Harvested meats calorie count way off, dehydration

[LDbubba]

It could be for gameplay "balancing", but the number of calories per kg of wolf/deer meat is ridiculously low. Very lean meat would be around 1,600 calories per kg, going to far over 3,000 if the fat percentage grows to about 25%. (and you're going to get some fat in unskilled hand-butchered meat, particularly with a bias towards winter fat storage!)

The pre-packaged foods found in the game seem to have a reasonably correct caloric value, but the cooked meats are way off, making them punishing to carry as a food source.

Also, having someone become dangerously dehydrated (taking "damage") after 12 hours of sleep is ridiculous, particularly if they are fully hydrated before sleeping. If you were physically and emotionally exhausted, it would be quite easy to sleep for 12 hours, and wake up not significantly thirsty. More likely, you'd have to pee far more urgently than drink!

[Bill Tarling]

Also, having someone become dangerously dehydrated (taking "damage") after 12 hours of sleep is ridiculous, particularly if they are fully hydrated before sleeping. If you were physically and emotionally exhausted, it would be quite easy to sleep for 12 hours, and wake up not significantly thirsty. More likely, you'd have to pee far more urgently than drink!

While that may or may not be true in normal cases, it is important to realize that a person (not climated to these conditions) is at a higher risk from rapid dehydration because the body is is constant overload fighting off hypothermia.

The game isn't trying to be an actual simulator, but rapid dehydration and hypothermia are much closer related dangers than most people would consider - again, the game taking place in extreme conditions.

I don't want to get into any long debates whether the figures in the game are close to reality or not [it would take someone far more experienced in the topic than myself to explain all the relations], especially given that the mechanics aren't necessarily trying to portray a pure simulator effect... but if you Google hypothermia dehydration, you can see how dehydration is far more serious than likely would have been considered by those of us not living or surviving in those kind of conditions... or at least I was surprised at how relative the two aspects were.

After a bit of reading, I could easily see why it actually would make sense about the frequent dehydration settings within the game. I don't know how accurate they are or aren't time wise, but that info was more than enough for me to accept it as feasible for gameplay inclusion (rememberings that a lot of events/conditions need to be time compressed, and don't necessarily represent actual real time occurrences).

[tsotha]

Ultimately I think game play has to trump here. Yes, IRL you could kill a single deer and live off the meat for weeks, particularly if you were holed up doing not much of anything. But that would make for a pretty boring game.

[Bill Tarling]

Ultimately I think game play has to trump here. Yes, IRL you could kill a single deer and live off the meat for weeks, particularly if you were holed up doing not much of anything. But that would make for a pretty boring game.

I agaree... The devs are always looking at rebalancing mechanics and areas, and the hibernation and hoarding will likely be one of the areas they tweak once they know how they want to approach it.

Don't forget, they know what's still ahead to be implemented, so they'll likely balance all the mechanics out based on the more complete version. For now this gives them a good sampling of approaches and game play styles and techniques players are using. They seem to refine things a bit more with each major update.

[LDbubba]

I agaree... The devs are always looking at rebalancing mechanics and areas, and the hibernation and hoarding will likely be one of the areas they tweak once they know how they want to approach it.

This is the tricky part... Without a compelling reason to move, there's really no point in playing the game for much beyond a few hours; you "level-up" and the survival aspects become trivial and repetitive, the only enjoyment and challenge left is (currently very limited) exploration.

It's a fool's errand to think that you can "balance" a limited-area single-player sandbox experience that's based on a "progression" paradigm. The end result will always be the same; your progressing skills and equipment will make the environment a non-issue and it gets dull...

Undoubtedly, the "story" mode will introduce compelling reasons for you to press forward, explore, and "never look back", essentially limiting you to what you can carry on your back. Even with this, the environment will still fade as a challenge as you move forward, but that's exactly why most games have "bosses" and incrementally greater challenges as you move forward.

The tough part is that "bosses" and greater (arbitrary) challenges don't at all fit into the TLD concept, which is all about the natural environment, free of fantasy aspects, etc.

Really, TLD lends itself to exploration and discovery, with significant orienteering challenges being the focus, rather than environmental ones.

[TLDFAN]

It could be for gameplay "balancing", but the number of calories per kg of wolf/deer meat is ridiculously low. Very lean meat would be around 1,600 calories per kg, going to far over 3,000 if the fat percentage grows to about 25%. (and you're going to get some fat in unskilled hand-butchered meat, particularly with a bias towards winter fat storage!)

The pre-packaged foods found in the game seem to have a reasonably correct caloric value, but the cooked meats are way off, making them punishing to carry as a food source.

Also, having someone become dangerously dehydrated (taking "damage") after 12 hours of sleep is ridiculous, particularly if they are fully hydrated before sleeping. If you were physically and emotionally exhausted, it would be quite easy to sleep for 12 hours, and wake up not significantly thirsty. More likely, you'd have to pee far more urgently than drink!

Yeah I guess Bill hasn't hit that age where after a 12 hours sleep taking a piss of the most urgent concern. My yellow pee meter is full and blinking and there is an alarm sounding DANGER DANGER LIZARD DRAIN NEEDED!