Garry's feedback dump

[Limited_Garry]

During my playthrough of The Long Dark, I made notice of a couple of things which I thought would be nice if added/changed/removed. Some of this stuff may have already been discussed, lot of it is probably being considered by the devs, but here it goes anyways. English isn't my native language so there will be some weird phrases and stuff. Hope it all makes sense.

I'll start with the technical things:

Crow sounds are weird. The actual effect seems to be fine, but with the effect comes this weird noise - it's very difficult to explain. It might be some bad echo, problem with the sound engine (although crows are the only source that does this) or simply a leftover in the audio file. I have fully fledged hi-fi headphones with a proper DAC and amplifier, so problem isn't in my audio.

When walking in the area behind the Trapper's Homestead I notice huge stutter, possibly due to framerate loss. GTX760, i5 4570, 8GB RAM. It might be related to the fact it's a corner of the map. There is no complex geometry to speak of - it's mostly just open space with a lot of snow in it.

When searching for stuff in cupboards and holding lantern at the same time, you constantly keep getting warmer/colder notifications as you move the lantern around. While I understand why this happens, it's kinda weird and I think that such small differences in temperature can be happily ignored by everyone.

Next goes some stuff about the interface, controls and generally the way you interact with the game:

When cooking food or boiling water, one should be able to add wood to the fire during the process, so that you don't have to start new fire after you failed to cook a wolf because there wasn't enough time left in the fire and you just can't be bothered to remember how long does it take to cook a wolf. Even if estimates for cooking are added, I still think it would be a good thing to be able to add fire during cooking.

Both harvest and repair sections should have the option to filter items. Having Clothes/Tools/other would be enough. If you're dealing with your entire inventory in the late game, it's just too much stuff to sort through and it feels inconvenient.

Status of thirst and hunger should be visible in all parts of the interface - just so that you don't go to sleep without noticing you'll get thirsty before you wake up.

When eating food, it's bothersome to always have to bring up the menu all over again. It would be better if the menu didn't close after eating - there's nothing worse than being hungry and only having some 20 chocolate bars.

There should be an easy way for checking how much fuel you have in your lantern. There should also be more convenient way of checking how much ammo you have in your rifle.

Here's some things which I'd love to see added:

Visual menu for putting clothes on your character. Would be more convenient and cool. The character itself doesn't have to be rendered - a silhouette would do.

Visual inventory! Dealing with lists of items isn't really bad, but having a visual inventory adds more depth to the game. There already are models for everything. This would also add the need to not only manage your weight, but also storage space.

Containers for everything liquid. Imho the game should require you to find an actual bottle before you can collect water. If you don't have a bottle, you could drink from pots or deep plates, but that would make you unable to transport water.

This would also give the incentive to look for better water containers, like flasks etc., not just plastic bottles.

Backpacks! Various different backpacks could offer different maximum weight limit (which would not be the same thing as the character's weight limit) as well as different storage space (if visual inventory was implemented). In addition to this, clothes could also serve for storage and aside from backpacks, there could also be over-the-shoulder sacks. While stuff in the pockets of your clothes or in the sack/bag could be accessed easily and on-the-go, stuff in the backpack could only be accessed after you take the backpack off.

In addition to all this, there could also be the need to separate certain thing. For example, putting your food and lantern fuel together would run a risk of leaking the fuel onto your food... Or putting a pack of cardboard matches next to your water would run a risk of ruining the matches.

I'd split fatigue into two parts - one which accumulates over long period of time and can only be removed by sleeping, other which accumulates by physically demanding activities and falls off when you're not doing anything demanding. Let's say - if you're running for a while, you may need to slow down and rest for a while. But that doesn't mean you're ready to go to sleep.

I'd do the same for hunger. Calories is one thing, but the physical amount of food you eat is a whole different matter entirely. This would give a more realistic mechanic. Currently, the player simply fills the hunger bar at the beginning of the day and eats only when he must. With calories and hunger being two separate stats, there could be such things as eating too much food (feeling heavy), incentive to eat several times a day (rather then only when you're low on calories) and being selective about what you eat. Condensed milk may have a good calories/weight ratio, but it doesn't make for a very good lunch.

While the game doesn't let you jump (and there's nothing wrong with that), it should make you be able to climb over obstacles and step up 20cm of terrain (because it makes sense).

Wolves spawning around houses are a pain in the everywhere. Possibility to check through windows?

I'd like to see the mechanics behind temperature and wet clothes get a little more complex.

For example, even if you put on three jackets, twenty socks and electronic warming boots, if you put no pants on, you're still gonna freeze to death. Temperature zones are a must IMHO.

After you leave the outdoors and sit down into a warm room, you're going to have problems if you don't get rid of the snow on your clothes. If your clothes get wet, you have to dry them near a fire. If the game had temperature zones, it could be possible to only get parts of your clothes wet (by stepping into a river, having snow fall on your neck and melting etc.) Wet clothes could get heavier, depending on how wet they get.

Wet clothes would also give the possibility for sweating to be introduced. While running or doing other physically demanding activity, your body gets warmer but the risk is that you're going to get sweaty, which in a cold environment can be dangerous. This would also introduce the need to take layers of clothes off indoors or during warmer days while running, foraging wood etc.

And again, back to the idea about clothes also serving as storage, getting your clothes wet could get objects stored in them wet as well. (All in all, falling into water would very, very bad news)

I think that a stat for the state of mind must have been discussed at some point, so I'll leave it brief. Different actions and events, such as being attacked by a wolf, failing to make fire, drinking hot coffee, having a warm meal etc. would alter the character's mood. This would also introduce the possibility to implement bonuses for sleeping well etc.

Players should be able to move the furniture around houses. If you make a base somewhere, it only makes sense for you to personalize it

Players should be able to stack wood like so.

It takes way too much weight in containers and it feels weird to just drop it on the floor. You could make large stacks outdoors and smaller stacks indoors. In addition to this, some fire-places could have a special container next to them for putting down wood. Wood in this container would be part of the inventory of given fireplace and could be added into the fire without you picking it up or having it in your inventory.

Would be nice to have minigames for forcing locked containers, applying bandages, repairing tools/clothes, crafting, possibly even for picking locks and searching. These activities could take longer/shorter time to complete based on how well you do.

And some nitpicks:

IMHO the walking speed is too slow. It's not a walk in the park

Foraging wood indoors takes a little bit too much time. Breaking a few chairs or crates is a matter of a few minutes, not a third of an hour.

When wearing clothes, they do not feel as heavy as if you're carrying them. (just to clarify, this is a real-life fact, not an in-game observation)

Character somehow feels slightly smaller than he/she should. This might be just me, but I can't unnotice this. This is mostly noticeable when you're standing next to railings or furniture - the character's eyes seem to me to be placed on his/her chest.

Interiors are still too dark during the day. They just are. If the windows are covered in snow, the normal thing to do would be to get the snow off (possibly a new minigame?)

And that's it for now. Didn't want to give feedback this soon (only some 20 hours played), but I just had too much and was afraid I'd forget some of it. I'll definitely add more feedback as I play and I'll sure be playing a lot. Love the game and love the updates. Some really amazing work is being done. This has potential to get really big.

[TLDFAN]

Amazing amount of superior feedback with great ideas mixed in. I support all of them. My favorite ideas are the wood stacking ideas, I'd like there to be a semi-random wood stack or wood pile as you gather wood and deploy it.

I like your wet clothes ideas too. Shouldn't there be a WET meter or measure?

Best idea, water bottles, and making water carrying dependent on container capacity. Totally more realistic. Water handling right now with snow melting and water boiling is too abstract and weak on realism.

I agree with foraging for wood indoors, this could be reduced to 15 minutes but I understand the gameplay balance of foraging indoors not exposing you to the cold, however you can forage outside sitting next to a fire and let it burn for hours and forage for hours without getting cold too which is realistic given the game modeling of foraging at this point.

I support a more realistic approach where you have to actual recover wood from the outdoors via objects. These should have a random scattering which constantly updates over time.

Walking speed could use a slight bump. Running speed is still too fast for outpacing wolves, how about a short sprint and then a run speed equal to the wolf?

[TLDFAN]

I had another idea, what about a graphics effect for pupil dilatation when you enter a dark room or cave, sort of like the effect on Crysis. I know we aren't going for the same kind of gameplay or same engine but it might make it so you can make the rooms seem really dark at first and then slowly over the course of a real minute lighten up.

[Limited_Garry]

When it comes to the wolves, I actually find them to be extremely slow in the game... I've never seen a wolf running through snow, but I imagine a human stands no chance of outrunning one (especially in snow). Afaik wolves in general (there sure are different types) will run 50km/h or faster (eyballed math says that's well over 30mph).

IMHO the wolf AI will need some major tweaking. Currently, wolves sort of fill the role of guards - the general enemy which only makes it harder for you to reach certain location. However, they're not very intimidating and don't act as animals trying to find food.

Later implementations could feature wolves stalking you, calling other wolves by howling and mostly attacking in packs. I'm not really an expert, but I believe that unless a wolf is very hungry or enraged, he'll be avoiding humans when alone and will run away if you try to approach. (I actually believe that wolves will always avoid humans, as long as they have something else to hunt - but I could be wrong)

Wolves could have hunger bars just like the player - so if you meet a very hungry wolf, he'll charge you without a second thought and in extreme cases, you could see packs of wolves attacking other wolves/packs.

And of course, I'd love stuff like wolves chasing you by scent, where the direction of wind would also be a factor.

But hey, just wild ideas - still in alpha

And yeah, getting used to dark/light over time could be a great mechanic. For example, sun reflecting on twice-frozen snow (not sure what the english term is - snow melts a little and then freezes again) can be downright blinding. Needless to say, if you go from such environment into a dark room, you'll have trouble seeing anything for a little while.

OOOH and I forgot something. When you make a fire, hot ashes will remain long after the fire is out. I actually remember that we were always able to start the fire again in the morning after we let it die at night - and there was always at least some six hours space between. The fireplace may seem only slightly warm, but if you dig through a little, there will be red hot ashes on the bottom. By throwing some tinder or newspaper on it and supplying oxygen (by blowing carefully :ugeek: ), you could start the fire again without matches. Would be really cool to have this in the game.

[TLDFAN]

Id really like to see an overhaul of the fire systems completely. One where you stoke the fire to get it hotter, and where while cooking you have to try to keep the meat in a certain zone so that you don't burn the meat but that you cook it fast so that your fire doesn't go out, etc, would also be cool if you could start a fire without matches or a firestarter, the old fashioned way, with sticks or a crafted fire starter. All skill type things would be great. I know it is a little more in depth than some modules but thing is fire is critical to winter survival and very important to survival in general without electricity.

[goddessofu]

Id really like to see an overhaul of the fire systems completely. One where you stoke the fire to get it hotter, and where while cooking you have to try to keep the meat in a certain zone so that you don't burn the meat but that you cook it fast so that your fire doesn't go out, etc, would also be cool if you could start a fire without matches or a firestarter, the old fashioned way, with sticks or a crafted fire starter. All skill type things would be great. I know it is a little more in depth than some modules but thing is fire is critical to winter survival and very important to survival in general without electricity.

I like this idea. Fire building and maintaining a fire over time really are two separate skills. Heating a fire for melting/smelting new objects could be another skill. I'd love to see some added perks to a dead fire...maybe hot coals that make it easier to reignite a fire again after its gone out? Or hot coals that can be stored in an old food tin/lantern parts and tucked in your clothing to keep you warmer? Or Ashes to melt ice quicker (works as well as salt IRL) or use to fertilize an indoor garden and grow food? Or to use as a powder to treat lice or other bugs/pests if you get infested? (After 50 days without a shower gross stuff happens).

Lots of possibilities.

[FoneBoneJay]

I like the idea of making fire building a bit more skill based, right now the dice roll based on percent change modifiers is ok, but maybe taking some time to make the necessary ingredients for a successful fire building and maintaining would really set apart fire building outside and in a fire place.

I think introducing some ancient fire building techniques would be great too.

Fire Drill, Fire Plough, pump fire drill, bow drill, flint and steel, some of these techniques would require the learning others would require some tooling. In any event, fires are a necessary and I'd argue major part of the winter survival aspect of the sandbox.

Now how to you introduce those to the player, well how about an in game book with some diagrams and make it a crafted type learned skill.

[FoneBoneJay]

Id really like to see an overhaul of the fire systems completely. One where you stoke the fire to get it hotter, and where while cooking you have to try to keep the meat in a certain zone so that you don't burn the meat but that you cook it fast so that your fire doesn't go out, etc, would also be cool if you could start a fire without matches or a firestarter, the old fashioned way, with sticks or a crafted fire starter. All skill type things would be great. I know it is a little more in depth than some modules but thing is fire is critical to winter survival and very important to survival in general without electricity.

I like this idea. Fire building and maintaining a fire over time really are two separate skills. Heating a fire for melting/smelting new objects could be another skill. I'd love to see some added perks to a dead fire...maybe hot coals that make it easier to reignite a fire again after its gone out? Or hot coals that can be stored in an old food tin/lantern parts and tucked in your clothing to keep you warmer? Or Ashes to melt ice quicker (works as well as salt IRL) or use to fertilize an indoor garden and grow food? Or to use as a powder to treat lice or other bugs/pests if you get infested? (After 50 days without a shower gross stuff happens).

Lots of possibilities.

I definetly think it sucks when you have 5-6 logs of fir on a fire and then the wind kicks up. I have already addressed the fact that weather seems to change too quick. We should sort of get slower changing weather patterns but if the weather is going to get bad, it should seem to be building up like that not going from sunlight directly into heavy blowing snow in 15 seconds.

[Limited_Garry]

Totally agree on the weather. There should definitely be a sign at least a few minutes beforehand that there's a storm coming. The weather can go literally from sunny and relatively warm to "you're gonna die here because you can't even see where you're going, bro!"

But this would need some more graphical fidelity for the clouds and sky, so I'm guessing we'll get something like that later on.

[ernestww]

All great ideas.

I like the idea of a water container such as a surplus canteen with a couple liters capacity or a canvas water tote http://www.southwestspiritantiques.com/ ... IP1051.htm with perhaps 3 liters capacity.

For different pack ideas I vote for a pack-board. This would be a logical and ubiquitous item in the back woods, particularly at the trapper's cabin. Here I would suggest the classic 'Trapper Nelson' https://thevintagetraveler.wordpress.co ... -backpack/

This should have a higher total weight capacity maybe 50 kilos

[TLDFAN]

Id like to suggest one of the upcoming maps be a dark deep cave maybe a mile in length where some of these items would be found. Maybe a pickaxe and a few regular axes, some scrap metal, and some of those pack boards. It could also be a hidden cache where one of these corpses started out surviving but succumbed to the elements.

[Limited_Garry]

Just came to me that I'd actually love to have custom difficulties - being able to adjust which aspects of the game I want to be hard and which I want to be more forgiving. Being able to enable or disable aspects of the game as I see fit. Players could disable weather changes, force all time nice weather, but also a never ending blizzard. They could increase wildlife or turn it off completely. Etc.

There could also be traits for the given run - things that change the gameplay in a meaningful way, sometimes make it drastically different just for the hell of it. Things that don't necessarily have to make the game harder or easier, but simply make it different. Think challenge runs in Dark Souls.

Few examples:

Not being able to find any matches, but starting up with a magnifying glass which will never break.

Being able to carry twice as much stuff but also being twice as hungry all the time.

Character doesn't need to sleep but gets attacked by all wildlife (including deers).

Character can do all things without tools at a decreased rate, but will never find any tools.

Wolves will spawn indoors, but won't attack you outdoor.