Safe House Development

[Griffen]

I'm a long-time lurker, but registered so I could make this suggestion.  A lot of people have made mention of the end-game of TLD, and how at a certain point people start to lose focus.  I wonder if part of that is that the game as it stands doesn't fully make the transition from survival to living.  The game excels in the first few weeks as the player is forced to make difficult choices in order to secure needed resources: where to go, what to prioritize, what is work risking.  However, once the tools are acquired and the clothes fabricated, the player starts to run out of decisions to make and it comes down essentially to a game of caloric budgeting.  How many calories can I get from each type of food generating activities, what resources does it consume, and how much effort does it take to replace them?  I know for myself that the reduction in permutations of the decision-making does take some of the thrill out, as I don't really need to prove to myself that I can fish X times at one location and hunt Y deer to last Z days.  I say this as someone who loves this game and has spent 100s of hours on it, but it is beginning to feel slightly stifling. 

Part of that is due to how the game doesn't really simulate survival options beyond the essence of surviving the next few days.  I think safe houses are the perfect example of this, as much of your survival strategy focuses on where you can store your supplies, and how you make use of that location.  However, the safe house of someone who has survived 5 days looks and behaves pretty much the same as someone who has survived 100 days, simply because there is next to nothing you can do about your safe house.  You can organize your supplies, you can make use of available amenities (beds, stoves, workbenches) and you can harvest resources (wood, water, etc.), but there is no capability for development.  If a potential safe house location has no stove/fireplace, you'll never get one; same for a workbench.  You can put down a bedroll, so that is the one element you can add to a safe house. 

However, it would be nice if there was more we can do with a potential safe house location.  Going back to the question of reduction of survival choice permutations, one thing I do at the moment is consider the idea of permutations on where you can make these decisions, i.e. different safe house locations.  Different locations would force different play styles and enable different atmospheres, which would be nice.  However, due to the inability to develop a safe house, some are clearly less suitable than others with no way to change it.  While I'm always up for a challenge, the fact that you can never change the capabilities of a safe house makes it seem somewhat arbitrary.  Why couldn't a survivor build a hobo-stove out of scrap metal?  Why couldn't a survivor turn that table into a workbench, given sufficient tools?

Now, I think part of the reasoning for that is that TLD seems to have a theme of entropy, or decay.  Everything we see is abandoned, technology only works in limited capacity for limited times, resources gained are often non-replenishing.  Even the notes speak of people facing loss, isolation, and regression.  However, I like to remember that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics states that a process creates a net gain in entropy.  Some creation can exist at the cost of greater destruction.  So keeping with the theme of entropy, what if a survivor could fashion a crude stove (1-2 cooking slots only), but it required breaking down one or two stoves elsewhere in the map and hauling heavy scrap to the new location.  Similarly a workbench could be created at the cost of other resources.  Thus a survivor could build up a small circle of order in an otherwise increasingly decaying world.

There are other ways that one could develop a safe house, some larger and some smaller.  Cleaning up garbage, scraps, and bodies is a common suggestion.  Perhaps allow survivors to reinforce the insulation of a safe house to improve the indoor temperature.  Granted, that might require making houses less insulating to begin with for balance.  By allowing these kinds of activities, you increase the number of options available to a player, which makes for more interesting play.  Does a player prioritize establishing themselves at a more complete safe house that might not be in an advantageous position, or does the player decide to develop a conveniently located, but otherwise unsuitable safe house?  I would love the idea of doing a play through where you could develop one of the survivor caches where it becomes more than just a place to loot and leave.

While there are many ways one could take this idea, the two most pressing concepts to me are the ability to move or build stoves and workbenches, as these are what define the utility of a building.  The fact that a survivor could sew himself a bear skin coat, but not figure out how to convert a table into a useful workbench to do so, strikes me as an odd and arbitrary construct.

If you've made it all the way down here, thank you for reading my wall of text.

[ManicManiac]

  I think that a player losing focus is a "player issue" not a "game issue."

I've mentioned it before, so I will just echo it here (that thread has since been locked so I will link it here, and I will quote the post below).
Since it's a little bit long, I did obscure it to save space :

 

I personally don't think there is a late game problem.  I do think there might some issues with late game "expectations."  Which to me is not the same thing.  I'm sure there are plenty of people who will disagree with me (and that's fine) but I just ask those folks hear me out:

I think anyone that has spent long periods of time in isolation/lone subsistence will attest that coping with the mundanities of survival can be your biggest challenge.  There is no "happily ever after" or "congratulations you win!" in survival mode and I would suggest there shouldn't be... After all death is the eventuality, no mater what.  Be it because we've given up, or due to tragic circumstances (most often brought on by our own bad decisions).  I really like the idea that once we get proficient with our survival tasks, that it's really up to us to find creative ways to just live in Great Bear on our own terms, and for how long.  If one really feels the need to face the near death struggle again, we can always start a new run... or walk away from our "comfy" set up and go on a death march to some other desolate zone and work on getting set up again (only this time without the luxury of finding all those lootables - since we already took them all).  

Now to reflect on those other points of view... for those who do feel, "I'm good at survival, but there is nothing left I can think of to do..."  Perhaps one solution for the "maybe column" might be to have the Old Bear make an appearance in survival mode (after 500 days or 1000 days or whatever) and be that "Tireless Menace," constantly hunting us down... where our only viable defense is to evade, to run for our lives.  Maybe just like in The Hunted challenge, occasionally cross our path to harass and try to eat our poor survivor...  I don't know, it's just a thought.  Like I said before, I really don't see any "late game problem," but I guess I just have a very different way of looking at the whole picture of Survival Mode.

This game is a lot of things to a lot of people and I respect that, this is just a little bit of my point of view.

However... on the subject of being able to customize our living space:

On 10/20/2019 at 2:37 AM, ManicManiac said:

there have been several discussions among the wish lists of the desire to be able to do more to customize our living space.  I very much support the idea too.

[text removed for brevity]

Whether that happens or not, I'm indifferent...  I love the game for what it is, but I would also love to see us be able to better customize our living space. 

So, while I'd support the idea of better customization of living spaces... I however, disagree about the whole idea of there being a "late-game problem," I think people just have "problems" with their late-game expectations (which again, I think it's a player issue... not a game issue).

Edited June 14, 2020 by ManicManiac

[manolitode]

6 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

I however, disagree about the whole idea of there being a "late-game problem," I think people just have "problems" with their late-game expectations (which again, I think it's a player issue... not a game issue).

You visit an acclaimed restaurant. You're thrilled about the starter and the main is excellent. However, the dessert is just bland and doesn't add much to your experience. Is the issue your expectations based on the starter and main or is the issue the dessert? Is it both? Would you have liked the cook to put that extra effort into the dessert to make your experience delightful to the very end? 

[LkP]

15 hours ago, Griffen said:

 Perhaps allow survivors to reinforce the insulation of a safe house to improve the indoor temperature.

Yes, please, let me fix that roof in mountainer's hut with wood and hides

[Valuable Hunting Knife]

Welcome to the forums Griffen.  I think you raise some really good points.  I had a 500 day run to get a couple of achievements, explored the whole island, but once I'd done that had no desire to carry on with that save.  I think I'll only likely go back to it for the sake of completion when new regions arrive.  With the extra difficulty levels, customisation, updates, self imposed challenges etc. the game itself has near infinite playability for me, but I have to admit part of that is the thrill of those first few days and trying to establish a foothold.  I think this is partly an issue of survival games as a whole, not just TLD- I have had a similar experienced with Banished.

One game that fares better than most for me on this count, despite other flaws, is The Forest.  I think this is because it has multiplayer lots of base building and construction options.  One obvious issue I think TLD may have if they attempted it integrate more of this is the lack of being able to move large objects (such as pallets) and climb about.

In terms of extending interest in the 'endgame' period, a good starting point is to consider what you might do in a similar real life position?  Once established, you'd definitely want to explore the island to search for other survivors, scavenge any valuable hunting knives loot and go to new hunting grounds (I love how the game puts you into a nomadic way of thinking very quickly).  After this, it's either going to be to try and make radio/ internet contact with the mainland, or try and find a viable boat to leave.  It looks like these clear end goals are reserved for Wintermute.

If a person did decide to just hunker down and accept their fate on Great Bear, any permanent base building would probably focus on speeding up chores (cooking, curing, washing, wood stores etc.) and also the 'wellbeing' side of things, for want of a better term (books, games, writing etc.).  Both of these things would need new systems implementing so my guess would be we are more likely to see this in the next game than TLD1.

I would love to see a hobo stove added, maybe costing scrap and at least one tin can (so you are using a finite resource).  it could be portable, with a degree of windproofing to differentiate it from 'normal' fires, but with a finite usage a comparatively poor fuel consumption (maybe only runs on sticks or lamp fuel?).

 

[Serenity]

I'd start with simple things: cleaning up a house and repairing existing cabinets. Take some wood and a hatchet and you could repair a cabinet in a few hours. That would be very useful in the Fishing Camp for example.

As a next step you could build your own storage solutions. Especially on Interloper that would also be an incentive to go out and cut some firewood. Usually you'd just go with sticks and coal

[Griffen]

Thanks for the replies and insights.  I think what is driving this idea for me is the fact that I love the atmosphere of the game, but sometimes the mechanics of it can break the spell, if you will.  I prefer a custom mode where the weather difficulty is high and condition restoration is very low, so getting caught in a blizzard or mauled by a bear takes almost a week to recover from, rather than a day or two.  This leans towards a strategy of stockpiling not just resources but also tasks that allow me to stay indoors during blizzards or when recovering (needless to say, I also disable cabin fever).  Crafting clothing is a great example of tasks that fit this bill, but that requires a workbench.  This ultimately restricts my play style to locations that have workbenches or very easy access to workbenches.  However, considering the breadth and variety of the TLD world, that means a good number of otherwise amazing safe house locations are out.  Isolated prepper caches, while otherwise amazing base locations, are out since workbenches are often too far away.  Most of Bleak Inlet is out, as the only workbench is in the cannery.  For that matter, all of HRV is out, since there is not a single workbench in the map.  Same argument can be made for indoor heating & light sources, although it can be mitigated somewhat by outdoor campfires.

The part that bothers me is that this is ultimately a game design mechanic, not a survival mechanic (at least I'm assuming the workbench was put in to establish tiers in crafting accessibility).  What is it about a workbench that makes it intrinsically necessary for the sewing of a rabbit skin hat?  Why is our survivor unable to do anything to turn this perfectly fine wooden table into a workbench, or build a makeshift workbench for his cave shelter?  Wilderness survival, at least to me, seems to have the essence of not only adapting to your surroundings, but also adapting your surroundings to your needs.  You craft a shelter out of the materials at hand, you create tools with what you can find.  As it stands now, there seems to be an arbitrary limit on how much we can adapt our surroundings.  If this is a case of something on the developer's list already, fair enough, I will wait patiently.  However, if this is a case of game vision where survivors cannot adapt their surroundings, only adapt to the surroundings, then that is something I'd be interested in knowing, just so I can stop hoping for it.   

[ManicManiac]

9 hours ago, manolitode said:

You visit an acclaimed restaurant. [text removed for brevity] Would you have liked the cook to put that extra effort into the dessert to make your experience delightful to the very end?

 I don't think that's an apt comparison... but I suppose it suggest how you might see the game.  It appears from what you wrote that perhaps you expect Hinterland to cater to you and satisfy your personal tastes and desires as you "consume" the experience they made.  I think that idea doesn't blend well with a game who's core theme; which is damn tragic... maybe bitter-sweet at best.

So no... I don't think that Hinterland needs to wait on us hand and foot to satisfy each personal appetite.  They wanted to share a specific type of experience with us... it's not going to be something that every single player will love as much as I do.  That's fine... but I think it would be doing the game a huge disservice if Hinterland tried to cater to every single individual that didn't think this was their favorite game.  It would end up toothless and watered down, and that is what I would dislike.

I'll say it again:
There is no "happily ever after" or "congratulations you win!" in survival mode and I would suggest there shouldn't be... After all death is the eventuality, no mater what.  Be it because we've given up, or due to tragic circumstances (most often brought on by our own bad decisions).  I really like the idea that once we get proficient with our survival tasks, that it's really up to us to find creative ways to just live in Great Bear on our own terms, and for how long.

Raph has stated before that, "we don't want to make a game that's going to hold the player's hand."
Raph has also stated, "So that’s where all the mechanics of the game emerged from, how to turn Mother Nature into a…not necessarily an adversary but sort of a neutral threat. She doesn’t care whether you live or die."

However, in addition to this... folks may also notice that Hinterland has already given the player a huge amount control over how we can experience the game (far more than most games out there).  I think for folks who want to talk about "going the extra mile," I would say that Hinterland went far above and beyond by giving us Custom Settings that very powerfully give the player so much leeway in how they can tailor their experience without undermining their vision for the game as a whole. 

Perhaps folks just aren't used to a game giving as much agency to the player that The Long Dark does.

If Mother Nature doesn't care if we live or die... then I think, neither should this game.
I think in an open world sandbox the story we experience is ours, and the onus is on us in that context.
So I'll say again... I think that folks who "get board at the end" are having a player issue, not a game issue.  

Edited June 14, 2020 by ManicManiac

[manolitode]

46 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

Perhaps folks just aren't used to a game giving as much agency to the player that The Long Dark does.

What I think is true is that some of us would like TLD to provide more challenges in endgame. If you manage to challenge yourself enough, that's fine, but some of us want more for the game. The purpose of the restaurant metaphore was to examine whether you apply the same logic of "adjust expectations, not reality" to other aspects of life, or if it's a "TLD-exclusive" logic. 

38 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

 It appears from what you wrote that perhaps you expect Hinterland to cater to you and satisfy your personal tastes and desires as you "consume" the experience they made. ... So no... I don't think that Hinterland needs to wait on us hand and foot satisfy each personal appetite.

I know that you tend to respond in a defensive manner about changes being made to the game but that was just a completely dishonest way of rendering my thoughts.

Not cool.

[ManicManiac]

@manolitode

I'm not being defensive... I just don't agree with your assertions.

It's not personal, I just don't agree with your point of view.  You and I clearly have very different perspectives when it comes to this game, and that's fine.
What I did was take the premise that you put forward and walk it out a little further down that road of logic you placed it on.   I don't think there is anything dishonest about that.  I'm only drawing on what you put forward.  I don't think there is anything wrong with more thoroughly thinking through ideas or concepts.  You put it on the table... I just expanded on it.
 

23 minutes ago, manolitode said:

The purpose of the restaurant metaphore was to examine whether you apply the same logic of "adjust expectations, not reality" to other aspects of life

Okay, if you'd like to go down that rabbit hole, we can do that.
If I'm not satisfied with my experience at a restaurant...  I don't complain to owner.  I just go find a different restaurant to go to!  It's really that simple.  So, for those folks who are the type to think that a restaurant needs (and owes it to them) to tailor every aspect of the dinning experience specially for them... well I think that idea is a little too self-centered.

Instead of a customer griping about what they don't alike about a particular restaurant... I think they should just go eat at another restaurant.    I don't think it's a hard concept.

You and I don't agree, that's okay... but since you seem to be making assumptions about me now (since you clearly haven't read all of my posts); I'll go ahead and echo what I've explained many many times before. 

On 12/21/2019 at 6:21 AM, ManicManiac said:

I love the discussion of ideas and the exchange of points of view.

I've made posts in the wishlist subforum in the past as well, but the longer I played the more I came to understand (or at least by my estimations) and respect why things were implemented the way they were.

To be clear, there have been ideas here that I have very much supported... the other's I have just weighed in on with my perspective.  I think it's equally valuable for any developer to hear from both sides of an idea or opinion.  I seem to have a much different perspective on the game as a whole than a lot of people on the forum.  Which I suppose has caused some to assume I'm against changing anything... which is not the case.  In the end, I trust Hinterland to do what's best for their game... so if they see fit to change things, then great.  I've not objected to anything they've changed, even though I've not always agreed with the changes... I've accepted them and took the challenge of adapting my playstyle to overcome those decisions I initially didn't like.  I didn't fuss about it... I chose to embrace it, and as a result I've become much happier with the game.

I do feel (that at least to some degree) I understand and can appreciate the choices that Hinterland has made with their game... and I think a voice expressing that is not harmful, but provides a counter balance to all the voices who do what to change things based on their own personal preferences.

I don't condemn other's for their opinions, I just don't always agree with them because I try to understand and appreciate why Hinterland makes the choices they do.  To me player choice is more powerful at adjusting the experience than wanting to change the game itself.

I think the game gives players far more agency than most realize (at least in survival)

I really do wish folks would stop assuming that everyone that has a different point of view from their own is an attacker... I think that's an odd assumption to make. 

Edited June 14, 2020 by ManicManiac

[Admin]

Please let’s all disagree (or agree) without insulting one and other.  The point of the forums is to discuss things about The Long Dark and changes you would like to see fall into that. 

[Dan_]

23 hours ago, Griffen said:

... Perhaps allow survivors to reinforce the insulation of a safe house to improve the indoor temperature.  Granted, that might require making houses less insulating to begin with for balance. 

Very thoughtful post full of good ideas, I was nodding in agreement as I was reading it. 

In regards to safehouse insulation, I wish we could have the inside temperatures vary with the outside temperatures for all buildings as it once were in the days of yore. I know that's not an easy task but my favourite building has it ( mountaineer's hut ), I wish the buildings with a transition also had this feature implemented. I rarely use indoor stoves, this would make them twice as useful.

[manolitode]

 

23 hours ago, Griffen said:

However, once the tools are acquired and the clothes fabricated, the player starts to run out of decisions to make and it comes down essentially to a game of caloric budgeting.  How many calories can I get from each type of food generating activities, what resources does it consume, and how much effort does it take to replace them?  I know for myself that the reduction in permutations of the decision-making does take some of the thrill out, as I don't really need to prove to myself that I can fish X times at one location and hunt Y deer to last Z days.  I say this as someone who loves this game and has spent 100s of hours on it, but it is beginning to feel slightly stifling. 

Welcome to the forum 😊 I agree with most of your problem description. A safehouse that you could design for yourself would be a welcome project to lategame, once stores are full and survival is under control. I'm very much in favor of adding more possibilities in order to extend lategame. 

23 hours ago, Griffen said:

Perhaps allow survivors to reinforce the insulation of a safe house to improve the indoor temperature.  Granted, that might require making houses less insulating to begin with for balance.  By allowing these kinds of activities, you increase the number of options available to a player, which makes for more interesting play.  Does a player prioritize establishing themselves at a more complete safe house that might not be in an advantageous position, or does the player decide to develop a conveniently located, but otherwise unsuitable safe house?  I would love the idea of doing a play through where you could develop one of the survivor caches where it becomes more than just a place to loot and leave.

… The fact that a survivor could sew himself a bear skin coat, but not figure out how to convert a table into a useful workbench to do so, strikes me as an odd and arbitrary construct.

I see a risk here if we get to insulate or improve the standards of our improvable safe house. Sure, we'll have a neat ongoing project, but once the safehouse is finished and we are warmer and more comfortable, we end up with an even easier game than before. 

39 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

It's not personal, I just don't agree with your point of view.   

Again, my point of view has never been that Hinterland should tailorfit experiences to fit everyone's personal need. You attribute opinions and assumptions to me that are not mine. Let's have an honest disagreement instead next time around shall we.

[ManicManiac]

1 hour ago, manolitode said:

Again, my point of view has never been that Hinterland should tailorfit experiences to fit everyone's personal need.

I didn't intend to imply anything... so I acknowledge I could have used more general terms instead.

In either case... it seems we don't agree and that's okay, we don't have to.

Edited June 14, 2020 by ManicManiac