On hibernation

[SneakySquid]

I know that this topic has already been brought up in these forums( Notably in this post ) but no topic has been specially created on this subject this is the aim of this post.

1-What is hibernation?

Spoiler alert 

Hibernation  is a community term now used to describe any course of actions that combine benefits taken from condition drain when needs are not met with restoring condition by satisfying needs briefly while sleeping. Primarily, it is a method to conserve limited resources.

2-What are the solutions?

A-One solution would be to stop you from do an activity that consumes calories if you do not have enough calories for this activity.

     This is commonly suggested method but I have two objections with it:

     1-Its unrealistic :When you go out to cut some wood IRL you don't know if your going to be hungry in the middle of your wood cutting.              

     2-Its arbitrary:You may just be missing just 1 calorie to do some wood breaking.

B-Another solution is to make you do the task at an insanely slow speed if you have insufficient calories.My objections with point are the same than with point A.                 

C-We know that TLD calculates real time and not over 1 hour chunks so if your hunger bar reaches 0 from that point on you will start doing the activity at insanely slow speed.As for disadvantages I cant really think of any for this method but if you can think of any thing please tell me.      

D-Look at Bareskin's post

 

Thank you ror reading

-SneakySquid

 

[BareSkin]

I've treated this subject and proposed some solutions also in this topic. That's a mode in which starving is not a good way to play, since you don't heal while sleeping.

If Hinterland wanted to get rid of hibernation while at the same time keeping their "you'll need to sleep long stretches" stance, I think the best way would be to have a sleep-heal curve that heals less than "pass time" in the first hours of sleep (<1%/h when fed), then have a neutral point around 6h of sleep (=6% recovered), and then maybe have a slope up to 2%/h on the 9th hour ?

You'd still have to sleep because of exhaustion, but you would have to favor sleeping long periods. If you recover 10% in 10h sleep, it reduces the starvation hack but wouldn't change a thing to people doing calories-activies starved. For that, we could have some mechanism where being starved produces much less resource: instead of 4 reclaimed for braking something you get 2, you harvest 1kg while starved it produces only 0.5kg meat, etc...

Or maybe:

D- you lose condition at much higher rate (5%/h?) during the time you do calories-activities while being starved. Which is equivalent to solution C but with a price tag on heath instead of time.

[SneakySquid]

Thank you for your response Bareskin.

Concerning your Sleepwalker I have read your topic but did not include it because it ups the difficulty of the game quite a bit.

I've just added your D option to the Poll. 

[BareSkin]

Just now, SneakySquid said:

Thank you for your response Bareskin.

Concerning your Sleepwalker I have read your topic but did not include it because it ups the difficulty of the game quite a bit.

I've just added your D option to the Poll. 

Well that's because I wanted it more difficult for myself, but you could choose the depleting rates of 4 needs to make it much easier. "Very Low" everywhere would put you I guess in a Voyager-like difficulty. Or just take the template of Voyager and disable "Sleep Recovery Rate"...

As long as you keep "Sleeping Recovery" to "None", all this starvation hack disappears, it is not linked to the game difficulty. Since the core problem of hibernation is healing via sleeping, it treats the cause.

[SneakySquid]

Yes but you recover much faster while sleeping witch allows new players to be back on track after loosing condition.

[NardoLoopa]

1 hour ago, SneakySquid said:

B-Another solution is to make you do the task at an insanely slow speed if you have insufficient calories.My objections with point are the same than with point A.                 

I would suggest that your current calorie store, and rate of usage be taken into account when the time to do an activity is advertised. 

Say a task takes 200cal and 20mins.  You have 100cal stored at the start.  The screen where it tells you the products of your labor (3 cloth or whatever) would adjust for your current calorie store.  So, instead of 20mins, it says 40mins.

I think this simplification works because you:

A) don't get partial results

B) there is no way to alter you calorie store after the task has begun

C) the calorie cost also cannot change during the event

So, if you want to work fast, have a full stomach.  If you want to trade time for calories, you can work at a much slower pace.

[SneakySquid]

2 minutes ago, NardoLoopa said:

I would suggest that your current calorie store, and rate of usage be taken into account when the time to do an activity is advertised. 

Say a task takes 200cal and 20mins.  You have 100cal stored at the start.  The screen where it tells you the products of your labor (3 cloth or whatever) would adjust for your current calorie store.  So, instead of 20mins, it says 40mins.

I think this simplification works because you:

A) don't get partial results

B) there is no way to alter you calorie store after the task has begun

C) the calorie cost also cannot change during the event

So, if you want to work fast, have a full stomach.  If you want to trade time for calories, you can work at a much slower pace.

So if I understand correctly your answer is kind of a fusion of B and C right 

[SneakySquid]

I am going to stop editing the poll because in the end its going to be like a 500 option poll so if you want to express your approval of an idea just up vote the post its in thank you for your comprehension.  

[NardoLoopa]

6 minutes ago, SneakySquid said:

So if I understand correctly your answer is kind of a fusion of B and C right 

The major difference in my mind is setting correct expectations for the player when they initiate the task.  If I were given a 120min estimate, executed the task, and started starving in the middle, I'd be rather upset because I'd likely have to cancel out the task, eat more stuff, then try again for the full-cost of the task again.  Anyway, that's how I read (C).  Maybe that's not what you intended, though.

 

[SneakySquid]

2 minutes ago, NardoLoopa said:

Maybe that's not what you intended, though.

 

Your right thats not what I intended what I meant is that the calorie cost of the task and your current calories be displayed so that you can compare.

[Mroz4k]

I am no fan of any of these options. A and B in particular, for the reasons you mentioned - I have a feeling they would ruin the immersion quite bit.

I do like the idea of having to spend more time doing something if the calories run out - but I am not quite sure this in itself would be enough to convince players to stop hibernating.

I have a concept in mind that, if done right, would effectively remove hibernation from the game. It would also quite heavily change the way people play the game - Interloper in particular would be made truly brutal. It would make cabin fever a more interesting, immersive concept, at least I hope. Also, this would require a major update and a lot of development.

New "need" called "Morale". Morale is basically the mental health and well being of the survivor. It is not as obvious as Fatique or hunger, but more subtle. Suffering through any of the needs (being cold, starving, being exhausted) - would negatively impact morale over time. Being sick or injured would negatively impact morale over time. Failing to do something (failing at mending, building a fire, etc.) would also negatively impact morale - not over time, but more like a single instant morale condition hit. On the other hand - not starving, not freezing, suceeding in tasks, walking and especially running around - all of these things would push morale into a "neutral" state. Things like warming up, doing tasks, crafting, reading would all improve morale towards the optimal level over time. Eating, drinking, succeeding at tasks would all instantly up the morale by a certain amount.

Morale has an invisible progress bar - like the one I am depicting below.
       ---------------------------------/-----------------------------------------------------  -----------------------------------------------------/---------------------------------  
Miserable                                                                                             Okay                                                                                              Fantastic

Miserable - status when the survivor is doing horrible. Caused by very low morale. The rest restores less condition. All the tasks have a higher chance of failing. Tasks take longer time to complete. Character comments on feeling miserable. Animal attacks do more damage. Movement speed is decreased, weapon sway increased.
Okay - Normal state of mind of the survivor. No negative impacts. No positive impacts.
Fantastic - The survivor is feeling very well. Result of a high morale. Bonus to success rate of tasks. Tasks take less time. Animal struggles are less serious. Resting restores condition at increased rate. Survivor gets a temperature bonus to "feels like". Movement speed is increased, weapon sway decreased.

Several items and buffs would affect morale as well - things like warming up or improved rest. Additionally, eating a raw piece of meat, or getting into a struggle with an animal would decrease the morale. So would continuous suffering from other needs. Also, all those normal "books" you could find - they could be read as well, you would not obtain any special buff, but they could be used to

Morale would change overtime. If the player was miserable to begin with, filling the stomach would help push him towards the "okay" state, but the debuff would persist for a while. To "remove" the debuff, the player would have to pass over their respective / value at the morale meter. If all the states were at the "usual" state, the morale would have a tendency to increase if the survivor was miserable, and decrease if the survivor was fantastic. Basically, if everything was alright with the player, but he was not actively doing something, the morale would be trying to settle at its neutral state of Okay.

Finally, the Cabin fever. If the survivor spent majority of time indoors and their morale was around Okay all the time, they would start developing cabin fever. So, if the player happens to spend all their time indoors just sleeping, messing around not really doing anything, they could get the cabin fever. But, if the player was sick indoors recovering, the Cabin fever wouldnt force them to spend time outdoors (being sick will make the player be moreless miserable all the time, however, despite having injuries, the player would recover condition through resting, only at a slower rate) - or if the player spends time indoors crafting, they will feel fantastic more likely, and once again, the Cabin fever would not force them to spend more time outdoors. This, I believe, is a more immersive way the Cabin fever would work - because who in the hell would get cabin crazy while they are recovering from an illness, or if they are keeping themselves busy, sewing a wolf jacket.

Resting while all the other needs are fullfilled would push morale towards the neutral status of Okay. If the player has Improved rest debuff, then resting would effectively push the player´s morale closer to fantastic.

This is my basic concept of "mental health" which is a need that is, in my opinion, lacking in TLD. There are still many kinks to catch out, but it would definitely remove the tactic of hibernation, because using it would make the player generally useless at doing anything else, the condition regeneration would be impacted, etc. On the other hand, overusing the resources to keep the player at full levels would make everything else a little easier.

I am probably going to make a post on this eventually. I still have some things to consider about balancing this, but if anyone has any ideas on how to improve this, you can @me at this thread with a post so I see it, or you can send it to my private messages for the time being.

I really like the idea of @NardoLoopa about starvation, causing the tasks to take longer to complete as a penalty for having less calories then the cost. I think that could be integrated very well with my idea.

[SneakySquid]

Thank you  @Mroz4k for your very complete suggestion.You must have put a lot of thinking into that(+1) 

I just have 1 problem with it :

-1:Failing tasks takes your mood down and having a Miserable moral you will fail tasks more often witch will make your morale go down and make you fail tasks more often etc.It ends up being a spiral of death.

[Mroz4k]

1 hour ago, SneakySquid said:

-1:Failing tasks takes your mood down and having a Miserable moral you will fail tasks more often witch will make your morale go down and make you fail tasks more often etc.It ends up being a spiral of death.

Precisely. That is by design  Which is why balancing it out will be so damn important.
Thing is - failing to do things will result in "instant" morale hit, basically imagine it as losing -10 points. Now lets say the morale is at 130 points out of some 1000, which is pretty low. Point here is to make sure your needs are not suffering (you are warm enough, not starving or thirsty, not tired, etc.) - so that your morale is steadily going up. Lets say for example 4 points up per ingame minute, one per each need - so temp, hunger, thirst, tiredness. So in an hour, you would be getting 240 points up just not doing anything. Now, for each need that was suffering, you would get -1 point per ingame minute. 

Naturally, having skills up would still affect the percentage of chance - so a master of sewing may be miserable, but will still likely suceed in sewing, which results in bonus points.

That is why I said this change would make Interloper so damn brutal. Because once you got into that terrible state of mind, getting out of it would be very difficult. You end up getting cold a lot in Interloper, so being hungry on top of that all the time would very soon drive you into a terrible state of mind.

The danger of falling into the spiral of death will keep all the players in line, trying to keep their needs up as often as possible.

[SneakySquid]

Okey Dokey.You really thought this thing out.

[DarKube]

thanks

[MarrowStone]

A simple solution is to let calories go into negatives, at least into a cap of -2000 calories. Yes itd be weird to cure it by eating a huge amount, but we are already able to eat 10 cattail stalks, or even 5+ cans of soda without any issues.

a complex solution is to take how hunger in "The Forest" as inspiration in which you can be full, but still lose weight etc.

[Mroz4k]

11 hours ago, MarrowStone said:

A simple solution is to let calories go into negatives, at least into a cap of -2000 calories. Yes itd be weird to cure it by eating a huge amount, but we are already able to eat 10 cattail stalks, or even 5+ cans of soda without any issues.

a complex solution is to take how hunger in "The Forest" as inspiration in which you can be full, but still lose weight etc.

I think its stranger that you can eat 3 kg of meat in one session and still not have enough when it is rabbit meat, but I see your point well, the game needs to have some balance.

Having negative calories would not really solve the issue, at least I dont think it would. It would just adjust the way the hibernation would work. I think it would solve the problem in the harder modes like Interloper, but not hibernating in an easier mode like Voyageur, which is still something others do... Reason I think its the case is that some players would leave hunger go down to its new setting, while procuring the food to get out of it, and eat only once in two days, in a bigger amount. They would go to sleep hungry, take the extra condition hit, then starve another day and on the next sleep, they would eat up to heal up the lost condition. Wouldnt be enough to keep them going on Interloper, but I think with the extra day, that is 24 % condition loss for starving, going down to some 40% condition which is something you can plausibly heal up with a 10 hour sleep on Voyageur.

But as a temporary solution, and a relatively simplier one, I guess it could work.

[k0s0ff]

Maybe it's better to add dreams during sleep?

[Mroz4k]

1 hour ago, k0s0ff said:

Maybe it's better to add dreams during sleep?

How would that solve anything?

[k0s0ff]

5 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

Как бы это решить?

Please forgive me. I said stupid. The theme is very good. It's just a difficult topic for me. But sleep mode requires processing.

[Mroz4k]

3 hours ago, k0s0ff said:

Please forgive me. I said stupid. The theme is very good. It's just a difficult topic for me. But sleep mode requires processing.

No problem, was just curious. No worries  This is kind of difficult topic to get into all around. People have talked about it for years and so far it had not changed at all, because it is difficult to describe, understand, and solve.  

[k0s0ff]

47 minutes ago, Mroz4k said:

No problem, was just curious. No worries  This is kind of difficult topic to get into all around. People have talked about it for years and so far it had not changed at all, because it is difficult to describe, understand, and solve.  

I think HL has some thoughts on this. But so far they are not ready for extreme measures.

[StrayCat]

I'd rather go for Mroz4k's solution. But this would require quite a bit of coding and be resource-consuming for HL. Another way to nerf hibernation, way simpler, would be to dramatically lower the healing rate during sleeping. After all, it does make sense to heal when you're resting. But the incredible healing rate encourages us to take stupid risks and manage health as a resource like any other. If each 1% of health is laboriously gained back (let's say for example, 0.2 % for each hour of sleep - adjust as you see fit with every difficulty mode), we would be way more cautious with health. As resting consumes resources (food, water, sometimes firewood to stay warm), I think the game balance could be maintained.

[Mroz4k]

2 hours ago, StrayCat said:

I'd rather go for Mroz4k's solution. But this would require quite a bit of coding and be resource-consuming for HL. Another way to nerf hibernation, way simpler, would be to dramatically lower the healing rate during sleeping. After all, it does make sense to heal when you're resting. But the incredible healing rate encourages us to take stupid risks and manage health as a resource like any other. If each 1% of health is laboriously gained back (let's say for example, 0.2 % for each hour of sleep - adjust as you see fit with every difficulty mode), we would be way more cautious with health. As resting consumes resources (food, water, sometimes firewood to stay warm), I think the game balance could be maintained.

That would work, but I am afraid it is way too harsh of a solution to this habit players made. If this was implemented, even a small mistake would require several days of healing. While this is in a way more realistic, it would also make the game way too difficult to play. 

It is not a matter of being cautious of health, it is a matter of punishment for not keeping your needs up being too small. A bit better solution than this would be to give hunger harder hit on the condition to just not make it worth it with the recovery - but that would also not be realistic compared to other needs. You need to be able to recover condition pretty hard else the game just mills you down bit by bit because you are unable to recover fastly enough to offset it. For the time being, making hunger more deadly would be the most feasible of solutions that I can see right now, to offset the hibernation.

[StrayCat]

This would change some habits, I agree. An other way would be to make the player faint (some times, as a risk, not always) when one or several need is in red. That can work like this :
- The more bars in red, the more frequent / likely to happen it becomes. Cold may be exempted as it would be too harsh. Hunger and tiredness would highly increase the risk, while thirst would only increase it a bit.
- When fainting, your character automatically sleeps for a few ingame minutes (5-10-30 ?), and then gets back on his feet (-> animation after been mauled by a bear).
- As you don't choose when/where you faint, you may risk getting colder, hypothermia / frostbite risk may increase. Wolf attack may also happen and wake you up.
- Fainting several times is annoying for the player ! So people will keep all needs above red. Think about when you sprain an ankle : even if you can easily continue playing (except for fleeing from wolves), the animation annoys you and you use these painkillers in order to stop that animation + solve the potential wolves problem.
- If you want to make things really harsh, fainting can also happen when climbing a rope...

The whole system would punish you from not fulfilling your need, while not breaking the immersion and the roleplay. It would not stop/block you from doing so, but you'll have to balance the calories you save VS the risk to faint in a blizzard.