[Updated] CLARIFICATION: How Intestinal Parasites (Trichinosis) Works (as of v.326+)


Patrick Carlson

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We've just updated how Intestinal Parasites work in Hotfix v.338. Original clarification below.

Intestinal Parasites

We've rebalanced Intestinal Parasites. 

Parasite Risk: Raw Wolf and Raw Bear meat behaves the same as before. For Cooked Wolf and Cooked Bear, you will gain Parasites Risk per piece you eat, per day. The risk will stack, and is expressed as a % in your First Aid screen. Every 24 hours, we will check against this Risk. If you don't contract Parasites within that 24-hour period, we reset this Risk to 0%. 

Parasites: Full-blown Parasites can now be treated with 10 Doses (Stalker). There is still no chance of contracting Parasites in Pilgrim or Voyageur. 

Reishi Tea: You can now brew a cup of Reishi Tea using 2 Reishi Mushrooms (reduced from 3). 


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[ORIGINAL CLARIFICATION]

Some additional information from the design team on the Intestinal Parasites Affliction in The Long Dark:

 

"As with the Cabin Fever discussion, there's quite a bit of FUD in the community right now (change is scary and uncomfortable!) and while we gather feedback and consider the next round of tuning changes, we thought it might be useful to explain how Intestinal Parasites currently works.

 

HOW YOU GET THEM

* There is a chance you will contract Intestinal Parasites from eating Wolf or Bear meat. Why? Because these are predators, and primarily carrion-eaters, which is why they carry a higher risk of carrying these parasites.

* The risk of contracting Intestinal Parasites from eating cooked meat is low: 2% per instance. This 2% is per instance, and is cumulative. So, if you eat 10 Wolf steaks, you have a 20% chance of contracting the parasites.

* The risk of contracting Parasites from eating raw meat is high.

 

HOW YOU TREAT THEM

* There is a course of treatment for Parasites; we wanted to experiment with an Affliction that needed to be treated multiple doses over a period of time. With current tuning, you require 7 doses of Antibiotics or Reishi Tea over 7 days (1/day) on Voyageur, and 14 doses over 14 days on Stalker. You can't get Parasites on Pilgrim.

* While you are treating Parasites, you will gradually weaken. This weakening lowers your max Condition and max Fatigue each day of the affliction. You may want to plan for this in the early stages of the affliction.

* Missing a day does not invalidate the treatments up to that point.

 

HOW TO AVOID THEM

* Do not use Wolf of Bear meat as your primary food source.

***

We hear the concerns/complaints and are considering how to modify the mechanic to address those. Our intention isn't to make the game unfair, but simply to provide more choices, and also to ensure that other sources of food (Deer, Fish, and Rabbits) are also a part of your long-term survival strategy.

By all means, continue eating Wolf and Bear meat, just recognize that it comes with a risk, and that you should diversify your food strategy to not be completely dependent on them.

In the mean time, we'll continue looking at feedback and will retune as needed.

Thank you!"

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Thanks for the explanation, @Patrick Carlson!

I won't be able to test it for a while yet, since I'm trying out the v.321 on Pilgrim mode at the time (with a new character). So no parasite infection risk. Bummer. However, as you present it, it makes sense in the context of the game.

My comments are based on real life facts mainly for fellow forum members who may not quite grasp how parasitism works. :ph34r:

I rather suspect the risk of contracting parasites from either carnivores or herbivores (deer and rabbit) would be equal. In fact, in the slaughterhouses, the majority of parasites that result in beef, pork and lamb condemnation come from humans (Taenia saginata) or dogs (Echinococcus granulosus)! So in reality, I would suspect we are actually at equal or greater risk of parasite infection from eating deer meat or rabbit meat than wolf or bear. But for the purposes of balancing the resources of the game, the devs' solution is fine.

As for cumulative risk, certain parasites that can cause problems in humans do so because humans are not their natural hosts! One of the biggest causes of meat condemnation in beef slaughter houses is T. saginata. This is because the tapeworm, while completing their life cycle as normal in humans (eating, mating, multiplying in our guts), can't do the same thing in cattle. So they form cysts and wait to be ingested by their natural host so they can complete their purposeful life. 

This concept is true of sooooo many parasites. Just as beef cattle is considered one of many secondary hosts for T. saginata, so are we for certain roundworms (Toxocara canis or Toxocara cati) which cause toxocariasis in humans.

When parasites encyst in their secondary hosts (the primary cause of meat condemnation), they can survive in dormant mode for many, many months, even years. So @cekivi, it does make sense that the risk of an affliction forming from these parasites become cumulative over time, because every time we eat meat, we ingest something else. Cooking doesn't always kill them all (one primary reason I don't eat my beef rare . . .). They'll sit there in your body, waiting, waiting waiting. Then when they reach critical mass, or your immune system is overloaded, bam! You have toxocariasis.

Oh, and due to parasite resistance to many anti-parasitic drugs, yes, it would take multiple doses over time to treat them all. Typically most roundworms in dogs and cats are treated over a two week period (two doses a week apart) while some tapeworms may require four weekly doses.

So the way the devs have set it up, yeah, it's a bit selective. But that's to give us a fighting chance for long-term survival. And I'm cool with the balance of things. :winky:

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16 minutes ago, hauteecolerider said:

When parasites encyst in their secondary hosts (the primary cause of meat condemnation), they can survive in dormant mode for many, many months, even years. So @cekivi, it does make sense that the risk of an affliction forming from these parasites become cumulative over time, because every time we eat meat, we ingest something else. Cooking doesn't always kill them all (one primary reason I don't eat my beef rare . . .). They'll sit there in your body, waiting, waiting waiting. Then when they reach critical mass, or your immune system is overloaded, bam! You have toxocariasis.

Interesting. I always equated parasites and regular diseases together: your body either kills them off immediately or you become ill. Now I know :)

Based on you description though it does sound likely that some other treatment (aside from mushroom tea/antibiotics) will likely be added in a future update.

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I vote for birch bark tea!

That would totally add to the balance of the resources. I think having resources with multiple uses will force us to make choices regarding the best way to use them. Like using recycled wood to make snares versus burning them for fuel. Or using gut to repair clothing versus making fishing line. Having a second use for birch bark (especially when you have so many other choices for tinder) would really make it more useful for me.

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13 minutes ago, hauteecolerider said:

I vote for birch bark tea!

That would totally add to the balance of the resources. I think having resources with multiple uses will force us to make choices regarding the best way to use them. Like using recycled wood to make snares versus burning them for fuel. Or using gut to repair clothing versus making fishing line. Having a second use for birch bark (especially when you have so many other choices for tinder) would really make it more useful for me.

+1 :)

And according to Dr. Google it's also a natural cure for worms so it's a real cure too :D

I guess they'd need to add more birch trees then. Right now I only remember seeing them on Timberwolf Mountain.

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See, this is why I boil all of my "wild food".

Bring water to a rolling boil, then drop in whatever you need cooked. Let it sit for a couple of minutes. Boom, 99% of parasites killed off, as well as making a tasty soup.

I have always maintained that we cook food all the "wrong ways" in TLD. The above is one of them.

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It takes more than boiling your food a couple of minutes to kill off all the bad stuff.

Roasting over a hot fire is a good way, as long as you cook the meat all the way through.

If you stop while it's still pink inside, no go. 

Searing the meat in a hot fire means you seal the juices inside, and that boils, too as you cook. Again, it takes more than a few minutes, but Hot and Fast is the way I like to grill my food . . . 

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While I don't have a problem with the notion of contracting intestinal parasites itself, what isn't all that helpful is that as of v.321, I get a permanent red cross medical warning because I'm currently at 2% risk. And it won't go away either.

This causes two problems: initially, it suggests something is going on which needs immediate adressing (which is not true); secondly, this will render the 'flagged-for-medical-problem'-indicator-system moot real quick; because after a couple of days of noticing the red cross and verifying nothing acute and serious is going on, players will start ignoring the red cross-indicator all together.

So when there's an actual problem that needs immediate adressing, the mechanic won't function as it's designed to, namely alert the player that they might want to check on their medical status.

Remember the story of boy cried wolf? Well, that's what the red cross-medical problem indicator has now been rendered to: a boy crying 'wolf!' all the time, even when the 'wolf' is still far, far away...

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34 minutes ago, hauteecolerider said:

It takes more than boiling your food a couple of minutes to kill off all the bad stuff.

Roasting over a hot fire is a good way, as long as you cook the meat all the way through.

If you stop while it's still pink inside, no go. 

Searing the meat in a hot fire means you seal the juices inside, and that boils, too as you cook. Again, it takes more than a few minutes, but Hot and Fast is the way I like to grill my food . . . 

Boil your food at 212+ for 5+ minutes, and nothing will be pink inside. Boiling at a high temperature cooks meat all the way through.

Not to mention that roasting your food over a fire is a great way to lose valuable fat.

I had a kid in my survival class roast a rabbit haunch black over a hot fire. He ate in and got food poisoning. The outside cooked, but the interior never got to proper temperature.

I boiled the other haunch of rabbit for about 10 minutes at a rolling boil, along with some bones, the liver, blueberries and cattail roots. The meat was grey through and through. Perfectly safe to eat. Rather tasty, actually. Made a nice soup.

This mechanic, to me, seems more of a desire to avoid actually fixing the attacking wolves and bears as opposed to any actual real-life reference, even if only slightly. Even after the update, I still have more (much more) wolf meat than rabbit or deer. Wolves remain easier to hunt.

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3 hours ago, cekivi said:

+1 :)

And according to Dr. Google it's also a natural cure for worms so it's a real cure too :D

I guess they'd need to add more birch trees then. Right now I only remember seeing them on Timberwolf Mountain.

There are birch trees over in the forest area near the Barn on Pleasant Valley.

Agreed with @Boston123.  This looks like an attempt to fix the "too much wolf meat" scenario, but the actual issue is the wolf spawns are too frequent, and there are too many.  The parasite affliction itself I'm not objecting to, however.  I actually kind of like the risk change and that you have to take a multi-course medicine treatment to fix it (just like real parasitic infections).  However, I'm mostly objecting to the cumulative, non-degrading effect, like many others.  I'd also still like to see a reduction of wolf spawns, at least on Voyager.  I think Stalker is probably fine for people who like the wolf-dodging, but my Voyager game I play for the explorer/environmental survival.

Edited by Vhalkyrie
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1 hour ago, TWM said:

Remember the story of boy cried wolf? Well, that's what the red cross-medical problem indicator has now been rendered to: a boy crying 'wolf!' all the time, even when the 'wolf' is still far, far away...

That came up a few times on the announcement forum for the new update. Hopefully it will be changed so parasites don't trigger the cross anymore.

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10 hours ago, hauteecolerider said:

I vote for birch bark tea!

10 hours ago, cekivi said:

+1 :)

And according to Dr. Google it's also a natural cure for worms so it's a real cure too :D

I really like this idea. Not only because it's realistic (antibiotics against worms is really immersion-breaking for me..), but also with regard to the gameplay.

I have the strong feeling the current parasite mechanics don't have the intended effect on players (= to make them eat a well-balanced diet of all animals and fish), but rather cause people to avoid carnivore meat completely if possible. Most likely because the treatment of parasites (at least in stalker) requires tremendous amounts of antibiotics/reishi tea which are both finite ressources. And people are always horribly afraid to run out of these (no matter how great this danger may be in reality).

If the parasite treatment required birch bark tea instead, people wouldn't be that afraid of parasites any more imo as birch bark is infinite. But they would still need to prepare for the emergency and make trips to places where birches grow in order to collect the bark. I for one would certainly like that! And to make parasite infections non-trivial, cooking one birch tea could e.g. require 6 birch barks. For a 12 day treatment you would thus need more than 70 pieces of birch bark. I guess that's incentive enough to make regular bark collection trips to PV, TWM or the Ravine. Would be a nice new activity to help combat cabin fever a bit, I guess.

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10 hours ago, Vhalkyrie said:

There are birch trees over in the forest area near the Barn on Pleasant Valley.

Agreed with @Boston123.  This looks like an attempt to fix the "too much wolf meat" scenario, but the actual issue is the wolf spawns are too frequent, and there are too many.  The parasite affliction itself I'm not objecting to, however.  I actually kind of like the risk change and that you have to take a multi-course medicine treatment to fix it (just like real parasitic infections).  However, I'm mostly objecting to the cumulative, non-degrading effect, like many others.  I'd also still like to see a reduction of wolf spawns, at least on Voyager.  I think Stalker is probably fine for people who like the wolf-dodging, but my Voyager game I play for the explorer/environmental survival.

YOU ARE CORRECT SIR!

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POST WAS MADE in V.325 ERA WILL RE-EVAULATE CURRENT PARASITE MODEL AND RE-POST

I support and agree with making the remedy birch bark tea and absolutely not relishi tea. The idea that you can consume a bear with rates of infection 2% per chunk of meat cumulatively after cooking not just seems out of balance but is when the look at the number of chunks a bear will yield. I estimate it is between 20 and 30 chunks of meat. It may be higher as it has been awhile since I cut up a bear but I know they are dozens of lbs of meat.

Assuming only twenty pieces or 40lbs of meat that means even if you have never eaten predator meat and consume each piece in it's full quantity and don't end up making any smaller pieces thereby again rolling the dice for the same overall calorie load, you have 40% chance of getting parasites each time if you consume a chunk. Counting back from that last piece of meat. You'd have a 40%, 38% 36% 34% and 32% chance of getting parasites. Over the course of only 5 attempts you'd stand a 180% chance of getting parasites. Makes no sense.

The cost to deal with it also sounds too costly. It isn't like anti-biotics and their equivalent is overly abundant. However team Hinterland is right to want to increase the consumption of Relishi tea as right now it is very rarely consumed. 

Were the rate 1% You'd still have almost a 100% chance on the last 5 pieces of meat combined 20%,18%,16%,14%,12% = overall 80% and a 1% rate makes much more sense. But the cost is still too out of line. A 14 treatment course? Come on you guys :) "Surely you jest"

 

Last thoughts. Why not make this mechanic work like this with a cut off similar to how cabin fever works? Clearly the way food works is you "eat it" and then later "drop it" and by drop it I mean "Who does #2 work for!" Extend it out so every piece of predator meat in the the last 96 hours. counts. Bump the rate up from 2% to 4% per chunk. Scratch the 'forever' cumulative rate so unrealistic, nobody would ever eat meat were this the case. 

So starting from zero if you eat 5 chunks of predator meat you get odds of 4%, 8%, 12%, 16%, & 20% = 60% combined parasite odds. Say you don't eat your next piece until 96 after the last piece, then your rate would again start over at 4%. If you ate 4 pieces prior to 96 hours ago but 1 piece since within that 96 hour window you'd have an 8% chance on that next piece for a combined rate of 4% + 8%. That way if you eat a lot of predator meat in a short amount of time you almost guarantee a parasitic infection.

In this way, more predator meat you eat =  the higher odds of parasites, but the numbers aren't so ridiculous.

Onion and garlic also clear out parasites pretty well too. Maybe we could model this. 

With the current system you could never eat a whole bear because the combined parasite infection rate on 20 pieces would be huge 420%. My proposed system would allow you to still consume an entire bear before the meat goes bad after being cooked without guaranteeing parasitic infection. This would be accomplished by doing one of two things either A. Staggering days where eat predator meat and non-predator meat or B. Eating predator meat at such a low rate as to minimize parasitic infection risk. Obviously using method A or B would still carry some risk but it would be lower than cumulative eventual risk by the existing system. If I ate up to 5 pieces then took a 96 hour break from predator meat and repeated my combined risk would never be more than 60% which is still high but better than guaranteed infection. If I at 1 piece per day maximum Id carry a 4% risk per day and a 20% risk over 5 days which seems to me to be much smarter and more realistic and still accomplished the goal of penalizing the player for gorging themselves on predator meat. 

From another Angle. I think with the changes to wolves, torches and fires, wolf calories and certainly bear calories just got a lot more risky to acquire as well. 

 

Edited by KD7BCH
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Personally I as of yet don't have a problem with the forever chance of developing parasitic infection with consumption of carnivorous meat. As long as I can collect birch bark and make tea from it as a remedy, I would continue harvesting meat from wolves and incorporating birch bark tea into my regular diet. 

IRL parasitism is a fact of life. I was shocked to learn that there is no medicine in the world that can completely eliminate parasites from our food sources, pets, or ourselves. What matters is that our parasite burden stays low enough not to cause problems for us. So a 2% chance of developing clinical parasitism (where signs develop and cause issues for us) is, as far as I am concerned, a "Shut up and deal with it" element.

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I'll chime in real quick on this topic as I am curious about the long term game play impact.

If the probability of contracting intestinal parasites increases by 2 percent each instance I believe you are practically statistically guaranteed to contract within 20 to 25 instances of consuming carnivorous meat. This is how I understand the mechanic as explained.

With a static 2 percent chance each instance that guarantee is stretched out to closer to 230 to 250 instances. Still a serious threat in my opinion. Especially considering just 36 pieces of carnivorous meat still approaches a 50 percent chance of contracting. I would even argue that there would still need to be a way to reasonably manage the ailment other than antibiotics. Perhaps, as others suggested, bark tea. I do believe this resource should be limited though, so you can't mitigate the risk of parasites completely and easily.

If the mechanic is how I noted in the first scenario I would suggest that is a bit too harsh. If the percentage is a static 2 however, it seems a bit more balanced for risk vs reward gameplay.

This is assuming my basic probability calculations are correct, I've been out of school from quite some time....

I am curious how other feel on the topic. Was my assumption correct about the ever increasing probability? 

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8 hours ago, Scyzara said:

If the parasite treatment required birch bark tea instead, people wouldn't be that afraid of parasites any more imo as birch bark is infinite. But they would still need to prepare for the emergency and make trips to places where birches grow in order to collect the bark. I for one would certainly like that! And to make parasite infections non-trivial, cooking one birch tea could e.g. require 6 birch barks. For a 12 day treatment you would thus need more than 70 pieces of birch bark. I guess that's incentive enough to make regular bark collection trips to PV, TWM or the Ravine. Would be a nice new activity to help combat cabin fever a bit, I guess.

Agree that this would be more interesting from a gameplay perspective (risk/reward of eating bear/wolf) but 70 birch bark pieces is a little ridiculous! So far I've only managed to find 2 at any one time when I go looking. Spending 35 (or more) in game days preparing for a cure would be somewhat boring. I'd be fine with 1 piece to 1 cup. That way it still takes 14 pieces for a full treatment.

Also, I wonder if you can take birch bark tea or other worms treatment as a prophylactic? I don't think there'd be any negative effects...

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13 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Agree that this would be more interesting from a gameplay perspective (risk/reward of eating bear/wolf) but 70 birch bark pieces is a little ridiculous! So far I've only managed to find 2 at any one time when I go looking. Spending 35 (or more) in game days preparing for a cure would be somewhat boring. I'd be fine with 1 piece to 1 cup. That way it still takes 14 pieces for a full treatment.

I would say 2 or 3 pieces per cup. I find a lot of bark in the Ravine.

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19 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Agree that this would be more interesting from a gameplay perspective (risk/reward of eating bear/wolf) but 70 birch bark pieces is a little ridiculous! So far I've only managed to find 2 at any one time when I go looking. Spending 35 (or more) in game days preparing for a cure would be somewhat boring. I'd be fine with 1 piece to 1 cup. That way it still takes 14 pieces for a full treatment.

Also, I wonder if you can take birch bark tea or other worms treatment as a prophylactic? I don't think there'd be any negative effects...

Nah, I wouldn't take it as a prophylactic. You'd just spend more time scavenging the Ravine for birch bark.

I'd just eat bear and wolf meat occasionally or infrequently and drink the stuff when I need it . . .

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13 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Agree that this would be more interesting from a gameplay perspective (risk/reward of eating bear/wolf) but 70 birch bark pieces is a little ridiculous! So far I've only managed to find 2 at any one time when I go looking. Spending 35 (or more) in game days preparing for a cure would be somewhat boring. I'd be fine with 1 piece to 1 cup. That way it still takes 14 pieces for a full treatment.

Try visiting the big birch forest in Pleasant valley near the Red Barn. :winky:

One trip there and you'll find at least 30 pieces of birch bark at once. That's why I picked 72 as a number - about 2 or 3 trips to such a place would be a fair "price" to cure a parasite infection imo. The Devs could theoretically add some more birch trees to the Ravine, TWM or possibly even all maps to make the bark a little easier to gather of course.:normal:

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