Lost resources from failed attempts

[jonahcutter]

I've been thinking about the game a bit. Something that has been bothering me is the loss of resources when there is a failed attempt at starting a fire or repair something.

Attempting to light a fire and failing wouldn't result in the loss of the firewood, accelerant and tinder. Perhaps you're out of matches, but the rest would still be there right in front of you. In fact, you'd now have accelerant-soaked wood and tinder. The same with the pure fail/success states in repairing. It's too binary. Somehow failing to sew up a rip in your jacket (which itself seems almost absurd, how does one outright fail to sew up a rip even slightly) results in the loss of all material and absolutely no repair.

I understand the need for for abstraction in systems to provide risk/reward gameplay. But the pure loss of materials on failure feels immersion-breaking gamey. Especially so when it's just a dice roll and no actual player skill is involved.

A perhaps more realistic system would be to instead show lesser results if your skill is lower, and greater results from higher skill. And/or perhaps more materials used with a lower skill and less material with a higher skill. Other potential factors: How cold, hungry, thirsty, wounded, sick, and tired you are affects your performance as well. Also weather conditions. Trying to repair something while exposed to howling blizzard is extremely difficult. Better to wait until you reach shelter. But what if there's wolves around and your rifle is close to breaking? Choices choices... So the amount of success you enjoy and how efficient you are in your attempt is determined by your experience (skill) level, your physical and mental state, and the weather conditions.

[robdoar]

Are you certain that you're loosing your fuel?

The way it should work (and how it works for me) is only the match (and accelerant if used) are consumed. Which is entirely realistic.

The loss of cloth is realistic to me as well. For example, if you need a patch, and you have limited skill, and you cut the patch too small, you need new cloth.

The efficiency of material usage with higher skill is something I've brought up with H-Team, and they are considering it.

[Bill Tarling]

I also lose the tinder (which makes perfect sense to me -- tried starting fire, and tinder burned out)... The wood is always still there for me

[TarjaS]

I think the loss of wood is a bug. It has happened to me once. I haven't reported the bug, because I wasn't sure that it really happened, I thought I just remembered the amount wrong.

[john_jason_deroy]

The loss of wood just happened to me last night.