Eating snow

[Hotzn]

I'd like to discuss the (hitherto nonexistant) ability to eat snow in the game. It is a common source of criticism from some players that it is impossible to eat snow in TLD, and as a consequence that we can die from thirst, surrounded by snow (or, in other words, frozen water). Now back when TLD had just a few game mechanisms that you had to discover and master as a player, the inability to eat snow seemed adequate to me. It was just a mechanism (or, to be more precise, the absence of a mechanism) I accepted. You had to discover or learn how to melt snow, and that was that. Now the game has evolved in a direction where we often have different ways of solving a problem - tools have various ways to use them, and often one tool can be replaced with another (albeit with a difference in effectiveness). In the light of this, should we not think again about eating snow? In my opinion this could be introduced with two drawbacks - a loss of warmth and a small risk of food poisoning (which could stack). This would need some tuning, but in the end could fit nicely into the network of other existing mechanisms in the game. And it would help shutting down some of the "realism" critics.

[hauteecolerider]

This has been discussed before.

Eating snow increases the risk of hypothermia, as your body now has to warm the snow up to a usable temperature. It also increases the risk of infection by opportunistic bacteria.

Personally, it is not something I would do. Sorry. 

Sure, it can be added to the game as another stupid thing to do, but the benefits just aren't worth the risks. So why? If you want to shorten your life, there are better ways to do it. Like waking up a sleeping bear. 

Parasitism and food poisoning from eating raw meat is a worthwhile risk, because the benefits still outweigh the risk. But eating snow is not similarly balanced. It ranks on the scale of stupid "survival myths" next to drinking urine. I'm not sure the devs see that as contributing to their vision of the game. 

[Hotzn]

27 minutes ago, hauteecolerider said:

This has been discussed before.

Eating snow increases the risk of hypothermia, as your body now has to warm the snow up to a usable temperature. It also increases the risk of infection by opportunistic bacteria.

Personally, it is not something I would do. Sorry. 

Sure, it can be added to the game as another stupid thing to do, but the benefits just aren't worth the risks. So why? If you want to shorten your life, there are better ways to do it. Like waking up a sleeping bear. 

Parasitism and food poisoning from eating raw meat is a worthwhile risk, because the benefits still outweigh the risk. But eating snow is not similarly balanced. It ranks on the scale of stupid "survival myths" next to drinking urine. I'm not sure the devs see that as contributing to their vision of the game. 

You are absolutely right and reasonable. Still, I think offering the possibility to do stupid things and experience the consequences makes the game better. Basically, this game is all about offering possibilities to do something stupid - you can go out naked, you can leave your bedroll at home when going on a long trip, you can step into your campfire and burn yourself, you can eat decayed meat, you can walk up to a bear. If it was impossible in the game to eat meat below 50% condition, many players would dislike it, saying, "why can't I eat old meat? In real life I can eat any kind of meat! It's unrealistic!" - But I haven't seen a single player complain about getting food poisoning from eating old meat. People understand that, even if they do not see it coming the first time they do it in the game. I can sort of understand people complaining about not being able to eat snow before dying from thirst. It may be stupid to do, but it stands to reason you would do it before dying from thirst. Maybe you would die from hypothermia or get poisoned, but people would stop and think, "aha, I get cold when I eat snow... must think of something else."

[Hotzn]

To avoid confusion - I would personally try to avoid eating snow in the game, just as I try to avoid getting food poisoning and other ailments. I just think the possibility should be added to the game. Granted, it is not something that would make the game largely better. But it would kind of... close a gap. And I think it would be easy to implement - just add a symbol for it on the radial menu which works anywhere outside.

[RighteousFury]

If you are out in a frozen wasteland, DO NOT EAT SNOW! Your body will use more energy melting and digesting the snow than it will get energy from the snow.

 

Also read this for some other reasons.

http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1619

[swein]

I feel that I must protest a little here at least. I we leave the game for a moment, freezing to death is not the normal condition while out in the frozen wilderness.If you are working hard you are more likely to be sweating - which in itself might lead to freezing to death later if your clothes get too wet. I find eating snow a good way to refresh yourself and keep you from sweating too hard. And as for bacteria I must say it is silly to be afraid of such out in the wild - just you avoid that yellow snow! :-)

Back to the game. I am a newbie and are just doing noob stuff soo far. I have quickly freezed to death in all cases but one. In that case I began at the trappers lodge and was highly frustrated when I was slowly - no! rather quickly - dying of thirst. I am warm and well fed. I have fire in the fireplace and the world is full of fresh snow, but I am dying of thirst! After less than 24 hours! I could find no way to interact with the snow, and the pots and cans in the lodge were just integrated parts of the tables and shelves. It made me somewhat upset in fact. :-)   I can understand that they like to have that function in the game even if it must be extremely rare in real life that somebody is both dying of thirst and freezing to death at the same time, but when it is such an obvious thing to do, to take snow in a pot over the fire to melt it - why is not immediately available when you have the stuff?

But if I understand you correctly you can learn how to melt snow. Is that so, and how do I accomplish that?

Also, game-wise, I think snow eating would be a nice function to have. It brings down your thirst but cools down your body. One more thing for the gamer to think about.

PS. Yes, drinking urine is of course also a good thing to do if you are dying from thirst!

[Scyzara]

12 hours ago, swein said:

But if I understand you correctly you can learn how to melt snow. Is that so, and how do I accomplish that?

You don't have to learn it, your character knows how to melt snow right from the start. You just need to start a campfire (for which you need some matches, a few sticks and a bit of tinder which you can harvest from sticks), nothing else. You can basically melt your first liter of snow within 10 ingame minutes or so. 

To melt snow, you need to klick on the water droplet symbol in the fire-making UI once the fire is burning. (I would love to take a screenshot for you, but I've updated my game to exp. branch and don't want to post an exp. branch screenshot outside the test forum.^^)

[cekivi]

As for the original post, as @swein said (welcome to the forums by the way! ) you're usually sweating so a little snow to cool off is a good thing. Eat snow at night with no fire right before bed? Yeah, you'll probably get hypothermic and never wake up. Munch on some snow while jogging through the woods? No problem. I've been doing it for over two decades and I am clearly not dead

[swein]

Thank you cekivi! And thanks to Scyzara for the "pro tip". I must definitely pay more attention to icons appearing here and there. I died from a sprained ankle and hand as I didn't get how to use the pills and bandages. I tried to do it through the inventory, but all I could do was drop them... :-P

Feeling like the noob I am :-)

 

[cekivi]

You'll get better

Sprained ankles though shouldn't be fatal. 4 hours of rest (with your condition bars all maxed) will cure a sprain without painkillers.

[strigon]

On 5/4/2016 at 5:24 PM, RighteousFury said:

If you are out in a frozen wasteland, DO NOT EAT SNOW! Your body will use more energy melting and digesting the snow than it will get energy from the snow.

Well, if you're eating snow in an attempt to gain energy, quite frankly this isn't the game for you.

On another note, I can think of some circumstances in which the ability to even eat a small amount of snow would save your life - suppose, for example, you're out of water and matches, but you have quite a warm place to stay. All you need is enough water to survive a trip to look for matches, and you can afford to take the risk of hypothermia and disease - because the alternative is certain death. In such a situation, I'd eat snow.
Granted, it might be convoluted, but if you're ever actually in such a situation it would seem like quite the oversight.

[cekivi]

Welcome to the forums @strigon!

[strigon]

1 hour ago, cekivi said:

Welcome to the forums @strigon!

Thanks; seems like a nice community!

[Berniyh]

Actually the character sometimes leaves a quote if thirsty: "I'd eat snow if hypothermia wouldn't kill me …"