"Encounters" setting can cause bugs?

[peffsi]

If you go into the settings at the title screen, there is an option called "Encounters". Basically it seems to prevent random wolves from spawning, so you can just run around without worrying about them. You can enable/disable this setting at any time during your game, but you must be in the main menu to do it.

 

So, just a warning, I hit a progression-breaking bug when I had Encounters disabled and I went into the ice cave. The game needs to spawn a wolf to attack you before it lets you exit the cave, but with Encounters off, I was just running in circles in that cave wondering how to get out. Luckily, exiting to the menu, enabling Encounters and then loading my save was enough to fix it. To be safe, I just left Encounters on for the rest of the main story.

 

However, disabling Encounters after you're done the story IS a very good way to clean up any remaining collectible trophies.

Edited May 28, 2023 by peffsi

[The-Smiths-85]

On 24/04/2023 at 4:45 PM, peffsi said:

If you go into the settings at the title screen, there is an option called "Encounters". Basically it seems to prevent random wolves from spawning, so you can just run around without worrying about them. You can enable/disable this setting at any time during your game, but you must be in the main menu to do it.

 

So, just a warning, I hit a progression-breaking bug when I had Encounters disabled and I went into the ice cave. The game needs to spawn a wolf to attack you before it lets you exit the cave, but with Encounters off, I was just running in circles in that cave wondering how to get out. Luckily, exiting to the menu, enabling Encounters and then loading my save was enough to fix it. To be safe, I just left Encounters on for the rest of the main story.

 

However, disabling Encounters after you're done the story IS a very good way to clean up any remaining collectible trophies.

From what I've experienced in order to get out of the cave you have to use the explosives on a wall of rocks/rumble. Didn't you have that option when the setting was set to disabled? I'm just wondering - is the wolf encounter really necessary to be able to use them?

[peffsi]

On 2023-05-06 at 6:36 PM, The-Smiths-85 said:

From what I've experienced in order to get out of the cave you have to use the explosives on a wall of rocks/rumble. Didn't you have that option when the setting was set to disabled? I'm just wondering - is the wolf encounter really necessary to be able to use them?

 

The prompt to use the explosives would not appear until after I killed that wolf.

[Swotam]

25 minutes ago, peffsi said:

 

The prompt to use the explosives would not appear until after I killed that wolf.

 

I played the game a second time on PS4 recently with the Encounters setting enabled and I had no issues, including in the ice cave. The only time I had to disable it was so I could throw a steak at a wolf for the associated trophy. Not sure why you were having issues on your playthrough but the wolf in the ice cave isn't required to exit, you just need the dynamite. It can be a bit picky with the prompt though, so maybe that's what happened in your case.

 

It's not buggy though, it does exactly what it's supposed to do and you can complete your playthrough without any wolves present (aside from the throw steak trophy).

[peffsi]

20 hours ago, Swotam said:

 

I played the game a second time on PS4 recently with the Encounters setting enabled and I had no issues, including in the ice cave. The only time I had to disable it was so I could throw a steak at a wolf for the associated trophy. Not sure why you were having issues on your playthrough but the wolf in the ice cave isn't required to exit, you just need the dynamite. It can be a bit picky with the prompt though, so maybe that's what happened in your case.

 

It's not buggy though, it does exactly what it's supposed to do and you can complete your playthrough without any wolves present (aside from the throw steak trophy).

 

Really? That is strange. I'm quite certain I ran up against the blocked exit from every angle, trying to use the dynamite, and it just would not let me.

After I enabled encounters and killed the wolf, I went back to the exit and saw the prompt right away.

It's possible I just had a weird glitch and restarting/reloading would've been enough to fix it. I don't remember if I tried that before enabling encounters.

[Swotam]

25 minutes ago, peffsi said:

 

Really? That is strange. I'm quite certain I ran up against the blocked exit from every angle, trying to use the dynamite, and it just would not let me.

After I enabled encounters and killed the wolf, I went back to the exit and saw the prompt right away.

It's possible I just had a weird glitch and restarting/reloading would've been enough to fix it. I don't remember if I tried that before enabling encounters.

 

My first playthrough on the PS5 version I didn't enable the Encounters setting and did have to kill the wolf before placing the dynamite, but mostly because the wolf was attacking me so it needed to be dealt with. On my second playthrough on the PS4 version I had Encounters enabled for the entire run except for when I briefly turned it off to get Nature Lover, but otherwise had no wolves and no issues. As you said, maybe reloading was what fixed it for you. The only thing I noticed in the ice cave was that the prompt to place the dynamite was a bit specific and wouldn't show up unless you were standing in exactly the right spot, whereas most other prompts in the game showed up as long as you were close enough to whatever you were interacting with.