Customisable items

[Hibbsy94]

With Wintermute launching tomorrow which I've been looking forward to The Long Dark's story mode for a very long time, the sandbox updates have kept me playing the game and I can't wait for what the future holds.

But today's topic I wish to discuss is one that is featured in almost any game as of today: customisable items. So there is currently not a lot in the way of customisation in The Long Dark but of course Hinterland can't make the game ridiculous, when I think of things that could be customisable are the weapons, basic stuff like a scope for the rifle or bipod, possibly a better built bow with added attachments of course these could be rare items in the sandbox for the rifle and just a bit of an edge if you like with the bow, not much to do with the distress pistol different colored flares possibly.

Of course I'd like to see what other people think of customisation and what could be customisable in the future.

[JAFO]

So in other words, things to make using the weapons easier and more accurate, instead of taking the time & effort to get good at the game..

I vote no.

In fact, I vote HELL NO!

[Mroz4k]

I disagree. That puts the game further away from the TLD now, and closer to the games like Far Cry (with no offense to Far Cry, I like those games, but they are not what I would like for this game).
Hunting in this game presents a challenge. The rifle is easier to use to hunt and fires in a straight line, but the person firing it, the survivor you play as, is some average everyday person with little to no shooting experience. If you did not know, the range of the gun is limited - there is 0 bullet drop, but shooting at anything in a far distance is just a waste of bullets who will disappear before hitting the target.
I remember an article about it somewhere. The purpose is to have a hunting tool which creates lots of noise and scares animals away, has the better chance to instakill the prey but also slower bleeding rates - and foremost, if you fail you will likely be punished by being charged by your interned prey who turned into a predator. The bow is more difficult to manage and has an arc to it and a lot shorter distance, but it is silent and makes animals bleed faster, also has recoverable ammunition.

I actually preferred the previous bow hunting. I was pretty good at it, after practising, it was a lot more rewarding to take something down than it is right now. 
Adding scopes or better bows with reticules just make hunting easy, which kind of ruins the nature of the game = a fight for survival.

On the contrary, I wouldn't mind seeing a gun scope in the game, but only if it was not mountable on the gun. I would like to have some sort of "improvised" binoculars which would allow me to scout for animals when I hunt, but I think that the iron sights or the primitive bow make for a lot more rewarding hunting experience. Would be glad for regular binoculars or a spy glass as well, but having like a !gun scope with broken stand" to use as an improvised spyglass would be pretty damn cool.
 

[Hibbsy94]

Well I'm open to all opinions and that's what I came here for, to allow others to express them.

That statement has made a good reminder in my mind of the fight for survival I agree it ends up like far cry which I love too :). But in terms of being good or not is different for everyone people take time to learn yes and practice makes perfect but again I was only after opinions.

[Mroz4k]

6 hours ago, Hibbsy94 said:

Well I'm open to all opinions and that's what I came here for, to allow others to express them.

That statement has made a good reminder in my mind of the fight for survival I agree it ends up like far cry which I love too :). But in terms of being good or not is different for everyone people take time to learn yes and practice makes perfect but again I was only after opinions.

I agree that people take time to learn, and that's what the skills and ranks are in the game for. You get some advantages as you grow more and more accustomed to the gun, for example better chance to land a critical hit and drop the game instantly. But it would take a lot longer and far more bullets fired to get really good, which in the TLD limited resources is just not possible.

On the contrary, if there was bullet drop in the game and wind affected the bullet as well, the person would need to be accustomed to the physics to be able to use the gun at range properly. And I am not talking about the very easy games like Arma, which have pretty realistic scoped weapons, but it is still far from the reality. In reality, snipers who utilize weapons to fire at distance of half a kilometer and more has to take extensive physics classes to be able to automatically predict the route of the bullet by knowing the temperature outside, the general humidity in the air, the bullet drop of the particular type of bullet they have, and the intensity and direction of the wind, and finally the curvature of the Earth, and put all of these facts together into an equation before they can calculate the shot. Finally, they need to predict the speed and direction of their targets movement so they can pinpoint the exact moment when the bullet will be in the same spot like the target. 

This is WAY beyond any skill you might acquire by firing the rifle a hundred or so times.  Truth is, experienced hunters can use scoped weapons to hunt from a greater distance and don't usually do this kind of calculations when they do so, but that's because they fire a thousand rounds before they grow accustomed to hunting to be able to hit something from a greater distance with a scoped weapon. Most of the hunters will shoot scoped weapons at the medium range. For that, you don't really need a scope, iron sights are enough but scope makes it a cakewalk.

That is why the scopes would only make hunting easier, rather than present a challenge of a different sort - trying to get a long distance kill on something would be beyond skills of an average human person.

[ChapnCrunch]

Yeah,  one thing I love about this game is that I spend a lot of time in it wishing I had better equipment. WISHING. Not getting. It's one of the few FPS games I know that has all the elements I love, without ever making it easy on you. Love the scope idea; hope they aren't going to actually do it!