Harvesting animations are great! What if we expand?

[ArsenicMonkey]

Now that the devs have implemented harvesting animations, what other animations can be added to heighten immersion? Would eating and drinking animations be a good adition or just useless work? This question can be applied for many actions in the game that could become an animation instead of a spinning wheel. Here are a couple exemples or actions in the game: Starting a fire, repairing clothes, eating, drinking, harvesting materials, etc. I would like to hear what you guys think! I also what to know if its worth the devs efforts.

[piddy3825]

...cant really say that I'm impressed with the new animal harvesting animations. They feel clunky and kinda spasmodic at best and there's no sense of timeliness as it all ends so abruptly.   On top of that, now that we have gloved animations, why is every animal harvest done bare handed?  I'm all for animations that make a game more immersive but if this is benchmark for the quality level of their work, I'd rather see them dedicate their efforts elsewhere.  If anything at all, I'd just like to be able sit down on a chair or bench and be able to look around the room.  Now that would be immersive, am I right?

[Enigmaecho]

8 hours ago, ArsenicMonkey said:

Now that the devs have implemented harvesting animations, what other animations can be added to heighten immersion? Would eating and drinking animations be a good adition or just useless work? This question can be applied for many actions in the game that could become an animation instead of a spinning wheel. Here are a couple exemples or actions in the game: Starting a fire, repairing clothes, eating, drinking, harvesting materials, etc. I would like to hear what you guys think! I also what to know if its worth the devs efforts.

I like the new animations and the more immersive direction they’re heading Raph had implied they are looking to tackle other things as well for me I’d love to see gun cleaning and sharpening and chopping wood  fire would be great too not to many options between fuel tinder and starter, don’t think those would be too taxing and they are activities we do constantly, imo it would probably be too much work to have repair for all the different clothes or tools and for eating animations so I don’t think they’d make it and to draw the positives from piddy I too would love to be able to sit in chairs and lie in beds to see the pov from them, idk if you noticed but they snuck a new rifle animation in as well, the way you draw and holster is different and if you want a bit of fire immersion you can light a match then light the fire using the match as the ignition source and you’ll flick it in starting the fire, I figured that out just recently goofing around 👍

Edited December 7, 2023 by Enigmaecho

[acada]

6 hours ago, piddy3825 said:

 On top of that, now that we have gloved animations, why is every animal harvest done bare handed?

I think it is because one should take off gloves when working with blood. Wet gloves are not good in my opinion. And stench of the blood on gloves is greate predators attraction.

But I do miss the time circle. I want to cut 200 grams steak, but how?

[UpUpAway95]

42 minutes ago, acada said:

I think it is because one should take off gloves when working with blood. Wet gloves are not good in my opinion. And stench of the blood on gloves is greate predators attraction.

But I do miss the time circle. I want to cut 200 grams steak, but how?

I've never been a fan of the microharvesting, but I do agree with the no gloves comment.  I would also love to be able to cancel part way through the animation in case a storm blows in while I'm harvesting.  I think there are better ways to disallow the microharvesting (although I don't think HL was focused on that particular issue but rather it being disallowed is just a side effect on the new animations).

I would prefer they got rid of the needing a tool even to harvest small game and instead force players to first quarter large game (which already required a tool).  They could make then just make an exception for the prop deer, allowing players to harvest those as before and adjust the time it takes to quarter so that it takes a lot less time to quarter a doe than it takes to quarter a bear.

They could set whatever minimum steak size they wanted when harvesting the quarter bags and just make such that any "leftovers" smaller than the minimum just disappear and get lost.  The "savvy" player could then ensure the leftovers get processed by adding them to the last steak in the bag - making it slightly larger than the rest.  If they wanted to legitimize microharvesting then, all they would need to do is set a very small minimum steak size.

[Leeanda]

Not a fan of the camera wobble,  or the look of the poor bunnies ..but I guess that's the way it would look in real life....

It'd be neat if we could put birds and bunnies on a workbench or table and harvest them too.

[UpUpAway95]

17 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

Not a fan of the camera wobble,  or the look of the poor bunnies ..but I guess that's the way it would look in real life....

It'd be neat if we could put birds and bunnies on a workbench or table and harvest them too.

I'm not a fan of the character attempting to shake the blood of his hands (I'm sure Astrid does the same, but I haven't played a run with her yet).  Still, in my mind, it's just not something Will or Astrid would do, particularly after spending hundreds of days in the bush.

[Leeanda]

8 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I'm not a fan of the character attempting to shake the blood of his hands (I'm sure Astrid does the same, but I haven't played a run with her yet).  Still, in my mind, it's just not something Will or Astrid would do, particularly after spending hundreds of days in the bush.

Yes Astrid does the same thing..

It's not much different to standing inside to harvest them....kind of like food prep..I mean you could in theory also harvest the bags of meat at a table too.. there are chopping boards in some houses..

Edited December 7, 2023 by Leeanda

[ManicManiac]

5 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

...kind of like food prep... I mean you could in theory also harvest the bags of meat at a table too... there are chopping boards in some houses...

@Leeanda
You know... good point.
Those are some good roleplaying opportunities.
I will have to remember start getting into that habit/work it into my playstyle. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by ManicManiac

[JanoS]

You can sort-of microharvest by playing with quantity of meat. First select maximum by clicking the right arrow many times, then click the left arrow until you get minimum. 

 

Example for 1.2kg rabbit: 0 > 0.5 > 1 > 1.2 < 0.7 < 0.2

Then you can continue harvesting 0.2kg steaks many times.
So if you find a deer with 4.1kg of meat, you can harvest 41 steaks.

[Leeanda]

3 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

@Leeanda
You know... good point.
Those are some good roleplaying opportunities.
I will have to remember start getting into that habit/work it into my playstyle. 

Thank you😊. 

 

Given the stats on your run I imagine harvesting anything hasn't been done for some time?

[ManicManiac]

@Leeanda
Once Blackrock is done, my trip down Memory Lane will be complete.
At that point... I do think I will retire the run (scurvy awaits).
The original idea was to dovetail this run into my first explorations of the Far Territory, and once done with Memory Lane just lift all the personal challenge restrictions that I had put on it up to that point. 

In either case... once I'm done with Blackrock.  I'm going weapons free, I will actually start hunting/harvesting plants again, finally start experimenting with all the new systems & items (cooking, tip-ups, lures, etc...).  

You know, I think you're right... I think it's been nearly 2 years since I the last time I used a weapon in this game. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by ManicManiac

[Leeanda]

2 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

@Leeanda
Once Blackrock is done, my trip down Memory Lane will be complete.
At that point... I do think I will retire the run.
The original idea was to dovetail this run into my first explorations of the Far Territory, and once done with Memory Lane just lift all the personal challenge restrictions that I had put on it up to that point. 

In either case... once I'm done with Blackrock.  I'm going weapons free, I will actually start hunting/harvesting plants again, finally start experimenting with all the new systems & items (cooking, tip-ups, lures, etc...).  

You know, I think you're right... I think it's been nearly 2 years since I the last time I used a weapon in this game. 

Two years is a long time , especially in this game..but even more so on stalker..     you've definitely earned the pacifist badge 😁

[UpUpAway95]

27 minutes ago, Leeanda said:

Yes Astrid does the same thing..

It's not much different to standing inside to harvest them....kind of like food prep..I mean you could in theory also harvest the bags of meat at a table too.. there are chopping boards in some houses..

Providing a "standing at a workbench" option would be nice, but it would require the game to "know" to change the animation if the player is inside near a workbench (unless they make such that the player has to open the workbench to trigger the animation (and that would mean too interfaces open at the same time.

Not sure though what that has to do with my dislike of their choice to make Will/Astrid look squeamish about having a little bit of blood on their hands - "Out, out d* spot" to quote MacBeth.😀I find it disrupts my immersion more than enhances it.

[ManicManiac]

@Leeanda
...being able to use the travois to haul deer/wolf carcasses to more ideal locations to harvest might be nice for some folks as well... 🤔

[Leeanda]

2 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Providing a "standing at a workbench" option would be nice, but it would require the game to "know" to change the animation if the player is inside near a workbench (unless they make such that the player has to open the workbench to trigger the animation (and that would mean too interfaces open at the same time.

Not sure though what that has to do with my dislike of their choice to make Will/Astrid look squeamish about having a little bit of blood on their hands - "Out, out d* spot" to quote MacBeth.😀I find it disrupts my immersion more than enhances it.

My apologies I thought the last sentence in that comment referred to using the workbench..  

Which I agree would be harder to implement..

Maybe the shaking blood off could be tied to harvesting levels?   The higher level you are the less likely you are to do it.

Level one - hand shaking and wretching noises😁 

Level 5 - clean hands and maybe a yawn 😄 (. No idea there but you get my point..I hope)

 

[Leeanda]

5 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

@Leeanda
...being able to use the travois to haul deer/wolf carcasses to more ideal locations to harvest might be nice for some folks as well... 🤔

It certainly would... I've asked before why we can't pick up wolves and move them.. 

I'm not sure if we can place things on it at the moment though.ive only done it from inventory.. maybe one day😊

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

My apologies I thought the last sentence in that comment referred to using the workbench..  

Which I agree would be harder to implement..

Maybe the shaking blood off could be tied to harvesting levels?   The higher level you are the less likely you are to do it.

Level one - hand shaking and wretching noises😁 

Level 5 - clean hands and maybe a yawn 😄 (. No idea there but you get my point..I hope)

 

Tying it to level or even just the number of days passed in the world would make more sense to me and make it more immersive, for sure.  Still not sure why they chose that sort of animation to begin with.  I would have preferred just taking out a rag (presumably from cloth in inventory) and just wiping the hands clean if they had to show something about the character's reaction at all.  I mean, I'm sure Will is used to at least having oil on his hands from working on his plane and Astrid is/was a doctor of some kind, wasn't she?  It just seems really out of character to me.

ETA:  Also, didn't Will calmly pull a metal chard out of his hand at the beginning of Wintermute? - Which leads me to think that maybe one way to handle the "can't harvest without a tool" bit is to allow us to craft metal chards out of scrap metal without the need of a workbench or tools (i.e. just by picking up sharp pieces of metal lying around) and then use that to start dressing game.

ETA2:  Or perhaps we could be allowed to knap a stone into a sharp stone and open the hides of small game that way.  In reality, given the geology of BC, we should be able to just find stones sharp enough to cut into a rabbit hide.

 

Edited December 7, 2023 by UpUpAway95

[Leeanda]

6 minutes ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Tying it to level or even just the number of days passed in the world would make more sense to me and make it more immersive, for sure.  Still not sure why they chose that sort of animation to begin with.  I would have preferred just taking out a rag (presumably from cloth in inventory) and just wiping the hands clean if they had to show something about the character's reaction at all.  I mean, I'm sure Will is used to at least having oil on his hands from working on his plane and Astrid is/was a doctor of some kind, wasn't she?  It just seems really out of character to me.

You have a point there.. I'm sure they're both used to being messy..   

I don't mind the new one too much but I still prefer it the way it was.

[piddy3825]

7 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

 I would also love to be able to cancel part way through the animation in case a storm blows in while I'm harvesting. 

yeah, that would have come in pretty handy considering I was attacked by a bear during one of my first harvesting experiences.   I could hear the bear approaching and I was looking all over for a cancel button so I could address the threat, but then suddenly both animations kinda collided and I was next being viciously mauled but somehow miraculously was able to harvest the complete deer while only dropping one length of gut in the process... 

This "improvement" needs some additional tlc in order to work and look better.  I'm not impressed.

[itsLydt]

I wish we could disable the animations 🙃 I just made a post about it but as much as I thought they would be a good addition, the camera lurching around is very motion sickness inducing. I have to look away or close my eyes every time I harvest now or stop playing the game because the camera shaking around makes me sick. I hope they rework the animations or allow us to disable them before thinking of adding more