I'm almost done with this :(

[Thrasador]

16 minutes ago, Hotzn said:

Haha, I was the first to tell you off.

Sorry for that. I realize you are really suffering. However, I have sunk over 400 hours into the sandbox and have never experienced anything weird concerning the RNG. Of course, I've been unlucky at times. At other times, I was lucky. All seems right. In general, performing a task with a high success rate will be successful. So this leads me to assume that the game's code is in order, and something might be wrong with your individual PC, setup or installation. Is TLD the only game giving you RNG trouble? Then why not uninstall the game, install again and see how it goes? If you want to preserve your saves during this process, surely you will find some instruction how to do it. 

I was actually going to recommend a reinstall too....or at least verify files in steam....I've never failed six times in a row....even without saving and reloading....maybe three times. So either something is off, or you are just the unlickiest man alive....

[TROY]

6 hours ago, Hotzn said:

Haha, I was the first to tell you off.

Sorry for that. I realize you are really suffering. However, I have sunk over 400 hours into the sandbox and have never experienced anything weird concerning the RNG. Of course, I've been unlucky at times. At other times, I was lucky. All seems right. In general, performing a task with a high success rate will be successful. So this leads me to assume that the game's code is in order, and something might be wrong with your individual PC, setup or installation. Is TLD the only game giving you RNG trouble? Then why not uninstall the game, install again and see how it goes? If you want to preserve your saves during this process, surely you will find some instruction how to do it. 

I have reinstalled the game. I am actually on my third computer since I purchased this game. 

[TROY]

@Lrrr Ruler of OP8   Likewise.  But understand, what they've stated is that "it's working as intended".  That isn't quite the same as no problems detected.  I'm not bashing the game, exactly. I love this game. If I didn't I'd have simply quit playing 400 hours ago and left it at that.  There is an issue with extemely unlikely results being produced by the RNG in this game, and THAT is a problem. Perhaps not for a majority of players, but some. My complaints have been supported by a few others over the last few years. Not many, but enough to verify that I'm not making this shit up.  Now, that leaves one of a very few possibilities. Either repeated failures are intended to happen as a means of stripping resources from players, or, there are in fact other factors at play in the background that we arent aware of and are not shown in the stated chance for success, or, there are a small percentage of game copies that are somehow corrupted.  Since I've had this issue with 2 or 3 different downloads of the game on at least 2 different computers, I find the last option difficult to accept.

[Thrasador]

I have been playing for 300 hours now and I have watched a lot of videos of people playing mostly Geltaz and GreyStillPlays, but others too like Monkeyboy, MuthableepingRick, Stacey, LMG and others I can't even remember.

The highest fail string I have personally witnessed was Geltaz trying to light a fire in FM. He failed 3 times in a row and contemplated using accelerant,  because he had two or three matches left. He was noticeably frustrated. That is the worst I have seen and I only saw that happen ONE time after watching God knows how many hours of others playing the game.

The worst I have seen for clothes repairing is one or two fails in a row. I haven't even seen a three fail I don't think...maybe....but certainly not four or more fails in a row....

If everyone got consistently 5-6 failures in a row with any regularity, no one would play and everyone would be complaining....

How often does this happen to you? Everyday or like once every hundred hours?

FOUND IT!

Starts at 18:20 gets the furnace going with the 4th match....still better than 5 or 6 though....

He was only at 60% chance of success though....so that was fairly probable still....to fail 3 times with a 40% chance of failure....

[Lrrr Ruler of OP8]

@Thrasador Haha Watching this guy was hilarious. They way he cut out the music on each failure was a good touch. 

@TROY I think that those probabilities are there to add an element of surprise, and strip resources

[TROY]

@Thrasador  It happens to me 2 or 3 times on every playthrough which goes more than a few days, either with repairs or sewing or firestarting.   As I've stated before, I generally don't complain or even let "early" failures bother me. As you said, with a 40% of failure, 2 or 3 or even 4 failures in a row is quite possible.  But when my skills start improving and my success rate gets up to 80 and 85%, that when I start noticing the repeated failures.  Earlier this evening I had two failed attempts in a row to light a fire with a 95% chance for success. 3 tries to light a fire with only a 5% chance to fail.  Ice fishing is another one. Almost evry single playthorugh that Ive ever done where i got that skill to level 2, where your chance for line break drops to 8%... Ive broken the line on my first try, and I can think of at least three or four times that I've broken 2 or 3 lines in the first 5-8 fishing attempts after getting level 2.  That guy in the vid, he was "frustrated" with 3 fails, with only a 60% chance of success.......  imagine how it feels to waste 3 wolf pelts trying to repair your coat, or to see an entire bedroll of cloth vanish with only ONE repair success out of TEN tries!  And god knows how many more failures I'd had if I had more cloth to keep trying.  I had 3 fails before getting a success, and then 6 fails in a row after that one repair. I don't know that I've ever had more than 4 fails in a row on firestarting, but its sickeningly common for me to have to try 3 or 4 times to light a fire, even with 80 and 85% chance of success.

Again, I've said before, I also often go 7 or 8 or 9 fires in a row that light first try, so if it's averaged out, I'm probably beating the odds overall, but I'd much rather fail once every other fire than fail 3 times in a row once every 10 or 15 tries. In the long run, it would more effectively eat up the players resources, and be FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR less painful than repeated failures. Although, if I'm honest, eventually I'd start getting irritated about failing 1 out of every 3 times also. 

Lastly, I stand by my statements that I would wholeheartedly support a mechanic in the game that penalizes attempts to do things for negative modifiers affecting the player, such as being very hungry or thirsty or very tired, or injured or sick or freezing, but that mechanic needs to be transparent and those modifiers need to be shown to us and reflected in the success rate that WE SEE on our screen.  I can tell you from personal experience that its REALLY hard to light a fire when you are shivering violently, and your vision is blurry from a concussion and you cant feel your fingers from the cold, and you're exhausted from swimming in ice cold water with a strong current and trying to drag your gear and canoe to shore and then have to dig through things to find a lighter and tinder and then scrounge up dry twigs and sticks before you pass out...

But its REALLY easy to light that same fire after rolling out of bed in camp and all you want is a cup of coffee and the smell of woodsmoke. 

[Thrasador]

59 minutes ago, Lrrr Ruler of OP8 said:

@Thrasador Haha Watching this guy was hilarious. They way he cut out the music on each failure was a good touch. 

@TROY I think that those probabilities are there to add an element of surprise, and strip resources

@GELtaz is one of the best streamers of this game on YouTube. I highly recommend any and all of his videos if you are into watching other people play this. Him and GreyStillPlays often play on Interloper....so if you are newish, you can learn a lot by watching those two play....

@TROYthere HAS to be something wrong with your game. Or you literally are like the most unlucky person on the planet. I have never seen anything like what you are describing. Like I said if that was everyone's experience playing, this forum would be lit up with complaining. This level of failure is unique to you....

[Scyzara]

On 9.8.2017 at 6:45 AM, TROY said:

 I would understand if the first try of something failed fairly often, regardless of what the percent chance for success is, but to INTENTIONALLY have a system that regularly produces 4 or 5 or 6 failures in a row is downright ignorant.

The thing is, you need to understand it's not like that for everyone.  I personally haven't experienced more than three failures in a row (at success rates >80%) for at least two years now. 

It's not unlikely (or a proof of rng being broken) that a low number of players will have these unfortunate outcomes of e.g. five failures in a row at 80% success. And an even lower number of players will have multiple of these events within the same game. Think of it like winning the lottery or being struck by a lightning - although highly unlikely,  both events happen every month to a few people. Simply because so many people play the lottery (or could potentially be hit by a lightning).

And this is where another factor kicks in: Subjective Memory. If you're angry about rng being unfavorable for you (or are strongly convinced it's broken),  you will memorize every single unfortunate event (let's say a rather 'likely' two-times fail) much stronger because it's a) causing strong emotions and b) seems to prove your theory of rng being broken.  That's happening to everyone and is simply caused by the way our brain works. We memorize things better if they fit our theories or cause strong adversive (or positive) feelings. And even worse, our brain often even creates false memories that back up these theories. So you may likely remember a three-times fail as a five-times fail in retrospect. 

Long story short : I really do believe that some really unfortunate rolls happened to you in the past. And I also do believe you that you remember having many of these highly unlikely rows of fails in multiple games. But please understand that this is not a proof of rng being broken. At least not unless you can provide a video (something more reliable than human memory) showing these six-times in a row fails are  truely happening to you multiple times within an hour or so.

 

[TROY]

@Scyzara   The thing is, I've documented some of the worst ones here immediately after they happened, so even without video proof, I can rule out false or created memories. I agree with what you're saying, most of it is proven fact about human psychology, but most of it doesn't apply here.  Also, your examples of the lottery or lightning, I don't believe apply here. If you were talking about WoW or some other MMORPG, I'd agree, but there are not millions of people playing MY copy of this game, on MY computer. My results and probabilities/odds are unaffected by the results of anyone and everyone else playing. Lastly, although I certainly qualify as the most vocal sufferer if this malady, I am not alone.  I admit, some of the worst examples I've posted in the history of my crusade have been explained by other things, or happened with lower chances of success, and were posted only as examples, and failures of those magnitudes are in fact rare, but 3 or 4 fails in a row is quite common for me. 

Di you really think if this only happened once in a while that I'd have carried on about it for almost two years now? 

[MarrowStone]

Back when you could repair rifles with scrap metal and fir, i seemed to fail a lot more than in this current version, in fact, once I failed ~8-9 times with a ~65 percent chance (was a long time ago dont remember well) i found i could break those failure chains if I stopped re-attempting right away and bite into a granola bar first (or any food) it seemed lettig the game do somethin else always worked at breaking the pattern but it was most likely just superstition. 

If the rng uses the computers clock to make decisions, maybe theres a problem with how it reads time? I literally know very little about how rng is produced but if the games fine and certain people are just very "unlucky" it could be something clientside with the computer like low/high fps, or internal clock problems?

[TROY]

1 hour ago, MarrowStone said:

Back when you could repair rifles with scrap metal and fir, i seemed to fail a lot more than in this current version, in fact, once I failed ~8-9 times with a ~65 percent chance (was a long time ago dont remember well) i found i could break those failure chains if I stopped re-attempting right away and bite into a granola bar first (or any food) it seemed lettig the game do somethin else always worked at breaking the pattern but it was most likely just superstition. 

If the rng uses the computers clock to make decisions, maybe theres a problem with how it reads time? I literally know very little about how rng is produced but if the games fine and certain people are just very "unlucky" it could be something clientside with the computer like low/high fps, or internal clock problems?

Hmmmmm. Well this is interesting.  I hope a team member will weigh in on this theory, because I do in fact have issues with my computers clock. It won't keep correct time  and hasn't ever.  I would LOVE to have an explanation for this and put it to rest.

[MarrowStone]

4 minutes ago, TROY said:

Hmmmmm. Well this is interesting.  I hope a team member will weigh in on this theory, because I do in fact have issues with my computers clock. It won't keep correct time  and hasn't ever.  I would LOVE to have an explanation for this and put it to rest.

A lot of games use the clock for an rng source, minecraft used it as a seed generator when creating new worlds so mabe tld does similar.

Also, that 8-9 fails in a row was in 300 hours of gameplay so quite rare 

[Thrasador]

37 minutes ago, TROY said:

Hmmmmm. Well this is interesting.  I hope a team member will weigh in on this theory, because I do in fact have issues with my computers clock. It won't keep correct time  and hasn't ever.  I would LOVE to have an explanation for this and put it to rest.

Well see now we are getting somewhere....

I don't know that the game uses the computer clock, but what I do know is I personally have never had more than three failures in a row, and after watching 50-100 hours of other people streaming The Long Dark....I haven't seen anyone else get more than three failures in a row.

I am convinced this issue is somehow unique to you....i.e. like you are cursed with the worst RNG luck ever. 

Come to find out, your computer's clock is indeed malfunctioning....and this issue IS unique to you....

This has to be related....

Is there anyway you can fix the clock? Is it the windows clock? Can it be uninstalled and reinstalled? Or patched? Do you have to reinstall windows to fix it?

[Timber Wolf]

42 minutes ago, TROY said:

Hmmmmm. Well this is interesting.  I hope a team member will weigh in on this theory, because I do in fact have issues with my computers clock. It won't keep correct time  and hasn't ever.  I would LOVE to have an explanation for this and put it to rest.

How old is your rig?  The most likely cause of the system clock not keeping correct time is the CMOS battery.  If you have a desktop and basic familiarity with hardware, you could easily replace it.  They don't cost much at all.

[Thrasador]

6 minutes ago, Timber Wolf said:

How old is your rig?  The most likely cause of the system clock not keeping correct time is the CMOS battery.  If you have a desktop and basic familiarity with hardware, you could easily replace it.  They don't cost much at all.

I just found that when I went to go Google his clock malfunctioning....

In a prior post @TROYsaid he has had numerous computers the last few years and has reinstalled the game fresh....were you building the computers yourself and recycling the same motherboard with a bad battery into each computer trying to fix your issues?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/3-reasons-windows-computer-loses-time-date/

Wouldn't it be awesome if getting a new motherboard battery fixed his game...lol? That would be RIDICULOUS!

[Thrasador]

You may want to consult your motherboard's user manual for instructions on replacing the CMOS battery. There could be specific instructions dealing with a jumper and resetting the CMOS values to default and then saving the changes via the BIOS menu on reboot....

https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000239.htm

If you misplaced your motherboard's user manual, typically they can be found under the support section of the motherboard's manufacturer web site. You can read and download a new one as a pdf file....

[stapeliad]

Honestly the RNG drives me nuts too and I have a similar experience as you do @TROY.... but my big peeves with the game are the degrading of the whetstones and not being able to craft shirts and hats.

Everything in the game interconnects- as it should- but there are still some gaps in making it indefinitely sustainable.  Meaning, after a while one should still be able to survive indefinitely on natural resources only and it isn't there yet.

The failure rate on high percentage probability in the RNG eliminates irreplaceable materials and that is a problem long-term. By the time you are skilled enough to pretty much always succeed, resource is scarce.

[Thrasador]

1 minute ago, stapeliad said:

Honestly the RNG drives me nuts too and I have a similar experience as you do @TROY.... but my big peeves with the game are the degrading of the whetstones and not being able to craft shirts and hats.

Everything in the game interconnects- as it should- but there are still some gaps in making it indefinitely sustainable.  Meaning, after a while one should still be able to survive indefinitely on natural resources only and it isn't there yet.

The failure rate on high percentage probability in the RNG eliminates irreplaceable materials and that is a problem long-term. By the time you are skilled enough to pretty much always succeed, resource is scarce.

The way the game is currently built, it is designed to NOT be indefinitely sustainable....but it is soooo close on most aspects, I wish they would make it so it was sustainable indefinitely.....

There are too many clothing slots with no craftable option from hides....hat, shirt, undies, socks...

There is no way to maintain tools indefinitely, only to craft inferior replacements. It would be nice to be able to fashion a sanding stone....or sharpening wheel....

Saplings and other plant life need to periodically refresh like animals do. Doing this would provide food and medicines long term, and the ability to make more bows and arrows to hunt....indefinitely....

[Mike in GA]

Welcome dinosaur D&D brother Troy (roll a d20 saving throw vs confusing an issue with facts). 

It does appear that repairing when not fatigued succeeds more often than not. At least that's the impression I get, much like Timber Wolf stated.  It feels as if I fail more often while tired, but again, that could be my perception vs reality that it makes no difference. Will have to try it out and see. One good thing about it with regular clothing is the crazy amount of loot and sewing kits in Voyager. I think I have like 8 now.  Losing wolf skins, now that's another matter entirely.

Agree with stacking matches/meds rather than having lots of boxes/bottles cluttering up my inventory. Which is why I store them like Citizen does in containers. 

[TROY]

ok, got lots of things to address here...

First, the age of my rig. I don't know. I've had it a year and a half. Its an older Alienware laptop that I bought second hand. Its gotta be close to 4 years old I'd guess.  As for the other two, one was a desktop/all in on/ everything built into the screen thing. that was old when i first bought this game, but it ran it. Then I bought a small cheap notebook style laptop that barely ran the game, and I didnt play it much on that machine.  To be fair to the issue, I think anything from those two machines is unverifiable and falls into the realms of @Scyzara explanations.  I wanna say this machine came into play around the same time skills were added to the game, and I'm quite sure thats about the time I began my crusade against the games RNG.  But, I know Ive uninstalled and reinstalled it once on this machine. As for the clock, its never kept good time since I got it, but it never bothered me. Its the windows clock im talking about. I dont know how its connected to the clock you guys are talking about. I'm not planning to overhaul this computer until a staff member weighs in on whether this game uses that internal clock or not. At that point, I'll take it to a buddy of mine who knows more about computers than how to turn them on...  

[Scyzara]

6 minutes ago, TROY said:

ok, got lots of things to address here...

First, the age of my rig. I don't know. I've had it a year and a half. Its an older Alienware laptop that I bought second hand. Its gotta be close to 4 years old I'd guess.  As for the other two, one was a desktop/all in on/ everything built into the screen thing. that was old when i first bought this game, but it ran it. Then I bought a small cheap notebook style laptop that barely ran the game, and I didnt play it much on that machine.  To be fair to the issue, I think anything from those two machines is unverifiable and falls into the realms of @Scyzara explanations.  I wanna say this machine came into play around the same time skills were added to the game, and I'm quite sure thats about the time I began my crusade against the games RNG.  But, I know Ive uninstalled and reinstalled it once on this machine. As for the clock, its never kept good time since I got it, but it never bothered me. Its the windows clock im talking about. I dont know how its connected to the clock you guys are talking about. I'm not planning to overhaul this computer until a staff member weighs in on whether this game uses that internal clock or not. At that point, I'll take it to a buddy of mine who knows more about computers than how to turn them on...  

@Patrick Carlson or @Mel Guille  could you maybe contact someone from the Dev team who can  verify if that's possible? ( Windows clock malfunctions being connected to odd rng outcomes?)

[Patrick Carlson]

I will surely ask, of course. 

[TROY]

As for the game being sustainable indefinately, it isn;t intended to be.  I'd love to see rabbit fur bomber hats added, or trapper style coonskin hats or something made with a wolfs tail maybe, but full sets of clothes I think is more than the game needs.  There are a ton of things that COULD be added or done differently,  or changed or tuned differently.  I really hope the sandbox gets opened up for modding at some point, because now that Story is in full swing I dont beleive any more changes or additions to sandbox are planned.  Ive always believed there should be a flint and steel or bow drill firestarter in the game, or a nifty zippo lighter with the hinterland logo on it like the mugs, and snowshoes, and a toboggan, and more animals and traps other than snares, and ammo reloading.  We also REALLY need a custom difficulty ability, where players can choose 1 of the 4 settings for each of multiple things. So you could have pilgram loot with stalker weather and temp affects and voyager predators settings and interloper damage/medical system. Also, I really think predator behavior in general needs an overhaul. Instead of wolves attacking on sight like interloper and running away in fear on pilgram, there needs to be a set of reactions, with the chances of those reactions gradually changing as the difficulty increases. I dont think a wolf should ever run away in abject terror like they do in pilgram.  They should slowly back away, or stand their ground if on a kill, or howl for others to come and assist if theyve decided to attack...  There are just so many things that could be better, or more realistic and still be challenging. But Raf has never offered me a consulting position, and I doubt he will. And, despite what I think about changes, I dont wanna see the game ruined by feature creep and its still great as is. 

[Patrick Carlson]

To any interested parties: after checking with the team again, no, your computer's internal clock isn't connected to the game's chance systems in any way. I hope that adds some clarity to this topic. 

[TROY]

1 hour ago, stapeliad said:

Honestly the RNG drives me nuts too and I have a similar experience as you do @TROY.... but my big peeves with the game are the degrading of the whetstones and not being able to craft shirts and hats.

Everything in the game interconnects- as it should- but there are still some gaps in making it indefinitely sustainable.  Meaning, after a while one should still be able to survive indefinitely on natural resources only and it isn't there yet.

The failure rate on high percentage probability in the RNG eliminates irreplaceable materials and that is a problem long-term. By the time you are skilled enough to pretty much always succeed, resource is scarce.

I've already made quite a statement based of somethings youve said here, and the reply to it, but I specifically wanted to address what youve said about the game being sustainable indefinitely.  I've played this game for well over 600 hours. I've had some extremely long runs on lower difficulty settings, and unless you are REALLY into walking through snow, and LOVE winter time with all your heart and soul, the game starts to get quite boring after the first 50 or 60 days. By the time youve explored and looted all the maps, and got supply caches established, theres just nothing left to do except check your snares, catch a few fish, cook, sleep and chop wood.  For a long time I refused to play Stalker because the tuning was just so ridiculously far off reality that I couldnt stomach it. It is so purposely of course for challenge, but it bugged me. It was after Interloper was added that I finally realized what the lure of stupid-hard is to many folks. It NEVER gets boring. You never fall into those routines. It stays fresh.  And you dont sit there in an ice fishing shack wondering why you are ice fishing still, over a year after the winter started...  Seasons?  yeah, that'd be cool. needing to grow veggies to avoid scurvy, even better.  Death by Feature Creep and Boredom. most likely.