Slow down time!

[svisketyggeren]

Getting back into Long Dark again. Enjoying everything thats been added, especially the new area.

But as before, the time aspect of the game just kills it for me. I know its probaly related to some form of balacing in the game, but jeez a day feels like 5 minutes. Totally ruins the immersion

Isnt there a possiblity of slowing the time down considerably? So a day would actually feel like a day.

Has this ever been a topic?

[Foxen]

...a day feels like 5 minutes...

I think that depends on what you're doing the whole day.

If you just spend time on eating/drinking/sleeping...sure it feels like minutes.

Every action in the game that 'needs' a 'transition screen' (in lack of better terms, sry) feels 'the same' (in RL) more or less.

But the ingame time that's actually spent isn't the same for all actions.

The only solution (in my opinion) would be a balancing of the time you look at the 'transition screen' in relation to the spent ingame time...

But if done so:

Would you really want to look at that screen for let's say 3 or 4 minutes RL time when you break a big box or a big shelf apart for firewood?

It's like in RL:

If you're busy...time passes by quickly without recognizing it.

If you're just wandering around to a known target...you're...bored(?) and it feels like it would take hours to get there.

Believe me, if you get trapped in a Blizzard...at night...and don't surely know where to go...and have nothing with you to sleep in...no firewood...it feels like the night'll never end

...and in some cases like these that becomes Reality (at least for the Character) :mrgreen:

[random calliope]

When I am out exploring, not harvesting wood or animals, the day does seem to last quite a while. I would be for decreasing how fast it goes by about 10%. But it is difficult to determine if that is a subjective desire because I've been caught outside at sunset too many times and needed a little more time to get to safety or if it is an objective need. So we have to do the math.

A day is 15 hours of light. Unfortunately it's still too dark to see until the 14 hours remaining mark. At 14 hours remaining there is almost always bad weather or it's just far too cold to venture out into. In my games the typical day starts with 12 hours remaining. Even if the weather is bad at that time I'll venture out anyway and do what I need to do. So practically speaking I'm going to start with 12 hours in a day.

It begins to get too dark to navigate by landmarks when there are two hours of light remaining. If you aren't headed in the right direction by then you should really consider finding alternative shelter and picking up sticks, regardless. So 12 hours less 2 hours leaves a 10 hour day.

That 10 hours is typically used for exploring, hunting, gathering firewood. Those are the three main things we do.

Exploring - Leaving early and arriving late I've walked from ML's Trapper's Homestead through the ravine, into CH, across country to the abandoned mine, through the mine, to the Signal tower in PV where I stayed the night. So for exploring I don't think there's an issue with the days being too short. The player can certainly travel a long way in that time. No activity transition screens used.

Hunting - This usually consists of traveling, waiting, watching, positioning yourself, killing, harvesting, then doing it again or walking back. Because exploring is a significantly long day the traveling, waiting, watching and positioning doesn't take a large chunk out of your day. Harvesting, however, especially if you've got both a wolf and a deer to harvest, will take more than 4 hours (2 each) - let's go with 2.5 each or 5 hours. That's half the 10 hours you had to start with. It does zoom by and takes a larger chunk out of the daylight than it feels like when it's happening. It is that transition screen that is tearing a chunk out of the day.

Firewood - I usually go home with about 18 cedar and 6 fir on firewood days, and at 45 minutes for every 3 logs that's 8x45 minutes is six hours just in the transition screen chopping wood. This leaves four hours just searching for the wood, and we know that can send us traveling quite a distance.

Just my thoughts. I could support 10%, but because I can get so much done if I don't enter a transition screen I'd say that time isn't the problem as much as unbalanced transition. Perhaps better the spend the animal harvesting time making the player haul their kill home, traveling overburdened, so it seems like it takes forever then they can stay up all night harvesting it indoors and pay the penalty in exhaustion. Still just thinking out loud.

[WinterWhite]

Making actions time shorter ( like breaking wood that take 45 minutes would take 30) is the solution

[svisketyggeren]

...a day feels like 5 minutes...

I think that depends on what you're doing the whole day.

If you just spend time on eating/drinking/sleeping...sure it feels like minutes.

Every action in the game that 'needs' a 'transition screen' (in lack of better terms, sry) feels 'the same' (in RL) more or less.

But the ingame time that's actually spent isn't the same for all actions.

The only solution (in my opinion) would be a balancing of the time you look at the 'transition screen' in relation to the spent ingame time...

But if done so:

Would you really want to look at that screen for let's say 3 or 4 minutes RL time when you break a big box or a big shelf apart for firewood?

It's like in RL:

If you're busy...time passes by quickly without recognizing it.

If you're just wandering around to a known target...you're...bored(?) and it feels like it would take hours to get there.

Believe me, if you get trapped in a Blizzard...at night...and don't surely know where to go...and have nothing with you to sleep in...no firewood...it feels like the night'll never end

...and in some cases like these that becomes Reality (at least for the Character) :mrgreen:

I should have specified that I see no problem with specific actions taking up time. Like repairing something takes time.

But I think the time should be slower when ur not doing any of these automatic actions (raparing, harvesting etc)

[elloco999]

Time used to be slower before the public early access and the main consensus then was that it took too long to travel. Since traveling is a huge part of the game time needed to be sped up so players would not spend half an hour IRL to get from Trapper's to the Camp Office.

While I would like time to be slower when I'm using a menu or when cooking so I don't feel like I need to hurry up because I'm wasting time (cooking)/ getting colder etc, I don't really feel like time is moving too fast overall.

[Foxen]

...While I would like time to be slower when I'm using a menu or when cooking so I don't feel like I need to hurry up because I'm wasting time (cooking)/ getting colder etc, I don't really feel like time is moving too fast overall.

+1

[DrMembrane]

Frankly, I can't imagine a single thing that would do more to make the game boring faster. A day taking a day would be fantastically boring, just like surviving in this situation would actually entail, a huge amount of mind-numbing boredom.

[saxel]

As I see it the reason they have time compression (when not skinning, cooking, repairing ect.) is that they (the devs) wanted to make the act of traveling from one edge of the map to the other not to take a trivial amount of time. So, in keeping with that desire, the only way to have time move at a 1:1 ratio, but have it also take 6 hours to walk from one side of the map to the other would be to put acres of random forest between all of the important places in the game. Thus it would also take 6 hours for the player to go from say the camp office to the dam in mystery lake. Given this I see removing time compression as a :

Realism +1

Playability -3

and thus vote to leave it in.

[Bill Tarling]

Just to give an idea of the travel speed and relative time from the earliest versions: it used to take approximately 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 in-game days just to travel from the Trapper's Homestead to the Hydro Dam. Available daylight hours were realistically and considerably much shorter as well (which meant you needed to travel and perform most other activities at night a lot more too).

While it did provide a realistic time period and speed, for gameplay it would have felt like trying to move and complete tasks while moving through molasses for most players (don't forget, the character would normally be travelling impeded through heavy unplowed snowdrifts as well).

Time and speeds were adjusted for gameplay purposes.

If you want to get an idea of the difference, check out these two early Backer gameplay videos

NOTE: by the first Backer releases around v.065, time and travel speed had already been increased considerably. :shock:

[bBvideo 560,340:v8pdk96v]

[/bBvideo]

[bBvideo 560,340:v8pdk96v]

[/bBvideo]

To put things into perspective, even prior to the v.065 Backer alpha release versions - the average survival time was around 2 days... 5 days was a huge challenge, and 17 days was the record. Time may have been more natural or realistic, but it also meant you were very limited as to what (and how many) tasks could be completed each day.

By v.065, it felt like you were travelling at highway speed compared to earlier pre-alpha versions.

If you are really a TLD Fanatic, travel through the pre-alpha archives to see some of earliest testing and feedback [i was even called a hoarder because I had managed (after a lot of effort) to gather 12 pieces of wood]

(NOTE: You must be logged in to view the archive section)

Pre-Alpha Archive: viewforum.php?f=66

[octavian]

I read this topic diagonally, does that even make sense in English? Skimmed? In any case, there is absolutely no reason for travel speed to be linked to time speed. Like, zero reason.

I bet there are two variables in the game, something along the lines of day duration in minutes and night duration in minutes. That's our minutes.

I think OP just wants a longer day/night cycle in terms of real minutes. Not a faster walking speed. There's a difference.

Is this right bolletog, is this what you want? Absolutely nothing changed except a longer day/night cycle in terms of real minutes?

[Bill Tarling]

In any case, there is absolutely no reason for travel speed to be linked to time speed. Like, zero reason.

I disagree - by that reasoning (as an an extreme example related to your "zero reason") you should be able to walk 100+ kph or travel across all three maps in just minutes.

If time is slower, then travel would be relatively slower as well [i.e. you would expect to travel about the same distance for the adjusted time periods]

I think OP just wants a longer day/night cycle in terms of real minutes. Not a faster walking speed. There's a difference.

That's what I was pointing out in the previous post... the original v.001 version was much more realistic for time [daylight/night hours as well]. It wasn't 1:1 compared to IRL hours, but time passing was slower. That also meant all tasks were adjusted to fit within that speed.

When you speed up the clock rate, other tasks (including travel) are also sped up reasonably proportionally. If you slow down the time clock, those tasks would likewise be slowed to use roughly the same portion of time as previously.

[nicko]

yerp- i think peeps not playing v258+ need to start again and then re-comment!

[octavian]

Bill, I'm trying to find out what OP wants not if what he/she wants is what you expect or not.

Let me ask you this. Do you have access to a debug enabled version of the game?

If yes, can you change the timestep? Can you set it to 100?

If yes, do you move 100 times faster, do you search a drawer 100 times faster, do your bars move 100 times faster, do wolves run around 100 times faster? In other words, is it a global time step?

If no, OP wants 0.5 timestep.

If yes, imagine you wouldn't move 100 times faster, wouldn't search drawers 100 times faster, your bars wouldn't move 100 times faster, wolves wouldn't run around 100 times faster. So it would only affect the flow of time discretely, only as far as day/night cycle is concerned, and that timer in the survival panel.

So what, it would take 17 in-game days to reach the dam from trapper's, but it would take the same time in terms of real-time as it does now. Alice in Wonderland weird, right? What if instead of 100 times faster, the timestep was 0.5 times faster, under the same discrete conditions. Would it be such a crime? :lol:

Even if it would be a crime, if that's what OP wants, then that's what OP wants.

[Leonard87]

I like the idea of slowing things down a bit (20-40%) while "keeing" weather time with the same or longer lasting transitions. So that i'm slower stepping through longer lasting storms with the transitions extended...

[Maninpants]

+1

In-game time it takes me about 15-30 mins to walk from the Pleasavnt Valley Farmstead to the end of ITS dive!!? That isn't right. If it takes that amount of time to walk what should be 5 mins max then I need another 3-4 hours in the day. At that rate it means I need 2 hours to take a dump. Still, at least I can last longer in the sack :lol:

This is where travel speed is linked directly with the amount of time we have to play with. What's the old equation? Time equals distance over speed. It's all linked.

I am now used to our new travel speed (when sprinting we still get fatigued too much imo) but we do need a few more hours in the day/night cycle, maybe each hour could be 15-mins worth longer or whatever it would be.

Also as it currently stands the 'action/doing something screen' lasts longer when opening a can of soup compared to chopping up a cedar/fir limb..... that is also funny. Whilst starting a fire I find myself twidling my thumbs and saying 'come on ffs', same goes for cooking etc, please speed it up (for us in the real world). Cool it takes 20 mins to cook but can we make it so I only wait 5 seconds instead of 9-10?

Am loving harvesting the wood though. Would be nice to choose what to chop up 2/3/4/5 bits of wood instead of having to freeze to death chopping up all 5 when i only want 1.

Back on topic - We need another 3-4 hours in this current .258 day/night cycle. It shouldn't take me 15-30 in-game mins to walk along the Pleasant Valley farmsteads drive.

[Doc Gonzo]

Wow Bill thanks for posting those clips. The interface has come a long way I see. What did the "map" and "snow shelter" buttons in the UI do?

Again that was very interesting to see ... thanks!

[elloco999]

The map button showed you a message that said the map was not yet implemented

The snow shelter button was removed before I had a chance to try it out, but I've been told it never worked.

[Bill Tarling]

What did the "map" and "snow shelter" buttons in the UI do?

Both buttons were just place holders in the early versions. After initial testing, it was realized you could find your way around pretty quickly and easily without a map, and so it wasn't really needed. In fact, the discovering and learning to get around by landmarks was so rewarding [you really felt proud once you began to recognize areas] that a map would have been more counterproductive [i.e. less gratifying]. You worked at learning the areas, but it paid off and felt great.

Once player online maps started being used by new players, then kinda lost out on a lot of that exploration and discovery - it made it feel more like a spoiler walkthrough solution, and they tended not to explore anywhere they didn't think might have something they wanted.

The snow shelter placeholder was another item that was never added. Originally when it too a long time to travel - between Trapper's Homestead to the Lookout Tower on Mystery Lake map took almost a day, sometimes more to travel to in early versions. So a snow shelter would have been more important since it was easy to get caught outside at night if you didn't plan your travel carefully, or you could also get caught in a storm [without any chance of making it to a building far away].

With travel and walking speed being so much faster now [relative to the game environment, not necessarily compared to other game series like Skyrim, Fallout, Metal Gear, etc.] there really isn't a critical need for the snow shelters since now even the 2 1/2 days travel distance only takes about 2 in-game hours travel time.

You can still get caught in a blizzard (which was often a death sentence in earliest versions), but now there are plenty of buildings available that you can still reach, as well as even some hollowed trees [such as on the PV map] and caves to hide out in.

So overall, as the game expanded, there really wasn't a need for either of the old placeholder buttons.