A bit more realistic please

[swajius]

Is there a way to make your character a bit more realistic, such as not spraining an ankle and wrist when sliding 4 feet down a snow embankment.......I feel like Canadians are made of sterner stuff.

[Ape88]

Maybe but the survivor is surely not quite as hardy as they could be. Imagine carrying such a heavy pack on uneven terrain... One misstep and you might be limping all day. Personally I wish there was more involved with treating a sprain than just popping pain meds and immediately being better. Maybe stabilizing the ankle or wrist with a few sticks and cloth or an ace bandage if you're going for realism. That you can push onward so long with an injury is tough enough.

 

[Demetrious]

6 hours ago, swajius said:

Is there a way to make your character a bit more realistic, such as not spraining an ankle and wrist when sliding 4 feet down a snow embankment.......I feel like Canadians are made of sterner stuff.

Yes! You can disable sprains in the custom difficulty settings (along with a ton of other stuff.) You can even select the standard difficulty level presets so you can play with everything the same except for sprains being turned off, etc. 

If you just want to reduce their frequency without removing the mechanic entirely, there's also a mod called "Ankle support" which modifies sprain likelihood based on your boots. So the Combat Boots (which actually note the good ankle support in their fluff description) actually give a lot of ankle support. Mods are all broken at the moment because they're all catching up with the new update, but I don't think you'll have to wait long for that. Hinterland doesn't officially have anything to do with third-party modding yet, mind, so all the usual caveats apply, (at your own risk, etc.) but I've personally had no problem with it, for what that's worth. 

[hozz1235]

On 12/22/2018 at 7:02 PM, Demetrious said:

Mods are all broken at the moment

True, some mods are not updated, but many are!

[alunasmoon]

there was a time that i was encumbered and just walking i had already sprained both wrist and a ankle then while walking i sprained the other ankle... i walked like a penguin. 

[Sunwolf]

This is why I always play custom settings.  Unlike the vast majority of the game, the sprain mechanism (I just bunny hopped my way down the back of Timberwolf Mountain without an issue, but sprained both my wrist and ankle at the same time while walking up the slope to the cabin), is horribly borked and makes no sense whatsoever.  So I just eliminate it from consideration.  Problem solved.

[Guest kristaok]

I've seen a lot of people mention getting sprained a lot, but I haven't really had this issue... in reality getting a sprain isn't that hard, especially in that climate with the wrong shoes yeeeouch!

[Sunwolf]

20 hours ago, kristaok said:

I've seen a lot of people mention getting sprained a lot, but I haven't really had this issue... in reality getting a sprain isn't that hard, especially in that climate with the wrong shoes yeeeouch!

Sure, if you have the wrong shoes.  But from my experience the shoes don't matter.  I've been screwing around in the Rocky Mountains (not northern Canada but it's still the same terrain) my entire life and I can count the number of sprains I've had on half of one hand regardless of shoes, slope, snow, etc..  This sprain mechanism feels arbitrary, like they wanted to have a sprain mechanism so they threw one in at the last minute and didn't really make it responsive in any way to in-game conditions.  If shoes or terrain had some noticeable effect on the likelihood of a sprain I'd be far more willing to buy into it.  As it stands now, it's just annoying and makes no sense.

[Guest kristaok]

1 hour ago, Sunwolf said:

Sure, if you have the wrong shoes.  But from my experience the shoes don't matter.  I've been screwing around in the Rocky Mountains (not northern Canada but it's still the same terrain) my entire life and I can count the number of sprains I've had on half of one hand regardless of shoes, slope, snow, etc..  This sprain mechanism feels arbitrary, like they wanted to have a sprain mechanism so they threw one in at the last minute and didn't really make it responsive in any way to in-game conditions.  If shoes or terrain had some noticeable effect on the likelihood of a sprain I'd be far more willing to buy into it.  As it stands now, it's just annoying and makes no sense.

A while - while back my uncles wife got a sprain from going down one step she must have twisted her foot somehow, she ended up on her bum. So these things do happen, all it takes is one slip, a fumble, or just moving / landing on the foot different and bam you got a sprain. I think honestly too though... some people are just more prone to sprains and breaks, I have sprained myself maybe a few times if that, but I have never broken any bones.

[UTC-10]

The problem with a realistic occurrence of sprains is that the game would have a precise awareness of what the player is standing on, step by step, and how the player's actions would affect their balance, etc.  I would guess that the overhead involved would be quite outrageous compared to all the other things the game will have to be doing at any given time.

I would not mind a 'wilderness travel' skill that introduced a "saving throw" when a sprain might occur. At least that might make sprains seem less arbitrary. Sprains would still occur, but it might seem more acceptable that it was just plain "bad luck" rather than the RNG coming up... sprain... out of the blue.

[Critical switch]

Realistically, people sprain their ankle while getting out of bed. All it takes is one wrong step. 

[Guest kristaok]

1 hour ago, Critical switch said:

Realistically, people sprain their ankle while getting out of bed. All it takes is one wrong step. 

This is exactly how I feel, it really sadly isn't hard to get a sprain.

[Sunwolf]

On 12/28/2018 at 6:01 PM, Critical switch said:

Realistically, people sprain their ankle while getting out of bed. All it takes is one wrong step. 

Sure, but how often does this happen?  Do otherwise healthy people, even when spending their time in harsh, uneven terrain, get sprains once a week?  Once a month?  No.  In this game, regardless of any other factor, we have to carry around painkillers because the sprains are just that common.  This is not realistic and it's one of the few things that glaringly fly in the face of common sense, experience, and immersion.

[UpUpAway95]

I agree that the rather arbitrary RNG sprain mechanic in this game is annoying.  I also agree that people can get a sprain at the most unexpected of times IRL.  My friend recently slipped on ice in his driveway and literally shattered his leg in the fall.  He's a young, healthy man, not overweight at all.  The break, as serious as it was, is something that could have happened to anyone at any time.  In the game I have had sprains pop up on completely flat terrain and while essentially standing still except for a slight turn of the head because a sound caught my attention.  I have found that being overencumbered increases the frequency of sprains by quite a bit.  It doesn't seem to matter much whether my character is only slightly overencumbered or extremely overencumbered.  However, the addition of an ankle support mechanic in the vanilla game based on footwear would certainly be welcome.

[Critical switch]

On 31. 12. 2018 at 4:20 PM, Sunwolf said:

Sure, but how often does this happen?  Do otherwise healthy people, even when spending their time in harsh, uneven terrain, get sprains once a week?  Once a month?  No.  In this game, regardless of any other factor, we have to carry around painkillers because the sprains are just that common.  This is not realistic and it's one of the few things that glaringly fly in the face of common sense, experience, and immersion.

IRL you don't pop a pill and walk right after a sprain. I've had sprains that lasted a week and greatly affected my walking pace.
Consider all the ways you move around the map - running around in snow, walking up and down snowy hills, walking on some pretty steep slopes, and in some cases going down some outright impossible passages. To be realistic, there would have to be stuff such as chance to slide down a hill while going any direction, chance trip while running down a hill (and potentially hurt yourself if you're carrying a weapon or if there are rocks in the way, damage any equipment you're carrying or even loose consciousness if you hit your head in the fall ), chance to trip on railway tracks and more. In light of that, a mere chance to get a sprain affliction isn't as bad.