I'm almost done with this :(

[TROY]

So, here we are finally with story mode, and although I expected a bit more interaction and choices, I'm impressed. I havent finished episode 2 yet, but I love it. Its awesome, and was well worth the wait. This has been one of my favorite games for the last couple years, but I'm really fed up with some things that could/should have been fixed a looooooooooooooong time ago.  I grind my teeth every time I try to repair something or start a fire. I've reported this time and again, with various dismissals and discussions and denials. I don't care what you say about the possibility of it happening, and I completely understand the non relation between one attempt and the next but there is no way to deny the odds.  With an 85% chance of success to do something, the odds of failing at that thing OVER AND OVER are so slim as to be inconsequential, and yet I ROUTINELY have to use 3 or 4 or 5 matches to light a fire, or waste 3 or 4 cloths to repair an item. not a big deal when its one cloth, but when you're repairing a wolfskin coat....

My other huge complaint is the "condition" on meds. This is absolutely pointless, and serves no gameplay purpose whatsoever except o make inventory management a pain in the arse.  Ive never had low condition meds not work, and I've rarely lost them to becoming useless from condition. All it does it create 4 or 10 seperate bottles of pills in my first aid box, or backpack. I've made several suggestions in the past, ( I don't presume to have all the answers or expect that my word must be followed) but this has never changed. There simply is no justification for something like pain pills having a "condition".  Same with several other items, like lamp fuel, and matches. Its pointless, and detracts from the game while adding nothing.  Matches will work after sitting in a cupboard for 100 years, if they are kept dry. Kerosene will burn in a lamp after sitting in a can for 20 years.  As for pain pills and antibiotics and water pure pills, yes, they do go out of date, but adding that level of reality to a game... well, lets just say it doesnt fit in a world where you must eat 7 KG of fish, twice a day, and theres no toilet paper. 

[dmbjt]

not trying to thread crap, or provide a solution to the problem which I agree with, but when lighting a fire and low on matches always light a torch first. That way you can have multiple attempts with only wasting 1 match.

[The Wanderer]

I hear ya. I've just sat and stared and wondered why things like matches and oil have condition percentages. Most meds I don't even deal with because I really don't want to know what 21% antibiotics will do to my survivor. But you're lucky, these Hinterland folks are still adding patches and tweaking here and there. It's a relatively new game, with a new concept, and nothing is perfect right off the bat (except for, The Witcher 3.) Myself, I'm pretty easy to please. Make the game, make sure it works, and try not to brutally rape me with outrageous microtransactions. I'm just dealing with the things (I'm not dismissing your thoughts,) I don't like such as wetstones degrading so rapidly with the fact that I could've spent WAY more money on a triple-A title and had WAY less fun (I'm looking at you BioWare.) Till then, stay warm, hydrated, and look out for wolves.

[June]

didn´t they remove the condition on matches in some update a while ago? Or did they put it back in? *confused*

[The Wanderer]

50 minutes ago, June said:

didn´t they remove the condition on matches in some update a while ago? Or did they put it back in? *confused*

It's most definitely in the Xbox one version. I don't know if it's the same for other platforms.

 

[Thrasador]

53 minutes ago, June said:

didn´t they remove the condition on matches in some update a while ago? Or did they put it back in? *confused*

The matches have always had varying condition amounts so they rarely seem to stack....what the OP is complaining about.

Quite a while ago I believe they removed matches degrading over time from the game....they originally did degrade slowly.

Now that they DON'T degrade why the heck do they have different conditions so they can't just all stack....I think that is his point.

I always try to use my lowest condition meds first before they hit 0. They seem to degrade pretty slowly, but they do. I often use like 17 condition antibiotics and pain killers....I have NEVER had them not work so far....I am assuming they will work until 0 condition.

I have not yet gotten any to condition 0 to see if you can still take them or if they still work...

[happybjorn]

Indeed, from .321 patch notes:

* Removed decay from Matches.

 

[TROY]

2 hours ago, June said:

didn´t they remove the condition on matches in some update a while ago? Or did they put it back in? *confused*

no they didn't remove condition, they removed decay. 

 

[TROY]

3 hours ago, The Wanderer said:

I hear ya. I've just sat and stared and wondered why things like matches and oil have condition percentages. Most meds I don't even deal with because I really don't want to know what 21% antibiotics will do to my survivor. But you're lucky, these Hinterland folks are still adding patches and tweaking here and there. It's a relatively new game, with a new concept, and nothing is perfect right off the bat (except for, The Witcher 3.) Myself, I'm pretty easy to please. Make the game, make sure it works, and try not to brutally rape me with outrageous microtransactions. I'm just dealing with the things (I'm not dismissing your thoughts,) I don't like such as wetstones degrading so rapidly with the fact that I could've spent WAY more money on a triple-A title and had WAY less fun (I'm looking at you BioWare.) Till then, stay warm, hydrated, and look out for wolves.

While you make some very valid points, this game isn't new. Its been around, and in development for almost 3 years now I think. It's a great game, don't get me wrong, but it has undergone some pretty drastic changes through its growing stages. You would barely recognize the original single region/map sandbox test from the incredible thing it's become. I guess thats why these these things bother me so much. There have been numerous opportunities to rectify them.

[TROY]

3 hours ago, dmbjt said:

not trying to thread crap, or provide a solution to the problem which I agree with, but when lighting a fire and low on matches always light a torch first. That way you can have multiple attempts with only wasting 1 match.

This is a superb suggestion. I rarely play on the harder difficulties, usually voyager, so i'm almost never in a situation of being low on matches. Also, I don't think lighting a torch actually consumes a match anymore. I havent confirmed this, but i noticed the other day that my one box of matches was still full when i went to light a fire, and i had lit at least two torches before hand. 

[Timber Wolf]

5 hours ago, TROY said:

With an 85% chance of success to do something, the odds of failing at that thing OVER AND OVER are so slim as to be inconsequential, and yet I ROUTINELY have to use 3 or 4 or 5 matches to light a fire, or waste 3 or 4 cloths to repair an item. not a big deal when its one cloth, but when you're repairing a wolfskin coat....

A while back I began to notice that I had a better success rate repairing clothes when I was fully rested or close to it.  I ran some tests to find out if it does make a difference.

I used a Sport Vest that was at 45%.  Each repair increases the condition by 25%, so it will take 3 successful repairs to get up to 100%.  The chart below shows how many repair attempts it took each time.  This was in a new game and my chance at a successful repair was 70%.

These numbers are in line with what I would expect to see for a 70% chance of success.  They also seem to confirm my suspicion that being well rested has a better chance of success.

[Citizenfour]

I'll admit that the medication and matches with condition are frustrating. Thats half the reason I drop/store things in crates until i am close to needing it. The inventory clutter is real. 

[TROY]

16 minutes ago, Timber Wolf said:

A while back I began to notice that I had a better success rate repairing clothes when I was fully rested or close to it.  I ran some tests to find out if it does make a difference.

I used a Sport Vest that was at 45%.  Each repair increases the condition by 25%, so it will take 3 successful repairs to get up to 100%.  The chart below shows how many repair attempts it took each time.  This was in a new game and my chance at a successful repair was 70%.

These numbers are in line with what I would expect to see for a 70% chance of success.  They also seem to confirm my suspicion that being well rested has a better chance of success.

This is good stuff, even though it seems to disprove my broken RNG theory "on paper". However, the dev team has stated (in one of my past rants about this) that there are no influencing factors at play. Such as tired/cold/condition of sewing kit, matches, etc.  

To be clear, I rarely bother even paying attention to it when I'm fresh in a game. I expect failures to stack when my firestarting chance is 60 or my sewing chance is 70.  But when my skills start going to 80-85 or even 90, thats when my blood pressure goes up at repeated failures. And, again, I'm talking about REPEATED failed attempts.  When you need ONE success to repair a pair of socks, and you fail 3 or 4 times before getting a success.

This happens to me ROUTINELY in this particular game, and has since the day I bought it partucularly with firestarting.  Back in the day, before skills, your chance to light a fire went up with each successful fire started, rather than 10-15% at once after a certain number of success's.  I've even had failed attempts to light fires with a stated 100% chance to light. not repeated fails but still.... 

Maybe my problem is I come from the old pencil and paper, rolling dice, RPG days and my brain is hung up on RNG as rolling dice. A number from 1-100 was generated by rolling two 10 sided dice. 1 was the tens place, and 1 was the ones place. An 85% chance meant you failed if you rolled a 15 or less, or an 85 or over, depending on the situation.  In the infancy of my frustration with this game's RNG, I sat down one afternoon dug out my old D&D dice, and rolled them, over and over and over.  At that time, I think i chose 80 as the cutoff, and I rolled those dice HUNDREDS of times without ever getting 3 successive rolls under 20.

Now, to be fair, I often light 4 or 5 or 6 fires in a row without failing, in the 80-90% range, so if I averaged all my wins and losses out, it probably would come out near to the stated chance. Again, my issue is with the REPEATED failures on a single fire.  If i failed once every other fire, that would average far less than 85% success, but I, as a player, would never notice, or complain. When i fail 3 times before getting flames on the fourth try, even if i succeeded first try the previous 7 or 8 times, it boils my blood.

[Timber Wolf]

1 minute ago, TROY said:

However, the dev team has stated (in one of my past rants about this) that there are no influencing factors at play. Such as tired/cold/condition of sewing kit, matches, etc.  

They may well have said this at some point, but do you pay attention to how fatigued you are when you try to repair?  I haven't really been frustrated with it since I made a conscious effort to be well rested before repairing.

[Thrasador]

11 minutes ago, TROY said:

This is good stuff, even though it seems to disprove my broken RNG theory "on paper". However, the dev team has stated (in one of my past rants about this) that there are no influencing factors at play. Such as tired/cold/condition of sewing kit, matches, etc.  

To be clear, I rarely bother even paying attention to it when I'm fresh in a game. I expect failures to stack when my firestarting chance is 60 or my sewing chance is 70.  But when my skills start going to 80-85 or even 90, thats when my blood pressure goes up at repeated failures. And, again, I'm talking about REPEATED failed attempts.  When you need ONE success to repair a pair of socks, and you fail 3 or 4 times before getting a success.

This happens to me ROUTINELY in this particular game, and has since the day I bought it partucularly with firestarting.  Back in the day, before skills, your chance to light a fire went up with each successful fire started, rather than 10-15% at once after a certain number of success's.  I've even had failed attempts to light fires with a stated 100% chance to light. not repeated fails but still.... 

Maybe my problem is I come from the old pencil and paper, rolling dice, RPG days and my brain is hung up on RNG as rolling dice. A number from 1-100 was generated by rolling two 10 sided dice. 1 was the tens place, and 1 was the ones place. An 85% chance meant you failed if you rolled a 15 or less, or an 85 or over, depending on the situation.  In the infancy of my frustration with this game's RNG, I sat down one afternoon dug out my old D&D dice, and rolled them, over and over and over.  At that time, I think i chose 80 as the cutoff, and I rolled those dice HUNDREDS of times without ever getting 3 successive rolls under 20.

Now, to be fair, I often light 4 or 5 or 6 fires in a row without failing, in the 80-90% range, so if I averaged all my wins and losses out, it probably would come out near to the stated chance. Again, my issue is with the REPEATED failures on a single fire.  If i failed once every other fire, that would average far less than 85% success, but I, as a player, would never notice, or complain. When i fail 3 times before getting flames on the fourth try, even if i succeeded first try the previous 7 or 8 times, it boils my blood.

I just save my game by entering something with a loading screen before I do anything I may fail at. If I fail, I reload the game. I haven't failed at anything in a looooog time....lol....

[TROY]

4 minutes ago, Timber Wolf said:

They may well have said this at some point, but do you pay attention to how fatigued you are when you try to repair?  I haven't really been frustrated with it since I made a conscious effort to be well rested before repairing.

No, honestly, I havent. If I had to guess I'd say I'm exhausted more often than not because I always do my fire starting/cooking/repairing at the end of the day, to use up the last of the sunlight, and burn away the early darkness with cooking. I've never paid attention to it, because I've been told it doesn't matter. That the number you see as your percent chance is the number the game uses. There are no other factors influencing the fail or success. I'd accept that without batting an eye, IF we were simply told yes, it does affect it, AND any modifiers currently in play were SHOWN to the player, so you KNOW your ability to start a fire is being reduced by shivering/darkness/exhaustion/etc.

IN FACT, I'd SUPPORT such a mechanic being added to the game.  Right after matches and pain pills and kerosene don't ahve condition anymore, and breaking down a branch that i could do in 30 seconds with my foot and bare hands doesnt take 2% off my hatchet, and a sharpening stone lasts longer than 20 sharpens, and, and, and.......

[TROY]

Just now, Thrasador said:

I just save my game by entering something with a loading screen before I do anything I may fail at. If I fail, I reload the game. I haven't failed at anything in a looooog time....lol....

Well, thats a valid strategy I suppose.  To each their own. Thats all I've got to say, about that. 

[Timber Wolf]

3 minutes ago, TROY said:

No, honestly, I havent. If I had to guess I'd say I'm exhausted more often than not because I always do my fire starting/cooking/repairing at the end of the day, to use up the last of the sunlight, and burn away the early darkness with cooking. I've never paid attention to it, because I've been told it doesn't matter. That the number you see as your percent chance is the number the game uses. There are no other factors influencing the fail or success. I'd accept that without batting an eye, IF we were simply told yes, it does affect it, AND any modifiers currently in play were SHOWN to the player, so you KNOW your ability to start a fire is being reduced by shivering/darkness/exhaustion/etc.

I understand your frustration.  I will also encourage you to try doing repairs in the morning after you get up, when it's still pretty cold out.  I think you might be a happier survivor.

[Timber Wolf]

5 hours ago, TROY said:

My other huge complaint is the "condition" on meds. This is absolutely pointless, and serves no gameplay purpose whatsoever except o make inventory management a pain in the arse.

I couldn't agree more on this point!  I mean seriously, how much work would it take to make non-decay items stackable?

[Thrasador]

1 minute ago, Timber Wolf said:

I couldn't agree more on this point!  I mean seriously, how much work would it take to make non-decay items stackable?

Did they make meds not decay with Wintermute? Meds were still decaying in Sandbox last I checked (the week before Wintermute). Matches don't decay anymore though....so they should all be condition 100 like cattails and stack...

[Thrasador]

17 minutes ago, TROY said:

Well, thats a valid strategy I suppose.  To each their own. Thats all I've got to say, about that. 

Well you were complaining about multiple repeated failures in a row, while having a high chance of success. You claim it "makes your blood boil." 

I gave you a solution where you no longer have to worry about failure and/or get frustrated or upset. 

You have an issue with the solution? 

[Timber Wolf]

4 minutes ago, Thrasador said:

Did they make meds not decay with Wintermute? Meds were still decaying in Sandbox last I checked (the week before Wintermute). Matches don't decay anymore though

No, I was thinking more of the matches, but the meds decay so slowly they might as well be made non-decay.

[TROY]

Just now, Thrasador said:

Well you were complaining about multiple repeated failures in a row, while having a high chance of success. You claim it "makes your blood boil." 

I gave you a solution where you no longer have to worry about failure and/or get frustrated or upset. 

You have an issue with the solution? 

Yes, I do.  It's like taking morphine for a broken leg. It only makes you feel better It doesnt fix the broken bone. AND, its immersion breaking as hell. 

[TROY]

21 minutes ago, Timber Wolf said:

I understand your frustration.  I will also encourage you to try doing repairs in the morning after you get up, when it's still pretty cold out.  I think you might be a happier survivor.

Another part of the problem with my frustration on this is my own background. The house I grew up in had only a woodstove for heat. I KNOW how easy it is to start a fire, and how it doesn't even require tinder or a match if the fires only been out for a few hours, and I KNOW that a failed attempt actually improves the odds on the next try, because the kindling has warmed up, or dryed out, or has hotspots still. I KNOW it doesnt take dozens of times to get better, and that you actually get better from failing not succeeding....

[The Wanderer]

Hmmm, not only does the forum header say this thread is hot, but the discussion is getting heated. Wish you guys were in coastal highway with me. I'm always looking to save on wood.