Feedback current state

[MueckE]

The last time i played the game was on the test branch before the update. So i decided to look into it now. I played about 100 days with the current patch and want to give you guys a feedback.

 

Wolves:
The wolf  behavior is still not "really good", but it is the best of all previous game versions.
The spawnpoints and the pathing is also way better than before. For example, there were always 3 wolves on the path from the mine (PV-CH) to the outlook in Coastal Highway. That was pretty annoying because the path is to narrow to avoid them. Same thing at the derailment in ML or the wolfpack at coastal townside. Spawns and pathing still can be improved. In addition, the decoy-exploit needs to be fixed. The amount of wolves could be reduced more and an attack should be a guaranteed death again if you don't fight back or lose a fight without a weapon. When a wolf attacks you and you don't fight back, you will lose about half of your health. The same result happens if you fight back, but lose the minigame in time. So it only makes a diffrence if you win the fight very quickly.   

Breaking through the ice:
I found out, that you don't die anymore when you break through the ice (edge of the map) Basicly i like the mechanic but i wish this would happen randomly on a lake or river, but if you fall into the ocean you will die (like it was before).

Loot-Decay:
I like the decayrate of most of the things. The only thing that really bothers me is, that coffee and tea will deacay very quickly but as soon you have boiled it, there is no decay at all. It should be the other way around.

The mechanic to not beeing able to do things in the dark is super. I also like the resting/passing time in combination with the cabin fever.

Parasites  still are to weak:
I still eat wolf meat all the time without becoming sick. The disadvantage for contracting parasites is way to low. It has almost no impact if you are sick. I wish the risk of becoming sick is way higher or the risk is only a little bit higher, but the sickness would be more punishing. It is like the opposite of the snowshelter. There the risk-reward is completly inbalanced the other way around and has a way to high impact on the game.

Hard - Easy:
Overall the game improved alot. If you take the snow shelter, skills and feats beside, the game is challenging. Because of the good weather system, the temperature, wolves/bears and the exhaustion/encumbering, travelling is not so easy as it was before. Less planning results in bigger danger. Also, the addition of the stims didnt turn out to be bad, or making the game easier. They have their use and are not overpowered. If you take out skills, snowshelter and feats, the game feels overall really enjoyable - just right. You spend more time outside and explore more instead of staying at home hibernating (compared to previous versions).

Sadly on the other hand, the skill system, snowshelter and the feats reverse all this. These additions have such a big impact on the game, that i even can't make suggestions for possible tweaks. It is not something like balancing/tweaking wolves or parasites/foodpoisoning. In my opinion, these things have to be reworked from the scratch. Yes, i have a few ideas about these mechanics, but i don't think anybody wants to talk about it seriously at the moment. For the time beeing, i have to stop playing the long dark and wait for an update that will fix/remove these things. Maybe it wont be changed and i have to wait for the story-mode, who knows.

Summary:
Basicly The long Dark is better than ever before. Exhaustion, Hypothermia, Travelling and Exploring and all the new mechanics make the game great. I feel that 95% are fine and don't need necessarily a change. It looks amazing, has a hugh depth of immersion and is offering lots of hours of entertainment. And all that in a singleplayer sandbox. That is pretty unique. Because of the skills and snowshelter, i thought about asking for a possibility to play an older version from 2014 to get back the hard survival experience. But than i realized that i would miss alot of all the things that are in the game and how far the long dark has come. Thank you Hinterland.

[Ohbal]

Nice feedack mate. 

I agree with most of your points: wolf struggles should be more punishing, current coffee and tee decay don't make much sense, parasites are almost no threat, and the snow shelter needs a nerf. 

On the feats, while I agree and I'd like to have the ability to turn them off... I can't give any feedback yet. I haven't unlocked any of them! But in theory... I won't like those permanent buffs  

Skills also need tweaking. I don't think we are too far from a better world as changes shouldn't be super-complicated. There is a good thread about it:

But indeed, overall the game is progressing very nicely. I'm eager to see the decoy fix and the bow skill in the next update!

[Dirmagnos]

Parasites are weak ? wth

They require ton of meds and gradually lower your max condition and if player cant cure it hel die in 3 weeks. Altho most likely sooner due to fact that hes max condition will be on level preventing surviving most hazards.

And eating just 4 pieces of carnivore meat a day guarantees an infection. Granted, after you contract parasites you can eat such meat as much as you like until you cure that condition, with no penalties..

[Ohbal]

4 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Parasites are weak ? wth

They require ton of meds and gradually lower your max condition and if player cant cure it hel die in 3 weeks. Altho most likely sooner due to fact that hes max condition will be on level preventing surviving most hazards.

And eating just 4 pieces of carnivore meat a day guarantees an infection. Granted, after you contract parasites you can eat such meat as much as you like until you cure that condition, with no penalties..

How many times did you get parasites since they were implemented? 

[Patrick Carlson]

On 9/2/2016 at 0:59 AM, MueckE said:

The last time i played the game was on the test branch before the update. So i decided to look into it now. I played about 100 days with the current patch and want to give you guys a feedback.

---

Sadly on the other hand, the skill system, snowshelter and the feats reverse all this. These additions have such a big impact on the game, that i even can't make suggestions for possible tweaks. It is not something like balancing/tweaking wolves or parasites/foodpoisoning. In my opinion, these things have to be reworked from the scratch. Yes, i have a few ideas about these mechanics, but i don't think anybody wants to talk about it seriously at the moment. For the time beeing, i have to stop playing the long dark and wait for an update that will fix/remove these things. Maybe it wont be changed and i have to wait for the story-mode, who knows.

Summary:
Basicly The long Dark is better than ever before. Exhaustion, Hypothermia, Travelling and Exploring and all the new mechanics make the game great. I feel that 95% are fine and don't need necessarily a change. It looks amazing, has a hugh depth of immersion and is offering lots of hours of entertainment. And all that in a singleplayer sandbox. That is pretty unique. Because of the skills and snowshelter, i thought about asking for a possibility to play an older version from 2014 to get back the hard survival experience. But than i realized that i would miss alot of all the things that are in the game and how far the long dark has come. Thank you Hinterland.

Thanks for stopping back by and giving us some feedback! Appreciate it.

I know you said you can't make any specific suggestions on "tweaks" to Skills/Feats, but can you be more specific about the "reversal" you are experiencing? If you could boil down the impact into just a few points, it would be helpful. Also, which of the Feats have you earned already? Thanks! 

 

[togg]

Parasites are not weak, then days with more and more weakness. Not cool.

On 2/9/2016 at 9:59 AM, MueckE said:

 

[Dirmagnos]

19 hours ago, Ohbal said:

How many times did you get parasites since they were implemented? 

4 or 5 times.

[MueckE]

@Patrick

Since the deep forest update, all new things were implemented in the sense of risk-reward / advantage-disadvantage based on forced decision making. "Penitent Scholar" reversed it.

In a survival scenario, the risk is always higher than the reward and the disadvantage is always higher than the advantage. (except ofc that the reward is surviving :)) Otherwise it's just not survival. Of course you have to somehow adjust it, a good way for example is to implement diffrent difficulties. Right now, the diffrence in the existing difficulties is the level of annoyance, not the challenge. Before proportion, there comes the forced decision. In many ways, neessary decisions have gone. For example you don't have to think about starting successfully a fire in a hurry, dont have to plan what you take with you to not being encumbered or if it is better to take specific things with you to be on a "more" save side if "sh.. goes down". You will level up, no matter what. There is no "more save -> other disadvantage, less save (here, ragarding making a fire) -> other advantage (when you level up)

Blizzard? Freezing? No worries! Just pick one of the convenient houses, caves, orjust easily build a shelter anywhere, at anytime with things you have with you most of the time anyways or can get within 2 minutes and be save (from -30 to -1 Celsius): Disadvantage = none, forced to make a decision? No!

 

Survival:
You have a bad, life-threatening injury. You know you will die soon and now you have to decide if you walk all the way to the hospital where it is not sure if they can save you at all or you can repair your bicycle. The walk is long and on the way you might bleed out, get attacked from animals or hostile people, break your bones, freeze - starve to death and so much more. Or you could try to fix your bicycle. You would be faster overall, wouldn't have to worry about the animals or starvation anymore but if you can't fix it in a certain time, you are screwed. And all that only for a possible chance to survive this injury ....
->
Penitent Scholar:
Oh boy, i think i have an injury. I could go to the hospital.. Hmm do i use the Mercedes or the BMW? I know they will heal me, so i don't have to worry so much. If i do the trip more often, i will get nice burgers, steaks and coke for free on my way. But of course i will go to the grocery in the future by myself too, just to tell the world that i can survive these horrific trips to the hospital and that i am a real hero because i survived a non-leathal injury. I mean, it is pretty exhausting too...

Building a shelter should be very hard, very punishing and even than its only use should be to save you from a guaranteed death because of a blizzard (or whatever). Impact on the game? Imagine you could find emergency stims like sticks and they would respawn as often as sticks... what do you think about what impact this would have? There are already to many "shelters" everywhere. Your decision is to make about wether you want to walk 5 more meters to a house with a nice bed or if you make a snow shelter right where you stand because the only place you can't make a shelter, is at a shelter (Mercedes or BMW?)

 

A good example for the opposite, the way it should be, is the mechanic doing something in the dark. Advantage: You will have everything for your trip tomorrow, you can't sleep and standing around is  boring, you get the chance to survive a little bit longer - disadvantage: You use up precious matches/fuel, if you become exhausted you wont make the trip tomorrow. But i have to make these things because i have to go on a hunt tomorrow and i even dont know if it will be a success. Hmm, i could go outside because of the moon, but there is no work bench and there are wolves that will kill me. I could take the rifle with me, but than i can't craft everything in time because i have to go outside twice.........

this is how it should be and generally is (if you take skills, shelter and feats away). It is hard to balance, yes - but here you can see that a little change can have a big impact on the game. If a skill or a bonus would allow me to craft in the dark, all this would have been gone. All i have to do is stupidly click my mouse.
Death by wolves/bears? Nope! Only if you are unlucky and 2 or more attack you. Death by weather? Nope! Take shelter! Death by falling through the ice? Nope, that's not a reason to die. Starvation? Come and visit timberwolf mountain, just use the infinite respawning animals. or simply fish and trap, you will succeed!

"How far will you go to survive?"
>>Well, if you provide me with the prospect of more and more conveniences, i prefer to go for the convenience instead of brutal surviving. But please make it so, that i dont have to do anything for it except spending my time.<<

Again, since the deep forest update the game was developed in the direction of decision making, having options and everything has a risk-reward side. This made the game more and more immersive and enjoyable. Penitent Scholar is removing this. In some cases literally - like removing the mechanic of getting parasites.

If the skills, feats and shelter wouldn't have this impact on removing decision making and turning risk-reward to reward only (or 10/90) i could live with it. Than it "only" would be a discussion about balancing. On top, of course, not only should these things not damage the existing game but add more - more decions to make, more possible advantages and disadvantages. But i don't have a choice. At some point, possible decisions you had to made, risks that had to be taken are no more.

 

-Snowshelter: Very hard, punishing to make + very low reward (but in some situations maybe life-saving)
-Feats and Skills don't make anything more easy or convenient, they create new possibilities of making decisions, with possible advantages and lots of disadvantages. If the skills can't provide that, than they should at least be tweaked so that on maximum level the game is like it is now with skills on level 1.
-Feats also just could be a mix of ingame-leaderboard + archievements, without any bonuses.

 

When you start a fresh game, don't use shelters and don't have feats, the game is still not perfectly balanced, and for me in some ways not challenging enough on the hardest difficulty. But all in all i can't say that there is no challenge at all. It is challenging and still very entertaining.  

 

[Thurman Merman]

On 9/3/2016 at 10:22 AM, Dirmagnos said:

Parasites are weak ? wth

They require ton of meds and gradually lower your max condition and if player cant cure it hel die in 3 weeks. Altho most likely sooner due to fact that hes max condition will be on level preventing surviving most hazards.

And eating just 4 pieces of carnivore meat a day guarantees an infection. Granted, after you contract parasites you can eat such meat as much as you like until you cure that condition, with no penalties..

I'm with you.  I only got them once, and it was such a drag to cure, I just stopped eating wolf/bear meat entirely.

Although, I agree with most of OP's points.  Shelters are vastly OP.  The feats not so much, but a bit odd.  I like the skills, though - but it does make the late game a bit jokey.

[Dirmagnos]

37 minutes ago, Thurman Merman said:

I'm with you.  I only got them once, and it was such a drag to cure, I just stopped eating wolf/bear meat entirely.

Although, I agree with most of OP's points.  Shelters are vastly OP.  The feats not so much, but a bit odd.  I like the skills, though - but it does make the late game a bit jokey.

Parasites are completely out of whack. They neither feel as good feature, nor do they solve anything(like the fact that wolves are easy to kill). It just feels forced, unrealistic and completely unnecessary, in general.

Snow shelter is so op at the moment htat i simply refuse to build them, even if i die as result. In terms of balance breaking they are even worse than parasites, a lot worse.

Skills... I generally like deep(deeper the better) personalization mechnaics, so im all for skills, stats, perks, traits and bonuses. More the merrier. Altho skills are fairly unbalanced at the moment, thats the point of testing, to improve things, im sure devs will get it right eventually. And moar, moar skills !!! MOAR !

[Ohbal]

2 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

4 or 5 times.

Then I understand your position. It seems to be extremely random... as I only got them during the testing phase. In my stalker game, I have never had parasites. I eat 1, maybe 2 pieces of carnivore meat per day, and I must have been lucky. 

I'm not a fan of how the feature was designed; I've always advocated for it to depend on how you cook the meat, and for a secondary cure (birch bark tea was my favorite suggestion). While weak was not the best way to name them, its closer to reality than out of whack (from my perspective, of course). Frankly, they are more an annoyance than anything. 

Let me explain based on the current game mechanics

- You can only get them in Stalker

- Chances are easy to avoid. With a 4%, eventually yes, parasites will arrive, but with the current amount of antobiotics + reishi, you should be able to survive quite a few (more than 10 for sure). During those afflictions as you pointed out you can eat all the carnivore meat that you want. 

- Currently at cooking level 5, the problem dissappears (which I don't like either, but its how the game is working now). 

So, as of today's build,  by the time you may be running out of meds, cooking skill will most likely be maxed out.

[MueckE]

The impact of the last update is just enorm, to a point where the whole game losing its concept.

All disadvantages and dangers got nerfed constantly. The last "holy grail" was the weather, the only thing left that possibly could have killed you. And than Penitent Scholar comes around and basicly destroys most of the features of the game, from one year of developing. What is the point of having animals that attack you, when you don't die from it? Whats the point of this amazing weather system if the cold is no threat? Why can you fall into the ice if it doesn't kill you? Why can you in theory attract parasites but after a short time this feature is removed completly. What exactly are tinderplugs for when there is no use for it? First step is to nerf everything that can kill you to a point where it is very hard to die from it. Next step is to make it impossible to die.

You laugh? What do you think how i found out about things like the ice. I was testing something on CH and wanted to kill myself. So tried a wolf, but he failed horribly. Than i decided to drown myself in the ocean but was ported back. The Survival-game just didnt wanted me to die .... And at that point, i didnt had any skills above level 1.

Why is there such a beautiful landscape if you can't enjoy it because every few meters there is a building, broken cars, garbage or something else laying around waiting for you to be picked up.

Why is there a chance system behind making a fire when you can make easily a fire on level 1? On top the things you need for it are always and everywhere in an infinite amount available. Solution: Just add a skill that makes it impossible to fail making a fire. Wouldn't it be easier to just ask the player: Do you want to make a fire? Yes/No, done. This would be way faster to program i gues, but would be the same challenge level for the player.

Dear Player, Beware! A Storm is coming! Do you want to build a shelter? Yes/No

Congratulatons, you survived another death brining storm. (Alternative: open quickcraft, select shelter, place, use, done)

When i read about implementing long distance travelling in a game, where you can go from any point to anywhere within under 15 hours ingame, it fits right in the description above.

The Long Dark changed a lot over the time. But it always was The Long Dark - a survival game. These changes create a diffrent game. A "survival" game that tries to do everything to keep you alive. 

This is the impact Penitent Scholar has. I originally didnt want to write this wall of text to explain my first post. Now you maybe understand why i didnt want to and believed, that here is no room or wish to discuss these things. But now i think, i owe you an honest feedback, even if it maybe does't matter so much for you, because i had a really good time with the game and surely will have a look into it from time to time again.

[Dirmagnos]

9 hours ago, Ohbal said:

Then I understand your position. It seems to be extremely random... as I only got them during the testing phase. In my stalker game, I have never had parasites. I eat 1, maybe 2 pieces of carnivore meat per day, and I must have been lucky. 

I'm not a fan of how the feature was designed; I've always advocated for it to depend on how you cook the meat, and for a secondary cure (birch bark tea was my favorite suggestion). While weak was not the best way to name them, its closer to reality than out of whack (from my perspective, of course). Frankly, they are more an annoyance than anything. 

Let me explain based on the current game mechanics

- You can only get them in Stalker

- Chances are easy to avoid. With a 4%, eventually yes, parasites will arrive, but with the current amount of antobiotics + reishi, you should be able to survive quite a few (more than 10 for sure). During those afflictions as you pointed out you can eat all the carnivore meat that you want. 

- Currently at cooking level 5, the problem dissappears (which I don't like either, but its how the game is working now). 

So, as of today's build,  by the time you may be running out of meds, cooking skill will most likely be maxed out.

Well, i kinda adopted same approach, i eat a piece in the morning, get 1%, then something else in the afternoon/evening and when condition is about to expire, another piece, to be on the safe side. My main issue is how(and why) its implemented and how its completely disbalanced in comparison to other ailments. Plus this whole deal that you can stuff yourself with carnivores meat as much as you like when you already have parasites with no side effects.

Same goes for cooking skill, with nothing for a long time and then on level 5 complete immunity from both food poisoning and parasites, instead of gradually decreasing(like by 15% per level) that chance as skill increases but still maintaining small chance even at highest level of cooking(for both).

Parasites generally feel like a crude attempt to compensate for wolf weakness and low usability of antibiotics. Hunting in general feels underpowered(even if player melees wolves he will still need a significant supply of antiseptic) compared to fishing/trapping and parasites only aggravate situation. Plus my dislike how fast meat spoils.

[Scyzara]

Guys, nothing is set in stone in this game. Be assured that your feedback about wolves being too weak, the weather being not enough of a threat, loot being too abundant and countless other aspects of criticism mentioned here on the forums have been passed on to the Devs by cekivi, Patrick and me. We take this job seriously and do our best to give the Devs an overview about topics that are important to the community.

But programming (and testing) these changes needs time, hence I would like to ask you for your patience. I know we haven't had a new update for a while now but based on my previous experiences with TLD's pace of development I'm inclined to believe this only means we're going to see some awesome changes and features in the not too far away future.  

[Ohbal]

11 hours ago, Scyzara said:

Guys, nothing is set in stone in this game. Be assured that your feedback about wolves being too weak, the weather being not enough of a threat, loot being too abundant and countless other aspects of criticism mentioned here on the forums have been passed on to the Devs by cekivi, Patrick and me. We take this job seriously and do our best to give the Devs an overview about topics that are important to the community.

But programming (and testing) these changes needs time, hence I would like to ask you for your patience. I know we haven't had a new update for a while now but based on my previous experiences with TLD's pace of development I'm inclined to believe this only means we're going to see some awesome changes and features in the not too far away future.  

Of course! But what would we talk about in these forums if not about aspects that are still in the air and that we can try to influence with our arguments?

I have full confidence in HT. However, the lack of official standpoint regarding most of the stuff you mention and some that you didn't, (like the parasites, or the skills, the feats, the snow shelter and so on), gives room for this arguments to remain latent for long periods of time. Not saying this is a bad thing, probably if we had official standpoints the moaning would be terrible; I'm just trying to give an explanation to our redundance  

[Scyzara]

The great problem about certain topics is that the community doesn't agree about them at all. Parasites are a great example for that.

10% of the players find them too punishing, 10% find them not punishing enough, 10% are fine with them as they are, 10% are fine with them in general but wish for a different (e.g. renewable) cure or for cooking skill 5 not to remove the parasite risk. (I personally belong to the latter group, btw. )

Oh, and 60% don't care about parasites at all because they don't play Stalker mode.

It's really difficult for us community mods to pass on much feedback about such topics except for "the community disagrees on the topic and is very split about whether parasites are too easy or too hard to deal with and what kind of cure - or amount of cure - would be preferable to heal an infection."

And it's of course horribly difficult for the Devs to make anything out of such a widespread range of opinions except that it's impossible to please everyone and that some people will always find aspect XY too easy while others will always find said aspect too hard.

I'm not saying that the Devs aren't trying to find a solution for such controversial topics as well, but it's much easier to address a problem if the majority of players (along with the Devs themselves, ofc.) seems to agree in the first place about A) that a problem exists, B) what the problem exactly is and C) how it might be solved.

[Tbone555]

i agree that this game is too easy. when im snuggled up in the pleasant valley farm house with the shed outside stocked with venison, a nice permafire going with an ample amount of firewood by my fireplace, a cup of coffee and skillbook in hand, with the best clothes making the cold pretty much non-existent... wheres the danger in that? wheres the survival? at that point its "deer hunt: 2016 season"
we need long term dangers, which will push our survival limits even 200 days in. stalker is a nice alternative, since my record there is 57 days, but stalker feels too unrealistic in terms of parasites, warmth, food consumption, etc. i prefer voyageur because it feels more "real," however long term survival is JUST TOO EASY. i purposely put myself in danger just to have that feeling again.
come on hinterland. we are paying you to torture us with an unforgiving survival experience. for the love of god, just beat us with hockey sticks again. please. we loved it.

[MarrowStone]

Perhaps letting the players themselves tweak the sanbox to their liking would be best.  A custom difficulty with sliders has always been a suggestion. 

[Patrick Carlson]

@MueckE Thanks for following up with some more specific feedback. Appreciate it!

23 hours ago, MueckE said:

 

This is the impact Penitent Scholar has. I originally didnt want to write this wall of text to explain my first post. Now you maybe understand why i didnt want to and believed, that here is no room or wish to discuss these things. But now i think, i owe you an honest feedback, even if it maybe does't matter so much for you, because i had a really good time with the game and surely will have a look into it from time to time again.

Yep, we're always looking for thoughtful and honest feedback on the game. That isn't a topic that needs to be debated in this thread, as I'm sure it's clear to everyone here. Thanks.

 As we've always said, the team has a vision for the game, alongside which community feedback is--and will continue to be--very important and helpful as the Sandbox continues to evolve over time. 

And your point about a "survival game that tries to do everything to keep you alive" is a very interesting observation. Not sure I've ever heard it put quite that way before. Certainly across the Experience Modes, we could examine how that statement fits or doesn't fit. Thanks again. 

[Hatchet]

The biggest issue with the game is (that it has no custom difficulty setting) that it's hard at first then gets easier, when it should be the other way around. (atleast on stalker)

Once you get past the "struggle" that's it basically.
The "struggle" can only truly be experienced when starting on TMW on Stalker, and getting past it, it isn't easy and infact if you don't leave the mountain at all then you're in for a real treat.
Take an example of how TMW was developed, excellent job on that one.

But in this kind of games you can never truly satisfy everyone with the mindset the team has right now.
And im referring to the countless times a custom difficulty idea/argument has come up but the developers aren't really up for it because they want to give the players a set experience, so everyone gets to experience the same
.
I fully understand that, but that was their plan back when sandbox wasn't planned to be a perma-thing, so when they decided to keep sandbox mode (due thanks to us) they still don't want to give us a custom diffculty.
So the set experience everyone was going to get, everyone's still getting that. Nobody has to worry about that, the big boss can still get his dream to become a reality and noone is going to stop that from happening
But a custom diffculty (like 'How to Survive' has) that's, as far as we know, not going to happen.
Developers sometimes make mistakes, and slap me across my face and tell me i'm wrong, but this is just being stubborn if you'd ask me, blind or stubborn, perhaps a bit of both.

Smarter decisions lead to more profit, this game would explode on the internet with an addition of a custom difficulty, mark my words.
More tight-gripping scenarios tend to attract more people (referring to Youtube vids and the actual experience), people like to be on the edge of their chair, horror games used to do that, but since they refuse to make horror, it's now up to the survival genre.
Take a gander at Youtubers that upload TLD material, i monitor a lot of channels and i came to notice that the type of; 'on the edge of your seat' vids of TLD (and other games for that matter) get a whole lot of more views than other videos from the same creators.
These extreme survival videos for instance are hard to come by because they cannot be 'set in motion' as they're pretty much a random situation on that very moment (something which is not lost with a custom diffculty mind you).
More of those vids would obviously equal more views, which is basically free marketing....
A wise decision for an indie studio to make , no?
So far i didn't see any marketing anywhere, i picked up the trail game because i loved the graphics, that was it, i picked up the game (even twice) because of it's potential.
But without a custom diffculty, i think this game will unfortunatly have a short lifespan.

How are you going to keep the hardcore fans interested after if for example they survive for 500+ days then die, it's so punishing if the player has to survive all that time again to the point where there's no more man made food, no more matches, no chemical meds, etc... Because that's when the true survival really begins, but how many people did actually get to experience that? Not that many i am sure...
Loosing all your items isn't as punishing as getting to the point of true survival and then dying too fast because you weren't used to it and it takes 500 days to get back to that point, it's not like people can practice their true survival skills if its highly unlikely people will get there.

Sliders, boom 99 problems solved, only in sandbox mode.
And wait it gets better, force the player to survive for a combined 300 days to be able to unlock the custom difficulty feat, Hinterland team gets their way and the players get their way, the player got the set experience Hinterland Studio Inc. wanted to give them.
And after they get tired of the same experience over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, they could then bath in the unending  joy custom diffculty would give.

But maximum profit is Hinterland their intentions it seems.
More profit usually equals an even better product, so it would be a win-win situation.
Now it's a loss-loss situation.

Sad, sad, sad.... I don't think it's Hinterland's intentions to have their baby die on them while it's still on the umbilical cord, so i hope they eventually make the right decisions.
Don't forget that survival games kind of have to survive on replay value, keep that in mind.

~Hatchet
 

[Patrick Carlson]

Thread locked at OP's request.