Fast Material Degrading Question

[random calliope]

Is the ultra fast degradation of clothing we wear and all items we touch part of the story line or is it a tuning issue intended to simulate keeping gear in functional order?

[Bill Tarling]

It's mainly for gameplay purposes (otherwise you would only need to find one of any of the clothing items if they lasted as long as real clothes) and representation of resource management concepts throughout the game. You can also think of it as leftover or throw away quality cloths that don't necessarily fit too well - but they are better than nothing when stranded. 8-)

[random calliope]

Thanks for the response. I wasn't sure if the environment had changed to a caustic air quality to explain the phenomenon. My observation has been that this feature does keep me out and questing for hides when it comes to the animal hide clothing. The regular search for, and management of, cloth and scrap metal adds to the game as well. These things we search for (hides, cloth, metal, saplings) do not degrade until they've been manufactured into something else, in most cases. Exceptions are some items that degrade with use only like bows, arrows, rifles.

The areas where I do not understand how the degrading function adds to the game are areas where we have no control, such as spare matches degrading in a drawer where we put them. We cannot light more fires for the sake of using all the matches we have found like we can simply not hunt when we have too much food spoilage. We could, if it worked that way, store matches somewhere so they do not degrade in our pack from exposure to the elements.

I will make a suggestion in the wish list forum regarding the inventory management of matches. I appreciate the clarification.

[octavian]

Like I said in a different thread, some items don't degrade, like jerky or flares. This makes no sense to me.

[random calliope]

Like I said in a different thread, some items don't degrade, like jerky or flares. This makes no sense to me.

I'm sure you already know this, but others who don't might read it.

The way I think it works based on my past life decades ago as a developer is this. They've put the items in-world and given each many, many attributes. Those attributes, in some cases, have been applied "globally" with a number like "rate_of_decay", or "is_bait", or "is_scare". Jerky, for instance would be is_bait=yes and flares would be is_bait=no. A flare and torch would be is_scare=yes but jerky would be is_scare=no. You can imagine at this point they have scores of items, each with many attributes, and scores multiplied by many = thousands, and possibly tens of thousands of elements that need to be tuned to act right during game play.

Developers are too close to the subject to be completely objective, so they hand it off to testers. Testers get too close to the subject too. So in this case we get to help with the tuning because we are emotionally invested in the game play, not emotionally invested in the nuts and bolts that Hinterland is. This is not to say that Hinterland is not also emotionally invested in the game play, but it's their vision coming to fruition so objectivity is compromised naturally.

To make it to early release it appears Hinterland made multiple decisions, like jerky will be bait, for instance, but there were a large number of attributes they just put the same number in. It is obvious to me that the rate of decay is one of those where everything that does decay does so at the same rate. Not all those rates SHOULD be the same. But there are thousands of such considerations and they're leaving it to us to bring to their attention. In effect we get to set the agenda for some of their meeting discussions.

In the case of flares, they're plastic capped and fairly weather proof so they shouldn't decay in the matter of years we are looking at. Decades, yes. I often find decayed jerky, but haven't noticed if it decreases over time, so I can't comment on that. I am sure Hinterland had the conversation about flares because it's logically set at zero decay for an item manufactured for weather-proof emergency use, but I'm not sure if they've had the discussion about the decay rate of jerky or matches because they're not realistic - yet. It is one of thousands of meeting agenda items they're probably yet to have.

I may be way off base, but that's how I see it. I also put in a suggestion about matches. I hope it makes the agenda.

[octavian]

Random calliope, the problem is nobody actually knows how the game works, and Hinterland wants our help, but not our help help.

The so-called vets, some, not all, don't play the game enough to have a clue, the game is constantly evolving in places they are never looking, mainly because when they do play, they play to have fun, not to understand the game, and play as intended, not to break it.

You can see it sometimes when some of them chime in, on tuning for example, and say something that was true/relevant six months ago, and if implemented now would be a tuning disaster. But they don't see it because they don't see how you can left field it and exploit what they suggest because they don't know what the game is doing in places they are never looking.

And devs are just too busy, and probably on a nightmarish timetable.

Like, the fact that you no longer need cedar and fir post .256 shot straight past devs and scout corps :?

And a good example for Hinterland wanting our help but not wanting our help help is that they want us to report bugs, but don't want us to actively look for bugs. For example, the ticket list, or however they call it in-house. I mean, I looked for it and I couldn't find it.

Knowing what bugs are currently in the game is useful, using bugs to find other bugs is a thing that exists. Sometimes, a bug is fixed but what is fixed is the symptom, not the underlying cause.

For example there was a bug with frame rate affecting your survival time. I remembered this today, made a guess they didn't fix all frame-time based calculations, found out if you disable v-sync an item basically stops degrading, or degrades very slowly, depending on your framerate. Awaiting confirmation.

But, we don't have access to that list, so, there you go. Just one example. We can't do much. Sometimes I try but then I remember. Still hyped about that item degradation bug. I hope it's confirmed.

[random calliope]

We'll have to agree to disagree, Octavian. What I see is a lack of an information manager, not a lack of good intent. I say this because I'm an information manager for an engineering firm and, left to their own devices, some otherwise brilliant people tend to pigeon-hole information or share it only with their small team and not take the time to categorize and share it with other parties. Finding it, sharing it, and keeping it up-to-date can be a struggle. That's just not one of the things people think about because it is outside the scope of concentration of everyone I've seen on the roster or job listings so far.

Obviously I'm just guessing, but this is what I think I see.

Typically I wouldn't post this kind of observation, but if I were Hinterland I'd want to know what the community impressions are. Also it is tangentially related to How To Play Questions - as in "where are the lists that help us help you?"

[octavian]

Nobody is questioning their good intent. There's lots of that.

I don't know.

And I don't want to derail this thread any longer.

They do get our feedback, there's Bethany, Bill, Patrick, scout corps, a lot of people close or working for Hinterland. You even see Alan or Raphael sometimes. I'm sure most of the time the team is on the forum they're not listed at the bottom of the index page. Bethany is never there, but she's always there, if that makes sense.

It's just that we never know what's going on. The ticket list is an example of that. As it's 2015 not 2013 I can only imagine it's intended. We're not supposed to see the ticket list. Simple as that.

It doesn't really matter. I just feel strongly about what I feel. Doesn't really matter. And the game is what, four months from release? If they give a link to it, does it change something? No. Nobody will care. Even if they did, four months is tomorrow.

People harped for a while about keyboard shortcuts. Me included. Bethany opened a topic openly asking about it. Few answered, got buried in the daily slew of new topics.

It is what it is.

[Bill Tarling]

The ticket list is an example of that. As it's 2015 not 2013 I can only imagine it's intended. We're not supposed to see the ticket list. Simple as that.

The original ticket numbering in the forums was because it helped Dave keep track on their old tracking system since the team was so small. Since then, they have gone to a new system, and have staff that pull and sort through the reported bugs, and they keep track of them.

If they give a link to it, does it change something?

The game, project assignments, and confidential material are not meant to be open source or public access.

[octavian]

There you go random calliope, coming from Bill Tarling it's as close to an official answer as you can get without Bethany saying it.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Patrick Carlson]

The game, project assignments, and confidential material are not meant to be open source or public access.

I don't have anything to add to Bill's very on-point description of our project other than to say--for the benefit of newer players reading this--there are multiple people from Hinterland taking in the daily feedback from these forums.

Thoughtful and critical feedback not only helps us (Hinterland) get a handle on what's going on in the game, but it also gives other players a context for their own experiences. I'd like to think it's not just about squashing bugs, but about making everything around The Long Dark a bit deeper and richer.

[bethany]

Thanks to everyone that took the time to reply to this over the weekend. And just so this is out there: Players can always feel free to PM questions to myself or anyone else with that "Hinterland" tag any time they like. We are always here to listen and help when we can, and we're absolutely all over the feedback from all corners of our community -- Which Patrick did a great job of illustrating.