A man will die from Cabin Fever, a totally real disease

[teapot156]

So its Interloper starting in TM. I survive blizzards, dangerous wildlife, and poor condition only to make it to coastal highway and develop... Im sorry... Cabin Fever?

My character, this guy thats been through hell and is barely hanging on, will fall over... dead. He's going to die because he's been indoors for not even a couple days.

Guys. My dudes... Why is this crap in the game?  Who came up with this extremely contrived mechanic? Think about all of the weather, food, drink, wildlife, and fire making gameplay mechanics and then think about Cabin Fever being a legitimate part of the experience.

 

 

See image below: A pointless journey ended abruptly by a visceral urge to stand outside in a blizzard.

[odizzido]

Custom games. I always disable cabin fever.

[dahemac]

44 minutes ago, teapot156 said:

Guys. My dudes... Why is this crap in the game?  Who came up with this extremely contrived mechanic?

I agree that the implementation has problems. See this thread. It can really screw up and break the game.

On the other hand, I think something like it is a good idea because, lets face it, I am over 400 days into a run and that character has got to be developing serious mental problems.

But if what you are saying is that your character would not be absolutely desperate to go outside and freeze to death rather than sleep in a warm bed by a nice fire. You are correct and it is frustrating.

So, after my hours of gameplay with a black screen, I always try if I can to sleep in a car. Where I am at a base, like Bleak Inlet I tend to make a bearskin bedroll and sleep on the ‘porch.’ That is a clumsy unrealistic work-around. I would like to see cabin fever reworked in a patch. But for now, yeah it can be silly. And I feel your pain.

[Mistral]

It's clumsy but necessary in absence of better system. It can easily be avoided anyway by always staying outside when the weather's good. Or even in a bad weather, that's what the caves are there for. Cars too, as said

[gotmilkanot]

Everything on Interloper is trying to kill you, thus no grace period for Cabin Fever.

It can be a little annoying in early game Interloper when you don't have warm enough clothes to sleep through the night at the back of cave without a fire. But generally, if you're mostly on the move during the day and do your cooking/boiling water outside, the risk shouldn't even show up unless say you're crafting animal clothing or get stuck in a building with back to back long blizzards.

I agree the mechanic is not perfect, but it adds to the difficulty. Without it, you can just hibernate and pass by weeks quick without even going outside.

Edited August 12, 2020 by gotmilkanot

[Dan_]

Yeah CF is a pretty flawed mechanic. I like having extra duration on my fires so I always cook outside and therefore rarely have it as an issue. Well, apart from when crafting coats and whatnot, then it's pretty much guaranteed I'm going to be managing the CF risk, which is more annoying than hard to be honest. 

The problem with CF stems from it's origin, it was originally developed to build 'legitimacy' into a survival leaderboard and prevent people from hibernating. Said leaderboard does not exist anymore so the existence of CF still puzzles me, it's really a quick and dirty fix for a non-issue. It does detract from the soft-simulation feel of the game and in my opinion, the experience as a whole. 

The other issue with it is that you actually can disable it into a custom game and have the problem solved, except that by doing that you do not gain any progression towards feats which again, doesn't really bother me, but it might alienate the completionist players that wish to collect all of those.

[Theburnedone]

when i play the game on what ever difficulty i want i replicate it in custom games and turn that garbadge off

[Mistral]

49 minutes ago, Dan_ said:

Yeah CF is a pretty flawed mechanic. I like having extra duration on my fires so I always cook outside and therefore rarely have it as an issue. Well, apart from when crafting coats and whatnot, then it's pretty much guaranteed I'm going to be managing the CF risk, which is more annoying than hard to be honest. 

The problem with CF stems from it's origin, it was originally developed to build 'legitimacy' into a survival leaderboard and prevent people from hibernating. Said leaderboard does not exist anymore so the existence of CF still puzzles me, it's really a quick and dirty fix for a non-issue. It does detract from the soft-simulation feel of the game and in my opinion, the experience as a whole. 

The other issue with it is that you actually can disable it into a custom game and have the problem solved, except that by doing that you do not gain any progression towards feats which again, doesn't really bother me, but it might alienate the completionist players that wish to collect all of those.

I don't know, if we talk about detracting from reality, I've always found the water aspect of the game to be a whole lot more unrealistic and annoying than CF or other gimmicks. You know the fact you have to boil water in order to drink it instead of just eating raw snow from the ground (which is perfectly fine in real life in 99% of the time) & the fact that you can carry and drop off countless liters of water in magic containers & the fact that none of the liquids ever freeze & the fact you only get warming effect from it if you put tea or coffee into the same hot water. At least with CF you can sort of try to give excuses for it as well as know the real reason why it's there

Edited August 12, 2020 by Mistral

[Dan_]

15 hours ago, Mistral said:

I don't know, if we talk about detracting from reality, I've always found the water aspect of the game to be a whole lot more unrealistic and annoying than CF or other gimmicks. You know the fact you have to boil water in order to drink it instead of just eating raw snow from the ground (which is perfectly fine in real life in 99% of the time) & the fact that you can carry and drop off countless liters of water in magic containers & the fact that none of the liquids ever freeze & the fact you only get warming effect from it if you put tea or coffee into the same hot water. At least with CF you can sort of try to give excuses for it as well as know the real reason why it's there

Well I'm not trying to be pedantic here, but I never said that CF detracts from reality, but rather that it takes away from soft-simulation aspect of the game and game experience, which are completely different things from reality itself, no?

Just to give a little bit more context here, I love simulation( sim racing, flight sims, truck sim ) and strategy games. With that said, I'm pretty sure I'm in the absolute minority in the gaming universe. Suppose you had to manage your containers when manipulating fluids and properly sanitize them to hold potable water, let's suppose these containers would take physical space in your bag and that would also have to be managed. If we're talking about expanding the sim aspect, using green lumber should have an effect on your fire and fire lighting success rate,  and list goes on and on and on... Absolutely none of these would add anything meaningful to the gaming experience to the overall majority of players, because they are chores, they are tasks that you would have to do in a real simulator that only a small slice of the player base would enjoy. These also would contribute little to nothing to the storytelling aspect that HL likes. The game is a soft-sim, there's a few variables that you need to control like in real life but they are limited as to not spoil the exploration/adventure feel of the game. I can see why HL has taken the design decision to limit this aspect in order to make for a less clunky and complicated experience.

Now let's circle back to Cabin Fever. Every single one of the mechanics mentioned above ( water containers, green lumber, eating snow ) you the player can create an abstraction layer and say, okay maybe my survivor doesn't know that he can eat snow for hydration( many people don't ), maybe the container management is done seamlessly, your player just collects random containers from the buildings and these are generically represented as water bottles when you drop them, maybe the player usually only collects dry firewood, etcetera... You can abstract these and still say okay, there are gaps in the simulation ( hence soft-simulation ) but I can still envision the mechanics and have a decent level of immersion when playing.

With Cabin Fever, imagine you just took down a pack of wolves, processed the carcasses, tanned the hides, have cooked food and water for days on end and is ready to start crafting your warm wolf fur coat. But then, an insurmountable desire to venture out and experience the cold and dangers outside takes you aback, you can't spend any reasonable amount of time on whichever structure that fits the definition of 'inside". You then proceed to a warm cave and sleep for a few hours outside and then you're good for a few days. Does this seem reasonable or relatable? Having experienced quarantine since February, working, eating, exercising and doing every single thing inside for the past few months, I'm sorry but I can't relate. Removing CF wouldn't make the game clunkier ( quite the opposite ), it would not remove crucial game mechanics nor would it make the game easier ( it really doesn't matter when you cook outside or live in FM or HRV). Once again, CF had it's use back when leaderboards existed, they don't anymore.

I understand the OP's frustration and many other new players who stumble upon this finicky mechanic that adds little to nothing to the gameplay experience, nor does it have any correspondence to the soft-sim framework the game lays down for you. Maybe I'm not qualified enough to make this critique, but from my experience, it just seems like a poor game design decision to keep it.

My 0.02 

[ajb1978]

Just thinking "out loud" here but I know at points in the past the devs mentioned possibly including some sort of mental wellness system.  Like having Will carry around a photo that can bolster his resolve or something like that.  If some sort of mental wellness system came into play, Cabin Fever would make a lot of sense.  Instead of having it render you unable to sleep or pass time indoors, it would instead contribute to your psychological deterioration.  By itself it shouldn't be too big of a concern, you'd just be a bit stir crazy.  You can either spend time outdoors to get rid of it, or just accept that you're going a bit nuts and carry on.  But if it were combined with other stressors, like repeated failures at repairs, eating nothing but venison for a week, starving too many times in a short time span, you'd at the very least be extremely ornery and short-tempered.  I'm picturing a scene where you're attempting to repair a lantern, fail, and that is the final straw that causes your mental health to reach zero.  Your character just snaps, and you're treated to an animation where your character angrily smashes that lantern on the ground repeatedly while cussing and screaming.  Then you catch your breath, your mental health is partially restored due to the cathartic nature of the violent outburst, but you now have a ruined lantern.

[odizzido]

1 minute ago, ajb1978 said:

Just thinking "out loud" here but I know at points in the past the devs mentioned possibly including some sort of mental wellness system.  Like having Will carry around a photo that can bolster his resolve or something like that.  If some sort of mental wellness system came into play, Cabin Fever would make a lot of sense.  Instead of having it render you unable to sleep or pass time indoors, it would instead contribute to your psychological deterioration.  By itself it shouldn't be too big of a concern, you'd just be a bit stir crazy.  You can either spend time outdoors to get rid of it, or just accept that you're going a bit nuts and carry on.  But if it were combined with other stressors, like repeated failures at repairs, eating nothing but venison for a week, starving too many times in a short time span, you'd at the very least be extremely ornery and short-tempered.  I'm picturing a scene where you're attempting to repair a lantern, fail, and that is the final straw that causes your mental health to reach zero.  Your character just snaps, and you're treated to an animation where your character angrily smashes that lantern on the ground repeatedly while cussing and screaming.  Then you catch your breath, your mental health is partially restored due to the cathartic nature of the violent outburst, but you now have a ruined lantern.

That sounds really interesting to explore. I don't know how it would work in game of course, but I would love to at least try it out.

[piddy3825]

Yeah, cabin fever can be a real pain in the ass, but it is a real phenomena and certainly would have its place in a situation such as the one our survivor finds himself in.  
Cabin Fever can be exacerbated by isolation, poor nutrition, lack of fresh vegetables and fruit, poor indoor air quality, vitamin D deficiency, and lack of routine.  The long nights, short grey days and lack of sunshine, cold, closed spaces, and lack of mental stimulation trigger a shutting down of cognitive abilities, and mild to moderate depression can set in.  In more severe cases, paranoia, an urge to run away, and extreme restlessness are common symptoms.

The triggering mechanic does indeed need some tweaking but the malady in itself could and would lead an individual to make irrational choices like running outside during a blizzard.  It does pop up in the most inopportune times in game however and for many players that can be a constant source of irritation.   Knowing that it can happen in game should enable you to prepare for those times when you become symptomatic.  Just look at it as another condition you have to manage in game and have your Plan B in place.  Locate the nearby caves, cars and wind secluded locations where you could shelter outdoors if necessary.  It always seems to wanna get me when I engage in long term crafting projects or when forging,  so I try to make it point to go outside as often as possible to complete small tasks like mending or repairing which help to keep the condition at bay.

 

 

[Gracia_WolfSlayer]

Is cabin fever annoying? Yes, but it's never felt any more annoying than any other negative effect when brought about at the worst time. I rarely encounter it these days because, out of paranoia of it's return, I try to do repairs and reading in nearby caves and cars at dawn and dusk whenever the weather allows. I also try to cook outside when I can. I know interloper can make it harder to make these concessions though.

But this is just me. It's never made me especially put off. I think the only time I can remember being angry when cabin fever was involved, was trying to place a snow shelter and failing to find a decent place that valid to set it. UGH!