Bear Traps!

[Willy Pete]

Bear traps would be a very rare item that can't be crafted and is repaired via quality tools and scrap metal (or can't be repaired at all). It's placed like the snare, but you've got to bait it if you want to catch anything. You could have it so that different meats have a greater probability of catching either a wolf or a bear (moose would give you a higher chance at snagging a bear, for example, while rabbit is more likely to get you a wolf). 

However, once the animal is trapped, you only have maybe 48 hours tops to get to the trap and then dispatch it (as the trap would only catch the animal and not kill it). Failure to do so greatly decreases the durability (maybe 25% or so) of the trap and will leave you with only the gnawed off limb of the animal.

For balance, this would probably take some time to actually catch the animal and you could even have the bait decay more quickly so it would take multiple baits to catch anything.

[Khan_Drichthyes]

I was wondering about dead-fall pits, not too long ago.  Although, in this case, the ground is probably too frozen to dig the pit.

[Carbon]

Ever seen a bear - or any animal - caught in a trap? It's absolutely heartbreaking. The most inhumane, unsporting way to kill an animal and they should be outright illegal. I would drop this game in a heartbeat if they ever employed such a cruel practice.

[Doc Feral]

They're illegal in many countries, but the game is about survival and that usaually beats law and heart.

[Willy Pete]

10 hours ago, Carbon said:

Ever seen a bear - or any animal - caught in a trap? It's absolutely heartbreaking. The most inhumane, unsporting way to kill an animal and they should be outright illegal. I would drop this game in a heartbeat if they ever employed such a cruel practice.

IRL and in normal situations I would agree, but dude, it's a survival game and the proverbial crap has hit the fan, all bets are off

[Spakerman]

On 7/14/2018 at 12:24 PM, Willy Pete said:

IRL and in normal situations I would agree, but dude, it's a survival game and the proverbial crap has hit the fan, all bets are off

This raises an interesting concept for a future game.  TLD like survival but with some morality system in place.  Kind of like what's going on in Frostpunk... but in a lone survivor style game.

[JErosion]

but imagine the flip side to this in the Long Dark... your running through high grass during and blizzard and then snap! Twisted Ankle, Bleed and you have to pull a trap off yourself in the middle of a storm or entering a abandoned house at night and not seeing the trap at the top of the stairs placed by a Paranoid psychotic NPC

[Carbon]

On 7/14/2018 at 4:24 PM, Willy Pete said:

IRL and in normal situations I would agree, but dude, it's a survival game and the proverbial crap has hit the fan, all bets are off

 Then how about introducing cannibalism and eating the frozen corpses laying around? Yeah, some bets still stand, even in a video game.

 HL would (rightly) have animal rights groups all over them for putting such a cruelty into the game, especially as we have a far more acceptable (though still debatable) method of dispatching wildlife already in the rifle.

[Doc Feral]

Yeah, cannibalism! Even better, finding half-eaten corpses with large humanoid footprints around.

Wen-di-go! Wen-di-go! Wen-di-go!

[Khan_Drichthyes]

I have to admit, when I encountered my first corpse, I half expected to see a cannibalism option.

As for traps...  So, I take it the dead fall pit idea is also right out?

[JErosion]

given that a deadfall would have to modify the games landscape id say no

[Willy Pete]

On 7/18/2018 at 8:39 AM, Carbon said:

 Then how about introducing cannibalism and eating the frozen corpses laying around? Yeah, some bets still stand, even in a video game.

Actually...I had planned on making a semi-joke thread about this. We do need a way to get rid of the human corpses laying around and I wouldn't be opposed so no, no bets stand. Especially in a video game.

[grahambird80]

Interesting opinions here and I find myself agreeing with both points in someway or another, I defiantly feel there needs to be another way to capture sources of food beyond the use of a rifle, fishing line, or snare.

The ability to construct a humane trap where the animal is lured in to the trap and stuck and can then be caught or killed.

Something else I wonder is if additional wildlife might be introduced?

[Carbon]

On 7/20/2018 at 1:23 AM, Willy Pete said:

Actually...I had planned on making a semi-joke thread about this. We do need a way to get rid of the human corpses laying around and I wouldn't be opposed so no, no bets stand. Especially in a video game.

 Well the internet beat you to it; that discussion has been had a few times and it always failed to be either funny or successful. Glad we averted that roundabout.

[Dan_]

Allow me to disagree, bear traps wouldn't add anything of gameplay value other than another gizmo in my opinion. As the game stands, the bear is the only critter that is slightly challenging to hunt, because you'll risk losing your precious hats and can even die if your condition is low enough. Hinterland is adding the bear spear in the future and alluded that using it will present a risk-reward situation, meaning you're likely to get mauled, where does the risk factor comes into play when using the bear trap? No gripes here about trapping or killing virtual animals, a game is a game in my book. 

As for cannibalism, I'd assume that even though the sandbox is an absolute free exploration and survival experience, one would think you are still constrained to your survivor's psyche. It's implicit that both Will and Astrid would never resort to those survival methods and to be honest I don't think I would either in real life. Devs choice, I'd be okay with either. 

[ThePancakeLady]

Bear Traps as found loot... maybe. Crafted? Nupe. We don;t have the proper tools to machine, and cast parts. Using the forges to make crude bladed weapons and arrowhead from flat metal, sure. Making hinges, springs, curved teeth bars, pressure pads and all of the connectors... nupe. Not something that even in a video game, should be so easy to learn to do without being taught my a master metalsmith, machinist or trapper. Found- okay... with HIGH risk o suing and checking them. Forget where you placed one 30 days ago? Step on a trap covered in snow? Broken leg or partial amputation. You faded into The Long Dark due to not watching your step and leaving traps out recklessly.

Cannibalism? NUPE. Sorry, that belongs in zombie/zed quasi-survival pew oew pew shooters. Not in The Long Dark. It is just too "gross" for many of us, even under extreme situations. We have deer, rabbits, fish, wolves, bear, moose... by the time we kill and eat every last one (if even possible), the human corpse would be beyond any point of being considered edible anyway. Freeze dried or decomposed, or both. Though, I do wish predators could, and would chew them away, slowly. That would be more "realistic", and could still leave offal and bone piles behind for the crows to circle and drop feathers, and act as landmarks for rout-finding. Might be a bit gruesome for some visually, though.

I honestly would not be opposed to a "funeral pyre" type of situation, where those who feel the need to can dispose of corpses in an honorable manor. With the caveat that it would be time, labor and resource heavy, and the corpses would be lost to producing feather drops from crows. And the pyre would have very specific locations where it could be safely built. Think placing a campfire is difficult at times? Funeral pyres should be much more location specific. And they should NEVER be able to be removed fro the landscape. They should always remain, and always have collision, so you may make a hiding place or a trap for yourself. But it would be a choice, one with weight, and can be either moral or practical, or both. 

[Mistake]

I feel like in a game such as the long dark, where you willingly break the necks of rabbits and let animals bleed to death whilst they run for their lives, so you can harvest their corpses, bear traps shouldn’t be such a controversial topic. It’s all the same, isn’t it? You wound, or potentially kill, an animal for your own gain, whether its via rifle, bow or even your bare hands, in the case of breaking the rabbits neck. A bear trap is just the same, another tool to be used to survive.

[stratvox]

There are some issues with that given the game's context, starting with the fact that bear traps like that are illegal in Canada, and therefore are not very likely to be found laying about. As far as forging one goes, good luck with that; a functioning bear trap requires spring steel and  machining, and those are not available in the game.

By the by, that's also one of the reasons that requests such as assault rifles and handguns are also not in the game; they are not legal here and they are very very rare because of that; the likelihood that someone's going to find those weapons are vanishingly small in Canada. What I would like to see would be several different rifle "skins", with some of the other hunting rifles that one may be able to find in the bush also being findable in the game. I could see a shotgun as well, but advanced firearms? Nope.

[Mad Stratz]

On 7/14/2018 at 1:44 AM, Carbon said:

Ever seen a bear - or any animal - caught in a trap? It's absolutely heartbreaking. The most inhumane, unsporting way to kill an animal and they should be outright illegal. I would drop this game in a heartbeat if they ever employed such a cruel practice.

But you literally throw rocks at rabbits willy nilly going around breaking their necks. You get stalked and gored by bears. Wolves rip into your body and kill you. You can literally sleep in the freezing cold and die without any help or succumb to hypothermia. Survival isn't cute or humane and this game does a good job at showing that. If you wanted something more innocent go play Roblox.

[Carbon]

8 hours ago, Mad Stratz said:

But you literally throw rocks at rabbits willy nilly going around breaking their necks. You get stalked and gored by bears. Wolves rip into your body and kill you. You can literally sleep in the freezing cold and die without any help or succumb to hypothermia. Survival isn't cute or humane and this game does a good job at showing that. If you wanted something more innocent go play Roblox.

 Different forms of violence  may have similarities (they are all violence), with some being more or less cruel, some being more or less necessary but there remains something fundamentally different between all of your examples and leg trapping.

 And I literally don't do anything in video games besides play them, literally.