Just more of my 2 cents

[RJ_Dalton]

I started playing again after this most recent update.  I do like a lot of the changes.  The clothing is more interesting now, so it's not just a matter of "get the clothing made from animal hides and never worry about cold again."  It seems that being in storms doesn't ruin your clothes anymore, but it does soak them, which is a mechanic I like better.  I still haven't tried out the new area, yet.  When I check new content, I always like to start out in Mystery Lake first, just because it's easiest and I can get a good start on everything for checking out the new areas.  But I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it when I get to it, since I haven't been let down yet.  Love the new book reading mechanic.  I've been hoping for that for a while.  And I like the way the new skills work.  Being better at cooking means you don't burn as much food so you get more that you can eat, raising skills at firestarting makes fires last longer, etc.  It makes it a bit more interesting.

One thing I'm finding odd, which has been a while, but I keep forgetting about it when I come onto the forums: why does melting snow take so much longer than boiling water?  I would think it'd be the other way around.  I mean, I think the overall time it takes to melt snow and then boil it is right, it just seems like melting snow should be the one that takes longer.

Still loving the game.  I've noticed that the game has a therapeutic and calming quality to it, which is strange considering it's sometimes punishing difficulty.  But then, I realized that the game is really heavy on soft blues, which is a calming color.  I wonder if you were intending that, or if it just kind of happened.  Either way, it's something I enjoy.  And the sound design is still the best I've ever seen from a game before.

Anyway, that's all my thoughts for the moment. 

[Ape88]

20 hours ago, RJ_Dalton said:

I've noticed that the game has a therapeutic and calming quality to it, which is strange considering it's sometimes punishing difficulty.

That's something I've noticed too. There's nothing quite like coming onto the game after a long hard frustrating day and just being "alone" with the wilderness.

And I agree with the new clothing changes. It's awesome. As for me, I like to start up in a random location on Voyager or Stalker difficulty. Interloper difficulty is too tough for me.

[RJ_Dalton]

Okay, first time going into Forlorn Muskeg.

First thing that happened, I thought I saw a shelter (it wasn't a shelter), so I went to investigate, walked right into some thin ice and fell through, catching hypothermia.

Second thing that happened, after dragging myself to an overturned railway car and getting a fire going, I ate some sardines and caught food poisoning.  

Third thing that happened, while I was trying to stoke the fire so I could warm up while trying to sleep off the food poisoning, huge storm rolls in.  I don't know how I survived that.

And after somehow surviving and managing to recover from both hypothermia and food poisoning, I went exploring again and found a hunter's shack. There were human bones laying around outside.  I get the feeling this is not a nice place.

[Ruruwawa]

1 hour ago, RJ_Dalton said:

Okay, first time going into Forlorn Muskeg.

First thing that happened, I thought I saw a shelter (it wasn't a shelter), so I went to investigate, walked right into some thin ice and fell through, catching hypothermia.

Second thing that happened, after dragging myself to an overturned railway car and getting a fire going, I ate some sardines and caught food poisoning.  

Third thing that happened, while I was trying to stoke the fire so I could warm up while trying to sleep off the food poisoning, huge storm rolls in.  I don't know how I survived that.

And after somehow surviving and managing to recover from both hypothermia and food poisoning, I went exploring again and found a hunter's shack. There were human bones laying around outside.  I get the feeling this is not a nice place.

What an experience!  I think you got a deal for your 4 cents

[RJ_Dalton]

Okay, another thing came up that I'm looking at, thinking might need a bit of a tweaking.  I just got to level 2 firestarting skill, the one where it lets you start fires without tinder.  That's an excellent idea, if you get good enough you should be able to start a fire from just full wood if you can't find any tinder.  However, I think that if you're going to start a fire without tinder, it ought to be more difficult than normal (maybe drop 20% off the success chance).  That way, getting your fire skill up doesn't render the existence of tinder meaningless.

[tnbp]

On 12/26/2016 at 3:51 PM, RJ_Dalton said:

Okay, another thing came up that I'm looking at, thinking might need a bit of a tweaking.  I just got to level 2 firestarting skill, the one where it lets you start fires without tinder.  That's an excellent idea, if you get good enough you should be able to start a fire from just full wood if you can't find any tinder.  However, I think that if you're going to start a fire without tinder, it ought to be more difficult than normal (maybe drop 20% off the success chance).  That way, getting your fire skill up doesn't render the existence of tinder meaningless.

I was thinking about this the other day, as well.  I was thinking that we should get a small percentage boost from tinder once you hit level 2, so that you don't need to use it-- but if you do, you still gain something from it.