Harvesting by hand

[UpUpAway95]

3 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

It’s a good change same with the removal of micro harvesting to speed run 5 cook, I’ll never get why folks choose to play interloper then want to cheese the hell out of it 🤷🏻‍♂️

I never agreed with the microharvesting and I don't regret it being out of the game; but I fail to see where it is connected to this issue.  It would have been easy enough to prevent people from taking cuts of meat lighter than 0.5 kg while still allowing them to take the cuts by hand.  The related changes seems to be more about disallowing cancellation of the action of harvesting before completing it.

They could have instead gone with forced quartering of large game, which already requires a tool, plus it requires that the carcass be unfrozen.  Shortening the time it takes to quarter a deer as opposed to the bear could have been added to compensate.  Quarters could have then been loaded up on the travois and taken to a base or camp to be harvested at leisure by hand if desired.

[MrWolf]

5 hours ago, Enigmaecho said:

It’s a good change same with the removal of micro harvesting to speed run 5 cook, I’ll never get why folks choose to play interloper then want to cheese the hell out of it 🤷🏻‍♂️

This isn't directed at the person who wrote the quote above, but I think it's ironic that most people who are (or were) against the micro-harvesting are fine with no consequences for eating ruined food after cooking 5.  Talk about a "cheese"... leaving piles of cooked meat and filling up on it after it's ruined.  

I'm a long time Interloper player and I like the change in harvesting.  I've used the micro-harvesting at times but I generally don't.  Not being able to harvest rabbits and birds by hand makes it a little more challenging at the start, and I like that.  I think the harvesting change is a step in the right direction.  Next, I'd like to see a risk of food poisoning from eating ruined or nearly-ruined food, even after cooking 5, and cut the calories of bad food in half, at least.  After cooking 5, it's a ridiculous "cheese" that we can eat anything except raw meat without consequences.  Remove the chance for parasites in cooked meat, but still have a penalty for eating food that's gone bad.

Edited December 7, 2023 by MrWolf

[UpUpAway95]

3 hours ago, MrWolf said:

This isn't directed at the person who wrote the quote above, but I think it's ironic that most people who are (or were) against the micro-harvesting are fine with no consequences for eating ruined food after cooking 5.  Talk about a "cheese"... leaving piles of cooked meat and filling up on it after it's ruined.  

I'm a long time Interloper player and I like the change in harvesting.  I've used the micro-harvesting at times but I generally don't.  Not being able to harvest rabbits and birds by hand makes it a little more challenging at the start, and I like that.  I think the harvesting change is a step in the right direction.  Next, I'd like to see a risk of food poisoning from eating ruined or nearly-ruined food, even after cooking 5, and cut the calories of bad food in half, at least.  After cooking 5, it's a ridiculous "cheese" that we can eat anything except raw meat without consequences.  Remove the chance for parasites in cooked meat, but still have a penalty for eating food that's gone bad.

Why not just remove the cooking skill-up altogether and acknowledge that cooking meat at level 1 should be as effective at eliminating parasites in it as it is at level 5.  The meat is cooked or it isn't.

https://www.adfg.alaska.gov/static/species/nonnative/pets/pdfs/common_wildlife_diseases_parasites.pdf

Edited December 7, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[xanna]

True, but if you're bad at cooking you might think it's cooked when it's not. That's how I rationalise it anyway, even if it doesn't really make sense that that would happen every time.

I don't micro-harvest and micro-cook as a cheese, but I micro-harvest and -cook when I am about to starve and don't have time to harvest then cook a 500g steak before losing my Well Fed. I want to be able to cut a smaller piece and cook it to tide me over while I prepare the rest of the food. Even 500g/1lb is a lot of food IRL. If I come home desperately hungry I don't put a roast in the oven and wait an hour for it, I throw something on that will only take 15 mins, and there's no way that behaviour would change in a survival situation.

Plus what I said in the other discussion - I miss finding a 1.6kg ravaged deer and harvesting two even 800g steaks from it. That really sucks, it's better for me to have two pieces, one for each slot, that cook in around the same time. I can't think of any in-world rationale for that at all.

If this has really been done consciously to prevent the micro-harvesting and -cooking cheeses then I feel pretty strongly that that was a bad choice. A better choice would have been to change the skill points to accumulate by weight, not by number of pieces. That has always made more sense as an option and seems obvious. So I wonder if this is not first and foremost anti-cheese, but more an artifact of the animations with anti-cheese effects being secondary.

Edited December 7, 2023 by xanna
typoes

[mfuegemann]

A solution to prevent micro-harvesting and allow for even slices would be a minimal harvesting size of 0.5kg and the option to increase that in 0.1kg steps.
I do miss the option to evenly split the remaining part of meat too.

[xanna]

8 minutes ago, mfuegemann said:

A solution to prevent micro-harvesting and allow for even slices would be a minimal harvesting size of 0.5kg and the option to increase that in 0.1kg steps.
I do miss the option to evenly split the remaining part of meat too.

0.5kg still takes a long while to harvest and cook, though, if you're very short of calories. Switching it to 'per x grams' rather than 'per piece' is a better fix, IMO, plus it happens completely out of sight, it doesn't introduce any change to the UI.

IMO, if a behaviour is to be discouraged, it's better to take away the incentive to do it than it is to prevent it. That way, players will do it less without any reduction in player agency.

Edited December 7, 2023 by xanna
typoooo

[Serenity]

Hacksaws are easy enough to find. I don't see the issue. And you can still harvest ravaged carcasses by hand. The only thing this may slow down a bit is getting some very early rabbit hides going (and there was a time when you couldn't easily stone rabbits). But even then you come across a hacksaw fairly soon.

[UpUpAway95]

22 minutes ago, Serenity said:

Hacksaws are easy enough to find. I don't see the issue. And you can still harvest ravaged carcasses by hand. The only thing this may slow down a bit is getting some very early rabbit hides going (and there was a time when you couldn't easily stone rabbits). But even then you come across a hacksaw fairly soon.

I've had runs in single-zones where there has been no hacksaw to be found (I just RNG'd that sort of start in Broken Railroad yesterday with item spawned pushed to their easiest level.  There was one hatchet (which is also not guaranteed any longer) and one knife (which is still a guaranteed spawn) whenever baseline resources are not set to low.  It's also inconceivable to me that a person stranded and starving in the wilderness would opt to go hunting for a hacksaw to skin a rabbit rather than find anything sharp to help them do it.  I've also found the early "mad dash to a forge in interloper" to be somewhat immersion breaking in the same way.  To me, survival is using what you find around you first - not running off to loot distant places or to show off your forging skills before you can eat.

Edited December 7, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[UpUpAway95]

Found another issue - They've taken away the option to harvest thawed quarter bags of meat by hand.  This makes no sense at all - a wolf bite out of a kill allows harvesting by hand but quartering the entire carcass somehow doesn't "dress it" or cut it open enough to harvest it by hand?  I took down one moose and my knife went from 70% to 58% condition as I harvested the completely thawed bags indoors (that's on top of whatever condition hit it took to quarter the animal).  Please HL, do something about this - either allow harvesting thawed quarter bags by hand again or significantly reduce the amount of condition loss on the tool for harvesting each individual bag (when the bags are not frozen at least).

ETA:  In case there is any question about "microharvesting" - These were 1 kg steaks, except for the 0.6 kg "leftover" steak from each bag.

Edited December 9, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Sherri]

While it does look like the harvesting changes have increased the difficulty of getting food from animal sources early on and without tools... we definitely have received more food sources with the addition of burdock and acorns. So I think that in the long run the game balance remains pretty fair.

I do agree that the animations are a bit on the gruesome side though. I thought 'harvesting animations' would mean chopping wood and picking cattails etc. For some reason I didn't even consider meat harvesting LOL. I guess I'll have to squint and bear it! Those poor bunnies...😆

[MrWolf]

11 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

HL, do something about this - either allow harvesting thawed quarter bags by hand again or significantly reduce the amount of condition loss on the tool for harvesting each individual bag (when the bags are not frozen at least).

I agree.  Once the animal is quartered, we should be able to harvest thawed quarter bags by hand.  After all, we can use our bare hands to break down a metal skillet, cooking pot, or prybar.

Edit: I did a quick test and just like the carcasses, you can harvest a small piece from a quarter bag using a tool, then harvest the rest of the bag by hand.

Edited December 9, 2023 by MrWolf

[UpUpAway95]

4 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I agree.  Once the animal is quartered, we should be able to harvest thawed quarter bags by hand.  After all, we can use our bare hands to break down a metal skillet, cooking pot, or prybar.

Edit: I did a quick test and just like the carcasses, you can harvest a small piece from a quarter bag using a tool, then harvest the rest of the bag by hand.

Nice workaround.  Thanks - probably won't save much wear and tear on the tool vs. just harvesting the whole bag in one step with the tool, but it's worth a shot.  The whole thing still makes absolutely 0 sense to me; but unless they change things, I'll just have to adapt.  It's gonna make things tougher in my 50-day, single-zone, non-loper runs, when I often find only 1 knife and no whetstone.

I can't help but feel that HL wants increasingly to pidgeon-hole me into just running all over the entire vast map world looting instead.

Edited December 9, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Stuffed Plush Chainsaw]

Well you can make the argument that if you don't use a tool to harvest you are doing it wrong anyways. Not for realism sake, but simply because you invest too much time into the harvest to make it worthwhile both from a time spent and caloric expenditure perspective.

That being said: I consider this change to be one of the worst changes made to the game, period. Simply to cram down the new harvest animations a feature previously present has to go since showing the character "harvest" an animal with bare hands would be upsetting to some people.

[MrWolf]

I found a workaround for those who don't like the new harvesting animation, but it's not going to be practical most of the time.  Harvest in a snow shelter and there's no animation or movement, just the circle like we had before.  Micro-harvesting still can't be done - canceling mid-harvest this way gives no meat.

Of course, there are risks with harvesting in a snow shelter.  Be careful doing it in an area where you might attract predators.

[xanna]

Vehicles, too

[xanna]

Another bad effect of the new uncancellable harvestimg - if your fire goes out part way in, the survivor will just carry on harvesting and get cold because you can't cancel out - bad for gameplay and anti-realistic. The more I think about this change the more I feel it's a bad choice with basically no upside. And I'm not normally a negative nelly about new stuff at all, as you guys know.

[JanoS]

@xanna -- you can cancel harvesting. You just don't get anything out of it. Very dangerous if you harvest 10kg in one go.

My microharvesting tips:

Let's say you have a 2.3kg carcass. Select maximum quantity (2.3kg), then press left arrow four times (2.3 -> 1.8 -> 1.3 -> 0.8 -> 0.3) and harvest first 0.3kg.

Carcass has 2.0kg remaining, and you stil have 0.3kg remaining. Click harvest again. Carcass has 1.7kg. Select maximum and click left 3 times (1.7 -> 1.2 -> 0.7 -> 0.2) and continue pressing HARVEST button 8-9 more times.

Voila you just got 11 steaks out of 2.3kg animal.

Rounding errors can cheat you out of last 100g of meat, so if you need every last gram, don't leave 0.1kg remainig, but harvest the whole carcass as final action.

You cannot ever exit out of harvesting, or the slider gets reset to 0.5kg again.

[xanna]

3 hours ago, JanoS said:

@xanna -- you can cancel harvesting. You just don't get anything out of it. Very dangerous if you harvest 10kg in one go.

In fact, I know this, I even said so myself:

On 12/6/2023 at 9:40 PM, xanna said:

Playing this evening I discovered/realised that the new carcass harvesting stuff means you can't cancel a meat harvest half way and get half the meat like before. If you cancel then you lose all your progress, but still advance time (like breaking down furniiture).

I should not be allowed to post last thing at night when I'm cross. Thank you for correcting me, @JanoS. Embarrassed now 😳🫣


 

[LostRealist]

On 12/7/2023 at 6:42 PM, xanna said:

True, but if you're bad at cooking you might think it's cooked when it's not. That's how I rationalise it anyway, even if it doesn't really make sense that that would happen every time.

The way I figure it works is that at a high cooking skill, you get better at hygiene. Meaning you are less likely to inadvertently transfer parasites or their eggs to places where you might ingest them directly. Realistically, this would be the major concern as far as parasites go and it makes sense that you get better at avoiding that as you get better at handling raw meat.

[xanna]

3 minutes ago, LostRealist said:

The way I figure it works is that at a high cooking skill, you get better at hygiene. Meaning you are less likely to inadvertently transfer parasites or their eggs to places where you might ingest them directly. Realistically, this would be the major concern as far as parasites go and it makes sense that you get better at avoiding that as you get better at handling raw meat.

Very interesting, that makes total sense but I never thought about it. Adding that to my headcanon. ➡️🧠

[UpUpAway95]

5 hours ago, LostRealist said:

The way I figure it works is that at a high cooking skill, you get better at hygiene. Meaning you are less likely to inadvertently transfer parasites or their eggs to places where you might ingest them directly. Realistically, this would be the major concern as far as parasites go and it makes sense that you get better at avoiding that as you get better at handling raw meat.

How is it possible to even get better at hygiene - there's no soap in the game at all.

[UpUpAway95]

Well, I've started a new challenge in Broken Railroad.  I have a hacksaw and a prybar, wolves are turned off, so no game of any kind; fish spawns are high - let's see how long I can survive on fish and cat tails; that is, how many holes the prybar will cut into the ice before it breaks.

[UpUpAway95]

11 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Well, I've started a new challenge in Broken Railroad.  I have a hacksaw and a prybar, wolves are turned off, so no game of any kind; fish spawns are high - let's see how long I can survive on fish and cat tails; that is, how many holes the prybar will cut into the ice before it breaks.

I'm starting to think the more limiting factor on this run is more likely to be matches rather than the life of the prybar (as is the case with many of my 50-day runs in one zone (unless a mag lens is found).  I haven't got a lot of clothing, so I really have to pick and choose what days I can fish - foggy is best.  Fortunately, the bear seems to be AWOL this run so far.

Also, I wanted to add that I do know I can harvest rabbits, etc. with the hacksaw; but part of the challenge is that I'm only using that tool for cutting wood and, if needeed, additional scrap metal for fish hooks.  The more limiting factor on making tackle in Broken Railroad, of course, is not scrap metal (if one does have a hacksaw) but gut is limited to the number of prop deer in the zone, which usually runs about a total of 8 and then one prop wolf can also spawn down below the broken bridge.

It's turning out to be a more interesting run than I thought it would be.  Scurvy, however, should not be a factor with the amount of fish in the diet.

The answer, I think, to my question of how long is going to be much longer than I originally thought.

[LostRealist]

12 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

How is it possible to even get better at hygiene - there's no soap in the game at all.

Which is what makes it tricky in the first place. Not placing cooked food where you had placed raw meat before would be a simple example. Not wiping your hands on your face or clothing when handling raw meat, using separate utensils for raw and cooked stuff, preparing your food in such a way that you don't splatter meat juices everywhere - kitchen hygiene goes further than the use of soap.

[UpUpAway95]

8 minutes ago, LostRealist said:

Which is what makes it tricky in the first place. Not placing cooked food where you had placed raw meat before would be a simple example. Not wiping your hands on your face or clothing when handling raw meat, using separate utensils for raw and cooked stuff, preparing your food in such a way that you don't splatter meat juices everywhere - kitchen hygiene goes further than the use of soap.

... and do you realistically think that the old meat juices from before you got Cooking 5 aren't still on the cooking surface after you attain that level of expertise or that your hands and gloves are not just that much dirtier later on in the game than they are days after starting out?  Actually, I'm surprised we don't just get arbitrarily "smelly" over the course of a run such that it doesn't matter whether or not we're packing around raw meat in that moment for a wolf to smell us.  It's a game (lol) - Level 5 cooking is just a thing people want to attain because they like the perk - not having to worry about being poisoned by 100-day old cooked meat that has, perhaps, stayed frozen, but likely has sat out on the ground exposed to the sun and maybe been even pissed on by wolves, etc. Enjoy.  Personally, I don't kill so much in advance that I can't get it eaten before it goes bad.