Feats Guide and Tier List

[Veskaida]

Been thinking a lot about Feats since since Part 5 of "Tales From The Far Territory" released, and wanted to make a post here to hear other's thoughts on the subject. Hopefully you find the information interesting or useful. What are your thoughts on The Long Dark's Feats? How would you rate them? Do you have a favorite or least favorite?

 

Feats are a form of meta-progression in TLD. You earn credit for Feats by actions in-game in any Survival Sandbox or Challenges (even if you die!) except for Custom Sandbox. Play in Wintermute (Story Mode) also does not grant Feat credit. The "Dark Walker" feat is unique in that it cannot be unlocked from Survival Sandbox, instead requiring completion of the "Escape the Darkwalker" Challenge Mode.

Once you've unlocked a Feat, you can "activate" it when creating a new Survival Sandbox. The amount of available Feats Slots is based on which Survival Mode. Feats cannot be added or changed in an existing sandbox.

• Pilgrim: 5 Feat Slots
• Voyageur: 4 Feat Slots
• Stalker: 3 Feat Slots
• Interloper: 2 Feat Slots
• Misery: 0 Feat Slots

 

S Tier - Consistent and Game-Changingly Strong

• Cold Fusion: +2°C Air Temperature Bonus at all times. Cold is the main hazard in TLD, both in chip damage and lethality. Protects Condition by slowing Warmth drain, making more of the day warmer, and staying warm in more locations easier/safer (especially early game). For comparison Wool Toque (2°C Warmth) is one of the best clothings and Cold Fusion gives an stronger bonus since Air Temperature affects Warmth 'and' Windchill (Wind Strength * Air Temperature * Constant).
  • Unlock Difficulty 2/5: Spent 100 days outside, basically anti-cabin fever to unlock.
• Settled Mind: makes you immune to Cabin Fever affliction and reduces Research Book read times by 20% (e.g. 4 hours instead of 5). The Research bonus is irrelevant, but removing Cabin Fever eliminates a core gameplay loop: simplifying decision making and protecting Condition on harder (colder) game modes, especially in regions with minimal outdoors shelter (CH, FA, SP). Makes recovering from long-term or dangerous afflictions safer/easier, especially those which require rest (food poisoning, etc). Also makes it considerably easier to pass large amounts of time indoors, e.g. if you are 'trying to survive for 1,000 days'.
  • Unlock Difficulty 5/5: requires the final Tale 3 "Final Horizon", though if you've completed Tales 1-2 (Signal Void, Buried Echoes) you can proceed towards Final Horizon immediately as soon as you pick up the Handheld Shortwave.

A Tier - Consistent and Strong or Situational and Game Changingly Strong

• Efficient Machine: reduces Calorie cost of all activities by 10%, including the passive calorie burn when awake/asleep, walking/sprinting, climbing, breaking down furniture, etc. A slight Condition boost and time saver, making existing food last longer and maintaining Well Fed benefit easier. Useless once Starving, and is less useful once reaching Cooking Skill 5 or if you have a glut of food. Starving also is a slow Condition loss (1% per hour). Was more useful pre-Scurvy. Effect stacks with "Free Runner" Feat.
  • Unlock Difficulty 2/5: Survive 500 days (across any number of sandboxes).

• Blizzard Walker: 25% Speed reduction when walking into the wind. TLD has a bug/mechanic where medium strength winds slow the player down the most (when walking head-on into them), but e.g. during a Blizzard where windspeed is maximized has no effect on player movement). Windspeed and direction is randomized, being higher and changing more frequently on harder game modes. Some regions (BI, FA) are much more windy than others, but can get use in all regions randomly.
  • Unlock Difficulty 2/5: pent 20 days outdoors in Blizzards. Paradoxically easier to unlock on harder modes (where Blizzards are more common).
• Big Cat Killer: Reduces wildlife detection radius (sight, smell, and sound) by ~50%. Makes it considerably easier to sneak around wolves, bear, etc. You can easily Crouch up to rabbit/ptarmigan to stone them in the face, or to sneak within ~10m of a Deer before it flees (makes Level 5 Archery hunting effortless). Has less effect against Aurora wildlife (Aurora Timberwolves especially) since they still have large detection radii. Can paradoxically lead to 'more' deaths by failing to be detected by wildlife in areas with steep terrain or line-of-sight blockers, and bypss their detection radius and walk into their attack radius. (e.g. walking up a hill to where a wolf is, and it charges immediately)
  • Unlock Difficulty 5/5: Kill 3 Cougar. Cougars were very dangerous and their affliction was deadly. As of my writing this Cougars are disabled, but once they are re-implemented I'll reply to this post if this feat, unlock criteria or Cougar's threat level changes.

B - Consistent and Mediocre or Situational and Strong

• Snow Walker: Stamina recharges 20% faster. Mainly useful for Sprinting early game on Stalker/Interloper, can save your life, but Sprinting is not something which can/should be spammed (because of Fatigue drain). Does 'not' affect the delay between Stamina being spent and regenerating, so it is more efficient to Sprint until Stamina is fully depleted than to sprint many times in short bursts, which can be difficult to do optimally since the Stamina Meter is not displayed by default unless it was spent recently.
  • Unlock Difficulty 3/5: Travel 1,000 kilometers. Takes a lot of walking to unlock, but you'll be walking pretty much constantly indoors and out in TLD.

C - Consistent and Weak or Situational and Mediocre

• Celestial Navigator: Grants a +10% movement speed when walking or crouching (not Sprinting), but only at night and the "Clear" or "Aurora" weather.
  • Note "Day" in TLD lasts from dawn when the horizontal spoke of the 'sun' icon crosses the horizon line (6am) till several hours after sunset (8:30pm) so it is 14.5 hours long, and night from 8:30pm - 6am or only 9.5 hours.
  • Unlock Difficulty 5/5: requires the final Tale 3 "Final Horizon", though if you've completed Tales 1-2 (Signal Void, Buried Echoes) you can proceed towards Final Horizon immediately as soon as you pick up the Handheld Shortwave

• Free Runner: -25% Calorie cost to Sprinting. Makes sprinting more calorie efficient than walking, but similar to Snow Walker, sprinting is not something which can/should be performed constantly due to it's Fatigue drain. Has no effect if Calories are already at 0 when Sprinting. Effect stacks with "Efficient Machine" Feat.
  • Unlock Difficulty 1/5 Sprint 50km
• Straight To The Heart: The increases the 'duration' of many (mostly Fatigue) consumables to last 25% longer. Main problem with STTH is all of it's items are situational and non-renewable. Once all these resources are consumed up this feat is useless.
  • Coffee: -25% Fatigue loss for 60 -> 75 minutes. By far the most abundant of these, especially on easier Game Modes.
  • Acorn Coffee: -25% Fatigue loss 30 -> 37.5 minutes. Takes a lot of time/steps to process, less useful to spend acorns on coffee than Prepper's Pie.
  • Go! Energy Drink: -25% Fatigue loss 45 -> 56.25 minutes. Quite rare item on Pilgrim-Stalker, does not spawn on Interloper Mode.
  • Emergency Stim: 60 -> 75 real-time seconds. Probably the most useful of these effects, and probably the most powerful item in the game. +25% duration is pretty powerful and allows sprinting even further distances, but does not affect Condition recovered.
  • Unlock Difficulty 2/5: Consume 250 Coffee, Acorn Coffee, Go! Energy Drink or Emergency Stim. Coffee is by far the most abundant of these items if you are trying to spam this.

• Fire Master: Start with Fire Starting Skill of 3 (instead of 1). Basically beg the game having lit 50 fires, for a +25% Fire Starting bonus, 10% burn time,and making Tinder irrelevant. Becomes useless the longer the game continues, since non-Fire Masters can naturally reach 3 Skill and eventually both reach 5 Skill making it totally meaningless. I'd recommend 'not' taking this and instead spamming campfires with sticks to level up your skill instead.
  • Very useful on short runs you do not intend to play late-game, but very bad opportunity cost late-game. In world you do not intend to play beyond ~50 days survived I'd consider it S-tier.
  • Unlock Difficulty 4/5: requires lighting 1,000 fires (not torches/flares/matches, only making/lighting Campfires, Potbelly Stove, Fire Barrel, 6 burner Stove, etc.). Not difficult to unlock by gathering Sticks and spamming Campfires with a lit torch, but tedious/time consuming.

D - Consistent and Inconsequential or Situational and Weak

• Book Smarts: +1 Skill Point for each book you finish reading. Skills are very strong this benefit is extremely minor and becomes useless once you max out all of your skills.
  • Unlock Difficulty 2/5: easier on Pilgrim/Voyageur where Research Books spawn more frequently. "Advanced Guns! Guns! Guns!" gives 24 hours of research credit per copy.
• Expert Trapper: Doubles the chance of catches a Rabbit with snares. Every 12 hours snares have a 50% chance to catch a rabbit, 35% chance to not catch, and 15% chance to break. Rabbit Groves also have a hard limit for how many rabbits can be caught (usually 2-4, up to 6 on easier difficulties); spamming snares rapidly experiences diminishing returns (and wasted time/cured guts). So this benefit can be achieved simply by spamming more Snares in a Rabbit Grove.
  • Unlock Difficulty 2/5: Snare 100 Rabbits. Quite easy to unlock since Rabbits can yield a gut to cure and the reclaimed wood is never consumed, just spam snares in areas with multiple Rabbit Groves.

F - Joke Tier or Actively Detrimental

• Darkwalker: x2 Fatigue drain during the day, x0.5 Fatigue drain at night. The main problem with Darkwalker is night temperatures are generally colder (costing more fuel/Condition), and Auroras can occur which are quite dangerous be it wildlife or electrified wires/water. Situationally higher Fatigue drain can be beneficial with the "Rest as a Resource" mechanic, e.g. deliberately sprinting/holding a climbing rope to drain Fatigue so that you can sleep more to restore Condition, but this is situational and Darkwalker is active more often than it is not and can be quite debilitating if you need to travel.
  • Note "Day" in TLD lasts from dawn when the horizontal spoke of the 'sun' icon crosses the horizon line (6am) till several hours after sunset (8:30pm) so it is 14.5 hours long, and night from 8:30pm - 6am or only 9.5 hours.
  • Darkwalker feat is quite strong in Custom Sandbox games with the "Endless Night" setting enabled; in world with such a setting I'd consider it S-tier.
  • Unlock Difficulty 3/5: complete the Challenge "Escape the Darkwalker", which requires collecting all 10 Diary pages and then banishing The Darkwalker.

[Leeanda]

I think they're equally relevant ,it's just a matter of play style in general,and for suiting specific custom runs.. so joke and weak I feel is a bit harsh..

I use blizzard walker,snow walker ,free runner,and cold fusion every run..but if I'm starting a run in the far territories I'll choose fire master too.. if I don't start there I'll pick efficient machine.. 

Two reasons I pick those is a.because I'm impatient and run a lot and b.i tend to spend a lot more time in PV than I realized and anything that helps me get through those blizzards is a huge bonus lol..

I have tried celestial navigator and it's a pretty good one but I don't really travel at night .

[Cr41g]

I have always use Cold Fusion and Efficient Machine in interloper and Stalker I throw in Settled Mind...

[ThePancakeLady]

Add Custom Settings- 5 Feats. Which is why (IMHO) many players like a to play a Custom game- maximum Feats available, regardless of the settings you choose to use.

[The Feng Hunter]

Tier lists are relevant to yourself and yourself, only.

Youre essentially saying: “Run these ‘strongest’ things, only. The rest are irrelevant,” without considering any kind of synergistic combinations or roleplay desires on behalf of the other players.

That’s legit too bad.

[SafeAgain]

enjoy

[Smellyfries]

Darkwalker is honestly my favorite feat. I love the concept of a feat that has a bonus and negative to really mix up your playstyle. I just got the Celestial navigator perk, so now I want to do a run with both Darkwalker and Celestial navigator, and become one with the Night! 

Feels a little harsh putting Darkwalker on the bottom in a "Activly detrimental" tier, when it clearly has its use, and when utilized properly, can be a great feat overall, even on non endless night modes. 

[SafeAgain]

34 minutes ago, Smellyfries said:

Darkwalker is honestly my favorite feat. I love the concept of a feat that has a bonus and negative to really mix up your playstyle. I just got the Celestial navigator perk, so now I want to do a run with both Darkwalker and Celestial navigator, and become one with the Night! 

Feels a little harsh putting Darkwalker on the bottom in a "Activly detrimental" tier, when it clearly has its use, and when utilized properly, can be a great feat overall, even on non endless night modes. 

 

maybe it would have been it was split 50/50 between day and night, but right now you get the buff for less hours than the debuf. plus night is more difficult and dangerous, and there is no maglens

[Veskaida]

On 11/4/2024 at 5:37 AM, Cr41g said:

I have always use Cold Fusion and Efficient Machine in interloper and Stalker I throw in Settled Mind...

I agree. This has been my favorite combo for many years, and looking at other 'Loper players or guides it seems very popular. Post Part 5 of TFTFT, I really love Settled Mind + Cold Fusion. It's probably less optimal mechanically, but the convenience of simplifying the gameplay loop to ignore Cabin Fever is amazing. Some of my closest calls before have been e.g. getting Hypothermia 'and' Cabin Fever, or Food Poisoning and Cabin Fever, and being able to eliminate most of those Affliction collisions is super valuable.

38 minutes ago, Smellyfries said:

Darkwalker is honestly my favorite feat. I love the concept of a feat that has a bonus and negative to really mix up your playstyle. I just got the Celestial navigator perk, so now I want to do a run with both Darkwalker and Celestial navigator, and become one with the Night! 

Feels a little harsh putting Darkwalker on the bottom in a "Activly detrimental" tier, when it clearly has its use, and when utilized properly, can be a great feat overall, even on non endless night modes. 

By "Actively Detrimental" I mean that having the Feat active will cause more harm on average than good. Because of how TLD's day/night hours are designed, there are more Day hours than Night, so assuming it's positives/negatives were equivalent (I'd argue they're not), even then TLD's base mechanics are creating bias against a feat like this being 'good'.

Maybe I should have mentioned Darkwalker in more detail (or some notable Feat synergies) in their own sub-section. I love the 'idea' of an endless night world, and have played with Darkwalker extensively (less so with Celestial Navigator). My rating for Darkwalker was in a 'vanilla' world, though I did include a line clarifying in and "Endless Night" world that I'd consider Darkwalker as S-Tier. Some of my gripes for Darkwalker being so poor are because of how buggy Endless Night as a setting is (e.g. Intestinal Parasites are incurable), though even if e.g. the 14.5 day/9.5 night hour cycle was reversed in TLD, I'd probably still consider Darkwalker to be more bad than good simply because it can lead to situations where the player would want (or need) high Fatigue and the feat actively fights against them. Though, I did also mention that losing Fatigue can be beneficial (for Healing/passing time), but spamming Sprint or holding onto a Climbing Rope is more efficient than this (and can't really backfire).

On 11/18/2024 at 1:39 PM, The Feng Hunter said:

Tier lists are relevant to yourself and yourself, only.

I disagree. Individual players will always have their own unique variance, preference, skill level, play-style, and game mode/world settings (maybe platform), but unless a game is perfectly balanced (never is) some choices will objectively be better than others. Maybe not for 'all' players/playstyles, but to not even attempt to quantify what is good/bad is ignoring gameplay balance entirely. There might be even be opportunity costs (e.g. can only choose 2 Feats), but I didn't provide 'just' a tier list, but thoughts for each explaining their less-telegraphed mechanics or nuances/niche situations.

If you have your own separate Tier List/preferences, information you think is factually wrong, or points you disagree with, I think that that would be more constructive criticism that trying to disregard the subject entirely.

On 11/18/2024 at 1:39 PM, The Feng Hunter said:

Youre essentially saying: “Run these ‘strongest’ things, only. The rest are irrelevant,”

Nobody said this but you. If you read the descriptions of each "Tier", organized them (similar to FilthyRobot's tier list style) based on multiple factors: like if a Feat is extremely powerful but highly situational. Consistency and variance are important to consider, and my notes include details on when/why a player might want to consider an otherwise objectively worse Feat.

On 11/18/2024 at 1:39 PM, The Feng Hunter said:

...without considering any kind of synergistic combinations or roleplay desires on behalf of the other players.

Roleplaying or flavor is unrelated to this thread and gameplay balance. If you feel information is objectively wrong or missing, I'd love to hear your constructive criticisms or evidence. Nobody is forcing you to play a certain way: if you want to play with worse (or no) Feats for a challenge or to immerse yourself as a particular character, then do that. Play the game how you want. If that means roleplaying, manually backing up your saves, modding, TAS, etc. go ahead: TLD is a singleplayer game, nobody is going to stop you.

[Veskaida]

10 minutes ago, SafeAgain said:

maybe it would have been it was split 50/50 between day and night, but right now you get the buff for less hours than the debuf. plus night is more difficult and dangerous, and there is no maglens

Yes. I wish this was a Custom Setting, to adjust which/how many hours were Day/Night. I could see that leading to a lot of fun and experimentation with this less-played-with feats. It could also be quite interesting limiting Maglens use (but not necessarily disabling it). Darkwalker/Celestial Navigator are obviously better in a sandbox with more Night hours, but even comparing Celestial to Darkwalker are quite different since Navigator has no drawback (aside from a wasted feat) when it is inactve), where as Darkwalker can be negative with both of it's sides (e.g. Interloper mode has reduced Fatigue drain VS Stalker, to try and make the mode even harder (limit healing further)).

Honestly not sure why TLD has a 14.5/9.5 split, prolly a good question for Raph or the Hinterlands team, (it doesn't even make sense chronologically for a nothern hemisphere country like Canada during winter) but my suspicion is it is for gameplay balance: more day means more possible maglens time and a warmer environment, and less night makes the more dangerous cold/auroras less common.

[SafeAgain]

For what it's worth, i only use efficient machine and cold fusion.

Both are small but solid buffs that benefit me for my whole run, in all situations. Simple, elegant, and satisfying. Love these both.

You could instead make hunger lower and the world not as cold in custom settings, but there's something special about your survivor being stronger in a hostile world.

[The Feng Hunter]

Thing is, I don’t have a tier list, simply because you’re right — insofar as this is a single player game and everyone plays their own way. Therefore, the mere existence of a subjective tier list is irrelevant, because if every person plays differently — and I believe they do, even on the micro level — then it follows that not every combination will work for everyone. We all mitigate risk differently; generating and propagating a narrative as to what is “superior” only leads to stale gameplay in the long term.

You're mad if you think I don’t know what a tier list is — no need to condescendingly send me a link about how they’re generated. A bit over the top, don’t you think?

 

[Veskaida]

4 hours ago, SafeAgain said:

For what it's worth, i only use efficient machine and cold fusion.

Both are small but solid buffs that benefit me for my whole run, in all situations. Simple, elegant, and satisfying. Love these both.

You could instead make hunger lower and the world not as cold in custom settings, but there's something special about your survivor being stronger in a hostile world.

I agree, both are quite strong and are almost universally active. There's a reason why these are beloved Feats across the playerbase. One trend I tried to capture in the OP was Early VS Endgame benefit (with Fire Master probably being the most polarizing example), and sure there's benefits to starving ('hibernating'), and harder modes/regions make drain Warmth faster: but CF and EM Feats both help pad out those meters and protect your Condition. Whenever new Feats are released, or I see discussion from other players talking about their favorites, the first thing I think of are these two  'gold standard' feats for comparison. Their popularity in Interloper guides/playthroughs also speaks a lot about how other players feel regarding them. Like you've said I also think they also capture the 'feel' of being a hardened survivor as well.

4 hours ago, The Feng Hunter said:

... insofar as this is a single player game and everyone plays their own way. Therefore, the mere existence of a subjective tier list is irrelevant...

If you feel this thread's subject is irrelevant, then I'd appreciate it if you stopped posting in it. The purpose of this thread is to have civil discussion (disagreements even) of The Long Dark's feats system, not to complain about the thread topic, or a meta-discussion about subjectivity inhibiting all discourse. So, agree or disagree about TLD's feats system, or people's take on it, I'd love to hear your (on-topic) thoughts.

[Leeanda]

Please keep things civilised,it's ok to disagree and as long as it stays respectful and on topic then there shouldn't be an issue..