My Whishlist / tips from my opinion

[MichaelKeridos]

Hi All!

My name is Michael, im new to survival games, decided to start with “The Long Dark” cause of 2 things, this game not involves zombies and those kind of creepy things

And because I freaking love the Canadian Landscape.

I played a lot in voyager and pilgrim mode, because I love to play relaxed or medium difficulty (stalker mode involves a degree of stress too high for me and I prefer leave the stress in my office)

And I would like to say my opinion about what we have and what I would like to see in this game:

• Customizable starting stats: I noticed that we crush in the canadian wilderness and we are all “Bear Grylls” like, I wish I could choose what to focus on, for my survival (focus on the strenght of my body or betting all on my cleverness??)

• More Complex Craft System: my concern is not about the items we can craft (I will list the items I would add to the game on a next point), but is about “When” we can craft them; we have a Repair skill and a FireStarting Skill but not a crafting skill? It would be reasonable that I cannot craft a bear bedroll until I reach a certain level on crafting skill (Bear Bedroll is an example to indicate an high level item)

Of course my reasoning extends to all the things we do that require some skill, as self-defense (higher skill less probability to get wounded) shooting (higher skill make appear some sort of “graphic interface effect” that help us aim at our targets), etc…

• More Flexible Craft System: In the game we are able to craft arrowhead and combine it with a stick and plumage to make an arrow, in this same way I would like to craft a basic knife and an hatchet (knife and hatchet are exemples for basic tools).

I think is a bit strange that our hero crash in the middle of nowhere with a backpack, a bedroll and various camping goods but not a knife, an hatchet, a can opener, etc… but let assume those items were lost in the crush, at last even I am able to combine a piece of sharp metal with a piece of (fir fire)wood to make a basic knife.

• Same Items, different levels: I would like to see different kinds of levels of my items, for example I have a basic knife, suitable for skinning, cloth cutting and wound an enemy while counterattacking, and what about if I find a military knife able to do the same things but faster and better, with not only the ability to wound but also the chance to kill my enemy? We also have an hatchet, suitable for breaking a shelter, a fishing hole, harvest a frozen carcass, chop woodbranch, and what about a bigger 2 hand woodcutter axe able to do same things but faster, with possibilities to chop trees and defend ourselves from attacking enemies (thanks to the long grip) all of theese are exemples (also Rifle, shotgung, sniper rifle)

• Map and Orientation: I would like we have the possibility to draw a map in-game, not something complicated; while exploring I imagine my hero reaching a train derailment, he note on his book a derailment (the white writing “The Derailment” appears on our screen), he look at the sun position, and decide to head south from there, after some time he find that heading south from there he can see a lake and a camp office on his left side, when he reach the camp office (the white writing “Camp Office” appears on our screen), he update the map, simply drawing a dotted line from the derailment to the camp office (I imagine my map like a drawing of a child, as we are not draftsmen, and the most we can aspire to, are simple notes, cause of our conditions)

• Items and things I would like to have on this game:

o Spade: useful to make holes if need to create a little shelter in the mid of a storm, if I want to make traps for bigger games, and why not… a little hole to plant something…

o More varied Fauna and flora, and why not, maybe a tameable Canid (and not only Angry and Hungry Wolves and bears ) this will help us hunting protecting and overcome the loneliness (if not mistaken another player introduced the idea of the “Mental State” of our hero)

o More options to force locked containers (we are depending on a crowbar, rare to find and cannot be fixed if damaged)

o More lootable things from our prey: like fat (can be used to make candles, fuel, waterproofing items, fire starter, Skin Care), innards (can be used as baits for the smell, it can help on big games hunting with big traps), horns.

o Snow cart: craftable/found, allow our hero to transport 30kg more on the snow without penalties

o Portable tent: repair from windchill

o Thermos: for keeping hot drinks… hot.

o Snowshoeing

o The possibility to place my items and not simply drop them

o More kinds of weapons (Shotgun, sniper rifle, crossbow, etc…)

o I noticed dead animals get frozen outside… they’re harvested meat no … also the fish… we are in a sub zero environment without possibility to preserve fresh meat and fish.

At the moment no other idea…

Thanks in advance for spending time on reading my post, hope it helps

[Patrick Carlson]

Hi Michael and welcome to the forums! Thanks for all the thoughtful suggestions. Based on the detail in your post I bet you'll find a lot of the conversations here pretty interesting.

[RenegadeReturn]

Some ideas are interresting deserve to be retained.

[MichaelKeridos]

Thanks for the warm welcome, i love the concept of "BrainStorming" where everyone can say an opinion and there is someone truly listening!

[Aduron]

• Customizable starting stats: ...

• More Complex Craft System: ...

I especially like these. I agree that I would like to simulate being a city slicker lost in the woods, it would be much harder than just showing up and having a homemade bow 7 days later. Having a crafting skill, which determines the starting condition of the item you create (with a tiny chance to fail? I don't know about that, though...) would be cool. If I make a bow before I "learn how" to do that from a book I find, then my bow should not do too well. And having basically a zero chance to start a fire in the beginning means that kerosene and accelerants would be an absolute necessity early on. I like it!