In-game character feedback to help you learn


vimrich

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I know it's alpha, but I hope this idea is in the works: more in-game character feedback. Dying as part of trial and error is no problem, but if you have no clue at all it can get frustrating. I hated having to go online to find answers to some of these. Even if the character said this while dying, it would give you confidence you could try something to prevent it next time:

"So thirsty. I have this bottle, if could just make a fire, I could melt snow."

(Yes - I spent forever looking for a container thinking I needed to find one first before I would have anything to melt snow in. Same thing, trying desperately to find a "pick-upable cup" so I could have coffee, and all I had to do all along was just scroll down in the fire menu. IRL survival, finding a container is huge - no easy thing to figure out how to boil water in the bush without a pot.)

"Bandages, I bet I could rip up some cloth."

(I died due to blood loss several times as I saw no way to "craft" a bandage, and eventually the ones you find were always used up. I had tons of cloth most of the time but never noticed there was a "harvest" menu option on cloth.)

"That wolf came out of nowhere - wait, did it smell me?

(No idea carrying meat was a game mechanic. Would never have guessed. Hugely important to reduce wolf attacks.)

"Steady... now, toss it!"

I don't remember where I learned you had to throw the flare to have it scare off the wolf.

Maybe this kind of thing will be added in story mode? The game is so great, I want hinterlands to get the best possible adoption. In game learning and discovery is a great way to keep folks from getting frustrated and leaving. Perhaps have an option to dial this up or down if experienced folks start getting annoyed at chatty characters.

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I honestly don't understand this way of thinking.

Especially for a game such as this, trial and error is what it is all about. I would of hated to have a guide to show me exactly how all the mechanics worked. In a way, Hinterland did give you hints, in the Release notes, when the updated the game.

In a survival Sandbox, its all about learning from your mistakes, and making the right choice next time, as well as going through all the menus, in the first run, to see what is there.

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I honestly don't understand this way of thinking.

Especially for a game such as this, trial and error is what it is all about. I would of hated to have a guide to show me exactly how all the mechanics worked. In a way, Hinterland did give you hints, in the Release notes, when the updated the game.

Trial and error works best when you get some kind of feedback. Imagine if you died and the game never said you were bleeding. You'd just die and never know. The game gives lots of great feedback all the time, such as showing where you're injured, that pain killers won't help if you're bleeding to death, etc.

But for certain commands, like "harvest" being different from "craft" it's pretty random. This is not a guide, but a suggestion that such a thing as "harvest" is something you can do in the game.

I almost quit over bandages because I kept saying "this is nuts, I should be able to make bandages from old cloth" and never noticed there was a command to do that - purely because I was looking in the wrong place. This is because it's not consistent. Metal cannot be "harvested" into a hook, you have to craft it. Makes no sense why you cannot "craft" cloth into a bandage, but have to "harvest" a bandage from cloth instead.

Same kind of thing for lanterns. You don't hold L-mouse down to start a fire, you just click. But for the lantern and torch, L clicking gets you nowhere. I spent a good hour or two trying to figure out why the lantern didn't work. I repaired it up to 100, got all the fuel I could, and nothing. All because it's a slightly different user input that is not consistent.

I'm not looking for a guide. Hints are just ways of the game saying "yes, there is a way to do this, you just haven't found it yet."

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I agree that it's inconsistent for the bandage to be "Harvested" instead of crafted at the table like all the other craftables. But at the same time it is essential to be able to make bandages on a walk when things happen - although I believe more items should be craftable aswell without a table. Like the ones requiring no tools really should not require a table with a vice.

About the lantern, I disagree. Even when clicking Lmouse the "Lighting" text and progress bar momentarily pops up in the top right corner, giving it away.

I have to say I mainly agree with TatooedMac on this, making it instant feedback in-game would be too easy. Most of these things just requires experimenting - like snow and water. However I think tooltips on loading and on other actions, giving away occasional hints, could work. As long as they're not too obvious.

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The point is the the hints are there to help you learn about the user interface, not the game. The harvest button is buried under an "Actions" button, so unless you click you don't know it's even there. For clothes or items like the lantern, you know you want to repair then or reload/refuel them, so you check. I was well into my forth game play and just never thought to check that the "Action" button was there for something as plain as cloth.

A hint would help more people discover the game. Even the wolf attack gives you a hint so that after the first miserable fight and death, you at least remember seeing something about using both mouse buttons and so on and figure you might be able to learn how to do it better next time.

I want Hinterlands to be successful with this so they can keep it going strong. I've read too many reviews where folks gave up or got discouraged. Subtle "realistic" style games sometimes need this just to get you over the hump. The in game character already says things to help, just not the right things and right moments.

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I was well into my forth game play and just never thought to check that the "Action" button was there for something as plain as cloth.

I think it was Bill who once pointed out that it takes about 50 deaths to understand the game completely and learn all mistakes that can be made. On your 4th game you are still in learning mode and when by the 10th game you still don't get the idea to just check through every menu option available you might be one of the unlucky ones who just die early in a survival situation.

Your character is not Bear Grylls, it's some random guy who has no idea about survival and for some reason survived a plain crash. You have to develope him (and therefore yourself) into a survival guy the way every succesful survivor does, by observing, learning and figuring "stuff" out. You dying from a mistake and learning something new is like reading a chapter in a survival guide and there are many chapters ;) In fact it's a luxory that the devs give us already all receipts needed for crafting stuff right from the beginning, in reality I doubt most people would know how to craft cloths or a (working) bow without reading books first.

So it should be you thinking "oh I could check if there's an option to make bandages from anything I have in my backpack" and not the character - he's just a represenation of your decisions.

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I agree with both sides of the argument - on one hand, there are a lot of situations where I am yelling at the game to let me do something and it won't, and it's equally frustrating to be able to do something else, and not know about it.

I think interface tips and how-to's would be perfect for loading screens, or maybe have a survival guide that we can pick up and browse in game, that has suggestions on making bandages, lighting lanterns, etc. I personally prefer it when my character doesn't speak a whole lot - the whole point of the game is that I am in charge of the character, and to have him just randomly spout off a thought is distracting. It's bad enough when I'm struggling home through a blizzard, totally on edge waiting for a wolf to materialize through the fog, and to have my character go "whoooo, it's so cold it's almost warm!" I personally feel that if he's fading to black from blood loss, for him to suddenly spout out "if only I had harvested some of this excess cloth into bandages, I might have survived" would be equally as immersion destroying.

A third option might be to have a relevant (if possible) hint happen on a splash screen after the "you faded into the long dark" screen, which might point out that you can harvest bandages, or make water from the fire interface. Or that wolves will aggro more strongly if you are carrying raw meat.

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