Keep TLD As It Is.

[MarrowStone]

Just now, hozz1235 said:

I've travelled through caves picking up every piece of coal and when I've gone back through (some days later), I've found more coal.  I just reasoned it breaks loose from a vein in the ceiling.  Conclusion:  does respawn!

Thank you for your experimentation and confirmation. What difficulty mode were you on? I dont play stalker anymore due to the wolfacalypse so not sure if it respawns there.

[hozz1235]

I've played everything but interloper.

[romerabr]

It does respawn on all levels, even in interloper, for sure. 

[CaveDweller]

I may be alone in this, but I wish custom mode would just disappear. Exploring the mechanics of every mode, wondering why certain things happen, wondering which variables have changed and how this impacts strategy - these are all the things that keep me playing TLD into the wee hours.

Custom mode = broken 4th wall for me. No likey. Pulls me out of the immersion just knowing it's there!

Anyway, everyone has their own dish to cook right? The thing I really don't understand is the TLD has so many ingredients already - are we not entertained?

The conflict, particularly in the suggestions section of the forum, between 'but in real life I can do X' and game mechanics is I feel the root of apparent discord. TLD is in part so wonderful because it borrows from real life without seeking to emulate it. Real life is part of the construct not a crutch. This is one factor that translates to us as players - as immersion.

'Everyone' also knows that the weather of TLD is a significant game mechanic. But how many people actually recognise the weather as an NPC? Because that's what it is. So are the wolves, bears, rabbits and deer.* How these NPCs interact with us, and we with them, forms an ecology that at times pulsates with a life of it's own. It is our fight to keep moving forward in the face of boundaries set by these NPCs that define our game experience. In so many games your being the hero is preordained, you're given a BFG and told to go save the world. TLD on the on the other hand strips you naked, throws you to the wolves and says, "Just try and get up, I dare you." This is alien, scary, unnatural. 

With this in mind is it surprising that people want to add features that allow them to increasingly control the world they are thrown into? The bigger question is, do they understand why they want these things - and conversely why they shouldn't have them? As Marianne Williamson said, "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us." Giving ourselves permission to struggle, to get beaten to the ground time again and yet to keep moving forward is scary, hard...uncomfortable. Because to do so we also have to relinquish our normal god-like status in games and recognise and confront the fragility of our character.

TLD isn't a game, is an unending masochistic experience in which we must relinquish control and embrace defiance.

CaveDweller

 

*Note I didn't add moose there? I have extreme reservations about moose as they are currently implemented. But that's another post.

[Pillock]

On 24/03/2018 at 7:24 AM, CaveDweller said:

I may be alone in this, but

You are not, sir

EDIT: Actually I don't want to see the custom mode disappear, really. I think its a good addition that would do well being expanded upon, even. 

But I do agree with the rest of what you said wholeheartedly. 

[CaveDweller]

@Pillock Well it's comforting to know I'm not a lone nut  

I agree that custom mode should stay as everyone has the right to experience the game in their own way. I must admit knowing some of the possible settings did open up a raft of new avenues of investigation for me in the standard modes.

I was a tad flippant in my original post, but to clarify - having the custom setting there (for me) gave far too much information about how the game worked...too many cheap wins in figuring out the mechanics. I felt that some of my earlier hard-fought learnings and mental frameworks for structuring the world were devalued. In the face of this I am incredibly cognisant of the fact that MANY long-term players loved delving into the matrix and yanking on Agent Smith's code - just not my personal cup of tea

[StrayCat]

The custom mode put an end to a lot of discussions / whinings about settings in the game. Some wanted a pilgrim-like with less resources, others wanted plenty of wildlife to hunt, and others wanted just some settings to be tweaked. And many others discussion were about "what is realistic" : custom mode lets me define what I consider "realistic", and my definition will be different than other players'. Many arguments were ended that day.

By example, I like to play with low resources, low wildlife, and less aggressive wolves (more realistic behaviour and context from my point of view). Being able to do so has totally revitalized my interest in the game. Without this mode, I guess today I would only play from time to time, and I would still be whining in the "wish list" section, while waiting for mods to be supported. 

[AZHockeyNut]

And custom .ode suggestions were always met with no or never from Raph....finally he woke up from his bear nap and listened to his customers....it took him a long time to get that concept. Finally they have something great

[ArcherAC3]

On 12/02/2018 at 4:04 PM, Aagje said:

I think that's the most important consideration when thinking about possible additions to the game.

Would I like an orbital defense grid to bring down time-on-target kinetic strike bombardments on that wolf who's been chasing me for the past hour? Of course I would. Would it be TLD? No.

Also, welcome to the forums, Bowie.

I think Bowie post about the binoculars, though, would fit pretty well into TLD (unlike the Orbital Defense Grid, obviously).

[CaveDweller]

@StrayCat  Very good points, well played sir

@ArcherAC3 I can see them being cool, but are they really necessary? I think a lot of us use the rifle or bow to 'zoom' in on areas that were walking into (i.e. mid-range detail becomes visible). Long-range detail is probably not relevant as anything in that range is well out of detection-radius. By the time you got to the area any predatory wildlife would also have moved on. A lot of the mechanics in TLD have the effect of forcing the player to keep moving, and in this sense only mid-close ranges are really relevant.

[ArcherAC3]

2 hours ago, CaveDweller said:

 

@ArcherAC3 I can see them being cool, but are they really necessary? I think a lot of us use the rifle or bow to 'zoom' in on areas that were walking into (i.e. mid-range detail becomes visible). Long-range detail is probably not relevant as anything in that range is well out of detection-radius. By the time you got to the area any predatory wildlife would also have moved on. A lot of the mechanics in TLD have the effect of forcing the player to keep moving, and in this sense only mid-close ranges are really relevant.

Maybe, they are.

As a new player during the Preview/Alpha version of TLD, the first thing that came to my mind while climbing the lookout on Mystery Lake was "Nice! I'll probably find a binocular up there and be able to scan the area so I can find a house/shelter to go towards later on", and even after not finding those binoculars up top, I was still decided to find one somewhere else, until I decided to search on the internet and be dissapointed that they were non-existant in the game.

I won't have the need of them there now, as I already have the whole map on my head (taking away the amazing feeling of being lost), but I do think they would be pretty cool in identifying structures far away. As a second example, the Comms Tower/Signal Hill on Pleasant Valley. I'd always see the tower far away and only after quite a lot of time playing on that region, I decided to go towards it - since I thought it was just a far away landscape unaccesible texture. If I had a binoculars, I could have seen that the mountain was climbable by rope and that there were objects around the tower, becoming aware that it was much more detailed than the landscape textures (not objects) and probably accesible to players.

The use of the binoculars would not be to survey an area for wildlife (as TLD uses a spawn by proximity/point of view feature - which is a shame but probably done like that so our systems won't have to keep track of every animal in real time), but to find far away objects and buildings (like those darn houses you're sometimes going towards in a time of despair just to find out, when you're freezing and there, that they were all destroyed and you should have went there another time). It would also have been pretty useful for me as well in Forlorn Muskeg, so I could have seen which areas were accesible and what possibly could be there, helping me decide when/where to move.

Of course, they should be pretty hard to come by and would barely have any use in bad weather. But it would help, especially new players, and would be a cool, immersive and natural addition to the game (unlike, again, the Orbital Defense Grid).

Cheers.

[CaveDweller]

@ArcherAC3 Would part of the discussion then relate to how often you would have sufficient line of sight to actually use them? If at a high vantage point, such as one of the towers, then a spotting scope that was perma-mounted (re. tripod) may be more appropriate.

At low elevations regional characteristics would come into play. For example, out on the ice at CH (or to a lesser extent DP) - yeah...maybe useful in working out where the packs are. In most other locations your line of sight is so frequently interrupted that they may be of limited value.

[Ape88]

On 2/12/2018 at 9:18 AM, Aagje said:

There have been a lot of posts lately asking for additions to The Long Dark...

...So thank you to the developers for making a game which is true to itself, and please don't dilute the simplicity with tons of unneeded additions...

Regardless of the fact that Hinterland has already a Scope would not work well due to the way things are loaded as the player moves... Please explain to me in what way a Scope of some sort either on a weapon or alone would not fit into the spirit of the game? To adress other ideas folks have had... As of right now, the wilderness seems quite empty, even of things that one would expect. The only harvestables are rose hips, reishi mushrooms and cattails! Surely there would be berries (both safe and poisonous) and other things. Some of the best ideas I've seen and had add a new element to consider for survival or make more sense, for example, being able to move storage containers around... Or creating an ice box of sorts... Add in that ability, and you balance it out with the concept of using something to protect meat from freezer burn, and make it so folks can no longer safely keep meat outside. Maybe make it so raw or cooked meat improperly stored is a wonderful way to attract wolves.

I'm sure as Hinterland adds more into the game, things will balance out. They did well with the moose. Yes, you can get lots of meat and good things made from the hide, but they are dangerous beasts and yet another thing to avoid if you aren't prepared to make a kill shot.

I would like to at least be able to make minor repairs to existing structures.

[FluffyComeHome]

As the game evolves I think there have been great features added, but that there have also been things added that have just served to make the game easier. Correcting bugs and crashes are fine, but introducing new elements is a tricky business. Most of the updates and requests I see are meant to make the game easier...help to survive longer. I originally started TLD because it was often said the be "the most difficult survival game", but I'm not sure if that is still true. For instance the metal containers used to be such a nondescript grey that they just blended into the background, making them very easy to miss. Now they are a bright vibrant green that can be seen from a mile away. Including custom settings also makes the game easier. Even if you set them to the most difficult settings, the game is easier by the simple virtue of knowing  what settings exist and what to expect form them. I found everything to be more challenging when I didn't know aspects of the game had what kind of algorithm governing it. When I didn't know spawn rates for each level, or that ambient fire temps would or would not overcome air temp. I once hear someone say that the first time playing the long dark is always the best because you are truly exploring the unknown. But now all the mystery is laid bare for all to see. As the saying goes "be careful what you ask for..."

Anyway...some change is good, but sometimes it changes what is good.

[EricTheGreat12]

3 hours ago, FluffyComeHome said:

Anyway...some change is good, but sometimes it changes what is good.

And yet change is necessary for the sake of change: if we were to take the new cooking mechanism, it’s great to be able to cook any food on any kind of stove; there’s no need to carry pots, and you could even cook meat with your nearest forge. 

But with a new system, we will have to carry pots and cans with us around while having to wait for your food to cook (while also making sure it doesn’t get burnt). The new system is necessary because this game needs change, because simply pressing a few buttons on your computer screen does not make this game an engaging survival experience.

[Aagje]

On 5/20/2018 at 4:13 PM, EricTheGreat12 said:

And yet change is necessary for the sake of change ...

I could not agree less. Why change something which is already working?

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

[EricTheGreat12]

20 minutes ago, Aagje said:

I could not agree less. Why change something which is already working?

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Read my above post on the cooking mechanic.

 

The game works perfectly fine with the current cooking mechanic, but the new cooking mechanic will be better, and will be more realistic 

[StrayCat]

I guess the main problem is that after playing for a while, we know every detail about the maps, where to find anything we need, how long it takes to travel from A to B, if there are some shelters on the way, etc. We are now able to optimize every action we take, lowering the risks. So many players with a bit of experience now crave for new mecanisms, new places to explore, new tools to try, novelty ! I also do, as I go back to the game in frenzy after every major update to try everything new (hello maps ! hello moose !).

IMO, a new sandbox mode with random generated maps could also be the way to go, to help keep interest in the game even after playing it hundreds times. That would revive the feeling of "the first time", when we felt thrown in the wild without any idea of where to go, where to find shelter and tools, etc.

[Timber Wolf]

On 3/19/2018 at 9:18 PM, cekivi said:

Where's @Timber Wolf when you need him to do some testing!

Here I am, @cekivi! 

As far as I know, coal always re-spawns in all locations it is initially spawned in.  Which is pretty much all caves and mines, with one notable exception - no coal spawns in the cave between PV and the Dam.