Another bogus death due to poor mechanics...

[KD7BCH]

So I'm cold and tired and found a cave to sleep in. I checked the R value of the site, and of my equipment by sleeping for an hour first and noting that I will recover cold on the cold meter. Then I slept another six hours. However I died from what I have to conclude was hypothermia but the game didn't say. I didn't end up screaming, was around 70% health, good hunger and thirst conditions. I'm not sure how at 26 + 7.0 DEG which I was at with the bedroll it drops from that level to death without waking you up shivering which is what happens to the body IRL but it is the current state of TLD. Cheap deaths persist.

Please stop this. I am uploading a vid chronicling the experience. Check the last 2 minutes of it.

To all you posters regarding making a fire every-time, yes I could have, but I thought it was not necessary as the temperature was stable and my equipment was sufficient to keep me warming up. The issues here are threefold.

1. You can freeze in 3 hours from 100% at +31F or -40F, it makes no difference to the current mechanic.

2. There is no warning/control mechanic to prevent death or signal it is coming. You can't stop like you can boiling water to add more wood, and there is no signal you should stop.

I think sometimes you should wake up freezing and hypothermic, or just freezing, or naked, standing up, having taken off all your clothes and wondering what the hell is going on.

3. Even if you make a fire and sleep 6 hours and your fire lasts for 3. You can still DIE completely out of your control.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/di ... 6961242002

[ChillPlayer]

Yes temperatures can go way below -30 Celsius and you might actually die quite fast when you are sleeping during a storm without a fire. And no, when you begin to freeze while sleeping there's no waking up, which is why it is so dangerous to fall asleep in a survival situation in cold weather. People who freeze to death usually first fall asleep.

What is unnatural is the frequent change of highs and lows in temperature, it's a short cut the game takes to emulate danger. But everyone who plays the game knows: only sleep inside without a fire, never outside. Caves without a loading screen are outside.

[selfless]

The math is rather simple.

The Warmth bar holds exactly 15 degree*hours (Celsius, imperialist units are something different). So to get from fully warm to freezing requires exposure to negative degrees for hours, at -1 degree feels-like it will take 15 hours/ at -30 degrees feels like it will take 30 minutes. The reverse is also true, warming up from freezing to completely warm requires 15 hours at only 1 degree feels-like, but can be done in 1 hour at 15 degrees.

Freezing is the state of having zero Warmth bar. Temperature is no longer relevant. We lose 20% condition per hour while freezing. 2 consecutive hours of freezing delivers the affliction hypothermia, which doubles the freezing damage to take away 40% per hour.

Balancing these two mechanics requires estimating how long the Warmth bar "bank" can survive before emptying completely then figuring to avoid the pitfall of two hous freezing bringing hypothermia. Not insignificant, but quite possible.

Or just play Voyageur difficulty which has the wake up if freezing feature already built in if that is the experience preferred. EDIT: OK, I'm wrong. This feature does not exists. What happens is Voyageurs and Pilgrims cannot freeze while near a fire. And they get woken sometimes by things happening, one of which might be your fire blew out. But not because they start freezing.

[Litstorm]

hmm, Its not very realistic either how we get to choose how long we sleep. So i say yes to waking up from certain effects.

[KD7BCH]

I keep suggesting realism. But set aside the realism argument. How is gameplay improved by making it impossible to prevent your own death if the temperature drops while you are sleeping and there being no shivering mechanic. As has been reported on Voyageur it wakes you but on Stalker it does not? Seems like that is pretty shaky design to me.

[ChillPlayer]

I keep suggesting realism.

Here's some realism:

http://altereddimensions.net/2012/dead-bodies-on-mount-everest

Some climbers stop for a brief rest only to slowly drift into a deep sleep, never to wake up.

There's no shivering phase that wakes you and I don't see why the devs implemented this in Voyageur. Waking up out of thirst before dying yes, but not because of freezing. Or just watch any Les Stroud episode that has him surrounded by snow and ice, he never sleeps outside unprotected without a fire

@selfless: thanks for the math, I wasn't aware of the exact numbers.

[Spottdrossel]

There's no shivering phase that wakes you and I don't see why the devs implemented this in Voyageur

True or false? In a survival situation, you may die from hypothermia in your sleep if you go to sleep when you’re cold.

False. Unless you’re severely hypothermic, uncontrollable shivering will wake you up before you get too cold. When that happens, run around or do some jumping jacks or something else to warm up before trying to catch another nap.

Source: http://magicvalley.com/lifestyles/recreation/article_09c2b1d7-5142-5416-941b-ba5410d4fb23.html

[KD7BCH]

I keep suggesting realism.

Here's some realism:

http://altereddimensions.net/2012/dead-bodies-on-mount-everest

Some climbers stop for a brief rest only to slowly drift into a deep sleep, never to wake up.

There's no shivering phase that wakes you and I don't see why the devs implemented this in Voyageur. Waking up out of thirst before dying yes, but not because of freezing. Or just watch any Les Stroud episode that has him surrounded by snow and ice, he never sleeps outside unprotected without a fire

@selfless: thanks for the math, I wasn't aware of the exact numbers.

Hey Chill, I love Les Stroud too. Two different things here. 1. Les Stroud doesn't have to contend with wolf city like we do in TLD, and 2. I wasn't on Everest or a mountain at all. On a side note, Les also frequently advocates effecting survival but a lot of that is shelter in place wait for rescue first 48 hours. He has also had to sleep outside without a fire in the cold and snowy weather. Side of the mountain exposed.

I wasn't in a place experiencing wild swings of temperature like the side of a mountain I was inside a semi-stable atmosphere protected from the wind. I also beg to differ on shivering. This occurs in two different stages for people becoming hypodermic. The body doesn't measure temperature directly as it has no digital thermometer however it has a temperature regulation system just like a circulatory and respiratory system.

My point is the argument for realism is for the game systems to reflect more like real life or conversely for the game-play argument is to be fun there needs to be a certain element of choice. In this case it is neither realistic or good gameplay when control to react is removed and the player is subjected to a death which isn't realistic wither.

All of indicators point to semi-safe conditions where wolf attack is more of a danger and indeed freezing isn't indicated by the conditions outside or inside the cave.

http://www.hypothermia-ca.com/hypotherm ... dchart.htm

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/hypother ... 1338889219

Please not the first stage/excitation stage is designed by the body to make you aware you are getting cold and to take autonomous action to remedy it, shivering is design to increase blood flow to make you warm up it is also a signal that you should seek warmth. When sleeping shivering wakes you up.

[KD7BCH]

Also wanted to mention according to this site there is almost never a good time to be doing an Everest climb but the reality you present of an active hurricane force winds 1/4 days, with the warmest forecasted temperature of -16C and windchills of -100C isn't really the same thing as being in a cave at the bottom of the river in the transition zone of MysteryLake.

http://www.explorersweb.com/adventureweather/charts/

-100C windchill wow.

[ChillPlayer]

People have experienced "feels like" of -70C ingame in TWM so it can get hellish cold. I'm not a doctor or anything, it's just mentioned in different literature to not fall asleep if you are already freezing. Be it as it may though, it doesn't really matter to your situation ingame and why your character died.

TLD is notorious for very sudden shifts in weather with little to no warning and from what I gather, you fell asleep in a place warm enough then but during your sleep the weather changed dramatically and you froze to death. Is it realistic? I'd say the freeze in your sleep to death part is, only the timescale is "adjusted" for gameplay purposes. So it's semi-realistic but is it something you can plan and adjust for? Definitely yes. Left aside that wolves and bears are another reason to not sleep without a fire outside, you should always account for the possibility that this nice "feel likes" of 5C can turn into -30 very fast.

So here's a simple advise: never sleep without a hot (min. +30C) fire outside, ever. Outside includes fishing hut, caves, hunter blinds and the like, everything that does not load (but not all buildings with a loading screen are safe, e.g. The Riken). Under the sky a wind gust can spoil everything for you, according to selfless at a "feels like" of -30C, which is not uncommon during fire extinguishing blizzards, you die within 4-5 hours. Which is why I never sleep for more than 4 hours outside under the sky without walls and a roof and with a fire going for as long as I sleep.

If you got this into your DNA then you didn't die for nothing. That's how TLD is designed, you die, you learn and hopefully won't repeat your mistake again. I know from own experience how it sucks when your lesson is held late in a long run, but that makes it just all more memorable. Try not to blame it on the mechanics because if anything they are not unfair, it is something you can prepare and adjust for, you just didn't think that this could happen.

[KD7BCH]

People have experienced "feels like" of -70C ingame in TWM so it can get hellish cold. I'm not a doctor or anything, it's just mentioned in different literature to not fall asleep if you are already freezing. Be it as it may though, it doesn't really matter to your situation ingame and why your character died.

TLD is notorious for very sudden shifts in weather with little to no warning and from what I gather, you fell asleep in a place warm enough then but during your sleep the weather changed dramatically and you froze to death. Is it realistic? I'd say the freeze in your sleep to death part is, only the timescale is "adjusted" for gameplay purposes. So it's semi-realistic but is it something you can plan and adjust for? Definitely yes. Left aside that wolves and bears are another reason to not sleep without a fire outside, you should always account for the possibility that this nice "feel likes" of 5C can turn into -30 very fast.

So here's a simple advise: never sleep without a hot (min. +30C) fire outside, ever. Outside includes fishing hut, caves, hunter blinds and the like, everything that does not load (but not all buildings with a loading screen are safe, e.g. The Riken). Under the sky a wind gust can spoil everything for you, according to selfless at a "feels like" of -30C, which is not uncommon during fire extinguishing blizzards, you die within 4-5 hours. Which is why I never sleep for more than 4 hours outside under the sky without walls and a roof and with a fire going for as long as I sleep.

If you got this into your DNA then you didn't die for nothing. That's how TLD is designed, you die, you learn and hopefully won't repeat your mistake again. I know from own experience how it sucks when your lesson is held late in a long run, but that makes it just all more memorable. Try not to blame it on the mechanics because if anything they are not unfair, it is something you can prepare and adjust for, you just didn't think that this could happen.

I think it is fair, I just don't think it is a good mechanic to have the readouts but then have no ability to react. As for having a fire going I did have the wood but I also had the sufficiently warm weather.

I am certain you wake first from shivering IRL in most cases, exceptions would be from exhaustion or trauma or some other condition that prevents you from waking such as under the influence of some sort of drug. You do die from cold and hypothermia and exposure but you have to go through the stages first, which the game has pretty well modeled but this particular first stage isn't modeled. The delusions when you get low condition are like a late stage hypothermia.

You have to actively be past the point of cold in order to stop shivering in which case your body temperature is already lower than 95F. This is where you are in real trouble. See what happens was I went to sleep for an hour and the weather was fine, the bag and my gear was actually raising my temp this was without a fire. So I wasn't shivering because I wasn't cold. I mean to say I was cold on the cold meter but slowly warming up, but my condition wasn't taking loss due to "freezing". So then there was no shivering mechanic or shivering wake up mechanic or any notification I was in danger. Just boom ur dead.

There is no notification either of the danger, there is no notification of how you die, except for the deduction that I was a day one survivor, who didn't die in a black screen screaming, and on the stats page saw "hypothermia" 1 time, which I evidently inherited while sleeping. Sleeping without waking up to shiver.

[akodo1]

The math is rather simple.

The Warmth bar holds exactly 15 degree*hours (Celsius, imperialist units are something different). So to get from fully warm to freezing requires exposure to negative degrees for hours, at -1 degree feels-like it will take 15 hours/ at -30 degrees feels like it will take 30 minutes. The reverse is also true, warming up from freezing to completely warm requires 15 hours at only 1 degree feels-like, but can be done in 1 hour at 15 degrees.

Freezing is the state of having zero Warmth bar. Temperature is no longer relevant. We lose 20% condition per hour while freezing. 2 consecutive hours of freezing delivers the affliction hypothermia, which doubles the freezing damage to take away 40% per hour.

Balancing these two mechanics requires estimating how long the Warmth bar "bank" can survive before emptying completely then figuring to avoid the pitfall of two hous freezing bringing hypothermia. Not insignificant, but quite possible.

Or just play Voyageur difficulty which has the wake up if freezing feature already built in if that is the experience preferred.

Um, you can freeze to death in your sleep in Voyager. Maybe you mean Pilgrim.

Note, I have on occasion on Voyager 'woke up freezing' but you still sleep your full time commitment, you just wake up to find you are heat negative.

[Spottdrossel]

Is it realistic? I'd say the freeze in your sleep to death part is, only the timescale is "adjusted" for gameplay purposes. So it's semi-realistic but is it something you can plan and adjust for? Definitely yes.

You are still mixing up "realistic", "manageable" and "challenging":

Going from "not cold" to "freeze to death" in your sleep is not realistic. Your body does not skip basic survival mechanisms - in this case shivering to produce additional heat - while asleep. And that shivering will wake you up.

Why do you think you could wake up from thirst and not from cold?

Did you ever consider that Les Stroud and other experts advocate for sleeping with a fire not because of "you'll die in your sleep" but because of "waking up freezing and hypothermic will make it a very bad day"?

[ChillPlayer]

As I said, the point is not if this is exactly how it would happen in real life, it was mentioned several times that TLD is not a reality simulator but a survival emulator. When you are outside in RL you face certain dangers, some known some not, depending on your experience and behave accordingly as good as you can. That's the part of survivalism that TLD gets right. What happend to the OP is not something he could not have known, he just didn't experience it yet.

Contrary to reality though in TLD you are allowed to make mistakes and start a new game, in RL you mostly get only one shot to do it right. A game needs to take certain shortcuts to emulate the stress of a survival situation, otherwise it would be a pretty boring game. TLD does this by having various effects constantly nagging at your condition bars and it's your job to counter those effects, e.g. thirst with drinking, hunger with eating and cold with warmth. Interestingly the freezing mechanic is the only negative effect you can escape from without any additional effort except of stepping into a house, all other bars will drop without an action from you. Outside though you have to be concerned about all your needs and take care of them personally, you can not except from a Cave to hold the temparature for you nor your sleeping bag to keep you warm. The game wants you to take measures to prevent you from freezing during a blizzard and keeping a fire going or staying in a warm hut/mine are the way to do it.

This makes camping outside much harder especially with the new foraging mechanics. In earlier versions I've spent weeks in caves, mostly unwillingly but thanks to unlimited amounts of woods this was never an issue. Since they changed foraging I often run around with some wood and coal in my backpack just to be prepared. And there you have it again, the reality part of TLD is about preparing for what might happen and the thread of freezing to death plus the new foraging mechanic is a real thread you need to be concerned about. To me this combats to some extend the overabundance of stuff or walking meat in the game and shifts the focus away a bit from looting (success in earlier versions was partly based on your loot luck) towards survivalism. And that's why I don't see this as a poor mechanic but rather a clever way to induce stress and not letting you slip into a comfort zone too easily.

[KD7BCH]

Chill I'm not saying it should not be possible to freeze to death, or for you to be able to die in your sleep. I'm saying when all the indicators point to reasonably safe resting spot and you get no warning, have no layered condition failures in play, you are unable to stop a sleep order once executed, and the game does not wake you up from shivering, I am saying that isn't realistic, and I am saying that isn't good gameplay, for the game to end without your control.

I think what you are saying the control is sleep less than 3 hours and you wont die from this the way it is implemented.

I don't think it would be an issue if you recovered health at the same rate with each hour you slept rather than recovering higher rates with longer sleep times.

As to the game wanting me to take measures to prevent freezing, yeah I was sleeping in a cave sheltered from the wind.

[ThresholdSeven]

Poor mechanics in this instance is a matter of opinion. Realism vs gameplay yet another.

Your predicament may be a case of forgetting that your warmth bonus can decrease while you are sleeping because of clothing and sleeping bag deterioration (regardless of ambient temperature staying constant)

You dangerously slept with only 1-degree-above-freezing warmth bonus. That is not reasonably safe specifically because of deterioration while sleeping.

Either your clothing or the sleeping bag deteriorated a little while you were sleeping and subtracted 1 degree from your warmth bonus causing you to freeze.

[romerabr]

Just my 2 cents...

If you start to sleep while freezing, you should get no warnings, but if you start warm, in a positive temp, you must wake up when you start to freeze. I think this is more real and a solution for this problem.

[Bill Tarling]

it drops from that level to death without waking you up shivering which is what happens to the body IRL but it is the current state of TLD

I see a lot of users repeatedly stating that "shivering will wake you up before you die IRL" which isn't completely true... The lucky ones will wake up [there's a difference between waking up freezing cold vs. freezing in sub-zero conditions]

Once hypothermia begins to kick in (especially during sleep), the body prefers to sleep so all the energy can be used to try protecting the heart (even the brain functions begin to shut down).

It's why one of the most dangerous things to do in sub-freezing temperatures is to sleep. Even back in Toronto where I lived years ago, it was very common for many homeless people to simply freeze while sleeping.

You don't automatically wake up because you're cold... and especially not when your core temperature has already been lowered by trying to live in steady bottom end temperatures.

[Spottdrossel]

The really sad part is that the current mechanic removes struggle from the game.

It's supposed to be a survival game and the most intense moments should be the one on the brink of death, fighting to stay alive.

The situation described here is an excellent possibility to put the player into such a fight for survival, but instead of waking up freezing - maybe even hypothermic - and delivering a crisis to be mastered, the player is simply killed. Instead of allowing the player to strengthen the bond with the player character, he/she is abruptly disconnected.

[ThresholdSeven]

No matter what the realism factor is, I agree that waking up inches from death and freezing is a far better game play mechanic than simply dying. It would be like the "bear leaving you hanging onto life by a thread" mechanic, which I'm sure was chosen for more suspenseful game play, which makes it even more weird that the choice was made to allow you to just freeze to death in your sleep without giving you a chance to struggle to stay alive. Why go with one suspenseful mechanic and not the other?

[KD7BCH]

The really sad part is that the current mechanic removes struggle from the game.

It's supposed to be a survival game and the most intense moments should be the one on the brink of death, fighting to stay alive.

The situation described here is an excellent possibility to put the player into such a fight for survival, but instead of waking up freezing - maybe even hypothermic - and delivering a crisis to be mastered, the player is simply killed. Instead of allowing the player to strengthen the bond with the player character, he/she is abruptly disconnected.

Agree. The taking away of gameplay to be cheap is what I've always been against be it the wolves or the rare complaints I levy against the game's realism.

[KD7BCH]

No matter what the realism factor is, I agree that waking up inches from death and freezing is a far better game play mechanic than simply dying. It would be like the "bear leaving you hanging onto life by a thread" mechanic, which I'm sure was chosen for more suspenseful game play, which makes it even more weird that the choice was made to allow you to just freeze to death in your sleep without giving you a chance to struggle to stay alive. Why go with one suspenseful mechanic and not the other?

Also agree here. when you said waking up inches from death, is better than simply dying. Certainly better than dying from 71% health with no warning.

[ChillPlayer]

Why go with one suspenseful mechanic and not the other?

If you sleep in an environment barely above freezing, the suspense mechanic is and should be "not knowing if you wake up". Second chances are very rare in TLD and most of the times you have to work for them. Start a bear fight below 90% condition and you are dead. I don't know where this "if I just close my eyes all will be good" attitude comes from, that's not how I experience TLD. If you want to sleep sound and healthy, keep a fire going or choose a warm shelter, period.

[selfless]

If the only time I have to worry about starting a fire is when I wake up freezing, then I really don't have to worry about starting a fire at all. The game will tell me which buttons to push and when exactly to push them. How boring.

[ThresholdSeven]

What the suspense mechanic should be is a matter of opinion. I just think it would be better for game play to have the waking while freezing mechanic in all difficulties.

Selfless - A waking up while freezing mechanic shouldn't make you only worrying about starting a fire when you wake up freezing. It's definitely not like that on the lower difficulty where you actually do wake up freezing.

ChillPLayer - I want the game to be more difficult or at least have another mode added that is more difficult than stalker, but I still like a chance to hang on to life by a thread after a close brush with death, just like after a bear attack. I sure don't feel more suspense before hitting "sleep" when there's a chance that I might not wake up than I do after getting mauled by a bear and crawling to shelter not knowing if I'll make it or not. Anything that brings me close to the brink of death with a chance to actively make it out is one of the best parts of the game.