New malady: Snow Blindness

[piddy3825]

Decided to launch a new game in Pleasant Valley and ended up spawning near Cross Roads on what must have been the most sunniest, brightest day that I can remember considering how unpleasant the weather usually is for that map.  I'm trudging towards the farm house  and the sun is just beating down and the angle of reflection is so drastic that my monitor is so flipping bright I either have to turn down the brightness  or put on some sunglasses!  Actually kind hurt looking at the screen and of course that got me to thinking - Snow Blindness!

Snow Blindness or in real medical terms, Photokeratitis , simply put is a sunburn of the cornea caused by exposure to  UV light.  Fresh snow is known to reflect up to 80% of UV light as compared to other surfaces like sand or water and there are some pretty bright days on Great Bear Island.  Considering the amount of time walking about and we mostly walk about when the weather is to our advantage.  That means walking on sunny days with an awful lot of UV beating down mostly unfiltered.  Since my character doesn't have any sunglasses and is sometimes forced to walk facing the sun, it would make sense that this could be another plausible and immersive  condition to change up the game play strategy.  Considering that symptoms don't usually appear for hours after exposure and the resulting malady is subject greatly to length of exposure it would probably be difficult to implement as the range of severity  can start with merely minor pain and slight tearing and escalate  to full and complete irreversible blindness.  

At the very least we could also then introduce an new craftable item, snow blinders.

photo of Inuit native with bone crafted goggles circa 1860's

Curious as to what you guys think about this idea.  Feedback and comments encouraged and appreciated

 

[melcantspell]

I'm all for making the game more difficult - especially after the first 50-100 days. 

Regarding snow blindness, from what I read it seems that it usually goes away on its own after a few days of resting the eyes, so it's not necessarily irreversible. 

It would be nice if the condition worsened over time (thus keeping the first few game days without added complications) and might lead to irreversible damage if untreated. 

Snow goggles could be crafted from bone and they could use an accessory slot. Also, it would be easy to lose or damage them in fights with wolves and bears. 

 

Edited March 31, 2019 by melcantspell

[Mroz4k]

Hello.

As I am sure you can see from a quick search, this is one of the most commonly suggested and discussed topics of these forums. And that is a good thing - because it means that it is very realistic that it will be implemented into the game at some point.

As much as I appreciate the medical explanation, most of us are already familiar with this condition. However, what would be far more valuable for this discussion is if you put down some suggestions on how the snow blindness would work inside of the game. It would be far more valuable for the discussion because right now, I cant really reply to your idea, because (aside of the fact you would like to see snow blindness in the game) I have no idea what your opinion of the actual mechanics of this suggestion would be. You should write them down, then we will be able to discuss them  And if you have trouble establishing them, don't be afraid to search up the ideas of others on this condition and draw inspiration there, just be kind enough to give them credit for it later  

I had many thoughts on this topic as well, tried to find them for reference but with the recent change to forums, and the fact that I wrote about this many times, I cant find any without a search that would last few hours. I will try to memorize them.

I think that for the purpose of the game, total blindness would be out of the question. However, I am a big fan of permanent affliction due to being careless. And yes, I also think the beautiful weather should pose some risks within the game.

Part of my idea here stems from my bigger idea of progressive medical afflictions (which was a major medical overhaul idea, which in a nutshell means that most conditions you encounter in the game can start as mild issues, and if untreated can worsen, in the late stages even provide permanent damage.)

I suggested similar mechanic to frostbite or hypothermia.

If you spend time outdoors during the most sunniest part of the day, you start getting snow blindness risk. As it increases (50% up) you start seeing some visual issues - blurry vision. At this point, the condition is reversible. However, once the risk runs down to 50%, the condition becomes permanent - and from now on, your character will be impaired with a blurried vision for the reminder of the game.

This would be so far just a minor blurriness - but still significant for important things like spotting danger from afar, etc. If another snow blindness happened - the vision would get blurrier. If again untreated and develops fully, again it would be permanent.

2 ways to combat snow blindness.

Charcoal lump - use it to treat snow blindness risk - decreases the % increase over the time, but will not stop it. This is a survival trick, you use charcoal to blacken your eyelids and the surroundings of your eye sockets, basically painting your face black. This reduces the number of light rays, reflected of off the sweat from your skin around your eyes directly into your eyeballs. 

Craftable birch bark snow blinders - much like the one you posted made of bone, Innuits also made them from birch bark. Gives birch bark more uses, is craftable, does not require bones which is a very bad idea altogether (will explain below). Naturally, it would be an accessory item. Equipping birch bark blinders would stop snow blindness risk altogether. They are pretty simple to build, so I think it could be a non-workbench option, but it requires a knife or some other tool of that sort.

Healing the encountered snow blindness - leaving outdoors during the sunniest weather - so even outdoor caves, or indoor locations - by spending time inside of them.

How quickly the snow blindness would develop fully would depend on the difficulty of the mode (or custom setting) but I think it should be somewhere in the range of 4 to 7 hours, considering the length of the day and the brightness of the day as an option, it would start developing between morning and evening on the brightest days. Also, the speed of increase could be dependant on how bright the day actually is, or what the current time of the day is. 
 

[Mroz4k]

Now for some more responses.

13 hours ago, melcantspell said:

Regarding snow blindness, from what I read it seems that it usually goes away on its own after a few days of resting the eyes, so it's not necessarily irreversible. 

It can be both temporary and permanent damage, depending on the amount of exposure. As a dedicated skiier, I have experienced it with my own eyes, since I wear glasses I am more in the risk of encountering it. That is why wearing of the ski glasses or sunglasses is so important.

It ranges from a headache and a blurry vision from visual halucinations (bright globes of light appearing in your vision) to actual blurriness, which may or may not go away after a few days depending on the amount of exposure.

 

13 hours ago, melcantspell said:

Snow goggles could be crafted from bone and they could use an accessory slot. Also, it would be easy to lose or damage them in fights with wolves and bears. 

There are no bones in the game as a material and for good reason. Adding bones enables people to ask for bone tools. While realistic, they would decrease the need for forging and make renewable tools and arrowheads very easy to obtain. Which makes the game much easier in general. Therefore, the blinders should be made out of other materials. Wood carving would be one option, but I am personally a big fan of birch bark blinders because this would use birch bark, a resource that already is inside of the game, and gave it more uses.

[melcantspell]

Good point. Birch bark makes sense. Heck , now we only need something to use those pesky newspapers for

[Mroz4k]

6 hours ago, melcantspell said:

Good point. Birch bark makes sense. Heck , now we only need something to use those pesky newspapers for

would be nice if one could read em to lower cabin fever risk, but that is probably just a wild dream of mine  as the point of the fever is to drag us outside  

[piddy3825]

15 hours ago, Mroz4k said:

....I cant really reply to your idea, because (aside of the fact you would like to see snow blindness in the game) I have no idea what your opinion of the actual mechanics of this suggestion would be. You should write them down, then we will be able to discuss them  And if you have trouble establishing them, don't be afraid to search up the ideas of others on this condition and draw inspiration there, just be kind enough to give them credit for it later  

lol, thanks for injecting some much needed humor into my day...   No offense meant,  but for a guy who cant reply to my idea, you got some great ideas!  Thanks for opening up the dialogue for your reply sets the stage because there has been some very obvious thought behind it.  Your point about crafting with birch bark compared to  bone in order to manage community response for other craftable  items made perfect sense.  Not something that would have entered my mind until it was pointed out.  so thanks for that.

anyways, your ideas on the mechanics are similar to my own in that exposure  over time increases severity of affliction.  Maybe part of the snowblindness affliction could also be due to the resulting sunburn of the face and eyelids, the resulting swelling of the face might take longer to heal, affecting vision longer.

I am going to take your suggestion and look into a few of these threads you mentioned.  thanks !

 

 

[Mroz4k]

6 hours ago, piddy3825 said:

Your point about crafting with birch bark compared to  bone in order to manage community response for other craftable  items made perfect sense.  Not something that would have entered my mind until it was pointed out.  so thanks for that.

No problem, been on and off the forums for past three years, so I have seen quite a bit, this is not something most people never even consider even after spending extensive time in here  comes from observations,  of which things are most commonly suggested and which of those things actually make it into the game. Frankly, as far as realism goes, I would be happy for bone tools... but I have seen devs respond too many times on how it would affect the balance of the game (making renewable tools easy to access would be a big win for Interloper early players)

6 hours ago, piddy3825 said:

Maybe part of the snowblindness affliction could also be due to the resulting sunburn of the face and eyelids, the resulting swelling of the face might take longer to heal, affecting vision longer.

I think that could easily be an affliction of its own, not sure about the swelliness, but sunburn is yet another very real threat in a snowy enviroment on a sunny day. But not really sure what the effects of it were, apart of taking some minor damage, I guess. Maybe an increased chance of bleeding from the damaged area? Like say you did not wear gloves on a nice, sunny day for a while. Apart of frostbite risk, you would get sunburnt, and if a wolf attacked you later, the hand would be almost surely going to bleed as a result.

I think it would be a good thing - the game could use more variety of afflictions, to make managing them more difficult. Right now, afflictions only really come to play on the harder modes, and it usually are the same type of afflictions - like cabin fever - which makes people dislike it as a mechanic. Would be nice if there was more to it.

Actually been discussing yet another affliction with another fellow forum member in private messages - cold. I think cold as a result of extended time in hypothermia risk, or as a 100% contraction when reaching Hypothermia would be a nice touch to the game, if it had a mechanic when character randomly sneezes, and the sneeze could alert wildlife to survivor´s location. But sorry for taking this one a bit off the topic - the topic should be snow blindness

I have always liked the idea of snow blindness in TLD. The fear of actually gradually losing your sight in a permadeath game? People would fear this affliction more then a black plague  

Edited April 2, 2019 by Mroz4k

[reginaphalange]

This makes a lot of sense. Much more than cabin fever.....

[jkripper]

Aside from crafting, it would make sense to have sun glasses/ski goggles laying around for players to find.  I always keep an extra pair of shades in my car.

And adding the pain mechanic to it would be great, on top of the blurred vision and risk of permanent damage.  I've heard it's an extremely painful condition.