Forgeable knife and hatchet


Scyzara

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Am I the only one who finds forging knifes and hatchets completely pointless?

Forging an improvised knife costs 3 scrap metal & one piece of cloth as well as several pieces of wood and at least three pieces of coal (to reach 150°C). Three pieces of scrap metal is enough to completely repair a "normal" pre-made hunting knife for 105% condition.

To make forgeable tools even worse, harvesting a carcass with them also takes more time than harvesting it with pre-made tools. If anyone is interested in the exact numbers: Harvesting 1kg non-frozen meat takes 12 min with an improvised knife, 8min with a hunting knife, 20min with an improvised hatchet and 15min with a normal hatchet. For frozen meat the pre-made hatchet is fastest, followed by the improvised hatchet and then the knifes. (I know this is realistic, but it makes balancing worse nevertheless.)

So what exactly is the point in ever forging a knife or hatchet at all? It costs more fuel and time (both while forging and later on while harvesting meat) than just repairing the premade items. And as there is plenty of scrap metal available, you can easily repair the very same premade hunting knife hundreds of times.

For me, forging would only make sense if there were almost no premade knifes and hatchets available at all because as soon as you find even a single premade one, using your scrap metal to repair it always seems to be a better choice than forging additional knifes and/or hatchets.

Switching to forgeable tools (under the current V. 265 circumstances) seems to be a bad choice in any case I can think of. :?

It might be an option for experienced players starting in DP at the beginning of a game (instead of searching tools, you just forge them yourself instead), but it's certainly nothing you should ever do during mid or late game imo.

I somehow doubt it is intended to work this way. oO''

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For me, forging would only make sense if there were almost no premade knifes and hatchets available at all because as soon as you find even a single premade one, using your scrap metal to repair it always seems to be a better choice than forging additional knifes and/or hatchets.

In that case, why forge? If there would overwhelmingly be just one type of tools, forged or not forged, why would you need the other? Just tweak what you have the way you want it.

To be clear, if there were little to NO knives and hatchets, except what you can forge, why forge them, just have knives and hatchets as before, not forged, but tweak them to achieve the effect you want from the forged ones, say, longer harvest times and whatever.

What does this foreplay of forging bring? I don't get it.

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I guess it's just a sign that hatchet and knife will no longer be repairable in future versions. Seriously how do you repair a broken knife which has fallen apart into pieces with just scrap metal?

Seriously, what is the chance that a full tang hunting knife would broken apart? Zero. Especially, if you use it as in the game: harvesting meat and hide. Only the wooden/plastic handle can broke off, but it will still going to work as a knife.

Seriously, do you think you would be able to forge a knife with some coal and scrap metal?

I don't understand where the game is going?

First, the knife was degrading all the time and they was rare = They said it's meant to be that way because it's lifespan shouldn't be infinite and those items should degrading while they're not even in use! And they thought it's cool, no matter it's not realistic. They told us that it's good at that way, because a knife should be a rare and precious item. They act like they're know what they're doing.

Then knives become repairable and they become plenty. At that time they're only degrading if they're in use. Before the current update, I found 4 knifes just on ML. And a ton of scrap metal and fir wood. There wasn't a shortage on knifes/hatchets anymore.

And now they introduce an improvised knife/hatchet beside the current ones = even more knives/hatchets.

So, what happened since then? Why a precious and rare item become a frequent, almost never ending resource?

It's bad from the beginning. It's such a stupid thing to repair a knife or a hatchet. It was in the really first moment. I remember how many good idea was in the forum about this topic. Like let us have a sharpenig stone/fat and let the knife/hatchet doesn't degrading. Let the player maintaining it regularly otherwise it would start to loose it's edge and become rusty. And the result would be to take ages to harvest a corpse, etc.

But noooooo! It would be bad! Just imagine! Knives/hatchets should be lost their condition, otherwise the whole world would falling apart. <---> Now we have knives/hatchets everywhere, scrap metal everywhere, plus another kind of knife and hatchet.

What happened since then?

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I am just really annoyed by two things

1) blacksmithing is a dying art. Literally. Very few people know how to actually forge metal, and while the trade is slowly growing back again, it remains rare. Rare enough where I thought it was extremely weird that an apparently poor-and-harried backwoods bushpilot knows how to forge metal. Blacksmithing takes a LOT of time to learn

2) Arrowheads. Freaken arrowheads. The devs want us to build a bow, but, in order to do so, we have to trek across multiple miles of snow-covered hillscape in order to do so.

Meanwhile, I went to the local hardware store, bought some 28 gauge sheet steel, and with a hacksaw and a file, I made 15 1in-wide trade points. Took me about 3 hours or so.

I am starting to get severely .... concerned, about where this game is going. Realism, and even "authenticity" is going out the window in my opinion, and the "feeling of survival" is being taken away with it.

To me, survival is all about choices, and based on those choices, improvising, adapting, and overcoming problems.

"huh, well, I don't have any arrowheads/a knife, let me break some of this glass and see what I get, or take a file to this scrap and see if I can't get an edge"

"huh, well, I don't have any arrowshafts, but I have plenty of cattail stalks, let me work with some and see what I get."

"huh, I don't have any fletchings, but I have some duct tape in that toolkit. Let me fiddle around with it and see what happens"

"huh, I don't have a coat, and it is really cold outside. I am not planning on coming back here, so let me see if I can't make some sort of jacket/cape/cloak from that wool blanket on that bed there.."

-NOT-

"Well, I don't have -X-, time to die!"

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As i said in another thread, you guys just have to ignore it. Dont look at the sandbox as a "game" anymore but see it as a "sandbox" - a place where you can test. It doesnt metter if there is ot much of this and that.

It seems, the devs hardly focus on the storymode and everything that is important for that. You have to admit, the

last update was basicly a visual and sound update - and it came out really nice. You can see that most of the work they did went into these things. I am pretty sure the hammer, hecksaw and forge are just new items that will have their role in the storymode (and the region too ofc).

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Only good thing about new handmade knife and axe, i think it degrades less, at least thats what i noticed, other than that i'm on the same page as yall, its totally useless. explored/looted only ~40% of ch before moving to dp. have 4 knifes, 3 hatchets, 3 guns, 3 hacksaws, heavy hammer... playing on stalker.

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Only good thing about new handmade knife and axe, i think it degrades less, at least thats what i noticed, other than that i'm on the same page as yall, its totally useless. explored/looted only ~40% of ch before moving to dp. have 4 knifes, 3 hatchets, 3 guns, 3 hacksaws, heavy hammer... playing on stalker.

I wanted to test the degradation of the improvised hatchet.

So I went to the Riken, took a freshly repaired Hatchet (the real one) and broke down all boxes, crates and planks inside the ship.

The real hatchet was drained down to 82% condition.

Then I reloaded back to entering the ship (thanks for quit without saving :D ), forged an improvised hatchet and again broke down all boxes, crates and planks inside the ship.

The improvised hatched was drained down to 73% condition.

On top of that: The improvised hatchet requires more time, thus more calories and cannot be repaired.

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So.... both "improvised" tools are inferior in literally every way possible to the actual tools? With the amount of scrap metal available (for repairing the "real" tools) , why would I ever even consider making them?

....

Welp, I guess I am never going to make/use them, and only trek out there to make arrowheads.

Great mechanic, devs -__-

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Well to be honest I haven't even made it to the forge yet so I can't speak out of my own experience, but from what I gather here the forged knife and hatchet draw the short straw in every area that matters:

1. Take a lot of resources and time to make.

2. Take more time to use.

3. Degrade faster?

4. Can't be repaired.

Once you find a regular knife/ hatchet you can keep that one repaired easily so there is no reason to ever forge a knife/ hatchet. Even if the regular knife and hatchet are changed in a future update so they can't be repaired anymore, there are so many of them lying around the gameworld I doubt I would need to forge one before I decide to start a new run. I will forge both once I make it to the forge, but only to check them out. It doesn't look like I will be forging them again...

Like Scyzara I feel like this isn't working as intended.

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Haven't tried new mechanics yet (still looking for a forge) but this does have me worried. Than again, as another poster pointed out the sandbox mode is primarily intended for research and development of game mechanics. I'll hold off on deciding that the game has gone off the rails until after story mode (and presumably all the testing) has released.

As an aside, a "quick fix" for this would be introducing a file as tool. Files wouldn't degrade (have you ever tried to destroy one of those?) but would be necessary to make and sharpen improvised tools. While a file can sharpen an axe it would destroy a store bought knife so there you go. Suddenly, improvised knives become useful since you can file the crude edge sharp whilst commercial knives will eventually become dull and unusable. Another fix would be if tools could break while using them. You can snap off a blade while gutting an animal if you jam it against a bone and put too much pressure on it.

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I agree that the current state of forging (as well as the amount of scrap metal btw) can only be explained by further changes planned for future TLD versions. We can only speculate whatever these may be exactly.

What I, on the other hand, completely disagree with is that it is in any way sensible to test anything under said non-final conditions. I mean honestly, what is Hinterlands getting from this nonsense?!

People (rightfully) complain that forging a knife or hatchet doesn't make any sense at all under V. 265 conditions. Great. I bet the Devs already know that themselves, there's nothing to "test" about it.

If you want to test anything in a meaningful way, you mustn't change only one isolated detail, but all important aspects at the same time instead. Introducing forgeable knives and hatchets just doesn't make sense for V. 264 because this version lacks the said additional changes.

In my humble opionion the Devs should EITHER have withhold the option to forge knives/hatchets completely for now OR have it introduced together with further changes (like e.g. less and non-repairable premade knives & hatchets).

Only the latter would be worth to call it "testing". And it would probably lead to much more valuable user feedback than just "forging tools is a waste of time".

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The Improvised Hatchet is almost twice the weight of a regular hatchet and degrades 3% per use, and takes longer to cut with. For the improvised Hatchet to be worth even making, it would need to degraded slower or weigh less and take less scrap to make. As of right now, the new hatchet is not worth it

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if you made a knife, i guess its good for crafting stuff... it takes longer, but i guess can do it to save the FOUND KNIFES. But overall, dont make a knife or hatchet. I did it just out of curiosity. Used hatchet once, still at 99% condition or so, and knife is at 92%.... day 110 and not gonna use it anymore.

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  • 3 months later...

I presume that the improvised knife and hatchet are now "repairable" by using the whetstone and the regular knife and hatchet are no longer repairable except by using the whetstone. For that matter, we can now complain about the rapid deterioration of the whetstone. Now we really have a very finite life time for hatchets and knives since they will wear out once the whetstones are used up. As long as one can find coal, one can continue to craft more knives. I was told that coal now respawns in the caves and mines. If not, then the supply of coal will eventually limit the availability of a cutting tool. Even the hacksaw will eventually wear out.

As a long term survival game, I think we should be able to get more coal by respawning it so that hypothetically it would be possible to survive indefinitely. Weather and other hazards such as avalanche, or sickness would increase the odds of dying to add a little more challenge to the game.

In general, I'm dissatisfied with the rapid wear of clothing, tools and so forth.

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