Don't Forget About Tinder!

[Lexilogo]

Tinder's mechanic is that you need a Tinder item to start a fire, until Fire Starting Level 3.

After that point, Tinder is useless. The most useful thing the TLD community uses it for is tactically disposing of it, for navigation. If that wasn't enough, there's also a Feat that lets you start the game with Fire Starting Level 3, so you can immediately begin writing a novel in the snow with Cat Tail Heads, the moment you boot up the game!

I think this is a problem, so I'm gonna do a cost-benefit analysis or whatever on some of the options I see here for fixing it. Not all of these are mutually exclusive ideas, but I'll write each idea under the assumption it's the only thing done to make Tinder more useful.

 

1. Don't do anything

I don't subscribe to this idea, but I see it a lot in response to Tinder related complaints, and don't really get it. I guess I just struggle to relate to the thought process.

But, to play devil's advocate for this, the game has been fine like this for years. If it ain't broke, maybe just don't fix it? And it's not like there are zero silver linings in Tinder being useless.

It means players can 100% ditch Tinder in weight management once they hit Firestarting 3. That's a little less relevant now that Well Fed/Moose Hide Satchel/Technical Backpack exist, but it's still a relief, to an extent. And, it's not like Hinterland are about to increase carry weight EVEN MORE, right?

And having a plentiful resource to drop to use for navigation is also nice, even if it's less relevant now that Charcoal/Spray Paint/Rocks all exist. I'm sure Hinterland won't be adding even more options for placing decorative features that might be repurposable as navigation aids anytime soon.

And really, useless items that you just throw away doesn't actively do any harm to the game's balance, it's just a little annoying. Unless Hinterland did something crazy, like add a merchant to the game or something, that may mean every item in the game might get a value assigned to it allowing you to trade them for other items, suddenly making the existence of useless items only good for selling quite important to consider for the game's design, but that's an absurd hypothetical that will never happen.

You know what? The devil's convinced me. You can just ignore the rest of this post, it's pretty clear that the ongoing development of The Long Dark has absolutely no relation to Tinder's place in this game. Don't know what I was thinking writing all that nonsense below, honestly.

 

2. Tinderless fire starting has a success penalty

If you start a fire without tinder you get, say, a -10% chance to successfully start the fire. Boom, easy as that, right?

Well... Failing fire starting might be the most frustrating thing in TLD, so anything that makes that happen more often is a hard sell. Even if 100% fire start chances are already quite easy to hit with a decent Fire Starting skill, many people might argue anything that makes fires harder to start is just

And if you do the math, this might also just keep Tinder mostly useless, just with extra steps. At Lvl5 FS skill, you have a base 90% chance to start fires. Using a STICK as your starter fuel pushes that to 105% base fire start chance, so with this change that's 95% without Tinder. That +5% can be made up by using any ignition method that's not a cardboard match, including the infinitely renewable magnifying glass, and even if it couldn't, a 5% failure rate is so small, it doesn't really matter in the first place.

Of course, that still gives Tinder kind of, sort of a use, but effectively it will still be a useless item. And increasing the penalty for tinderless fires even further would just increase frustration. This could still be tweaked around a little, the 90% base for FSlvl3 is not immovable, but it kind of all circles back to the idea that failing fire starting sucks, engaging with it as the solution for this problem is, well, playing with fire.

 

3. Burn Tinder for fuel

All Tinder items can now be burnt for something like 1-3 mins of extra burn time.

This would definitely make Tinder really useful, as micro-adjusting burn times like this will always be handy for saving little bits of fuel.

BUT I think it's fair to ask if Hinterland even want us to be able to adjust burn times like this? And, at least in my experience, fuel in the current state of the game isn't that important. It's basically just a resource you refine into Water, and/or a survival tool if you need to refill the temperature gauge while outdoors. Honestly, you could still throw away Tinder with this solution, it'd just have a hole you could shove it into if you're annoyed by its uselessness. But hey, maybe that's enough?

 

4. Make Tinder required for friction firestarting

Friction firestarting has been a long-suggested idea, as currently renewable fires are limited to the very narrow range of the Magnifiying Glass. So, if this was ever implemented (eg. you need lvl3 fire starting to do it, it lets you start a fires with x2 Sticks as the ignition source, but it takes longer and has like a -35% success rate), you could easily just have Tinder remain useless for conventional fires, but always mandatory for renewable friction fires.

This does keep Tinder worthless until you start to run out of matches, but you'll at least keep it around, I suppose? And, obviously, this would be the most intensive solution in terms of dev manhours, as friction firestarting has a lot of implications for playtesting and etc.

 

5. Give Tinder a role in a crafting recipe

This could be similar to the Cache mechanic. Use something like 25 or 50 Tinder Plugs for some recipe, and boom.

Of course, what would this be, exactly? Maybe make our own Signal Fires? 50 Tinder Plugs plus some Fir Firewood or etc equals a long term smoke signal that can be infinitely re-lit for something like 10 tinder and an ignition source.

It could also be used in a crafting recipe that isn't as resource intensive. Maybe something like a "campfire bundle", where you combine sticks, reclaimed wood, and tinder to make a weight efficient fuel item that has a solid firestarting success bonus, speeds up the starting process, and lasts longer than its components would on their own.

If Hinterland had any other ideas, those would work too for this suggestion. It might be a bit odd that Tinder would become a crafting resource instead of for firestarting, but it'll be good for something. Though, integrating it with Cat Tail Heads might prove a challenge.

 

Any other suggestions, or expansions/explorations into the ideas presented here, are very much welcome!

[stratvox]

I dunno man, maybe try swiping in the other direction?

Stratvox flees....

[Lexilogo]

1 hour ago, stratvox said:

I dunno man, maybe try swiping in the other direction?

I went back and forth on a swiping joke many, many times, but I wasn't 100% sure about "It's Time To Swipe Right On Tinder" as a title. Maybe one day in the far future, when I march up this hill to die on it again, I'll put more effort into working the joke into my unhinged ranting

[RegentRelic]

Two and three would be great. Fire master is to dominate as is. Giving reasons to still carry tinder is a good way to hurt it (at least in the mind of the player), while still leaving it intact. Actually, I changed my mind. I think that tinder less fire starting should be changed to something you only do in an emergency, at least at level three. how this would be done is by lowering all base success chances by 20% and giving a 20% chance increase for having tinder. So, level one is the same. At level two you unlock the ability to start fires without tinder, but have a 10% penalty for doing so and fires take 50% longer to build. At level three fires build 10% faster, calculated after the penalty for not having tinder. And the penalty for starting a fire tinder less becomes only the time penalty. At level four fires without tinder take 25% longer to build and your base success chance becomes 65, that is 85 with tinder. At level the time penalty for starting a fire tinder less goes away.

Thats hard to follow so here's what it would look like.

 

1. 20% chance to start fires.

2. 35% chance to start fires, fires last 10% longer, can start fires without tinder, 25% chance to start fires without tinder, Fires without tinder take 50% longer to build.

3. 45% chance to start fires, fires last 10% longer, fires start 10% faster, can start fires without tinder, fires without tinder take 50% longer to build.

4. 65% chance to start fires, fires last 25% longer, fires start 10% faster, can start fires without tinder, fires without tinder take 25% longer to build. 

5. 80% chance to start fires, fires last 50% longer, fires start 50% faster, can start fires without tinder.

 

These changes turn tinder from an afterthought that becomes nothing when you hit level three. To a layer of fire build just as engaging as fuel! Giving different types of fire starter different star chances is also a worthwhile angle. Such as giving birch bark a 25% chance, tempting you to use them and giving cattails a 15% chance because there boring.

Edited January 18, 2023 by RegentRelic