Unique Items.

[Dirmagnos]

12 hours ago, EternityTide said:

That's a rather defeatist attitude. At this point, gameplay development has slowed down and entered the "refinement" phase.

The purpose of the game is to entertain, so minor distractions or secondary objectives make the game more varied and give it texture. Why are there achievements available? Is that not a "waste of development time"? Why do people spend hours of gameplay, avoiding the use of the rifle to get the "silent hunter" achievement? Because it adds variety and diversifies the playthrough.

So little things like "collect all the unique coffee mugs" or "repair the forest-scene painting", whilst I agree should not be high priority, they should not be excluded, as they add more to the game than just "grim survival". Sometimes you need a little side quest to avoid the main story becoming boring and repetitive.

Wtf is a "refinement phase". Game clearly is nowhere near being finished, both in terms of balance and content.

And yes, point of the game is to be entertaining, by being engaging. Especially if were talking about something like survival game. Its not adventure, where you wander around enjoying the view. In survival game best sign of quality if player is constantly on his toes, ya know, surviving; not just wanders around, bored out of his mind or invents some crap because hes all set and has nothing better to do.

And i do consider achievements to be a waste of time. Their purpose is not to add value to the game, but merely to play on player vanity. Especially considering that usually they have no practical purpose. And pls dont call them quests, its insulting.

And im not saying that things like that cant be in the game. Im merely stating that everything and anything else should ahve higher priority. Once game is done, all things are in place and there is time to just doodle around, sure.

[sir ice]

On 8/28/2016 at 7:41 AM, ZlatanHazard said:

So basically adding easter eggs ?

No. 

[sir ice]

13 hours ago, Wastelander said:

I was writing some unique items for a pen&paper campaign I'm about to run, and I took the liberty of translating some of those to potential TLD-style, just so we have some more ideas to pitch around. If you think something you see here is inspired by something else, it probably is (being original is hard)

• The Trappers Rifle: An older hunting rifle with a beautiful, artistic carving on the stock. It looks like it has always been taken care of well. A small stamp dates it's construction to 1925. No mechanical bonuses but gets a reskin, unique fluff text and is always found in 100% condition. Base item: Hunting rifle.
• Timmy's Tuque: Timmy always felt cold, so his aging mother sewed a bit of extra wool into the inside. Where Timmy now is is unclear, unfortunately, but he left his favorite tuque here. +0.5c bonus warmth, unique reskin, requires two cloth to repair. Base item: Tuque.
• Bloodied knife: You find this on - or, more precisely, in - a corpse. Bad deeds have been done with this knife. What will you do with it? No mechanical bonuses. Slightly rusty reskin. Base item: Hunting Knife.
• Ahmad's MRE: The halal-version of the American MRE, with a lovely chicken-and-noodle dish. Ahmad always brought those when he went on a fishing trip to Mystery Lake. No mechanical bonuses. Reskin to add arabic letters and halal-certificate. Base item: MRE
• Pastor's Temptation: A good ol' bottle of Jack you found in the ruins of the church directly beneath the altar. Someone scribbled "Father forgive me for I have sinned" on the label. You guess even holy men need a drink every now and then - perhaps even more, considering the sins they get told of. Bonus to well-being when consumed but penalty to hunger, thirst, warmth and stamina. Contains 15 portions. Base item: Not in game yet
• Dad's mercy: You found this revolver near the frozen corpses of a family. Looks like they saw no other way out. Seems like the father did the sad deed. Perhaps this will serve you better than it served those poor souls. No mechanical bonuses. Slight penalty to wellbeing when used. Always found with two rounds. Base item: revolver.

The point to me here is giving some items some backstory. I already do so in my headcanon, but it'd stell be nice.

The gun should be broken but fixable and have bad aim.

[EternityTide]

12 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Wtf is a "refinement phase". Game clearly is nowhere near being finished, both in terms of balance and content.

And yes, point of the game is to be entertaining, by being engaging. Especially if were talking about something like survival game. Its not adventure, where you wander around enjoying the view. In survival game best sign of quality if player is constantly on his toes, ya know, surviving; not just wanders around, bored out of his mind or invents some crap because hes all set and has nothing better to do.

And i do consider achievements to be a waste of time. Their purpose is not to add value to the game, but merely to play on player vanity. Especially considering that usually they have no practical purpose. And pls dont call them quests, its insulting.

And im not saying that things like that cant be in the game. Im merely stating that everything and anything else should ahve higher priority. Once game is done, all things are in place and there is time to just doodle around, sure.

A "refinement phase" is the point where most of the base game mechanics have been added, and now the development has turned to tuning and balancing.

Small features and UI changes occur from time to time, but the large overhauls have stopped by this point.

Everything in the game is "player vanity". Living for as long as possible is "player vanity".  When I referenced "side quests" I was giving one example of how other RPGs populate their landscape with things OTHER than the main story path. With survival games, alternative objectives are essential to prevent the game becoming a grinding simulator.

Remember that while many things from the wishlist have been incorporated, it is done at the discretion and timetable of Hinterland studios, and you should have more faith in the Hinterland team that they only what they are doing, and won't put trifles before the important stuff.

We suggest things, we don't have absolute control over the games development. As I have said MULTIPLE times, the suggestions forum is a courtesy extended to us by Hinterland. It is not a democracy.