Fix uselessness of certain things

[The_Materialist]

- Tinder becomes useless after firemaking  level 3

- can opener becomes useless after cooking level 3

Fix this. If i go to the summit at day 100 and find 3 can openers this shouldn't be a: mehh i found 3 scrap metal moment. And tinder is pretty much waste at that point i got a stack of over 200 tinder behind my base where i dump it. Cat tail heads are useless too. Tinder could be burned for additional heat or firestarting bonus. I mean what else would you do with that much news paper. Just delete the part with the can opener. I think it is to OP. 

 

debate.

 

 

[Reahs]

If you are level 3 fire starter make the fire start faster and give it a small boost to fire-starting chance if you use tinder when you don't even have to.

[StrayCat]

It's a shame that tinders are not necessary after level 3. I could say the same with every achievement and bonus earned. How come the game becomes easier the more we get experienced ?? That's a highway to boredom. The more we play, the easier the challenge gets... That's non-sense. Instead, the game should become less forgiving with time. I'd like to know why did the devs went that way, that's rather strange. There are other ways to reward players.

[nicko]

2 hours ago, StrayCat said:

It's a shame that tinders are not necessary after level 3. I could say the same with every achievement and bonus earned. How come the game becomes easier the more we get experienced ?? That's a highway to boredom. The more we play, the easier the challenge gets... That's non-sense. Instead, the game should become less forgiving with time. I'd like to know why did the devs went that way, that's rather strange. There are other ways to reward players.

I tend to agree with the tinders and fire making, pretty sure they still refining this all the time.  Can openers to unless you have a good knife skill?

 

[The_Materialist]

7 minutes ago, nicko said:

Can openers to unless you have a good knife skill?

No if you have cooking skill over 3 then you do not lose calories from banging open cans so you do not need a can opener.

[nicko]

5 minutes ago, The_Materialist said:

No if you have cooking skill over 3 then you do not lose calories from banging open cans so you do not need a can opener.

oh, anyways you can always harvest a can opener to metal. maybe make a fish hook or something more useful?

[KinoUnko]

would make sense to have calorie loss for bashing can open regardless of cooking skill, maybe less at higher levels but never 0. As far as tinder, as long as it remains optional at higher levels I am okay with it being useful or not, personally I'd rather not deal with the tedium if I don't have to. That said, I think it's more reasonable to make tinder optional at level 5 instead of level 3, it's probably set to 3 for the fire starter feat more than anything else.

[AZHockeyNut]

The reality is it would still burn and add burn time to a fire. If sticks add a few minutes tinder bundles should at least add something one would think.

As for can opener it is a good tool to fix my hacksaw

[JaySovereign]

Finding 3 scrap metal is a feat, in my opinion, but I agree with the tinder part.

[nicko]

Tinder is very useful, but from what I see it should be allowed to maybe bundle and burn?  pretty sure some post a while ago suggested that same with bundling sticks. or just let us add a tinder to a fire, simple fix. Prb give you 0.1 extra burn time though, least we get satisfaction of burning it. Let us burn anything I say. Fire bugs.

[Mroz4k]

Boo-hoo, something is not useful anymore after X amount of time, developers, fix this!!! This is an argument I would expect from a spoiled brat, not from you, OP. Read it again after yourself. You want developers to fix something that is not broken, in fact, you want them to "break" it on purpose just to make your game easier.

Think again. This game is not designed to hold your hand so deal with it. Wanna make use of the can opener more? Eat the canned food before you get to the higher cooking level. What about people that spend a lot of time eating the processed food in the early game before starting to hunt? They might be trying to "speed-loot" the entire map, and are eating processed food exclusively because it has no scent. People like that might not reach cooking level fast enough and will make use of more can openers than other players would. You have got to consider that other people have different playstyles to yours.

Don't even let me start on a fact that getting three can openers on Interloper means you have 3 scrap metals that you can turn into tools without a need to find hacksaw to process metal furniture...

Finally, who says that using can opener is pointless? I haven't confirmed this, but I would not be surprised if the can opener took less "time" then smashing can open. 

A lot of the "optional" things in TLD provide bonuses, even though they might seem almost irrelevant, often so irrelevant players don't notice. I know a lot of people don't want to admit it, but based on my experience and research, it makes difference if you use tinder after fire-starting level 3. If you do not use it, the fire takes longer to start and you will usually lose about 1 minute of fire time when you finish the fire. At least this is how it used to be. Lots of people claim it never was so, but I know for a fact it was as I have researched it. Always been very observant when it comes to the little things in the game.

Can opener might not be such a useful tool in the game, true, but that does not mean it shouldn't be so common and other things need to be found instead of it. If it becomes obsolete at some point, it just adds to the immersion of the game - because, in real life, you would also often find things that are not actually useful to you. Knowing what to take, when to take it and why is also a part of a learning curve in survival. Same applies to tinder. Just because it may not be useful anymore does not mean you shouldn't collect it anymore. For all we know, it may become important eventually with new content coming in. 

For starters, people are pushing hard for "friction fire" method. I cannot imagine that method of fire will have "tinder" as merely "optional" option. And other things might have other uses eventually - birch bark in itself is amazing material, cattail heads could eventually be used for insulation in clothing, so maybe for clothing repairs, or craftable/improvable clothing later on, etc.

Just because it is not useful NOW does not mean it won't be useful anymore.

2 minutes ago, nicko said:

tinder I very useful, but from what I see it should be allowed to maybe bundle and burn?  pretty sure some post a while ago suggested that. with a nice screenie.

Point of a tinder is, that it burns fast and bright. Adding it on fire would serve no purpose. It would not raise the temperature of it, and it won't make it last longer. 

What you probably have in mind is compressed tinder. Compressing tinder into a smaller object increases its density, and allows it to burn longer, and add more heat. Problem is how to make them. Only two real ways to achieve that - have some machinery to press it together (not an option for TLD), or through the organical process. A poo. For example, yak or reindeer droppings have been used for fire material for millennia. Because cows will eat a lot of grass, process it in its stomach, and the excrement will basically be "piles" of grass, compressed into a small piece of poo. If that is dried out, it can be used as efficiently as a piece of wood.

As you can see, compression is not really a possibility in TLD, unless we start gathering deer droppings. Or rabbit ones. Cant use bear or wolf since those are carnivores (for the most part) I don't think their poo would be very flammable, as it does not contain grass like it is with rabbits and deer.

[The_Materialist]

29 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

heads could eventually be used for insulation in clothing

Fuck yes gimme a cat tail coat xD like 8 °C warmth bonus but it burns when you step into a fire xD

 

on your other points.. Maybe i haven't formulated the problem wrong. 

The problem is that survival skills:

#1 level too fast and

#2 provid to much of a bonus and make the game easy and

#3 make items that used to be crucial like tinder and a can opener useless

 

so maybe it is about balancing skill. I have been on day 50 when I had firemaking level 3 and on day 80 I had cooking 5 with no food poissoning from cooked meat and no canopener.

[Mroz4k]

Thank you! Thank you for being a witty person, and instead of doing the same thing I soo often see people do on these forums, you did not take my argument as a personal insult (despite it was sharply formulated) and you recognized it for what it really was - constructive criticism.

Maybe there is hope for these forums yet!

Now, I would say it really was a matter of not voicing your thoughts properly. 

46 minutes ago, The_Materialist said:

The problem is that survival skills:

#1 level too fast and

I could not agree more. You are absolutely right in this regard - well, with a simple difference: the sewing skill. I think this one actually levels quite slowly, which is what makes it such a challenge to have, and actually quite fun to do. More skills should be this way. There as several ideas I have on how to fix this, but will say those below.

46 minutes ago, The_Materialist said:

#2 provid to much of a bonus and make the game easy and

In some cases, yes. Then again, the point of them is to help you maintain the game better. By repeating, people improve. So I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, but I think it needs to be altered - I think there should be significantly increasing experience gaps with mastering skills. The skills requirements grow exponentially, which is good, but not good enough. I think it is good to get to the levels of 2 or 3 fairly easy, but getting to levels 4 and 5 should be significantly higher. Again, more opinions below.

46 minutes ago, The_Materialist said:

#3 make items that used to be crucial like tinder and a can opener useless

Again, those things are not useless. Less useful maybe, but not useless. And I get your point, but is that such a bad thing? The point of the skills is to make survival easier, that is why people polish them. It makes sense that at some point, things that were necessary before become irrelevant. However, I would like to see the "optional" items have a bit more impact on the game than they currently have. If the can opener could save 15 minutes that it would otherwise take to smash can open, it would no longer be a necessity, but more of a luxury item which can still be useful. 

46 minutes ago, The_Materialist said:

so maybe it is about balancing skill

I agree, I think this is the actual problem. 

So, here are my ideas:

Not performing certain tasks will eventually deteriorate certain skills. For example, not processing a carcass for 15 in-game days would eventually lower your skill from Master to level 4, with almost level 5. This would remove your master bonuses, but regaining them would not be hard. Still, it would be a punishment for not doing certain tasks for too long.

Naturally, the easier it is to get a certain skill, the quicker you would get to forget it. For example, not cooking a single meal for 4 in-game days would result in losing master status, and becoming level 4, again with most exp points left. Regaining the status again would not be hard - just cook a meal or two, and you would have it back. Naturally, the more difficult mode, the quicker you would get to forget your skills.

Certain skills could be refreshed by reading books you already read once. For example guns - some people won't go shooting for a long time, but you could refresh your knowledge by re-reading the books. This should not be an option for the easy skills like cooking, fire starting or carcass harvesting, maybe even archery. But for guns, fishing or tailoring, I think it makes sense. (book re-learning should be possible for the skills that you don't always use on day-to-day basis, so I think guns, fishing and tailoring are good options)

Finally, the "differences" in experiences needed to advance to new levels are too easy. It is too easy, for example, to reach mastery in cooking. I think this should be fixed two ways: to reach level 4 and 5, you need tremendously more experience to advance to them. Still, the reward is those nice perks you get for reaching this level. For the starting level 2 and 3, I think it is reasonable the way it is right now, but to get "really" good, it should be more of an effort.

Also, to prevent people from grinding it too much, maybe there should be an "exp cap" on how much can a person learn each day. To prevent people from topping off their cooking skill in first 10 days of the game by cooking 0,15 kg pieces of meat just for the skill points. 

[nicko]

On 10/25/2017 at 10:43 PM, Mroz4k said:

Boo-hoo, something is not useful anymore after X amount of time, developers, fix this!!! This is an argument I would expect from a spoiled brat, not from you, OP. Read it again after yourself. You want developers to fix something that is not broken, in fact, you want them to "break" it on purpose just to make your game easier.

Think again. This game is not designed to hold your hand so deal with it. Wanna make use of the can opener more? Eat the canned food before you get to the higher cooking level. What about people that spend a lot of time eating the processed food in the early game before starting to hunt? They might be trying to "speed-loot" the entire map, and are eating processed food exclusively because it has no scent. People like that might not reach cooking level fast enough and will make use of more can openers than other players would. You have got to consider that other people have different playstyles to yours.

Don't even let me start on a fact that getting three can openers on Interloper means you have 3 scrap metals that you can turn into tools without a need to find hacksaw to process metal furniture...

Finally, who says that using can opener is pointless? I haven't confirmed this, but I would not be surprised if the can opener took less "time" then smashing can open. 

A lot of the "optional" things in TLD provide bonuses, even though they might seem almost irrelevant, often so irrelevant players don't notice. I know a lot of people don't want to admit it, but based on my experience and research, it makes difference if you use tinder after fire-starting level 3. If you do not use it, the fire takes longer to start and you will usually lose about 1 minute of fire time when you finish the fire. At least this is how it used to be. Lots of people claim it never was so, but I know for a fact it was as I have researched it. Always been very observant when it comes to the little things in the game.

Can opener might not be such a useful tool in the game, true, but that does not mean it shouldn't be so common and other things need to be found instead of it. If it becomes obsolete at some point, it just adds to the immersion of the game - because, in real life, you would also often find things that are not actually useful to you. Knowing what to take, when to take it and why is also a part of a learning curve in survival. Same applies to tinder. Just because it may not be useful anymore does not mean you shouldn't collect it anymore. For all we know, it may become important eventually with new content coming in. 

For starters, people are pushing hard for "friction fire" method. I cannot imagine that method of fire will have "tinder" as merely "optional" option. And other things might have other uses eventually - birch bark in itself is amazing material, cattail heads could eventually be used for insulation in clothing, so maybe for clothing repairs, or craftable/improvable clothing later on, etc.

Just because it is not useful NOW does not mean it won't be useful anymore.

Point of a tinder is, that it burns fast and bright. Adding it on fire would serve no purpose. It would not raise the temperature of it, and it won't make it last longer. 

What you probably have in mind is compressed tinder. Compressing tinder into a smaller object increases its density, and allows it to burn longer, and add more heat. Problem is how to make them. Only two real ways to achieve that - have some machinery to press it together (not an option for TLD), or through the organical process. A poo. For example, yak or reindeer droppings have been used for fire material for millennia. Because cows will eat a lot of grass, process it in its stomach, and the excrement will basically be "piles" of grass, compressed into a small piece of poo. If that is dried out, it can be used as efficiently as a piece of wood.

As you can see, compression is not really a possibility in TLD, unless we start gathering deer droppings. Or rabbit ones. Cant use bear or wolf since those are carnivores (for the most part) I don't think their poo would be very flammable, as it does not contain grass like it is with rabbits and deer.

either way we should still be able to throw our tinder in a fire? burn time 0.02 or whatever.

[Mroz4k]

On 10/26/2017 at 4:46 PM, nicko said:

either way we should still be able to throw our tinder in a fire? burn time 0.02 or whatever.

Dude, that would be SOOO useful! When it literally burns away faster then you can click to add more of it on...

Think again. How useful would that be if this "bonus" burnt out faster then you could do something? Wood prolongs the fire because it can burn for a long time, as embers. Tinder cannot because it is something so thin that once it burns out, it evaporates or turns into a powdered ash. So no, tinder will not prolong fire.

[AZHockeyNut]

Skill book rereading is nice because it takes away the ability to burn them. Once you read them you can burn them but if you do...there goes the ability to reread... forever! Cost/benefit there

[JAFO]

20 hours ago, AZHockeyNut said:

Skill book rereading is nice because it takes away the ability to burn them. Once you read them you can burn them but if you do...there goes the ability to reread... forever! Cost/benefit there

You've kinda lost me there with what you're suggesting/asking for.. there's currently no benefit from re-reading a book. So you may as well use it for fire-starting once you've finished it.

If you find a second copy of the same book, on the other hand, that can also be read for a one-time benefit, same as the first book.

[AZHockeyNut]

In previous posts someone had suggested a change around that type of thing