If you could add one gameplay element to the game what would it be?

[kristian mattila]

But they're electronic....

Maybe there are shrooms that could emulate the effect; heighten a sense at the expense of others

[kopfstoff]

great topic, there are already some really great ideas in this thread, hmm let's see...

like @McSquishin already mentioned, i also like the idea of progressing in-game by repeating - learning by doing so to say. but what i really loved as a combination of that is, what they did with "the last of us": to upgrade your grafting skills for medkits, you had to find first aid training books (or pages), to build better shivs, granades, molotovs and stuff like that, you had to find military education books (or pages)... as always in a naughty dog game, there was the option to look at, then rotate and zoom on the collected items like the mentioned survival read and here comes the tricky part that i liked so much:

i loved that the information you could read on these pages in-game where actually real facts to become better at the given tasks! even if you couldn't turn pages over, you could really read the stuff pictured there with small illustrations and learn (for real) a tiny bit about how to act with poisoning, how to create good knots, how to make water drinkable, clean and treat wounds etc.

i also like the mentions from @BillTarling, @Tanner_Pearson, @Edward_Smith about setting marks... love the idea of carving trees!

also love the idea from @Junaid_Hussain: that known routes will become unpassable through wheater and other happenings! that underlines the helplessness of the player against power of nature too!

@daavpuke: it should be doable somehow, at least the switch between two "states" for a location or a passing. i've first seen this on "spec ops: the line" from yager, they did it in singleplayer and even multiplayer that masses of sand could help but also prevent you from achieving goals. parts of the maps could drastically change through this feature. after that i've seen it in the multiplayer from the newest "tomb raider" from christal dynamics and after that in "the last of us", both in a more simplified way tho: weather effects like sand storms, heavy snowfall, fog etc. could blur your vision and change gameplay for a period of time... even these small details are a great adding to both, athomsphere and gameplay. if you haven't seen it, in "the line" it's done really great, you should check it out!

as mentioned by @Junaid_Hussain: the sanity thing... nightmares, hallucinations etc., that'll be awesome and realistic. your mind plays a lot of tricks when you're all alone in darkness. adding sounds of falling stones, breaking sticks, footsteps, voices etc. are easy to do i think, but a great way to do optical stuff technically could be to drag inspiration from "dear esther" and the way the did the in-game ghosts... make visions, hallucinations and so on disapear when they are centered / in the middle of the screen, and appear again when they are at the edge of the screen... maybe two times, maybe once, maybe al the time. makes you freak out.

the empty firearm thing mentioned by @Simo_Haaman: love the idea! it was done in "i am alive" (great game imho, even if it was cutted so much in terms of budget and team over the development, it hat some pretty neat and original features, i've never seen before in-game).

i've seen it somewhere on the forums: what about a pet/dog. it could help hunting, warn the player for nearby dangers and so on. it's hard to build that feature in and make it "fun", i think - otherwise there would be more games out there doing this already but it could work.

it was great in "haunting ground", good in "rule of rose" (both ps2 games) and last time i've seen it in gta v i was "playing" with the dog two or three times at max (beside the mainquest), i didn't care about it and it was more annoying to me then "fun"... so it's hard to find a good way to do it i think, especially in a fps game!

so now for some other ideas:

i'd love the fact if you actually could pick berries, mushrooms and herbs to eat them or combine them - BUT the player should also be forced to deal with the side effects! (already mentioned hallucinations, maybe even falling in faint, stomage hurts (less energy for some time maybe even a day). cooking/making medicine etc. should also be doable (skyrim for example did a good job regarding this sort of thing, you could pick stuff up, but did not know what it's suppose to do until you've read something about it or did a "selftest" - and deal with the consequences as mentioned above).

the possibility to get robbed and loose a lot of items (or even get killed) while sleeping at an unsave place in the open.

[Dalec]

Side note:

(Wow, there are a lot of posts on this discussion. I'm liking all the excitement people have for this project. So many great ideas or takes on ideas. I'm glad to be a part of it all.)

@RockinRaine

I'm sorry... I wasn't trying to sound condescending or mean. I should have been more thorough in my explanation. I was more referring to traditional leveling systems, which is what I thought you were talking about, that have been used in the past. Again I apologize, and I didn't mean to offend or discredit you. We're both on the same team here.

@TattooedMac & @robdoar

I agree. That's going to be a big undertaking if the devs want to implement something like this, but one that I would really like to see. The character using what he has at the time and making best of what he has even if nature is making it very hard for him.

@ArrayKnight

Man that is quiet the list.

[rockinraine]

@Dalec

Sorry for being an @$$. I want to be comrades and not fight, we are on the the same team.

[ArrayKnight]

Has anybody mentioned frostbite yet?

[brendan_meyer]

I think it would be interesting to have a more dynamic bartering system where you have to consider the person you are dealing with and what to trade. Rather than just a 1 for 1 or scripted swap of items.

One example: if you come across someone that seems really sketchy/suspicious and try bartering, you may not want to mention/offer ammo because now they would know you had ammo. This might cause them to either attack you then or try and surprise you when you have gone on your way. It would add to the stress of surviving on your own and trying to figure out how to approach the different NPC personalities.

Second example: if you are interacting with an NPC and they mention they are low on a particular item (like oil), they may be more willing to provide information or whatever you need if you give them oil. That would make you have to also weigh how important that particular item is to you versus what you may get in return. Perhaps they might also befriend you and give you deals in the future or come to your aid at particular instances in the game.

Just my few cents!

[ArrayKnight]

I think it would be interesting to have a more dynamic bartering system where you have to consider the person you are dealing with and what to trade. Rather than just a 1 for 1 or scripted swap of items.

Sounds a bit like Settlers of Catan. Their offers get better as their desperation increases or if you continually trade with them. Although, Catan never had an option to shoot them in the back and steal all of their resources.

[ArrayKnight]

Faraday cages. What sort of hidden caches of usable items might we find, protected, inside?

[out2lunch]

Just because the powers out doesn't mean a small scale solar array with inverter and batteries wouldn't work.

[TattooedMac]

I posted this in another thread then realising it didn't belong there so . . .

I would like to see a dice pop up into the game, and for a chapter you solely made decisions on what is thrown. It could be a veiled reference to "Sheldon" from The Big Bang Theory (My all time favourite show) where in one episode he ate, traveled, work, watched on TV and everything in his daily life came about by rolling the dice.

I love the concept, and have known of people to even do this IRL to either have a change, or to live life on the edge, not knowing what was around the corner.

This could be a Mini-game or as i said a chapter, but in a survival situation, would you roll the dice to make life changing decisions for you ???

[nicholas]

If I could add one thing to the game... Seasons spring summer fall and winter. I do not know if this would be possible but I think that it will add an extra edge to the game. If this is added you can make it so that you can see certain animals at different parts of the year and maybe even certain plants give off food in the fall and summer. Lastly since there is less in the winter maybe they can make the some of the npcs that are friendly in the other seasons hostile in the winter because of the need for food, shelter, and water.

[Bill Tarling]

If I could add one thing to the game... Seasons spring summer fall and winter. I do not know if this would be possible but I think that it will add an extra edge to the game.

I believe that's in the plans already by Hinterland [as sequels/chapters] -- it will also create a whole new set of survival challenges )

[logang]

If I could add one thing to the game... Seasons spring summer fall and winter. I do not know if this would be possible but I think that it will add an extra edge to the game.

I believe that's in the plans already by Hinterland [as sequels/chapters] -- it will also create a whole new set of survival challenges )

Bill is correct, Hinterland is planning on sequels based on different seasons which will offer different challenges and environments.

[Don Reba]

There should be hacking in the game. Say, for example, you find a locked door — you could search for the keys, but if your hacking skill is high enough, you would use your hacking tools to defeat the lock and gain entry. Or you could use them to chop wood under other circumstances.

[kopfstoff]

There should be hacking in the game. Say, for example, you find a locked door — you could search for the keys, but if your hacking skill is high enough, you would use your hacking tools to defeat the lock and gain entry. Or you could use them to chop wood under other circumstances.

instead of "hacking tools" i would love to see (selfmade) lock picks to open up locked doors if you don't want to search for, or couldn't find a key. maybe also a way to destroy door knops or wooden doors completely ("left 4 dead" f.e.). when i read "hacking" and "hacking tools" i automatically think games like "system shock 1+2", "deus ex" etc. and therefore it sounds a bit unfitting imho. maybe if you find some sort of high security underground bunker door, but then without electricity you can't do anything either, no?

[Don Reba]

instead of

"hacking tools"

i would love to see (selfmade) lock picks to open up locked doors if you don't want to search for, or couldn't find a key. maybe also a way to destroy door knops or wooden doors completely (

"left 4 dead"

f.e.). when i read

"hacking"

and

"hacking tools"

i automatically think games like

"system shock 1+2"

,

"deus ex"

etc. and therefore it sounds a bit unfitting imho. maybe if you find some sort of high security underground bunker door, but then without electricity you can't do anything either, no?

Just to be clear, by hacking tools, I mean a hatchet. You can use it to hack all sorts of machinery, even without electricity.

[ArrayKnight]

I think (in certain circumstances) you should be able to brute force your way through something locked, assuming you have a crowbar or the like, at a greater than normal expenditure of calories. Most doors, boxes, cabinets, but obviously not things like safes.

Doh, i see that we had the same thought and were posting at the same time.

[kopfstoff]

Just to be clear, by hacking tools, I mean a hatchet. You can use it to hack all sorts of machinery, even without electricity.

haha, you got me there.

[nkfh]

I think it would be great if one could find someone out there to play some mini-games with, like chess, cards etc. If your opponent loses he/she might go mental and attack you, how about that?

[TattooedMac]

Bill is correct, Hinterland is planning on sequels based on different seasons which will offer different challenges and environments.

And this is what i really want. Where i live, and where i did my Survival, it was in the Norther Territory in Aust and its 40c in the shade. This is where ill come into my own, and the reason i like and backed TLD in the first place, is to learn and survive in the Snow, which i have only ever seen/felt once in my life and that was when i spent 3 years in London and worked in Germany for a little bit.

Ill back another chapter without even thinking about it.

[logang]

Borrowing from the survival tool thread, perhaps when the game starts you can have the choice of one of four or five survival items you can take from the plane before it explodes or in some other way becomes unavailable.

[Tristan_Y]

1. Having to trudge through snow, unless you have snow shoes.

2. Having the snow fall change the height of the map, and make certain things inaccessible at times. (example: 1. There is a cave entrance at the bottom of a valley, when it snows too much the entrance is covered up and you have to wait for the snow to that in order to enter the tunnel. 2. Item/s or area on a ridge or ontop of a house that you cannot normally get to unless there is a heavy snow.)

3. this

Orienteering skills or even marking trees like wolves and bears.

[TattooedMac]

Further too the post above of mine about the dice, i came up with this, as i think this could work and be a interesting idea . .

I would like the dice to be used in a way like the Choose your own Adventure Books, where i would spend hours and hours getting complete different stories, and i remember filling up pages and pages of page numbers and which tangent i went on.

It would be cool to see this , say left in someones home, and once you found it, in the next 24 hrs, you HAVE to roll the dice, to see where it takes you, and you either take the road that was set out by the roll of the dice, or you gamble and not take the road the dice set out, and risk loosing something ?? But ultimately its only a 24hr in game thing.

Its found in a old cookie tin, tobacco tin, or similar with a story about the person theta left it there and the reference that he loved the Choose Your Own Adventure Books and because of that, that is how he followed his life . . . . . .

Anyways, my mind is fried as I'm still getting lost in this new forum style (

[thrasher1016]

Hmm tagging on to that suggestion about directions, what if the weather was always changing, blocking old paths, creating new ones etc?

That would be pretty awesome. I don't think it's done often, so I'd definitely be open to the idea. However, I'm not sure how realistically doable it could be to implement, but it's fun to dream, I suppose.

The dynamic WX idea is a great one (I'm partial to weather, myself)!!!

I think that some games have done this effectively, and some that have tried have failed.

The one game that I am playing right now that has a weather "moment" in it is Battlefield 4. I know, I know, terrible example... But on the Paracel map, a small typhoon / oceanic storm brews up right in the middle of a stormy day (Devs call this function in BF4 "Leveloution"), and it DRAMATICALLY changes the way the map is fought from that moment forward.

Being in a PT boat and having to track and fight while you're pitching and yawing in 10' seas is a rough one, no pun intended...

BUT I DIGRESS:

Real world weather constantly wipes out man's markers and our attempts to cultivate our own "space" in the wilderness can be very easily overwritten by mother nature in a matter of minutes, given the right circumstances.

Like it was said above, I don't know how exactly they'd pull that off in this specific type of game, but it would be sweet none the less!

Thanks - T

[dwonder]

There are a lot of good ideas, already. I'm not sure this is applicable in this thread but oh well.

1.) I like the idea of having to stoke a fire/blowing on a tinder bundle.

2.) Routinely sharpening blades so that they continue working correctly.

3.) instead of scratching a tree, maybe flag it with some sort of ribbon or cloth to mark a path.

4.) the presence of a forest/brush fire and its effects on your achieving a goal/task - your actions causing a fire and the long term effects on your environment (less cover for hiding, vegetation to each, etc.)