TALES FROM THE FAR TERRITORY, PART FOUR IS HERE!

[fbr]

1 hour ago, kimmer said:

I would like to share my thoughts about new regions.
I just visited the Forsaken Airfield area in the new dlc. I also watched the reviews of the new map. The 2 new maps offer nothing for long runners. I can't believe I went through that long and arduous road to loot spoiled food, a rifle holster, and a bomber jacket I'll never use. I don't think I'll go to the airport again. I will probably feel the same in the contaminated area.
I think there are layers of difficulty in these areas, but there are no reasons for us to revisit the area again and again.
Such as Bleak Inlet, Blackrock, Forlorn Muskeg, Desolation Point.
For example, the Forsaken airfield could have had a lathe that could make arrows that were more effective, lethal, and had high long-range accuracy. Maybe it could house a meat drying oven. So the player might want to visit this place several times during his long run. Perhaps a strong spring similar to a sports bow could be produced.
After my visit to Forsaken airfield, it seems pointless to revisit these areas. When you add to this the long and meaningless road you have to travel to reach these areas, it becomes clear that the maps are disposable.
A few words need to be said about Travois. This tool, which makes life easier, has a very wide rotation angle, like heavy-duty trucks. I think this is not normal. It is necessary to be able to turn such a vehicle in any direction easily, but more importantly, I felt like I was using "horse glasses" while using this vehicle. It is not possible to look left, right or back. However, we should be able to easily look in the direction we want by using the right mouse button. I haven't seen any such option or key assignment.
To summarize briefly, TLD for me; It was an attractive game because it did not involve supernatural powers and tested the player with completely natural challenges. It still is. However, the new DLC does not offer a reasonable reason to use the new maps again. And I feel sorry for the time and effort spent on these maps.
These are my personal thoughts.
Unfortunately, I don't know English so I used Google Translator. I don't know if the translation accurately reflects my thoughts. I hope it doesn't cause any confusion.

Perhaps you just reached "endgame"? If they always release new content balanced for hundred-days runs, they'd alienate a lot more players. How about just starting a new game? These regions are challenging even for the more experienced players, and extremely fun to begin a run there. But I like the beggining much more than late game, so I'm also biased here...

[Lumiiyx]

I love Forsaken Airfield. I could live forever at Drift Island if I so chose, especially as I heard that fish gives you Vitamin C.  Normally when I get tired of a run, I will just run up the Summit in Timberwolf mountain and walk off LOL.  Maybe I will journey to FA and live out the rest of the days dwindling down my food supplies. Nice and quiet.  Then start a new save and start again.

The new DLC, for me, breathes new life into the game.  I already loved the game, but I like the idea of "side quests" and for them to be challenging.  I just got done with my first play of ZC and it is pretty cool. I am in the "safe zone" and made it to Langston Mine.  There are a lot of nooks and crannies and forks in the road.  I feel as if I have only scratched the surface and can't wait to explore the map in its entirety.

[UpUpAway95]

54 minutes ago, Enigmaecho said:

Always sucks to see this kind of sentiment on the things they’ve worked passionately on for us, the new regions are meant to be challenging the game is a decade old and vets have been asking for a challenge they finally give us a challenge and it’s met with complaints. The region offers a forge that alone makes it worth a visit the regions vastness adds a great deal of beauty to the scenery(which people seem to forget is the whole reason the game is in an oil painting art style) and though it seems huge it takes no longer to get shelter to shelter than to walk across pv the two new non load interiors at the mindful and drift cabin are fantastic for immersion there’s ample wildlife that’s easy af to find on big open feilds I was working on my 100days there when zone dropped now I can’t wait to spend 100 in the zone I’ve been exploring it for a month already just finished mapping, if your first impression is “never go back” I’d say that’s a bad one same with the zone, they’re hard because they’re new and unknown, cherish that because once you memorize a map 90% of the challenge is gone 

 

There are ways to make every region suitable to every level of difficulty.  One method I just recently brought up on another thread is to make numbers of the shelters "inaccessible" as the player selects a higher difficulty while making more shelters available when the player selects a lower difficulty.  There used to be such a mechanic in Mystery Lake and Coastal Highway where more of the cabins would be burned down if one was playing on a higher standard difficulty - so it can be done.  This could also be done with "working" benches and forges and ammo forges, etc. - having the "be there" but render a percentage of them "inoperable" when a higher difficulty is selected.  The weather can be made "worse" across all zones when a higher difficulty is selected.  Wolves could be make to spawn in zones that done normally have them (e.g. the Ravine) when a higher difficulty is selected.  Players who want to take it easy should not have to avoid entire regions of the map to play on that difficulty.

Having forges etc. in most zones but rendering an increasing percentage of them inoperable at random as the difficulty setting is increased could actually make the more challenging and less predictable/repetitive since the player could then no longer count on a particular forge to be operable every run.

Edited December 9, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Enigmaecho]

39 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

There are ways to make every region suitable to every level of difficulty.  One method I just recently brought up on another thread is to make numbers of the shelters "inaccessible" as the player selects a higher difficulty while making more shelters available when the player selects a lower difficulty.  There used to be such a mechanic in Mystery Lake and Coastal Highway where more of the cabins would be burned down if one was playing on a higher standard difficulty - so it can be done.  This could also be done with "working" benches and forges and ammo forges, etc. - having the "be there" but render a percentage of them "inoperable" when a higher difficulty is selected.  The weather can be made "worse" across all zones when a higher difficulty is selected.  Wolves could be make to spawn in zones that done normally have them (e.g. the Ravine) when a higher difficulty is selected.  Players who want to take it easy should not have to avoid entire regions of the map to play on that difficulty.

Having forges etc. in most zones but rendering an increasing percentage of them inoperable at random as the difficulty setting is increased could actually make the more challenging and less predictable/repetitive since the player could then no longer count on a particular forge to be operable every run.

randomized forges would be a neat spin but overall all the regions are balanced for everyone on lower difficulty you have astronomical amounts of loot and the warmest gears in the game while simultaneously having a generous warming indoor temp, these regions are big but otherwise I don’t think they’re very difficult maybe mid tier around HRV /AC level of challenge definitely way easier than bleak inlet and blackrock. The other things about wolves and weather do apply already the higher the difficulty the faster and colder it gets the more unpredictable the weather the more wolves and less game less loot all apply as difficulty increases 😊

Edited December 9, 2023 by Enigmaecho

[UpUpAway95]

16 minutes ago, Enigmaecho said:

randomized forges would be a neat spin but overall all the regions are balanced for everyone on lower difficulty you have astronomical amounts of loot and the warmest gears in the game while simultaneously having a generous warming indoor temp, these regions are big but otherwise I don’t think they’re very difficult maybe mid tier around HRV /AC level of challenge definitely way easier than bleak inlet and blackrock. The other things about wolves and weather do apply already the higher the difficulty the faster and colder it gets the more unpredictable the weather the more wolves and less game less loot all apply as difficulty increases 😊

The ranges in weather and wolves (other than when they are passive) are really not that significant.  They could be increased.

Loot amounts are also not that significant unless one is restricting themselves to a single zone for a long period.  When the game is played by running from one "nearly guaranteed" spawn to another (as many lopers have done and still do even without as stringest loot tables) only the presence of predators and the lack of knives and hatchets makes it all that different.  Once is there "enough loot" having more loot than you can possibly ever use really doesn't make it that much easier... and not being able to turn off things like the glimmer fog make some regions much more difficult for some players.

Edited December 9, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Leeanda]

53 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

The ranges in weather and wolves (other than when they are passive) are really not that significant.  They could be increased.

Loot amounts are also not that significant unless one is restricting themselves to a single zone for a long period.  When the game is played by running from one "nearly guaranteed" spawn to another (as many lopers have done and still do even without as stringest loot tables) only the presence of predators and the lack of knives and hatchets makes it all that different.  Once is there "enough loot" having more loot than you can possibly ever use really doesn't make it that much easier... and not being able to turn off things like the glimmer fog make some regions much more difficult for some players.

Or impossible... I'd been in there twenty minutes on a new run ,with starting weather on clear,before the glimmer fog kicked in.... 

Glad I'm on passive though as I came out a cabin door to literally find a wolf inches from me..talk about jump scare😁

[kimmer]

I do not quote the answers to the message I wrote, but I am writing this message to be an answer to all the answers.
First of all, I didn't say the maps were bad. The first exploration was quite enjoyable. I'll probably enjoy it too when I go to the contaminated area. I've been playing TLD for years and I've lost track of how many runs I've had. I have also always appreciated the efforts of Hinterland and its staff.
Let me briefly summarize what I am trying to explain. After the initial exploration and looting I see no reason to go back to the dlc maps. And I wish there was a reason. When I'm low on bullets, Blackrock, the ruined swamp for arrowheads, gives me reason to revisit these places. Mystery Lake is a map where you can stay in a central location and without any nutritional problems when you are looking for tranquility. Similar reasons could have been created for new maps. But I guess the responders didn't bother to read my entire message except the first paragraph.
Such members also exist in scs's ets2 and ats forums. Their aim is to support scs at all costs. But I can proudly say that 2 of my suggestions that caused heated discussions in the scs forums were put into play.
People express their ideas in forums, and if they attract the attention of game developers, they adapt them to the game.
Now I'm asking, for what reason would anyone here want to return to these maps in the same run, other than to complete a mission? Please give me a valid reason.
The last thing I want to say. Please get into the habit of reading the entire message before replying. And, as I said, I don't speak English and I use Google Translate, so it's hard to fully explain the emotions.

[Enigmaecho]

9 hours ago, kimmer said:

I do not quote the answers to the message I wrote, but I am writing this message to be an answer to all the answers.
First of all, I didn't say the maps were bad. The first exploration was quite enjoyable. I'll probably enjoy it too when I go to the contaminated area. I've been playing TLD for years and I've lost track of how many runs I've had. I have also always appreciated the efforts of Hinterland and its staff.
Let me briefly summarize what I am trying to explain. After the initial exploration and looting I see no reason to go back to the dlc maps. And I wish there was a reason. When I'm low on bullets, Blackrock, the ruined swamp for arrowheads, gives me reason to revisit these places. Mystery Lake is a map where you can stay in a central location and without any nutritional problems when you are looking for tranquility. Similar reasons could have been created for new maps. But I guess the responders didn't bother to read my entire message except the first paragraph.
Such members also exist in scs's ets2 and ats forums. Their aim is to support scs at all costs. But I can proudly say that 2 of my suggestions that caused heated discussions in the scs forums were put into play.
People express their ideas in forums, and if they attract the attention of game developers, they adapt them to the game.
Now I'm asking, for what reason would anyone here want to return to these maps in the same run, other than to complete a mission? Please give me a valid reason.
The last thing I want to say. Please get into the habit of reading the entire message before replying. And, as I said, I don't speak English and I use Google Translate, so it's hard to fully explain the emotions.

I did read your whole post and did offer reasons but I will do so again, the forsaken airfield offers some of the most beautiful scenery on the island the two non load screen cabins offer wonderful immersion drift island has two fishing huts and a moose and bear spawn with no way for either to sneak up on you the airport itself has a forge and a ton of scrap metal and a variant bow spawn, it’s great for a single region run or if you are trying to just live in the territory id put money that the last region has an ammo forge and makes the far territory a self sustainable set of regions. I reiterate that the claim  there’s no reason to go back holds true for more or less all but 3 regions  blackrock or bleak for the ammo forge, and ash for the crampons and backpack everyone has regions they love and regions they hate just usually for a specific reason like HRV has no man made shelter and is confusing to some til you learn or bleak inlet being a death trap when blackrock is much safer ammo forge spot,  “it’s big and far away ” is not a great reasoning in my opinion, the rifle holster is very valuable and the flight jacket is an upper tier clothing item they’re nice even if you personally don’t like it. why visit timber it’s just a bunch of containers with loot you’ve already got other places. Why go to Milton or hushed river they’re out of the way and redundant loot hushed river is empty, why go all the way to desolation or risk the musk when there’s a safe forge in broken rail, hell why bother even leaving the og 5 maps and one ammo forge region it’s just more of the same with different map layouts right?  This is how your argument comes across. You haven’t even tried the new region and already passed the same judgment.  if I’m not understanding feel free to reply

an afterthought. We still have two updates in this dlc run one will bring the trader arguably the most valuable thing Ever in the game and for all we know they are exclusive to the territory 

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Enigmaecho

[Enigmaecho]

11 hours ago, Leeanda said:

Or impossible... I'd been in there twenty minutes on a new run ,with starting weather on clear,before the glimmer fog kicked in.... 

Glad I'm on passive though as I came out a cabin door to literally find a wolf inches from me..talk about jump scare😁

I know you’ve said prior but I missed it, does the fog mess with you psychically or does it mess with your Xbox? Either way sorry it gives you issues hope they get a toggle for it on custom or some adjustments for you and others with similar problems 

[Leeanda]

2 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

I know you’ve said prior but I missed it, does the fog mess with you psychically or does it mess with your Xbox? Either way sorry it gives you issues hope they get a toggle for it on custom or some adjustments for you and others with similar problems 

It gives me a very bad headache,bordering on a migraine..  I hope it does get added to the settings,along with the harvesting.i know that's making a few people feel ill.

[Laika Ivanova]

17 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

Always sucks to see this kind of sentiment on the things they’ve worked passionately on for us, the new regions are meant to be challenging the game is a decade old and vets have been asking for a challenge they finally give us a challenge and it’s met with complaints. The region offers a forge that alone makes it worth a visit the regions vastness adds a great deal of beauty to the scenery(which people seem to forget is the whole reason the game is in an oil painting art style) and though it seems huge it takes no longer to get shelter to shelter than to walk across pv the two new non load interiors at the mindful and drift cabin are fantastic for immersion there’s ample wildlife that’s easy af to find on big open feilds I was working on my 100days there when zone dropped now I can’t wait to spend 100 in the zone I’ve been exploring it for a month already just finished mapping, if your first impression is “never go back” I’d say that’s a bad one same with the zone, they’re hard because they’re new and unknown, cherish that because once you memorize a map 90% of the challenge is gone 

 

While I don't agree with the post entirely I do understand where it comes from. There are a lot of things in the Expansion Pass that are not on the same level as past updates before. Personally, I absolutely loved the Tales (the first one's forced travel was annoying but the second one was so much better, nice to see Hinterland learning from that). But there is so much inconsisteny with the gameplay related content compared to past updates that is just annoying because it takes the immersion completely out. Handheld Shortwave and Gas Mask both not weighing anything, not being able to be dropped or moved, only to not bother the average player with weight management (that used to be a core functionality of the game). Even the Technical Backpack should have been a regular item instead of an invisible collectible. I mean, even the moose hide satchel has to be repaired and has weight. Then crampons were added and only made repairable after initial feedback, I was happy back then because I thought Hinterland learned from it, but then the Bulletproved Vest came out and now the Insulated Flasks with the same issues. And then the decision to not add Scurvy to existing saves because it might be too challenging to some players. Perhaps it should have been designed a bit differently then (although we know by now that it really is not that big of a deal and everyone could have easily dealt with it, even in their 1000 day long saves). I respect Hinterland for thinking about especially those dedicated players, but I think this was over the top. While the Travois also has a few issues, it is mostly just tweaks that it needs so I won't be going into that. Overall a great item.

These things I mentioned are all of course minor, but they add up and together ruin the immersion to me and many others. I really hope Hinterland will at some point take their time and get everything in line properly. Personally I see that they do still care a lot about the game, otherwise they would just not care about making sure the second Tale is available on Interloper and very well playable on it (I finished it just hours after the update came out, it was amazing). I doubt tho that they will make themselves the time to fix all of these things because there is still one year of content they have to deliver. Whatever happens after the Expansion Pass ends, I hope they will give the game one final update with tweaks and fixes and make it the best it can be before sending it off.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Laika Ivanova

[xanna]

5 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

there’s no reason to go back holds true for more or less all but 3 regions  blackrock or bleak for the ammo forge, and ash for the crampons and backpack

In fact it's not even 3. I think the OP is concerned about reasons to go back to a region, not reasons to go at all, so Ash Canyon doesn't fit because a player can get the backpack on their first visit and never go back. Forge and ammo forge are the only things we might have to revisit a region for, and since there's more than one of those things, I don't think any specific region has a 'reason' for returning. I'm not sure where the idea that the game is failing if it doesn't give the new regions specific reasons to revist has come from, I don't think it's ever been true.

I'm going to spend time in a region for the same reason I want to play TLD at all - because it's cool.

[xanna]

5 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

 “it’s big and far away ” is not a great reasoning in my opinion

Yup, terrible reasoning. Far away from what? It goes both ways - if you spawn in the Far Territories, it's Lower Great Bear that's big and far away!

[Lumiiyx]

42 minutes ago, xanna said:

Yup, terrible reasoning. Far away from what? It goes both ways - if you spawn in the Far Territories, it's Lower Great Bear that's big and far away!

When I start a new save now, I tend to want to spawn in Forsaken airfield because I want to do signal void, and because of the quest to get the radio towers fixed and how long that takes, I go, repair the towers and come back.  I haven't even finished looting any of the regions.  Just where I made a pit stop.  Now, after Signal Void is completed, I will want to go to Langston Mine.  Maybe I will be more prepared than in my current saves, (one I made it to the Langston Mine 3rd floor and the other I made it to the huge building with the mine pit. Minimal chemical exposure,); that leaves me all of Lower Great Bear to loot and set up safe houses and survive.

And yes I know they are working on if you completed SV you don't need to do it again, but I want to, FA is beautiful and vast.  You can survive quite easily on Drift Island.  Get the insulated bedroll and insulation and be on your way.

 

Also I agree @Laika Ivanova, the Flasks definitely need an update.  I would like to fill up the flask and drink out of it.  It should be in the food part of the backpack, not the tools.   I haven't had a chance to try the travois yet.

[UpUpAway95]

3 hours ago, xanna said:

In fact it's not even 3. I think the OP is concerned about reasons to go back to a region, not reasons to go at all, so Ash Canyon doesn't fit because a player can get the backpack on their first visit and never go back. Forge and ammo forge are the only things we might have to revisit a region for, and since there's more than one of those things, I don't think any specific region has a 'reason' for returning. I'm not sure where the idea that the game is failing if it doesn't give the new regions specific reasons to revist has come from, I don't think it's ever been true.

I'm going to spend time in a region for the same reason I want to play TLD at all - because it's cool.

That's very true - no region has a specific reason to return beyond, perhaps completing the Signal Void quest (depending on whether or not the player visited that region prior to going to Forsaken and getting the radio). 

I personally find the change in player discourse about new zones interesting.  For example, lopers went from being appreciative of just more area to explore to "there's no reason for a loper to go there." and now there's "no reason for anyone to revisit."  Perhaps a sign of just too big a game world with just too much stuff in it (even on the harshest settings) for one to feel "scarcity" beyond the first few days of starting a run, I wonder?

[Raphael van Lierop]

Lot's of interesting comments and theorycrafting here. I don't want to spend too much time on it, because a lot of it is subjective feedback and opinions and everyone can believe what they believe, but just a couple of quick notes (for what it's worth):

* This comes up a lot, with every update really, and it's kinda frustrating to always see it. It's just not possible to make everything in the game an option for you, just because you might not like it. Also, we are crafting a specific experience with intention behind it, and (apart from bugs which obviously do happen), limitations are purposeful. Even when we do make something optional, it doesn't happen without a bunch of work. So please stop saying "it'd be so easy to make this an option, they've done it before" etc. etc. It's just not the case. Every variation creates, at the very least, the need for significant additional testing, as well as dev work and often more UI, tuning, etc. Nothing comes for free. We make these choices and trade-offs all the time. The only easy thing here is posting in forums.

* The world of GBI and the Far Territory is huge now. We try to give every region a theme. Some regions will be more interesting to certain types of players. We have 10M players and some of you have been playing the game for coming up to 10 years. We also get around an additional ~500k-1M players per year who are new to the game. And everyone in between. We're making a game for everyone, not just for one group or sub-group of players. The only way to do that is to add variety and to continue pushing ourselves to try new things. And, if you find you don't like a thing, that's ok because there are probably lots of other things for you to like, and I promise you some other player really loves the thing you dislike. It's 100% ok if not every region is to your specific tastes. I have favourites too and some I rarely go to. Pretty sure my list is probably different from yours.

Re: Scurvy -- I mean this is our problem and not yours, but this is a damned if you do and damned if you don't sort of scenario, and, as per my first bullet above, making something optional isn't always that easy or the best solution for implementation. So it's fine -- if you want to play with Scurvy, start a new game. Easy. If you want to continue your long-standing save and not worry about ending up in a situation where you annoyingly have to do a bunch of stuff you didn't ask for because of a mechanic that was freshly introduced, or maybe it's super hard for you to continue surviving because you've already used up a ton of the existing resources that have Vit-C, great, you can do that. Nobody is forcing you to do one or the other, you can make that choice for yourself.

So, like, stop complaining. 🤣

[xanna]

Damn right

[Ворожей]

12 minutes ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Так что все в порядке - если вы хотите поиграть со Скурвингом, начните новую игру. Легко.

Thanks for your answers. Everything will start over. It's just that we're afraid that we'll have to start a new save over and over and over again.

[ManicManiac]

With every update it does tend to be the same story.
It always seems as though we have several folks make a ruckus about things they don't like, or they want/demand changed (as though they themselves were personally commissioning the update ).

It has to be frustrating for Hinterland to put so much hard work, time, effort, resources, passion, heart & soul into The Long Dark... just face such negative onslaughts from a relative few with nearly every single update cycle.

I find I have to say this with each update:
I feel that Hinterland has earned a lot of good will.  I think they deserve all the support we can give them.  

As always, thank you Hinterland.
Thank you for more than 9 years of one of my very favorite games.
I have spent more time on Great Bear Island than any other game world (by a rather significant margin). 

Edited December 10, 2023 by ManicManiac

[Leeanda]

2 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

With every update it does tend to be the same story.
Several folks make a ruckus about things they don't like, or they want changed (as though they were personally commissioning the update ).

It has to be frustrating for a studio like Hinterland to put so much hard work, time, effort, resources, passion, heart & soul into The Long Dark... just face such negative onslaughts from a relative few with nearly every single update cycle.

I find I have to say this with each update:
I feel that Hinterland has earned a lot of good will.  I think they deserve all the support we can give them.  

As always, thank you Hinterland.
Thank you for more than 9 years of one of my very favorite games.  I have spent more time on Great Bear Island than any other game world (by a rather significant margin). 

Well said😊

[Lumiiyx]

I think if the new game mechanics are going to break the game or not able to be experienced at its fullest, I would rather start a new game.  We had an overhaul of the save system, so I think that was 100% valid.  (although on steam you still had access to them via the time capsule).  I have 2 saves that are 100 Days and over 150 days.  I don't get to play Scurvy on it and I am Not missing it at all. There is sooo much to Buried Echoes, I haven't noticed it NOT being there.  I have a new Custom save ( a sort of Outer Pilgrim where it slowly gets colder over time).  I have scurvy enabled, and I can only go inside the buildings at FA and BE to complete the quests + the bunkers.  It's definitely a bigger thought process of managing my food resources.

Quite frankly, the only thing I dislike is the flask in it's current state, and that is a very small, not even 1% of what we got in this update.  I still haven't used the travois as yet, but being used to winters and pulling a sled behind me with people in it, sometimes you have to take a wide turn and can't go everywhere, without people getting out and picking it up.  I see the travois as no different.

Even when I finish the BE tale, I'll probably still want to stick around the transfer pass.  I like it, it's different and I haven't even fully mapped out the map.  Eventually I will head back to Lower Great Bear and settle down somewhere. CH is usually a go to spot for me, but I eventually plan to map out all of the regions fully.

At the end of the day, while I may not always fully agree with what the devs have implemented, I appreciate all their efforts and we will never know 100% why something is not what we would want or expect.  What I believe 100% is that game devs account for as much as they possibly can and some things get cut for X Y Z.  It's still a damn good update, IMHO.

[Dan_]

1 hour ago, Lumiiyx said:

I don't get to play Scurvy on it and I am Not missing it at all. There is sooo much to Buried Echoes, I haven't noticed it NOT being there. 

Agree on all counts. I only have two active saves, one being 450 days old and the other is a 50 day custom run. I'm much more excited about the prospects of Buried Echoes and continuing exploring the ZoC than a simple new affliction. Given my limited weekly playing time availability, starting over is just not on the cards right now, I don't think it's worth starting a brand new save and get set back so much for Buried Echoes.

I understand the choice of not including Scurvy even though I don't agree with it. I am just amazed at the wealth and depth of content contained in Part 4 so far, of course I can nitpick specific choices here and there but overall every single one of the changes added something to the experience to me. Hand coverings, the visual representation of a freezing carcass, new music, new harvesting mechanics and animations ( huge! ), the Travois ( oh, the travois! ), flask collecting, new tale... honestly, I can't fault HL for this update since I only experienced minor bugs. ( unlimited broth and tiny wabbits ), all the content is right up my alley.

I've been playing the game since the TWM update and TLD is pretty much 80% of all my gaming time, I'll say this as a decently old timer of the game: Tales has improved the game experience substantially to me. 

Once Wintermute is done and the final tale is out, I'd like to ask @Admin to strongly consider doing another round of DLCs/expansions. I understand HL has new projects/IPs cooking in the pipeline, but please ponder at least doing another poll ( like the one you did before Tales was announced ) to gauge community interest. I'd love to see TLD keep being updated and expanded as I don't see myself burning out of the game too soon. 

[Enigmaecho]

3 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Lot's of interesting comments and theorycrafting here. I don't want to spend too much time on it, because a lot of it is subjective feedback and opinions and everyone can believe what they believe, but just a couple of quick notes (for what it's worth):

* This comes up a lot, with every update really, and it's kinda frustrating to always see it. It's just not possible to make everything in the game an option for you, just because you might not like it. Also, we are crafting a specific experience with intention behind it, and (apart from bugs which obviously do happen), limitations are purposeful. Even when we do make something optional, it doesn't happen without a bunch of work. So please stop saying "it'd be so easy to make this an option, they've done it before" etc. etc. It's just not the case. Every variation creates, at the very least, the need for significant additional testing, as well as dev work and often more UI, tuning, etc. Nothing comes for free. We make these choices and trade-offs all the time. The only easy thing here is posting in forums.

* The world of GBI and the Far Territory is huge now. We try to give every region a theme. Some regions will be more interesting to certain types of players. We have 10M players and some of you have been playing the game for coming up to 10 years. We also get around an additional ~500k-1M players per year who are new to the game. And everyone in between. We're making a game for everyone, not just for one group or sub-group of players. The only way to do that is to add variety and to continue pushing ourselves to try new things. And, if you find you don't like a thing, that's ok because there are probably lots of other things for you to like, and I promise you some other player really loves the thing you dislike. It's 100% ok if not every region is to your specific tastes. I have favourites too and some I rarely go to. Pretty sure my list is probably different from yours.

Re: Scurvy -- I mean this is our problem and not yours, but this is a damned if you do and damned if you don't sort of scenario, and, as per my first bullet above, making something optional isn't always that easy or the best solution for implementation. So it's fine -- if you want to play with Scurvy, start a new game. Easy. If you want to continue your long-standing save and not worry about ending up in a situation where you annoyingly have to do a bunch of stuff you didn't ask for because of a mechanic that was freshly introduced, or maybe it's super hard for you to continue surviving because you've already used up a ton of the existing resources that have Vit-C, great, you can do that. Nobody is forcing you to do one or the other, you can make that choice for yourself.

So, like, stop complaining. 🤣

The choice on scurvy isn’t an easy one oh captain our captain if we want our long run to have that that challenge, of course we must respect that you’ve considered all the angles before coming to the conclusion though from the outside it feels somewhat confusing as we’ve never been spared a challenge before, curiosity over the moose ended many runs as did Timberwolf mauling, insomnia has probably claimed a few and lots of folks have kicked the bucket in the mine gas both blackrock and ZoC so why skip this one? all the ailments are annoying that’s their point right 😂 that small point of contention aside I have loved every bit of this dlc run and am amazed at how much you raise the bar with each update. Zone of Contamination is spot on to a region I had imagined years ago only poison instead of mine fire/burning land and that just blew my mind to discover how close it is to what I envisioned a region like this would be. The travios works fantastic it’s immersive and the sounds are great, that little sled trail you leave, chefs kiss pal, i think the flask may be bugged cause I can’t repair it and it’s breaking down fast but I wishlist for a flask a long long time ago I’d love it even if it broke in a few days and I’m gonna spend the time til next update hunting the whole collection!

[Laika Ivanova]

12 hours ago, Raphael van Lierop said:

Lot's of interesting comments and theorycrafting here. I don't want to spend too much time on it, because a lot of it is subjective feedback and opinions and everyone can believe what they believe, but just a couple of quick notes (for what it's worth):

* This comes up a lot, with every update really, and it's kinda frustrating to always see it. It's just not possible to make everything in the game an option for you, just because you might not like it. Also, we are crafting a specific experience with intention behind it, and (apart from bugs which obviously do happen), limitations are purposeful. Even when we do make something optional, it doesn't happen without a bunch of work. So please stop saying "it'd be so easy to make this an option, they've done it before" etc. etc. It's just not the case. Every variation creates, at the very least, the need for significant additional testing, as well as dev work and often more UI, tuning, etc. Nothing comes for free. We make these choices and trade-offs all the time. The only easy thing here is posting in forums.

* The world of GBI and the Far Territory is huge now. We try to give every region a theme. Some regions will be more interesting to certain types of players. We have 10M players and some of you have been playing the game for coming up to 10 years. We also get around an additional ~500k-1M players per year who are new to the game. And everyone in between. We're making a game for everyone, not just for one group or sub-group of players. The only way to do that is to add variety and to continue pushing ourselves to try new things. And, if you find you don't like a thing, that's ok because there are probably lots of other things for you to like, and I promise you some other player really loves the thing you dislike. It's 100% ok if not every region is to your specific tastes. I have favourites too and some I rarely go to. Pretty sure my list is probably different from yours.

Re: Scurvy -- I mean this is our problem and not yours, but this is a damned if you do and damned if you don't sort of scenario, and, as per my first bullet above, making something optional isn't always that easy or the best solution for implementation. So it's fine -- if you want to play with Scurvy, start a new game. Easy. If you want to continue your long-standing save and not worry about ending up in a situation where you annoyingly have to do a bunch of stuff you didn't ask for because of a mechanic that was freshly introduced, or maybe it's super hard for you to continue surviving because you've already used up a ton of the existing resources that have Vit-C, great, you can do that. Nobody is forcing you to do one or the other, you can make that choice for yourself.

So, like, stop complaining. 🤣

I wanna highlight the things about the update first before I'll explain a bit more about my own reasoning about my past comments here so:

 

The latest update was one that I was particularly excited about as one of the players that always sits on a single save for as long as possible, because there was so much content coming that was what I like to call "everyday content" I could use. The Flask, Travois, Scurvy a new affliction. And everything as it works is amazing! Of course everything can use a bit of tweaking but the overall functionality is great. Best update we had in years in all honesty (despite the complains). The new map? Again, nothing to complain about. I like the new hazard like additions, how the environment looks, the unique challenge with wolves being more dangerous and not being a food source. And the Tale was a great step up compared to the first one. Also the fact that this update was perfectly playable from the very first hour post release. It's not something that is normal in this industry anymore and worth being mentioned. Positives aside tho, let's get to the negative aspects (my own subjective complains as you said):

 

There's a long list, but luckily almost everything is minor so it really only boils down to a single thing that I consider worth bringing up now: Scurvy. Well, not even really Scurvy, but the decision to not enable it on existing saves. I respect you guys for this decision as you had a reason for it. I admit that I was very disappointed upon finding out that I would have to yet again give up my current save in order to experience it, but in the end I did and after experiencing it now to my own surprise my opinion hasn't changed. In fact it has been reinforced and I believe for a good reason. I won't go into details regarding how Scurvy works so people who haven't gotten it yet won't be spoiled, but...it's so easy to treat. Easier than cabin fever I would say. After realizing this I am ever more saddened to see it not being a thing on older saves because it would have been a nice push to diversifying a late game diet a bit more. Whoever in your team designed how Scurvy works clearly must have thought of this and did an amazing job. There's more I would love to say about this but I'm typing on my phone right now and I have no clue how to mark spoilers. I may make a separate thread about this topic later but the main message here from me is:

 

Please consider adding Scurvy, and for that matter, future additions to existing saves at some point. I am not asking for things to be included immediately, Hinterland is doing an outstanding job overall, especially this update. But it would be a shame if players who tend to stay on the same safe couldn't experience those additions, because they are amazing. 

[Nalliah]

I think the point about the sheer amount of variety offered in the game is important. The game can be played at different levels or in different styles, depending on the player and what experience they want in the game. I myself play at the lowest easy level (Pilgrim) and do not like industrial landscapes. There is still so much area for me to play in-- I have no complaints at all. Its not necessary to play in industrial landscapes--and I don't. I even limit being in the Hydroelectric plant in Mystery Lake--not my cup of tea. I think that the Long Dark is an amazing, unique and creative game. There is nothing else like it out there.