Random feedback after 100+ hours gameplay

[lilpipsqueak]

There are a lot of good games out there, but there are very few I'd consider great. This game is one of the few great games. Great job, Hinterland.

I've been playing various sandbox difficulties on alpha v.244, and here are my thoughts (in no particular order):

1. I love the cold mechanics. This is the first game I've seen where I've actually been concerned about the temperature and weather, not just food and supplies. Also, in Coastal Highway, I like the wet/frozen mechanic on clothes if/when you fall thru the ice and how it negatived the windchill protection of my clothes. I wish that particular mechanic were expanded more, but haven't noticed it anywhere else... although I haven't tried standing out in a blizzard to see what happens to my clothes. Maybe I'll try that this evening. What about other weather types, such as Sleet or Freezing Rain or something else that may be more conducive for applying that affect to clothes?

2. Each time I start a new game, it gets easier because I know the map from previous games. I'd like to see a 'random map' (not random by randomly picking from a predefined map) but where shelters have been moved around so survival requires exploring. On the other hand, I love the current maps too. There's a unique feel to each of the 3 sandbox maps. Not sure if doing a procedurally generated world would be feasible, but I thought I'd mention it.

3. Each time I harvest a rabbit, I always seem to pause while I wonder why I can't just pick up the rabbit and move on to deal with it later. I'd also like to harvest bone as an alternative for metal parts (or something else... just seems bone should be useful). I know both of these have been mentioned in other threads so no need to expand.

4. I had one game where I used bow/arrows exclusively. Although I was frustrated that I couldn't one-shot-kill stuff like I usually could with the rifle, I love that feeling of "Uh oh... that animal just ran off with my last arrow stuck in it". I love that touch of realism since it makes arrows a precious commodity, requiring me to track animals I shoot to recover the arrow in addition to the bounty I was after.

5. What I don't like is there seems to be some bugs with the blood trail and tracking. Maybe I don't understand all the mechanics yet. I've seen numerous threads related to this and teleporting corpses, so won't reiterate those, but I haven't seen anyone mentioning blood trails that go for a while, then stop with no corpse. I haven't been paying attention to this particular scenario closely but estimating it happens to between 50% to 75% of the time when tracking a blood trail. No idea what the pattern is.

6. One time, I found a dead wolf that I had left decoy meat for (it was within the first couple days of the game so I know no attacks had happened yet). I don't know if this was intentional or not, but I thought if it was, it was a great idea. May the wolf choked on a bone... or starved cause the decoy wasn't enough meat and distracted it from a real hunt, or maybe I accidentally poisoned the meat? But that got me thinking since I haven't seen this anomaly since: I'd like to be able to poison decoy meat.

7. My current game is on the hardest difficulty, and I'm currently at day 25. I had to implement food rationing around day 15. I may have found a loophole. Starvation costs 1% condition/hour on average. If I eat a single rabbit a day, that's obviously not enough, but... if I eat the rabbit just before I sleep for the night, I bounce back from 80% to 100% in a few hours of sleep time and wake back up starving. Because of this, I've been able to implement a 450 calorie/day diet with minimal costs. I've only seen two downsides with this approach: 1) my fatigue climbs faster (not something I'm worried about since I never leave the shelter unless I'm fully rested). 2) the area I've been trapping rabbits may have been overtrapped and rabbits are getting scarce (not sure if this is a real mechanic in the game but if so, I like it... if it's not a real mechanic, maybe it could be added to offset excessive wildlife at times?).

I could go on but this is already getting long. I love the game and look forward to seeing what else you guys implement.

[bethany]

Thanks for that feedback! You'll find some interesting discussion in the forums that revolves around a couple of the topics you mentioned in your post. A lot of factors can affect how easily you may or may not be able to track an animal, but we're certainly looking at it.

Welcome to the forums!