Steadfast Sprains & Pains

[stapeliad]

Thanks for the validation @Goodzilla.  I'm still playing this same run, on Day 62 now and I have gotten many more sprains.  I don't treat them anymore.
Currently the wolves are a bigger problem, they are really awful, I urgently need to get out of Coastal Highway but am waiting for pelts to cure.  

[Liofa]

11 hours ago, Goodzilla said:

@stapeliad  I have got the same problem here.

I like to walk up or down a hill apart the paths and after the last update I got spraining's all day long.

It feels like 10 times more than before. Even I walk on an easy terrain, lets say in PV from the radio tower to the farmhouse. Just on the way down from the Radio tower I get two sprains at least, before I never had this problem at all.

I agree I have just had two hand sprains in 30 seconds tracking a deer blood trail over hilly terrain and then an ankle sprain a few minutes later standing still on hilly ground. I had 25kg/35kg of gear and wasn't tired.

I think I am just going to abandon my run and make a custom one and turn off sprains. It's getting ridiculous now. I means if I can't kill prey outright there's no point tracking them because I am bound to get sprains. I've run out of pain killers now... 

I really hope they fix this new system. 

[Jolan]

I'm still getting more sprains than before the update but less than immediately after the update.  I don't bother treating them unless I need to run from a wolf or 3.  I used to treat them, but its not really worth it any more.  

[stapeliad]

AHHH I JUST DIED the cold got me while I was sleeping.  That was a good run. Many extremely harrowing close calls, one stick saved my life once!  Journal said 82 days, stats say 80.  I think the stats aren't accurate, they are lower than they should be.  I can't believe after all the crazy dire situations I got in, I froze to death in my bedroll.

49 sprains total according to the stats, I think it was more due to discrepancy stated above.

49 sprains in 80 days according to the stats page. That's too many, no matter what.

Aside from the sprains and relentless wolves, this is a good update.

 

 

Edited May 19, 2019 by stapeliad

[UpUpAway95]

45 minutes ago, stapeliad said:

AHHH I JUST DIED the cold got me while I was sleeping.  That was a good run. Many extremely harrowing close calls, one stick saved my life once!  Journal said 82 days, stats say 80.  I think the stats aren't accurate, they are lower than they should be.  I can't believe after all the crazy dire situations I got in, I froze to death in my bedroll.

49 sprains total according to the stats, I think it was more due to discrepancy stated above.

49 sprains in 80 days according to the stats page. That's too many, no matter what.

Aside from the sprains and relentless wolves, this is a good update.

 

 

The stats reflect the time of day you started and increases the days survived by 1 every 24-hours.  The journal starts your journey on the day you spawn regardless of the time of day you spawn.  So if you spawn at night, it will still show Day 1 and add Day 2 once the clock is past midnight... so it is possible to be on Day 2 and not yet have survived 24 hours, so your Days Survived stat will still show 0.

Edited May 19, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[stapeliad]

No i looked at my journal when I opened the game this morning.  It said 82 days, I was on the evening of day 82.  Also the timestamp when you sleep "You have survived x number of days...." said 82 and some-odd hours.  The stats are registering slightly lower.  Difference between 80 and 82 is still more than 24 hours. i don't know.  i didnt pay attention to the waking up timestamp hours after 82, just the journal days marked.  I'll have to pay attention to this in the next run.

Anyhow it doesn't matter, I was really just tracking the sprains to time.  Result:  too many.

Edited May 19, 2019 by stapeliad

[Looper]

10 minutes ago, stapeliad said:

No i looked at my journal when I opened the game this morning.  It said 82 days, I was on the evening of day 82.  Also the timestamp when you sleep "You have survived x number of days...." said 82 and some-odd hours.  The stats are registering slightly lower.  Difference between 80 and 82 is still more than 24 hours. i don't know.  i didnt pay attention to the waking up timestamp hours after 82, just the journal days marked.  I'll have to pay attention to this in the next run.

Anyhow it doesn't matter, I was really just tracking the sprains to time.  Result:  too many.

How can we know if its too many when we don't know how you play? Clearly you take heavy chances since you can die while sleeping (which requires some great effort to do). It's like saying wolf attacks or food poisoning are to many.

[UpUpAway95]

16 minutes ago, stapeliad said:

No i looked at my journal when I opened the game this morning.  It said 82 days, I was on the evening of day 82.  Also the timestamp when you sleep "You have survived x number of days...." said 82 and some-odd hours.  The stats are registering slightly lower.  Difference between 80 and 82 is still more than 24 hours. i don't know.  i didnt pay attention to the waking up timestamp hours after 82, just the journal days marked.  I'll have to pay attention to this in the next run.

Anyhow it doesn't matter, I was really just tracking the sprains to time.  Result:  too many.

Try adjusting your sensitivity.

[stapeliad]

10 minutes ago, Looper said:

How can we know if its too many when we don't know how you play? Clearly you take heavy chances since you can die while sleeping (which requires some great effort to do). It's like saying wolf attacks or food poisoning are to many.

The wind blew my fire out. It happens. 

The whole point of this thread was about frequency of sprains, which in my experience, playing the same way I always have, are more frequent. That’s all. 

[Looper]

1 hour ago, stapeliad said:

The wind blew my fire out. It happens. 

The whole point of this thread was about frequency of sprains, which in my experience, playing the same way I always have, are more frequent. That’s all. 

I understand - and it wasn't to be rude. I guess I'm trying to say that you maybe need to adapt your playstyle. We all do.

[UpUpAway95]

2 hours ago, stapeliad said:

The wind blew my fire out. It happens. 

The whole point of this thread was about frequency of sprains, which in my experience, playing the same way I always have, are more frequent. That’s all. 

The wind blowing your fire out is not the same mechanic as sprains.  Wind variability (the frequency at which the wind changes)  is set as low, medium, or high (per difficulty or in custom), so frequency is something that is directly controlled by the game.  However, if you only start your fires indoors, the wind will never blow your fire out. 

The game does not control anything about the frequency of sprains.  That is, the game can't decide how frequently you're overencumbered, overtired, or how often you're walking on slopes.  The sprains are dependent on what you're doing - you can get two or more right together or you could go days and days without getting one.  It depends on what you're doing.  How often are you overencumbered and by how much and for how long do you stay overencumbered?  How tired are you?  Are you getting a full night's sleep such that you're waking completely rested or are you running with it only partially full and taking shorter naps to keep yourself going.  I'm think that part of this mechanic is a cumulative effect so that if you're running overencumbered for days at a time or if you're going without full energy for days the risk is higher than if you're not usually overencumbered and you're getting to fully rested when you sleep.

Edited May 19, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[stapeliad]

6 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

However, if you only start your fires indoors, the wind will never blow your fire out.

That assumes there is an indoors close by! 😊 @upupandaway you said before you play in voyageur mode. That is a different experience than stalker. This isnt a game to play it safe in the harder modes like stalker and interloper. You just cant. The wind comment was in response to how i died sleeping.  It has nothing to so with sprains, you are correct.  Sometimes you run out of resources and choices, sometimes you just have to make decisions and take a chance.  Sometimes it works and sometimes you die.  That is what makes the game challenging and fun!

[galadhlinn]

I have spent time with the changes to sprains.  While I appreciate the efforts to improve the sprain mechanics, it still needs more work.  My experience is that it is in some ways better (more complex and sophisticated approach to sprains) and others, worse (game experience and how it feels).  By count, I am not experiencing more sprains in terms of numbers).  But the warnings are constant.   I have received the sprain "affliction" for merely walking over very a small/slight mound next to the fishing cabins in ML (I'm talking the flats/shore that the cabins are on.)  Some here in the comments like the warnings you get.  I find it causes me to not play the game in important ways (actually, I've stopped playing altogether).  I shoot a wolf, and it runs up on a steep slope, I now leave it lay, where I used to go up and harvest it.  I simply avoid huge portions of the map because the warning system is so pervasive and constant.  I can't imagine the devs intend for this, as many of the game features (think cabin fever) are specifically to force you to go out and explore and engage with the map.  Sprains now have become like a disease.  Even though you are technically only getting a warning, you have to ingest something (medicine or drink) to "cure" it or sleep it off (just the warning!).  Even if you come down to the flats and walk for hours on the flats after getting the warning, that one time you ventured up a slight slope or were briefly encumbered .5 pounds over weight limit, you either have to take drugs or sleep it off to clear it.  So basically a warning of a temporary situation that you did two hours ago stays with you like a disease.  It seems so contrived, unnatural and out of step with what sprains are in reality that I no longer enjoy being in the game at all.  It feels like the sprains now dominate (intrude) on the game instead of adding to it.  This has completely changed the experience for me and how the game feels.  Yes, this is subjective, and others will have a different subjective experience, but this is my feedback.

 

My suggestion is to give us a slider in the settings with at least four positions ranging from no sprains to interloper extreme.  The more the better ( I think 6 would be about right).  Sprains are important, and no ,I don't wish to simply turn them off.

I also suggest the ability to turn off the warnings altogether.  I doubt I will return to the game until/unless this is feature is in the game.

-G

[UpUpAway95]

9 minutes ago, stapeliad said:

That assumes there is an indoors close by! 😊 @upupandaway you said before you play in voyageur mode. That is a different experience than stalker. This isnt a game to play it safe in the harder modes like stalker and interloper. You just cant. The wind comment was in response to how i died sleeping.  It has nothing to so with sprains, you are correct.  Sometimes you run out of resources and choices, sometimes you just have to make decisions and take a chance.  Sometimes it works and sometimes you die.  That is what makes the game challenging and fun!

That doesn't change the fact that there is no setting related to the frequency of your being overencumbered or for how long you run without getting a complete sleep or how often you walk on slopes.  None of the factors that decide sprain risk are related to a frequency that the game can set.  Therefore, there is nothing that Hinterlands can adjust that would necessarily reduce the frequency of sprains for every player.  About all they could do is allow for an adjustment to the slope sensitivity such that, if set on low, slopes to X degrees would not cause a sprain risk and if set on medium, slopes to X and slopes to X+ degrees would not cause a sprain risk, etc.

Edited May 19, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[stapeliad]

1 hour ago, Looper said:

I understand - and it wasn't to be rude. I guess I'm trying to say that you maybe need to adapt your playstyle. We all do.

The issue with adapting play style in this case is... well, read @galadhlinn‘s post which states it really well. They stopped doing certain things like going up slopes, they avoided whole areas of the map. I didnt.  I went up that slope to get the wolf hide.  I kept tracking wounded animals no matter where the path led.  I dont think avoiding slopes is the answer. 

But i did not die with any sprains and i do feel very happy the bear didnt get me, even though he tried 7 times.  😊 

[Doc Feral]

32 minutes ago, galadhlinn said:

Sprains now have become like a disease.  Even though you are technically only getting a warning, you have to ingest something (medicine or drink) to "cure" it or sleep it off (just the warning!).  Even if you come down to the flats and walk for hours on the flats after getting the warning, that one time you ventured up a slight slope or were briefly encumbered .5 pounds over weight limit, you either have to take drugs or sleep it off to clear it.  So basically a warning of a temporary situation that you did two hours ago stays with you like a disease.  It seems so contrived, unnatural and out of step with what sprains are in reality that I no longer enjoy being in the game at all.  It feels like the sprains now dominate (intrude) on the game instead of adding to it.  This has completely changed the experience for me and how the game feels.  Yes, this is subjective, and others will have a different subjective experience, but this is my feedback.

This is plain wrong.

Sprain risk is a temporary situation. It comes and goes in a matter of seconds, sometimes you pick up a steak and you're at risk, then you eat it and the risk is gone. And it doesn't need drugs or sleep to heal, it depends on your weight carrying limit and carried weight. If you're dragging on tired and burdened, you're at risk, meaning you're more likely to suffer a sprain if the surface you're on is dangerous. No matter how tired and heavy you are, you'll not get sprains walking on a flat surface, but if you're at risk you'll be more susceptible to sprains once you move to a rocky slope. Sleeping decreases tiredness thus increasing carrying capacity, it doesn't "heal" the risk, it changes the parameters which are causing it.

 

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Doc Feral said:

This is plain wrong.

Sprain risk is a temporary situation. It comes and goes in a matter of seconds, sometimes you pick up a steak and you're at risk, then you eat it and the risk is gone. And it doesn't need drugs or sleep to heal, it depends on your weight carrying limit and carried weight. If you're dragging on tired and burdened, you're at risk, meaning you're more likely to suffer a sprain if the surface you're on is dangerous. No matter how tired and heavy you are, you'll not get sprains walking on a flat surface, but if you're at risk you'll be more susceptible to sprains once you move to a rocky slope. Sleeping decreases tiredness thus increasing carrying capacity, it doesn't "heal" the risk, it changes the parameters which are causing it.

 

I am starting to think, however, that the percentage risk increases the longer you go overencumbered or overtired... much like the risk of cabin fever increases the greater percentage of time you've spent indoors in the last X days and how the risk of parasites increases percentage-wise as you eat more pieces of meat from carnivores.  Let's say we have two players:  1) Player 1 has spent the last few days in the game well rested and not overencumbered; while Player 2 has spent the last few days moving house and has spent much of the time walking between locations overencumbered and has also been overtired some of the time.

Then lets say both players get a good night's sleep and reach Slope X overencumbered by the same amount... but based on their activities of the previous few days, Player 1 has a 1% risk of sprain; whereas Player 2 has a 50% risk of sprain.

The RNG gods roll the dice, but it's more likely that Player 2 will actually get a sprain than Player 1.

The risk could also change exponentially depending on how much time in the last day or days the player has spent walking on sloped terrain.

Since other game mechanics employ this sort of system to vary risks among different players, I'm thinking that there is something like that at work with sprains as well.  Of course, I need to do a lot more testing before I'm sure of it.  Right now, it's just a guess.

Edited May 19, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[Blankshield]

I feel like I am seeing less sprains since the update, and my current run is just over 60 days, with 9 wrist sprains and 10 ankle sprains.  I am absolutely certain that at least half of those are from wolf struggles (28).  ~10 days in Desolation point, the rest about equally divided between Coastal Highway and Timberwolf Mountain, so there has been a *lot* of going up and down risky terrain.  Playing on Voyageur.

 

[galadhlinn]

1 hour ago, Doc Feral said:

This is plain wrong.

Sprain risk is a temporary situation. It comes and goes in a matter of seconds, sometimes you pick up a steak and you're at risk, then you eat it and the risk is gone. And it doesn't need drugs or sleep to heal, it depends on your weight carrying limit and carried weight. If you're dragging on tired and burdened, you're at risk, meaning you're more likely to suffer a sprain if the surface you're on is dangerous. No matter how tired and heavy you are, you'll not get sprains walking on a flat surface, but if you're at risk you'll be more susceptible to sprains once you move to a rocky slope. Sleeping decreases tiredness thus increasing carrying capacity, it doesn't "heal" the risk, it changes the parameters which are causing it.

 

It may not be your experience, but that does not make it wrong.  It is what I have experienced after several hours of game play monitoring and observing sprains specifically.  There very well may be situations where the "sprain risk" goes away.  But I can assure you that many times it did not until I slept it off.  (I'm too frugal with my resources to use drink or drugs).  Of course you can adapt your play style, but that was not my point.  My point was to provide feed back on how the changes have changed how the game feels for me to play.  I think I was careful to acknowledge that others are having a different experience than mine.

[stapeliad]

I have not played Voyageur mode for a couple of years, but I started a new game to see how drastic the sprain difference is from Stalker mode.  I'm not over-encumbered (yet) but so far in day 1 I went from Hushed River Valley to Milton House with zero sprains (I really tried to get one), an amazing amount of reishi mushroom, and... ZERO wolves. That is incredible, ZERO wolves!

Edited May 19, 2019 by stapeliad

[Doc Feral]

34 minutes ago, galadhlinn said:

There very well may be situations where the "sprain risk" goes away.  But I can assure you that many times it did not until I slept it off.  (I'm too frugal with my resources to use drink or drugs).

Your carrying capacity decreases as you get more and more tired. "Sleeping it off" means that you raised your carrying capacity back to 30, 35 or 40 kgs (moosehide satchel and/or well fed buff may or may not apply), and that canceled the penalty which was causing sprain risk.

Edited May 19, 2019 by Doc Feral

[Looper]

3 hours ago, stapeliad said:

That assumes there is an indoors close by! 😊 @upupandaway you said before you play in voyageur mode. That is a different experience than stalker. This isnt a game to play it safe in the harder modes like stalker and interloper. You just cant. The wind comment was in response to how i died sleeping.  It has nothing to so with sprains, you are correct.  Sometimes you run out of resources and choices, sometimes you just have to make decisions and take a chance.  Sometimes it works and sometimes you die.  That is what makes the game challenging and fun!

☺️ I usually play on Interloper/DMC - there are always an "indoor" close by.

2 hours ago, stapeliad said:

The issue with adapting play style in this case is... well, read @galadhlinn‘s post which states it really well. They stopped doing certain things like going up slopes, they avoided whole areas of the map. I didnt.  I went up that slope to get the wolf hide.  I kept tracking wounded animals no matter where the path led.  I dont think avoiding slopes is the answer. 

But i did not die with any sprains and i do feel very happy the bear didnt get me, even though he tried 7 times.  😊 

Well that's a risk sometimes worth taking. But there should be a punishment if one is unlucky. In DMC one rarely follows bleeding animals running straight away due to the cooling and energy consumption. Instead headshots or closed locations are the answer. But if I goat to sneak around a wolf and gets a sprain - I take a pill (and now a bandage) and move on.

Cheers on the 7 bear dodge😁

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, galadhlinn said:

It may not be your experience, but that does not make it wrong.  It is what I have experienced after several hours of game play monitoring and observing sprains specifically.  There very well may be situations where the "sprain risk" goes away.  But I can assure you that many times it did not until I slept it off.  (I'm too frugal with my resources to use drink or drugs).  Of course you can adapt your play style, but that was not my point.  My point was to provide feed back on how the changes have changed how the game feels for me to play.  I think I was careful to acknowledge that others are having a different experience than mine.

The Sprain Risk notice appears 1) the moment you exceed your carry weight, so it can appear by picking up any item that throws you over that limit (In this case, it will show as being healed the moment you drop an item that brings you back under your carry weight).  2) the moment your fatigue level falls below the point where your carry weight limit gets reduced... causing you to become overencumbered even though you haven't picked up anything new (In this case, it will show has healed the moment you drop items that bring you back within your carry weight; or drink a coffee or go juice that decreases your fatigue, which causes your carry weight limit to increase again; or sleep, which also causes your carry weight to increase again. 3) Correction - it does not appear when transitioning from flat terrain to sloped terrain unless doing so increases the player's fatigue such that the player's carry weight limit decreases and the player becomes overencumbered.

How frequently the sprain risk warning comes up and heals is completely dependent upon how close you are to your carry weight limit or how frequently you are transitioning between level and sloped terrain.

Regardless of the sprain risk caution, you should not get an actual sprain on level ground (e.g. walking around on a single floor inside a house).  If I understood Raphael correctly, however, stairs count as slopes, so I believe you can still get a sprain going up or down the stairs if you have an active sprain risk.

 

ETA:  As it pertains to carry weight limit, the sprain risk caution is doing exactly the same thing as the little red weight symbol... that no one ever really notices as it comes and goes.  I think it's pretty obvious that Hinterlands really does want us to all pay more attention to our carry weights and how they relate to our tiredness.

 

Edited May 19, 2019 by UpUpAway95

[stapeliad]

30 minutes ago, Looper said:

☺️ I usually play on Interloper/DMC - there are always an "indoor" close by.

I am so bad at Interloper!! Lol. Indoors nearby depends on which map or where you are in.relation to a cave.  Or how close you are to cabin fever! How are the sprains in interloper? I havent tried yet. 

[LostRealist]

I don't have any of that fancy numbers you guys have, but I can say that it also took me a while to get used to the new sprain mechanics and while I did, I also felt that the frequency was suddenly way overdone. Now that I have become used to the new mechanics, I'm getting drastically fewer sprains than before mostly because I am made aware of the fact I'm standing on dangerous terrain which lets me slow down and tread lightly where I need to. I like this.

And I will also say that I actually don't mind the apparent randomness of sprains that much because let's face it, I know I have twisted my very real life ankle while walking on grass, going down a stair, turning around sharply, being a general idiot, all sorts of occasions where the outside observer never would have guessed this would lead to an ankle sprain. I don't mind this being portrayed in the game, I just find the debuffs a little drastic. In a survival situation I find it unlikely that a sprained ankle would completely disable you from moving at a faster pace than crippled hobble just as I doubt you could not find a way to operate a rifle with a sprained wrist if your life depended on it. Especially after a dose of opioid painkillers you should be able to utilize the appendage again to a reasonable degree even without stabilizing it with a bandage. This would obviously put you at risk of intensifying the damage to your ligaments but that's going too far for the game.

I think the idea of splitting the symptoms into ligament damage and pain was a nice one, but killing the pain should let you work through the ligament damage as well. As it is, the cost of actually moving past a sprain without rest is too high when sprains are as common as they still are. I'd hope to see the system expanded upon as I think the sprains mechanic is a very important one in the game. Pain could be made more granular to display different types and intensities of pain, requiring different dosage of painkillers, which themselves should probably give a positive affliction to the likes of "Pain Relief" that lasts for a set amount of hours depending on the dose and wears off while the pain itself isn't immediately "cured" by the dose but instead just numbed to return later if the dose wears off before the cause of the pain does - e.g. a sprain heals or a headache just fades out.