cancel the action and the "Detection Activated" text in the bottom right corner goes away. No biggie when that happens, give them the "come" command once then the "search" command again and that usually stops it from happening immediately again. Now sometimes you'll tell them to search and if you're already in range of a prey animal he'll give you the "!!!" notification right away to let you know he's detected something, but then same thing, he'll stand and do nothing or the command will cancel right away for no reason. Same thing, this is just more frustrating because when the dog gives you the "!!!" that makes the cooldown has been triggered and now you have to wait to use the dog again even though it technically did nothing.

But again, both of these situations seem fairly uncommon for me. I might experience them once a hunt when ptarmigan or rabbit hunting and I only notice it because of how fast paced the hunting can be with small game. When using my pointers for cats or foxes, I don't think I ever really notice it. But that's probably because I give the command less frequently in those hunts.

Honestly, I only even notice it on the newer of my two pointers because her cooldown is still like 120 seconds or something. With my highest level pointer (mid 40s) his cooldown is 30 seconds so if he does give me the bug, I'm usually still moving along again in like 15 seconds or less. So the higher level your dog, the less you'll even notice the bug.

As for the pointer randomly running around while searching, they will search in whatever direction you face. Play around with it and you'll see. Give the command, give the dog a few seconds to take off out in front of you and just watch. He'll zigzag in the general area you're facing about 15-25m ahead of you. Turn 90 degrees and wait a few seconds, you'll notice the dog comes over to the direction you're facing and now zigzags that way. So yes, you can steer your dog just by turning your face. If your dog is only running circles around you and not ahead of you, it's probably because you didn't give it a few seconds to get a head start. They generally do a good job of keeping pace just ahead of you. You yourself need to run to an area with the prey species if you want him to find any. You get him into range, and he'll find the target. Now about finding the prey...

The higher level your dog, the farther out they can ping prey and the better they get at doing it (those are two separate skills). The skills you're looking at are Awareness (Governs how successful is at detecting animals in the vicinity every 10 seconds of having Detection active) and Detection Range (Governs how far a dog can detect animals). For your dog at level 20, it should have Detection Range level 2 (max 3) and Awareness level 2 (max 3). What that means is at level 20, your dog can detect prey animals out to 160m, BUT it only has a 70% chance success rate at doing so every 10 seconds. What that means is that your dog doesn't automatically ping a prey animal just because you get withing 160m of it. It means once you're within 160m of an animal, the dog starts a 10 second timer. When the timer hits 0, there's a 70% chance that at that moment, the dog will detect that prey animal. If it fails, a new 10 second countdown starts. So even though your dog can detect prey out to 160m, that doesn't mean it's quite perfect at doing so yet.

Get your pointer to level 28 and it's awareness will level up, meaning there's 100% chance of the dog detecting prey when it comes into range after the 10 second timer counts down. Get your pointer to level 44 and your detection range will level up, meaning the dog can detect prey out to 200m. So a level 44 pointer has a 100% chance of detecting prey out to 200m. Once you reach level 44, your dog is unstoppable! :D
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Brutus969
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by Brutus969 »

Dubitabilus wrote:Sometimes when I'm bored, I just make my pooch run circles around me by spinning slowly in place :lol:
Bravo. The possibilities in this game are truly endless...
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jttoo
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Re: Pointer behavior

Post by jttoo »

Dubitabilus wrote:Sometimes when I'm bored, I just make my pooch run circles around me by spinning slowly in place :lol:
LOL Dubitabilus! Now Thats bored!!!!! :lol:
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