Sanity

[Splayed Crow]

Will this ever be something that comes about as far as your current plans? Sanity maintenance, heightened reaction or slowed reaction based on the recent activitys. Teas and food to give and take in the sanity. Examples Iv thoughts of for this kind of thing. Animal attacks cause a bit of shake when aiming for a set duration, foods that focus your characters abilities when harvesting or crafting, my favorite one is night terrors if you go to sleep with debuffs it can wake you in the night and have small chances of tearing up your gear or leaves you shaken up for the day giving sprint debuffs and etc...

[Leeanda]

Sorry but I'd hate anything to do with mental afflictions...   Most people already either hate cabin fever or don't care about it.. 

And I personally enjoy the escape from things like that in real life,so don't want it in a game...  

[ManicManiac]

Discussed many times over the years... but my stance remains the same:

On 6/7/2019 at 2:36 PM, ManicManiac said:

Well, I know I mentioned this before but it I think it bears repeating (even if only to get us back on topic):

I'm not sure how well something like this would really fit into this game... (and I honestly wouldn't like it)

I mean for a Lovecraftian / horror type game, a sanity/mental health meter works fine as a core gameplay mechanic...  I know for a while there was an idea about having something like a photograph or some kind of personal belonging that was meant to give kind of a "will to live" buff or something to that effect.  That the more you used it the quicker it would get worn out... but I think that idea went to the wayside a few years ago.

We do have the cabin fever affliction, but that is an arbitrary condition dependent solely on time spent inside vs. outside (the specifics are not important so I'm skipping them here).  Even with that, there are no mitigating factors at all... it's a firm metric. 

My bottom line here is: Something like a "mental health" or "morale" mechanic would take a lot of nuance to keep it from feeling like a negative consequence instead of just part of the human condition that it truly is... (I'm also not wild about the idea of having to deal with a depression simulator)

  

 

Edited August 13, 2023 by ManicManiac

[LunarLime]

There were plans for something called "Willpower" long ago, that would serve as something similar to sanity. Basic gist of it would be as time progressed your willpower would decrease, and to refill it had to look at a photograph/locket of Anna and her two daughters (Anna being an early love interest for Will before Astrid was fully fleshed out). All of this was scrapped, and I don't imagine anything will be coming to replace it anytime soon, and IMHO opinion.. Good.

Sanity is a very important thing in a survival situation, possibly even the most important thing to manage.  However, there comes a point where a game has to remain just that, a game. There's a reason as to why you don't need to maintain a proper balance of carbs, proteins, fats. You just have to eat and maintain calories. There's a reason why you don't need to 'produce waste' after some time when you're done eating. The game just skips that part. The reason being, it's a game, and it's intended to be fun. If we were to add all of those 'requirements', then it becomes less fun, and more of a chore. If sanity were added, I think my honest reaction would be "Oh great, something else I have to manage", and I imagine that's not what any game dev that wants there game to be fun would like to hear.

If they did add some sanity need, I would say maybe have it exclusive to The Darkwalker Challenge.

 

[Enigmaecho]

Im for the introduction of the willpower locket. The game is ten years old now and the majority of players have been in it for the long haul at a point managing the current lockets becomes as much chore as any mechanic can be by the logic of another thing to manage, I sort of brought this up in the thread about reading non skill books as a pastime, there are already ailments mechanics associated with willpower, cabin fever, insomnia and fear and anxiety from Darkwalker managing willpower to prevent these could be added without it being a “have to manage” thing any further than not making mistakes that would negatively affect your mentality, cabin fever for example if you spend 72 consecutive hours indoors you get it if you go outside at hour 71 it resets that shouldn’t be the case and not even from an it’s a game standpoint that’s just exploiting the mechanics so rather there’s a locket if it falls below a certain threshold you’re catching a random mental ailment to deal with keep it full by keeping the other lockets in check and remaining at 100% condition, successes like hunting and fishing kills, goes down by getting attacked by animals, causing yourself serious injuries, let your condition start to fall or have other lockets in red that’s neither hard to manage or too penalizing to the player imo 

 

 

 

 

[DaPepster]

Totally agree.  TLD is my escape from the crap world we live in.

On 8/13/2023 at 8:38 AM, Leeanda said:

Sorry but I'd hate anything to do with mental afflictions...   Most people already either hate cabin fever or don't care about it.. 

And I personally enjoy the escape from things like that in real life,so don't want it in a game...  

 

[hozz1235]

May be a good Wishlist idea, but not one I'd be in favor of.

[BugReportEnthusiast]

I generally don't like the idea of adding a sanity / mental wellbeing meter in the game. Given how cabin fever has been received by the community i don't think we need another system that would make us to do stuff in order to keep our sanity meter up

[James Hickok]

Didnt like it in Green Hell and I wouldnt like it in TLD as well. 

[Admin]

Thank you for the ongoing discussion. While we don't have any current plans to implement this change, we appreciate the input and we love the creativity. 

[Stranzua]

Personally, i like the idea. However, that's only if Hinterland ever adds another mode that mixes story elements into survival mode. Things like human enemies, NPC's, missions, scripted events, etc. If they ever did that then I can see 'sanity' being implemented in a way that makes sense.

[Smellyfries]

I feel like sanity isn't needed for TLD, as I believe the mindset of the player already takes its role. Surviving long term in TLD can take insane amounts of dedication, as even on interloper, after hundreds of ingame days, you've got plenty of food, best possible clothing, and have experienced almost every challenge the game has to offer on this difficulty. Now it's your own willpower that drives how long you want to survive as this character, as days blend together, and to-do-lists get completed. I feel like the ultimate willpower of the player represents the mindset of the survivor as you survive this endless apocalypse, and is in my opinion, an already great stand in for sanity.

[Marcos]

It would be nice if when the sleep meter reached zero, we would have visions... a wolf that doesn't exist, a moose that disappears when it attacks us... I would give it a point of terror.