SIT DOWN! Oh, oh wait...

[Mr GLitch]

The reason for the title, as the full dialogue from my insane friend and myself goes...

[spoil]"Oh, oh wait... This guy can't sit in this chair." "It's early access, bruh." "I don't think it is. I think it's because this guy... what's his name?" "Mackenzie, I think." "I don't think Mr. Mackenzie can sit. He can't sit because he feels like the last living human being on the planet and that if he sits down, then that symbolizes that he's given up on life and the human race itself. Allowing for the endless cycle of that which exists, ceasing to exist in time." "Bro... ಠ_ಠ What." "His plane crashed too hard and his butt is broken." "Oh. ... ( ._.) ... Poor Mackenzie."

Our antics aside...[/spoil]

After playing The Long Dark for a few months, I decided to make a list of things that irked me and made me go "This needs to be in the game!" I really wanted to ask Hinterland to put the ability to sit in chairs in their game, but then a whole bunch of other things flew through my brainpan and one suggestion turned into a long ADHD-influenced essay.

Wish List Disclaimer

[spoil]Forgive me if any of these suggestions I have listed have already been wished for or are already planned to be put into the game. I looked through some of the other posts folks made, but there's a dauntingly huge number of them... I don't want to be redundant at all, so I'll keep some of the things I've seen other people ask for on this site (and on Steam) out of this wish list. If I reiterate on someone else's suggestion, then it's likely something I feel strongly about.

It's a long looking list, but it's really just a few things with a paragraph or two of me iterating on each subject for more clarification. If you want to simply skim through it, just read the main points that are colored. If you find one you want more info about or one you don't understand, read the spoiler text below it that expands more on the original point and offers my opinions on them. I'm not completely knowledgeable about the game, what I know is what I learned from playing it, so pardon me for most of my ignorance. Also, the writing may differ in places or look scattered. This was written over the course of a few days while playing the game on late night binges.[/spoil]

.:User Interface Elements, Menus and Programming:.

Options to use chairs for sitting to lower fatigue, or slow fatigue to a crawl.

[spoil]It shouldn't be as affective as sleeping, and also not have the time pass by like it would in sleeping and instead have it happen in real time.

Sometimes I'll find myself unable to do anything productive due to storms and having cooked all my food, melted all the water, taken apart all the clothes and tools, repaired everything; I'll have my food, water, and cold bars down, but the only sure way to make the fatigue bar go down is sleeping. Sleeping feels to me like the end of the day thing to do.

I want to sit down and chill out on a couch or arm chair while waiting out a storm allowing me to sit and go through my inventory or even drink and eat. Maybe make repairing, sewing, and making stuff take less fatigue than normal if the character is sitting on a chair or stool. It would make destroying that comfy chair a real decision; instead of it just being a decor piece, it's actually something useful. Also, maybe make it a way to save a game instead of walking through a door three times or wasting an hour sleeping. To counteract the cheating of deleting the save files, only make indoor chairs able to allow saving.[/spoil]

Options for eating, drinking, warming up, and resting while doing an action that takes time like animal gutting or chopping up furniture, but in exchange make the job last a tad longer.

[spoil]I always thought that chopping down a piece of furniture for two whole hours was a bit much for going without the option to eat, drink and rest while doing it. I'd enjoy the option to increase the amount of time it took if it meant our character could take a break to snack, drink, sit down and warm up a bit, and then continue on with the job. Apply this to all the possible time-passing activities.[/spoil]

Options to mark certain food items as decoys instead of dropping a seemingly random food item.

[spoil]Sometimes I'll drop food that I actually wanted but find that out too late. While I rarely use the decoy hotkey later in a game, it comes in handy in the early game.

This could also apply to items that you don't want to be used by hotkeys or workbench actions such as keeping your 100% full lantern/knife/hatchet/gun from being used until you manually equip it or for future things like crafting something that requires a rifle, knife, or hatchet as its base. A button that says "Disallow Hotkeys for this Item" would be awesome.[/spoil]

More ways to fight fatigue.

[spoil]Fight fatigue by wearing less layers of clothing (shoes, jacket, pants, gloves, hat, scarf) inside a house with a fire going in warm temperatures. In contrast, wearing those layers of clothing in warm or hot temperatures should make fatigue increase, with the character remarking that they're sweaty or really hot and that they should take some clothes off. Being full and fully hydrated could contribute to making it increase at a slower rate. I'm not particularly sure if these features are in the game yet, but from what I experienced, it doesn't seem so.[/spoil]

Less UI ambiguity for water. Give us a water graphic similar to our calories graphic.

[spoil]A little UI graphic like "Bodily Liquids/Water: 3.0L" would help me a whole lot with managing my water. If we have one for calories, why not for water? The "Thirsty" icon is alright, but I like numbers. Not only would that give me exact numbers to work with, it would allow me to plan my hikes better.[/spoil]

Inventory and container sliders instead of clicking arrows.

[spoil]The arrows for the items in inventory are fine and all for two or three of the same thing, but having the option to either Drop All or drop the number of items you've selected after clicking on the arrows multiple times can sometimes get annoying. A slider option would be nice and fast in most of the menus. The slider doesn't have to give us full freedom. Let it slide down the bar touching different points/preset amounts.[/spoil]

A way for our inventory sorters to save the A-Z/Condition/Weight options for each tab.

[spoil]Every once in a while when rushing, I'll have to quickly sort through my stuff, drop a few heavy items, then later find out that I actually needed what I dropped and could have dropped something else I looked over in my inventory that was heavier. Each of the separate inventory tabs are really useful in those cases. The A-Z, Condition and Weight buttons allow for even faster inventory management. But I have to change those for each tab tab I move over to, and then change them back when I move back to the same tab.

There needs to be a way for those to stay or save on what we've left them on. For example, I like my Food and Clothing to stay on Condition (easier to see bad food and clothing in need of repair), but I prefer my Firewood/Hides/Parts tab to stay on Weight and my Medical supplies on A-Z. If I had that, I could sort through my stuff without having to do the extra job of hitting the A-Z/C/W buttons constantly.[/spoil]

Shift-click to equip stuff while in inventory.

[spoil]It's slow and annoying to click on a piece of clothing and then click a button to wear it. It's straight forward for new players and simple, but for veterans of the game, hitting shift+click is much faster. It would make eating and drinking much faster as well.[/spoil]

When-to-save menu options.

[spoil]The options for when to save should also be in the menus. Options for Save on Sleeping, Save on Entering Door, Save After Sitting and Save after entering New Area would be nice to have in the menus. The difficulty scales could limit which of those save options are available too.[/spoil]

Inclusion of mods in the full release utilizing a level creator.

[spoil]A lot of game devs these days are making kits and programs to allow for their communities to make content for their game in the form of mods. It keeps a game alive and interesting long after its vanilla content has been run into the ground. For The Long Dark, I can see a simplified but full level designer that can be used by anyone with a bit of experience being a great way to keep the game going for many many years after the story mode is completed.[/spoil]

Don't get rid of the ways to cheat by deleting save files... In fact, can you make it easier?

[spoil]Please don't get rid of players' ability to cheat with the game. I haven't heard of you guys planning on removing that exploit or making it so you can't delete saved files, but in my opinion, I like to cheat every once in a while. I'm completely fine with achievements being turned off due to that. If I wanted them, I'd do it legitimately in the first place. But I like to play the game for the game.

After a few hundred ingame days, supplies run pretty scarce. Instead of just rolling over and dying, IRL I would just move to the next town or city. Since that isn't possible with the game's constraints, I'll simply travel to Pleasant Valley or the Coastal Highway and, after a few days, I'll reset the Mystery Lake area. What would be neat for the Sandbox is to add the option to "Allow for Area Reset" (which turns achievements off) that resets an area after like 20, 50 or 100 days (the timer for resetting an area resets itself once you visit it again) so long term players can get those resources to survive for longer instead of having to restart for another game or actually cheat.[/spoil]

.:Items and Inventory:.

Soda gives me water, but how much? I want to know how much water food items give or take away.

[spoil]A few food items replenish the water bar, but I can never tell by how much. Sodas, condensed milk and I think tomato soup do that, but they don't tell me how much. I also noticed that some foods take away water such as the crackers and most meats. By how much though?

Sometimes I'll wake up from an 8 hour sleep and be just at the edge of dehydration and drink all my water to combat it, and then eat some tomato soup and condensed milk to fight my half bar of starvation only to realize that I wasted the water in those food items. (I don't do that as much now, but I slip up every now and then. It isn't apparent that those items give you water being it in a game and all) If calories can be given on a piece of meat, then why not the water content or absorption?[/spoil]

More options for obtaining unsafe water. Melting snow with body heat, getting it from fishing holes, blood from animals (maybe), etc.

[spoil]You know snow? It melts when it reaches it's melting temperature, right? Put me in a situation like the TLD player. If I was desperate for water and had no way to light a fire (no matches), I would put some snow in a container and put it under my clothing to melt it. Of course, doing that would make me a whole lot colder, but the snow would melt in time and I'd have unsafe water! The option for collecting the snow could be in the main tab menu.

Melting snow at a stove seems a bit odd for me. I have to imagine my character running outside, grabbing a handful of snow, running inside and dumping it in a pot. Actually doing that would make it more immersive, but also having more options for water collection would be nice. Like fishing holes. Getting unsafe water from there is easy after chipping the ice.[/spoil]

Cooking times for water and food.

[spoil]Can I get estimated times for cooking and boiling/melting water? I do trial runs to see the times for myself, but I forget after a while.[/spoil]

Option to turn meat into long lasting jerky or the option to recook meat to get it to 100% condition at the price of calories and weight.

[spoil]It's difficult to store meat gutted from animals for long periods of time. I stock up multiple safehouse locations on a map, but that's hard to do when I eventually only have the food I make from hunting. It's also difficult when I stock a container up with three or four stacks of meat and leave for the coastal highway, having my return delayed by storms and unfortunate events, then come back to find they've gone bad and give me food poisoning upon consuming. Can players get a way to cure meat into jerky or dried meat that can store for longer? Make the calories a lot lower than cooked meat, but more durable, and maybe allow it to require more water to digest. Maybe salt or seasonings could help with that situation in some way.[/spoil]

Options for placing inventory items (tools, parts, hides, foodstuffs, matches, etc) where ever we like akin to bedrolls, traps, campfires and lanterns.

[spoil]Maybe I'm different, but I don't put anything in containers unless it's food, sewing kits, tools, something super small, or medical supplies. Instead, I put them on the floor for convenience and ease of access. It looks bad, since everything is just clumped up on the floor, but for me, it's fast and utilitarian. If I need a flare for a wolf outside, instead of hunting a flare down in the many containers to search through, I just grab one from the pile I have near the door next to the torches.

You know how we can place bedrolls on the ground and put a campfire or lantern where we like? I'd like to be able to do that with almost every item in the game. I want to put the rifle back up on the shelf sometimes instead of just throwing it in a locker (if there were a dedicated shelf that could display the rifle, bow, hunting knife, hatchet, and any other future tools and weapons, that'd be fantastic), or put metal parts and a tool box on top of the workbench so I can just readily pick them up when I need them. Or even make an actual stack of wood instead of just having 40 logs laying on the floor in the form of a glitchy looking carpet. Or dropping 4 gallons of water bottles and having them turn into a bubble monster.

For logs, I'd like the option to Place, then the option for How Many, and then have the appropriate stack appear ready to be placed by a stove or firepit. I like to put curable items on the ground so I can visually see them, but sometimes I'll drop two items with two different curing times and only be able to select one with my mouse requiring me to pick it up to get to the other underneath it. This isn't a problem, more of a hassle, but with 20 items dropped at once, it could be annoying. When giving us the option to place an item, allow items to be placed one after the other; not place one, go back into inventory to hit place, and then repeat. I hate not being able to put items and trophies up on my shelves to make my home feel lived in and functional.[/spoil]

Stacking inventory items such as kerosene, lantern fuel and matches. It'd help clean up the inventory a bit.

[spoil]Can we get matches, lantern fuel and kerosene to act the same way that water does in our inventory? Or have the option to combine them so the inventory is a bit less crowded? Doing that with meat would be nice as well, where instead of having 20 stacks of 2.2lbs of deer meat at 100 condition, we have one big 44lb. However, I can see the problems that come with doing that with meat... Perhaps giving players the option to merge two items together which will warn of averaging their condition rating beforehand. If I had 13 boxes of 10 matches each, which were in good to bad condition, I'd just throw them all in the best box. Same with the jerry cans. No need to lug around two half-full jerry cans when you can just fill one up and leave the other.[/spoil]

Customization for the rifle.

[spoil]A large amount of different craftable parts to add on to the rifle would be a nice feature. It would allow players to customize the rifle to their preferences. Wooden buttstock, no buttstock with pistol grip, extended forestock, short forestock (maybe plastic variants of those), sawed off barrel for weight reduction, better internal springs and pins for slower degradation, different bolt setups for faster reloading in different circumstances, different kinds of sights like a circular peep sight for better aiming. I'm kind of against a scope as it makes hunting way too easy unless bullet physics were added to the game.[/spoil]

A self defense handgun.

[spoil]There are times when I don't need a rifle for hunting, however, I'll carry it for self defense. I waste all the inventory space for that extra security that pays off time and time again. I could carry a lighter weapon such as the bow but, in times of panic (like I usually do with a wolf charging or ambushing me), missing is rather common, and there's normally time for just one shot. At least for me. Including a revolver or other handgun would be a really fantastic addition to the game's small repertoire of weapons. A good lightweight, semi-automatic alternative to dealing with up-close threats than the heavier, slow-firing rifle and bow, and for those panic induced moments when dealing with Fluffy.[/spoil]

Moveable or creatable containers.

[spoil]If our characters can tear down large furniture, then they should be able to move a metal box or small container. Have the option to hold left click to "Pick up Container" and then allow players to be able to do nothing else except place it, like with lanterns. It'd be awesome if we could do that with more than just containers. Shelves, chairs and tables could also be movable. That way they can be used to customize all the homes in the game to anyone's liking, making all those useless shelves, crates and stools a bit harder of a choice to destroy.

A creatable box would be a boon to have, however, I can see players abusing a home with massive storage space.[/spoil]

.:Learning:.

Make us learn how long it takes to break stuff down, repair stuff or skin animals by actually doing it first. Don't just give us the time it takes right off the bat. And also make the times longer at first, but shorter the more players do it.

[spoil]To be honest, I wouldn't know exactly how long it would take to gut a deer until I actually did it a few times. I bet I'd even get better at doing it after a few tries and get more efficient after a few more to the point where I was a master at it; getting every scrap of meat, hide and gut and doing it in a more timely manner than someone new to the craft.

The character in TLD seems to know exactly how long it'll take from the start and never improves. The same goes with wood gathering, repairing stuff, making stuff (that last might be a bit too much as new players finding out that wolf skin coats and bear skin bedrolls cost literally days to make...), it makes me feel overpowered in some sense.

Maybe instead of showing us "10 Minutes" for breaking down a branch, show us "About 5 to 15 Minutes" for the first few times. And maybe have that time decreased the more a player does it. And allow for the time it takes to go down with more successive acts. The "About 5 to 15 Minutes" could turn to 5 to 10 minutes. Then apply that to everything else that might require a skill. This could be scaled with the different difficulty settings and skills too. Pilgrim should keep the current times and such for new players learning the game, but the other difficulties should have a feature like this.[/spoil]

.:Navigation:.

Ability to mark trees with a knife or hatchet.

[spoil]When traveling through new territory, I can easily make my way back the way I came using my footsteps and maybe by placing down some used flares. However, when a snowstorm comes in to Rick Roll me, I'm normally screwed.

Etching a noticeable ring of bark from the trees would help players navigate through storms like that. Or at least help with making marked paths. Or, just use a different marking system altogether like paint, blood spatters, or little flags made from cloth. I like the ring on trees idea though... The option to remove them should be allowed for OCD players who want to move a mark over to another tree to make a straighter path. The Stalker difficulty could remove that choice.[/spoil]

Redundant, but give me a map pls!

[spoil]This is something I desperately wanted in the game: a map (and/or a compass!). I wouldn't care if I could carry it, or if it was painted on a sign near the camp office. Perhaps a physical map with features that we can see in person (mountains, forest areas, hills, streams, lakes), but have it contain none of the locations we find. Instead, allow players to mark the map and type in names ourselves. Dots, X's, circles, squares, lines; let players use all of those to mark the locations for bunkers, bases, roads, hunting grounds, and places of interest! If not, I understand why. I just can't make mental maps in video games very well and Googling maps made by others to find something I likely never could feels like cheating.[/spoil]

.:Animals:.

Animals with male and female variants.

[spoil]It's probabaly already planned to be added to the game, but different genders of deer would be a nice inclusion. Perhaps even different sizes of deer that yield different amounts of meat and items. Also, do the same with wolves. Rare albino versions of the deer, wolf and bear would be cool along with albino hides to use in crafting special items.[/spoil]

Fluffy needs a unique texture. Red glowing eyes even.

[spoil]That dam wolf has traumatized me more than my first playthrough of FNAF, but I loved it. First time I had my run in with Fluffy was in my first Voyager playthrough. I didn't have anything but flares on me for a light source and I knew of the supplies in the dam from earlier playthroughs in Pilgrim. I go into the far room from the door, search through the cabinets, walk out of said room and BAM! I had to move away from the computer and sit down for a while.

It's not that the game or being attacked by a wolf is scary... It's that in a pitch black place like the dam, you have no idea what's in there with you and the radiant red light of the flare just intensifies the fear. As soon as it happened, my mind imagined every kind of freaky creature-thing it could. Memorable, terrifying, and awesome!

He needs to be set apart from the other wolves in terms of what he looks like and perhaps behavior. More scary looking and more aggressive, or more dog-like and friendly. It'd be neat if he had a story of his own too. Or a special line of text in the logbook as an easter egg when he attacked you or when you found him. A semi-wild canine companion that hangs around with you every once in a while would be fantastic! But so would a really mean wolf boss that guards the resources in the dam.[/spoil]

.:Conclusion:.

I don't know if the TLD devs get enough of it or not, but...

[spoil]Thank you, everyone in Hinterland Studios and affiliated, for making and contributing to such a spectacular game. The Long Dark is the best and most amazingly in depth survival game I've ever had the pleasure of playing and putting weeks of my free time into. To think that it isn't a full game yet excites me to see what comes next. :mrgreen:

I don't see much of what I've said being implemented into the game solely because of this list, since I'm just a player and fan suggesting a few things in an easily ignored or overlooked forum post, but I hope someone in Hinterland sees it and takes something useful from it.[/spoil]

To all the other members who read this, please let me know what you think! Keep in mind that these are just my opinions and suggestions. Thanks in advance for any compliments, criticism or harsh words as well as reading what I typed!

[IIllytch321]

I appreciate how thorough you are (I have a similar post but not as long, heh). I'll just copy the titles on your sections for those things in which I agree:

• Options to mark certain food items as decoys instead of dropping a seemingly random food item.
  
• Shift-click to equip stuff while in inventory. (Or some other ways to increase ease of manipulating/dropping/moving items in general such as utilizing dragging and dropping within and outside of the menu borders and making use of the direction keys to navigate through items)
  
• A way for our inventory sorters to save the A-Z/Condition/Weight options for each tab.
  
• When-to-save menu options.
  
• Cooking times for water and food.
  
• Options for placing inventory items (tools, parts, hides, foodstuffs, matches, etc) where ever we like akin to bedrolls, traps, campfires and lanterns.
  
• Stacking inventory items such as kerosene, lantern fuel and matches.
  
• Make us learn how long it takes to break stuff down, repair stuff or skin animals by actually doing it first. Don't just give us the time it takes right off the bat. And also make the times longer at first, but shorter the more players do it.
  
• Ability to mark trees with a knife or hatchet.
  
• Redundant, but give me a map pls! (Would like to make sure it's not in the HUD and include some kind of fog of war for places we haven't been to yet)

And of course, all the people involved in making this game are some variation of bad-ass.

[octavian]

A self defense handgun.

Like a .38? Well, if you believe the rumors... :roll:

[LSL_Legend313]

+1

[Mr GLitch]

I appreciate how thorough you are (I have a similar post but not as long, heh). I'll just copy the titles on your sections for those things in which I agree:

I wanted to make it easy to read to anyone as much as I could. I read your topic after you replied here and saw that we have similar feelings and ideas towards the game and its potential. Like how we almost worded the Decoy Drop thing exactly the same way; I thought I was the only one who was irritated by that... Wish I would have found your post before I made mine , but thank you for letting me know the things you like from the list and adding your input on two of them!

Like a .38? Well, if you believe the rumors...

I felt like a handgun was going to be added to the game, I just wanted to voice my opinions on it and say that I definitely want one for close encounters, or at least as a placebo to the feeling of security. Haven't heard of the rumors though. Thank you for letting me know and I hope Hinterland considers it.

+1

Thanks!

[sir ice]

the water system should defiantly be updated.

[Mr GLitch]

For sure.