DLC Feedback for drops 1-4 / 6

[Hazelnut]

Introduction & context.

I absolutely love the Long Dark, it's a fantastic game like no other. I am usually a single player gamer, and my wife has zero interest in most games I play.. except for this one. I control the game and make the small decisions, but we discuss plans and approaches which allows us to have a shared adventure together which is amazing. I've played on Interloper after initially playing story mode and then 25 days on a easier survival mode, not for the difficulty but more what the Loper settings cause - making decisions matter! Make a few bad calls and you can be near death very fast. I find on the easier modes there's just too much stuff and many bad calls can be survived without too much issue. So I find Interloper gives me the most fun and keeps me on my toes so it really feels like surviving by scraping by. I did a couple of long 100+ day loper runs plus lots of shorter attempts before my wife became interested. We've done 2 runs together with the most recent TFTFT run approaching 250 days now. I'm explaining this so that this feedback is in context, as all of my playtime with the TFTFT DLC has been on Interloper settings.

Regions & tales.

Forsaken Airfield:

I liked most of this map, the buildings were great and it has a very distinct feel. Could have more do explore PoI wise, but I get the wide open expanse and less stuff for this Airfield map. Unfortunately after spending 21 days there both my wife and I were completely sick of the place, and decided to give up mapping the entire region which is what we were trying to do. The reason for this is the visibility issues, with the main culprit being the glimmer fog. Between night time, normal fog, and blizzards there's not much clear weather on Interloper post day 50. When there is, it's often extremely cold so travelling is slow as you warm up periodically. Unfortunately Glimmer Fog can roll in and take the clear weather and it happens a lot, the number of times we'd be waiting for a clear day, set out, get a hour or 2 away towards some unmapped terrain and the bloody GF would roll in. In this region with it being so flat, and GF visibility being maybe 10m, you can't navigate anywhere except the most simple routes. My only other region issue was just that the only workbench in the hangar is downstairs in darkness so you need a lantern. There's obviously lots of rooms used for maintaining aircraft so why none of them have a workbench in beats me, I think adding one on the main floor would reduce frustration of having to spend lantern fuel all the time just to pop down and craft something.

After finishing Buried Echoes tale I decided to go back and see how bad it is again. Arrived, next day was blizzard, then cleared up around 2pm and was clear so went out and bagged a 8kg doe. Next day blizzard all day, then next was clear but cold, so went out around 10am ish and popped into the cabin to pass 30 mins to warm up, glimmer fog rolled in and stayed until an hour before sundown. Next day went out a hour after sun-up, was freezing and cloudy, started heading out but got about 20m before glimmer fog rolled in. I quit the game, all fun sucked out. Next session I will leave the Airfield for good, the glimmer fog just ruins this region that you spent so long building.

The Signal Void tale was great, giving a great reason to trek around great bear and visit regions we otherwise wouldn't usually go to. Thank you for making it available for Interloper! We weren't that taken by the audio-logs honestly, I found it too confusing, but we don't care about that much - it gave us objectives to achieve by playing the game more which is fantastic to have in survival.

Zone of Contamination:

This region is brilliant, we both had a great time exploring and mapping this massive place. Glimmer Fog was still annoying but at least with so much terrain near enough around you, it's possible to navigate simple known routes by the terrain features that are just visible. The wolves make for a great challenge, both in violence as well as provisioning. We brought 120 cattails plus some cracker boxes and without the usual regular delivery of wolf meat, food was a concern again for a while until I found a bear to hunt. I think the region also makes the Ballistic Vest have some great utility now too. Never bothered with it before because it weighs so much to haul out of Blackrock, but we decided to raid the prison before heading to ZoC. The travois made it possible to transport along with other gear, and it's saved our ass several times when we ended up in poisoned wolf struggles... these desperate wolves are unpredictable and no joke!

We enjoyed exploring the mines and doing the Buried Echoes tale, but I'd really hoped that Rudiger's machine was the cause of the glimmer fog in the area and that we could turn it off as the reward for completing this tale. (discussed more later) The belt is a trophy as with only 2 slots for accessories it will rarely get used. The tale itself was fine, and gave a little shape to the order of exploration. Took me ages to find the spot for the bones though, which I think could be avoided if the text is changed from "near the" to "in front of" the waterfall. I was scouring the passage behind for a couple in game days!

Mechanics & gameplay.

Travois:

Game changer, and I love it. Have had a few glitches on slopes when I just had to quit and reload because it became inaccessible buried in the terrain, but apart from that it's a fantastic addition. (hopefully those bugs will be squished in due course) It can be a pain to pack and repack it repeatedly when constantly crossing difficult terrain, so a nice QoL feature I'd love to see added is being able to take all items and then deploy and put that exact set of items back in because the double clicking all those items is really RSI inducing. Alternatively, allow the packed travois to be picked up rather than dragged. This would tie up the players hands so bow, torches etc still can't be used, because you're carrying the packed travois at the same speed you would if unpacked and were carrying everything in one go. One of these refinements would take this item from amazing to perfect in my eyes.

Cooking:

I loved this, finding and bringing all the ingredients back to base to have a cookout. Not sure about the balancing of the recipes, especially Thompsons Stew, but I had a lot of fun. My main gripe is that the food deteriorates so fast, even when kept below freezing outside. Doesn't matter at cooking level 5 as it can be safely eaten, but whenever I picked them up or ate them it made my wife feel sick seeing the mouldy pictures so I don't bother with this much now. Ingredients are too heavy to carry around to cook on demand, so it'd be nice to have them degrade slower so they don't look gross after a couple of days.

Glimmer Fog:

I really don't like this new weather, it makes little sense, the Insomnia affliction is pointless nonsense, and the visibility dropping to nothing is incredibly annoying. It seems to override good weather rather than be a fully integrated part of the weather systems from my observations. I assume it was added so that players would have an alternative option to running around at night in an aurora. However on the airfield the visibility of GF means I'd rather be out in an aurora where I can at least see stuff. Wasn't quite so bad in new zone since you could still keep a heading since terrain features were always nearby and just barely visible which wasn't the case for much of the airfield. The gameplay effect (on Interloper at least) is terrible. It's not a challenge, it's just really tedious, boring and frustrating. Clear day after 2 days of blizzard? Wooo. Saddle up and mosey out, 1-2 hours later it's the damn GF again and the day is a bust. My wife basically stopped enjoying the game which is why we halted our mapping the airfield and left. In my opinion this is the worst feature that has ever been added to the Long Dark. Maybe it's not a big deal on other difficulties, but on Loper good exploring and mapping weather is not so common, and to have GF take 2/3 (feels like) of that exploring time and turn it into a zero visibility wait for it to end is simply tedious to the extreme.

Now I doubt that it will ever be removed from the game, so I'm not going to request anything so drastic. (though I'd definitely not miss it) However please would you consider updating Buried Echoes so that players can turn off or break the machine to permanently disable the Glimmer Fog after Buried Echos is done!! Can be a choice so those who want to can, and I think could easily make sense lore wise. (though I don't know what the plans are for the 3rd tale obviously) This is my main suggestion and constructive criticism for the DLC. If this is not acceptable, then maybe change it so it can overwrite any type of weather and not just clear days or just appear no more often than every 5 days or something. It's not challenging, or interesting... it's just boring and ruins the airfield region completely.

Tip ups:

Great, clearing ice is annoying but this makes fishing in a hut engaging again managing 2 tip ups and the main hole manually.

Scurvy:

Not played with it yet, but looking at the Interloper numbers I think this needs balancing. It will be a long time before I start a new run so can't comment myself, guess we'll see how other players find it when they get deep into a loper run.

Harvesting changes & FPP visuals:

Awesome, love seeing the gloves etc now. Long overdue but I'm guessing it was a lot of work to add. Harvesting changes and animations seem good to me. I don't like that you can't harvest quarter bags of meat with hands until cut though, seems like a bug.

 

General thoughts & summary.
I can see why the team hasn't kept to the original schedule, they're obviously taking the time to make something amazing rather that meeting the basic brief by the original deadlines. I know you have taken some flak for this, but from my perspective I am absolutely thrilled at the new content, and have my moneys worth already even without the last 2 drops.

I'd love to see a second DLC once this one is done, as my wife and I love playing this game and having new regions to explore as well as objectives to achieve. My previous longest run is around 130 days before I stopped playing because there seemed nothing left to strive for. I could survive indefinitely, had explored all regions and was done. With 4/6 of the DLC still got stuff to do at almost 250 days! Most looking forward to 3rd region+tale as well as the base customisation.

Thank you for the hours of entertainment Hinterland, and I hope you find this feedback useful and well thought out.

Edited January 26 by Hazelnut
grammar

[Leeanda]

Welcome to the forum..😊.  

I have to agree on the glimmer fog,and switching off the machine to stop it would be a neat idea..  it's not just loper that has that issue ,my son had a pilgrim run and had to abandon it because there was just nothing for him to do..if it wasn't the fog it was blizzards...  

I'm not a fan of it personally but I did ask for it to be added to the accessibility options as it gives me extremely bad headaches..no news on that yet but fingers crossed..

I'm glad you and your wife enjoy the game and can play it together,it's a beautiful game .

 

[Hazelnut]

1 hour ago, Leeanda said:

Welcome to the forum..😊.  

I have to agree on the glimmer fog,and switching off the machine to stop it would be a neat idea..  it's not just loper that has that issue ,my son had a pilgrim run and had to abandon it because there was just nothing for him to do..if it wasn't the fog it was blizzards...  

I'm not a fan of it personally but I did ask for it to be added to the accessibility options as it gives me extremely bad headaches..no news on that yet but fingers crossed..

I'm glad you and your wife enjoy the game and can play it together,it's a beautiful game .

 

Thanks for the welcome, been lurking for years and felt I finally had things I wanted to say that (hopefully) will be read by the devs so I registered.

It certainly is a beautiful game, and the time we spend together playing is very precious. I wish I could find another game she'd enjoy, I'll keep trying but nothing has worked except TLD.

Edited January 26 by Hazelnut
fix typo, grammar

[Leeanda]

Well I'm glad you finally joined us😊.   

It can be hard to find the right games . My son and I rarely like the same games either.. we used to play call of duty but now we cant get the console to register two players .. 

I hope you can find something else too,  tld is a pretty unique game in a lot of ways..

[James Hickok]

Wow great effort in your feedback. I have only read FA so far and correct me wrong but you dont need light to craft in the basement. Its dark but you can still craft during day. 

I will read the rest soon !! 

Welcome to the forums. 

[James Hickok]

On 1/26/2024 at 6:58 PM, Hazelnut said:

Scurvy:

Not played with it yet, but looking at the Interloper numbers I think this needs balancing. It will be a long time before I start a new run so can't comment myself, guess we'll see how other players find it when they get deep into a loper run.

Playing on loper till 250 had no problems with scurvy what so ever. I even made some science on that run and didnt pick any of the rosehips , mushrooms, birch bark. Didnt consume any of the human food - just hauled it to main base and still had no problem containing scurvy. You just need to fish from time to time. If you get scurvy affliction you have 5 days to "start fishing" on interloper difficulty so even if you are in a region that does not allow fishing you have time to go to a fishing spot. Or just carry birch bark and rose hips with you but its not that efficient as fish are. 

OPn my nogoa run current day 60 i didnt get scurvy affliction yet but i eat everything i can find so.... 

[deviro_verity]

This is one of the best pieces of feedback I've seen. Can't agree more with the Travois and GF suggestions.

[Hazelnut]

On 1/28/2024 at 9:30 AM, James Hickok said:

Wow great effort in your feedback. I have only read FA so far and correct me wrong but you dont need light to craft in the basement. Its dark but you can still craft during day. 

I will read the rest soon !! 

Welcome to the forums. 

You don't need a light to craft (during the day) down there, even though it's pitch black. However I find I need to light the lantern to navigate my way to and from the workbench. Adds up over time, and just irritated me. 🙂

[Hazelnut]

On 2/14/2024 at 5:46 PM, deviro_verity said:

This is one of the best pieces of feedback I've seen. Can't agree more with the Travois and GF suggestions.

Thanks, let's see if Hinterland agree...

Edited February 26 by Hazelnut
typo

[dominik89]

Will the new update come in March or will we wait until June? As you know, the 5th episode is in the future in December. And how many more DLC updates will come? 2?

[rush247]

17 minutes ago, dominik89 said:

Will the new update come in March or will we wait until June? As you know, the 5th episode is in the future in December. And how many more DLC updates will come? 2?

I'd say June would be a fair estimate.  Given they want to be done with the Switch port by April and anything else will have to wait till after that so that they're not left behind anymore.  As for any official word on it, we haven't seen any since last December.

Edited March 17 by rush247

[dominik89]

If the new update will come in June, all unreleased DLC add-ons will arrive in June. The 3rd episode, hunting with Merchant, Puma and the new map, seems to put a lot of pressure on the team. And the story continues.There needs to be some more updates before the new game for Long Dark.

[Mistral]

On 3/18/2024 at 12:25 AM, dominik89 said:

As you know, the 5th episode is in the future in December.

In theory...

[Semple Fi]

I’d like to see another workbench added to FA.  Most natural places would be Junkers Paddock, outside the Cargomasters trailer, or inside justy’s hovel.  I’m sure these could be balanced with indoor vs. outdoor placement, specifically with the Cargomasters trailer.  
Outdoor placement would need a fire barrel for this region   

Another option would be a craft able work bench.  Requires a heavy hammer and 15-20 pieces of scrap metal and several hours of labor, add a decay rate based on usage (~0.5-1% per crafted hour).  This would equate to 2 bearskin bedrolls and a moose hide cloak with a few arrows thrown in for good measure at a minimum, double that for a 0.5% decay rate.  
Make the bench repairable and we are on to something.  

[PilgrimReaper]

Seeing as one just got added to Drift Island, somehow I wouldn't expect any more such additions...

It is true that it is very difficult to make a reliable fire outside in the region, I always assumed it was by design.