New sarvation/exhaustion times are too fast

[Bagelmode]

Before the newest update, I could work for up to 7 hours on a project (deer boot, wolf coat) and still be not starving or dehydrated or exhausted. Now when I work for any longer than 4 hours, I become exhausted and starving, even if I was at full food and rest. This means that I now starve to death before I get dehydrated. This also applies to just being alive through the day, as I recently shot 3 wolves and a deer, and that only lasted me 4 days. It wouldn't be too much of a problem if I caught rabbits in the same number I used to, but with that nerfed I'm slowly starving and running out of bullets.

Anyone else having this problem?

[Hotzn]

What difficulty level are you playing on?

[Bagelmode]

What difficulty level are you playing on?

Voyager, which is supposed to be more forgiving that real life.

[MrNicoras]

I have to agree. I think it's ridiculous that I can eat 4 and a half pounds (2kg) of meat in one sitting but still be hungry. And then 8 hours of sleep later, I'm completely starving.

[FoneBoneJay]

The game is completely out of balance, just for shits and fuck STALKER I decided to play on Pilgrim last night. Wow you can literally live forever in one spot. You have more food then you'd ever need and there are DEER everywhere. Please balance the game. We don't need animals all over the place, and we just need enough challenge to find them and then kill them. Right now its just a total cluster of extremes and you are right be it clothing or food needs, they are just radically out of balance.

[JoseyWales]

Yeah, it has gotten a bit unreal. I really go through the food now..

[Akumoako]

The same goes for Thirst. I can sleep for 8 hours and go from fine to almost dehydrated? People would die in real life if they had the flu and slept for 10 hours.

[Ryan CM]

Thanks for your feedback all, I will pass on to the dev team to look at.

[Hotzn]

This might be an issue mainly for Voyageur difficulty level players. I have never played on that level, but as I understand it the calorie burn rates at Voyageur are higher than at Stalker. It seems this makes the gap in difficulty between Pilgrim and Voyageur too big, and it may be that it leaves too little "free time" for exploration when playing Voyageur, as players are always hunting for food. Just my guess.

Concerning Stalker, I personally find the game challenging and well-balanced, and since Stalker is meant to be the highest difficulty, I think it should remain difficult. The solution could be to either debuff Voyageur's calorie burn rates or to introduce another difficulty level between Pilgrim and Voyageur.

[AmericanSteel]

I play on the "mid" difficulty and I think the caloric/water consumption needs to be tied more closely to conditions. Let just say the base consumption is 1800 calories. Adequate water intake for a male is about 3 liters a day. That is just light activity and existing. You want to craft some boots, boil water next to a fire and the like, then the calorie/water burn should be at the lower rate. As soon as the player steps outside the numbers are going to change. Is it cold? Then you burn more calories to keep water. Is the wind blowing? Then you need more water as the wind the wicking the water away from you. The players clothing choices could then mitigate these factors. Warmer and more wind proofing = better results. Is the player exerting themselves more? If so, that should impact the calories/water. Going uphill, against the wind, rough terrain, running... all of these have an impact.

The devs also need to take this to the other extreme. If I am exerting in more "temperate" conditions (say chopping wood), I could begin to sweat. I need a warning to starting removing a layer of clothing or becoming wet is actually going to make my clothing less efficient. Players would then need to "dry out" their clothes to get the full benefits again. I can recall going on my first road march at Ft Carson (in Colorado Spring) wearing thermal underwear because it was cold outside. Standing around I was toasty. Once we started pounding pavement, I started sweating... it got to the point where I had to run out of sight and strip off my thermals. That said, I was buck naked with about a dozen other GIs who did not know any better than I did Out in two foot of snow way below freezing (wind chill is was easily 10 deg colder). You gonna stand around at some guard point, wear thermals. You gonna walk from A to B, better be able to take clothing off and on.

[TLDFAN]

Asked for a wet meter and consideration on that several times as that would be a is a core component of the whole balance effort towards what winter survival is all about. Walk in a forest and the danger in the winter is from lack of shelter, and the cold, what gets you cold fastest? Getting wet? Why because by the elemental, molecular and meta physical nature of water acting as a cooling agent, it wicks away heat 25 times faster than air. It can be zero degrees and you can endure for a long time outdoors without the heat loss that comes from that when insulated. However, be wet, and your heat energy transfers through the moisture orders of magnitude faster.

A wet meter could work really well at limiting your maximum pace of travel too. It could and should be something you have to balance against. Yes you should be able to travel a good long distance and it is even necessary in the Coastal Highway, but were you subject to sweating and the build up of moisture you would and should have to manage that. Wet + cold = the rate of death we see from Wolves in the game, not the other way around.

IRL wolves attack and kill you a far lower rate than weather does in TLD. The whole balance of the project is pretty far out there. I hope they reign it in.

[DenverDad]

I think hunger and thirst need at least a small tweak to make them slightly more believable. What I've struggled to wrap my head around is how thirsty I get while sleeping. If I sleep more than 6 hours I almost always wake up completely parched. Perhaps this is simply a difficult game mechanic to balance without becoming exploitable but I think hunger and thirst should build at a much slower rate if we're simply sleeping.

[TLDFAN]

I think hunger and thirst need at least a small tweak to make them slightly more believable. What I've struggled to wrap my head around is how thirsty I get while sleeping. If I sleep more than 6 hours I almost always wake up completely parched. Perhaps this is simply a difficult game mechanic to balance without becoming exploitable but I think hunger and thirst should build at a much slower rate if we're simply sleeping.

Agree

[Majales]

You need to drink before sleep. Then you can sleep 10 hours to be only thirsty or 12 hours to be dehydrated, but with 100% condition.

If you would sleep 10 hours, than you would be thirsty too.

[Raphael van Lierop]

We haven't changed anything about the starvation/exhaustion tuning in the game in recent updates, so not sure why you are seeing a change in that, OP.

In terms of calorie burn rates -- this has been discussed to death in other threads, but a note: the average 180 lb person will burn 2000 calories per day, simply sitting around. Carrying a 60lb pack in heavy snow while running/walking briskly will burn 500-600 cal/hr, and that's ignoring the fact that you may also be freezing (i.e. body spending energy to prevent hypothermia).

It's not unusual to burn 5000+ calories in a game day, with "usual" activity.

Arctic explorers burn between 7000-10,000 calories per day.

Re: managing body temp and layering -- yes this is a big part of managing winter activities, but the question would be: does this create interesting gameplay?

[DenverDad]

Thanks for that response Raphael. That does put things in perspective a bit more.

[Majales]

Re: managing body temp and layering -- yes this is a big part of managing winter activities, but the question would be: does this create interesting gameplay?

The answer is: NO.