The Long Dark Hotfixed to v1.83 [64569]

[hozz1235]

First and foremost, I'd like to thank HL for putting out this type of content for us.  They're not obligated to, which makes me appreciate it that much more.

I'll link my other post on some feedback I gave.  

 

Edited August 2, 2020 by hozz1235

[Serenity]

23 minutes ago, hozz1235 said:

You don't have to loot everything.

Well, you kind of have to considering how rare syrups are reported to be. But I didn't really loot much. Just a few of the usual locations. Still drowned in loot in every place I visited. Sure, I don't have to take everything. But you still see it and you have to click through he stuff when checking containers

Edited August 2, 2020 by Serenity

[hozz1235]

14 minutes ago, Serenity said:

Well, you kind of have to considering how rare syrups are reported to be. But I didn't really loot much. Just a few of the usual locations. Still drowned in loot in every place I visited. Sure, I don't have to take everything. But you still see it and you have to click through he stuff when checking containers

I guess I meant, you don't have to pick up everything.

[Asinine]

I loved it, though I honestly was at day 80 before I read on the internets that you could do cheating ways of getting your maple syrup. It was a great fresh breath from my survival, but honestly I lost track of the goal (maple syrup) and was just really enjoying playing a lot.

[slackhideo]

Thank you for the event!
Transferring our Winter Embrace's saves into the standard Survival Mode, as @Jolan pointed out, was lovely ❤️

[ajb1978]

I always love these special events!  It doesn't matter how difficult or easy I personally find them, it's always interesting seeing what the experience is going to be like when I'm not the one defining the variables.  Especially the decreased indoor temperatures--that required a bit of advance planning early on, since I couldn't just rely on beds alone to warm up.  By day three I was fully kitted out and able to start hunting for syrup and ketchup in earnest, and had the island searched in short order.  The number of chips and syrups found in one playthrough did seem a bit low though.  I definitely appreciate that chips/syrups were counted among multiple playthroughs, although I would've preferred if multiple playthroughs weren't mandatory to earn the badge.  It resulted in me playing one earnest game, and a bunch of throwaways to grind out the remainder.

[Gun Tech.]

I think those who wanted a chill event got one but still got bored because it's just repetitive, and those who wanted more of a challenge didn't get one and still got bored because it's just repetitive. We all got clothes to easily nullify the lower temps.

But I'd like to address not the challenge level, but the goal.

I wish all game designers would learn that "Find all the..." quests will always be boring and repetitive. Furthermore, that pure RNG-based quests tells players to "just mindlessly turn all the stones over until you get the rare gem". This event reminded of finding diamonds in Minecraft (except the world doesn't have less than half the diamonds you need forcing a new save).

I like a challenge, preferably skill-based (as in gameplay, not skill systems). But if you can move away from "Find all the..." and make it more about "what gameplay would we like the players to perform", it can be not-RNG-based and still pose an interesting challenge without a high skill bar. Failing that, you could have put 35 Syrups all over the world and it would still be a drawn out goal, but a little shorter. If there were a pattern to the locations, say, hard to reach or dangerous places, there would be some risk/reward there to enjoy, people will be rumoring the hard ones to get, etc.

I hope you take these ideas to heart to improve events and challenges in future!

To me, this event was so dull that my first run ended when I found no Syrup at the Summit and speedran the rest, and then I stopped playing The Long Dark for a while to not turn me off it.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Gun Tech.

[Blackrussian12]

Please make Ketchup Chips the norm in game. I haven't had Ketchup chips in 4 yrs(real life).

[Sherri]

I enjoyed the challenge with a taste of temperatures I haven't experienced yet in the game. Those first few days of the event where you're slowly dying outside, and you need  a fire even inside were really exciting and challenging. But with so much loot, I quickly got enough high-quality clothing to nullify the most of the cold. I didn't bother with the syrups because I don't like repeating saves just for a achievement.

I think this was quite fun and a nice event. Thanks Hinterland!

If you guys were to do another similar event, I'd reduce the loot in the world or maybe have the temperature drop at a moderate rate over the course of the month-long event. So by the end of the month it was like crazy cold outside and inside even with good clothing. Also, I would add more goals that can be reasonably achieved in one save/run. Goals around keeping a fire burning or chopping wood would have been cool to add to this event since we are trying to stay warm indoors anyway.

Edited August 3, 2020 by Sherri

[Sherri]

Another event idea, since I love love the archery in the game but often have arrows at a premium, would be to flood the game with bow and arrow crafting supplies and have goals for hunting X number of animals with a bow. Makes for good practise too. Or set up targets in various locations that you need to bullseye as you explore.

[Master_Arne]

Nope. Did a few days. 

 

[Cheese_ZA]

This event was awesome! Thoroughly enjoyed! 

I managed to achieve the "Winters Embrace" badge, but sadly not the "Feast". I attempted this on a single life initially, and then went onto several other saves, but alas the "Quest for Syrup" was too difficult even for a pretty experienced player like myself. 

Please keep adding content Hinterland, we love your work! 

Greetings from South Africa! X

[Polynomial-C]

v1.83 is now available on GoG

 

[Anduin]

I stumbled upon the event with my reunion to TLD after about a 5 year break around when the Wintermute storyline was still unfinished in chapter two. 

Honestly I have to say I am impressed on the additions and tweaks to the game as a whole and feel it has only gotten better with age. The event was a good refresher on staying mobile and not getting stuck in a location while depleting resources. The storms being more frequent and longer in duration felt more appropriate.

I never play or experience a game without a full emersion, and so I can never bring myself to “cheat” and use a multiple save strategy to complete a challenge. To me this only steals the luster of the reward. I thought the rarity of syrup was justified and realistic. I spent over 100 days searching MT, ML, CH, FM but was only able to complete half of the challenge, the sweet syrups eluded me as they would in the real quiet apocalypse.

Well done Hinterland thanks for the summer blizzards in California. Much needed. 

[acada]

On 8/3/2020 at 9:30 PM, Blackrussian12 said:

Please make Ketchup Chips the norm in game. I haven't had Ketchup chips in 4 yrs(real life).

I am not sure with new sandboxes. But recently I returned to one of my old sandbox, which I have not touched during the event. And voila, I found one ketchup chips bag in Quonset.

[hozz1235]

On 8/6/2020 at 1:50 AM, acada said:

I am not sure with new sandboxes. But recently I returned to one of my old sandbox, which I have not touched during the event. And voila, I found one ketchup chips bag in Quonset.

I've found them in both old and new sandboxes - same with syrup albeit MUCH less common, just like in the event.

[Kranium]

It was fun until I got geared up, then the cold didn't matter too much.

Maple Syrup was too rare, as well. I did a pretty thorough search across the entire map and came up well short, so a few days before the end of the event I just spam-saved @ PV farmhouse to get the syrup badge. meh

[Moilanen]

On 8/10/2020 at 5:41 AM, Kranium said:

It was fun until I got geared up, then the cold didn't matter too much.

Maple Syrup was too rare, as well. I did a pretty thorough search across the entire map and came up well short, so a few days before the end of the event I just spam-saved @ PV farmhouse to get the syrup badge. meh

Pretty much the same here. I started new games in Broken railroad because you could find syrup and maybe chips (pretty easy to find anyway) too on every run. Without cabin fever the Winter's embrace badge was way too easy to get after you found some proper clothing which was also very easy.

[Glflegolas]

I only ever did the "survive for 25 days" challenge, owing to time constraints. It was good, but doing it in the Hushed River Valley meant that the cold got a bit annoying after a while. Maybe it would have been more fun in Bleak Inlet, haha.

[ManicManiac]

I'm not sure if this was a "stealth change" of if I missed it on the change notes of a previous update, but I just noticed while I was playing today:

If we are placing an item, we can now rotate that item using "Q" and "E".

Thank you Hinterland! 

[ManicManiac]

@Hawk

You may be right... I checked over the patch notes but I didn't see it mentioned.  Either way I'd obliviously not noticed this until I was sorting things in a cave today.
I searched to see if folks had mentioned it... but I didn't find anything so I figured I would mention my appreciation for it now. 

[ManicManiac]

Neat, I didn't doubt you.

Like I said...  just hadn't found anything, so I guess I missed it.

In any case, I was more amused by the fact that it was implemented so long ago and I'd some how failed to notice it.
Though I suppose I'd just gotten used to mearly dropping things on the ground.  I may be late to noticing it, but I still wanted to just express my appreciation anyway.

Edited September 8, 2020 by ManicManiac