My Impressions, the Good, the Bad, and the Gamey

[Ekzel]

Been playing Long Dark on steam since it became available there, and after a run of 24 days and still surviving, I feel I've experienced enough to give some critical feedback; some as bugs, some as feedback, and some as praise. Here goes.

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-"Sewing kit is broken beyond repair" I would feel bad if the sewing kit was repairable, but it is not, making this statement erroneous at present.

-Clothing degradation percentages affect the benefit of clothing in a directly proportional way (ie 1.0 C at 100% but 0.9 C at 95% for basic boots). This creates a gamey need to maintain clothing at 100% values or suffer reductions in effectiveness. Recommend maintaining full effect until 75% or even 50% (when white) then accelerated wearing down of effect below (yellow) and worthless below 10% (red).

-Consuming antibiotics at present consumes two antibiotics, vice one as you would think. If you have less than two, you can't take the antibiotic at all. Needs fixing.

-When an item description for raw meat says, "Cook to eat safely," that should mean as it says. When a player cooks raw meat into cooked meat to, "eat safely," having the player get food poisoning from doing so comes off as a, 'screw you!' by the game. Either adjust the item description to reflect the reality or make cook to eat safely mean cook to eat safely.

-I am not sure if the load button exists on the in-game menu to make it easier on testers to reload and test scenarios, or whether it is intended to make it into the final game, but having an easy to reach mulligan button within gameplay is an implicit admission that it's ok to save scum. When combining this with the previous issue, I have found that more often than not I will tend to simply eat high condition (that is, meat that would exceed 100% condition if cooked) raw meat and reload if I get food poisoning from the event, as it isn't as if cooking meat makes it safe to eat, and reduces the calorie content to boot. This is unlikely the intention of the developers, but this is the attitude that has developed in my current game, as wood is currently too valuable to use on something that might give me food poisoning regardless of my cooking it. I would feel cheesy doing this if I had to go to the main menu and reload every time, but having a quick easy reload button says that it's ok to save scum when things go poorly.

-Food feels highly inconsistent between weight, calories and type. Salty crackers and a granola bar both weigh .10 kg, but salty crackers give you 750 calories and granola bars give 150, 1/5th the value. While it's true that different types of food have different caloric densities, this is a bit of an extreme difference. Of course, I realize that work is being done on this and will need to be balanced along with when rudimentary crafting and other food types are added, but I might as well call attention to it.

-In the current sandbox mode, gameplay dies down significantly once immediate survival has been assured and the map has been picked apart for items. The player is encouraged by the system to switch character modes from actively playing the map to what I like to call hibernation mode, where the character spends most of his time sleeping, eating, drinking, and wearing as few clothing as possible to conserve resources and calories. Hibernation mode is broken only to emerge once in a while to punch a wolf to death for some meat to keep the hibernation cycle going. I am currently around 24 days survived, and I can tell you that the next 26 days are likely going to be me sleeping, drinking water, foraging wood, sleeping, eating, drinking water, striking a fire to make more water and cook food as needed, sleeping, drinking water, eating, foraging wood, etc.

-Water consumption while sleeping is currently excessive in comparison to food consumption while sleeping. A character should be able to sleep 8 straight hours without waking up nearly dehydrated.

-The character-to-player feedback system is currently insufficient in giving me a good feeling of my character's condition. This is a result of a lack of feedback on not only my absolute conditions, such as how cold I am, but the delta of these conditions as well.

--Absolute: I am not reminded by the character or the UI that I am fatigued, cold, thirsty, or hungry, until I am pretty much seconds away from exhaustion, freezing, dehydration, or starvation. As a result, I have to consult the meters instead of relying on the character to let me know when he is getting dangerously close to having these needs addressed.

--Relative: As a test of how little clothing means to survival at low condition values (sub 50%), I decided to roleplay a bout of insanity with my character. I took off everything I had, stuffed every bit of weight in the camp office until I was at 0/30 kg, then ran free willy through the snow and ice of the lake in a snow storm, giggling all the while. It did not feel at all different from wearing full clothing; not in the slightest. I only get told when a place is colder or warmer than the last place I was, but I don't see, hear, or feel anything that lets me know just how fast my conditions are changing. This is also a problem with calories/hr, where other players don't get the hint that they're exhausting their characters by weighing them down too much or running them ragged around the map; the character isn't complaining and the UI isn't informing them they're tiring themselves out, so the player concludes the character is simply superhuman like all the other superhuman protagonists in videogames.

-As such, the feedback system needs adjusting and expanding upon.

-This is no doubt a result of all the supporting systems not being in the game yet, but cloth and sewing kits feel by far to be the most valuable commodity in the game for how much is needed to maintain a full set of clothing; so much so that I would rather have the basic boots rather than the work boots because the basic boots only require leather to repair. The scarcity of these resources also contribute to the hibernation mode pressure on the player, as keeping a set of clothing maintained to keep going outdoors and not be freezing in hours is cost-prohibitive. Considering these will be used for bandages in the future, I'm not sure whether I'd prefer to use it to make a bandage for myself, or to keep that precious cloth to maintain my coat and just hope my clotting factor kicks in before I bleed to death.

-It seems to be inconsistent whether or not I have a survival knife or not. By all appearances, I don't unless I have the hunting knife, yet I can skin carcasses and cut meat just fine with my bare hands, which tells me that I either have one but it's so small as to not be useful on frozen corpses, or I don't and I'm secretly Wolverine.

-Speaking of tools, in the absence of iron tools, in a survival situation I would likely turn to creating for myself a stone hand-axe and either a bone (from the horns of an elk in this case) or stone knife. Tools like these are invaluable and well worth the energy and time expenditure to create if I were to be thrust into an extended survival situation. I have found myself wishing I could craft these tools in game to replace the wearing hatchet and hunting knife. Additionally I have found myself desiring to harvest the bones from carcasses in addition to meat, hide and guts, for similar reasons. While crafting is not in the game yet, I would like to be able to harvest bones from animals, even if only to cook and eat the marrow from the bones.

-Currently the bedroll is a beginner's trap. It weighs the character down, raising calorie consumption, and every place you would want to sleep at except for one has beds.

-At the moment, indoor areas seem to exist in a bubble. They are unaffected by outside temperatures, and always pegged at -1 C without any source of heat, making every indoor area feel like a mother's womb compared to the -20 C plus windchill outside at times. If houses truly worked this way, we would never need residual heat from fires or to trap warmth inside. At the moment, I'm unsure of how I would resolve this without changing other gameplay mechanics, as indoor areas are one of the few areas of safety with wood being so valuable.

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That's all the criticism that comes to mind. Now for some things I enjoyed.

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-I like the focus on survival. One of my favorite games is Wilderness: A Survival Adventure (1986), and my experiences with this game as well as my interests in survivalism color my expectations with this game. The idea of being thrust into a harsh environment such as the one being created and having to survive through it is always of interest to me.

-The voice actor for the male does an incredibly good job delivering his lines in a way that I can feel immersed in the character, kudos for that.

-The attention to detail is fantastic. Seeing my footprints in the snow and their direction for long stretches allows me to reflect on where I've been. The crows cawing and flying overhead a corpse alerts me to corpses even if they're hard to see in the snow. Corpses inside lack snow while corpses outside are covered in it. I can see not only my footprints, but the footprints of game and wolves, which look fantastic. When I've been mauled by a wolf and I chase it down for the kill, I can look back on where I've been and see the bright red spots of my blood on the ground along with my footprints, which I thought was nothing short of amazing. The sound of the wind reflects actual conditions. The changes in temperature not only from an active fire, but a burned out one, and the changes in temperature inside and outside, like how the forestry lookout is still in the outdoor space but you go in and you're safe from windchill. So on and so forth, it's little details like this that make or break immersion, and the attention to detail here has not escaped notice.

-I really like the fire mechanics; the tinder requirements, the chance to start a fire based on skill and materials, how some wood is easier to burn than others, everything.

-AI quirks aside (had a wolf freak out and do a little dance choosing me or a nearby deer that was retreating to stalk), I like how the wolves behave. I'm much happier with the fighting mechanic now that key bindings can be changed so that I'm not breaking my mouse trying to fight off a wolf.

-I like that ammunition is scarce and hope that you can't craft replacements in the future; it adds weight to using the gun knowing that every bullet is one less bullet in the future should you need it.

-I like that items don't respawn. It lets you feel that you're truly alone and there's not a magical loot gremlin running around restocking shelves like you're in some sort of amusement park.

-The atmosphere feels great. It's really difficult to describe, but the art style, the sound, and the environment mesh together well, I feel.

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Thank you for your time and consideration.

[Yaur]

-In the current sandbox mode, gameplay dies down significantly once immediate survival has been assured and the map has been picked apart for items. The player is encouraged by the system to switch character modes from actively playing the map to what I like to call hibernation mode, where the character spends most of his time sleeping, eating, drinking, and wearing as few clothing as possible to conserve resources and calories. Hibernation mode is broken only to emerge once in a while to punch a wolf to death for some meat to keep the hibernation cycle going. I am currently around 24 days survived, and I can tell you that the next 26 days are likely going to be me sleeping, drinking water, foraging wood, sleeping, eating, drinking water, striking a fire to make more water and cook food as needed, sleeping, drinking water, eating, foraging wood, etc.

This is my biggest compliant about the game in its current alpha state. It seems like the ideal strategy is to hit all of the main loot areas in the first 5 or so days and then turtle in the camp office. Whether you are going to have the resources to survive for another 45 days depends on how the RNG treats you in those first 5 days. While I'm not going to argue that the turtling is unrealistic (in a survival situation conserving resources is critical) it isn't really fun.

The learning curve ATM is:

-learn the loot spots (and which ones have Hidden Fun Stuff)

-learn the game mechanics

There is some room for micro optimization (e.g. figuring out that prybars past the first are dead weight) but there isn't a lot of depth once you have the basics figured out.

IMO the pacing of the game should enable you to turtle less (fewer resources per area) and force you to move more (bigger map with more distance between areas).

[Bill Tarling]

One thing to remember is that the human spawned resources are not the only resources available:

Clothing does wear out eventually and completely right now, but I believe the devs will later add in some sort of general and simple crafting system to make a few items -- so that should at least allow from some rudimentary clothing renewals for some warmth.

Food isn't quite as scare as you might first think from looting. Yes there are pre-spawned frozen carcasses (I usually leave them untouched as a last source of emergency rations since they don't currently decay.

There are also fresh kills. They may seem rare at first, but if you learn to herd the deer towards the wolves [the deer will also help clear your path], then the wolves will often supply you with a fresh kill. When the deer and wolves aren't in the same area, I like to get a wolf to stalk me -- takes patience, but you can often lead them to a better deer populted area and get them to hunt for you.

Possible flare bug -- or may not be a bug

Currently you can toss even an empty flare at a wolf, and there's a chance it will scare them off [seems to be especially effective near a fresh kill]. I'm not sure whether that was intentional or not (I think it is likely just receiving the same % chance of success as a lit flare) -- but either way it does lead to logical possibilities (e.g. throwing other objects in the future).

I'm hoping that quirk is kept in (since we can't throw cans, tools, or snowballs at the wolves), and perhaps just lessen the chance of success -- i.e. lit flare would have much better chance to scaring off a wolf compared to a stick (used flare) being thrown.

I think there should also be a chance that that distraction should have a chance of being taken as a threat -- so there's a chance the wolf will decide to stand ground or attack to protect its kill.

Fire and Tinder

This is one issue which is a little more challenging... in earlier versions it was harder to find fuel/wood/logs and you mostly ended up with tinder, so the collection units were doubled and now you mostly get fuel instead of tinder. However, since tinder is (currently) a prerequisite, you can run out (or be unsuccessful finding any tinder instead of all usable fuel/wood).

Again, the devs are constantly re-tuning, so there's a good chance other natural tinder sources may be added later, or perhaps an option to forage for choice of tinder/fuel/both when foraging is selected.

For lighting the fire itself, there is one resource [although rare] which can potentially help -- the magnifying glass. While it's usually a rare spawn, and only works outside on sunny or mildly cloudy day, at least it gives a remote chance right now for on-going lighting of a fire.

Again, I'm sure a lot of items will be tuned and adjusted, so it's hard to say what else may be added/changed/dropped/tweaked/tuned... but it does have a decent start. 8-)

[Ruhroe]

-In the current sandbox mode, gameplay dies down significantly once immediate survival has been assured and the map has been picked apart for items. The player is encouraged by the system to switch character modes from actively playing the map to what I like to call hibernation mode, where the character spends most of his time sleeping, eating, drinking, and wearing as few clothing as possible to conserve resources and calories. Hibernation mode is broken only to emerge once in a while to punch a wolf to death for some meat to keep the hibernation cycle going. I am currently around 24 days survived, and I can tell you that the next 26 days are likely going to be me sleeping, drinking water, foraging wood, sleeping, eating, drinking water, striking a fire to make more water and cook food as needed, sleeping, drinking water, eating, foraging wood, etc.

There is some room for micro optimization (e.g. figuring out that prybars past the first are dead weight) but there isn't a lot of depth once you have the basics figured out.

IMO the pacing of the game should enable you to turtle less (fewer resources per area) and force you to move more (bigger map with more distance between areas).

This is exactly correct. When exploring and first learning the game it's very engaging and fun. Figuring out how to plan a move from location to location was very enjoyable. Unfortunately, once you get past the basics though it becomes tedious figuring out small details. I find it's best just to log in and experiment, and that has gotten old very quickly.

Hopefully, things like the work bench, etc, that are fixed to certain locations will be used out into the future for crafting, etc., which will help keep the game interesting after the initial gathering from each location phases early on.

I also think dynamic maps for a Sandbox portion of the game would be great (even if part of a future season). I've learned the current map well enough I could go to any of the main locations (save any hidden things I haven't discovered) easily during a blizzard or a pitch black night.