Nature vs you

[cekivi]

Yeah but the problem with cougars is they're either going to have the same mechanics (as you described above) as wolves (in which case why add them?) or they're going to be unstoppable killing machines that pounce from nowhere. If you can see cougars and track cougars and scare away cougars... then they're just wolves in brown coats.

[vancopower]

I guess malnutrition fits this category due to prolonged  starvation. This should've been added ages ago together with hypothermia I don't know why it was left out I guess the devs don't value food as much as I do .   My suggestion is this: If you are bellow the first hunger bar for 5-6 days malnutrition appears with same effects as hypothermia massive loss of fatigue. The cure for malnutrition will be staying above the 2nd hunger bar for 24 hours or in other words above 50%. This will make the game more challenging but also fun. I don't know for other people but for me starving to preserve food seems like an exploit, sure in crisis you will but in 5 days you have to have your fill.

[Dirmagnos]

Staying below 25% hunger bar means that protagonist is just hungry, eating should fix it, malnutrition would require prolonged stay below 0 and would take far more than 1 day to fix.

Imo, in addition to condition loss, there should several hidden condition bars for each category, so as far as player reaches 0 in particular stat, a counter starts, counting down, with each count there is a possibility to cause one of several severe negative conditions. The longer counter counts, higher is the chance for negative condition occurs, eg 1% for first hour, 2% for next hour, 3% for next hour, etc And each hour a roll is made for all eligible conditions based on those probabilities(with modifiers based on player history, eg if played had hypothermia in last few days, hel be more susceptible to cold-based negative conditions). Going above 0 does not reset counter, but merely makes it count in reverse back to 0%.

At the same time, getting above 75% of particular status, triggers similar hidden counters, but for positive conditions.

Negative conditions(lvl1) would require to perform certain actions to get rid of them and/or have time factor. If those are not followed, condition is upgraded to severe(lvl2), and then to chronic(lvl3). Chronic condition cannot be cured, but can be managed and have a bit different, less severe penalties, but would require constant attention and increase chances for lvl1 and lvl2 negative conditions to occur. Positive conditions would work in a similar way(but no chronic conditions), but they would be on considerable shorter timer and to keep them on, player would have to maintain certain levels or perform certain actions. Like keeping food gauge above 75% would have a chance to cause "well fed" condition, in turn, "well fed" has a chance to cause "improved stamina" or "improved strength" condition. There also could be combined conditions, that depend on several factors - "its cold, your stomach is empty and havent seen food for days, youre down to your last bottle of water and have only one bullet left in your rifle, its time to end it" depression as opposed to "its a beautiful morning, you slept like a child, breakfast was good, sun is shining and you are in good spirits, world is your playground" energetic.

To compliment that, condition loss from 0 statuses should be halved and several 0 statuses should be cumulative, not as it is right now, where 1 or 3 statuses at 0, condition loss is same. At the same time condition gain from sleeping should be reduced by 2/3, and that can be further reduced by 0 statuses.

[SteveP]

Malnutrition is an interesting idea.

Vitamin C is an important concern in winter conditions and could be cured by rose hip tea and maybe pine needle tea. Lack of vitamin C causes scurvy. Fatigue and shortness of breath are symptoms of scurvy: http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Scurvy/Pages/Symptoms.aspx Scurvy can develop in a month or two. In game it might take 7-14 days.

Rickets is another malnutrition condition caused by lack of vitamin-D from lack of sun exposure. It makes one prone to bone fractures, weak and eventually muscle spasms. If ignored, you can loose teeth and this could have severe survival impacts. The Inuit don't get this condition since they eat a lot of fish especially char (trout) as well as vitamin-D saturated fats such as seal and walrus meat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickets It takes about a month or two to become Vitamin D deficient. so in game maybe 7-14 days on a rabbit and deer only diet. Bear meat, which is fatty, should prevent vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is fat soluble. Fish and bear meat or exposure to sunlight should cure or prevent it. Certain fungi (mushrooms) may also contain sterols necessary to synthesize vitamin D.

Rabbit starvation is caused by a lack of fat in the diet such as exclusively eating rabbits. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, headache, fatigue, low blood pressure and slow heart rate, and a vague discomfort and hunger (very similar to a food craving) that can be satisfied only by the consumption of fat. If you have carbohydrates in the diet, it can prevent rabbit starvation so cattail stalks would prevent it as would high fat foods such as fish and bear meat. Eating only wolf, deer or rabbit meat could cause it. Symptoms (nausea) can occur in as little as three days with death in a few weeks. Rabbit starvation In game it could develop in 3 days but be rapidly cured merely by consuming fatty food (fish, bear meat) Eating processed foods early in the game would prevent rabbit starvation as would cattails. The player could complain of being hungry despite being well fed on high protein meat. Craving for butter or fat would be something the player would also experience and complain about.

In order to implement in game, it looks like we would need three internal counters that are either decreased or cured by consumption of certain foods. You could build up fat reserves that would delay rabbit starvation onset. You can also store vitamin D in your body fat but you still need a source. Vitamin and fat reserves would not necessarily be displayed on the status screen although body fat could be added aside from the calorie energy supply. Other important vitamins could also be tracked such as vitamins A, B and minerals Fe, Mg, Ca.

[Packet802]

There are plenty of tweaks that should be made to some existing risks - for example:

Sprains shouldn't just be magically and instantly healed with painkillers.  Painkillers don't "cure" sprains only time and rest should do that. 

Let's say for sprained ankle - movement is reduced by 50% and it requires 24 hours of complete rest to fully heal.  Painkillers can mitigate the movement penalty by 25% for 8 hours at a time.  Any further injury resets the 24 hour timer.  Lets say rest can consist of sleeping or moving slowly indoors or moving very minimal distances outdoors on flat surfaces as long as there's no running or hills or anything.  The chance of additional sprains is increased by 50% while moving and if that happens it resets the 24 hour timer.

Sprained wrists - no weapons, no chopping wood, no crafting, cooking times increased by 25%.  Painkillers can mitigate these penalties - you can use a weapon but you won't be able to hold it as steady.  Chopping wood and crafting takes 50% longer and maybe cooking can be normal.  Again rest and not engaging in these activities for 24 hours is needed for complete cure and the chance for additional sprains is increased if any of these activities are done.  Of course these percentages and times are just initial estimates and can be tweaked accordingly.

Exhaustion should be more dangerous.  Seems like you can be completely exhausted and keep on cooking, crafting or traveling without much of a penalty except for reduced weight limits. Crafting or cooking while exhausted should have a higher chance of failure resulting in loss of materials and/or some kind of injury. Eventually you should just pass out for a random amount of time where you're at and if that happens to be outside at night and a blizzard comes oh well.  

Crafting itself should be skill based with the potential to fail based on skill level, exhaustion, etc.  Let's say you don't lose materials outright but your final product will be less than perfect.  You can create an item that starts off at 85% and can only be repaired to that level so you'll have to skill up and try again later.  Just a few ideas....

  

[Boston123]

18 hours ago, SteveP said:

 

Rabbit starvation is caused by a lack of fat in the diet such as exclusively eating rabbits. Symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, headache, fatigue, low blood pressure and slow heart rate, and a vague discomfort and hunger (very similar to a food craving) that can be satisfied only by the consumption of fat. If you have carbohydrates in the diet, it can prevent rabbit starvation so cattail stalks would prevent it as would high fat foods such as fish and bear meat. Eating only wolf, deer or rabbit meat could cause it. Symptoms (nausea) can occur in as little as three days with death in a few weeks. Rabbit starvation In game it could develop in 3 days but be rapidly cured merely by consuming fatty food (fish, bear meat) Eating processed foods early in the game would prevent rabbit starvation as would cattails. The player could complain of being hungry despite being well fed on high protein meat. Craving for butter or fat would be something the player would also experience and complain about.

In order to implement in game, it looks like we would need three internal counters that are either decreased or cured by consumption of certain foods. You could build up fat reserves that would delay rabbit starvation onset. You can also store vitamin D in your body fat but you still need a source. Vitamin and fat reserves would not necessarily be displayed on the status screen although body fat could be added aside from the calorie energy supply. Other important vitamins could also be tracked such as vitamins A, B and minerals Fe, Mg, Ca.

"Rabbit Starvation" isn't just caused by eating rabbit meat. You can get "Rabbit Starvation" when eating large game as well, it is just more difficult, as large-game-meat has fat "marbled" throughout the muscle fibers, while small game like squirrel and rabbit tend to have fat and meat seperate.

 

It also doesn't help that we cook food in literally the least efficient way possible: roasting. ALL of the fat is going to waste.

[SteveP]

4 hours ago, Boston123 said:

"Rabbit Starvation" isn't just caused by eating rabbit meat. You can get "Rabbit Starvation" when eating large game as well, it is just more difficult, as large-game-meat has fat "marbled" throughout the muscle fibers, while small game like squirrel and rabbit tend to have fat and meat seperate.

 

It also doesn't help that we cook food in literally the least efficient way possible: roasting. ALL of the fat is going to waste.

+1 for soup! If the deer are starving, they won't have much fat on them. fortunately they seem able to eat snow! ;-)

I think this would make more sense if the game had extended survival such as meat preservation. You can live in winter off pemmican, which contains rendered fat IIRC but not on jerky which is all protein.

Scurvy is more difficult to combat; heat destroys vitamin C however the pine needle  infusions seem to have high amounts of vitamin C. Most animals can synthesize vitamin C but we primates cannot since our metabolic heritage includes eating fruit and later, berries.

[SteveP]

What other risks does the survivor in the Canadian North face? avalanches is certainly a very real one. I suppose you could also have a situation where you loose your footing and go sliding down a steep incline suffering broken bones and contusions.

Other physical injuries could include widowmakers. Widowmaker or fool killer describes a detached or broken limb or tree top and denotes the hazards that such features cause, being responsible for causing fatalities. It also refers to dead trees or even live trees rooted in unstable sandy conditions that can fall during a high wind storm. We see plenty of evidence of broken branches and sticks yet we don't see them fall in the game. We could add hazardous trees with dead limbs that could be triggered during high winds. A large tree might groan and give other warnings such as splintering and cracking noises which the player must heed or risk death. Smaller sticks could present dangers of physical injuries including temporary unconsciousness, bleeding and mechanical injuries. Precautions including scouting your camping area for trees with dead branches. This web page describes techniques for removing hung-up branches and limbs including tossing a weighted rope thrown over the dangerous tree/limb. Then a flip-flop winch can be used to exert enough force to carefully bring down the leaning tree in a safe direction.

I guess we can summarize injury risks from animals in a single category. New wildlife such as elk or moose could pose a hazard. Even small deer can be dangerous to humans if they perceive a threat to their young or are cornered.

[hauteecolerider]

On March 26, 2016 at 10:58 AM, SteveP said:

Rickets is another malnutrition condition caused by lack of vitamin-D from lack of sun exposure. It makes one prone to bone fractures, weak and eventually muscle spasms. If ignored, you can loose teeth and this could have severe survival impacts. The Inuit don't get this condition since they eat a lot of fish especially char (trout) as well as vitamin-D saturated fats such as seal and walrus meat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rickets It takes about a month or two to become Vitamin D deficient. so in game maybe 7-14 days on a rabbit and deer only diet. Bear meat, which is fatty, should prevent vitamin D deficiency. Vitamin D is fat soluble. Fish and bear meat or exposure to sunlight should cure or prevent it. Certain fungi (mushrooms) may also contain sterols necessary to synthesize vitamin D.

Vitamin D deficiency is a serious risk in the upper latitudes during the winter months because not only of the decreased amount of sunlight, but also because we tend to bundle up and cover more of our skin during the cold weather. We can't synthesize enough vitamin D if our skin is completely or even 80% covered by clothing. It is the main reason why osteoporosis is so prevalent in these parts of the world, compared to the equatorial latitudes. So if one is suffering from vitamin D deficiency, it's not enough to spend the day outside in the sun (unless you take all of your clothes off, in which case you would simply freeze to death). You will have to look to the diet to replace the missing vitamins. 

This is where fishing can actually become valid - fatty fish (such as the Inuit eat) can become an extremely valuable source. The fungi mentioned above need to be those growing aboveground in sunlit areas. Reishi mushrooms might be good options - I've only seen them on stumps which make me think they grow because there is no shade above the stump. I could be wrong, but so far I can recall finding them only on stumps, so . . .

 

[Rusty_Old_F250]

Hmmm.... the more i think about it, the more I like it. Add certain visual clues, (limb hanging down, obvious damage etc etc) just to prevent it from being random and a sliding scale of risk, no wind=very very low chance, breeze=low chance, etc etc. 

When a limb falls, first you hear the snapping and crackling, the camera pans up at the suspect tree (so we don't just have to run in a random direction) and we've only got a few seconds to dive out of the way. Add the option to "dive" to cover that last little bit of ground (faster than sprinting, but leaves you laying on the ground immobile for a couple seconds) and have it becomes less effective the more we are overloaded (like sprinting) and at a certain point it just makes you flop over. 

Here's how I see it going down: *CRACKLE! POP!* "(short terrified comment from character)" Then have VERY short amount of time to react by running, running and diving or just diving  Then -*SNAP!!* The limb comes down and hopefully you were out of the way. Damage calculated by how close you are to the branch

 A successful escape results in no condition loss and MAYBE minor scratches/scrapes, but getting clobbered leaves you unconscious for a while and you wake up with lowered condition, potential sprains, damaged clothes and gear BUT it should only be able to kill you if you get hit with less than 50% condition.

I like it, what do you guys think? It could make traveling overloaded substantially more dangerous.

Sam

[Aelaera]

I love so many of these ideas so much. I would feel better if Hinterlands toned down the animal danger and added alot of this environmental danger. I feel like it can become too easy to survive for an experienced player- I still know of people on this forum who've survived over a technical year on Stalker difficulty, relatively easily. I like the idea of nowhere being safe, basically never being able to relax because, lets be honest, if this was you in this situation, the real world wouldn't let you relax either. That being said, each environmental hazard would be separate enough (i.e You don't have an avalanche risk at the Ranger's Station in Pleasant Valley- but you will all across Timberwolf Mountain and any other mountainous areas, but obviously coalfall can't happen anywhere but in the mines and widowmakers would be a danger heavily present in areas such as the Logging Camp (it's entirely plausible that they are a few branches a logger never finished cutting due to wolf/weather/global disaster interference- meaning heavy snow PLUS heavy winds could make that place a very dangerous spot) but in a forest of pine you'd never have that danger due to the nature of the tree). 

I also have been a long time advocate of thin ice being a bigger danger. I like how they used it as a map barrier instead of just an invisible wall so it doesn't break immersion, but I think, like @cekivi said, it would be very present on rivers and honestly it could even exist on Mystery Lake itself. Just because the water isn't fast moving, doesn't mean it's guaranteed to all freeze at the exact same thickness. Patches of unsafe ice on the lake would likely be differently shaded and would make a cracking sound when you stepped on it. But unlike map edge thin ice, I'd hate to die from falling in instantly just because I stumbled into it while running from a wolf. There should definitely be a way to pull yourself out, whether it be a QTE (while you lose condition at a rapid rate) that is improved by whether or not you have an item to pierce the ice (a pick, hatchet, even a knife could all be useful to penetrate the nearby ice and give the survivor an easier time pulling themselves out.) 

Also in the same breath as thin ice, wetness is a mechanic I feel like needs to be incorporated. Running has already been changed in a positive manner so I can't just prance across the map like a deer in spring, but in the twelve layers of jackets, four beanies, six pants and twenty-five socks you should be wearing to avoid freezing to death, sprinting would also make you sweaty and fast. Any form of wetness is one of the worst killers in cold weather because it lowers your body heat that much faster. I would like to see wetness incorporated that depending upon how saturated you are, could be fixed in several ways. Small amounts of wetness (<20%) could go away on its own after a certain period of time. Once you passed a certain saturation point (20% and over) you must actively fix it. At lower amounts of the saturation you could simply sit by the fire for an hour to dry off, but potentially as it got higher, you would need to actually remove your clothing and dry them out near the fire. As a general rule, being naked next to a fire is no better than being covered in wet clothes next to a fire, so it would reward players who are prepared and keep an extra sweater or two nearby.  

[Kornél]

Stepping to a snow cornice should be a very real danger, in mountaneering it's kind of a golden rule to avoid them but in the current version there is no chance it could ever fall off. 

[cekivi]

1 hour ago, Kornél said:

Stepping to a snow cornice should be a very real danger, in mountaneering it's kind of a golden rule to avoid them but in the current version there is no chance it could ever fall off. 

True but I don't think there are any in the game at present. At least I don't remember seeing them...

[cekivi]

2 hours ago, Aelaera said:

Also in the same breath as thin ice, wetness is a mechanic I feel like needs to be incorporated. Running has already been changed in a positive manner so I can't just prance across the map like a deer in spring, but in the twelve layers of jackets, four beanies, six pants and twenty-five socks you should be wearing to avoid freezing to death, sprinting would also make you sweaty and fast. Any form of wetness is one of the worst killers in cold weather because it lowers your body heat that much faster. I would like to see wetness incorporated that depending upon how saturated you are, could be fixed in several ways. Small amounts of wetness (<20%) could go away on its own after a certain period of time. Once you passed a certain saturation point (20% and over) you must actively fix it. At lower amounts of the saturation you could simply sit by the fire for an hour to dry off, but potentially as it got higher, you would need to actually remove your clothing and dry them out near the fire. As a general rule, being naked next to a fire is no better than being covered in wet clothes next to a fire, so it would reward players who are prepared and keep an extra sweater or two nearby.  

Sweating's actually been proposed a few times as have damp clothes. It would certainly add a new dynamic to the game that would be very interesting to play around

[Kornél]

Me neither but as the topic's title is new risk ideas I thought it could be a nice addition later on. It's less deadly than avalanches (but still poses great danger) and easily recognizable so the player can avoid it with paying attention.

It was discussed earlier in the forum but slipping and falling without the proper shoes in heavy wind while walking on ice would be great. 

And +1 for the falling trees, it reminds me to the Road, would be cool to have that feature

[Ruruwawa]

I realize this is an older thread but I wasn't around when it first came out so... 

Snow Drifts are interesting but sound a little complex from an implementation perspective.  How about snowbound instead?  Enter a building or car during a blizzard and there's a chance you can't open the door to get out again until the weather warms up a couple hours later.  Or maybe when the blizzard ends.

Rare equipment drops might be more engaging gameplay if you had to find salvage parts from multiple ruined, rare-quality tools and then combine them to reconstruct that titanium hatchet (or whatever).  Do you drag around the 1 kilo salvaged handle in hopes of finding a good hatchet head?  How far do you travel, and which risks do you run in your search?

 

[cekivi]

It'd be nice to see rare equipment make it into the game. I suspect it will be one of the first things added when modding is opened after custom difficulty modes

You don't want to trap players inside a location though. Spring is a long way off if you're in a place with no food or water...

There must always be an option to exit/enter a place if snowdrifts are implemented

[lupineways]

On 3/23/2016 at 10:45 AM, Vhalkyrie said:

I'd be ok with avalanches or mine collapse as long as they were something that was caused by my action or inaction.  All of my deaths to date have been due to my stupid choices, ignorance, or lack of preparation. In other words, they were avoidable in some way. 

If it was pure RNG, I would not like that.

Agreed

[knightjoke]

they will make cannoe in future right? how will we get it in water if theres only ice ?

[cekivi]

41 minutes ago, knightjoke said:

they will make cannoe in future right? how will we get it in water if theres only ice ?

One of the roadmap items is seasons. So, if a canoe makes it into the game it will be for traversing the lakes, rivers and ocean in the spring, summer and fall.

[SteelFire]

25 minutes ago, knightjoke said:

they will make cannoe in future right? how will we get it in water if theres only ice ?

Spring thaw. Canoes are for when warmer seasons are added, not winter.

 

I like most of the ideas I see in this thread, they would definitely add some additional risk elements. thought I'm still not sure a lot of them will change the fact that there comes a point where your only real risk is a long-term lack of being able to start fires some far, far day in the future. I really like the idea of fat as a resource, say from bear and moose (when added), because it could be used for multiple long-term lighting resources along with long term food resources/storage.

Not so sure about avalanches though, mainly from a mechanics point of view. If one happened, either player caused or random, all that snow and debris has to go somewhere. Those massively deep snow fields and debris would have to either be strategically placed so they didn't completely block off pathways/sections of map. Not necessarily a terrible idea, but if you trapped a player someplace they had no way to get out of, then that's no fun. How long would the debris/snow fields persist; until spring thaws or until a simple timer expires? The latter wouldn't be very realistic, at all. Waiting for a thaw... well, I would suspect the most likely places for such avalanches, like Timberwolf Mountain, never see thaws except in the lower basin; you've already picked up a good bit of elevation just getting to the zone.

On the other hand... could the leftovers from an avalanche be a boon of resources? Downed trees, gouged up rocks/coal, other wildlife swept up and killed, random bodies/gear uncovered and swept along to end up in the debris field. Could a player purposely trigger an avalanche to get rid of a pesky bear roaming around in the area? It would still be a heck of a mechanic to try and manage, but if it could be managed and balanced for bad/good, it would be an interesting twist.

[Ruruwawa]

7 hours ago, cekivi said:

You don't want to trap players inside a location though. Spring is a long way off if you're in a place with no food or water...

There must always be an option to exit/enter a place if snowdrifts are implemented

Hehe, I was thinking a couple hours later in the day, or dawn if trapped at night.  Or maybe just until the blizzard ends.

[cekivi]

3 minutes ago, Ruruwawa said:

Hehe, I was thinking a couple hours later in the day, or dawn if trapped at night.  Or maybe just until the blizzard ends.

Far more reasonable

[CarolinaSantAngelo]

When I get out of a building I'm always looking everywhere in case I find myself without realizing in front of a wolf or if luck is really good that day, a bear. I do like the danger, but I think I like the idea of the wind, the trees and the enviroment to be more of a danger in the future, in the same way I'm always having to check for the weather and my general condition.

I thought about things that could happen realistically and one would have to be aware good part of the time to not get injured by them.

I'm underlaying because one thing I think this game has and that it is important: You should be able to avoid things because you were paying attention. In this game we usually die because we did mistakes, and events that are random and one can't avoid would kind of ruin that.

If an avalanche happens and I was at fault because I didn't pay attention to the signs and I COULD have prevented it... well, I like the idea. (Dying just because, not so much)

Here are my thoughts:

• Avalanches: In places like TM or steep enough ground where it's clear they could happen. 

 

• Falling trees: we see many of them around, if we are in the middle of a blizzard of if the wind is strong enough we could get sounds warning and start watching where we are because something is probably about to fall. 

 

• Falling branches: Yes, the same ones we collect after a strong wind could fall on us and we would have a nice day because of it. When wind picks up we would try to avoid being under many trees.

 

• Weak Ice in some places: We have it on the edge of a map because of design, but it would be cool if some areas like in the waterfalls or fast waters/rivers would have it. We shouldn't get the "weak ice" notice, we should hear the ice and it should probably have a characteristic look. 

 

• Slip on the ice:  I've got to admit I've never walked on Ice like that in real life so i don't know the details, but the first thing I did when I started playing The Long Dark is not running on the ice, because my logic said: bad action, bad things will happen, you will slide and have a broken leg. Wouldn't there be a huge possibility to slip and fall without appropriate footing? Maybe make it so that we can't really run on the ice (or that we have a very good possibility of falling and getting an sprain like with other surfaces) unless we have certain things like the work boots, etc, or to make it simple, forget the type of footwear, but running on the ice has a % possibility of giving you a sprain. 

 

• Falling rocks: it happens all the time on the mountains and this are pretty much worse than avalanches, I guess it would be a little too deadly. Or they could be in the caves, nothing to big as again, way to deadly, but they could cause injuries (I researched and things falling on you in caves are the second reason for injury in them, specially on their entrances because of wind and the like). 

 

• Forest fires: Lighting in winter is really rare, but maybe with the Aurora  happening it could be possible and a way to explain it. (They could happen in other season afterwards)  It  would be cool to find yourself having to move from an area of a map because it was decimated  by fires, also, once the seasons' circle is done, the zone could recover, but slowly.  Of course, the fires wouldn't be common (and probably the chances of it happening should be after certain days survived), but definitely something that could keep you on your toes later in the game.
•  
• Impossible to walk winds: we do get slow when the wind hits us in the long dark, but what I want, once in a while is to get the kind of wind that simply doesn't let us continue in the direction is flowing from (even moving us), so it forces us to change plans (maybe we were walking to our base) and turn around and go to another safe location till it has passed. 

•  
• Longer nights, shorter days when seasons actually become a thing: it would be interesting to see when seasons are implemented and a full circle is going on that the time we have for example in winter is short at some point, (this game does happen to be called The Long Dark), so we have to make sure in the others seasons to stock enough to get us through Winter, as it is a season in which the day gets shorter and shorter and by default colder and colder, because less sunlight, less time to "heat up" the place. So at some point we may end up with only 6 hours of daylight and we would have to plan our day extremely well to make the most of it. I do mean this when the seasons are up and about, because I have the feeling it will be quite impossible to play a lot and do the exploring in the sandbox and only winter happening. (I eventually found some posts and apparently it was a characteristic of the early game to have less light and it didn't work that well)

 

1. With seasons going the game would go through phases and maybe the shorter/longer days could work: Starts in the beginning of winter, you have a lot of hours so far but it does start to get difficult and darker so at first what you really need is to survive this first winter, I would think everything would be more "survive the day" at this stage. When Spring, Summer and Fall happens, the long survival game starts, they will have their own problems, but good part of the exploring could be done here specially in preparations of the next winter.  (It could I will admit change the dynamic of the game a lot. Maybe it could be done as optional in sandbox)

 

Okey, I have to much free time today, this post got long. 

 

Anyway, any ideas on how to make the enviroment even more interesting and dangerous and what you do think about this?

[cekivi]

Topics merged since they are very similar.