I'm sure this has been discussed before, but search only turned up people complaining about it, and nobody actually suggesting anything that might help. So I thought I'd help out a bit
There seem to be a few issues with hunting, which are mostly on tracking for now
First, and worst, is that tracks aren't actually visible to the player because of grass and their colour.
One elegant solution I would like to suggest for this is from Cabela's Pro Hunts(The good one, not the call of duty with animals one)
Namely, tracks you spot are outlined in a softly glowing yellow. This way you can see them even through the grass. It seems silly that you as an expert tracker(skill) can find the tracks ingame, but the player controlling this expert tracker can't find them where someone with such skill should have no trouble with it, and it would suck that players have to disable graphics options and make the game look worse than it could by turning off grass and such
Second, tracks seem to disappear.
After a while running after tracks just now, I get to an open clearing with the tracks going right across it. I follow the tracks halfway through the clearing, seeing them disappear into the forest on the other side.
And then they all disappear, only to re-appear when I track again
On a related note, some tracks appear to clip into the terrain, especially near the mountains
This is kind of counterintuitive, I'm not entirely sure what would be a great solution, but this seems to be a bit messy. Maybe set a distance on how long you can follow the tracks instead of a time?
Third, not having a clue how far the tracks would go
I've been tracking this one animal for about 50 minutes now, and I dont seem to be getting any closer to finding it. Just how long do tracks stay anyway?
Potential solution - Allow trackers to determine the age of tracks, so they don't follow several day old tracks, or tracks that are most likely not going to produce any results in the time they have to hunt. It would be frustrating to have to cancel my hunt because I have to go in a few minutes, but it seems I don't have a choice in the matter
Fourth, hunting weaponry
How am I supposed to hunt when I don't have any real weapons to hunt with? I'm probably going to have to chase after the animals beating them with a shovel until it collapses from exhaustion. There isn't much I can use to hunt with except tools
Seems to be a general thing with weaponry, there just doesnt appear to be any way to get something I can actually use to hunt with until far later in the skill trees
And fifth, tracks not showing the direction the animal has gone in.
Okay, so I turned off grass, and the tracks are...Circles on the ground
They don't show any direction, so I have no idea where to even go. I might have just spend 50 minutes running the wrong way, and wouldn't even notice it except for the lack of animals encountered.
Solution, it's probably possible to handle this and track age at the same time. If the player can see that tracks where they're going are older than where they came from, they're following the trail the wrong direction.
Amusing game so far, hoping the MMO comes soon!