Loneliness/Sanity Meter

[TheSlowestPoke]

So, this is my first post, and I’m still relatively new to the game. It’s one of my favorites though! 

So my idea is mostly for the aspect of realistic gameplay. In real life, spending so long alone would easily drive someone mad. The game could have a sanity meter, like the temp, food, etc.. When the bar gets too low your rest is affected, and maybe they can have panic attacks or something, which would work similar to hypothermia. It would last a certain amount of time, or there would be a way to treat it. Ways to raise the bar could be reading or playing cards or something along those lines (new items would have to be added). 

There are a lot of details I’m not sure about, but it’s a thought. 

[JErosion]

its been talked about before but there is always room for more discussion. Reading Books could help lower insanity so could having a bit of food variety... one can not live on meat and water alone

[TerribleSurvivor]

Playing music instruments (guitar) helps your sanity a lot in my experience.

The thing about mental health conditions is that they are partially already in the game because of the player sitting in front of the PC. I don´t wanna say that this game triggers depression or other serious mental illnesses but grave ingame events highly affect the way the player continues playing. Imagine losing all your quality clothing (especially crafted one) as a result of a bear mauling. Losing such important items causes the player to be dejected at first because of the huge loss of time he experiences right afterwards. It will get better as the player figures out how to deal with his loss effectively but it certainly impacts your playstyle for quite some time (playing more reserved, conservative, etc. | maybe even taking a break).

By the way, the mental issue you described is kinda already in the game in the shape of cabin fever.

I could imagine the depression affliction being added to the game. Depression should be breaking out if too many grave events occur subsequently like:

• Moose and Bear attacks
• Wolf attacks that caused bleeding or blacking out
• Losing fresh kills to a contender (not implemented right now)
• Serious afflictions:
  • Dysentery
  • Infections
  • Food Poisoning (untreated)
  • Intestinal parasites
  • Hypothermia

This risk should be treatable by cheering yourself up with achievements like:

• Increase of a skill
• Killing deer, bear and moose (maybe wolves)
• Harvesting fresh kills (more treatment the more you get out of it)
• Watching the aurora (?)
• Discovering new locations
• Completing time-heavy crafting processes
• and many more things that do not come into my mind right now

Once depression breaks out it should indeed increase your fatigue depletion harshly. It should last for several days or until a highly positive event occurs.

[TheEldritchGod]

But you are not alone. For example, I have a bottle of lighter fluid. EF is quite the cut up. He's my store manager over at Orca X (THE X STANDS FOR EXTREME) He played a prank on me once where he put a salmon in my bed. And of course CB, the car battery. He is just a little chatter box. He won't shut up. He watches for customers out front of the Quonset Garage. Where the water is always free!

So if you find yourself in need of supplies, come on down. We've been open almost a year now. Still waiting for the customers, but if I'm not there, CB can let you in. Were a match based economy now. Every purchase of a hundred matches or more and you receive a free moose satchel. I got four of the damn things. Damn moose keep jumping me. You have no idea how many moose I've killed.

 

See? Nobody is CRAZY or anything, and I've been alone for almost two years now! Okay, I hauled 24 storm lanterns to the top of the lighthouse and re-lit the lighthouse in hopes of getting attention. We were having a sale! It was a publicity stunt! So come on down to Quonset garage where the water is always free, or Orca X, where the X stands for....

[Pillock]

On 7/4/2018 at 6:26 PM, TheSlowestPoke said:

So, this is my first post, and I’m still relatively new to the game. It’s one of my favorites though! 

So my idea is mostly for the aspect of realistic gameplay. In real life, spending so long alone would easily drive someone mad. The game could have a sanity meter, like the temp, food, etc.. When the bar gets too low your rest is affected, and maybe they can have panic attacks or something, which would work similar to hypothermia. It would last a certain amount of time, or there would be a way to treat it. Ways to raise the bar could be reading or playing cards or something along those lines (new items would have to be added). 

There are a lot of details I’m not sure about, but it’s a thought. 

It's certainly an idea that's been in the developers' thoughts before - not sure if it'll ever make it into the game, but I think it could work well if done right.

This War of Mine is a survival game set a warzone, where you control a group of civilians trying to see out the fighting. It has a fairly rudimentary 'happiness' scale that you have to pay attention to, along with the usual food/warmth/security requirements and the crafting. It's negatively affected if your characters are generally lacking their basic survival needs, but also if they get attacked and/or injured or if they do something 'immoral'; it's positively affected by your making their lives generally more comfortable, and if they are able to carry out a 'good deed'. It works really well in that game, I think, and is something that could also fit in the context of The Long Dark, if that's a direction the devs want to take it in.

[TerribleSurvivor]

@Pillock Well the character souls seem to be very fragile in This War of Mine and the story setting differs a lot from the story of The Long Dark (surviving a war vs. surviving a new ice age). Also, I think that a character who is surviving out in the north-canadian wildernis will become very hard-boiled over time especially because he is living in total human isolation. I don´t really see any kind of "good" or "bad" interactions with the game that could affect the characters mental health condition. The only thing that i could imagine affecting the characters mental health could be the occurence of achievements and setbacks like those i described in my previous post.

[Pillock]

6 hours ago, TerribleSurvivor said:

@Pillock Well the character souls seem to be very fragile in This War of Mine and the story setting differs a lot from the story of The Long Dark (surviving a war vs. surviving a new ice age). Also, I think that a character who is surviving out in the north-canadian wildernis will become very hard-boiled over time especially because he is living in total human isolation. I don´t really see any kind of "good" or "bad" interactions with the game that could affect the characters mental health condition. The only thing that i could imagine affecting the characters mental health could be the occurence of achievements and setbacks like those i described in my previous post.

You're right, the good/bad deed aspect of it doesn't apply in Survivor Mode - but it could do in Wintermute, where you have interactions with other survivors (I guess only if that interaction becomes much less linear in future updates than it is now).

In Survivor Mode, I'd agree with the suggestions you made about which events might affect your character's mental state. I'd add that persistent condition loss, even if it were cured quickly and didn't result in a serious affliction, could maybe add to your 'depression bar' in a minor way, with the major afflictions and setbacks you mentioned having a larger effect?

Anyway, it's an interesting idea that I think might add something positive to the game.

[stratvox]

There's really only one data point for long term survival like this.

Absolutely worth watching.