Feedback summary after recent binge (LONG)

[xnoybis]

So I've started a proper run recently and I have now fully explored and cleaned both maps, with all useful loot now at a single location, my base. It took exactly 22 days and 18 hours, started in Mystery Lake where I spent roughly 7 days.

Had 5-6 wolf fights total, got lost in a blizzard on the lake a couple of times - never again.

Don't go out on the lake in a blizzard or fog, "the consequences will never be the same".

So seeing as I collected everything (other than things I obviously missed and I'm not aware of) and don't have to leave the house other than for wood and eventually hunting in a few weeks I decided to check my inventory.

Hopefully this can be helpful to the devs for future balancing and seeing what works and it might be useful to other players for their own playthroughs.

Clothing bonus (all clothing at 90%+):

Temperature: +16C

Wind chill: +11C

Resources:

Antibiotics x 42 (used 2)

Accelerant x 11 (used some)

Antiseptic x 12 (used some)

Bandage x 5 (used around half of the ones found, haven't crafted any)

Can Opener x 4 (harvested one or two)

Cardboard Matches x 301

Wood Matches x 163

Cloth x 183 (best clothing found repaired to 90%+, everything else into cloth)

Firestriker x 1 (not using)

Flares x 12 (not using)

Gut x 2 (not using)

Hatchet x 3 (one kept in top shape, one harvested, 2 in reserve)

Hunting Knife x 1 (found 3 or 4)

Hunting Rifle x 2 (found three, harvested one, shots fired: 0)

Lantern Fuel x 12 (using only as accelerant, harvesting all lanterns for scrap)

Leather x 30 (my insulated boots kept at 90%+)

Painkillers x 38 (used 2 once for ankle in this playthrough)

Prybar x 1 (harvested 3-4)

Scrap Metal x 19 (used some for repairs)

Sewing Kit x 10 (finishing my first one)

Simple Tools x 6 (finishing my first set)

Water Tablets x 12 (haven't used for a few games now)

Food:

Roughly 60kg plus around 13 liters of water. Haven't even cleaned half the toilets.

Very unlikely any of it spoils.

Around 15kg of that are wolves I killed along the way I haven't eaten yet.

Also still good is an MRE found on day 1, didn't have the need to eat it to this day,

I'll try and keep it for my last meal if I force myself to get to the end

I mentioned not using the rifle once so far, 5 or 6 wolves I had to kill (as not to waste a bandage and antiseptic for nothing) I killed in melee. I mentioned this approach few times, do not bandage or apply antiseptic until you get something out of the fight, so chase that wolf down to finish him and get the prize. If you see another wolf and you're above 60-70% condition plus close to shelter go for a double (don't use LMB, not worth it, just mash RMB).

Ammo:

Since I haven't fired a single shot, I now have 24 bullets for what time I have left in this world.

If I overdose on Condensed Milk and have a really bad aim shooting spree I still should get at least 16 wolves worth of food out of that ammo, so about 32 days (guessing).

I will probably continue playing just to see how long I can survive, I imagine it will be a long, long cycle of foraging for wood, eating and sleeping, until I have room in my fridge and start using my ammo.

This should probably go into the Wishlist sub-forum, but I decided it's probably better to keep this long post in one piece,

So here's my WISHLIST (I'm aware quite a few of these were probably mentioned before):

Minor improvements:

- Ability to unload rifle (unless I missed the option)

I had 10 ammo loaded into a 40-50% rifle I found and then I found a 93%.

Would be nice to be able to switch over. Haven't dared to harvest the rifle to see if I get the ammo back.

- Bags, backpacks, utility belts, clothes with pockets and so on with a bonus to carrying weight or reducing fatigue.

- Snares to work everywhere, not only in the areas where rabbits were spotted, as I understand is now the case.

This could come with a lowered chance of catching something, but given the distances and current state of food supplies

it's not worth a trek to set it up and then one more to pick up the prize.

I set the snare once, found it ruined day and a half later, could possibly be just tipped over instead, unless already on

low condition?

- In one of the previous games I had my ankle sprained about 10 times in one hour.

Now I do questionable things in dark alleys for painkillers, thanks, Hinterland Games

I know I can sleep it off, but still, a minor pain in the neck, well - ankle. Once in a while, sure, but not in series.

- Color coding items in the item list - it would be handy to highlight items equipped/worn with green (for example),

ruined with red, nearing 0% with orange. So you can see which items require action without clicking on them

to see the description. Capacity bars/indicators showing how much of the antiseptic is left in that bottle, again one click less.

Down the road:

- Culling the wolves further to make them a rare occurance and have them behave like other wildlife (so avoiding humans), unless in direct danger when they still attack. Maybe have only one random wolf per map that developed taste for human flesh, the rest fleeing on sight unless threatened.

I know this one will make more sense where there is more variety in wildlife, now it might look a bit empty without them (and they're tasty), and they still get the blood flowing, even though they're rarely a grave threat (I only start worrying when encountering them under 60-70% condition).

- More of everything! In variety, not necessarily numbers - more types of wildlife (females/males/young), more food types, different types of knives, hatchets, axes, maybe a shotgun and a pistol. And more types of clothing for the fashionable survivor on the go. We need more hats.

Building types and layouts could use some variety as well.

This is what modding could be great for in the future.

- Making tool and weapon maintenance a little harder - so you need more items, craftable or scavengable, to properly repair your rifle or hatchet and the items required differ more for different tools/weapons.

Random chance of breaking tools when using them? Not to "ruined" but significant enough, yet rare (maybe linked to skill).

- Clothing damage from wolf attacks, burns, dropping from height, sometimes even random mishap - oops, caught a branch with my sleeve kind of thing.

- Map for real men and women - no shelter, barely any food on the map. This could be used as a perfect testing bed

for the shelter building features (I hope they're still in the roadmap) and expanding the hunting and new wildlife,

including fishing. Assumming map development goes hand in hand with future story mode, this could be Chapter 1 or Tutorial, where you are the farthest from remains of civilization.

- Foraging. I like this being automated and I love being able to look for a specific type of wood.

But maybe we could take this a step further, I admit I don't know if it would work out well though.

What if you had to venture out to a specific area to get Fir Wood as it's not found everywhere.

And what if you had to actually work on individual trees with your hatchet/hands (might be too late for this one?).

It would break up the monotony of late game and force you to venture out from time to time out of necessity.

- Learning skills, found books/manuals maybe?

- UI. Having it consolidated and using more visual cues rather than text. Having a pictogram/icon for "encumbered", "freezing", "starving" and so on. Still keeping as much of the interface as possible hidden until displayed (by pressing and releasing space for example), for immersion.

Also a character overview screen, known from classic RPGs could be nice - with everything listed on one screen, showing skill levels, afflictions, as well as clothing slots, weapon slots and so on. Tabs/icons instead of dropdowns for categories - so one click instead of two.

Working with lists can get tiresome.

- Ability to keep moving/looking with main interface opened. Being able to look around while performing action or eating/drinking.

- Drawing a map (maybe something similar to Miasmata mapping?) and ability to make notes (on the map screen maybe).

---

Overall, great stuff guys, loving the experience so far. I was on the fence for a while since I'm not a great fan of Early Access, had The Long Dark on my wishlist for a month or so, but I'm glad I got this, really top notch quality for an alpha.

There are more great things to come, I'm sure.

Would love to see your feedback on some of the suggestions.

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[align=center]I don't always go for hikes, but when I do I climb things.[/align]

http://i.imgur.com/TxDLjE6.jpg

[Trandor]

Minor improvements:

[spoil]- Ability to unload rifle (unless I missed the option)

I had 10 ammo loaded into a 40-50% rifle I found and then I found a 93%.

Would be nice to be able to switch over. Haven't dared to harvest the rifle to see if I get the ammo back.

- Bags, backpacks, utility belts, clothes with pockets and so on with a bonus to carrying weight or reducing fatigue.

- Snares to work everywhere, not only in the areas where rabbits were spotted, as I understand is now the case.

This could come with a lowered chance of catching something, but given the distances and current state of food supplies

it's not worth a trek to set it up and then one more to pick up the prize.

I set the snare once, found it ruined day and a half later, could possibly be just tipped over instead, unless already on

low condition?

- In one of the previous games I had my ankle sprained about 10 times in one hour.

Now I do questionable things in dark alleys for painkillers, thanks, Hinterland Games

I know I can sleep it off, but still, a minor pain in the neck, well - ankle. Once in a while, sure, but not in series.

- Color coding items in the item list - it would be handy to highlight items equipped/worn with green (for example),

ruined with red, nearing 0% with orange. So you can see which items require action without clicking on them

to see the description. Capacity bars/indicators showing how much of the antiseptic is left in that bottle, again one click less.[/spoil]

- The ability to unload the rifle has been brought up before, and I think the devs already responded to that, so I guess we will see that in a future update.

- I still disagree with the need for more bags, backpacks or anything of the likes. 30kg in one bag on your back is enough. I could use more, but I don't think it's realistic that you can run around at a reasonable pace with more on your back. If that were the maximum you can carry and you add smaller backpacks, okay, maybe, but then it would be horrible at the start when you only have a small backpack and can carry merely 5kg.

- I haven't experimented with snares yet, so I can't really tell anything about them, other than that they work.

- If you do sprain your ankle, then you should definitely change your ways of running around. Here's how you barely ever get sprained ankles:

1. Walk in the direction you are looking (use only W to move around).

2. Keep your head down when walking on uneven ground ( keep your head always at a slightly downward angle).

3. When going downhill, look at your feet and don't run.

Easy as pie. I hardly ever get sprained ankles, by simply doing what I would do in real life as well.

- Good idea of color coding the items, but I would recommend not using colors that are dark in order to maintain readability, so I would make em light green, light yellow, light red.

Down the road:

[spoil]- Culling the wolves further to make them a rare occurance and have them behave like other wildlife (so avoiding humans), unless in direct danger when they still attack. Maybe have only one random wolf per map that developed taste for human flesh, the rest fleeing on sight unless threatened.

I know this one will make more sense where there is more variety in wildlife, now it might look a bit empty without them (and they're tasty), and they still get the blood flowing, even though they're rarely a grave threat (I only start worrying when encountering them under 60-70% condition).

- More of everything! In variety, not necessarily numbers - more types of wildlife (females/males/young), more food types, different types of knives, hatchets, axes, maybe a shotgun and a pistol. And more types of clothing for the fashionable survivor on the go. We need more hats.

Building types and layouts could use some variety as well.

This is what modding could be great for in the future.

- Making tool and weapon maintenance a little harder - so you need more items, craftable or scavengable, to properly repair your rifle or hatchet and the items required differ more for different tools/weapons.

Random chance of breaking tools when using them? Not to "ruined" but significant enough, yet rare (maybe linked to skill).

- Clothing damage from wolf attacks, burns, dropping from height, sometimes even random mishap - oops, caught a branch with my sleeve kind of thing.

- Map for real men and women - no shelter, barely any food on the map. This could be used as a perfect testing bed

for the shelter building features (I hope they're still in the roadmap) and expanding the hunting and new wildlife,

including fishing. Assumming map development goes hand in hand with future story mode, this could be Chapter 1 or Tutorial, where you are the farthest from remains of civilization.

- Foraging. I like this being automated and I love being able to look for a specific type of wood.

But maybe we could take this a step further, I admit I don't know if it would work out well though.

What if you had to venture out to a specific area to get Fir Wood as it's not found everywhere.

And what if you had to actually work on individual trees with your hatchet/hands (might be too late for this one?).

It would break up the monotony of late game and force you to venture out from time to time out of necessity.

- Learning skills, found books/manuals maybe?

- UI. Having it consolidated and using more visual cues rather than text. Having a pictogram/icon for "encumbered", "freezing", "starving" and so on. Still keeping as much of the interface as possible hidden until displayed (by pressing and releasing space for example), for immersion.

Also a character overview screen, known from classic RPGs could be nice - with everything listed on one screen, showing skill levels, afflictions, as well as clothing slots, weapon slots and so on. Tabs/icons instead of dropdowns for categories - so one click instead of two.

Working with lists can get tiresome.

- Ability to keep moving/looking with main interface opened. Being able to look around while performing action or eating/drinking.

- Drawing a map (maybe something similar to Miasmata mapping?) and ability to make notes (on the map screen maybe).[/spoil]

- I agree on the wolves, but right now they are needed. How things are in the finished games will remain to be seen.

- Seconded on the variety. More different objects to be found would make it more interesting to scavenge around. Although I have to say, that they are on a good path.

- Clothing damage from wolves seems like a good idea, I've brought that up myself quite a while ago. I don't think though, that having them damaged from falling, burns or simply at random would be enjoyable for the players to play and it would take some time to implement for the devs to do.

- A hardcore map, I think you will find that somewhere in the maps that are to come, there will be such a map. I doubt the devs will always be so kind as to give as maps that we can go and take a nap in the local hut.

- I doubt that felling trees will be possible, at least not the way the map is set up now and the way trees are implemented now. It sure would be interesting, but I think that will be something that we likely won't see in the future.

- The learning of skills should in my opinion not be improved by reading a book. I'd rather create it in a way, where you obtain new recipes in books, but only crafting the object will increase your skill.

- Hmm... I agree with the replacing text through icons. But if you want the highest degree of immersion, you will simply turn your UI off. And that option is already in there. So you can rely on your character telling you how he/she is feeling, you don't need an UI at all.

Working with lists can be tiresome, but through the sorting options I think that's the most efficient way to go about it, especially with by condition/weight options, this is really handy.

- Never felt the need to do that, since I always imagine that my character has to set down his backpack, open it and look inside it to open the "menu". So keep moving while doing that seems illogical to me. And looking around while performing actions. I don't know about that. Mostly, my surroundings are not as interesting as what I'm doing in my inventory tbh.

- Yeah, I would love a mapmaking ability including marks on the map. But something with a map is in the works, so maybe let's wait and see what the devs come up with.

Nice suggestions, great to see another climber.

[xnoybis]

As for backpacks/bags I imagine you would start with just your pockets or maybe a small pouch and then find/craft better gear.

As for manual foraging felling trees is not necessarily required, just hit a tree a number of times corresponding to the time required in automatic foraging, at least it's something to do when you're established and a reason to get out of bed.

So since my original post I've made it to day 51, sleeping 22 hours a day, going out for a wolf or two every 4-5 days and boiling water as I go with a 40 litres reserve at all times. As long as I have antiseptic and cloth I'm sticking to melee. Once I went out for a single wolf to add to the fridge and came back with three wolves and a deer just killed by one of them. It was a very, very, very slow walk back to base. Took me 12 hours to cook all of it. At this point there's no point continuing really, I'll try to get in a few days in every now and then, but I don't really care about leaderboards that much - so next update, please - no pressure, guys

[fiatal]

As for manual foraging felling trees is not necessarily required, just hit a tree a number of times corresponding to the time required in automatic foraging, at least it's something to do when you're established and a reason to get out of bed.

I'd rather have foraging be completely abstracted (like it is now) or not abstracted at all (finding wood on the forest floor as you walk around) than a middle ground. Hacking at trees reminds me too much of other survival games and I love that The Long Dark feels different. Besides, I've never imagined that we're felling trees, even with the hatchet, cause we aren't bringing in nearly enough wood for a whole tree. I imagine that we're hacking off a nice-looking branch from an already felled tree when we go foraging.

[brad_gagne]

I had 10 ammo loaded into a 40-50% rifle I found and then I found a 93%.

Would be nice to be able to switch over. Haven't dared to harvest the rifle to see if I get the ammo back.

Yep, you get the ammo back if you harvest. I tried it one time (with fingers crossed!) and it works.

[brad_gagne]

And more types of clothing for the fashionable survivor on the go. We need more hats.

Totally agree! I propose a trapper's hat as a new option - can't believe it's not there already. Also: snowpants.