suggestion Book experience: Putting Theory to Practice.

[ThatDearGuy]

Good day, Hinterland! ThatDearGuy from Twitter here, also known as Tricky in some other dev and gaming related forums. This is my first forum posts here, although I've already had a few interesting tweet exchanges with you guys.

I've been playing TLD for the past week or two and I'd like to post several threads about some matters that have since aroused my curiosity. I won't be doing this all at once, so no worries about me flooding the forums or anything. I will however be posting from the standpoint having a bit more than just two weeks worth of experience with the game, as I have already had the privilege of experiencing this type of gameplay in several other survival games over the past few years, as well as through some interesting game mods for a couple of popular PC titles. The Long Dark itself is superb, by the way, but I'll try not to repeat myself too much there. It may be one of the most polished alpha releases I have played to date, I can scarcely imagine what the finished product will look like.

But on to the topic at hand: the newly added books.

I like 'em. They give the player two awesome new gameplay elements, an added research activity during their daily routine and a new type of incentive for exploration. I wonder however if the implemenation of it can't be improved a bit beyond Ultima's or Skyrim's 'you gained +1 to a skill value!' system. The problem I have with this idea of book learning sort of stems from that old cliche, theory versus practice. Theory alone can't prepare you for what might happen in real life. Practice helps, but practice alone can be hard work without a bit of theory backing it. Experience is gained either way, just not at the same speed.

Complete realism clearly isn't the goal of the game, so let's go back a bit to the concept of game XP. The literal Oxford Dictionary definition of experience signifies the *process* of getting something. 'I have experienced cancer. How did I get cancer? I smoked for 40 years.' In other words, experience is a complete and personalized narrative. Because of that, a simple +1 to a skill value will always be a missed opportunity, a subtraction to the total amount of player narrative acquired during a complete session of sandboxing.

What to do then? Reading a book can't give you experience, even if it takes a bit of time to research already. Research can give you an understanding, a quantity of 'theory' about a subject or skill. When you then put that theory to practice, you acquire experience at said skill at an accelerated rate. You still have to shoot a few wolves, but the immediate results from the activity are much more benefitial and directly noticible because the player will be right there, doing it while it is gained.

I see a lot of plusses here. You now get three gameplay elements from having added books to the game instead of just two. A reward for exploration, researching theory and... the need to put it to practice! All require time, all keep the player busy in different ways, enriching game.

So what do you think?

[Dirmagnos]

Dont like current way books are implemented, with flat skill bonus. Id prefer that books would actually teach player something, out of list of option.

Either new recipes and/or new ways to work already known ones, like reducing action times or improving final craftable quality or amount of materials used or certain requirements.

And due to limited amount of books with far higher amount of possible improvements, each game would feel different, since player will be able to learn/improve only limited selection of recipes or actions. With ability to reread books, for decreased chance to learn something new, missed in first/second readings, as it is with real books/manuals.

[cekivi]

Welcome to the forums @ThatDearGuy!

I actually like both ideas. Anything that adds more depth and narrative to the game gets a +1 in my opinion

[Ohbal]

The books are a fine addition to TLD gameplay. I'm however closer to @Dirmagnos here and would prefer them to teach us abilities, rather than giving just XP. 

Our character could very well know nothing about surviving in the wild, and things as simple and basic as the crafting recepees beyond bandages could be something that must be learnt through books.
Think about finding a book about fishing that teaches you how to craft the fishing tackle; or a first aid book with the old man's beard wound dressing; or a survival guide that teaches you how build the fire inside a small whole to fight against wind resistance... this could be extended so the player would have to earn their skills, mainly via exploration, against the current scenario where we already know how to craft a bow (which is quite complex for a non-literate) from day 1. 

Anyway and going back on topic, I also think @ThatDearGuy has a point relating knowledge with experience. I think this could lead to some interesting progression system.  

[ThatDearGuy]

On 27.6.2016 at 0:49 AM, Dirmagnos said:

Dont like current way books are implemented, with flat skill bonus. Id prefer that books would actually teach player something, out of list of option.

Either new recipes and/or new ways to work already known ones, like reducing action times or improving final craftable quality or amount of materials used or certain requirements.

And due to limited amount of books with far higher amount of possible improvements, each game would feel different, since player will be able to learn/improve only limited selection of recipes or actions. With ability to reread books, for decreased chance to learn something new, missed in first/second readings, as it is with real books/manuals.

There's a mod for Fallout 3: New Vegas that does something similar. I think it is Project Nevada, but it could be something else too, I forget. It removes the skill bonuses from books, but gives you special book perks as soon as you've read enough copies of the same book. Most of these perks are passive bonuses, but I think a couple of them add abilities, like being able to disable a robot by sneaking up on one.

I don't see why we can't have both our cakes though. There are still quantities of theory that can be put to practise first. Specialization follows.

 

On 28.6.2016 at 6:08 AM, cekivi said:

Welcome to the forums @ThatDearGuy!

I actually like both ideas. Anything that adds more depth and narrative to the game gets a +1 in my opinion

Thanks, I couldn't agree more.

 

On 28.6.2016 at 2:33 PM, Ohbal said:

The books are a fine addition to TLD gameplay. I'm however closer to @Dirmagnos here and would prefer them to teach us abilities, rather than giving just XP. 

Our character could very well know nothing about surviving in the wild, and things as simple and basic as the crafting recepees beyond bandages could be something that must be learnt through books.
Think about finding a book about fishing that teaches you how to craft the fishing tackle; or a first aid book with the old man's beard wound dressing; or a survival guide that teaches you how build the fire inside a small whole to fight against wind resistance... this could be extended so the player would have to earn their skills, mainly via exploration, against the current scenario where we already know how to craft a bow (which is quite complex for a non-literate) from day 1. 

Anyway and going back on topic, I also think @ThatDearGuy has a point relating knowledge with experience. I think this could lead to some interesting progression system.  

I think it might be possible to have it both ways. Some abilities you learn effortlessly through experience, with others you have the option accelerated learning through books. Creating a wolf jacket could be considered a late-game ability and may be more easily done after reading some books (or you could try without it, but it would take like 50 hours), whereas frying up some beans really doesn't require much of anything. There's a lot of stuff to consider here, but it I think it can all still qualify as passive quantities of theory that the player has to put to practice first, before they can reap the full benefit from it.

[Dirmagnos]

9 hours ago, ThatDearGuy said:

There's a mod for Fallout 3: New Vegas that does something similar. I think it is Project Nevada, but it could be something else too, I forget. It removes the skill bonuses from books, but gives you special book perks as soon as you've read enough copies of the same book. Most of these perks are passive bonuses, but I think a couple of them add abilities, like being able to disable a robot by sneaking up on one.

I don't see why we can't have both our cakes though. There are still quantities of theory that can be put to practise first. Specialization follows.

Nah, its most definitely not PN. I played the shit out of Convergence, that bridges several major overhauls, including PN, books worked similar to vanilla in those. I did, however, had a mod that gave player certain perks if certain requirements were met(in addition to ones already in game), like Lead Belly after consuming enough irradiated foods.

[ThatDearGuy]

Hm, could have been something added by Nevada Patches. Ah it's been years, I guess it could have been a different overhaul mod like Arwen's Realism Tweaks. Whatever it was seems to have left an impression though.