Fishing Holes & Trail Making / Mapping

[Euphemism]

These couple suggestions come from imagining how I would want to interact with the landscape.  By and large TLD restricts the degree the player can interact with and change the environment. It's more about struggling against the world than changing it to make it easier. TLD only becomes easier because the player gets more skilled or gets better clothing and gear, not because we make a farm or cut down trees. This isn't Minecraft.

I think it's important to preserve the balance (if you can call it that) of being at the mercy of the landscape.

Yet...

1) I want to cut a hole in the ice and see if there are fish.

Allowing players to cut an ice fishing hole would open up fishing across the map. Perhaps fish are not "guaranteed" at those locations and it's more of a gamble. This still preserves the value of Ice Fishing Huts as a more guaranteed catch, not to mention the fireplace and wind and wolf protection.

2) I would break a branch, mark a tree, or jot a note on a map

Trail-making could be entirely passive. You walk the same route to the rabbit grove or the other building? Slowly, you pack down the snow. This would get erased by blizzards and marginally useful for navigating the map. It's more about atmosphere or, lol, nesting in a frozen landscape. I think seeing visible signs of your habitation could, actually, have a noticeable effect in TLD since it does such a good job of creating an anti-human atmosphere.

What about a custom map note? Or drawing routes/trails on the map? What about building a cairn out of stones or marking a tree? I think if I were stranded in a frozen landscape with no hope of rescue I would do something like this to help me get around, especially in a surprise blizzard.

Perhaps if you map a certain percentage of a region, you could decide to enter "trailmaking" mode. You walk around the map as usual but your path is noted on your map until you deactivate. You have to have X amount of charcoal to do this.

I do like the simplicity and vagueness of the mapping function. I'm not suggesting something radically different, just upping the usefulness of the mapping feature.

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I understand that keeping the landscape static might also be a programming decision as making more of the landscape destructible/interactive could be a big task... I don't know, I'm not a programmer. I just enjoy their products and armchair quarterback the development of the game.

 

[Riotintheair]

I like both theses ideas, but it drives me nuts that Will refuses to draw back roads on his maps. It makes the CH and PV charcoal maps significantly less usable than they otherwise would be.