Space-Time Dilation

[DcIhNaGv3z]

Hello

First let me say that I have only played the trial version on Xbox One so my experience was limited.  Nonetheless I absolutely loved the concept of this game and enjoyed the time I had.

The main thing that I noticed was there seems to be some pretty sever space-time dilation since the game packs a 24hour clock into a simulated 1hour time frame (it may not be exactly a 1:24 ratio but for the purpose of discussion, lets say it is).  So, something as simple as going out to collect some wood for a fire consumes hours of in-game time and daylight, but the amount of wood collected does not yield an equivalent bounty if the same hours were spent in the real world collecting wood.

If you take the exact game mechanics as they stand now, in terms of bounty yield per time investment, but actually provide players a full 24hr clock, in order to maintain the current yield everything in the game would need to become stretched 24x.  Two trees that appear close together on the 1:24hr clock would become 24x times farther apart on a 1:1 clock.

I think the game should better simulate bounty yield, especially for basic survival necessities.  Melting snow for water consume hours out of the day, but my yield of water does not appropriately reflect the quantity of water I could collect if I actually spent hours doing that.

 

Some other observations I had:

I was unable to find any natural sources of tinder.  Even in a snow covered environment there are lots of natural sources of tinder.

Fires should leave coals which produce additional radiant heat for many hours, and some coals should remain for upwards of 24hrs.  Remnant coals should be usable to restart a new fire.

Heat transfer and warmth gained from a wood burning stove in a small cabin should be more significant.  Those things are great at heating up a room. 

 

 

[SteveP]

time acceleration is 12:1

You need a large fire to get coals to last very long and you have to bank the fire (slow down oxygen)

[DcIhNaGv3z]

Ok, 1:12 ratio.  My point of space-time dilation remains an issue.  You corrected a none essential point.  I even stated in my post that for the propose of discussion, assume its 1:24.  From my experience, the most glaring unbalanced aspect of the game was time-space dilation and it stood out more then anything else.  The bounty received for an effort does not truly simulate real world time investment.

With regards to coals.  Its good to know there are fire maintenance techniques in the game.  I did not have enough play time to even notice that.  Nonetheless, the necessity for a big fire is not exactly realistic in order to generate coals.  Even a fairly small camp fire will have coals remain for many hours and can be used to reignite a fire the following day.  At the very least, any and all fires should produce some level of coals which should remain for a decent amount of time.  Fires don't just go out and become nothing.

[Scyzara]

The game's pivotal objective isn't to reflect a realistic passage of time (or a realistic bounty yield per time). Everything related to time (movement speed, distance between different points of interest, further time acceleration while sleeping or harvesting wood) is balanced to enable a fun and nonfrustrating gaming experience. A long time ago, there was no overall time acceleration and the vast majority of players very much disliked it. Most people simply don't find it fun to explore their surrounding if it takes them 4 ingame as well as 4 RL hours to get from Trapper's homestead to the Camp Office at Mystery lake. Such a travelling time may be totally realistic in real life, but it is not very fun to play a game that feels like "walking through jelly", as some of the early testers once put it.

The same is true for the wood harvesting and water boiling systems. The yield of wood and water you get for your time and calories investment is balanced for gameplay purposes. It might be "realistic" to be able to melt more water in a given period of time (please remember that it takes an aweful volume of snow to get one liter of water in real life as well, though!) or to have way longer burning times per piece of wood, but realism just for the sake of realism doesn't benefit the game necessarily. Foraging and water melting primarily have the ingame purpose to give your character something meaningful to do during his/her course of day. If these mechanics were way more efficient than currently, you would need less time to perform them and thus end up spending more time in bed sleeping. Which wouldn't make the game more fun either.

Regarding natural tinder: You can harvest sticks for tinder, thats a pretty natural and renewable source of tinder in my book. Cattail heads and birch bark also works as tinder!

Last, but not least: I like your idea about fires not simply vanishing but going out more gradually. That's actually something I'd like to see as well. Not necessarily regarding the creation of pieces of coal, but regarding the temperature kinetics and smoldering times.

There is already a short period of time (15min or something) when a fire has burned down to coals, but is still smoldering and can be reignited by adding more sticks to it. I would love this smoldering period to be proportional to the initial fire duration. A 30min fire might have a ten minute smoldering period whereas a 12h fire should have a 4 hour smoldering period. As someone who often has a fire burning several hours a day (happy TWM camper), I think I would find that quite enjoyable gameplay-wise.

[Hotzn]

1 hour ago, Scyzara said:

The game's pivotal objective isn't to reflect a realistic passage of time (or a realistic bounty yield per time). Everything related to time (movement speed, distance between different points of interest, further time acceleration while sleeping or harvesting wood) is balanced to enable a fun and nonfrustrating gaming experience. A long time ago, there was no overall time acceleration and the vast majority of players very much disliked it. Most people simply don't find it fun to explore their surrounding if it takes them 4 ingame as well as 4 RL hours to get from Trapper's homestead to the Camp Office at Mystery lake. Such a travelling time may be totally realistic in real life, but it is not very fun to play a game that feels like "walking through jelly", as some of the early testers once put it.

The same is true for the wood harvesting and water boiling systems. The yield of wood and water you get for your time and calories investment is balanced for gameplay purposes. It might be "realistic" to be able to melt more water in a given period of time (please remember that it takes an aweful volume of snow to get one liter of water in real life as well, though!) or to have way longer burning times per piece of wood, but realism just for the sake of realism doesn't benefit the game necessarily. Foraging and water melting primarily have the ingame purpose to give your character something meaningful to do during his/her course of day. If these mechanics were way more efficient than currently, you would need less time to perform them and thus end up spending more time in bed sleeping. Which wouldn't make the game more fun either.

Regarding natural tinder: You can harvest sticks for tinder, thats a pretty natural and renewable source of tinder in my book. Cattail heads and birch bark also works as tinder!

Last, but not least: I like your idea about fires not simply vanishing but going out more gradually. That's actually something I'd like to see as well. Not necessarily regarding the creation of pieces of coal, but regarding the temperature kinetics and smoldering times.

There is already a short period of time (15min or something) when a fire has burned down to coals, but is still smoldering and can be reignited by adding more sticks to it. I would love this smoldering period to be proportional to the initial fire duration. A 30min fire might have a ten minute smoldering period whereas a 12h fire should have a 4 hour smoldering period. As someone who often has a fire burning several hours a day (happy TWM camper), I think I would find that quite enjoyable gameplay-wise.

This. Sometimes I think Scyzara and I share a common brain.

[Scyzara]

I'm convinced we do! Remember we're both "Rheinlanders", unquestionably the most convivial of all German folks!

[starfighter441]

1 hour ago, Scyzara said:

I'm convinced we do! Remember we're both "Rheinlanders", unquestionably the most convivial of all German folks!

Ahem...

My wife, AKA She Who Must Be Obeyed begs to differ...

[Pillock]

I think the time vs reward balance could be tweaked a little. There are occasions when I've felt that things like chopping/harvesting fuel take too long, for example. I think the focus should be more on fatigue for these tasks, rather than time spent. Chopping up a pallet or crate, say, doesn't take long in reality, but it is quite energetic and tiring. For gameplay's sake, though, I don't think the balance is far off. Bear in mind that the more punishing the game is, the more long-term in appeal it appears to hold (for me, anyway) - Even if not completely realistic, gameplay changes that lead to a gentler or more comfortable pace of activity in terms of finding resources and carrying out survival tasks tend also to lead to boredom setting in faster. That is to say, the gameplay relies on struggle - once your character becomes too 'settled' in the environment, a big part of the fun seems to fade.

Regarding fire embers retaining heat over time, I also agree this is a good idea - though snowfall would obviously have a big affect on it (coals don't stay hot if they are covered in snow).

[DcIhNaGv3z]

23 hours ago, Scyzara said:

but it is not very fun to play a game that feels like "walking through jelly", as some of the early testers once put it.

but realism just for the sake of realism doesn't benefit the game necessarily. Foraging and water melting primarily have the ingame purpose to give your character something meaningful to do during his/her course of day. If these mechanics were way more efficient than currently, you would need less time to perform them and thus end up spending more time in bed sleeping. Which wouldn't make the game more fun either

Note: Quote edited for the sake of brevity. 

First let me say, I get where you are coming from and I appreciate your views. 

I do not by any circumstances want a 1:1hr clock "walking through jelly".  I am 100% in favor of a 1:12 clock and/or 1:24hr clock.  I just want that balance of space-time dilation to better represent the game-play-time per real-world-bounty-yield.  My goal is not to make the game more easy, its to make it more representative of the simulated situation.  Here is an example of the misrepresentation of real-life: in the short time I played, I came across like 7+ deer.  Finding and hunting deer should be a way more in-depth process, whereas something basic like finding wood for a fire should not be so time consuming and unrewarding.

To your point of making the game fun by giving players something to do.  I would argue, the overarching goal of the game is to explore, learn, grow, and prosper, while set against the struggle of maintaining the complex minutia of which survival entails.  Right?  Its a reality check game, survival is hard and this is how hard it really is.  We are fragile animals not well adept for survival... and the game pit nature against humans.  But, humans are problem solvers, highly intuitive, intelligent, adept tool user, posses high dexterity over a wide range of objects, ect..  Perhaps I am getting off topic, my point is, the basic minutia of survival doesn't even represent a real world experience, nor does it provide the freedom to take in your environment and explore.  Especially scaled down to a 1:12 dilated clock.

Please keep in mind.  I only played the trial version of the game.  My play time was limited, and my opinions are based on that limited experience.  I still really enjoyed the game.  I am just voicing what stood out to me.