The weak ice mechanic needs work.

[TROY]

Until today, I had only tested this once, on purpose. Well, I got a real taste of it today in forlorn Muskeag and I gotta say, it needs alot of work. Its complete garbage.

Once you climb out of the ice, you are at least 10 meters back from the hole you fell through, and the hole is at least ten meters behind where you actually were when you fell through. A player willing to risk a rush across weak ice obviously has something dire forcing this decision. Its just bull crap to further penalize them by removing 20 meters of their forward progress. There is no possible basis for the way this works other than arbitrary artificial impediment to the player.

*** Edit:  through the discussion generated by this thread, I've come to realize there is a very good reason why the weak ice mechanic works as it does. It's not intended to be an artificial impediment at all. The way it works was by design, the best option for a player who fell through weak ice on coastal ice/shore. The problem lies with the differences between coastal ice/map barrier and the ice of forlorn Muskeag.  I apologize for the original accusations made in my post. This is the very reason for having a forum, and discussions, so people get exposure to and understanding of viewpoints or opinions that they may not have considered.

I stand by my assertion that the weak ice IN FORLORN MUSKEAG could use some adjustment to work properly in regards to reasons and motivations for being on the ice in the first place, and regards to a completely different environment than a "map boundary". However, knowing now why it is the way it is makes it far easier to accept and deal with as part of the game. 

[RossBondReturns]

I disagree it's a visual warning of what will happen if you continue to foolishly cross the weak ice.

It puts the warning right in your face. Saying don't go back this way and try it again, weak ice ahead.

[Carbon]

 I'm quite sure the thinking is that you don't want to be stood up on weak ice after falling through, so you get placed away from the hole, not some grand conspiracy to reclaim 20 meters from the player.

[TROY]

well, I guess you'd have to see the scene to understand.  I fell through four times trying to cross a short stretch, because i had no other choice. I couldnt go back because there was a bear coming behind me, and going around would have meant certain death by hypothermia long before i got to where i needed to be especially after the first dunking.   All 4 times, when i broke through, and the screen went black, I was only a couple steps from the shore i needed to reach, and most certainly would not have been standing on weak ice had i stepped onto it from that shore.  Thats the point i'm trying to make. NO sane person would climb out on the weak ice side, theyd climb out on the shore side closest to them, and I was 90% closer to the side i wanted to be on when the ice broke, and yet, every single time, it put me back almost to the shore i had left.

[RossBondReturns]

It would still be weak ice.

Weak ice is impossible to cross.

It used to flat out dunk you right away again...here at least it give you a chance to avoid.

 

[JAFO]

1 hour ago, RossBondReturns said:

Weak ice is impossible to cross.

Well, smallish patches, you can run across to solid ground before it breaks.

[Carbon]

2 hours ago, TROY said:

well, I guess you'd have to see the scene to understand.  I fell through four times trying to cross a short stretch, because i had no other choice. I couldnt go back because there was a bear coming behind me, and going around would have meant certain death by hypothermia long before i got to where i needed to be especially after the first dunking.   All 4 times, when i broke through, and the screen went black, I was only a couple steps from the shore i needed to reach, and most certainly would not have been standing on weak ice had i stepped onto it from that shore.  Thats the point i'm trying to make. NO sane person would climb out on the weak ice side, theyd climb out on the shore side closest to them, and I was 90% closer to the side i wanted to be on when the ice broke, and yet, every single time, it put me back almost to the shore i had left.

 While it all sounds terrible, I still see only bad luck here, nothing that requires re-working. It's a game, so talk of what real people would do is of no use at all.

[alunasmoon]

ice is a boundary like invisible walls and fences its there to tell the player there is nothing this way for you , it put you back farther for the sake of say storms where you get all turned around and so on, it sucks when you fall through and if a bear was behind you tough luck but its there for a reason 

[happybjorn]

So if I'm understanding the situation correctly there was certain death through hypothermia and thin ice in one direction and a bear in the other?  Facing a bear sucks, but it isn't certain death.

You are right though, that is lame and the thin ice mechanic could use work, but now you know the bear is the less dangerous option sometimes.  You could also have tried dropping a bunch of stuff... you supposedly move faster when less encumbered.

[shade_grey]

Whether or not you make it to the other side, falling though ice is the less desirable option when the other choice is being mauled by a bear. Take off any low condition clothing (hats and ear warmers are usually the first to go) that you are wearing then get mauled. After taking the beating, lay low, patch yourself up, put back the clothing you took off, wait for the bear to get out of your way, then make your way to shelter.

[norup]

I kind of understand the OP's frustration, as I recently experienced something similar: Going from Broken Railway to the Old Spence Family homestead along the coast, I tried to cross a quite narrow place with weak ice and fell through four times in a row, each time being moved back a bit - Had I been moved forward by the same amount, I could easily have passed, although wet and cold. In the end, I had to find another place to pass, freezing even more in the process. But in almost every other situation, e.g. along the coastline, it makes sense that the player is moved backwards, so the implementation is acceptable.

[TROY]

6 hours ago, alunasmoon said:

ice is a boundary like invisible walls and fences its there to tell the player there is nothing this way for you , it put you back farther for the sake of say storms where you get all turned around and so on, it sucks when you fall through and if a bear was behind you tough luck but its there for a reason 

I was in Forlorn Muskeag. Ice is not a barrier telling me theres nothing that way for me. there was a shorline, with shelter on it.

 

 

[TROY]

4 hours ago, shade_grey said:

Whether or not you make it to the other side, falling though ice is the less desirable option when the other choice is being mauled by a bear. Take off any low condition clothing (hats and ear warmers are usually the first to go) that you are wearing then get mauled. After taking the beating, lay low, patch yourself up, put back the clothing you took off, wait for the bear to get out of your way, then make your way to shelter.

I was playing interloper, already losing condition from cold and at high risk of hypothermia. Facing the bear was certain death. going the long way around was certain death. My only option was to get across the ice to shelter, such as it was. 

Now, the fact is, I very well may have gotten to the homestead and died anyway. I had no matches, so survival was dependant upon finding a fire starting source there. The point is, I was only 2 or 3 meters from crossing when the game dunked me. EACH TIME. and it placed me 20-25 meters backwards, almost to where i started, each time. 

[TROY]

4 hours ago, norup said:

I kind of understand the OP's frustration, as I recently experienced something similar: Going from Broken Railway to the Old Spence Family homestead along the coast, I tried to cross a quite narrow place with weak ice and fell through four times in a row, each time being moved back a bit - Had I been moved forward by the same amount, I could easily have passed, although wet and cold. In the end, I had to find another place to pass, freezing even more in the process. But in almost every other situation, e.g. along the coastline, it makes sense that the player is moved backwards, so the implementation is acceptable.

This was exactly my situation trying to reach the Spence Homestead, and most likely in the same spot as you.

I agree with what you say about the coastline completely, and I should have been more specific in my original post. Many of the folks here disagreeing with my position have excellent points in the context of the coastal ice, and in retrospect, the way the mechanic works WAS in fact designed originally for coastal ice. So, rather than saying it sucks, I guess I should say it needs an adjsutment in FM. 

[TROY]

It has been enlightening for me to hear the opinions of others, and to learn how other players perceive different threats, and make choices regarding survival in this game. I sometimes come off as unaccepting of other viewpoints, and that isn't really the case. I appreciate the opposing views, the discussion, and the chance to learn a new perhaps better way of making survival decisions.

I still believe that in FM the weak ice mechanic needs to be altered in how it works. The game is certainly capable of calculating whether the player is closer to one shore than the other and making an adjustment in avatar placement upon exiting the ice. And it is certainly capable of more precise location determination for the purposes of figuring out where the player was when they actually fell through.  If it was being played on a server, and there was lag, and ping and server vs client disagreements, I could understand seeing a hole that considerably misplaced from where i thought i was when i actually fell through, but theres none of that at play here. 

However, I do now see that its not as arbitrary as I beleived, its based on whats best for the player in coastal situations, which it was originally developed for.  In FM though, the motivations and desires of the player for going onto that thin ice are completely different than in coastal areas.

[JAFO]

11 hours ago, JAFO said:

Well, smallish patches, you can run across to solid ground before it breaks.

Case in point, tonight I passed right through FM twice.. each time, to avoid one wolf, I had to cross about 10-15 metres of ice. Soon as I heard the cracking start, I sprinted.. over-encumbered both times by just over 10 kg.. and made it safely across both times. Sometimes you just have to go for it.

[Etilord]

I agree with Troy. If you are more than halfway when the ice breaks, the reasonable thing would be to get out on the other side.

Alternatively, I think it would be quite exciting if the player had control after the ice breaks.
  - Camera is just above the ground to simulate height of head compared to water
  - The player must move forward (crouch speed) while breaking ice in from of him until he reaches strong ice
  - 5% condition loss per minute while in the water
  - high fatigue loss while in the water
  - the player drowns if fatigue goes to zero
  - when the player reaches strong ice, he climbs out

[SnowWalker]

16 hours ago, TROY said:

There is no possible basis for the way this works other than arbitrary artificial impediment to the player.

There's no way I'd try to go around the tracks right there in FM. I know it's riddled with weak ice everywhere. You'd have to take a wide berth away from the tracks to avoid it all. I just ran straight down the tracks to the derailment cars near the ML tunnel and grabbed a little pit stop in there. By then you should have a rifle and a flare-gun and I used the flare gun on that bear and a wolf. Lost two gun flares but you know, that's what they're for.

[TROY]

10 minutes ago, SnowWalker said:

There's no way I'd try to go around the tracks right there in FM. I know it's riddled with weak ice everywhere. You'd have to take a wide berth away from the tracks to avoid it all. I just ran straight down the tracks to the derailment cars near the ML tunnel and grabbed a little pit stop in there. By then you should have a rifle and a flare-gun and I used the flare gun on that bear and a wolf. Lost two gun flares but you know, that's what they're for.

Well, I was playing on interloper, and spawned there. in sneakers and a t-shirt. There was no rifle to find, no flare gun, no bedroll to sleep in the train cars. It was a blizzard upon spawn.  I'd have never lived to get to ML, even if there were no bears or wolves along the tracks. The Spence homestead was my ONLY option, and imo, crossing the ice was my only chance to survive. It didnt work.

[SnowWalker]

44 minutes ago, TROY said:

Well, I was playing on interloper, and spawned there. in sneakers and a t-shirt. There was no rifle to find, no flare gun, no bedroll to sleep in the train cars. It was a blizzard upon spawn.  I'd have never lived to get to ML, even if there were no bears or wolves along the tracks. The Spence homestead was my ONLY option, and imo, crossing the ice was my only chance to survive. It didnt work.

Oh hahah, whoops. I thought you were playing Wintermute. My bad. Yeah, FL can be a big pain with the weak ice. When I go to the Spence Homestead, I go to the very end of the tracks towards the tunnel on the far side, then I climb up as high as I can get to the left of tracks there to get up on the higher elevation up there. It's the only way you can get up there if you're not already at the homestead.  If you keep walking to the left from below there, it ends up being no way to get up there again and then you're kind of trapped surrounded by weak ice again. So when you climb up there I just follow the ridge up there to over and around to the homestead. There's a fallen tree bridge up there too so you'd know you're in the right place. There's also a cave up there too about halfway before you get to the homestead, if you need to stop. You can kind of tell when you're getting near the homestead and have to start going back down. You can run into a few wolves up there too but I find it a bit safer than going any other way over to the homestead.

[Mike in GA]

 In FM to get to the Spence homestead I always go to the derailed train cars and island hop over. 

Walk on the white patches and run across the ice. You've got about one second when you see the weak ice red letters. 

It's kind of a zigzag pattern to get to the Spence place, but once you learn it it's relatively easy.…… if there's no wildlife. 

My stupidest dying story was on the FM thin ice. My first attempt there I just kept sprinting and falling through, as OP stated, 20 meters back. Faded into the long dark…

wild life is sometimes an issue on the ice, I've just noticed it is definitely an issue when I've tried to take the land route around. 

Edit: additionally and most importantly, I never run across an area that's more than two seconds crossing time in real life time. Seems that running longer than that and I'm breaking that weak ice. 

[JAFO]

1 hour ago, Mike in GA said:

In FM to get to the Spence homestead I always go to the derailed train cars and island hop over. 

Walk on the white patches and run across the ice. You've got about one second when you see the weak ice red letters. 

It's kind of a zigzag pattern to get to the Spence place, but once you learn it it's relatively easy.…… if there's no wildlife. 

That's my preferred route, too..

[TROY]

Just now, JAFO said:

That's my preferred route, too..

Mine also, when i have the choice.

 

[TROY]

This is the crap I'm talking about.  I was only a step and a half from shore when I went through, and as you can see, I'm standing right beside the hole on the side I was trying to reach in the first pic. There is clearly no "weak ice" warning on my screen. I wasnt over weak ice when i went through, and was only a meter from shore and it dunked me anyways.

And it placed me way back on the far side, rather than on the shore I was closest to.   Maybe this method works for coastal areas, but it's just plain malarkey for FM. I never should have gone through in the first place, and I certainly should have been considered to have climbed out on the closest shore, not the last "safe" shore I was on. It needs work. 

EDIT: I know in the second pic, it doesnt look like the hole is any closer to either shore, but its the angle of the pic, and scene. The distance from hole to far shore is 3 or 4 times the distance to near shore.

2nd edit.  To avoid the blah blah blah posts that will inevitbly accompany this, I admit, it was my own fault. I could easily, and DID, after getting wet, go around. The idstance from shore to shore was so short, I didnt think it would be weak ice, and by the time the warning appeared, I was already far more than halfway across, so I kept going, thinking I'd easily make it, and should have.

[Stormwolf1O1]

I'm just getting back from FM myself, slept in the Snow Shelter at Abandoned Campsite, my toes got frostbite. Really kind of destroys your wanting to play the game.