Originally posted by Polonius Ulf:

People see patterns in random data, and you don't have to be crazy. There's even a word for it which I'm too lazy to look up.

No, it's absolute fact with Valheim. Mobs that are closing on you to melee range (if you have a bow drawn and aimed) will sidestep one way, then when you correct aim they will sidestep the other way, repeat ad-infinitum.

It's a cheesy mechanic the devs put in to try and make bow combat more challenging. Needs to be removed and replaced with actual competent AI.

Maybe the devs made the bows more smelly with the latest update so the smell gets carried away by the wind whenever you equip it.

But no, I haven't noticed much difference in mine. Maybe it's a stealth thing?

Its just that dawing the bow is very very loud

Na all mobs move in weird ways without you using the bow.

Yeah this appears to be the case sometimes. Like if a melee skeleton spawns on the top floor of a stone tower with no clear path down, it will instead try to retreat after taking a bow shot. Whether or not by coincidence this usually causes them to move and wait in a corner where I don't have the angle.

Looks smart but I don't want to give the enemy AI too much credit. Virtually every other AI behaviour is basic to a fault.

I think the AI is detecting our bow equip, and aim direction. I noticed this way back when I first started playing. Random direction changes when the enemy is agitated is fine and looks pretty random to me, but I've more than a number of times notice a behavior/movement change once I raised my bow. Each deer, greyL or greyD I shoot has never seen me or my bow befor yet they occasionally react differently when I bring out the bow. Nothing major just enough to frustrated and eat through our arrows. LOL

I always sneak and shoot when they unaware. I have been able to sneak from behind them and take them with a knife. With the 1st boss buff I sometimes can chase them down once they are alerted. But yea, as soon as they move, its very hard with a bow.

I have this feeling too.

I have noticed this with Greylings and greydwarfs, which are meant to have some intelligence. They definitely change direction randomly as they approach when you're aiming a bow. If you're holding melee weapons, they spread out.

With deer, the direction changes are meant to simulate panic, I think. Keep the bow drawn, and you will often get a second or a third chance. Deer have run into me.

You may be seeing a pattern where there is no discernable plan. In other words yeah you cray cray 😜

Valheim be damned. In Texas the deer graze in the highway right-of-way all the way to the deer lease. Once one gets to the lease, there is not a deer to be seen. As if they know it is illegal to shoot them from a public road.

Originally posted by Fzanco:

You may be seeing a pattern where there is no discernable plan. In other words yeah you cray cray 😜

People see patterns in random data, and you don't have to be crazy. There's even a word for it which I'm too lazy to look up.

OK, I looked it up: Pareidolia.

But game designers can also manipulate the odds of deer skittishness according to how much they have been hunted. Unless they are meant to be stupid, we don't want enemies to just blindly run into the pending bowshot, so devs make them change direction randomly when a bow is visible.

And devs can exploit pareidolia by scheduling some events to simply occur randomly at a fixed frequency. Easy to do, and with luck you'll have players convinced they need to take their lucky bow or half-used torch on every dangerous mission.

(There. I've used pareidolia in a sentence. Two sentences)

Originally posted by Polonius Ulf:

(There. I've used pareidolia in a sentence. Two sentences)

Here's a cookie!

Originally posted by Fzanco:

You may be seeing a pattern where there is no discernable plan. In other words yeah you cray cray 😜

If that was true, they would always run straight at you, which is not the case.

Yeah they seem to be behaving like that, at least for me too. Kinda rewards flick shots, but it's still fairly hard once they get scared and run away