Changes needed to the wood gathering system

[Magnuzn]

(It seems there are many mixed feelings about this subject - So just to make clear, this is my opinion and experience)

The new wood gathering system is a cool and fun feature, but at its current state it's as hard as it is weird and unrealistic. The old system worked fine, but wasn't really fun or realistic, so the new system is a step in the right direction, it just needs some tweaking! There are many problems with the new system, and I'll try to say something about them all.

1) First of all is the time it takes to gather wood. Before you could scavenge wood in half a day, now you need lots of food and water to spend all the time finding the wood and braking it down, which is bad when you need the wood to MAKE the water or food. This means you'll have to prepare yourself just to gather wood, when it should be that gathering wood is the preparation for cooking food/water.

2) The new system is also extremely unrealistic. It literally takes the same time to brake up a branch the size of your leg as it does to skin a full grown 250+kg bear. This is, excuse the language, just dumb. You could brake the branch 3, maybe 4, times with your hands in less than 30 seconds in real life. Breaking up a limb could be done with an axe by hitting 4-5 branches off, and this should not take 45 minutes! So having you loose 3-4% health in a blizzard to brake up a branch is simply gamebraking.

3) Speaking of blizzards it's almost impossible to survive them now, especially at night. When a blizzard hits you have to hurry to scavenge wood, which is extremely hard with the low visibility. There are so few tree limbs that you often have to collect 50+ sticks, many of the from branches which cost you 3-4% health each. You also have to travel extremely far to gather all the sticks and the few limbs you find, meaning you often get lost or loose track of the shelter you found before the storm, this adds to the lethality and difficulty.

4) Calories is also a big problem. While breaking up chairs and furniture, which really could be done by using your hands and legs, you end up spending an enormous amount of calories. Just to clean out one house it can take 1-2 whole days worth of supplies of food and water, meaning you often have to prepare for what should be an easy and available task. Again it ends up that what should be a preparation becomes the challenge itself.

Solution: My idea for a solution/fix is tweaking and adding. The time it takes to break down a branch the size of your leg should not be 10 minutes, but rather 30-60 seconds. Same goes for limbs, it wouldn't even take a child 45 minutes to brake one down, it should take 5-10 minutes maximum. The twigs themselves I think should have a longer burn time as well because of their size and availability. They're only use at the moment is to be broken down to kindling, which is useless when there is 50-100 of them in a small area. Calories should also be tweaked. It might be hard work to chop wood and break down furniture, but it's not going to kill you in 2 days like it does now.

The biggest, but perhaps the hardest, change would be to allow us to chop down entire trees. Combine this with having many different sized trees it would make the system much better. This way you could chop down a small tree near your shelter at night and get enough firewood to survive, rather than trying to blindly find twigs and fighting wolves while holding a lantern. It would also allow for mass foraging. So you could spend (much like crafting) several hours chopping down big trees around your base, allowing you to gather large amounts of wood for storage.

Hopefully you'll at least reconsider how the system works and try to improve it. At the moment it's quite broken and makes for a bad experience. Check out my Reddit thread to see other peoples thoughts! https://www.reddit.com/r/thelongdark/co ... this_game/

[jackattack]

I disagree completely. The new system makes gathering wood part of a cycle of activities necessary for survival, and makes it just as real and dangerous an activity as exploring or hunting.

[octavian]

The twigs themselves I think should have a longer burn time as well because of their size and availability. They're only use at the moment is to be broken down to kindling, which is useless when there is 50-100 of them in a small area.

exploit since .256-7-8 is, gather sticks, get the magnifying glass, digest half the sticks into tinder (the sticks being digestible into tinder is the icing on the exploit cake), and just start one-stick fires whenever the sun's out. Max out that tasty skill. :lol:

Not only this, making trails out of bottles is so last month. Because, you know, fog and blizzards are dangerous. :roll: I see no reason you couldn't make a trail of campfires. Cross-map. Multiple trails. They never go away so, this could be why. :roll:

This is just one counter-argument to the many things you have said. Different players experience the game differently, balance is not as easy as, let's make sticks more efficient because I personally find them pointless except to make tinder out of.

The game is not balanced, too easy for some, too hard for others. This is because of two reasons. The three difficulty levels, on one side, if there was just one, well, but it doesn't matter anymore, it's too late to go back now; and the testers. Those that test updates before release for exploits, balance, that sort of stuff. Either they are unable to figure these things out, or it's not part of their job description, and are required only to report on game breaking issues. Whatever the case, it's not as bad as you say it is. I mean, it is bad, but in a different way. :lol:

[selfless]

New wood system takes some getting used to.

As Octavian points out, 8 sticks equal one cedar log. Sticks are abundant and easy to collect. Most fires should be burning sticks now, not logs. (Actually, sticks burn hotter than logs, making them better for warming from short fires, too.)

Logs are only relevant if you are stockpiling. Their advantage being they are lighter in weight than equivalent sticks. Collecting logs should be a planned activity, not an emergency action.

1 day's activity dedicated to wood gathering should still yield 30 hours of fire. That's plenty in most books.

Gameplay > Realism

[octavian]

Logs are only relevant if you are stockpiling.

The spawn times for sticks are so low I never had the need for a single log since .256-7-8. :? Waste of hatchet durability if you ask me.

[Magnuzn]

I disagree completely. The new system makes gathering wood part of a cycle of activities necessary for survival, and makes it just as real and dangerous an activity as exploring or hunting.

You seem to be missing my point. As I said the new system is better, it's just not balanced.

There's a really dumb exploit at the moment... --- Another dumb exploit since .256-7-8 is, gather sticks, get the magnifying glass... --- This is just one counter-argument to the many things you have said.

You do make some good points, but most of what I gathered (pun intended) from your post is that it's balanced if you exploit the game. I can agree everyone has different experiences, but 8/10 on my Reddit post feels the same as me, so it's not just me "bitching" or anything. Further more my biggest issue is just how unrealistic it is. The skinning of a bear, the time it takes, the calories you burn and so on. Those are my biggest problems. That and the fact that we can't chop down trees.

As for the twigs being used as a main source of fuel I still feel it's bad when a blizzard comes or at night. You shouldn't have to scavenge such huge areas to find wood when there are 20-30+ trees around. Another thing, realistically twigs burn much, much faster than logs. So keeping warm an entire night on twigs in nearly impossible! I speak from experience as I had to do so in the military when we slept outside in -30 degrees celcius, and we needed hundreds of 1-2m long sticks to keep it burning through the night.

[McGuffin]

The time it takes to break branches has been reported numerous time, and a lot people people seems to simply ignore them actually.

In term of gameplay, what needs balance is the time things takes to be done versus another.

For example, personnaly I find curious to be able to apply bandages and some medicines instantly.

[whisperwind777]

Believe me, you can do everything without calories.

Just grab some meat before you sleep, because truly starvation only prevents you from healing.

If you play carefully, that means, not to engage any melee combat with wolves or freeze yourself, you can also play without much water. Dehydration is merely twice the bad of starvation.

Only eat and drink before sleeping. This will only cost you at most 600 calories and 0.67L water per day, which only needs 20 mins cooking and 20 mins melting snow plus boiling water. 8 sticks is more than enough.

3 hours outdoor time is more than enough to gather a rabbit's meat, skin, guts with your bare hands and collect 8 sticks.

I've survived 60 days in this way on stalker mode, and I've only consumed 8 matches.

[octavian]

You do make some good points, but most of what I gathered (pun intended) from your post is that it's balanced if you exploit the game.

Erm, no. The idea of my post was that it's extremely easy because of the exploit, not that it's balanced when you exploit, no.

I no longer play the game as intended, I no longer have goals, I've passed 1100 hours. So I test things out of curiosity or I just experiment things, ideas, have fun.

I can agree everyone has different experiences, but 8/10 on my Reddit post feels the same as me, so it's not just me "bitching" or anything.

It's not that you are bitching, but, look, if you and many many other people are having a certain experience, that's fine, nothing wrong with that. But I (not me personally, me as another player) found this, thing, right?

When you will find it by accident, what will you do? Not use on purpose because it makes the game too easy? Maybe, maybe not.

But it's a good practice that people like me who look for these things for fun and/or tasty Canadian money (not me, their testers) report these in the testing phase so they are addressed. All it takes is one random player to figure it out on purpose or by accident and it's hibernation all over again. These things spread, people will exploit.

So ideally the game has to be fair to you as a player while having no exploits. Because if they exist, people will find them, mostly by accident. Why these get by the testers, I don't know, like I said, maybe they can't figure them out, maybe it's not their job description, maybe the deadlines are extremely tight, maybe the focus is not on them, the studio expecting most players to be more like you and less like me.

You can't really blame them for that. The amount of players who get their enjoyment from being villains and thwarting the game (after hundreds, thousands of hours) is very small. Ideally, the studio and them would have a symbiotic relationship. And that happens to a degree, they do have players who test the releases before release. But for some reasons, some things get by unnoticed.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of issues like this, accounting for each and every aspect of the game. Most will get fixed, eventually.

[Amazombie]

I agree with most this thread , some of it was TL;DR, but the OP was on point. I would like to add, I also would LOVE to see the ability to chop a tree down. Maybe they could gate it, buy adding an ax recipe that took more materials or something, but if I've got a good base established I shouldnt have to worry about wood in a forest lol

[toebar]

You can't really blame them for that. The amount of players who get their enjoyment from being villains and thwarting the game (after hundreds, thousands of hours) is very small.

hahaha. hadn't thought of you as a villian :lol:

[octavian]

hahaha. hadn't thought of you as a villian :lol:

Well, players like me are, a bit, I guess, since they do it on purpose. Update is released, and my frame of mind is, so, what was introduced, how does it work, how can I exploit it.

Initially I did this because I wanted to report them, but I had some bad experiences with that, so now I just do it for fun. It's interesting to me. Finding loopholes, oversights, finding the unintended in the intended. Especially when they "fix" something or add a new mechanic. So in this respect, I guess I am a bit of a villain type of player.

Getting back to the wood topic, a lot of ideas can come out of my kind of behavior. Like, increase the fire skill on a fail, not on a success.

As you start a game your skill would steadily go up but as you get better you're less likely to go up in skill. Less chance to fail, less chance to increase your skill.

Right now, you get better as you get better, it's a cascade effect. It wouldn't be much of a change, but small things like this, hundreds, thousands, make a real difference. I'm not going to suggest it though, no point, it will just lead to drama as usual.

[bethany]

Initially I did this because I wanted to report them, but I had some bad experiences with that, so now I just do it for fun.

Just out of curiosity, when have you had bad experiences with reporting bugs or glitches? Feel free to PM me instead if you'd like.

[Magnuzn]

I've passed 1100 hours

Wait, WHAT?! You must really love this game! It's incredible that you've been able to play for so long though, that says a lot about how good the game is.

Erm, no. The idea of my post was that it's extremely easy because of the exploit, not that it's balanced when you exploit, no.

It came out a bit weird. Basically you were defending how the system isn't broken, and most of your arguments involved bugs. So to me it came off as the game is best played/works best with exploits.

It's not that you are bitching, but, look, if you and many many other people are having a certain experience, that's fine, nothing wrong with that. But I (not me personally, me as another player) found this, thing, right?

Everybody has different experiences, yes. But that doesn't mean something isn't broken. Many people love glitches, OP stuff and exploits because it means they can do better than others or at least better than what was intended. I think we need to look at it objectively to determine if its broken or not.

[octavian]

Wait, WHAT?! You must really love this game! It's incredible that you've been able to play for so long though, that says a lot about how good the game is.

I have my own ways to keep my interest peaked. Don't ask.

It came out a bit weird. Basically you were defending how the system isn't broken, and most of your arguments involved bugs. So to me it came off as the game is best played/works best with exploits.

Well sometimes my English is atrocious. My point was it's extremely easy because of at least one exploit which is not an exploit, just playing as intended and paying attention to the balance of resources. I'm not defending the current system, I'm defending against what was said, making sticks even more efficient. I was arguing why that's a really bad idea.

Everybody has different experiences, yes. But that doesn't mean something isn't broken. Many people love glitches, OP stuff and exploits because it means they can do better than others or at least better than what was intended. I think we need to look at it objectively to determine if its broken or not.

Again, it is broken, but not how you portrayed it. Exploit was in italics. These are not legit exploits. Those are way worse. Just seeing what was intended and using it to your advantage. I'm not using bugs. No exploits in the true sense of the word.

It is objectively broken, but not how you portrayed it. If anything, your experience of the wood/fire mechanic is due to you not paying close attention to the balance. I don't want to insult you or whatever, I just want to be clear.

What I'm defending against is your suggestions. More wood, faster. Again, what I talked about are not exploits in the true sense of the word, you're not using bugs, it's just dud game balance, an oversight. I just want to make it clear what I'm defending and what not. So if what you suggested were to be implemented, it would be even more imbalanced.

[random calliope]

I disagree with most of OP's points, as I and others did on Reddit.

1) Gathering wood is an essential task, as it would be IRL. It can be particularly scarce if you are in certain areas. New branches fall too often. I would expect half as many to fall as do, and then it should only be after incredibly strong storms. And yes, you should have to prepare yourself to go out on a wood gathering expedition just as you would IRL.

2) The gathering of wood is done with an axe, not a saw. Chopping a branch the thickness of your leg down to usable sizes takes a long time with an axe. Perhaps skinning a bear should take longer to be realistic.

3) Sticks are great things, as others pointed out. They're as good as logs and plentiful. We don't need to balance the game toward keeping us cabin-bound, sitting fat and happy with all our needs met by 10 hours light remaining. The balance needs to go the other way - make us need to get outside or die.

4) There are more calories in the game than I know what to do with. About 1/3rd of my food spoils before I need to use it. I keep food sorted by freshness and eat the least fresh first and can't keep up.

I do not want to chop down entire trees. There is another game for that and the trees are used to build forts. There it's appropriate, here is isn't. We don't have the tools for it once it's on the ground - an axe isn't the right tool - and there is no need to go down that path in this game. Wood is too plentiful and easy to gather as it is.

@Octavian

I have my own ways to keep my interest peaked. Don't ask.

Ha! I read about that in another post. You're my hero and I'm going to try it when I get the courage up.

[Magnuzn]

I must say I disagree with a lot of what you said, or perhaps you just didn't understand me.

1. I disagree with most of OP's points, as I and others did on Reddit.

More people agreed with me than disagreed, so the majority seems to feel the same way.

• The gathering of wood is done with an axe, not a saw. Chopping a branch the thickness of your leg down to usable sizes takes a long time with an axe.

Have you ever used an axe in real life? And have you chopped wood or branches? I can assure you, I can do it faster with a shovel (literally, I've actually done it). Chopping with an axe can only take one simple swing from someone who knows what they are doing.

• There are more calories in the game than I know what to do with. About 1/3rd of my food spoils before I need to use it.

I keep food sorted by freshness and eat the least fresh first and can't keep up.

Just because you have many calories extra doesn't change the amount of calories used. Also not everyone has extra food, it depends entirely on the playstyle and difficulty. I feel it's wrong for you to claim it's balanced simply because you have extra food. I've got loads of food too, but that doesn't change the consumption when you leave your supply and have to spend the night somewhere.

• I do not want to chop down entire trees. There is another game for that and the trees are used to build forts. There it's appropriate, here is isn't.

I could use the same logic to say that there are other games where you gather branches and that it therefore is not appropriate in this game. Your argument is completely invalid and has nothing to do with the game itself.

[KD7BCH]

Sticks are pretty balanced against chunks of wood. Branches on the other hand aren't really worth it, I only pick those if I am in a hurry from one place to another and have run out of stamina and want to spend the 10 min regenerating "run" then I also get two sticks.

Overall I feel the timesink is fair but the calorie sink is just stupid.

When it comes to sticks I'd love to be able to bundle them.

[toebar]

• The gathering of wood is done with an axe, not a saw. Chopping a branch the thickness of your leg down to usable sizes takes a long time with an axe.

Have you ever used an axe in real life? And have you chopped wood or branches? I can assure you, I can do it faster with a shovel (literally, I've actually done it). Chopping with an axe can only take one simple swing from someone who knows what they are doing.

Firstly, I agree with OP that branches should be processed a little quicker than they are now--I tend to just grab sticks currently because of this.

To clarify, it's a hatchet. I doubt any hatchet would slice through a dry branch the thickness of your leg in one swing--especially when its just loose in the snow. I keep my axes sharp religiously, but I doubt a found hatchet would be in that sort of shape.

Saws would be a nice and obvious addition to the game. Much easier to process larger wood.

[MueckE]

I cant agree on one specific argument that is always coming up - "it is not realistic"

Guys its a game!

The time it takes to break down things or do something doesnt have to equal realism, it has to do its purpose for the game.

When i can break down branches in 10 seconds, than it is easier to forage wood than it was before.

The mein part of this new mechanic was to put the player in danger when he is outside, get caught by a blizard - thats what it is about.

Its the same thread as "add more guns" .... i mean wtf! Its the long dark and not counterstrike.

As mentioned before, lower the respawn rate, the amount of sticks and the places to find them - thats the right way to make it harder and "more realistic".

Dont get me wrong, i am just tired of suggestions that make the game even more easy under the banner of realism ...

edit:

And no, you dont have to exploit the mechanic. You can easily gather 60+ sticks without any trouble

every day.

[Magnuzn]

I cant agree on one specific argument that is always coming up - "it is not realistic"

Guys its a game!

Dont get me wrong, i am just tired of suggestions that make the game even more easy under the banner of realism ...

I can agree that realism doesn't always have it's place in games. It's wouldn't be fun as a commander in ArmaA to make phonecalls and do paperwork when a soldier dies. But simulating realism can be good, which is what this game does. If you play on a winter map in BF4 you don't get cold and freeze to death, but in this game you do. If a game aims for realism then it's only natural that we want it to be more realistic.

What's the point of needing to eat food, drink water, put on clothes and so on if you for example had respawns or unlimited health? This game and it's entire gameplay is based on realism and realistic factors such as time, energy and temperature. If it in reality would take 3 hours to skin a bear (just making this up btw) why should it take 10 minutes in-game? Should we then regenerate full health after 30 minutes instead of sleeping for hours? No, ofc not, because the game is based on "realism".

As for making the game more "easy" that was not my intention with this post. More than anything I wanted to just change the incredible unrealistic features, but that doesn't mean it should or will be easier. It's all about balancing the game. If we for example decrease the amount of energy used when breaking down furniture, that could in turn be balanced by adjusting the amount of food. Remember, if you change something in a game you often have to balance other elements to make it work together. There is rarely ONE fix.

[octavian]

But simulating realism can be good, which is what this game does. If you play on a winter map in BF4 you don't get cold and freeze to death, but in this game you do. If a game aims for realism then it's only natural that we want it to be more realistic.

That's where you are wrong. You are making a confusion. The game does not simulate realism and does not aim for realism.

[Magnuzn]

That's where you are wrong. You are making a confusion. The game does not simulate realism and does not aim for realism.

I'd say that's where you are wrong! It simulates REALISTIC aspects like: food, calories, water, dehydration, hunger, illness, injuries, temperature, hypothermia, shelter, wind, energy, exhaustion, consumption, sleep, crafting and so on... Do you see this in ANY other game that doesn't simulate realism?

In your mind, what sort of game is this then? Arcade? Is it not a simulator? Does it perhaps simulate something else? There really is nothing fictional about this game, it's all based on realism.

[Bill Tarling]

It simulates REALISTIC aspects like: food, calories, water, dehydration, hunger, illness, injuries, temperature, hypothermia, shelter, wind, energy, exhaustion, consumption, sleep, crafting and so on... Do you see this in ANY other game that doesn't simulate realism?

Different aspects can be found in many games. They add some aspects of realism, or gameplay aspects, but that doesn't mean they're striving for full realism throughout the game.

Is it not a simulator?

No it's not a simulator, although it does use some survival simulation aspects

There really is nothing fictional about this game, it's all based on realism.

The event, the location, gameplay adjusted settings and mechanics such as the timeshifting and even faster than IRL walking speeds... plus the disclaimer even at the start of the game...

[octavian]

You're making a confusion between setting/context/genre and realism.

Suppose the game was set on a different planet, alien species, including the player character. Exactly the same idea. But, the player character would have gill-things, and what are snow flakes in TLD were actually "flinfon". And whenever there was a blizzard out, that would be the best time to go out and open up your gill-flaps to catch "flinfon" so your "flinfon" meter goes up.

This would be how you eat.

Is this realistic or not? Because you're still just managing a number, doing something so your "hunger" bar goes up. Catching "flinfon". Does it make any difference how it's packaged, slab of meat took from an animal or standing outside and catching nutrients in your fanned, gill-like, nutrient catching organs?

How is this different in any way since the effect is the same. Just, a number you have to manage, goes up and down, and so on. Just because you're not familiar with "flinfon" but you are with meat? Just because you eat meat and candy bars, and the fact those are in the game too means its "realistic"?

And if it's not different, that means you have to say catching "flinfon" in your gill-things would be realistic too, because that's basically hunger in a survival game. So now you're calling realistic something that's completely fictional. Hope you see my point.