Severe Scurvy Anxiety.

[BugReportEnthusiast]

A very unexpected addition, scurvy is making its way into the game.

This is quite cool, but i am also EXTREMELY worried that hinterland has just killed long runs with this addition. We all know that renewability has been an issue with the cooking update, where all the ingredients are finite. Sustainability of gameplay loops isn't really on the forefront of hinterland's design choices.

Even after the big cooking update, the only truly sustainable source of calories is meat. Either wild game, or wild fish. You can probably see the issue here.
Neither of these contains significant quantities of vitamin C, which is something our survivor now needs to survive.

So, did hinterland just kill long runs? Will survivors now eventually, inevitably run out of food items with vitamin C, and get a nasty scurvy affliction which cannot be cured?

I really really hope that they have taken long runs into account with this change.

(If i had to guess i'd say that birch bark tea is now a good source of vitamin c, since it's the only other renewable source of sustenance in the world, but i wouldn't be surprised if it didnt.) 

[UpUpAway95]

Have a little faith.  I'm sure they've considered how they want to balance things out.  For example, they may implement a slow respawn of rose hips (or something similar) or, as your picture suggests, vitamins may start appearing on the beaches in the world.

Personally, I'm not a fan of the uber long runs anyways and deliberately limit myself mostly to 50-day runs in single zones.  However, I'm in a very apparent minority of the fan base, so I'm sure HL won't forget about the people who enjoy them.

[xanna]

I have a lot of faith in Hinterland's efforts to keep TLD well-balanced. It's going to be very interesting to see how this works out.

There was an interesting discussion about vitamins and nutrition sources in this thread from earlier this year:

[Glacia]

I don't think they are gonna change the already existing resources (Like plants respawning or new items).

Think about the traditional northern people, they survive without getting scurvy because they know how to prevent the disease.

The first thing that comes to my mind it's  'Fish meat'. Fish meat doesn't have a noticeable amount of vitamin C but you can get a bit from certain parts of the body, so you don't get scurvy since you have a minimal vitamin c source.

 

However and even if fish have nothing to do with the scurvy, i don't think HTL it's just putting a limit on how much can you survive without dying from lack of non-renewable resources.

I like the idea, it reminders me the Nutrition system on project zomboid and other survival games. Until certain point late game runs become more and more repetitive and this changes the things a bit, forcing the player to have a diverse and nutritive diet.

[Enigmaecho]

1 hour ago, BugReportEnthusiast said:

A very unexpected addition, scurvy is making its way into the game.

This is quite cool, but i am also EXTREMELY worried that hinterland has just killed long runs with this addition. We all know that renewability has been an issue with the cooking update, where all the ingredients are finite. Sustainability of gameplay loops isn't really on the forefront of hinterland's design choices.

Even after the big cooking update, the only truly sustainable source of calories is meat. Either wild game, or wild fish. You can probably see the issue here.
Neither of these contains significant quantities of vitamin C, which is something our survivor now needs to survive.

So, did hinterland just kill long runs? Will survivors now eventually, inevitably run out of food items with vitamin C, and get a nasty scurvy affliction which cannot be cured?

I really really hope that they have taken long runs into account with this change.

(If i had to guess i'd say that birch bark tea is now a good source of vitamin c, since it's the only other renewable source of sustenance in the world, but i wouldn't be surprised if it didnt.) 

theres more vitamin C in pine needles than an orange if the dont let us make pine needle tea after 10 years ill be a little salty

 

[Laika Ivanova]

As an Interloper player that spends 90% of his time on Jackrabbit Island literally keeping well fed of ONLY rabbit meat, I like the change. It forces me to adapt which is nice. I am just worried Hinterland might have budged long term saves unless vitamin c sources are somewhat renewable.

[BugReportEnthusiast]

6 minutes ago, Laika Ivanova said:

As an Interloper player that spends 90% of his time on Jackrabbit Island literally keeping well fed of ONLY rabbit meat, I like the change. It forces me to adapt which is nice. I am just worried Hinterland might have budged long term saves unless vitamin c sources are somewhat renewable.

yeah, pretty much this

It is a good change to stop players from spending hundreds of days in one spot, but if there's no renewable cure for it... you're kinda screwed.

[Mistral]

This is definitely a good change if implemented properly. The old one was too easy and unrealistic, and as said only encouraged in camping (or glamping).

Edited November 11, 2023 by Mistral

[Leeanda]

I must admit I also share the ops concerns.. this is my first attempt at a thousand days since I lost my last one  to a fail to save bug on day 750+.. 

Even after adding the recipes I'm still now down to only meat and fish.. and on day 625 or so.. 

[UpUpAway95]

I think they are going to introduce a respawn to rose hips (which are a source of vitamin C).  They've made them an ingredient in at least one of the new recipes and we already make painkilling teas with them.  I've also noted that some of the locations that used to spawn rose hips have been removed (that is, there are fewer of them along the climbing vines around the maps).  I think the respawn will likely be slower than birch bark; say a respawn every500 to 1,000 days.  This would make the long runs viable, without making the rose hips too easily available in "average" runs.

Edited November 11, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Leeanda]

If they give us something to counteract it then that's great.. it'll be fair for everyone then.  I'll be happy with that.. 

[ManicManiac]

I must admit I'm not wild about the idea of the scurvy affliction... I've spoken much on my feelings on the idea in the past.

On 2/22/2020 at 3:50 PM, ManicManiac said:

I'm fairly certain that Scurvy is one of those things that more or less takes months to develop (not days), and indicative of an extreme deficiency.  There also comes a point when a game can have so many afflictions to deal with that the micromanagement aspect can start to leach the fun out a game.  I've mentioned this kind of thing before so I will just echo it here:

I feel there comes a point where there is only so much micromanaging that can be done before it stops being fun and starts just feeling like a slog...  There is only so much micromanaging I want to have to do in a video game.  That's why I don't enjoy and won't play most of Sid Meier's games.

If the Hinterland team feels this kind of thing would add value to their game, then fine... but as it stands now, I think the game is engaging enough as it is.  We already have folks who very strongly dislike Cabin Fever... I can imagine how many folks would howl on if they had to deal with Scurvy as well.  Personally, I'm fine with this never being incorporated into this game.

 

Edited November 11, 2023 by ManicManiac

[UpUpAway95]

20 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

I must admit I'm not wild about the idea of the scurvy affliction... I've spoken much on my feelings on the idea in the past.

 

You have a point, for sure.  I've often felt inclined to call the the "the long plod" due to the increasing amounts of micromanaging that have been required since I first started playing.  Still, we know it's coming and there's really not much point in getting anxious about it now.  When it happens, we'll either like the way they've implemented it or we won't.  If we really don't like it, then there's always hope that they'll add a toggle to turn the affliction off in the custom menu. 😀

[Mistral]

There will eventually probably be option in the Custom options to disable it anyway.

That being said, I'm still waiting for options to turn off bunkers, beachcombing, glimmer fog etc...

[UpUpAway95]

1 minute ago, Mistral said:

There will eventually probably be option in the Custom options to disable it anyway.

That being said, I'm still waiting for options to turn off bunkers, beachcombing, glimmer fog etc...

True, we live in hope that someday the custom menu will get some "updated" love.

[Mistral]

3 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

True, we live in hope that someday the custom menu will get some "updated" love.

Modders might disable them sooner...

[UpUpAway95]

26 minutes ago, Mistral said:

Modders might disable them sooner...

Also true, but that doesn't help much when one plays on console.

[Mistral]

54 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Also true, but that doesn't help much when one plays on console.

Yeah and the problems with mods is you never know when they stop working with future updates

[Enigmaecho]

5 hours ago, Leeanda said:

I must admit I also share the ops concerns.. this is my first attempt at a thousand days since I lost my last one  to a fail to save bug on day 750+.. 

Even after adding the recipes I'm still now down to only meat and fish.. and on day 625 or so.. 

oh my, i do it the opposite, knowing that at 5 cook you dont have to worry about spoilage(also feeling spoilage is a bit to fast regardless for long runners) I only eat meat and fish until ive gotten all the foods and taken stock for the rest of the run im just about to cross day 365 on this run and have so much food to use in emergency now that the weather is getting worse, food for thought for a future run and rooting for you this one 

[Enigmaecho]

Just now, Enigmaecho said:

oh my, i do it the opposite, knowing that at 5 cook you dont have to worry about spoilage(also feeling spoilage is a bit to fast regardless for long runners) I only eat meat and fish until ive gotten all the foods and taken stock for the rest of the run im just about to cross day 365 on this run and have so much food to use in emergency now that the weather is getting worse, food for thought for a future run and rooting for you this one 

though youve been around long enough to know they wouldnt do us like that, if they dont add pine needle tea like i was joking about im sure there will be some renewable way to get it, it might be a pain in the ass and calorie intensive...but they'll give us something lol

[Leeanda]

4 minutes ago, Enigmaecho said:

oh my, i do it the opposite, knowing that at 5 cook you dont have to worry about spoilage(also feeling spoilage is a bit to fast regardless for long runners) I only eat meat and fish until ive gotten all the foods and taken stock for the rest of the run im just about to cross day 365 on this run and have so much food to use in emergency now that the weather is getting worse, food for thought for a future run and rooting for you this one 

The only food I have that isn't from an animal is sardines,I don't eat them on any run.. but all other canned and packet food has been eaten.. I don't really have the patience for fishing and I only hunt if I need the food or hide guts...  most of the meat is ruined but I'm level 5 anyway..   

There might be some bits of food in forsaken but as I can't go there it's not helpful to me.

 Thank you.. I hope your run goes well😊

[conanjaguar]

I hope that we’ll have some renewable sources of Vitamin C as well. Respawning rose hips, pine needles, and maybe even birch bark? Pretty sure that’s full of vitamins…

On the bright side, it’s probably going to be something that will take weeks/months to develop with plenty of warning. Probably. Hopefully. Maybe.

[I_eat_only_wolf_meat]

This seems like much ado about nothing.  As others have pointed out, rose hips are a rich source of vitamin C.  They'll probably make rose hips respawn, but even if they don't, there are a *lot* of those things scattered all over the map.  I'm no nutritionist, but it feels like you could probably go hundreds of days on the Vitamin C from rose hips alone without counting on any respawns.  You wouldn't need to consume them every day.

They could also add multivitamins or just vitamin C pills to the loot tables if they felt like it.

Edited November 12, 2023 by I_eat_only_wolf_meat

[UTC-10]

Brewing a tea from rose hips would produce a safe source of vitamin C from a currently non-renewable source though I do not know how the brewing of the tea would affect vitamin C content. 

The devs might consider requiring characters to consume essentially raw or probably lightly cooked organ meat with an attendant risk of food poisoning (since the meat was not fully cooked for the Level 5 immunity benefit) might be a reasonable trade-off to avoid scurvy.  Of course that would be a modification of the normal cooking mechanic but it does pose risks and have trade-offs (i.e. for those who would constantly or very routinely consumed animal [I assume deer] organ meat) in the process.  

Humans normally have a 60 to 90 day store of the water soluble vitamin C and excrete any excess.  Will have to see how the devs implement scurvy as an affliction and the means to avoid it. 

I hope their thinking does not stop at "rose hips have vitamin c so everyone can make it and avoid scurvy."  Um, but rose hips are not a renewable resource what happens when there are no more? "Oh there will always be some rose hips out there. Nobody will use them all up." Isn't that a big assumption on our part that potentially dictates how the players play their game?

[AdamvR]

... has anyone ever reached a state in the game, where they ran out of something important and died because of it...?
(apart from matches on Interloper)
After 5-600 days on a Stalker, i usually have more stuff, than what I could use up in another 1-2000 days...
I think running out of things to do, and dying from boredom is more likely... 😉
I think this change will just force us to vary the diet a bit, but won't (in any meaningful way) limit how long we can live...