Well, had another odd hunting event. I am chasing this elk with 2 spears stuck in it and a limp, and it's still faster then me running but whatever, and I am follow it's tracks only to find that they just stop in the middle of a field. I start searching for tracks and find one more saying it went southeast. I go southeast but see nothing. Ok, it must have switched directions. I walk all over the place around the ends of the tracks, nothing. I have to resort to walking in a spiral pattern outwards starting from the last set of tracks using my tracking ability all the time. Nothing.... There are no other tracks anywhere near the end of the trail. The elk disappeared along with my 2 spears.
So it seems that the part of the game I am most interested in, hunting, is unrealistic and possibly bugged, and all my motivation for playing is gone
Hmm, I thought that at first, but the more I did it, the more it seemed that the only cheating the animals do is magically stopping their bleeding. But it does seem that they don't just disappear, however they will backtrack over their own tracks sometimes, and certain types of ground are much less likely to show tracks than others.
Nope. You are underestimating how much I searched for tracks. The surrounding area was plains and I must have searched every tile in a 20-30 tile radius. Gone. It didn't double back either, no mixed tracks. I was close behind it so I don't it would have even been able to get past me without me seeing it.
I've had another instance where 5 tracks (one which I was following) lead into one big mess of tracks, and after examining them for a while, I found 5 tracks going in, and one set of tracks going out. So that would mean that 5 stags ran into that area, then either all disappeared, or ended up congo-lining their way out of the area. The hunting is without a doubt broken. If you need more convincing, then whenever you lose your prey, take some time to study the tracks. Search all over the place and figure out where everything went. You will encounter things that don't make sense.