Question 😊

[ElOnTld]

Do you guys think it's cheating to use online maps during a survival mode save? I'm in DP on one of my current saves, and I'm planning on going to CH at some point, but I don't exactly know the way...

[SpanishMoss]

The beauty of this game is that it is single-player, so you get to choose the experience you want to have. 

So use maps if you just want to get from place to place, or if you enjoy the struggle, try discovering the map on your own!

[Leeanda]

The only way to play is the way you want to ..   I still use maps for hrv,I always get lost in there even after 5 years lol.. and I used them too for some of the cairns.. 

[ThePancakeLady]

Honestly, no. I don't think it's cheating. The same way I don't think watching Lets Plays of the game, or looking at the Wiki for this game (or any other) is cheating. It's a singleplayer game- we aren't competing with anyone else. There are no leaderboards. And we all play for our own reasons, and enjoy our own things in the game.

If using online maps help you learn the world, use them. If watching Let's Plays helps you compare different strategies and develop your own- watch them. If getting more detailed info from the Wiki helps you understand how and why things work or don't work- read it. Your game is your own, and no one should tell you how to play it. Do what works for you, what makes the game more enjoyable for you. No one will know if you are using an online map if you don't tell them, anyway.

[Pyroxene]

No. It's not cheating. Is it better to not being able to progress?

[xanna]

Not cheating of course, it's your game, you decided if that's a rule for you or not.

For me, I tried to avoid using online maps for a long time, because that feeling of being properly lost is awesome and once you know your way around there's no getting back to it. But you should do whatever you want!

[Kranium]

impossible to cheat on a single player game. (unless you're comparing stats to other players, in a competitive manner)

 

Personally, I would never use an online map until I had fully mapped an area myself first. After that, fair game. I think the in-game maps suck, honestly. Nowhere near enough detail, they're basically vague smudges. One can easily write relatively detailed thin-lined maps on birch bark with a pointy stick, something I remember doing in Scouts back when I was a kid in the early 70s.

 

[Veskaida]

The Long Dark is a singleplayer game, so knock yourself out. The only person you can be 'cheating' is yourself. The only real way to "cheating" in TLD is if you are trying to pass off your gameplay as something it isn't (e.g. if you break the rules in some community made "Speedrun" category). So do whatever you want with your characters or saves, etc, or don't if you feel that goes against the spirit of the game.

Personally I feel that TLD doesn't require 3rd party mapping since Charcoal Mapping was added. IMO part of the fun of TLD is in that there is no compass and the map (in Survival) lacks a player indication marker. Getting lost is part of the game, especially in adverse weather. I think it's safe to assume that in TLD's 'bible' there are key game design points about these features deliberately lacking to promote the developer's goals of the kind of experience they want.

Edited October 26 by Veskaida