Random Things I'd Like to See.....

[JOFASH]

Hi All, Long Time Listener, First Time Caller......

I've been playing TLD for a LONG time, and am an Outdoor Enthusiast who lives in a remote area, so figured I would drop a list of things I would like to see added to future versions. I really dig this game, so any part I can play- however small- in making it better and more fun is a great pleasure.

I'm sure many of these have already been suggested, but they're here anyway......

- Drag Sled

I would love to see the ability to carry more at a seriously reduced cost to speed and increased rate of consumption of cals/hunger/thirst/fatigue. I find I spend a lot of time caching things at "safehouses" and going back to them periodically; the ability to carry more (and to drop the sled and come back to it when I'm done) is not only a great idea, but something most survivalists would construct during long-term scenarios in the Arctic.

- SnowShoes

A No-brainer mobility device in heavy snow environments. I'm actually surprised these haven't been incorporated yet. 

- Pemican

Dried meat. High in calories. Fat can be used for candle-making (see below)

- Candles

You're a long-term survivor. You're going to begin looking for cool ways to use animal parts. You have all this bear/moose/deer/wolf/rabbit fat lying around from your Pemican adventures. Why not render tallow unto candles? I'm sure cured gut would make a great wick...... 

- Spear

Can be thrown or jabbed. Would make a great defensive weapon against wolves or bears.

- Sling/Slingshot

A step up from throwing rocks. Greater accuracy, but adds weight and requires resources to build 

- Berries/increased Plant features

I'm sure this is a commonly requested feature, but I would like to add my name to the requests. The game takes place in the Northern reaches, but not past the Tundra line, so berries and other edible plants would be present. For example, the ability to make pine needle tea for a health/temperature boost.

- Pick/Shovel and Trench Fire

I would love to see the eventual ability to cut into the ground, which allows one to lay a trench fire, which can then be covered over and slept on, keeping one relatively warm throughout the night. The shovel and pick could perhaps also be useful for other options, including speeding up igloo building (shovel) and mining coal in caves (pick). The pick would also allow one to lay a trench fire in Tundra (see below).  

- Igloo

I have wanted this feature since I first saw this game, because it is so intuitive for an arctic survival game that it seems obvious, although perhaps difficult on the programming/gameplay side of things. In-game, this could be long-term/all-day project that would be a risk, exposing the player to the elements for long periods of time and depleting valuable resources while eventually providing a safe, secure, well-insulated shelter that could be returned to. Allow for setting a fire indoors, due to construction. 

- The Prone Rifle Position

Not sure if plausible, but once you reach a certain level of markmanship, it makes sense to add a prone position for the rifle. It would lower temperature quicker, but provide superior range and accuracy.

- Tundra Zone

Eventually, I would love to see a new zone where the MC comes out of the tree line and into a Tundra Biome. It is not the barren wasteland people think it is, although spending extended time there would probably be only for the most advanced players. The Igloo feature- as well as the drag-sled, snowshoe, and current clothing options like the Bear cloak would come in handy here.

Tundra features:

Only dusk/night. Short dusk, LONG night.

No wood.

Arctic Fox, Caribou, hare, lemmings, and musk ox are all typically found in that biome, as well as walrus, seal and fish near ocean. Moss, heath- including berries- and lichen all grow in that region. Of course, no trip to the Tundra would be complete without the best animal feature.....

- Polar Bear.

Bigger, angrier, stronger, and harder to kill than its boreal relative, and difficult to see/target in the mostly-white climate, they would be the Apex predator of the game, and best avoided at all costs..... but if a player were to bring one down, the rewards- in meat, gut, hide, etc- would be great. Just don't miss.    

- A better nutrition/caloric expenditure work-in. 

Because managing calories against expenditure is such an important part of survival, I would love to see a reworked/more accurate approach to caloric intake vs expenditure, including more accurate caloric numbers, different rates of expenditure based on load carriage and activity, temperature, sprinting vs. walking, ill/injured, etc. There are people in the fitness world who understand these things (I am sure the Canadian military's fitness arm has LOTS of insight on temperature/load/caloric expenditure, considering they just spent the better part of two decades in the desert, and I know they have research/knowledge on Arctic-specific stuff, because of the Arctic Rangers program.)     

 

That's what I came up with from the hip while playing the game. I think The Long Dark could conceivably be one of those games that develops for years, growing and improving over time, and constantly evolving as it develops.

I'll hang up and let you answer.

 

[peteloud]

I like your analysis and suggestions for solutions, although I am not sure that all of them are practicable.

 

[JOFASH]

Yeah, I figure some of them would likely be impractical/impossible from a programming POV- I don't have a coding/game design background, so I have no idea- but I still think it'd be cool to see some of them implemented. 

[wizard03]

On 12/21/2019 at 2:40 PM, JOFASH said:

- Drag Sled

- SnowShoes

- Sling/Slingshot

- Berries/increased Plant features

- The Prone Rifle Position

- Tundra Zone

- Polar Bear.  

I like what you got going here, but Id like to pick a couple that really shine.

 

Ok the drag sled is an absolute must.....Once I got the clothing to "tank out" the weather, its like Im just barely able to carry things I also need...Storm lantern, prybar, rifle…..I consider some of the tools an ABSOLUTE must have no matter where I go and once I got it all together, well....The well fed perk and a moose satchel gives me just enough room to think about taking food, firewood, or something and then I will find a heavy item like a hammer or couple pieces of fir firewood. x.x With that said, if this was introduced, Id suspect we would need a balance....maybe forge some rivets, a hammer, and fir wood pieces to craft?

Snow shoes is also a big got to have here. Increased mobility is number one of my must have's. Maybe cured Birch bark, gut, and a tool kit/sewing kit?

Slingshot sounds like a great idea, might actually WANT to use the reclaimed wood instead of just burning it

Just made a post about adding more veggies myself in the wish department. 

I agree with the prone rifle position, as it is right now, I find the revolver much more useful in hunting. Granted it does not have the power of the rifle, but multiple shots and continuous ADS is much more important to me. The loss of ADS when your stamina bar goes to zero has cost me a couple times. Maybe this will offer longer ADS time at the cost of being able to run away?

Love a tundra zone, but its got to have a lot of something to make it worth while....maybe a ship grave yard?

And the polar bear is a great idea, IF it didn't come off as something offensive.....might be tricky...

[Guest kristaok]

Some of those are some good ideas, like the drag sled especially. 

[stratvox]

On 12/22/2019 at 10:21 PM, wizard03 said:

And the polar bear is a great idea, IF it didn't come off as something offensive...

The big problem with the polar bear is that there are no polar bears in that part of the world. No tundra either. It's just not the right place for those things.

A very rare spirit bear (basically, a spirit bear is a particular genetic anomaly in the Great Bear Rainforest up that way that has very pale fur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermode_bear

It's a sub-species of the black bear. It'd be awesome to see one of those sometime. Hey @Raphael van Lierop, is that the easter egg I've heard noised about?

[wizard03]

On 12/27/2019 at 10:19 PM, stratvox said:

The big problem with the polar bear is that there are no polar bears in that part of the world. No tundra either. It's just not the right place for those things.

A very rare spirit bear (basically, a spirit bear is a particular genetic anomaly in the Great Bear Rainforest up that way that has very pale fur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermode_bear

It's a sub-species of the black bear. It'd be awesome to see one of those sometime. Hey @Raphael van Lierop, is that the easter egg I've heard noised about?

True, this all does seem rather south of the extreme frozen tundra. I unno what we could do along those lines unless there was an entire ice shelf that came to rest up against the island? 

[stratvox]

Well, for me, it's more that seeing a polar bear or a walrus would pretty much take me out of the willing suspension of disbelief. It's just the wrong environment for them. It might be cool to make another game in the same universe that was set on Baffin Island in Nunavut; in that game you'd be ice fishing, seeking out seal breathing holes in the ice and waiting there with a spear for one to show up, avoiding polar bears and walruses and wolves, maybe hunting caribou, snaring arctic hares, and perhaps there'd be a role for ptarmigans. There'd be no trees, and abandoned villages and towns with the houses up on stilts because of the permafrost. Getting the materials together to make fire could be challenging. Being out on the winter ice could well turn out to be a better play than staying on land.

I could see that being a very cool game, and even one that might be worth considering for Hinterland, but I don't see any of those things happening in this game.

[Alexg]

The snow sled idea I like as atm If you kill an animal far from you base and in the open can be difficult to either harvest or quarter all the material then get back home usally at slow speed and smelling of a butcher so maybe the ability to load a carcass on to a sled and take it home for harvesting 

[wizard03]

2 hours ago, Alexg said:

The snow sled idea I like as atm If you kill an animal far from you base and in the open can be difficult to either harvest or quarter all the material then get back home usally at slow speed and smelling of a butcher so maybe the ability to load a carcass on to a sled and take it home for harvesting 

Im still ok with that idea, even if that's all you can do with it, that's still a very useful feature!

[JOFASH]

On 12/27/2019 at 11:19 PM, stratvox said:

The big problem with the polar bear is that there are no polar bears in that part of the world. No tundra either. It's just not the right place for those things

I never considered that, in part because I never stopped to consider WHERE the game was set. If we're talking halfway up the coast of BC, then, yeah, no chance- I think most of the other suggestions still work, though. I was always considering Northern Canada as a whole generic setting in terms of the game, and there is an area where all of these biomes- forest, coastal, muskeg, tundra, etc-  sort of come together: Hudson Bay, right along the coast where Ontario meets Manitoba, and Manitoba climbs north towards Nunavut. You are also right on the edge of Grizzly territory, and Polar bears are tracked frequently through the region. Whaling and fishing are also prominent.

Since I mostly play survival, that region is MY Long Dark, since I'm familiar with the area, but far less so than with BC (Canadian airline prices for in-country travel are absurd).

Of course, all of this leads me to my next idea.....

 

The Kayak

- goes well with the spear, and also allows for a second idea (The fish net). Clothing gets wet- and therefore cold- quickly, unless you have the right clothing type and coverage. Limits carrying capacity- meaning you have to drop most of your gear to use it- and the amount of fish/etc you can catch is limited due to size.

One of those things one finds just sort of laying around at certain locations. I suppose if you went with a canoe you could technically craft one from the BC wilds, but the carrying/cargo options make it too easy; there's no penalty to be had, so no trade-off.   

 

The problem I see is that I doubt Hinterland would want to spend the time adjusting mechanics for water-based gameplay this far into things. Would be cool though, and allow for coastal exploration.

    

[ManicManiac]

*Drag-Sled & Sling-shot:

On 1/31/2020 at 2:42 AM, ManicManiac said:

You are correct that these ideas have been discussed before, but I don't think it's bad to revisit those ideas from time to time.  The sled (or pole-drag as you called it) has been addressed as a particular challenge to implement.

As for the sling-shot, I've always liked the idea of a simple sling as opposed to a sling-shot (though I don't see either as being very necessary considering the weapons we have at our disposal and how effective throwing rocks can be if we take the time to get proficient at it).

In both cases they're interesting ideas to think about.  However, I do rather like that we have to carefully consider how much we lug around with us and the risks of "loading up heavy" when moving things from place to place.  I feel like those limitations cause a player to have make important decisions on what's really necessary or worth the risk.  I think it also prompts us to consider our options more carefully before caching large amounts of supplies in any given location (our base camps, if you will). 

*Spear:

On 1/7/2020 at 8:53 AM, ManicManiac said:

I think we have all the weapons we could possibly need.  (though I am still hopeful the bear spear will still make an appearance in survival in the future --- definitely not a necessity, but since it was spoke of by the Hinterland team... I'm eager to see what they'll come up with for it)

*Snowshoes:
It might be neat I suppose, but I don't see this as necessary since there isn't a "get stuck in the snow" or a "trudge thought the snow" mechanic.  At most, "walking in snow" only slows you down very slightly compared to say... walking on ice or paved roads.  There's just no real benefit I can see to having snowshoes (as the game stands today).

*Pemican:

On 1/27/2020 at 12:22 AM, ManicManiac said:

A couple of things (some have already been mentioned but I'll add to it).

• First you can leave your harvested meat in the snow (slowest decay for meat is outside in the cold).
• Once it gets down to low condition, you can cook it... (cooking raw meats will give it a 50% condition boost).
• You can leave your cooked meat in the snow (slowest decay for meat is outside in the cold).
• Even when the cooked meat gets to 0% - you can eat it with no issues provided you've made it to cooking level 5 (benefit of level 5 is that cooked food will no longer give you food poisoning).
• For those who are irritated by the ability to eat ruined cooked food (processed & canned food items are considered "cooked" for the purpose of benefit by the game)… I tend to just light a fire and place the food item by the fire.
  ***There is no gameplay effect in this, it's just a roll-play solution... "to thaw and re-heat frozen (ruined) food."   ***

Considering "ruined" food doesn't de-spawn and can be safely eaten anyway... I see no need for "preserving" meat. 

*Berries/increased Plant features:

On 12/21/2019 at 5:13 AM, ManicManiac said:

Things don't tend to grow in winter... so I think them "respawning" would be a bit non-sensical.  I think that the decisions to make them more or less finite was a good choice on the part of Hinterland.  It requires a player to take thoughtful and deliberate actions (which I think is part of the core and nature of the game).

*Igloo:
We already have snow shelters in the game, so while I suppose this might be neat... I just don't see it as necessary as we have something to cover this functionality in the game already.

*The Prone Rifle Position:
I think that the rifle shooting mechanics are robust enough as it is.  Considering how stable the "kneeling position" is already in the game... (I mean hell, the standing position is already remarkably stable all by itself) I just don't think a prone position is really necessary.

*Pick/Shovel and Trench Fire
Unless Hinterland is gong to add mining to the game (in order to get coal maybe???)... I think a pick is very unnecessary.  Considering that we can't change any of the terrain I don't think a shovel or a trench fire (especially since there would be no trench to put it in) would be useful at all.

*Tundra zone, features and things:
Considering this is a forested island (granted a fairly large island) that supported logging and coal mining... I'm not sure an arctic tundra would feel consistent with the rest of the game.  We already have a bear, so I don't see much necessity in adding another kind of bear (other than just more variety - which is always cool... just not really necessary, all things considered).

*Kayak:
There's no open water... the open water we do see is used as a level boundary anyway.  If there was a real "river or stream" network with flowing water... then I could see this being a thing, but we don't have anything like that in this game.  We do have skiffs, but they are just places for loot to hide in

Don't get me wrong... you have a lot of interesting ideas (and they are almost all ones that have been discussed at great length here over the years).  However, I'm just not sure how well they'd work in this particular game. 

Edited February 15, 2020 by ManicManiac