Friction

[Sammida]

Surviving in nature during the brumal months and absolutely every single surface has the same amount of friction—even ice. C'est quoi ça?

[odizzido]

I've never found ice to be difficult to walk on. The only time I find it slippery really is when it's at the right temperature and things start melting....or if it's at an angle and there is fresh snow but for it to be at an angle it needs to have melted and refrozen. Temps in this game never get that high so I think it's perfectly fine as it is. And yes I have gone running around in shoes in a skating rink with snow on it recently. Perhaps you could measure that it's a little more slippery but not enough to matter, at least in my experience.

[ajb1978]

4 hours ago, odizzido said:

The only time I find it slippery really is when it's at the right temperature and things start melting

About the only place this would be a problem is along coastal regions while beachcombing. I don't know if you've ever fallen through ice in real life or not, but the biggest challenge in self-rescue is that you have practically zero traction on wet ice. You're kicking your feet up behind you in the water while trying to seal-crawl out of the hole on your forearms, and you're just slipping all over the place barely making any progress.

[Sammida]

40 minutes ago, ajb1978 said:

About the only place this would be a problem is along coastal regions while beachcombing. I don't know if you've ever fallen through ice in real life or not, but the biggest challenge in self-rescue is that you have practically zero traction on wet ice. You're kicking your feet up behind you in the water while trying to seal-crawl out of the hole on your forearms, and you're just slipping all over the place barely making any progress.

This is what I mean. Great Bear Island is an island (I think that most people have established the Island as being in Northern B.C) and, unlike the prairies, coastal ice is a pain. Even if sliding for half a metre on ice aftre walking served no purpose, it would help remind the player how cold it actually is.

[odizzido]

I've only ever fallen through ice into about waist high water so I don't really have any experience with that. But yeah, with water on the ice it's going to be really slippery. That's really what I meant, when there is liquid water on the frozen water.

[ManicManiac]

I think most folks who live a significant length of time in cold areas with a lot of snow and ice, quickly learn to how to walk on ice.
(the secret is to just pick your feet up and set them down - that is, trying not to push off with your feet as you walk)

[Sherlock Holmes 18]

I think if we take small, close steps, you risk slipping less. I don't live in the north. 

[UpUpAway95]

To not slip while walking on ice... wear footwear that has better gripping characteristics, even when temperatures get cold.  Boots with soles that stay soft and pliable and that have good treads (which reduce the amount of surface area in contact with the ice) are way better than shoes with smooth leather soles.  Broomball (a game similar to hockey, but involving running on the ice) shoes look like running shoes but have very soft soles with treads designed to almost suction-cup the ice.  Wearing them, it's possible to do the same sort of quick turns and checks while running on ice as hockey players do on ice skates.

I think it would be cool if the slipperiness of the ground varied depending on the sort of shoes the character is wearing.  I think the sprint penalty is supposed to reflect that sort of difference, but it tends to fall short of relating the experience.  I find it hilarious that I can crouch and walk down relatively steep slopes in TLD with exactly the degree of control when wearing the leather shoes as when wearing trail boots or mukluks.

Edited February 3, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[manolitode]

On 2/1/2021 at 5:58 PM, ManicManiac said:

I think most folks who live a significant length of time in cold areas with a lot of snow and ice, quickly learn to how to walk on ice.
(the secret is to just pick your feet up and set them down - that is, trying not to push off with your feet as you walk)

Indeed, that pretty much nails it.

[stratvox]

On 1/29/2021 at 5:58 PM, ajb1978 said:

About the only place this would be a problem is along coastal regions while beachcombing. I don't know if you've ever fallen through ice in real life or not, but the biggest challenge in self-rescue is that you have practically zero traction on wet ice. You're kicking your feet up behind you in the water while trying to seal-crawl out of the hole on your forearms, and you're just slipping all over the place barely making any progress.

I've done that before, and more than once... because I'm dumb  Getting out of the water in that situation is not easy. That said... it's very hard to model that effectively. Heck, just think about how challenging it would be to actually attempt to model snowfall in a way that's computationally cheap enough for a video game.