HOTFIX: The Long Dark Sandbox Hotfixed to v.338 -- Crash, Lighting, and Gameplay Fixes


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  • Hinterland

Hello Community,

We've just hotfixed The Long Dark Sandbox to v.338. In addition to several general bug and crash fixes, we've also made some changes to the in-game lighting.

Lighting Updates

In Tireless Menace, we added colour grading to improve the treatment of colours and light in the game for various times of day. Unfortunately, this had the unexpected side effect of making the game darker for some players, depending on their hardware. 

In this Hotfix, we've updated all the building interiors to be more navigable during the day. We've also added an additional layer of Time of Day lighting, to better reflect the way you'd expect light to change over the course of the day. Prior to this, our interiors had two light settings -- dark (from night), and light (from dawn to dusk). Now, we gradually ramp up the daylight from dawn, to peak brightness around Noon, and then start to fade down to full darkness by dusk again.

You can get a better idea of how these lighting changes look in-game in this short video.

Gameplay Tweaks

Fatigue Tuning: We also re-tuned Fatigue so it is consistent across all Experience Modes. Previously, since you would be less tired at the end of a Pilgrim day, this would mean you weren't usually fully Exhausted at the end of your "active" day and therefore couldn't Rest all the way through the night. Now, if you play with a good reasonably average activity level, you should be Exhausted by the end of a full day of exploration and activity, and be able to Rest all the way through the night. This should be true for Pilgrim, Voyageur, and Stalker. 

Parasites: We've decided to limit the Intestinal Parasites Affliction to Stalker mode only. Parasites definitely make the game more challenging by introducing food scarcity built around risks to the use of available Wolf and Bear meat, which is more in line with the play style preferred by our Stalker players.

Cabin Fever: We've added a Cabin Fever Risk warning, to provide plenty of warning before you get Cabin Fever. This provides you with the opportunity to change your behaviour to avoid getting it. Depending on what we observe from our playtesters, if this is effective, we may re-introduce Cabin Fever as a potential risk earlier in the game (whereas currently the risk doesn't become a real concern until you have survived for 50 days in Voyageur (25 days in Stalker; Cabin Fever doesn't exist in Pilgrim).

More detail on the changes below:

THE LONG DARK SANDBOX HOTFIXED to v.338 CHANGELIST

* [CRASH] Fixed Mac-specific crash when exiting interiors in Coastal Highway.
* [CRASH] Fixed rare crash on Windows at startup.
* [SAVING] Fixed issue with game not saving on some Unicode Windows systems.
* [SAVING] Fixed problem with starting the game in an interior in Pleasant Valley and not saving the state of that interior.
* [GAMEPLAY] Improved the Warmth benefit gained by Sprinting.
* [GAMEPLAY] Added Cabin Fever Risk.
* [GAMEPLAY] Intestinal Parasites now only occur in Stalker. 
* [GAMEPLAY] Reduced chance of fishing line breaking upon successfully catching a Fish.
* [GAMEPLAY] Tuned Fatigue so players are likely to be able to Rest through an entire night after a full day of activity.
* [ART] Improved lighting for all interiors, including a new system for Time of Day lighting.
* [MISC.] Added a Brightness slider to Display Options.
* [BUG] Fixed issue with AI sometimes teleporting while pathfinding.
* [BUG] Fixed issue with bears not respawning.
* [BUG] Fixed issue where antibiotics button could reappear when already taken dose for parasites that day.
* [BUG] Fixed issue with screen inverting when inspecting the Magnifying Glass.
* [BUG] Fixed issue with JackRabbit Island not being discoverable.

### END OF CHANGELIST ###

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12 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

* [GAMEPLAY] Tuned Fatigue so players are likely to be able to Rest through an entire night after a full day of activity.
* [ART] Improved lighting for all interiors, including a new system for Time of Day lighting.

Yay! Looking forward to trying these out! Especially being able to sleep a full night after 13 hours of stomping around OUTSIDE IN THE FREAKING COLD COLLECTING FIREWOOD AND FOOD AND SCHLEPPING SUPPLIES BACK TO HOME BASE!

OTOH, 

14 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

* [GAMEPLAY] Intestinal Parasites now only occur in Stalker. 

NOOOOOO!

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Thank you very much for developing and regularly updating this wonderful game! You managed to improve the game dramatically since the beginning! I'm getting use to all the new features since Tireless menace and I must say that I didn't like the new risk of intestinal parasites at all. Since I prefer to play in Voyager, I had to learn a way to circle around that threat by eating, among other things, only one kg of wolf meat per 24 hours, to successfully avoid the implication, I was snaring more, hunting only deer, fishing, killing the wolves only if necessary... Having removed that in Voyager now, I have to admit that I am a bit dissapointed. Now I like it, I guess. I also wasn't keen about cabin fever, but after surviving more than 170 days with no complications whatsoever, using my usual playstyle, I really don't consider it as an issue. One more thing- I really must commend you for removing decay for matches, which is excellent idea. I also agree with new decaying system, having the meat less decaying outside, but in that matter, I must ask you to somehow allow players to move smaller lockers, or containers outside, because, right now, only farmstead in PV, or mountaneer's hut in TM and maybe Jackrabbit island on CH, because of the nearby fishing hut, are suitable for storing meat. The meat indoors are decaying extremely fast, even 20% per day, and we have to store it outside. Please consider something about that. Thank you once again!

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1 hour ago, Nicholai said:

For a moment I read lighting as lightning and got excited :( It would be awesome if game had lightning and thunderstorm effects. 

It's a great update anyway, thanks!

Now that would be very cool! That would add some realism to the game.

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Just now, Raphael van Lierop said:

The hotfix is with Microsoft and we're waiting for it to clear the Cert process. Should be available in the next 48 hours.

ah microsoft has always gotta mess up something... :P

thanks, cant wait for it! :D

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Lovely update! Best timing ever because I'm running out of lantern fuel and need to leave my cosy Camp Office to get some stock from Timberwolf Mountain.
But with this update we'll probably use less fuel in interiors.

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Just now, Raphael van Lierop said:

They've been a great partner to us, turning around our hotfixes very quickly. But unfortunately they'll always be a little slower than Steam.

hahaha i just like poking fun at them, is all. its all good :D

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  • Hinterland
6 minutes ago, Blinkin said:

Lovely update! Best timing ever because I'm running out of lantern fuel and need to leave my cosy Camp Office to get some stock from Timberwolf Mountain.
But with this update we'll probably use less fuel in interiors.

You certainly have that option (in most cases; there are still some interiors that are understandably dark at any time of day, like the Lower Dam). If you prioritize exploring interiors around the middle part of your day, you should be able to explore most places without needing additional light. Dawn and Dusk interior exploration will probably still need some extra light, though.

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Wow thanks a lot for this update, guess some "minors" changes, make the game pretty different.

This game developping team is really amazing, many thanks for your work.

1 hour ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Parasites: We've decided to limit the Intestinal Parasites Affliction to Stalker mode only. Parasites definitely make the game more challenging by introducing food scarcity built around risks to the use of available Wolf and Bear meat, which is more in line with the play style preferred by our Stalker players.

Cabin Fever: We've added a Cabin Fever Risk warning, to provide plenty of warning before you get Cabin Fever. This provides you with the opportunity to change your behaviour to avoid getting it. Depending on what we observe from our playtesters, if this is effective, we may re-introduce Cabin Fever as a potential risk earlier in the game (whereas currently the risk doesn't become a real concern until you have survived for 50 days in Voyageur (25 days in Stalker; Cabin Fever doesn't exist in Pilgrim).

I don't know what to really think about parasites risk. But i liked it, it added some challenges to Voyager mode. In my opinion it should have been conserved because it will make predators a nice target whereas I liked them to be a threat one must avoid in much cases. But guess it's up to the devs to decide about this and I respect this.

 

As for Cabin Fever, not looked yet how the warnings sounds/look like, but I'm glad this will become a really early/mid-stage threat to players!

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8 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

You certainly have that option (in most cases; there are still some interiors that are understandably dark at any time of day, like the Lower Dam). If you prioritize exploring interiors around the middle part of your day, you should be able to explore most places without needing additional light. Dawn and Dusk interior exploration will probably still need some extra light, though.

Thank you so much for this change!  I can see! :D

And I'm glad you left the dark places dark, just makes sense.  Now exploring them will be an adventure, rather than routine.  Fluffy, is that you?

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10 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Interesting to see how disappointed people are to see Parasites removed from Voyageur, considering how vehement/toxic the feedback was when we first implemented them!

I can't speak for the entire community, but I for one didn't have a problem with Parasites, especially after the balancing hotfix. It was a good risk vs reward when you need food and only have an abundance of predator meat handy. The only issue I had with it was the lack of reason to kill bears for the abundant supply of meat, so the reward for killing bears was really small especially after making the bed roll. 

I definitely saw lots of discussion about Parasites but the feedback didn't seem overwhelmingly negative to me. I haven't been following the discussion as much for the last few weeks so maybe I missed something.

I am a primary voyager player. I can play more on Stalker but I don't agree with removing mechanics from the default play experience.

Just my 2 cents. Thanks for the update! I look forward to testing it out.

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2 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

* [GAMEPLAY] Added Cabin Fever Risk.
* [GAMEPLAY] Reduced chance of fishing line breaking upon successfully catching a Fish.

Thanks for the update and especially those two adjustments. I haven't contractet Cabin Fever yet because I was to cautious about it, not knowing how close I am already to get it. I think I will have a more relaxed gameplay now :D

And the constant line snapping took away alot of joy from fishing, spending precious gut on lines instead of cloths so I welcome this too.

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43 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Interesting to see how disappointed people are to see Parasites removed from Voyageur, considering how vehement/toxic the feedback was when we first implemented them!

That's mainly because parasites have since been better balanced versus their original implementation thanks to the hard work of the dev team ^_^

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Parasites was never a big deal to me, though I still think the birch tea alternative would have been nice instead of removing parasites from Voyager.

Cabin Fever was also not a big deal to my normal playstyle, except in a few cases where living in Pleasant Valley with the multi-day blizzards.  I don't have too much to comment on that further.

Glad to hear that rest/fatigued has been tuned for Pilgrim/Voyager.

It appears nothing has changed with the decay rates, though?  That's the main reason why I haven't loaded my games because of the passive decay on my sleeping rolls and bearskin rolls.

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25 minutes ago, lupineways said:

I am a primary voyager player. I can play more on Stalker but I don't agree with removing mechanics from the default play experience.

I agree with this.

If Voyageur is intended to be the 'normal' gameplay mode, then I think it should include all the mechanics and features the game has to offer. The Stalker mode should be for 'extra' difficulty by way of tweaking the parameters for the things that players have to deal with.

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1 hour ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Interesting to see how disappointed people are to see Parasites removed from Voyageur, considering how vehement/toxic the feedback was when we first implemented them!

Parasites:
I always play Voyageur and did not mind at all the added challenge of parasites from predator meat.

Suggestion: is it possible to randomly have some wolves & bears to be infested with parasites and some not?
You wouldn't know until harvesting the meat.
If this was available in Voyageur that would be very exciting :crosseye:

Lighting:
Just finished two hours of play testing and I'm really enjoying being able to see indoors again without a brand (or storm lantern) and extend my thanks!
Exploring the PV farmhouse where I've been living the last 2 (3?) weeks and I feel like I'm there for the first time^_^
Sleep:
I thought it was reasonable to only sleep 8 or 9 hours a night (IRL it's generally 7) but I can see how someone might sleep 12 hours if they were completely exhausted.

Really like this update!

25 minutes ago, cekivi said:

That's mainly because parasites have since been better balanced versus their original implementation thanks to the hard work of the dev team ^_^

Well said, and very true!

 

 

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3 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:


* [GAMEPLAY] Intestinal Parasites now only occur in Stalker. 
 

* [GAMEPLAY] Tuned Fatigue so players are likely to be able to Rest through an entire night after a full day of activity.
 

* [ART] Improved lighting for all interiors, including a new system for Time of Day lighting.
 

* [BUG] Fixed issue with bears not respawning.
 

 

Great update team Hinterland, thanks!

I didn't fully read the patch notes when I booted it up, so was taken aback by the now risk free bear meat on Voyageur. I didn't mind the parasite risk so much as I had a good system going where I'd alternate three pieces of bear meat at 12% with a day of pure rabbit or deer consumption. That way I was slowly munching my way through all the bear meat stored in the boot of my car at Pleasant Valley Farmhouse, but was taking what I felt to be an acceptable risk. I only got the worms once. I don't mind that it was taken out of Voyageur, but I did quite enjoy the Russian Roulette I was playing. I guess it was a bit of a gamey gamble I was taking, but I quite enjoyed the complication. 

I really like the new fatigue balance. I thought it was pretty close to being right previously with the sleep/rest proportion I was hitting in Voyageur previously, but I still was finding that after a very active day I was still needing to for a few hours each night. Now my usual strenuous activity of exploring, firewood gathering and snare checking each day brings me nicely to the point of an unbroken nine hours sleep, with a nice restful 'snooze' in the morning as I lie in bed all toasty like a cinnamon bun. So I reckon as it is now it's just about perfect. Now I just need to craft me some rabbit-skin slippers. 

I love the new lighting for the interiors! There's all sorts of details in the Pleasant Valley farmhouse I hadn't see before, and it feels more airy at noon, more like a home I can potter about it. This new lighting system should really match well should you ever introduce whittling and crafting player made decorations to brighten up the place. Great work on this, and again very nicely balanced. 

As to fixing the issue with bears not respawning... great, now I'm frequently terrified again on my constitutionals, sure as not that the snuffling monsters are no doubt planning their vengeance upon me for slaying two of their kin. Cheers.

...

I also killed my first deer with a bow and arrow today. I shot it in the behind and tracked it through the nicely done blood tracks across half the map. Took most of the day to run her down! Next time I'm definitely aiming for a more vital spot! Still, so happy! Thank you once again for this marvellous game.

 

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Interesting to see how disappointed people are to see Parasites removed from Voyageur, considering how vehement/toxic the feedback was when we first implemented them!

Well, the game is still in alpha so you guys need to gauge things of course, so I'm not mad or disappointed. Quite frankly, I love the new changes!

You probably know this already, but you will never please everyone. I still gotta give you credit for trying though.

So far, you are making a great game!

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