A fellow Game Dev's Improvement Wishlist

[Revelation_jeff]

Dear Dev's,

As a fellow developer in the games industry, the long dark is one of my favorite games ever.  Such respect I have for you all for what you've created here.  It's unique and special.  That being said as a developer there are several things I wish would be improved on a technical level that bother me and I think would elevate the game much further.  Here's my list 😃.

 

Gameplay Improvements:

- Ragdolls on animal deaths
- Nav mesh agent improvements for animal movement and turn animations for alert/combat states (The bear is one of the worst creatures to look at due to the poor nav mesh agent setup, and or lack of custom state control for movement. lack of turn animations and movement issues in dealing with static objects.)  He glitches out constantly around objects because his settings and due to the fact he cant' turn due to nav mesh agent turn speed limits.  So he literally runs in circles try to get around objects, it kills the experience.  He glitches out also on basic surface movement as well when he collides with meshes mixed into the terrain.
- Start/stop run animations for big animals like bears/moose to make movement transitions less jarring and more realistic.
- Wwise audio improvements for animal distance sound ranges.  Animals need a better tuned mid range, as of now, wolves especially sound either too close than they really are in initial detection ranges.  Not in the middle at mid range when most detect you.  Often he sounds 5 feet from me and he's in reality 25 feet away.
- Improved basic wolf charge behavior with random charge direction angles & min/max Strafing time to produce more unpredictable movement before heading you off.

 

Visual Enhancements:

- Volumetric Lighting for depth and light interaction with fog & Sun/moon & Point lights.
- Material tweaks with specular levels adjusted for better lighting interaction for most textures & ice visuals with lighting.  Everything is too flat and dry looking when it should look much more wet.
- Reflection probe issues improved (that appears to at times cause the strange rim glows and other update issues.)
- Upscaled or improved HD ground textures with improved normal maps helping to create more depth in models instead of appearing so flat/simple.
- Updated meshes & Textures for base rock & Boulder models.  These up close make the game look worse than most other aspects.  The large boulders would do well with a slight geo increase and  improved texture and normal map redo to fit better in a next gen setting.  A secondary detail normal map could go along way to making these look more interactive with the lighting around it as well.
- Campfire & Stove fire lights should have additional lights to at least fake perception of bounced lighting in interiors.  Stoves and surfaces are too dark without enough light bouncing to make the scene realistic/attractive.
 

As a lighting artist and world builder with secondary skill of game design I wish I could play around with some of your assets to see how they could be improved in the final render.  Keep up the great work! 😃

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Revelation_jeff

[Admin]

Thank you for the thoughtful suggestions. Much appreciated. 

[javijungle]

Congratulations for the contribution, accurately and very professional.
I think It is possible that the animal animations have been improved by watching the last Tales from the Far Territory trailer, like  gray wolf way of walk.

[Admin]

On 11/24/2022 at 11:34 PM, javijungle said:

Congratulations for the contribution, accurately and very professional.
I think It is possible that the animal animations have been improved by watching the last Tales from the Far Territory trailer, like  gray wolf way of walk.

We do have a range of visual enhancements planned, many specifically for high-end systems (high-end PC, Xbox Series X|S, or PlayStation 5). We’ll outline which are part of the Paid stream and which will be released as Free updates as we get closer to their release.

[k0s0ff]

On 11/29/2022 at 5:12 AM, Admin said:

We do have a range of visual enhancements planned, many specifically for high-end systems (high-end PC, Xbox Series X|S, or PlayStation 5). We’ll outline which are part of the Paid stream and which will be released as Free updates as we get closer to their release.

🤔 curious.

[codyh]

On 11/23/2022 at 5:30 PM, Revelation_jeff said:

- Improved basic wolf charge behavior with random charge direction angles & min/max Strafing time to produce more unpredictable movement before heading you off.

I'd also like to see them always charge when you are not facing them, even if you're holding fire. Also when there are multiple wolves, it would be good to see the "active" wolf switch on a chance roll to a wolf currently behind the player.

 

[Serenity]

Great post

Regarding lighting, something I noticed with the the new update is how incredibly dark interiors are. You constantly need a lantern. Maybe the update to the Unity engine has changed things, but I probably also got used a bit to the Ambient Light mod. That mod largely fixes this, but it's honestly been a while since I played.

It's very noticeable in the new cabins that aren't separated maps. You can see outside the windows and open the doors. But it's still very dark. The hangar has this too, although it has these huge windows. There should be more light coming in at dawn and dusk. At least when the weather is clear outside. It would be a great bit of interactivity if the lighting changed with the weather. Even separate maps can do this since the sound already changes and you can hear blizzards for example. This could also be adjusted per location depending on the number, size and even the location of the windows.