Scarcity

[CeeBod]

I've seen a few people posting about there being too much/too little of one thing or another in the game for pretty much every alpha version so far (food, wolves, cloth, bullets, tools, whatever).

Previously I thought that there was maybe a little bit too much food just lying around everywhere myself, begging the question of why nobody's left alive despite the glut of food, and I thought that it could probably use a little fine-tuning in future. Today though I came to realise something fairly fundamental - fear of scarcity is really a bigger killer than actual scarcity in this game:

I was in the fishing hut on Pensive Pond, having just cooked a couple of fish and some venison, and after having a coffee I saw that there was still enough fuel in the fire for almost another hour. It was early evening, light was starting to fade and I really should have been heading back to my base at the farmhouse, but I just couldn't bring myself to leave and waste all that heat, so I did an extra hour's fishing. Walking back as the light dropped to practically zero, losing my way temporarily as I lost sight of any familiar landmarks, and then almost stumbling right into a bear at the foot of the Lower Falls, I realised that it's always moments like this that it goes bad and I end up getting killed despite having plenty of supplies. Trying to be overly efficient and not waste anything will probably get you killed, by driving dangerous behaviours where you're thinking "Just one more and then I'll head back"!

Your response to this may well be "Meh?" but I just wanted to share what felt like something of a revelation to me on the nature of scarcity in The Long Dark today! :geek:

[octavian]

Having a plan makes you invincible.

[TheIncredibleHibby]

There is so much truth in this, my unwanting to learn WHEN to call it quits with various tasks have more often than not gotten me into some very bad situations!