New Player Feedback

[megamen]

Hello,

I just started playing this game this past weekend and I wanted to say it is fantastic. I really enjoy the setting, and the gameplay is quite good.

However there are a few things I don't understand / bring me out of immersion.

1 - Why is a kilo of venison only 800 calories? I have to eat like three kilos of meat a day at that rate. A simple Google search shows the actual calorie value to be ~1580 calories per kilo.

Basically, food breaks down as follows: (all nutrients assumed to be bio-available)

Fat: 1 gram = 9 calories

Protein: 1 gram = 4 calories

Carbohydrates: 1 gram = 4 calories

Alcohol: 1 gram = 7 calories

Please make the food calorie values realistic. I have no problem with food becoming rarer to accommodate this change, keeping total calories available consistent. When you do bring down a deer and see 8 kilos of meat, I want to feel like I just hit the jackpot. I did at first, but now it seems to be just a calorie balanced activity.

2 - Clothing / crafting - Why can't I make a scarf from cloth? I hope that the crafting options are incomplete and a larger / wider array of craftables are coming.

3 - Fishing - I tried it, however I cannot seem to actually make the activity calorie positive, given you need to sit there and fish. Why don't the fishing sheds have openable doors like the ranger station, so the shed can stay warm? Also, given that people were out on the lake fishing, what happened to all of their fishing gear, especially their spools of fishing line.

4 - Cooking

A - Hot food - I love that your can eat hot food to warm up. I dislike having to exit out of the cooking menu and navigate to inventory, find which one is hot, then eat it, then go back to the fire to make my next cup of coffee. Please either let me make multiple items at the same time, or give me the option to cook and then immediately eat from the cooking menu. Also, why isnt the water hot when you boil it.

B - Water - Please give me an option to melt and then immediately boil the water (saves player time).

C - Why doesn't the cooking menu tell me how long the cooking activity will take?

5 - Weapons

A - Rifle - I love how rare it is, and how hard it is to find ammo. Please don't change this.

B - Bow / Crossbow - Why isn't there a bow or crossbow in the game? This is the type of equipment hunters would have, and it provides a way to generate additional 'ammo' (given it seems like eventually you will run out of everything). Plus, it is hardcore.

C - Snares - I love them, but I have never gotten them to work. Part of the challenge is requiring the play to have an item from a kill to make an item that allows you to obtain the first item. Honestly, I think that scavenged wire can be used to make snare (think electrical lines inside a house).

D- Other traps - I am kind of ambivalent about the inclusion of other trap types, such as deadfalls, legtraps (bear trap). Conibear traps might be a good inclusion given they are a Canadian invention. However, there would need to be alternative animals to catch.

Anyways, thanks for the great game!

Edited to add:

Why are wolves the most dangerous creature out there. It should be a M*** F**** Mountain Lion. Those solitary hunters scare the crap out of me. AND they kill people in real life too!

[jackattack]

Welcome fellow player!

I think the calorie-to-weight issue is a matter of game balance to prevent the character from walking around with a week's worth of food in his backpack.

If we can make boots from deer skins, and coats from wolf pelts, we should definitely be able to make a scarf from cloth. I think they just haven't go to it yet, like making bandages from cloth.

I think doors on fishing shacks is also a game balance issue. Shacks are meant to be equivalent to caves, not cabins. If you want to stay warm you are going to have to start a fire.

Yes, eating and drinking options in the cooking menu would be a good addition. I think we are meant to learn and remember cooking times -- cooking venison takes about twenty minutes.

You can harvest gut from a found deer carcass, and there is usually a snare to be found in Trapper's Homestead.

What if there was a single mountain lion (or other non-wof predator) per region? A unique animal that is very dangerous, but once/if killed doesn't respawn?

[bethany]

Welcome to the forums and thanks for the feedback! Some interesting stuff in there for sure.

[DenverDad]

Welcome to the forums and great feedback! I'll be shocked if mountain lions aren't added at some point.

[Hotzn]

Good thing to see feedback from a new player. The veterans probably have a totally different view on many game items/mechanics, and when you have played for a while, you look at the game in a different way, I guess. So it's good to have a fresh view on things again from time to time.

There are many discussions about realism in the game (here as well as on steam) and this or that value or mechanic not reflecting reality closely enough. I presume that many game mechanics are interdependent, and that it is difficult to change a single one since so many others will be affected as a consequence, and would have to be adjusted. It probably all starts with the levels not being as big as the real world, and that time has to run faster than in reality to adjust to this. Other things in turn have to be adjusted to this again, and this is how we end up with food having less calories per weight and so on. I presume some things just have to be a little off from reality to make everything fit together properly in terms of gameplay.

[megamen]

After thinking about it, this game is quite similar to survivor man. Especially the plane crash episode. Please add cool stuff like that to the game.

(Also, thanks for teaching me I can eat cat tail stalks!)